A Son of the HillsComstock, Harriet T. (Harriet Theresa)
General
A Son of the Hills
Comstock, Harriet T. (Harriet Theresa)
Fiction
"Sandy, all these years I have tried and tried to make you fit in--but
you wouldn't until--until last night. When it was right dark and still
and everybody was sleeping, I went down into the old library--that's
where Aunt Ann had the queer spell the day Miss Lowe came--the room is
all dirty and full of ashes, for the chimney fell that afternoon; but
right beside the fireplace there is an empty space on the wall that
I've always saved for you!"
Cynthia had forgot the present in her fantastic play and she held Sandy
as she always had before by the trick of her fascination.
"Yes," he murmured; "there is your mother's picture and the old
general's and the frame that holds your father's portrait--the father
that no one knows about but you--and now--am I hanging in the
Significant Room?"
Sandy was all boy now; the strange new dignity fell wearily from
him--he was playing, after a hard lesson, with little Cyn.
"And what am I?" he asked, "what have you made me?"
"Oh! I did not make you, Sandy. You just were! The moonlight was
streaming in through the window where the roses and honeysuckle are--it
was a leafy moonlight and all ripply like dancing water. I was not
afraid--I went right boldly up to--your picture, Sandy, and I knew you
at once. You know in the Significant Room of my book it says there was
a man in a cage; the man and his dream; and the man that cut his way
through his enemies--the biggest of them all! But, oh! Sandy, mighty
plain and fine I saw you like you were all three of the book folks.
You were Sandy of the cage--and the cage was Lost Hollow! You were
Sandy with your dream of helping us-all. Me, the po' lil' white trash
in Crothers' factory--everybody! Then you were Sandy cutting your way
through your enemies like the Hertfords are to your family; I heard
Aunt Ann telling Ivy--and then right sudden I saw you hanging up in a
gold frame with the ripply moonlight shining on you---- The Biggest of
Them All!"
Sandy's eyes were brilliant and glittering; his breath came quick and
hard, and to steady himself he whispered:
"I am going away--to-night!"
The vision vanished and Cynthia felt two large tears roll down her
cheeks. They left no sorry stains upon the pale smoothness of the
girl's skin; Cynthia's eyes could always hold a smile even when dimmed;
her eyes were gray with blue tints and her straight, thick hair was the
dull gold that caught and held light and shade. Some day she was going
to be very handsome in an original and peculiar fashion, and Sandy
unconsciously caught a glimpse of it now, and it disturbed him.
"I am going--to-night. I wonder if there is enough?"
He glanced at the box. "I have never counted it."
"Never counted it? I have counted it every week. That's because I am
I, and you are you, Sandy. There's over thirty dollars."
At this Sandy gasped.
"I--reckon it will take me to Massachusetts," he said.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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