Part 29

She took off the great apron and led the way from the kitchen, the boy following her with dragging feet. Under the crab-apple tree she drew him down upon a bench beside her. The orchard blooms shut them in close. The stillness was unbroken save for the warm sibilant droning of the insect life in the air. The shadows on the orchard grass were like lace-work.

"Now, Piney, lad," began Miss Madeira at once, "what's the trouble?" Her voice sounded strong, maternal, to Piney, who had been wondering how he was to tell her, calling himself a fool for having undertaken to tell her, reminding himself that he couldn't for the life of him begin. Here, suddenly, the girl was making it easier for him, showing him that the way to begin was to begin.

"I wouldn' tell you the trouble ef I could he'p it, Miss Sally," he said pleadingly, his hands shut about his knees, his eyes beseeching as a fawn's. "Ef they wuz inny way to make things come aout rat lessen I told, I wouldn' tell. But I don' see no way." It was easier to talk up to the thing and around the thing, than to get directly into it.

"Is it your own trouble, Piney?" she asked, helping again.

"No'm."

"Whose trouble, Piney?"

"Mist' Steerin's, Miss Sally."

"Ah!" She leaned nearer Piney. "Tell me quickly, dearie," she said, "is he ill?"

"Well'm, it's your trouble, too, Miss Sally."

"Yes, surely, Piney, go on, go on!"

"And your father's trouble, Miss Sally."

"Something about the Tigmores, I suspect, then, Piney, go on."

"Yes'm, abaout the hills." Then, fortunately for both, his youth made up in directness what it lacked in finesse. "It's this-a-way, Miss Sally," he blurted savagely, "Ole Bruce Grierson is dead an' Mist' Steerin' owns the Tigmores."

Her face shone with joy. "But, Piney, boy, where's the trouble in that? When did Mr. Grierson die? That's not trouble even for him, Piney. He was a weary old man. When did he die?"

"Las' September, Miss Sally," answered the boy gravely.

"Last September? Last Septem---- Why, where's the word been all this while, Piney? Why hasn't my father known?"

"He--he has known, Miss Sally. Miss Sally, it was this-a-way, simlike: that ole man writtend Mist' Madeira he wuz goin' to die an' he tol' Mist' Madeira to give the hills to Mist' Steerin'. But I don't reckon your father believed ole Grierson, Miss Sally."

The girl on the bench under the crab-apple tree was beginning to draw herself up proudly. "There is some mistake somewhere, I can see that, Piney, dear. Where did you learn all this?"

"Wy, Miss Sally," cried the boy, a great, painful reluctance in his voice, "that old varmint Grierson writtend another letter to Unc' Bernique an' had a man hold it up an' not mail it till las' week. Then he lay daown an' died. An' here las' week the letter to Unc' Bernique was mailed, aouter ole Grierson's grave like--an' Unc Bernique he's jes got it, an' it tells him that ole Grierson died las' September an' that he writtend your father to say so."

"I don't understand that, Piney. Mr. Grierson died last September and has written letters since he died, you are getting it all mixed, aren't you?"

Very slowly and laboriously Piney told then what he knew, told it over and over until she had comprehended it, whether she believed it or not. When the boy had finished she was leaning back on the bench, dull and pale.

"But it isn't true," she said, with white lips. "And Mr. Steering, Piney,--has Uncle Bernique told Mr. Steering this fantastic tale?"

"Yes'm."

"And what did Mr. Steering say and do, Piney?"

The memory of what Steering had said and done seemed to come on to Piney like an inspiration. "Miss Sally, he set his jaw an' he ketched Unc' Bernique by the arm an' helt him an' made him swear like this, 'You by your love for Piney's young mother, I by my love for Salome Madeira, that never, s'help us God, will you or I carry word of this to Crittenton Madeira and his daughter Salome'--sumpin like that, Miss Sally. I don' adzackly remember the words."

The dulness had all gone out of her eyes, the colour beat back into her cheeks. She had forgotten Crittenton Madeira. "'I by my love for Salome'--are you sure, Piney?"

"I'm sure, Miss Sally. An' so I thought as wuzn't nobody else to tell you, I'd tell you. I d'n know as I done rat," the boy's face was all a-quiver, too, as he looked up at the girl on the misty heights of her passion. His self-abnegation, his young heroism made him for the moment as finely luminous as she was. Sally Madeira took his head between her hands and gazed into his eyes tenderly, caressingly, and there was in her touch something large and sweet and tender that comforted and soothed the boy while it made his heart leap within him.

"Ah, Darling," she said, "how bitter-sweet it is, this loving! But be patient. Some day it will all seem right." She took her hands away from him and stood up straightly.