The Valley of the Giants | Page 7

the place where Mother dear went to heaven." From
his perch on his father's shoulders he could look vast distances into the
underbrush and catch glimpses of the wild life therein; when the last
nut had been distributed to the squirrels in the clearing, he would
follow a flash of blue that was a jay high up among the evergreen
branches, or a flash of red that was a woodpecker hammering a home in
the bark of a sugar-pine. Eventually, however, the spell of the forest
would creep over the child; intuitively he would become one with the
all-pervading silence, climb into his father's arms as the latter sat
dreaming on the old sugar-pine windfall, and presently drop off to
sleep.
When Bryce was six years old, his father sent him to the public school
in Sequoia with the children of his loggers and mill-hands, thus laying
the foundation for a democratic education all too infrequent with the
sons of men rated as millionaires. At night old Cardigan (for so men
had now commenced to designate him!) would hear his boy's lessons,

taking the while an immeasurable delight in watching the lad's mind
develop. As a pupil Bryce was not meteoric; he had his father's patient,
unexcitable nature; and, like the old man, he possessed the glorious gift
of imagination. Never mediocre, he was never especially brilliant, but
was seemingly content to maintain a steady, dependable average in all
things. He had his mother's dark auburn hair, brown eyes, and fair
white skin, and quite early in life he gave promise of being as large and
powerful a man as his father.
Bryce's boyhood was much the same as that of other lads in Sequoia,
save that in the matter of toys and, later guns, fishing-rods, dogs, and
ponies he was a source of envy to his fellows. After his tenth year his
father placed him on the mill pay-roll, and on payday he was wont to
line up with the mill-crew to receive his modest stipend of ten dollars
for carrying in kindling to the cook in the mill kitchen each day after
school.
This otherwise needless arrangement was old Cardigan's way of
teaching his boy financial responsibility. All that he possessed he had
worked for, and he wanted his son to grow up with the business to
realize that he was a part of it with definite duties connected with it
developing upon him--duties which he must never shirk if he was to
retain the rich redwood heritage his father had been so eagerly storing
up for him.
When Bryce Cardigan was about fourteen years old there occurred an
important event in his life. In a commendable effort to increase his
income he had laid out a small vegetable garden in the rear of his
father's house, and here on a Saturday morning, while down on his
knees weeding carrots, he chanced to look up and discovered a young
lady gazing at him through the picket fence. She was a few years his
junior, and a stranger in Sequoia. Ensued the following conversation:
"Hello, little boy."
"Hello yourself! I ain't a little boy."
She ignored the correction. "What are you doing?"

"Weedin' carrots. Can't you see?"
"What for?"
Bryce, highly incensed at having been designated a little boy by this
superior damsel, saw his opportunity to silence her. "Cat's fur for kitten
breeches," he retorted--without any evidence of originality, we must
confess. Whereat she stung him to the heart with a sweet smile and
promptly sang for him this ancient ballad of childhood:
"What are little boys made of? What are little boys made of? Snakes
and snails, And puppy dog's tails, And that's what little boys are made
of."
Bryce knew the second verse and shrivelled inwardly in anticipation of
being informed that little girls are made of sugar and spice and
everything nice. Realizing that he had begun something which might
not terminate with credit to himself, he hung his head and for the space
of several minutes gave all his attention to his crop. And presently the
visitor spoke again.
"I like your hair, little boy. It's a pretty red."
That settled the issue between them. To be hailed as little boy was bad
enough, but to be reminded of his crowning misfortune was adding
insult to injury. He rose and cautiously approached the fence with the
intention of pinching the impudent stranger, suddenly and
surreptitiously, and sending her away weeping. As his hand crept
between the palings on its wicked mission, the little miss looked at him
in friendly fashion and queried:
"What's your name?"
Bryce's hand hesitated. "Bryce Cardigan," he answered gruffly.
"I'm Shirley Sumner," she ventured, "Let's be friends."
"When did you come to live in Sequoia?" he demanded.

"I don't live here. I'm just