the biddies. I nailed 'em, I did."
"You made the chicken coops? Well, you are a clever little chap. Let me see your hand."
"Yas, maw said I war that, too."
"But you weren't very clever to do this. Whew! What did you hit your thumb like that for?"
"Dunno." He looked ruefully at the crushed member which the doctor laved gently and soothingly.
"Why didn't you come to me with it?"
"Maw 'lowed the' wa'n't no use pesterin' you with eve'ything. She tol' me eve'y man had to larn to hit a nail on the haid."
David laughed, and the child trotted away happy, his hand in a sling made of one of the doctor's linen handkerchiefs, and his box of pencils and his book hugged to his irregularly beating heart; but it was with a grave face that Thryng saw him disappear among the great masses of pink laurel bloom.
That evening, as the glow in the west deepened and died away and the stars came out one by one and sent their slender rays down upon the hills, David sat on his rock with his flute in his hand, waiting for a moment to arrive when he could put it to his lips and send out the message of glad hopes he had sent before. She had asked that one little thing, that his music might still be glad, and so for Cassandra's sake it must be.