It seemed to David, when he was at the farm again, that in his absence time had stood still, except with Janey. She was a slender slip of a girl, gentle voiced and soft hearted. Her eyes were infinitely blue and lovely, and there was a glad little ring in her voice when she greeted “Davey.”

M’ri gave a cry of surprised pleasure when she saw her former charge. He was tall, lithe, supple, and hard-muscled. His face was not very expressive in repose, but showed a quiet strength when lighted by the keenness of his serious, brown eyes and the sweetness of his smile. His color was a deep-sea tan.

“It seems so good to be alive, Aunt M’ri. I thought I was weaned away from farm life until I bit into one of those snow apples from the old tree by the south corner of the orchard. Then I knew I was home.”

Pennyroyal shed her first visible tear.

“I am glad you are home again, David,” she sniffed. “You were always such a clean boy.”

“I missed you more’n any one did, David,” acknowledged Miss Rhody. “Ef I hed been a Catholic I should a felt as ef the confessional hed been took from me. I ain’t hed no one to talk secret like to excep’ when Joe comes onct a year. He ain’t been fer a couple of years, either, but he sent me anuther black dress the other day–silk, like the last one. To think of little Joe Forbes a-growin’ up and keepin’ me in silk dresses!”

“I’ll buy your next one for you,” declared David emphatically.

The next day after his return from college David started his legal labors under the watchful eye of the Judge. He made a leap-frog progress in acquiring an accurate knowledge of legal lore. He worked and waited patiently for the Judge’s recognition of his readiness to try his first case, and at last the eventful time came.

“No; there isn’t the slightest prospect of his winning it,” the Judge told his wife that night.

“The prosecution has strong evidence, and we have nothing–barely a witness of any account.”

“Then the poor man will be convicted and David will gain no glory,” lamented M’ri. “It means so much to a young lawyer to win his first case.”

The Judge smiled.

“Neither of them needs any sympathy. Miggs ought to have been sent over the road long ago. David’s got to have experience before he gains glory.”

“How did you come to take such a case?” asked M’ri, for the Judge was quite exclusive in his acceptance of clients.

“It was David’s doings,” said the Judge, with a frown that had a smile lurking behind it.

“Why did he wish you to take the case?” persisted M’ri.

“As near as I can make out,” replied the Judge, with a slight softening of his grim features, “it was because Miggs’ wife takes in washing when Miggs is celebrating.”

M’ri walked quickly to the window, murmuring some unintelligible sound of endearment.

On the day of the summing-up at the trial the court room was crowded. There were the habitual court hangers on, David’s country friends en masse, a large filling in at the back of the representatives of the highways and byways, associates of the popular wrongdoer, and the legal lore of the town, with the good-humored patronage usually bestowed by the profession on the newcomer to their ranks.

As the Judge had said, his client was conceded to be slated for conviction. If he had made the argument himself he would have made it in his usual cool, well-poised manner. But David, although he knew Miggs to be a veteran of the toughs, felt sure of his innocence in this case, and he was determined to battle for him, not for the sake of justice alone, but for the sake of the tired-looking washerwoman he had seen bending over the tubs. This was an occupation she had to resort to only in her husband’s times of indulgence, for he was a wage earner in his days of soberness.

When David arose to speak it seemed to the people assembled that the coil of evidence, as reviewed by the prosecutor in his argument, was drawn too closely for any power to extricate the victim.

At the first words of the young lawyer, uttered in a voice of winning mellowness, the public forgot the facts in the case. Swayed by the charm of David’s personality, a current of new-born sympathy for the prisoner ran through the court room.

David came up close to the jury and, as he addressed them, he seemed to be oblivious of the presence of any one else in the room. It was as though he were telling them, his friends, something he alone knew, and that he was sure of their belief in his statements.

“For all the world,” thought M’ri, listening, “as he used to tell stories when he was a boy. He’d fairly make you believe they were true.”

To be sure the jury were all his friends; they had known him when he was little “barefoot Dave Dunne.” Still, they were captivated by this new oratory, warm, vivid, and inspiring, delivered to the accompaniment of dulcet and seductive tones that transported them into an enchanted world. Their senses were stirred in the same way they would be if a flag were unfurled.

“Sounds kind o’ like orgin music,” whispered Miss Rhody.

Yet underneath the eloquence was a logical simplicity, a keen sifting of facts, the exposure of flaws in the circumstantial evidence. There was a force back of what he said like the force back of the projectile. About the form of the hardened sinner, Miggs, David drew a circle of innocence that no one ventured to cross. Simply, convincingly, and concisely he summed up, with a forceful appeal to their intelligence, their honor, and their justice.

