CHAPTER VIII

THE FIDDLER OF APPLE TREE LANE

People said that the Brighton children could "never manage," when it was said that they were planning to live in the little cottage on the hill above Medford Valley.

"There's always a wind there from the sea, dearie," said old Granny Fullerton to Barbara Brighton. "It will search out your very bones, come winter."

Barbara shook her head cheerfully. A plump and rosy young person of twelve years old does not worry much about cold winds.

People said also, with the strange blindness of those who can live close by for years and yet never know what is in their neighbors'

hearts, that it was an odd thing that Howard Brighton should have built that little house so far from the town in the midst of that great stretch of wild land where so few folk lived.

"It is marshy in the valley and wooded on the hills," Granny Fullerton said to Barbara, "with never a neighbor for miles. Of course the land has been in your family time out of mind, but those that are your nearest kin have always lived in the town. What could Howard Brighton have been thinking to do such a thing!"

They did not know how he had toiled and planned in his narrow little office down near the wharves of the seaport town, how he and his wife had dreamed together that their three children should live in some other place than on the cramped, stony street where they had been born. After his wife's death he had still gone forward with his dream and, when he found that he had, himself, not very long to live, he had made haste to build the cottage that they had so greatly desired.

"It is pleasure enough to think of the children's having it," he said to a plain-spoken neighbor who remonstrated with him on the ground that he could never live there. "The boys will be old enough to care for their sister, and the house on the hill will be just the place for a little maid to grow up."

His children were of widely separated ages, for Ralph, the eldest, was twenty-one, Felix seventeen, and Barbara, as has been said, only twelve. It happened also that they had not all of them the same tastes, for while the two younger ones loved the country and looked forward to living on the Windy Hill, Ralph's desire was to go on working in the dusty office where he had already begun to prosper.

"He is a good getter, but a poor spender," the neighbors said, and in this were right. Ralph, with his first success, had begun to think too much of money and too little of other things.

In the end the cottage was never finished, only the main portion, a tiny dwelling, was completed without the two broad wings with which Howard Brighton had meant to enlarge it and which he did not live to build. When their father had gone from them his children found that he had left everything he had to Ralph, since the laws of seventy-five years ago made some difficulty over property being held by those who were not of age.

"Ralph has a wise head on his young shoulders and will know how to take good care of the younger ones," was the comment of busy tongues.

Perhaps Ralph heard them, with the result that he felt older and wiser than he really was, but of that no one can be sure.

It was on a clear, warm day of mid-July when they moved from the airless street of the town to their new, wind-swept dwelling on the hill.

"It looks like home already," Barbara said as they came up to the door, for, with its wide, low roof, its broad windows, and its swinging half doors that let in the sunshine and the fresh breezes, it seemed indeed a place in which to forget their sadness and to find a new, happy life. The rustling voice of the oak tree above seemed to be bidding them welcome, and a tall clump of hollyhocks by the door-stone, sh.e.l.l pink and white, seemed to have come into bloom that very day just for their home-coming.

Barbara ran from room to room, exclaiming in delight over the new freedom, while the two brothers sat on the doorstep to look down over their new domain and to talk of the future. Their father had planned to turn the meadow below into an orchard, and had even managed to set out the first half of the little trees, slim, tiny saplings that dotted the sloping green.

"We will put in the others next autumn and spring," Felix said, "and I will be building new cupboards and shelves for old Chloe in the kitchen, I will mend the press in Barbara's room and I will finish off the garret chamber under the eaves for myself, and there I can play the fiddle to my heart's content and never disturb you at all. I think that life will be very pleasant here."

So their lives swung into the new channel, with Chloe, Barbara's old nurse, to cook for them and with Felix to tend the apple trees and the little garden, to saw and hammer and whistle all day at the task of setting the new place in order.

"It's a pity you haven't a proper, handsome house, with long windows from the ceiling to the floor and a high roof and a carved front door and with black marble chimneypieces instead of these rough stone fireplaces," Chloe would sigh, for she thought that the elegance of that time was none too good for the people she loved. It may be that Ralph sighed with her, but Felix and Barbara were frankly delighted with the painted floors, the cas.e.m.e.nt windows, and the low, big-beamed rooms. In the evenings, as the two would sit on the wide doorstep, the voice of Felix's violin would mingle with the voice of the wind in the oak, while Barbara listened, entranced, for her brother was a real master of his instrument. It would laugh and sing and sigh, while Barbara pressed closer and closer to his knee while the stars came out and the evening breeze stirred the hollyhocks and the great branches of the oak tree. Ralph rode every day to the town to labor over heavy account books in his cramped little office and he always brought home a sheaf of papers under his arm. He would sit at the table inside the window in the candlelight and, as the music rose outside, singing to the child and the flowers and the stars, he would scowl and fidget and tap irritably on the table with the point of his pen, for he did not love his brother's playing.

"There is too much time spent on it," he would say, "when you might be doing useful things."

