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| author | Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org> | 2025-10-15 04:37:09 -0700 |
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| committer | Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org> | 2025-10-15 04:37:09 -0700 |
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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/11532-0.txt b/11532-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..adbc835 --- /dev/null +++ b/11532-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,2375 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 11532 *** + +This eBook produced by Jared Fuller. + + + +A KENTUCKY CARDINAL _A Story_ + +by James Lane Allen + + + + +Dedication + +This to her from one who in childhood used to stand at the windows +of her room and watch for the Cardinal among the snow-buried cedars. + + + + +I + + +All this New-year's Day of 1850 the sun shone cloudless but wrought +no thaw. Even the landscapes of frost on the window-panes did not +melt a flower, and the little trees still keep their silvery boughs +arched high above the jeweled avenues. During the afternoon a lean +hare limped twice across the lawn, and there was not a creature +stirring to chase it. Now the night is bitter cold, with no sounds +outside but the cracking of the porches as they freeze tighter. +Even the north wind seems grown too numb to move. I had determined +to convert its coarse, big noise into something sweet--as may +often be done by a little art with the things of this life--and so +stretched a horse-hair above the opening between the window sashes; +but the soul of my harp has departed. I hear but the comfortable +roar and snap of hickory logs, at long intervals a deeper breath +from the dog stretched on his side at my feet, and the crickets +under the hearth-stones. They have to thank me for that nook. One +chill afternoon I came upon a whole company of them on the western +slope of a woodland mound, so lethargic that I thumped them repeatedly +before they could so much as get their senses. There was a branch +near by, and the smell of mint in the air, so that had they been +young Kentuckians one might have had a clew to the situation. With +an ear for winter minstrelsy, I brought two home in a handkerchief, +and assigned them an elegant suite of apartments under a loose +brick. + +But the finest music in the room is that which streams out to the +ear of the spirit in many an exquisite strain from the hanging shelf +of books on the opposite wall. Every volume there is an instrument +which some melodist of the mind created and set vibrating with music, +as a flower shakes out its perfume or a star shakes out its light. +Only listen, and they soothe all care, as though the silken-soft +leaves of poppies had been made vocal and poured into the ear. + +Towards dark, having seen to the comfort of a household of kind, +faithful fellow-beings, whom man in his vanity calls the lower +animals, I went last to walk under the cedars in the front yard, +listening to that music which is at once so cheery and so sad--the +low chirping of birds at dark winter twilights as they gather in +from the frozen fields, from snow-buried shrubbery and hedge-rows, +and settle down for the night in the depths of the evergreens, the +only refuge from their enemies and shelter from the blast. But this +evening they made no ado about their home-coming. To-day perhaps +none had ventured forth. I am most uneasy when the red-bird is +forced by hunger to leave the covert of his cedars, since he, on +the naked or white landscapes of winter, offers the most far-shining +and beautiful mark for Death. I stepped across to the tree in +which a pair of these birds roost and shook it, to make sure they +were at home, and felt relieved when they fluttered into the next +with the quick startled notes they utter when aroused. + +The longer I live here, the better satisfied I am in having pitched +my earthly camp-fire, gypsylike, on the edge of a town, keeping it +on one side, and the green fields, lanes, and woods on the other. +Each, in turn, is to me as a magnet to the needle. At times +the needle of my nature points towards the country. On that side +everything is poetry. I wander over field and forest, and through +me runs a glad current of feeling that is like a clear brook across +the meadows of May. At others the needle veers round, and I go +to town--to the massed haunts of the highest animal and cannibal. +That way nearly everything is prose. I can feel the prose rising +in me as I step along, like hair on the back of a dog, long before +any other dogs are in sights. And, indeed, the case is much that +of a country dog come to town, so that growls are in order at +every corner. The only being in the universe at which I have ever +snarled, or with which I have rolled over in the mud and fought +like a common cur, is Man. + +Among my neighbors who furnish me much of the plain prose of life, +the nearest hitherto has been a bachelor named Jacob Mariner. I +called him my rain-cow, because the sound of his voice awoke +apprehensions of falling weather. A visit from him was an endless +drizzle. For Jacob came over to expound his minute symptoms; and +had everything that he gave out on the subject of human ailments +been written down, it must have made a volume as large, as solemn, +and as inconvenient as a family Bible. My other nearest neighbor +lives across the road--a widow, Mrs. Walters. I call Mrs. Walters +my mocking-bird, because she reproduces by what is truly a divine +arrangement of the throat the voices of the town. When she flutters +across to the yellow settee under the grape-vine and balances herself +lightly with expectation, I have but to request that she favor me +with a little singing, and soon the air is vocal with every note +of the village songsters. After this, Mrs. Walters usually begins +to flutter in a motherly way around the subject of _my_ symptoms. + +Naturally it has been my wish to bring about between this rain-cow +and mocking-bird the desire to pair with one another. For, if a +man always wanted to tell his symptoms and a woman always wished +to hear about them, surely a marriage compact on the basis of such +a passion ought to open up for them a union of overflowing and +indestructible felicity. They should associate as perfectly as the +compensating metals of a pendulum, of which the one contracts as +the other expands. And then I should be a little happier myself. +But the perversity of life! Jacob would never confide in Mrs. +Walter. Mrs. Walters would never inquire for Jacob. + +Now poor Jacob is dead, of no complaint apparently, and with so few +symptoms that even the doctors did not know what was the matter, +and the upshot of this talk is that his place has been sold, and +I am to have new neighbors. What a disturbance to a man living on +the edge of a quiet town! + +Tidings of the calamity came to-day from Mrs. Walters, who flew +over and sang--sang even on a January afternoon--in a manner to +rival her most vociferous vernal execution. But the poor creature +was so truly distressed that I followed her to the front gate, and +we twittered kindly at each other over the fence, and ruffled our +plumage with common disapproval. It is marvellous how a member of +her sex will conceive dislike of people that she has never seen; +but birds are sensible of heat or cold long before either arrives, +and it may be that this mocking-bird feels something wrong at the +quill end of her feathers. + + + +II + + +Mrs. Walters this morning with more news touching our incoming +neighbors. Whenever I have faced towards this aggregation of unwelcome +individuals, I have beheld it moving towards me as a thick gray +mist, shutting out nature beyond. Perhaps they are approaching +this part of the earth like comet that carries its tail before it, +and I am already enveloped in a disturbing, befogging nebulosity. + +There is still no getting the truth, but it appears that they are +a family of consequence in their way--which, of course, may be +a very poor way. Mrs. Margaret Cobb, mother, lately bereaved of +her husband, Joseph Cobb, who fell among the Kentucky boys at the +battle of Buena Vista. A son, Joseph Cobb, now cadet at West Point, +with a desire to die like his father, but destined to die--who +knows?