“There’s plenty of columbines wild in the hills, ain’t there? But these were the dovey kind, the garden ones. His eyes, that were so near shutting on the world for ever, saw ’em for a minute without understanding. And then . . .”
Harvey paused again. His hand quivered on the old man’s shoulder. “And then his memory gave him back some words: ‘White Columbine,’ he was reading off of the paper. ‘Hardy perennial. Sow in autumn in carefully prepared soil.’ He remembered putting it in his pocket; and then no more of it from then till now. He guessed how it had spilt out of his pocket when he fell in the storm. And the seed had filtered into the cracks, and the sun had warmed it, and the rain had fed it; while he was ranging the hills like a lost soul it was safe, and growing, and waiting for that moment, as if the Lord had laid His hand over it till the right time came. And now the time had come. That feller had come into the valley to die; and the little white flowers, like nests of doves, they bade him live. He scraped with his gun-butt in the stones—and there was the lode.”
Harvey was silent. Silent as he; the old man took his pipe from his mouth, and shook out the ashes. A drift of tiny red sparks sank and settled and died in the dew. The reek of the kinnikinnick died. The half-tropic breath of locust and tobacco came into its own.
“That,” said Harvey, “was the beginning of the White Columbine Mine. And ever since”—his hand gripped the lean shoulder, his voice rang loud—“and ever since then that feller’s been looking for the old man that gave him the flower-seeds, and, in so doing, gave him life and fortune and happiness.
“And he thinks he’s found him,” finished Harvey, huskily, leaning low over the fence—“he thinks he’s found him at last.”
After a time the pedlar glanced up at him. He said, very gently: “W’at that feller—that good feller—want with the ole man when he finds him?”
“To give him anything he wants,” said Harvey, quietly.
“What?”
“If he wants a house, it’s his,” said Harvey. “If he wants a farm, it’s his. Money, it’s his. Anything he wants.”
He was smiling, but his keen eyes were dim. The shoulder under his strong hand was so frail, the coat so ragged, the face turned to his so impenetrably old.