Part 8

Cyrus shook his head. "I don't know, sir."

"Yes, you do! Who is he? What's his name?"

"I don't know, sir. Honestly I don't."

"Don't know, you young rascal! You have eyes. What's his name?"

But Cyrus, with a protesting, most polite and sorrowful gesture with both his hands, again proclaimed his ignorance. "I really don't know, sir. The air is so full of snow I didn't see his face."

Deacon Whitlock again spluttered. His speech was incoherent, but doubt and anger were plainly indicated. However, he turned away--still muttering.

Then the Guardian Angel approached the liar. "Cyrus Alton! How can you do such a thing?"

"What thing?"

"Deacon Whitlock knows perfectly well you knew who it was, and that you told him a lie. And he will despise you for it. So would everybody else. So do I despise you for it."

His only answer to this was a look of mingled sorrow and remonstrance. Then, instead of trying to defend himself, as the Guardian Angel expected, he looked away. He also heaved a sigh,--a sigh of weariness and discouragement, an unboylike, elderly sigh such as grown-ups use.

The Guardian Angel continued. "And I should think you would be ashamed to be such a coward."

Cyrus stiffened at the word. "A coward!"

"Yes, coward. People only lie when they are afraid. If you had been brave you would have told the truth."

"But, Ruthy, you don't understand. I did it to save Luther. If Deacon Whitlock knew who it was he would tell Luther's father and Luther might get a lickin'."

Ruth shook her head. "Your duty was to tell the truth--or say nothing."

"No, sirree! That isn't true. The Bible says do unto others as you'd like to have other fellers do unto you. And I did just what I would want Luther to do for me."

This line of defense was confusing, and Ruth was familiar with his skill in argument. She knew well enough the pitfalls he could dig for the embarrassment of any adversary. So, regarding him with the sternest look she could bring into a very gentle face, she said:

"It is wrong to tell lies and you know it is. And you are bad--just bad. Why don't you button up your coat in front? The snow is actually blowing down your neck."

And she drew the collar of his overcoat closer about his throat and tried to fasten it. "Why, the button is gone! Joanna ought to see to it. You really ought to have a mother, Drowsy. You aren't half taken care of."

This time Cyrus had nothing to say in his own defense. She laid a hand against his cheek. "Your face is hot. I believe you are sick now!"

Cyrus smiled, and nodded. "I shouldn't wonder if I was."

"Why? How do you feel?"

"Oh, sort of--sort of--funny."

"How, funny?"

"I don't know. Sort of cold and then hot and then cold--and kind of trembly. That's why I didn't hit Luther on the head instead of down on his back."

"Now, Cyrus Alton, you go straight home and tell your father just how you feel. Tell him all about it." Then, with increasing severity: "It's a shame you haven't got a mother. I believe it is because you are bad and that's the way God punishes you."

Then she turned away and started on again, Cyrus close behind. In front of her own home she stopped suddenly and wheeled about;--so suddenly that Cyrus walked against her. He took a backward step, and as they looked into each other's faces he said, quietly:

"No, it doesn't."

Ruth's eyes opened wide, in surprise. "Doesn't what?"

"It doesn't mean what you asked."

"But, Drowsy, I didn't ask anything!"

"You thought it, though."

"Thought what?"

"That because I told lies now I would not be an honest man when I grew up. But that isn't so. I shall be an honest man."

"Yes, but I hadn't spoken a word. How could you tell what I was going to say?"

"Oh, I dunno. I can often do that."

"Yes, you have done it before, but how do you do it? How do you know? Just guess at it?"

"No. It sort of comes--as if--well--just the usual way--only without the words waiting to be spoken. I guess it's natural enough."

"Natural enough! Why, it's most mysterious. Nobody else does it."

"Oh, p'r'aps lots of people do it. We don't know everybody."

"But if many people did it we should have heard about them. No, it's very mysterious. Why, Drowsy, I had just opened my lips to say your being such a liar now proves you will be a dishonest man and you said, before I uttered a word, 'No, it doesn't.'"

Cyrus smiled. "I guess it must be a sort of telegraphing without wires, like that man Marconi has just discovered."

For a moment they stood in silence, Ruth looking earnestly into the boy's slumbrous, half smiling eyes, trying vainly to explain the unexplainable. "It's all the harder to understand," she said, "because you could only see the back of my head. And this horrid storm was blowing between us."

"Yes, it's funny, and I dunno much about it. But I believe I could get it if I wasn't seeing you at all; I mean, if you were way off, out of sight."

"Really?"

"Yes, sir! I believe I could. Let's try it some day. Will you?"

"Yes, little Drowsy, when ever you say."

Once more she laid a hand against his face.

"Your cheeks are hot again. Now you go straight home and tell your father just how you feel, and have Joanna sew on that button. Will you?"

"Yep. All right."

He started off. About a dozen yards away he stopped and looked back. She was still standing where he left her, and was watching him. The obvious lack of confidence in his promise--or her air of authority with all this military discipline caused a momentary revolt. He picked up a handful of snow, rolled it quickly in a ball and threw it. She saw it coming, but merely bent her head and lifted an arm in protection.

'Twas a good shot. But the snowball, being soft, merely broke against her arm. Ruth lowered the arm and raised her head, slowly and calmly, as a Guardian Angel who is invulnerable to earthly weapons. She pointed toward his home.

Cyrus raised his cap, moved it grandly through the air in a sweeping curve, bowed very low, then turned and marched away.

He walked with no suspicion of pursuit. But Ruth had obeyed a sudden impulse. She started forward on a run, and when close behind him gave a sudden push with both hands. He tumbled forward into a drift and rolled over on his back. As he started to get up, she pounced on him with all her weight. Then with both knees on his chest she rubbed his face with snow.

Had the assailant been another boy, Cyrus would have kicked and struck and fought him off. But you do not kick and strike your aunts, your mother or your best girl. So, he merely pushed and wriggled about, with eyes and mouth tight shut.

Zac seemed to enjoy the business as much as Ruth. He barked and plunged about as if cheering for the victor.

Well into Cyrus's face Ruth rubbed the snow. "Take that, you horrid boy, and that, and that!"

With a triumphant laugh she took her knees from his chest, jumped to her feet and ran away. And as she ran she expected just what happened. For Cyrus, also quickly on his feet, drew the backs of his mittens across his eyes for clearer vision, then sent a snowball toward the vanishing figure. It landed between her shoulders. But she ignored it, and ran into her own house without even a backward glance.

For a moment Cyrus stood and watched her, then started homeward.

It was a friendly enough parting, but it might have been different had they know how many years were to come and go before they met again.

VIII

A WORKER OF MIRACLES

Something of a liar was Cyrus, in emergencies, but he told the truth when he said "lots of things have been done that never were done before; and mighty surprisin' things, too!"

History bears him out. The stories of Grimm and Andersen are commonplace events besides the victories of Science. Interesting, indeed, would be the views of Galileo on wireless telegraphy, or Botticelli's opinion of the "movies," or even what language the British commander might have used at Bunker Hill had the Yankees employed aeroplanes. Since the impossible is now in daily use, the dream of the visionary in every home, incredible things have ceased to astonish. Fairy tales are coming true.

So thought Dr. Alton, on the afternoon following that last interview between Ruth and Cyrus, when he was suddenly converted from incredulity to compulsory faith in an achievement which he had believed impossible. As he drove up to his own house Cyrus leaned out of the sitting room window and told him to go at once to Mrs. Heywood who had fallen on the stairs and broken a leg. Dr. Alton asked no questions, turned about and drove off. A few hundred yards along the road he met Mr. Heywood, who, much agitated, and traveling fast, as if trying to walk and run at the same time. The doctor stopped and the clergyman climbed in. As they started off Mr. Heywood exclaimed, out of breath: "How fortunate this is. I was afraid you might not be at home. Poor Alice, I fear, has broken her leg."

"Yes, so I heard. I am on my way there."

"On your way to my house?"

"Of course."

Mr. Heywood turned in surprise. "You say you--you knew of the accident?"

"Yes."

"But, Doctor, you couldn't. It happened less than ten minutes ago."

"Cyrus told me. Perhaps somebody telephoned him."

"But I have no telephone."

Dr. Alton smiled. "Possibly somebody is a faster runner than you."

"But no one was there except Alice, Ruth and myself."

"Ruth may have done it."

"Ruth has not left her mother. She is there now. And nobody else knows of it."