The reply by the assistant to the prosecutor was perfunctory and ineffective. The charge of the judge was neutral. The jury left the room, and were out eight and one-quarter minutes. As they filed in, the foreman sent a triumphant telepathic message to David before he quietly drawled out:

“Not guilty, yer Honor.”

The first movement was from Mrs. Miggs. And she came straight to David, not to the jury.

“David,” said the Judge, who had cleared his throat desperately and wiped his glasses carefully, at the look in the eyes of the young lawyer when they had rested on the defendant’s wife, “hereafter our office will be the refuge for all the riffraff in the country.”

This was his only comment, but the Judge did not hesitate to turn over any case to him thereafter.

When David had added a few more victories to his first one, Jud made one of his periodical diversions by an offense against the law which was far more serious in nature than his previous misdeeds had been. M’ri came out to the farm to discuss the matter.

“Barnabas, Martin thinks you had better let the law take its course this time. He says it’s the only procedure left untried to reform Jud. He is sure he can get a light sentence for him–two years.”

“M’ri,” said Barnabas, in a voice vibrating with reproach, “do you want Jud to go to prison?”

M’ri paled.

“I want to do what is best for him, Barnabas. Martin thinks it will be a salutary lesson.”

“I wonder, M’ri,” said Barnabas slowly, “if the Judge had a son of his own, he would try to reform him by putting him behind bars.”

“Oh, Barnabas!” protested M’ri, with a burst of tears.

“He’s still my boy, if he is wild, M’ri.”

“But, Barnabas, Martin’s patience is exhausted. He has got him out of trouble so many times–and, oh, Barnabas, he says he won’t under any circumstances take the case! He is ashamed to face the court and jury with such a palpably guilty client. I have pleaded with him, but I can’t influence him. You know how set he can be!”

“Wal, there are other lawyers,” said Barnabas grimly.

David had remained silent and constrained during this conversation, the lines of his young face setting like steel. Suddenly he left the house and paced up and down in the orchard, to wrestle once more with the old problem of his boyhood days. It was different now. Then it had been a question of how much he must stand from Jud for the sake of the benefits bestowed by the offender’s father. Now it meant a sacrifice of principle. He had made his boyish boast that he would defend only those who were wrongfully accused. To take this case would be to bring his wagon down from the star. Then suddenly he found himself disposed to arraign himself for selfishly clinging to his ideals.

He went back into the house, where M’ri was still tearfully arguing and protesting. He came up to Barnabas.

“I will clear Jud, if you will trust the case to me, Uncle Barnabas.”

Barnabas grasped his hand.

“Bless you, Dave, my boy,” he said. “I wanted you to, but Jud has been–wal, I didn’t like to ask you.”

“David,” said M’ri, when they were alone, “Martin said you wouldn’t take a case where you were convinced of the guilt of the client.”

“I shall take this case,” was David’s quiet reply.

“Really, David, Martin thinks it will be best for Jud–”

“I don’t want to do what is best for Jud, Aunt M’ri, I want to do what is best for Uncle Barnabas. It’s the first chance I ever had to do anything for him.”

When Judge Thorne found that David was determined to defend Jud, he gave him some advice:

“You must get counter evidence, if you can, David. If you have any lingering idea that you can appeal to the jury on account of Barnabas being Jud’s father, root out that idea. There’s no chance of rural juries tempering justice with mercy. With them it’s an eye for an eye, every time.”

David had an infinitely harder task in clearing Jud than he had had in defending Miggs. The evidence was clear, the witnesses sure and wary, and the prisoner universally detested save by his evil-minded companions, but these obstacles brought out in full force all David’s indomitable will and alertness. He tipped up and entrapped the prosecution’s witnesses with lightning dexterity. One of them chanced to be a man whom David had befriended, and he aided him by replying shrewdly in Jud’s favor.

But it was Jud himself who proved to be David’s trump card. He was keen, crafty, and quick to seize his lawyer’s most subtle suggestions. His memory was accurate, and with David’s steering he avoided all traps set for him on cross examination. When David stood before the jury for the most stubborn fight he had yet made, his mother’s last piece of advice–all she had to bequeath to him–permeated every effort. He put into his argument all the compelling force within him. There were no ornate sentences this time, but he concentrated his powers of logic and persuasiveness upon his task. The jury was out two hours, during which time Barnabas and Jud sat side by side, pale and anxious, but upheld by David’s confident assurance of victory.

He kept his word. Jud was cleared.

