Dawn of the Morning

by Grace Livingston Hill

"Go, Rags, good dog. Take that to Dan." She pointed out the door.

Rags cast a protesting, anxious bark at her, a furtive glance down the empty road, and hustled out the door. He reasoned that Dan was near at hand and must settle the confliction of duties himself. He could not but obey the one whom he and his master alike worshipped.

The minute the dog had gone, Dawn put on her bonnet, caught up her cape and bag, and slipped out of the door and around the school-house on the side farthest from the village.

She fled through the back yard, crept under the lower rail of the fence, and proceeded over into the meadow where they had coasted all winter. In a moment more she was out of sight down the hill. She had but to cross the log which formed a bridge across the brook and she would enter the woods that lay at the foot of Wintergreen Hill. There she would be safe and could get away without seen by any one.

Daniel cut the string which held the note and sent the dog back to his post, while he slowly unfolded it and read, his hands trembling at the thought that she had written and sealed it, and that it was for him. A great tumult of emotions went through his big, immature heart as he tried to take it in. He had known something would happen, and was glad he had not gone away.

Rags hustled back to the school-house steps, but instantly he knew something was wrong. He looked into the empty room. She was not there. He smelled his way up to the desk, but could not bring her into existence. He snuffed his way out to the steps and down the path in a hurry, then came back baffled, with short, sharp, worried barks, to hunt for the scent again. Snuff! Snuff! Snuff! Bark! Rags could not understand it. Yes—but it was—there was the scent! Snuff! Snuff! Snuff! Bark! Bark! He tried it over again to make sure. The scent went around the left of the school-house, through the girl's play-ground. What could she have gone around there for at this time of day? Had the enemy come during his absence and stolen her away?

Rags hurried around the school, snuffing and barking, scuttled under the fence in a hurry, and away down the hill, his bark growing more sure and relieved every minute.

Daniel was not accustomed to receiving letters. He grasped the meaning of that first sentence slowly, having lingered long over the "Dear Daniel." But he got no further than the first sentence: "I am having to go away in a great hurry." He got to his feet rapidly and went around to the school-house door. A great fear was in his heart. The absence of Rags confirmed it. He entered the deserted school-room. No one was there. He stepped up to the teacher's desk. A letter addressed to the minister lay there. Daniel stood still by the teacher's desk, his heart filled with foreboding, and read the remainder of his own letter. As he finished, he heard a step outside the door, and, looking up, saw the stranger of the morning before him.

Instinctively he reached out for the minister's letter on the desk and put it with his own into his coat-pocket. Then he faced the intruder quietly, and something in his steady blue eyes reminded the man of his morning encounter with the dog. He felt that he had an enemy in the boy before him.

Winthrop took off his hat and inquired suavely: