Dawn of the Morning

by Grace Livingston Hill

They hurried through the woods, the boy directing the way now, and she depending upon him. He decided that It would be well for her to take a certain stage line that could be reached only by a good walk of several miles across the country. He knew the way, and she was only too glad to have a guide.

That was Dan's great day of happiness. For years afterward he remembered every little incident. He seemed to know while it was all happening that it was a special gift granted him in view of the sorrow and sacrifice he must pass through. His was no passing love of a boy. He realized that the girl beside him was one in a thousand, and that it was enough for a lifetime just to have known her, and to be able to remember one such perfect afternoon as this.

To Dawn, it was given to understand her power for that brief season, and to use it to its utmost for the boy's good. She talked to him earnestly about himself and his future, and urged him to make the utmost of every opportunity. She made him understand that he had the gift of leading others, and that some day he might take a great stand in the world for some cause of Right against Wrong, when others would flock to his standard and let him lead them to victory. It was an unusual thing that a girl like Dawn should see his possibilities and point him to a great ambition, but Dawn was an unusual girl.

Some girls, even though they might have done no real wrong, would have taken advantage of the boy's confessed love, and have coquetted with him. Dawn treated him with the utmost gentleness, as if she understood the pain she must inflict, and would fain give him something fine to take the place of what he had lost.

When they came to a hill they took hold of hands and raced down. When they came to a brook he helped her gravely across, just as he had helped her ever since she came to teach the school. He said no more about his love. It was understood between them that it was a closed incident, to be put away in the sacred recesses of their hearts. Into the girl's face had come a tender, womanly interest that for the time being almost made up to the boy for the loss of her. It was while they were walking down a long stretch of brown road, straight into a glorious sunset, that the boy asked quite suddenly:

"Has he been to college?"

Dawn knew at once whom he meant, and began simply to tell all about Charles. It did her good to speak of him. It seemed to bring him nearer. Her face blossomed into sweetness as she talked. There was not much to say, not much about him that she could tell to a stranger, from her one brief day's acquaintance with her husband, yet she managed to say a good deal. Charles would have been amazed to hear her describe his high ambitions and noble thoughts. He did not dream how well the girl had read him during their one blissful day together. And now she was painting him as an ideal for the rude boy who walked beside her and listened, with his heart filled with patient envy; that presently lost its bitterness in pity for the other one, who might have her great love, yet might not walk beside her as he was doing.

At last Dan broke in upon her words:

"'Tisn't right he shouldn't know where you are. If he's anything like what you think he is, he's 'most crazy hunting you. I know how he feels."

Dawn shook her head sadly and told him he did not understand, but his words sank into her heart for future meditation, and she could not quite get away from the thought that perhaps she had been wrong, after all, in going away. Perhaps it might have been more heroic to stay and face the hard things right where she had been.