“You’re a smart lawyer, Dave,” commented Uncle Larimy.

David looked at him whimsically.

“I had a smart client, Uncle Larimy.”

“That’s what you did, Dave, but he’s gettin’ too dernd smart. You’d a done some of us a favor if you’d let him git sent up.”

CHAPTER V

“Dave,” said Barnabas on one memorable day, “the Jedge hez hed his innings trying to make you a lawyer. Now it’s my turn.”

“All right, Uncle Barnabas, I am ready.”

“Hain’t you hed enough of law, Dave? You’ve given it a good trial, and showed what you could do. It’ll be a big help to you to know the law, and it’ll allers be sumthin’ to fall back on when things get slack, but ain’t you pinin’ fer somethin’ a leetle spryer?”

“Yes, I am,” was the frank admission. “I like the excitement attending a case, and the fight to win, but it’s drudgery between times–like soldiering in time of peace.”

“Wal, Dave, I’ve got a job fer you wuth hevin’, and one that starts toward what you air a-goin’ to be.”

David’s breath came quickly.

“What is it?”

“Thar’s no reason at all why you can’t go to legislatur’ and make new laws instead of settin’ in the Jedge’s office and larnin’ to dodge old ones. I’m a-runnin’ politics in these parts, and I’m a-goin’ to git you nominated. After that, you’ll go the hull gamut–so ’t will be up the ladder and over the wall fer you, Dave.”

So, David, to the astonishment of the Judge, put his foot on the first round of the political ladder as candidate for the legislature. At the same time Janey returned from the school in the East, where she had been “finished,” and David’s heart beat an inspiring tattoo every time he looked at her, but he was nominated by a speech-loving, speech-demanding district, and he had so many occasions for oratory that only snatches of her companionship were possible throughout the summer.

Joe came on to join in the excitement attending the campaign. It had been some time since his last visit, and he scarcely recognized David when he met him at the Lafferton station.

“Well, Dave,” said the ranchman, “if you are as strong and sure as you look, you won’t need my help in the campaign.”

“I always need you, Joe. But you haven’t changed in the least, unless you look more serious than ever, perhaps.”

“It’s the outdoor life does that. Take a field-bred lad, he always shies a bit at people.”

“Your horse does, too, I notice. He arrived safely a week ago, and I put him up at the livery here in Lafferton. I was afraid he would demoralize all the horses at the farm.”

“Good! I’ll ride out this evening. I have a little business to attend to here in town, and I want to see the Judge and his wife, of course.”

When the western sky line gleamed in crimson glory Joe came riding at a long lope up the lane. He sat his spirited horse easily, one leg thrown over the horn of his saddle. As he neared the house, a thrashing machine started up. The desert-bred horse shied, and performed maneuvers terrifying to Janey, but Joe in the saddle was ever a part of the horse. Quietly and impassively he guided the frightened animal until the machine was passed. Then he slid from the horse and came up to Janey and David, who were awaiting his coming.

“This can never be little Janey!” he exclaimed, holding her hand reverently.

“I haven’t changed as much as Davey has,” she replied, dimpling.

“Oh, yes, you have! You are a woman. David is still a boy, in spite of his six feet.”

“You don’t know about Davey!” she said breathlessly. “He has won all kinds of law cases, and he is going to the legislature.”

Joe laughed.

“I repeat, he is still a boy.”

On the morrow David started forth on a round of speech making, canvassing the entire district. He returned at the wane of October’s golden glow for the round-up, as Joe termed the finish of the campaign. The flaunting crimson of the maples, the more sedate tinge of the oaks, the vivid yellow of the birches, the squashes piled up on the farmhouse porches, and the fields filled with pyramidal stacks of cornstalks brought a vague sense of loneliness as he rode out from Lafferton to the farm. He left his horse at the barn and came up to the house through the old orchard as the long, slanting rays of sunlight were making afternoon shadows of all who crossed their path.

He found Janey sitting beneath their favorite tree. An open book lay beside her. She was gazing abstractedly into space, with a new look in her star-like eyes.

David’s big, untouched heart gave a quick leap. He took up the book and with an exultant little laugh discovered that it was a book of poems! Janey, who could never abide fairy stories, reading poetry! Surprised and embarrassed, after a shy greeting she hurried toward the house, her cheeks flaming. Something very beautiful and breath-taking came into David’s thoughts at that moment.