--in a war that may break out in this country about the +negroes. + +While not reconciled, I am resigned. The young man when at home +may wish to practise the deadly vocation of an American soldier of +the period over the garden fence at my birds, in which case he and +I could readily fight a duel, and help maintain an honored custom +of the commonwealth. The older daughter will sooner or later turn +loose on my heels one of her pack of blue dogs. If this should +befall me in the spring, and I survive the dog, I could retort +with a dish of strawberries and a copy of "Lalla Rookh"; if in the +fall, with a basket of grapes and Thomson's "Seasons," after which +there would be no further exchange of hostilities. The younger +daughter, being a school-girl, will occasionally have to be subdued +with green apples and salt. The mother could easily give trouble; +or she might be one of those few women to know whom is to know the +best that there is in all this faulty world. + +The middle of February. The depths of winter reached. Thoughtful, +thoughtless words--the depths of winter. Everything gone inward +and downward from surface and summit, Nature at low tide. In its +time will come the height of summer, when the tides of life rise +to the tree-tops, or be dashed as silvery insect spray all but to +the clouds. So bleak a season touches my concern for birds, which +never seem quite at home in this world; and the winter has been +most lean and hungry for them. Many snows have fallen--snows that +are as raw cotton spread over their breakfast-table, and cutting +off connection between them and its bounties. Next summer I must +let the weeds grow up in my garden, so that they may have a better +chance for seeds above the stingy level of the universal white. Of +late I have opened a pawnbroker's shop for my hard-pressed brethren +in feathers, lending at a fearful rate of interest; for every +borrowing Lazarus will have to pay me back in due time by monthly +instalments of singing. I shall have mine own again with usury. +But were a man never so usurious, would he not lend a winter seed +for a summer song? Would he refuse to invest his stale crumbs in +an orchestra of divine instruments and a choir of heavenly voices? +And to-day, also, I ordered from a nursery-man more trees of holly, +juniper, and fir, since the storm-beaten cedars will have to come +down. For in Kentucky, when the forest is naked, and every shrub +and hedge-row bare, what would become of our birds in the universal +rigor and exposure of the world if there were no evergreens--nature's +hostelries for the homeless ones? Living in the depths of these, +they can keep snow, ice, and wind at bay; prying eyes cannot watch +them, nor enemies so well draw near; cones or seed or berries are +their store; and in these untrodden chambers each can have the +sacred company of his mate. But wintering here has terrible risks +which few run. Scarcely in autumn have the leaves begun to drop +from their high perches silently downward when the birds begin to +drop away from the bare boughs silently southward. Lo! some morning +the leaves are on the ground, and the birds have vanished. The +species that remain, or that come to us then, wear the hues of +the season, and melt into the tone of Nature's background--blues, +grays, browns, with touches of white on tail and breast and wing +for coming flecks of snow. + +Save only him--proud, solitary stranger in our unfriendly land--the +fiery grosbeak. Nature in Kentucky has no wintry harmonies for him. +He could find these only among the tufts of the October sumac, or +in the gum-tree when it stands a pillar of red twilight fire in +the dark November woods, or in the far depths of the crimson sunset +skies, where, indeed, he seems to have been nested, and whence to +have come as a messenger of beauty, bearing on his wings the light +of his diviner home. + +With almost everything earthly that he touches this high herald +of the trees is in contrast. Among his kind he is without a peer. +Even when the whole company of summer voyagers have sailed back to +Kentucky, singing and laughing and kissing one another under the +enormous green umbrella of Nature's leaves, he still is beyond them +all in loveliness. But when they have been wafted away again to +brighter skies and to soft islands over the sea, and he is left +alone on the edge of that Northern world which he has dared invade +and inhabit, it is then, amid black clouds and drifting snows, +that the gorgeous cardinal stands forth in the ideal picture of +his destiny. For it is than that his beauty I most conspicuous, +and that Death, lover of the peerless, strikes at him from afar. +So that he retires to the twilight solitude of his wild fortress. +Let him even show his noble head and breast at a slit in its green +window-shades, and a ray flashes from it to the eye of a cat; let +him, as spring comes on, burst out in desperation and mount to the +tree-tops which he loves, and his gleaming red coat betrays him to +the poised hawk as to a distant sharpshooter; in the barn near by +an owl is waiting to do his night marketing at various tender-meat +stalls; and, above all, the eye and heart of man are his diurnal and +nocturnal foe. What wonder if he is so shy, so rare, so secluded, +this flame-colored prisoner in dark-green chambers, who has only +to be seen or heard and Death adjusts an arrow. No vast Southern +swamps or forest of pine here into which he may plunge. If he +shuns man in Kentucky, he must haunt the long lonely river valleys +where the wild cedars grow. If he comes into this immediate +swarming pastoral region, where the people, with ancestral love of +privacy, and not from any kindly thought of him, plant evergreens +around their country homes, he must live under the very guns and +amid the pitfalls of the enemy. Surely, could the first male of +the species have foreseen how, through the generations of his race +to come, both their beauty and their song, which were meant to +announce them to Love, would also announce them to Death, he must +have blanched snow-white with despair and turned as mute as a stone. +Is it this flight from the inescapable just behind that makes the +singing of the red-bird thoughtful and plaintive, and, indeed, +nearly all the wild sounds of nature so like the outcry of the +doomed? He will sit for a long time silent and motionless in the +heart of a cedar, as if absorbed in the tragic memories of his +race. Then, softly, wearily, he will call out to you and to the +whole world: _Peace_.._Peace_.._Peace_.._Peace_.._Peace_..!