LITMIR.BIZ

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the soft blue-grass lawn, that sloped gently a hundred yards from the cabin, built upon a little rise in the bottom land, down to the water's edge. Often when she was a child, and I a man well toward middle life, did I play with the enchanting little elf upon the blue-grass lawn, and drink the waters of perennial youth at the fountain of her sweet babyhood. Vividly I remember the white-skinned sycamores, the gracefully drooping elms, and the sweet-scented honey-locust that grew about the cabin and embowered it in leafy glory. Even at this long distance of time, when June is abroad, if I catch the odor of locust blossoms, my mind and heart travel back on the wings of a moment, and I hear the buzzing of the wild bees, the song of the meadow-lark, the whistle of bob-white, and the gurgling of the creek—all blended into one sweet refrain like the mingling tones of a perfect orchestra by the soft-voiced babble of my wee girl-baby friend. I close my eyes, and see the house amid the hollyhocks and trees, a thin line of blue smoke curling lazily from the kitchen chimney and floating away over the deep, black forest to the north and east. I see the maples languidly turning the white side of their leaves to catch the south wind's balmy breath, and I see by my side a fate-charged, tiny tot, dabbling in the water, mocking the songs of the birds, and ever turning her face, with its great brown wistful eyes, to catch the breath of destiny and to hear the sad dread hum of the future. But my old chum Billy Little was the child's especial friend.

      In those good times there was another child, a boy, Diccon Bright, who often came down from his cabin home a mile up river to play with Rita on the blue-grass lawn in summer, or to sit with her on the hearth log in winter. In cold weather the hearth log was kept on one side of the hearth, well within the fireplace itself, ready for use when needed. It gloried in three names, all of which were redolent of home. It was called the "hearth log" because it was kept upon the hearth; the "waiting log" because it was waiting to take the place of the log that was burning, and the "ciphering log" because the children sat upon it in the evening firelight to do their "ciphering"—a general term used to designate any sort of preparation for the morrow's lesson. In those times arithmetic was the chief study, and from it the acquisition of all branches of knowledge took the name of ciphering.

      Diccon—where on earth his parents got the name, I cannot tell—was four or five years older than Rita. He was a manly boy, and when my little friend could hardly lisp his name she would run to him with the unerring instinct of childhood and nestle in his arms or cling to his helpful finger. The little fellow was so sturdy, strong, and brave, and his dark gray eyes were so steadfast and true, that she feared no evil from him, though ordinarily she was a timid child. She would sit by him on the ciphering log during the long winter evenings, and the boy, the girl, and the fire were the best of friends, and had glorious times together on the heart of the cheery hearth. The north wind might blow, the snow might snow, and the cold might freeze, Rita, Dic, and the fire cared not a straw.

      "I want no better mirror, my little sweetheart," he would say, "than your brown eyes; no prettier color than your rosy cheeks and glossy black hair, and no truer friend than your loving little heart." And the fire crackled its entire approval.

      "Very well, Dic," she would reply, laughing with delight, "if you really want them, you may have them; they are all yours." And the fire smiled rosily, beaming its benediction.

      "But what will your father and mother say and Tom?" asked Dic.

      "We'll not tell them," replied this tiny piece of Eve; and the fire almost choked itself with spluttering laughter. So, with the fire as a witness, the compact was made and remade many times, until she thought she belonged to Dic and gloried in her little heart because of it.

      Diccon and Rita's brother, Tom, even during their early childhood, when they were hardly half so tall as the guns they carried, were companion knights in the great wars waged by the settlers against the wild beasts of the forests, and many a bear, wolf, wildcat, and deer fell before the prowess of small Sir Diccon la Valorous and little Sir Thomas de Triflin'. Out of their slaughter grew friendship, and for many years Sir Thomas was a frequent guest upon the ciphering log of Sir Diccon, and Sir Diccon spent many winter evenings on the hearth at Castle Bays.

      As the long years of childhood passed, Dic began to visit the Bays home more frequently than Tom visited the Brights'. I do not know whether this change was owing to the increasing age of the boys, or—but Rita was growing older and prettier every day, and you know that may have had something to do with Dic's visits.

      Dic had another boy friend—an old boy, of thirty-five or more—whose name was William Little. He was known generally as Billy Little, and it pleased the little fellow to be so called, "Because," said he, "persons give the diminutive to fools and those whom they love; and I know I am not a fool." The sweetest words in the German language are their home diminutives. It is difficult to love a man whom one must call Thomas. Tom, Jack, and Billy are the chaps who come near to us.

      Billy was an old bachelor and an Englishman. His family had intended him for the church, and he was educated at Trinity with that end in view. Although not an irreligious man, he had views on religion that were far from orthodox.

      "I found it impossible," he once remarked, "to induce the church to change its views, and equally impossible to change my own; so the church and I, each being unreasonably stubborn, agreed to disagree, and I threw over the whole affair, quarrelled with my family, was in turn thrown over by them, and here I am, in the wilderness, very much pleased."

      He lived in the little town of Blue River, and was justice of the peace, postmaster, storekeeper, and occasionally school-teacher. He was small in stature, with a tendency to become rotund as he grew older. He took pride in his dress and was as cleanly as an Englishman. He was reasonably willing to do the duty that confronted him, and loved but three forms of recreation—to be with his two most intimate friends, Rita and Dic, to wander in the trackless forests, and to play upon his piano. His piano was his sweetheart, and often in the warm summer evenings, when his neighbors were in bed, would the strains of his music lull them to sleep, and float out into the surrounding forests, awakening the whippoorwill to heart-rending cries of anguish that would give a man the "blues" for a month. I believe many ignorant persons thought that Billy was not exactly "right in the top," as they put it, because he would often wander through the forests, night or day, singing to himself, talking to the trees and birds, and clasping to his soul fair nature in her virgin strength and sweetness. He often communed with himself after this fashion: "I am a fortunate man in the things I love, for I have them to my heart's content. Rita and Dic are children. I give them knowledge. They give me youth. I touch my piano. It fills my soul with peace. If it gives me a discordant note, the fault is mine. I go to the forest, and sweet Nature takes me in her arms and lulls me to ecstasy."

      Billy Little and I had been college chums, and had emigrated on the same ship. I studied law, entered the practice, married, and have a family. While my wife and family did not mar the friendship between Little and myself, it prevented frequency of intercourse, for a wife and family are great absorbents. However, he and I remained friends, and from him I have most of the facts constituting this story.

      This friend of Dic's was a great help to the boy intellectually, and at fourteen or fifteen years of age, when other boys considered their education complete if they could spell phthisis and Constantinople, our hero was reading Virgil and Shakespeare, and was learning to think for himself. The knowledge obtained from Billy Little the boy tried to impart to Rita. Tom held learning and books to be effeminate and wasteful of time; but Rita drank in Dic's teaching, with now and then a helpful draught from Billy Little, and the result soon began to show upon the girl.

      Thus it was that Dic often went to see Tom, but talked to Tom's sister. Many an evening, long after Tom had unceremoniously climbed the rude stairway to bed, would the brown-eyed maid, with her quaint, wistful touch of womanhood, sit beside Dic on the ciphering log inside the fireplace, listening to him read from one of Billy Little's books, watching him trace continents, rivers, and mountains on a map, or helping him to cipher a complicated problem in arithmetic. The girl by no means understood all that Dic read, but she tried, and even though she failed, she would clasp her hands and say, "Isn't it grand, Dic?" And it was grand to her because Dic read it.

      Lamps were unknown to our simple folk, so the light of the fireplace was all they had to read by. It was, therefore,

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