"I have no head for adding up your endless columns of dollars and cents," Felix would answer, "so I must make myself useful in my own way."

A warm, golden October had painted the valley with blazing colors, had turned the oak tree to ruddy bronze, and had afforded ideal weather for the further planting of the orchard. Here Felix was at work, with Barbara following at his heels, and helping, when each tree was planted, to hold it upright while he pressed down the earth about its roots.

"We will leave an open s.p.a.ce through the center," he said, "a lane that will lead straight up toward the house, so that when Ralph and I come home we can look up to the open door and the hollyhocks around the step. Only," he shook his head regretfully, "I am afraid Ralph won't see the flowers. His head is too full of dollar signs when he comes home from the town."

Barbara turned about to look through the orchard. Some one came trudging along between the little trees, his heavy, tired feet crunching in the leaves.

"Oh, it's a peddler," she cried eagerly, for she was always pleased when these traveling merchants came past, with their laces and gay embroideries and colored beads to dazzle the eyes of little girls. But this was a peddler of another sort, a dark-faced man with melting black eyes and eager speech that was less than half of it English. He was an immigrant Italian, newly come to this great America, he managed to explain, and he was trying to sell the trinkets and small household treasures that he had brought with him.

They led him up to the house, for he was weary and hungry, and while Barbara brought him food, Felix was plying him with questions as to where he had come from and whither he was going. He had meant to settle down in the little seaport, so he told them, but--here he became so voluble that it was almost impossible to understand him--he did not wish to stop there now, he must go on--on.

"It is the gold," he cried excitedly, making wide gestures with both his brown hands, "the beautiful yellow gold. They find it everywhere!"

He brought out a tattered newspaper to let them see for themselves what he could not explain. News traveled slowly in those days, so that in this out-of-the-way corner of Medford Valley the brother and sister now heard for the first time of the discovery of gold in California.

Yet in the towns and where people could gather to tell one another ever-growing stories, the world was rapidly going mad over tales of gold lying loose for the gathering, of nuggets as big as a fist, of rivers running yellow with the precious shining dust.

"Listen, Barbara; why, it can't be true!" cried Felix as he read aloud, the Italian interrupting excitedly, trying to tell them more.

It was for this that he had abandoned his plans, that he was selling everything he had to follow a far, golden dream across the country to California.

"A terrible journey, they say," he admitted, "but what does one care, with such fortune at the other end?"

He had little left to sell, nor had they much money to buy; but, so carried away were they by his ardor, they would have given him anything they had. There was a carved ivory crucifix, a silver chain and, at the very bottom of his bag, a square box that gave forth a curious humming noise.

"Take care," he cautioned, as Barbara would have peeped within, "they fly away--the bees!"

"Bees?" she echoed in astonishment.

Yes, he had brought all the way to America a queen bee and her retinue of workers, for Italian bees, he told them gravely, were known the world over for their beauty, industry, and gentleness.

"They sting you only if you hurt them," he declared. "Other times, never."

He explained how they were to be put into a hive and just how they were to be tended, for he was wise in the bee lore of Italy. Felix had seen some of the farmers round about struggling with the wild black bees whose tempers were so vicious that the only way to gather their honey was to smoke the whole hiveful to death. The man opened the box a little way to let the yellow-banded creatures crawl over his fingers, to show their gentleness.

"I must sell them quick," he said, "for they live not much longer in a box."

They bought the bees, Felix and Barbara, though it took every penny they had in the house and even the store in the little carved box on the mantel which they were all saving, by Ralph's advice, against a rainy day. The man went away down through the orchard, turning to wave his ragged hat in joyful good-by, for now he had sold everything and was off and away to California.

Felix sat on the doorstep, watching him go, while Barbara moved about inside, laying the table for supper. A thought suddenly struck her and she went to the door.

"Felix," she said, "I wonder what Ralph will say?"

But Felix was not listening.

"Gold," he repeated softly. "Did you hear what he said, Barbara? The sands of the rivers yellow with it, the Indians giving their children nuggets to play with, a year's earnings to be picked up in a day!"

He was so lost in his dream that he could talk of nothing else. It was not the sort of gold that Ralph loved, minted coins that could be saved and counted and stacked away, but it was the shining treasure of romance, wealth that, unlike dully satisfying riches, meant battle and adventure and triumph after overwhelming odds. He did at last consent to help Barbara house the bees in a suitable dwelling, but he talked still of the tale he had heard and his eyes were shining with the wonder of it.

"Did you hear him say that there was just one beaten trail across the plains, all the way from the Mississippi to California? Think of a road, a single road, two thousand miles long, reaching out through the wilderness, over the deserts, through the mountains, with no towns or houses or people, just one lonely highway--and gold at the far end!"

Ralph was late that evening, late and tired and impatient after an unsatisfactory day. He brushed past Felix, still sitting on the step, flung down his bundle of papers, and went over to the fire. The little carved money box stood open on the mantel, revealing its emptiness.