--the +most melodious sigh that ever issued from the clefts of a dungeon. + +For color and form, brilliant singing, his very enemies, and the +bold nature he has never lost, I have long been most interested in +this bird. Every year several pairs make their appearance about +my place. This winter especially I have been feeding a pair; and +there should be finer music in the spring, and a lustier brood in +summer. + + + +III + + +March has gone like its winds. The other night as I lay awake with +that yearning which often beats within, there fell from the upper +air the notes of the wild gander as he wedged his way onward by +faith, not by sight, towards his distant bourn. I rose and, throwing +the unseen and unseeing explorer, startled, as a half-asleep soldier +might be startled by the faint bugle-call of his commander, blown +to him from the clouds. What far-off lands, streaked with mortal +dawn, does he believe in? In what soft sylvan water will he bury +his tired breast? Always when I hear his voice, often when not, +I too desire to be up and gone out of these earthly marshes where +hunts the darker Fowler--gone to some vast, pure, open sea, where, +one by one, my scattered kind, those whom I love and those who love +me, will arrive in safety, there to be together. + +March is a month when the needle of my nature dips towards the +country. I am away, greeting everything as it wakes out of winter +sleep, stretches arms upward and legs downward, and drinks goblet +after goblet of young sunshine. I must find the dark green snowdrop, +and sometimes help to remove from her head, as she lifts it slowly +from her couch, the frosted nightcap, which the old Nurse would still +insist that she should wear. The pale green tips of daffodils are +a thing of beauty. There is the sun-struck brook of the field, +underneath the thin ice of which drops form and fall, form and +fall, like big round silvery eyes that grow bigger and brighter +with astonishment that you should laugh at them as they vanish. But +most I love to see Nature do her spring house-cleaning in Kentucky, +with the rain-clouds for her water-buckets and the winds for her +brooms. What an amount of drenching and sweeping she can do in a +day! How she dashes pailful and pailful into every corner, till +the whole earth is as clean as a new floor! Another day she attacks +the piles of dead leaves, where they have lain since last October, +and scatters them in a trice, so that every cranny may be sunned and +aired. Or, grasping her long brooms by the handles, she will go +into the woods and beat the icicles off the big trees as a housewife +would brush down cobwebs; so that the released limbs straighten +up like a man who has gotten out of debt, and almost say to you, +joyfully, "Now, then, we are all right again!" This done, she +begins to hang up soft new curtains at the forest windows, and to +spread over her floor a new carpet of an emerald loveliness such +as no mortal looms could ever have woven. And then, at last, she +sends out invitations through the South, and even to some tropical +lands, for the birds to come and spend the summer in Kentucky. The +invitations are sent out in March, and accepted in April and May, +and by June her house is full of visitors. + +Not the eyes alone love Nature in March. Every other sense hies +abroad. My tongue hunts for the last morsel of wet snow on the +northern root of some aged oak. As one goes early to a concert-hall +with a passion even for the preliminary tuning of the musicians, +so my ear sits alone in the vast amphitheatre of Nature and waits +for the earliest warble of the blue-bird, which seems to start up +somewhere behind the heavenly curtains. And the scent of spring, +is it not the first lyric of the nose--that despised poet of the +senses? + +But this year I have hardly glanced at the small choice edition of +Nature's spring verses. This by reason of the on-coming Cobbs, at +the mere mention of whom I feel as though I were plunged up to my +eyes in a vat of the prosaic. Some days ago workmen went into the +house and all but scoured the very memory of Jacob off the face of +the earth. Then there has been need to quiet Mrs. Walters. + +Mrs. Walters does not get into our best society; so that the town +is to her like a pond to a crane: she wades round it, going in as +far as she can, and snatches up such small fry as come shoreward +from the middle. In this way lately I have gotten hints of what +is stirring in the vasty deeps of village opinion. + +Mrs. Cobb is charged, among other dreadful things, with having +ordered of the town manufacturer a carriage that is to be as fine +as President Taylor's, and with marching into church preceded by +a servant, who bears her prayer-book on a velvet cushion. What +if she rode in Cinderella's coach, or had her prayer-book carried +before her on the back of a Green River turtle? But to her sex +she promises to be an invidious Christian. I am rather disturbed +by the gossip regarding the elder daughter. But this is so conflicting +that one impression is made only to be effaced by another. + +A week ago their agent wanted to buy my place. I was so outraged +that I got down my map of Kentucky to see where these peculiar +beings originate. They come from a little town I the northwestern +corner of the State, on the Ohio River, named Henderson--named from +that Richard Henderson who in the year 1775 bought about half of +Kentucky from the Cherokees, and afterwards, as president of his +purchase, addressed the first legislative assembly ever held in the +West, seated under a big elm-tree outside the wall of Boonsborough +fort. These people must be his heirs, or they would never have +tried to purchase my few Sabine acres. It is no surprise to discover +that they are from the Green River country. They must bathe often +in that stream. I suppose they wanted my front yard to sow it in +penny-royal, the characteristic growth of those districts. They +surely distil it and use it as a perfume on their handkerchiefs. It +was perhaps from the founder of this family that Thomas Jefferson +got authority for his statement that the Ohio is the most beautiful +river in the world--unless, indeed, the President formed that notion +of the Ohio upon lifting his eyes to it from the contemplation of +Green River. Henderson! Green River region! To this town and to +the blue-grass country as Boeotia to Attica in the days of Pericles. +Hereafter I shall call these people my Green River Boeotians. + +A few days later their agent again, a little frigid, very urgent--this +time to buy me out on my own terms, _any_ terms. But what was back +of all this I inquired. I did not know these people, had never done +them a favor. Why, then, such determination to have me removed? +Why such bitterness, vindictiveness, ungovernable passion? + +That was the point, he replied. This family had never wronged _me_. +I had never even seen _them_. Yet they had heard of nothing but +my intense dislike of them and opposition to their becoming my +neighbors. They could not forego their plans, but they were quite +willing to give me the chance of leaving their vicinity, on whatever +I might regard the most advantageous terms. + +Oh, my mocking-bird, my mocking-bird! When you have been sitting +on _other_ front porches, have you, by the divine law of your being, +been reproducing _your_ notes as though they were _mine_, and even +pouring forth the little twitter that was meant for your private +ear? + +As March goes out, two things more and more I hear--the cardinal +has begun to mount to the bare tops of the locust-trees and scatter +his notes downward, and over the way the workmen whistle and sing. +The bird is too shy to sit in any tree on that side of the yard. +But his eye and ear are studying them curiously. Sometimes I even +fancy that he sings to them with a plaintive sort of joy, as though +he were saying, "Welcome--go away!" + + + +IV + + +The Cobbs will be the death of me before they get here. The report +spread that they and I had already had a tremendous quarrel, and +that, rather than live beside them, I had sold them my place. This +set flowing towards me for days a stream of people, like a line of +ants passing to and from the scene of a terrific false alarm. I +had nothing to do but sit perfectly still and let each ant, as it +ran up, touch me with its antennae, get the counter-sign, and turn +back to the village ant-hill. Not all, however. Some remained +to hear me abuse the Cobbs; or, counting on my support, fell to +abusing the Cobbs themselves. When I made not a word of reply, +except to assure them that I really had not quarrelled with the +Cobbs, had nothing against the Cobbs, and was immensely delighted +that the Cobbs were coming, they went away amazingly cool and +indignant. And for days I continued to hear such things attributed +to me that, had that young West-Pointer been in the neighborhood, +and known how to shoot, he must infallibly have blown my head off +me, as any Kentucky gentleman would. Others of my visitors, having +heard that I was not to sell my place, were so glad of it that they +walked around my garden and inquired for my health and the prospect +for fruit. For the season has come when the highest animal +begins to pay me some attention. During the winter, having little +to contribute to the community, I drop from communal notice. But +there are certain ladies who bow sweetly to me when my roses and +honeysuckles burst into bloom; a fat old cavalier of the South +begins to shake hands with me when my asparagus bed begins to send +up its tender stalks; I am in high favor with two or three young +ladies at the season of lilies and sweet-pea; there is one old soul +who especially loves rhubarb pies, which she makes to look like +little latticed porches in front of little green skies, and it is +she who remembers me and my row of pie-plant; and still another, +who knows better than cat-birds when currants are ripe. Above all, +there is a preacher, who thinks my sins are as scarlet so long as +my strawberries are, and plants himself in my bed at that time to +reason with me of judgment to come; and a doctor, who gets despondent +about my constitution in pear-time--after which my health seems to +return, but never my pears. + +So that, on the whole, from May till October I am the bright side +of the moon, and the telescopes of the town are busy observing +my phenomena; after which it is as though I had rolled over on my +dark side, there to lie forgotten till once more the sun entered +the proper side of the zodiac. But let me except always the few +steadily luminous spirits I know, with whom is no variableness, +neither shadow of turning. If any one wishes to become famous in +a community, let him buy a small farm on the edge of it and cultivate +fruits, berries, and flowers, which he freely gives away or lets +be freely taken. + +All this has taken freely of my swift April days. Besides, I have +made me a new side-porch, made it myself, for I like to hammer and +drive things home, and because the rose on the old one had rotted +it from post to shingle. And then, when I had tacked the rose in +place again, the little old window opening above it made that side +of my house look like a boy in his Saturday hat and Sunday breeches. +So in went a large new window; and now these changes have mysteriously +offended Mrs. Walter, who says the town is laughing at me for +trying to outdo the Cobbs. The highest animal is the only one who +is divinely gifted with such noble discernment. But I am not sorry +to have my place look its best. When they see it, they will perhaps +understand why I was not to be driven out by a golden cracker on +their family whip. They could not have bought my little woodland +pasture, where for a generation has been picnic and muster and +Fourth-of-July ground, and where the brave fellows met to volunteer +for the Mexican war. They could not have bought even the heap of +brush back of my wood-pile, where the brown thrashers build. + + + +V + + +In May I am of the earth earthy. The soul loses its wild white +pinions; the heart puts forth its short, powerful wings, heavy with +heat and color, that flutter, but do not lift it off the ground. +The month comes and goes, and not once do I think of lifting my +eyes to the stars. The very sunbeams fall on the body as a warm +golden net, and keep thought and feeling from escape. Nature uses +beauty now not to uplift, but to entice. I find her intent upon +the one general business of seeing that no type of her creatures +gets left out of the generations. Studied in my yard full of birds, +as with a condensing-glass of the world, she can be seen enacting +among them the dramas of history. Yesterday, in the secret recess +of a walnut, I saw the beginning of the Trojan war. Last week +I witnessed the battle of Actium fought out in mid-air. And down +among my hedges--indeed, openly in my very barn-yard--there is a +perfectly scandalous Salt Lake City. + +And while I am watching the birds, they are watching me. Not a little +fop among them, having proposed and been accepted, but perches on +a limb, and has the air of putting his hands mannishly under his +coattails and crying out at me, "Hello! Adam, what were you made +for?" "You attend to your business, and I'll attend to mine," I +answer. "You have one May; I have twenty-five!" He didn't wait +to hear. He caught sight of a pair of clear brown eyes peeping +at him out of a near tuft of leaves, and sprang thither with open +arms and the sound of a kiss. + +But if I have twenty-five Mays remaining, are not some Mays gone? +Ah, well! Better a single May with the right mate than the full +number with the wrong. And where is she--the right one? If she +ever comes near my yard and answers my whistle, I'll know it; and +then I'll teach these popinjays in blue coats and white pantaloons +what Adam was made for. + +But the wrong one--there's the terror! Only think of so composite +a phenomenon as Mrs. Walters, for instance, adorned with limp +nightcap and stiff curl-papers, like garnishes around a leg of +roast mutton, waking up beside me at four o'clock in the morning +as some gray-headed love-bird of Madagascar, and beginning to chirp +and trill in an ecstasy! + +The new neighbors have come--mother, younger daughter, and servants. +The son is at West Point; and the other daughter lingers a few days, +unable, no doubt, to tear herself away from her beloved pennyroyal +and dearest Green River. They are quiet; have borrowed nothing +from any one in the neighborhood; have well-dressed, well-trained +servants; and one begins to be a little impressed. The curtains +they have put up at the windows suggest that the whole nest is being +lined with soft, cool spotless loveliness, that is very restful +and beguiling. + +No one has called yet, since they are no at home till June; but +Mrs. Walters has done some tall wading lately, and declares that +people do not know what to think. They will know when the elder +daughter arrives; for it is the worst member of the family that +settles what the world shall think of the others. + +If only she were not the worst! If only as I sat here beside my +large new window, around which the old rose-bush has been trained +and now is blooming, I could look across to her window where the +white curtains hang, and feel that behind them sat, shy and gentle, +the wood-pigeon for whom through Mays gone by I have been vaguely +waiting! + +And yet I do not believe that I could live a single year with only +the sound of cooing in the house. A wood-pigeon would be the death +of me. + + + +VI + + +This morning, the 3d of June, the Undine from Green River rose +above the waves. + +The strawberry bed is almost under their windows. I had gone out +to pick the first dish of the season for