For a moment Dr. Alton was silent. "Bad news travels fast, Mr. Heywood."

"But not when there's nobody to carry it."

"Yes, there's that miraculous new messenger boy, wireless telegraphy."

Mr. Heywood was in no mood for argument and said no more as Dr. Alton obviously had little faith in any mysterious messenger. So, for the moment, the subject was dropped.

When the bone was set--and it proved a simple fracture--Mr. Heywood followed Dr. Alton to the door. "I wish, Doctor, you would ask Cyrus how he got his information--just to gratify my curiosity."

"Are you absolutely sure that Ruth did not tell him?"

Mr. Heywood, for answer, stepped back into the hall and called to his daughter, who at once came running down the stairs.

"Ruth," he said, "do you know how Cyrus heard of your mother's accident so soon after it happened?"

"Yes, sir. I told him."

"You!" exclaimed her father. "Why Ruth, you never left the house!"

"And Cyrus," said Dr. Alton, "is at home, confined to the house with a bad cold. At least that's where he ought to be."

"Oh, sir, he is!" said Ruth. "He sent me a note asking me to talk to him, on the porch, from our house at just five o'clock, and I did. Mother fell on the stairs just as I began to talk so I told him about it."

"Do you mean," said her father, "that your voice carried from this house to his, nearly a mile away?"

"Oh, no, sir! Cyrus doesn't have to hear your voice, always. He has a special way of knowing things."

"A special way of knowing things?"

Ruth nodded.

"What do you mean, Ruth? What things?"

"Things you don't say."

"But you did say to him that your mother had an accident."

"Yes, sir; but he didn't have to hear it. He gets it some other way." She added, with a smile: "He doesn't get it through his ears."

"Then how does he get it?"

"I don't know. He says it is in the air. He says he thinks it's a kind of wireless telegraph and must work the same way."

"Most extraordinary!" murmured Mr. Heywood, and he looked at Dr. Alton as if hoping for more light on a cloudy subject. Dr. Alton, however, was gazing thoughtfully at the girl, whom he knew to be truthful. He also knew the misleading possibility of a child's imagination. "Do you really think, Ruth, that Cyrus learned of the accident in that way?"

"I don't know, sir. I couldn't hear anything from _him_."

"You mean if he answered back you couldn't get it?"

"Yes, sir. Nobody but Cyrus could understand anything at all, so far away."

"He knew that you couldn't hear anything _he_ said?"

"Yes, sir. He just wanted to find out if he could tell what a person said so far away without hearing it."

Mr. Heywood turned to Dr. Alton. "He evidently succeeded, and it seems quite incredible."

Dr. Alton did not reply, directly. He had closed his eyes, and his own thoughts, whatever their nature, were so absorbing that Mr. Heywood's voice had failed to reach him. His abstraction, however, was brief. With a smile he shook hands with Ruth. "I thank you for your testimony, little lady. You make a perfect witness." Then to her father: "I shall interview Cyrus at once and we will try to reach a better understanding of the mystery."

He promised to call in the morning to see Mrs. Heywood, and then departed.

When he entered his own house, half an hour later, he found the worker of miracles asleep on a sofa near the open fire. Curled up at his feet lay Zac. But Zac was not asleep. When the doctor moved toward the fire and stood before it, warming his hands, Zac followed him with his eyes. These cautioning eyes were saying: "Don't make a noise or you'll wake him."

Dr. Alton understood. He made no noise. But as he looked down upon the sleeper he saw signs of vivid dreams. The sleeper kicked, muttered and moved his hands. One vigorous kick landed on Zac's forehead, but the recipient merely closed his eyes, hoping for better luck another time. One more kick, spasmodic and violent, just missing Zac's head by an eighth of an inch, and the boy awoke. As he awoke he sat up and shouted:

"She's out!"

Seeing his father he swung his legs over the side of the sofa, blinked and laughed aloud. Zac also laughed:--that is, he barked. He always barked when Cyrus laughed, just to be in it. To do whatever Cyrus did was, of course, beyond a dog's ambition, but laughter being a manifestation of his owner's joy, he expressed himself with sincerity and enthusiasm by tail and voice. Moreover, by always joining Cyrus in his mirth the world might know that their tastes were similar. In fact, to be identified with Cyrus in any way was glory enough for any dog. Cyrus was really the Only Boy. There were, of course, other boys, but they could not all be Cyruses. God was not running this world on any such plan. There was always one specimen that overtopped the others. Only one Helen of Troy, one Socrates, one Columbus, one George Washington and one Cyrus. Zac was not familiar with these names but they serve their humble purpose in fixing the status of the human being that he loved and respected above all others.

