Produced by Al Haines
DAVID MALCOLM
BY
NELSON LLOYD
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
NEW YORK
1913
COPYRIGHT, 1913, BY
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
Published August, 1913
TO
THE RARE, SWEET MEMORY OF
SUSANNE LIVINGSTON GREEN LLOYD
MY WIFE AND THE DEAR COMPANION
WHO WORKED
WITH ME OVER THESE PAGES
DAVID MALCOLM
CHAPTER I
"Take care not to tumble into the water, David," said my mother.
She was standing by the gate, and from my perch on the back of theoff-wheeler, I smiled down on her with boyish self-assurance. The ideaof my tumbling into the water! The idea of my drowning even did I meetwith so ludicrous a mishap! But I was accustomed to my mother'sanxious care, for as an only child there had fallen to me a doubleportion of maternal solicitude. In moments of stress and pain it cameas a grateful balm; yet more often, as now, it was irritating to mygrowing sense of self-reliance. To show how little I heeded heradmonition, how well able I was to take care of myself, as I smiledloftily from my dangerous perch, with my legs hardly straddling thehorse's back, I disdained to secure myself by holding to the harness,but folded my arms with the nonchalance of a circus rider.
"And, David, be careful about rattlesnakes," said my mother.
Had I not seen in her anxious eyes a menace against all my plans forthat day I should have laughed outright in scorn, but knowing it neverwise to pit my own daring against a mother's prudence, I returnedmeekly, "Yessem." Then I gave the horse a surreptitious kick, tryingthus to set all the ponderous four in motion. The unsympathetic animalwould not move in obedience to my command. Instead, he shook himselfvigorously, so that I had to seize the harness to save myself from anignominious tumble into the road.
"You won't let David wander out of your sight, now, will you, James?"my mother said.
James was climbing into the saddle. Being a deliberate man in all hisactions, he made no sign that he had heard until he had both feetsecurely in the stirrups, until he had struck a match on his boot-legand had lighted his pipe, until he had unhooked the single rein bywhich he guided the leaders and was ready to give his horses the wordto move. Then he spoke in a voice of gentle protest:
"You hadn't otter worry about Davy, ma'am, not when he's with me." Hislong whip was swinging in the air, but he checked it, that he mightturn to me and ask: "Now, Davy, you're sure you have your hook andline?"
I nodded.
"And your can o' worms for bait?"
Again I nodded. The whip cracked. And I was off on the greatestadventure of my life! My charger was a shaggy farm-horse, hitchedignominiously to the pole of a noisy wood-wagon; my squire, the lanky,loose-limbed James; my goal, the mountains to which were set my youngeyes, impatiently measuring the miles of rolling valley which I mustcross before I reached the land that until now I had seen only in thewizard lights of distance.
Every one lives a story—every man and every woman. A million miles ofbook-shelves could not hold the romances which are being lived aroundyou and will be