breakfast; for while I +do not care to eat except to live, I never miss an opportunity of +living upon strawberries. + +I was stooping down and bending the wet leaves over, so as not +to miss any, when a voice at the window above said, timidly and +playfully, + +"Are you the gardener?" + +I picked on, turning as red as the berries. Then the voice said +again, + +"Old man, are you the gardener?" + +Of course a person looking down carelessly on the stooping figure +of _any_ man, and seeing nothing but a faded straw hat, and arms +and feet and ankles bent together, might easily think him decrepit +with age. Some things touch off my temper. But I answered, humbly, + +"I am the gardener, madam." + +"How much do you ask for your strawberries?" + +"The gentleman who owns this place does not sell his strawberries. +He gives them away, if he likes people. How much do you ask for +_your_ strawberries?" + +"What a nice old gentleman! Is he having those picked to give +away?" + +"He is having these picked for his breakfast." + +"Don't you think he'd like you to give me those, and pick him some +more?" + +"I fear not, madam." + +"Nevertheless, you might. He'd never know." + +"I think he'd find it out." + +"You are not afraid of him, are you?" + +"I am when he gets mad." + +"Does he treat you badly?" + +"If he does, I always forgive him." + +"He doesn't seem to provide you with very many clothes." + +I picked on. + +"But you seem nicely fed." + +I picked on. + +"What is his name, old man? Don't you like to talk?" + +"Adam Moss." + +"Such a green, cool, soft name! It is like his house and yard and +garden. What does he do?" + +"Whatever he pleases." + +"You must not be impertinent to me, or I'll tell him. What does +he like?" + +"Birds--red-birds. What do _you_ like?" + +"Red-birds! How does he catch them? Throw salt on their tails?" + +"He is a lover of Nature, madam, and particularly of birds." + +"What does _he_ know about birds? Doesn't he care for people?" + +"He doesn't think many worth caring for." + +"Indeed! And _he_ is perfect, then, is he?" + +"He thinks he is nearly as bad as any; but that doesn't make the +rest any better." + +"Poor old gentleman! He must have the blues dreadfully. What does +he do with his birds? Eat his robins, and stuff his cats, and sell +his red-birds in cages?" + +"He considers it part of his mission in life to keep them from +being eaten or stuffed or caged." + +"And you say he is nearly a hundred?" + +"He is something over thirty years of age, madam." + +"Thirty? Surely we heard he was very old. Thirty! And does he +live in that beautiful little old house all by himself?" + +"_I_ live with him!" + +"_You_! Ha! ha! ha! And what is _your_ name, you dear good old +man?" + +"Adam." + +"_Two_ Adams living in the same house! Are you the _old_ Adam? I +have heard so much of him." + +At this I rose, pushed back my hat, and looked up at her. + +"_I_ am Adam Moss," I said, with distant politeness. "You can have +these strawberries for your breakfast if you want them." + +There was a low quick "Oh!" and she was gone, and the curtains +closed over her face. It was rude; but neither ought she to have +called me the old Adam. I have been thinking of one thing: why +should she speak slightingly of _my_ knowledge of birds? What does +_she_ know about them? I should like to inquire. + +Late this afternoon I dressed up in my high gray wool hat, my fine +long-tailed blue cloth coat with brass buttons, by pink waistcoat, +frilled shirt, white cravat, and yellow nankeen trousers, and +walked slowly several times around my strawberry bed. Did no see +any more ripe strawberries. + + +Within the last ten days I have called twice upon the Cobbs, urged +no doubt by an extravagant readiness to find them all that I feared +they were not. How exquisite in life is the art of not seeing many +things, and of forgetting many that have been seen! They received +me as though nothing unpleasant had happened. Nor did the elder +daughter betray that we had met. She has not forgotten, for +more than once I surprised a light in her eyes as though she were +laughing. She has not, it is certain, told even her mother and +sister. Somehow this fact invest her character with a charm as +of subterranean roominess and secrecy. Women who tell everything +are like finger-bowls of clear water. + +But it is Sylvia that pleases me. She must be about seventeen; and +so demure and confiding that I was ready to take her by the hand, +lead her to the garden-gate, and say: Dear child, everything in +here--butterflies, flowers, fruit, honey, everything--is yours; +come and go and gather as you like. + +Yesterday morning I sent them a large dish of strawberries, with +a note asking whether they would walk during the day over to my +woodland pasture, where the soldiers had a barbecue before setting +out for the Mexican war. The mother and Sylvia accepted. Our walk +was a little overshadowed by their loss; and as I thoughtlessly +described the gayety of that scene--the splendid young fellows +dancing in their bright uniforms, and now and then pausing to wipe +their foreheads, the speeches, the cheering, the dinner under the +trees, and, a few days later, the tear-dimmed eyes, the hand-wringing +and embracing, and at last the marching proudly away, each with a +Bible in his pocket, and many never, never to return--I was sorry +that I had not foreseen the sacred chord I was touching. But +it made good friends of us more quickly, and they were well-bred, +so that we returned to all appearance in gay spirits. The elder +daughter came to meet us, and went at once silently to her mother's +side, as though she had felt the separation. I wondered whether +she had declined to go because of the memory of her father. As +we passed my front gate, I asked them to look at my flowers. The +mother praised also the cabbages, thus showing an admirably balanced +mind; the little Sylvia fell in love with a vine-covered arbor; +the elder daughter appeared to be secretly watching the many birds +about the grounds, but when I pointed out several less-known species, +she lost interest. + +What surprises most is that they are so refined and intelligent. +It is greatly to be feared that we Kentuckians in this part of the +State are profoundly ignorant as to the people in other parts. I +told Mrs. Walters this, and she, seeing that I am beginning to like +them, is beginning to like them herself. Dear Mrs. Walters! Her +few ideas are like three or four marbles on a level floor; they +have no power to move themselves, but roll equally well in any +direction you push them. + +This afternoon I turned a lot of little town boys into my strawberry +bed, and now it looks like a field that had been harrowed and rolled. +I think they would gladly have pulled up some of the plants to see +whether there might not be berries growing on the roots. + + +It is unwise to do everything that you can for people at once; for +when you can do nothing more, they will say you are no longer like +yourself, and turn against you. So I have meant to go slowly with +the Cobbs in my wish to be neighborly, and do not think that they +could reasonably be spoiled on one dish of strawberries in three +weeks. But the other evening Mrs. Cobb sent over a plate of golden +sally-lunn on a silver waiter, covered with a snow-white napkin; +and acting on this provocation, I thought they could be trusted +with a basket of cherries. + +So next morning, in order to save the ripening fruit on a rather small +tree of choice variety, I thought I should put up a scarecrow, and +to this end rummaged a closet for some last winter's old clothes. +These I crammed with straw, and I fastened the resulting figure +in