Just David | Page 8

by the roadside; but he did not stop. After he had passed, the boy turned
again to his father. The man was fumbling once more in his pockets.
This time from his coat he produced a pencil and a small notebook
from which he tore a page, and began to write, laboriously, painfully.
David sighed and looked about him. He was tired and hungry, and he
did not understand things at all. Something very wrong, very terrible,
must be the matter with his father. Here it was almost dark, yet they

had no place to go, no supper to eat, while far, far up on the
mountain-side was their own dear home sad and lonely without them.
Up there, too, the sun still shone, doubtless,--at least there were the
rose-glow and the Silver Lake to look at, while down here there was
nothing, nothing but gray shadows, a long dreary road, and a straggling
house or two in sight. From above, the valley might look to be a
fairyland of loveliness, but in reality it was nothing but a dismal waste
of gloom, decided David.
David's father had torn a second page from his book and was beginning
another note, when the boy suddenly jumped to his feet. One of the
straggling houses was near the road where they sat, and its presence
had given David an idea. With swift steps he hurried to the front door
and knocked upon it. In answer a tall, unsmiling woman appeared, and
said, "Well?"
David removed his cap as his father had taught him to do when one of
the mountain women spoke to him.
"Good evening, lady; I'm David," he began frankly. "My father is so
tired he fell down back there, and we should like very much to stay
with you all night, if you don't mind."
The woman in the doorway stared. For a moment she was dumb with
amazement. Her eyes swept the plain, rather rough garments of the boy,
then sought the half-recumbent figure of the man by the roadside. Her
chin came up angrily.
"Oh, would you, indeed! Well, upon my word!" she scouted. "Humph!
We don't accommodate tramps, little boy." And she shut the door hard.
It was David's turn to stare. Just what a tramp might be, he did not
know; but never before had a request of his been so angrily refused. He
knew that. A fierce something rose within him--a fierce new something
that sent the swift red to his neck and brow. He raised a determined
hand to the doorknob--he had something to say to that woman!--when
the door suddenly opened again from the inside.

"See here, boy," began the woman, looking out at him a little less
unkindly, "if you're hungry I'll give you some milk and bread. Go
around to the back porch and I'll get it for you." And she shut the door
again.
David's hand dropped to his side. The red still stayed on his face and
neck, however, and that fierce new something within him bade him
refuse to take food from this woman.... But there was his father--his
poor father, who was so tired; and there was his own stomach
clamoring to be fed. No, he could not refuse. And with slow steps and
hanging head David went around the corner of the house to the rear.
As the half-loaf of bread and the pail of milk were placed in his hands,
David remembered suddenly that in the village store on the mountain,
his father paid money for his food. David was glad, now, that he had
those gold-pieces in his pocket, for he could pay money. Instantly his
head came up. Once more erect with self-respect, he shifted his burdens
to one hand and thrust the other into his pocket. A moment later he
presented on his outstretched palm a shining disk of gold.
"Will you take this, to pay, please, for the bread and milk?" he asked
proudly.
The woman began to shake her head; but, as her eyes fell on the money,
she started, and bent closer to examine it. The next instant she jerked
herself upright with an angry exclamation.
"It's gold! A ten-dollar gold-piece! So you're a thief, too, are you, as
well as a tramp? Humph! Well, I guess you don't need this then," she
finished sharply, snatching the bread and the pail of milk from the boy's
hand.
The next moment David stood alone on the doorstep, with the sound of
a quickly thrown bolt in his ears.
A thief! David knew little of thieves, but he knew what they were. Only
a month before a man had tried to steal the violins from the cabin; and
he was a thief, the milk-boy said. David flushed now again, angrily, as

he faced