IV.

A RIDE, A WALK, A TALK, AND A TUMBLE.

“Children always turn toward the light”

“Well, Mousie!”

The old voice and the old pet name; no one thought of calling her “Mousie” but Hollis Rheid.

Her mother said she was noisier than she used to be; perhaps he would not call her Mousie now if he could hear her sing about the house and run up and down stairs and shout when she played games at school.  That time when she was so quiet and afraid of everybody seemed ages ago; ages ago before Hollis went to New York.  He had returned home once since, but she had been at her grandfather’s and had not seen him.  Springing to the ground, he caught her in his arms, this tall, strange boy, who had changed so much, and yet who had not changed at all, and lifted her into the back of the open wagon.

“Will you squeeze in between us—­there’s but one seat you see, and father’s a big man, or shall I make a place for you in the bottom among the bags?”

“I’d rather sit with the bags,” said Marjorie, her timidity coming back.  She had always been afraid of Hollis’ father; his eyes were the color of steel, and his voice was not encouraging.  He thought he was born to command.  People said old Captain Rheid acted as if he were always on shipboard.  His wife said once in the bitterness of her spirit that he always marched the quarter-deck and kept his boys in the forecastle.

“You don’t weigh more than that bag of flour yourself, not as much, and that weighs one hundred pounds.”

“I weigh ninety pounds,” said Marjorie.

“And how old are you?”

“Almost fourteen,” she answered proudly.

“Four years younger than I am!  Now, are you comfortable?  Are you afraid of spoiling your dress?  I didn’t think of that?”

“Oh, no; I wish I was,” laughed Marjorie, glancing shyly at him from under her broad brim.

It was her own bright face, yet, he decided, with an older look in it, her eyelashes were suspiciously moist and her cheeks were reddened with something more than being lifted into the wagon.

Marjorie settled herself among the bags, feeling somewhat strange and thinking she would much rather have walked; Hollis sprang in beside his father, not inclined to make conversation with him, and restrained, by his presence, from turning around to talk to Marjorie.

Oh, how people misunderstand each other!  How Captain Rheid misunderstood his boys and how his boys misunderstood him!  The boys said that Hollis was the Joseph among them, his father’s favorite; but Hollis and his father had never opened their hearts to each other.  Captain Rheid often declared that there was no knowing what his boys would do if they were not kept in; perhaps they had him to thank that they were not all in state-prison.  There was a whisper among the country folks that the old man himself had been in prison in some foreign country,