the crotch of the tree, tying the arms to the adjoining limbs, +and giving it the dreadful appearance of shouting, "Keep out of +here, you rascals, or you'll get hurt!" And, in truth, it did look +so like me that I felt a little uncanny about it myself. + +Returning home late, I went at once to the tree, where I found not +a quart of cherries, and the servants told of an astonishing thing: +that no sooner had the birds discovered who was standing in the +tree, wearing the clothes in which he used to feed them during the +winter, than the news spread like wildfire to the effect that he +had climbed up there and was calling out: "Here is the best tree, +fellows! Pitch in and help yourselves!" So that the like of the +chattering and fetching away was never seen before. This was the +story; but little negroes love cherries, and it is not incredible +that the American birds were assisted in this instance by a large +family of fat young African spoon-bills. + +Anxious to save another tree, and afraid to use more of my own +clothes, I went over to Mrs. Walters, and got from her an old bonnet +and veil, a dress and cape, and a pair of her cast-off yellow +gaiters. These garments I strung together and prepared to look +life-like, as nearly as a stuffing of hay would meet the inner +requirements of the case. I them seated the dread apparition in the +fork of a limb, and awaited results. The first thief was an old +jay, who flew towards the tree with his head turned to one side +to see whether any one was overtaking him. But scarcely had he +alighted when he uttered a scream of horror that was sickening to +hear, and dropped on the grass beneath, after which he took himself +off with a silence and speed that would have done credit to a +passenger-pigeon. That tree was rather avoided for some days, or +it may have been let alone merely because others were ripening; so +that Mrs. Cobb got her cherries, and I sent Mrs. Walter some also +for the excellent loan of her veil and gaiters. + + +As the days pass I fall in love with Sylvia, who has been persuaded +to turn my arbor into a reading-room, and is often to be found +there of mornings with one of Sir Walter's novels. Sometimes I +leave her alone, sometimes lie on the bench facing her, while she +reads aloud, or, tiring, prattles. Little half-fledged spirit, to +whom the yard is the earth and June eternity, but who peeps over +the edge of the nest at the chivalry of the ages, and fancies that +she knows the world. The other day, as we were talking, she tapped +the edge of her _Ivanhoe_ with a slate-pencil--for she is also +studying the Greatest Common Divisor--and said, warningly, "You +must not make epigrams; for if you succeeded you would be brilliant, +and everything brilliant is tiresome." + +"Who is your authority for _that_ epigram, Miss Sylvia?" I said, +laughing. + +"Don't you suppose that I have any ideas but what I get from books?" + +"You may have all wisdom, but those sayings proceed only from +experience." + +"I have my intuitions; they are better than experience." + +"If you keep on, _you_ will be making epigrams presently, and then +I shall find you tiresome, and go away." + +"You couldn't. I am your guest. How unconventional I am to come +over and sit in your arbor! But it is Georgiana's fault." + +"Did _she_ tell you to come?" + +"No; but she didn't keep me from coming. Whenever any one +of us does anything improper we always say to each other, 'It's +Georgiana's fault. She ought not to have taught us to be so simple +and unconventional.'" + +"And is she the family governess?" + +"She governs the family. There doesn't seem to be any real +government, but we all do as she says. You might think at first +that Georgiana was the most light-headed member of the family, but +she isn't. She's deep. I'm shallow in comparison with her. She +calls me sophisticated, and introduces me as the elder Miss Cobb, +and says that if I don't stop reading Scott's novels and learn +more arithmetic she will put white caps on me, and make me walk to +church in carpet slippers and with grandmother's stick." + +"But you don't seem to have stopped, Miss Sylvia." + +"No; but I'm stopping. Georgiana always gives us time, but we get +right at last. It was two years before she could make my brother +go to West Point. He was wild and rough, and wanted to raise +tobacco, and float with it down to New Orleans, and have a good +time. Then when she had gotten him to go she was afraid he'd come +back, and so she persuaded my mother to live here, where there +isn't any tobacco, and where I could be sent to school. That took +her a year, and now she is breaking up my habit of reading nothing +but novels. She gets us all down in the end. One day when she +and Joe were little children they were out at the wood-pile, and +Georgiana was sitting on a log eating a jam biscuit, with her feet +on the log in front of her. Joe had a hand-axe, and was chopping +at anything till he caught sight of her feet. Then he went to the +end of the log, and whistled like a steamboat, and began to hack +down in that direction, calling out to her: 'Take your toes out of +the way, Georgiana. I am coming down the river. The current is +up and I can't stop.' 'My toes were there first,' said Georgiana, +and went on eating her biscuit. 'Take them out of the way, I tell +you,' he shouted as he came nearer, 'or they'll get cut off.' 'They +were there first,' repeated Georgiana, and took another delicious +nibble. Joe cut straight along, and went whack right into her five +toes. Georgiana screamed with all her might, but she held her foot +on the log, till Joe dropped the hatchet with horror, and caught +her in his arms. 'Georgiana, I _told_ you to take your toes away,' +he cried; 'you are such a little fool,' and ran with her to the +house. But she always had control over him after that." + +To-day I saw Sylvia enter the arbor, and shortly afterwards I +followed with a book. + +"When you stop reading novels and begin to read history, Miss +Sylvia, here is the most remarkable history of Kentucky that was +ever written or ever will be. It is by my father's old teacher of +natural history in Transylvania University, Professor Rafinesque, +who also had a wonderful botanical garden on this side of the town; +perhaps the first ever seen in this country." + +"I know all about it," replied Sylvia, resenting this slight +upon her erudition. "Georgiana has my father's copy, and his was +presented to him by Mr. Audubon." + +"Audubon?" I said, with a doubt. + +"Never heard of Audubon?" cried Sylvia, delighted to show up my +ignorance. + +"Only of the great Audubon, Miss Sylvia; the _great_, the very +_great_ Audubon." + +"Well, this was the _great_, the very _great_ Audubon. He lived +in Henderson, and kept a corn-mill. He and my father were friends, +and he gave my father some of his early drawings of Kentucky +birds. Georgiana has them now, and that is where she gets her love +of birds--from my father, who got his from the _great_, the very +_great_ Audubon." + +"Would Miss Cobb let me see these drawings?" I asked, eagerly. + +"She might; but she prizes them as much as if they were stray leaves +out of the only Bible in the world." + +As Sylvia turned inside out this pocket of her mind, there had +dropped out a key to her sister's conduct. Now I understood her +slighting attitude towards my knowledge of birds. But I shall +feel some interest in Miss Cobb from this time on. I never dreamed +that she could bring me fresh news of that rare spirit whom I have +so wished to see, and for one week in the woods with whom I would +give any year of my life. Are they possibly the Henderson family +to whom Audubon intrusted the box of