The Soldier of the Valley | Page 9

I puffed the easier did he divine what
was uppermost in my mind. For we were brothers! This was the same
room that for years had been our world; this the same carpet over which
we had tumbled together at our mother's feet. There was the same
cupboard that had been our mountain; here the same chairs that formed
our ridges and our valleys. At the table by my side, by the light of this
very lamp, we sat together not so very long ago, boys, spelling out with
our father, letter by letter, word by word, the stories of the Bible. Here
we had lived our little lives; here we were to live what was to come;

and where life is as simple as it is with us we grow a bit like the
animals about us. We sit together and smoke; we purr, as it were, and
know each other's mind. Tim and I purred. Incident by incident, year by
year, we travelled down the course of our lives again, over the rough
ways, over the smooth ways, smoking and smoking, until at last we
brought up together at the present. Not a word had either of us spoken,
but at last when our reminiscent wanderings were over and we paused
on the threshold of the future, Tim spoke.
"Attractive?" he said in a tone of inquiry.
He was looking at me with eyebrows arched, curiously, and there was a
faint suggestion of hostility in the set of his mouth.
Poor Tim! He has seen so little of women! We have them in our valley,
of course. But he and I lived much in the great book-land beyond the
hills. We had read together of all the heroines of the romances, and we
knew their little ways and their pretty speeches as well as if we had
ourselves walked with them through a few hundred pages and lived
happily ever after. They had been the women of our world as distinct
from the women of our valley. The last we knew as kindly, honest
persons with a faculty for twisting their English and a woful ignorance
of well-turned speeches. They never said "Fair Sir" nor "Master." But I
had gone from that book-world and had seen the women of the real
world. Here I had the advantage of my brother. Into his life a single
woman had come from the real world. She was different from the
women of our valley. I had known that the moment our eyes met, and
by the way Tim smoked now, and by the tone of his terse inquiry, I
knew that he had met a woman who had said "Fair Sir" to him, and I
feared for him. It was disturbing. I felt a twinge of jealousy, but
whether for the tall, strong young fellow before me, to whom I had
been all, or for the fair-faced girl, I could not for the life of me tell. It
seemed to be a bit of both.
"I remarked that she was attractive," said Tim aggressively, for I had
kept on smoking in silence.
"Rather," I answered carelessly. "But who is she--a stranger here?"

"Rather," repeated Tim hotly. "Well, you are blind. I suppose you
judged her by that ugly gray gown. You thought she was some pious
Dunkard."
"I am no enemy of piety," I retorted. "In fact, I hardly noticed her
clothes at all, except to think that their simplicity gave her a sort of
Priscilla air that was fetching."
Tim softened. "That's it exactly," he said. "But, Mark, you should have
seen Mary Warden when she came here."
"From where?" I asked.
"From Kansas. She lived in some big town out West, and when her
mother died there was no one left to her but Luther Warden, her uncle.
He sent for her, and now she is living with him. The old man sets a
great store by her."
Luther Warden is rich. He has accumulated a fine lot of property above
Six Stars--several good farms, a mill and a tannery; but even the chance
of inheriting all these did not seem fair compensation for being his
niece and having to live with him. He was good to a fault. He exuded
piety. Six days of the week he worked, piling up the passing treasures
of this world. One whole day he preached, striving for the treasures in
that to come. You could not lay a finger on a weak spot in his moral
armor, but Tip Pulsifer protected from the assaults of Satan only by a
shield of human skin, always seemed to me the better of the two. Tip
wore leaky boots all last winter, but when spring came he bought Mrs.
Pulsifer a sewing machine. Have you ever worn