He was roused from his beatific state by the approach of Barnabas, so he was obliged to concentrate his attention on giving a résumé of his tour. Then the Judge telephoned for him to come to his office, and he was unable to finish his business there until dusk. The night was clear and frost touched. He left his horse in the lane and walked up to the house. As he came on to the porch he looked in through the window. The bright fire on the hearth, the soft glow of the shaded lamp, and the fair-haired girl seated by a table, needlework in hand, gave him a hunger for a hearth of his own.

Suddenly the scene shifted. Joe came in from the next room. Janey rose to her feet, a look of love lighting her face as she went to the arms outstretched to receive her.

CHAPTER VI

David went back to Lafferton. The little maid informed him that the Judge and his wife were out for the evening; but there was always a room in readiness for him, so he sat alone by the window, staring into the lighted street, trying to comprehend that Janey was not for him.

It was late the next morning when he came downstairs.

“I am glad, David, you decided to stay here last night,” said M’ri, whose eyes were full of a yearning solicitude.

She sat down at the table with him while he drank his coffee.

“David.”

She spoke in a desperate tone, that caused him to glance keenly at her.

“If you have anything to tell,” he said quietly, “it’s a good plan to tell it at once.”

“Since you have been away Joe and Janey have been together constantly. It seems to have been a case of mutual love. David, they are engaged.”

“So,” he said gravely, “I am to lose my little sister. Joe is a man in a thousand.”

“But, David, I had set my heart on Janey’s marrying you, from that very first day when you went to school together and you carried her books. Do you remember?”

“Yes,” he replied whimsically, “but even then Joe met us and took her away from me. But I must drive out and congratulate them.”

M’ri gazed after him in perplexity as he left the house.

“I wonder,” she mused, “if I ever quite understood David!”

Miss Rhody called to David as he was passing her house and bade him come in.

“You’ve hed a hard trip,” she said, with a keen glance into his tired, boyish eyes.

“Very hard, Miss Rhody.”

“You have heard about Janey–and Joe?”

“Aunt M’ri just told me,” he said, wincing ever so slightly.

“They was all sot on your being her sweetheart, except me and her–and Joe.”

“Why not you, Miss Rhody?”

“You ain’t never been in love with Janey–not the way you’ll love some day. When I was sick last fall Almiry Green come over to read to me and she brung a book of poems. I never keered much for po’try, and Almiry, she didn’t nuther, but she hed jest ketched Widower Pankey, and so she thought it was proper to be readin’ po’try. She read somethin’ about fust love bein’ a primrose, and a-fallin’ to make way fer the real rose, and I thought to myself: ‘That’s David. His feelin’ fer Janey is jest a primrose.’”

David’s eyes were inscrutable, but she continued:

“I knowed she hed allers fancied Joe sence she was a little tot and he give her them beads. When Joe’s name was spoke she was allers shy-like. She wuz never shy-like with you.”

“No,” admitted David wearily, “but I must go on to the farm now, Miss Rhody. I will come in again soon.”

When he came into the sitting room of the farmhouse, where he found Joe and Janey, the rare smile that comes with the sweetness of renunciation was on his lips. After he had congratulated them, he asked for Barnabas.

“He just started for the woods,” said Joe. “I think he is on his way to Uncle Larimy’s.”

David hastened to overtake him, and soon caught sight of the bent figure walking slowly over the stubbled field.

“Uncle Barnabas!” he called.

Barnabas turned and waited.

“Did you see Janey and Joe?” he asked, looking keenly into the shadowed eyes.

“Yes; Aunt M’ri had told me.”

“When?”

“This morning. Joe’s a man after your own heart, Uncle Barnabas.”

“It’s you I wanted fer her,” said the old man bluntly. “I never dreamt of its bein’ enybody else. It’s an orful disapp’intment to me, Dave. I’d ruther see you her man than to see you what I told you long ago I meant fer you to be.”

“And I, too, Uncle Barnabas,” said David, with slow earnestness, “would rather be your son than to be governor of this state!”

“You did care, then, David,” said the old man sadly. “It don’t seem to be much of a surprise to you.”

“Uncle Barnabas, I will tell you something which I want no one else to know. I came back last evening and drove out here. I looked in the window, and saw her as she sat at work. It came into my heart to go in then and ask her to marry me, instead of waiting until after election as I had planned. Then Joe came in and she–went to him. I returned to Lafferton. It was daylight before I had it out with myself.”

“Dave! I thought I knew you better than any of them. It’s been a purty hard test, but you won’t let it spile your life?”

“No, I won’t, Uncle Barnabas. I owe it to you, if not to myself, to go straight ahead as you have mapped it out for me.”

“Bless you, Dave! You’re the right stuff!”