"That's the funniest thing that ever was," said Cyrus. "What do you think I dreamed? I dreamed we were playing ball on the ice on Minnebuc Lake; us fellers against the women, and we all had skates on. I was pitchin'. Mrs. Snell was at the bat and Deacon Whitlock first base. Mrs. Snell's kind of fat, you know, and fierce and dignified, but she wore trousers like the rest of us. Oh, it was funny!"

Here the miracle worker paused and wagged his head, indicating suppressed mirth. "Well, I gave her a twister. Jimminy! Wouldn't I like to give such balls in a real game! 'Twas an up and down curve and a fade away all in one. It went like a cork screw. No feller would ever try to hit it. But Mrs. Snell did! She just shut her eyes and let go--and she hit it! I caught it and threw to first. It turned into a snowball between me and Deacon Whitlock and hit him square in his wide open mouth--for he's always talking to himself, you know."

"Yes, I know."

"Well, Mrs. Snell dropped her bat and went sliding down to first--on her skates--and when she got there she couldn't stop. She just scooped up Deacon Whitlock as if he'd been a little boy and carried him off in her arms. He was screamin' and kickin' and wavin' his arms like a mad baby. And Luther, who was out in right field, grabbed her by the trousers and tried to hold her back. Oh, it was funny!"

Again the worker of miracles was convulsed with mirth.

Dr. Alton nodded, smiled and expressed a proper appreciation of the unusual game. He looked down into the boy's laughing face, as he spoke, and there came to him an impression, considered trivial at the moment, but remembered later with a livelier interest. It seemed to him, for a brief moment, that Cyrus's smiling eyes were gazing deep into his own as if groping, in a friendly way, for unspoken thoughts. Dr. Alton realized that this impression was probably due to his recent discovery of the boy's extraordinary faculty--a usual look in Cyrus's eyes which, earlier in the day, would have made no impression. But the look was short, little more than a glance, and Cyrus lowered his eyes to his swinging legs and pulled up a stocking which was slipping down.

"This afternoon," he said, "I broke a pane of glass in the parlor."

"How did that happen?"

"Well," said Cyrus, still watching his swinging legs, "I was playing barn-tick in the parlor with Zac. I would throw the ball against the wall and catch it when it bounced back, and every two or three throws I'd let Zac get it. Then once, I threw it kind of careless----"

"Carelessly, you mean."

"Yes, sir, kind of carelessly and it hit the window instead of the wall."

Dr. Alton slowly moved his head in acknowledgment of the explanation. The other subject on which he desired light was so much more important than any broken window pane that neither his face nor manner expressed very serious disapproval. In fact, Cyrus had hardly finished his confession before his father spoke.

"How did you happen to know, this afternoon, that Mrs. Heywood had broken her leg?"

"Oh, that was a great idea! I've invented a new kind of wireless!" And he went on to tell, but in different words, the same story that Ruth had given. "And just think! if everybody can do it there won't be any need of telegraph machines, or letters either. People can talk miles apart--just talk, as Ruth and I did!"

"Yes, of course, but how long ago did you find you could do this?"

"Only to-day. This was the first time."

"But Ruth says you often know what people think, or are going to say, before they say it?"

"Yes, sir."

"How long have you been able to do this?"

"Oh, p'r'aps three or four years."

"Why did you never happen to tell me?"

"I supposed you knew. I supposed everybody could do it."

"No; it's a very unusual faculty--very unusual indeed." Then, with a smile: "I suppose you have often known what _I_ was thinking?"

Cyrus laughed. "Oh, yes; lots of times!"

"When was the last time?"

Cyrus hesitated. He looked down at Zac, as if for encouragement. Then, with a glance from the corners of his eyes: "Just now."

"Just now!"

Cyrus bobbed his head and grinned. "Yes, just now."

"Why--what was it?"

Again Cyrus hesitated. His father smiled--the smile of reassurance. "Go ahead and tell me about it."