his original drawings during +his absence in Philadelphia, and who let a pair of Norway rats rear +a family in it, and cut to pieces nearly a thousand inhabitants of +the air? + + +There are two more days of June. Since the talk with Sylvia I have +called twice more upon the elder Miss Cobb. Upon reflection, it +is misleading to refer to this young lady in terms so dry, stiff, +and denuded; and I shall drop into Sylvia's form, and call her +simply Georgiana. That looks better--Georgiana! It sounds well, +too--Georgiana! + +Georgiana, then, is a rather elusive character. The more I see of +her the less I understand her. If your nature draws near hers, it +retreats. If you pursue, it flies--a little frightened perhaps. +If then you keep still and look perfectly safe, she will return, +but remain at a fixed distance, like a bird that will stay in your +yard, but not enter your house. It is hardly shyness, for she is not +shy, but more like some strain of wild nature in her that refuses +to be domesticated. One's faith is strained to accept Sylvia's +estimate that Georgiana is deep--she is so light, so airy, so +playful. Sylvia is a demure little dove that has pulled over itself +an owl's skin, and is much prouder of its wicked old feathers than +of its innocent heart; but Georgiana--what is she? Secretly an +owl with the buoyancy of a humming-bird? However, it's nothing to +me. She hovers around her mother and Sylvia with a fondness that +is rather beautiful. I did not mention the subject of Audubon and +her father, for it is never well to let an elder sister know that +a younger one has been talking about her. I merely gave her several +chances to speak of birds, but she ignored them. As for me and +_my_ love of birds, such trifles are beneath her notice. I don't +like her, and it will not be worth while to call again soon, though +it would be pleasant to see those drawings. + +This morning as I was accidentally passing under her window I saw +her at it and lifted my hat. She leaned over with her cheek in +her palm, and said, smiling, + +"You mustn't spoil Sylvia!" + +"What is my definite offence in that regard?" + +"Too much arbor, too many flowers, too much fine treatment." + +"Does fine treatment ever harm anybody? Is it not bad treatment +that spoils people?" + +"Good treatment may never spoil people who are old enough to know +its rarity and value. But you say you are a student of nature; +have you not observed that nature never lets the sugar get to things +until they are ripe? Children must be kept tart." + +"The next time that Miss Sylvia comes over, then, I am to give +her a tremendous scolding and a big basket of green apples." + +"Or, what is worse, suppose you encourage her to study the Greatest +Common Divisor? I am trying to get her ready for school in the +fall." + +"Is she being educated for a teacher?" + +"You know that Southern ladies never teach." + +"Then she will never need the Greatest Common Divisor. I have +known many thousands of human beings, and none but teachers ever +have the least use for the Greatest Common Divisor." + +"But she needs to do things that she dislikes. We all do." + +I smiled at the memory of a self-willed little bare foot on a log +years ago. + +"I shall see that my grape arbor does not further interfere with +Miss Sylvia's progress towards perfection." + +"Why didn't you wish us to be your neighbors?" + +"I didn't know that you were the right sort of people." + +"_Are_ we the right sort?" + +"The value of my land has almost been doubled." + +It is a pleasure to know that you approve of us on those grounds. +Will the value of _our_ land rise also, do you think? And why do +you suppose we objected to _you_ as a neighbor?" + +"I cannot imagine." + +"The imagination can be cultivated, you know. Then tell me this: +why do Kentuckians in this part of Kentucky think so much of +themselves compared with the rest of the world?" + +"Perhaps it's because they are Virginians. There may be various +reasons." + +"Do the people ever tell what the reasons are?" + +"I have never heard one." + +"And if we stayed here long enough, and imitated them very closely, +do you suppose we would get to feel the same way?" + +"I am sure of it." + +"It must be so pleasant to consider Kentucky the best part of +the world, and _your_ part of Kentucky the best of the State, and +_your_ family the best of all the best families in that best part, +and yourself the best member of your family. Ought not that to +make one perfectly happy?" + +"I have often observed that it seems to do so." + +"It is delightful to remember that _you_ approve of us. And we +should feel _so_ glad to be able to return the compliment. Good-bye!" + + +Any one would have to admit, however, that there is no sharpness +in Georgiana's pleasantry. The child-nature in her is so sunny, +sportive, so bent on harmless mischief. She still plays with life +as a kitten with a ball of yarn. Some day Kitty will fall asleep +with the Ball poised in the cup of one foot. Then, waking, when +her dream is over, she will find that her plaything has become +a rocky, thorny, storm-swept, immeasurable world, and that she, a +woman, stands holding out towards it her imploring arms, and asking +only for some littlest part in its infinite destinies. + + +After the last talk with Georgiana I felt renewed desire to see those +Audubon drawings. So yesterday morning I sent over to her some +things written by a Northern man, whom I call the young Audubon +of the Maine woods. His name is Henry D. Thoreau, and it is, I +believe, known only to me down here. Everything that I can find of +his is as pure and cold and lonely as a wild cedar of the mountain +rocks, standing far above its smokeless valley and hushed white +river. She returned them to-day with word that she would thank me +in person, and to-night I went over in a state of rather senseless +eagerness. + +Her mother and sister had gone out, and she sat on the dark porch +alone. The things of Thoreau's have interested her, and she asked +me to tell her all I knew of him, which was little enough. Then +of her own accord she began to speak of her father and Audubon--of +the one with the worship of love, of the other with the worship +of greatness. I felt as though I were in a moonlit cathedral; for +her voice, the whole revelation of her nature, made the spot so +impressive and so sacred. She scarcely addressed _me_; she was +communing with them. Nothing that her father told her regarding +Audubon appears to have been forgotten; and, brought nearer than +ever before to that lofty, tireless spirit in its wanderings through +the Kentucky forests, I almost forgot her to whom I was listening. +But in the midst of it she stopped, and it was again kitten and yarn. +I left quite as abruptly. Upon my soul, I believe that Georgiana +doesn't think me worth talking to seriously. + + + +VII + + +July has dragged like a log across a wet field. + +There was the Fourth, which is always the grandest occasion of the +year with us. Society has taken up Sylvia and rejected Georgiana; +and so with its great gallantry, and to her boundless delight, +Sylvia was invited to sit with a bevy of girls in a large furniture +wagon covered with flags and bunting. The girls were to be dressed +in white, carry flowers and flags, and sing "The Star-spangled +Banner" in the procession, just before the fire-engine. I wrote a +note to Georgiana, asking whether it would interfere with Sylvia's +Greatest Common Divisor if I presented her with a profusion of +elegant flowers on that occasion. Georgiana herself had equipped +Sylvia with a truly exquisite silken flag on a silver staff; and +as Sylvia both sang and waved with all