Dawn of the Morning

by Grace Livingston Hill

The long spring twilight had almost faded into darkness as they came at last to the inn where the coach would pass. Neither had spoken for some time. There was upon them a sense of their coming separation, and it depressed them. Already Dawn was looking into her lonely future, and dreading to lose this only friend she had. Already Dan was realizing what the going back was to be.

They had arranged it all. Dan was to take the letter to the minister, and explain that he had helped the teacher to catch a cross-country stage. He had taken it upon himself, also, to carry messages to the scholars and to her kind friends—brief messages of good-by, and haste, and sorrow; with the promise, too, at Dan's earnest solicitation, that if she ever could she would return to them.

Then at the end they had no time for parting. The stage was just driving up to the inn as they reached there. There was no time even for supper, though neither of them thought of it at the time.

Dan put her into the coach and arranged her bag comfortably, but he had to get out at once, as others were pressing in. He went outside in the dim light and stood by her window, looking up, trying to keep Rags from breaking away and getting into the coach. Something in his throat choked him. He could not speak.

The people were all in, and the driver was climbing to his place, when Dawn reached out her hand and caught Dan's, giving it a quick little squeeze.

"Dear Dan," she whispered as she leaned out, "don't forget to be the best you can."

He caught the little hand and laid his lips against it in the half-darkness. Rags had broken away and was barking wildly at the coach door, but the horses started and took Dawn away from the boy and the dog, and in a moment more they stood alone in the road, looking down the street at the dim black speck in the distance which was the coach.

Then slowly, silently, the one with downcast head, the other with drooping tail, Daniel and his dog took their way back over the road they had come so happily that afternoon. The dog could not understand, and now and then stopped, looked back, and whined, as if to say they ought to go back and do things over again. At last, when they reached the country roadside where all was still, and there were only the brooding stars to see, Dan sat down on a bank by the roadside, buried his face in his hands, and both down upon the cool, wet earth that was just beginning to spring into greenness. Then he gave way to his grief, while Rags, almost beside himself with distress, whined about him, snuffed up and down the road, and then sat down and howled at the late moon, which was just rising over a hill.

By and by Dan got up and called the dog. Together they started on their journey again, a silent, thoughtful pair. But never afterward did the boy Dan return. He was a man. He had suffered and grown. In his face were born resolve and determination. People wondered at the change in the careless, happy boy, and grew proud of his thoughtfulness.

CHAPTER XXIII