"Will you promise not to be angry or say anything bad?"

"Yes, I promise."

"Well, when I broke the window pane in the parlor to-day I was going to wait and let Joanna tell you about it when I was out of the way. But when you looked at me to-night after I had told about the dream I saw that you were in such a hurry to find out about the message from Ruth, that you wouldn't think so much of the window pane. So I told you."

Dr. Alton smiled and kept his promise, refraining from criticism. But he recalled the look in the boy's eyes, a few moments since--the look as of gently exploring another's thoughts. The recollection at this present moment brought a singular feeling almost of awe; as of something beyond human limitations. Was he on the border land of the supernatural? And yet, as he looked into the honest face of Cyrus, his wonder did not lessen. He found, therein, no solution of the mystery. He discovered nothing beyond the familiar face of his normal, sane and healthy boy, absorbed in things that became his age. He knew that Cyrus, like other boys, would rather eat than pray; that he preferred stealing apples to hearing sermons and would rather be a pirate than a bishop. This knowledge did not trouble the father. He had been a boy himself.

Then, sitting on the old sofa beside Zac and Cyrus, he asked many questions. They were all answered. Cyrus had nothing to conceal. With boyish frankness he told many things, some serious, some amusing--little secrets of his own--when he had enjoyed his extraordinary gift. His experiences in divining the thoughts of others were given as matter of fact occurrences. He had believed, until now, that this power was possessed by all the world.

It was a cozy group on the old sofa before the open wood fire, Zac, Cyrus and Dr. Alton, and they stayed an hour or more. Dr. Alton began to realize that this faculty was not only mind reading but something far beyond. That thoughts of others should come to this boy with no effort of his own was almost incredible. Even more amazing was the transmission through space not only of spoken words but of the unuttered wishes of far away friends. Was his son the master of a vital secret, a mysterious power now unknown to science but, in future years perhaps, to be common knowledge? Was it within the realms of material science? Or was it an individual form of spiritual sympathy, some ethereal harmony attuned by superhuman guidance to a chosen few?

When Cyrus had gone upstairs to bed Dr. Alton sat long before the open fine, remembering. And there was much to remember. At last he stepped out into the night air and stood upon the doorstep. Before him, in the moon-light, were snow-covered fields, tall skeletons of elms and maples, their leafless branches like barren memories against the sky. But this New England landscape was not what he saw. He saw, through his closed eyelids, the blue waters of the Adriatic. Close beside him a pair of loving eyes, dark, tragic--but smiling now--were looking deep into his own and the woman's lips were asking if it were possible for the unborn child to inherit its mother's power of divining another's thoughts. And he--the wise young doctor!--shook his head and smiled at the foolish question.

And, lo! not only had the power descended to the boy but with it had come an added faculty even more mysterious and unbelievable!

IX

DREAMS?

It was the very next morning that Ruth's father, the Rev. George Bentley Heywood, received an urgent appeal from China to fill a vacancy in the missionary field. Ten days after receiving the message he, his wife and tearful daughter, were on a train for San Francisco.

The days that followed were solemn days for Cyrus. And it so happened that the next ten years were solemn years for Longfields. A new railroad carried through a neighboring town left the village stranded. The young men began to leave. When a house burned there was no rebuilding. The tottering sheds behind the weed-grown cellar of the Baptist Church were typical of the town's decay. It was significant that when Philetus Bisbee died--house and carriage painter--his business had so shrunk that no one took his place. The burning of the inn meant that Longfields as a resting place for travelers was to be forgotten.

People died in Longfields, but few were born. Pupils at the little red school house dwindled to about a dozen. The teacher's pay was so small that to accept the position became an act of charity to the village.

When Judge David Lincoln moved away he expressed sincere regret: "I am sorry to go, but lawyers cannot thrive on memories alone."

Wits of neighboring towns referred to the sleeping village as Pompeii, Old Has Been and Long Memories. The main street with its overhanging elms was always silent. And the common, once noisy with excited children, was solemn in its stillness. Every day seemed Sunday.

In short, Longfields went the way of many other New England villages. It became a restful and picturesque reminder of better days. But, after all, it was merely following, in its decay, the example of famous queens of fashion, Troy, Babylon and Thebes.