her might, not only to keep +up the Green River reputation in such matters, but with a mediaeval +determination to attract a young man on the fire-engine behind, +she quite eclipsed every other miss in the wagon, and was not even +hoarse when persuaded at last to stop. So that several of the +representatives of the other States voted afterwards in a special +congress that she was loud, and in no way as nice as they had +fancied, and that they ought never to recognize her again except +in church and a funerals. + +And then the month brought down from West Point the son of the +family, who cut _off_--or cut _at_--Georgiana's toes, I remember. +With him a sort of cousin, who lives in New York State; and after +a few days of toploftical strutting around town, and a pussillanimous +crack or two over the back-garden fence at my birds, they went away +again, to the home of this New York cousin, carrying Georgiana with +them to spend the summer. + +Nothing has happened since. Only Sylvia and I have been making hay +while the sun shines--or does not shine, if one chooses to regard +Georgiana's absence in that cloudy fashion. Sylvia's ordinary armor +consists of a slate-pencil for a spear, a slate for a shield, and +a volume of Sir Walter for a battle-axe. Now and then I have found +her sitting alone in the arbor with the drooping air of Lucy Ashton +beside the fountain; and she would be better pleased if I met her +clandestinely there in cloak and plume with the deadly complexion +of Ravenswood. + +The other day I caught her toiling at something, and she admitted +being at work on a poem which would be about half as long as the +"Lay of the Last Minstrel." She read me the opening lines, after +that bland habit of young writer; and as nearly as I recollect, +they began as follows: + +"I love to have gardens, I love to have plants, I love to have +air, and I love to have ants." + +When not under the spell of mediaeval chivalry she prattles needlessly +of Georgiana, early life, and their old home in Henderson. Although +I have pointed out to her the gross impropriety of her conduct, she +has persisted in reading me some of Georgiana's letters, written +from the home of that New York cousin, whose mother they are now +visiting. I didn't like _him_ particularly. Sylvia relates that +he was a favorite of her father's. + +The dull month passes to-day. One thing I have secretly wished to +learn; did her brother cut Georgiana's toes entirely off? + + + +VIII + + +In August the pale and delicate poetry of the Kentucky land makes +itself felt as silence and repose. Still skies, still woods, still +sheets of forest water, still flocks and herds, long lanes winding +without the sound of a traveller through fields of the universal +brooding stillness. The sun no longer blazing, but muffled in a +veil of palest blue. No more black clouds rumbling and rushing up +from the horizon, but a single white one brushing slowly against +the zenith like the lost wing of a swan. Far beneath it the +silver-breasted hawk, using the cloud as his lordly parasol. The +eagerness of spring gone, now all but incredible as having ever +existed; the birds hushed and hiding; the bee, so nimble once, +fallen asleep over his own cider-press in the shadow of the golden +apple. From the depths of the woods may come the notes of the +cuckoo; but they strike the air more and more slowly, like the +clack, clack of a distant wheel that is being stopped at the close +of harvest. The whirring wings of the locust let themselves go +in one long wave of sound, passing into silence. All nature is a +vast sacred goblet, filling drop by drop to the brim, and not to +be shaken. But the stalks of the later flowers begin to be stuffed +with hurrying bloom lest they be too late; and the nighthawk rapidly +mounts his stairway of flight higher and higher, higher and higher, +as though he would rise above the warm white sea of atmosphere and +breathe in cold ether. + +Always in August my nature will go its own way and seek its own +peace. I roam solitary, but never alone, over this rich pastoral +land, crossing farm after farm, and keeping as best I can out of +sight of the laboring or loitering negroes. For the sight of them +ruins every landscape, and I shall never feel myself free till +they are gone. What if they sing? The more is the pity that any +human being could be happy enough to sing so long as he was a slave +in any thought or fibre of his nature. + +Sometimes it is through the after-math of fat wheat-fields, where +float like myriad little nets of silver gauze the webs of the +crafty weavers, and where a whole world of winged small folk flit +from tree-top to tree-top of the low weeds. They are all mine--these +Kentucky wheat-fields. After the owner has taken from them his +last sheaf I come in and gather my harvest also--one that he did +not see, and doubtless would not begrudge me--the harvest of beauty. +Or I walk beside tufted aromatic hemp-fields, as along the shores +of softly foaming emerald seas; or past the rank and file of fields +of Indian-corn, which stand like armies that had gotten ready +to march, but been kept waiting for further orders, until at last +the soldiers had gotten tired, as the gayest will, of their yellow +plumes and green ribbons, and let their big hands fall heavily down +at their sides. There the white and the purple morning-glories +hang their long festoons and open to the soft midnight winds their +elfin trumpets. + +This year as never before I have felt the beauty of the world. +And with the new brightness in which every common scene has been +apparelled there has stirred within me a need of human companionship +unknown in the past. It is as if Nature had spread out her last +loveliness and said: "See! You have before you now all that you +can ever get from me! It is not enough. Realize this in time. I +am your Mother. Love me as a child. But remember! such love can +be only a little part of your life." + +Therefore I have spent the month restless, on the eve of change, +drawn to Nature, driven from her. In September it will be different, +for then there are more things to do on my small farm, and I see +people on account of my grapes and pears. My malady this August +has been an idle mind--so idle that a letter from Georgiana seems +its main event. This was written from the old home of Audubon on +the Hudson, whither they had gone sight-seeing. It must have been +to her much like a pilgrimage to a shrine. She wrote informally, +telling me about the place and enclosing a sprig of cedar from one +of the trees in the yard. Her mind was evidently overflowing on +the subject. It was rather pleasant to have the overflow turned +my way. I shall plant the cedar where it will say always green. + +I saw Georgiana once more before he leaving. The sudden appearance +of her brother and cousin, and the new that she would return with +them for the summer, spurred me up to make another attempt at those +Audubon drawings. + +How easy it was to get them! It is what a man thinks a woman will +be willing to do that she seldom does. But she made a confession. +When she first found that I was a smallish student of birds, she +feared I would not like Audubon, since men so often sneer at those +who do in a grand way what they can do only in a poor one. I had +another revelation of Georgiana's more serious nature, which is +always aroused by the memory of her father. There is something +beautiful and steadfast in this girl's soul. In our hemisphere vines +climb round from left to right; if Georgiana loved you she would, +if bidden, reverse every law of her nature for you as completely +as a vine that you had caused to twine from right to left. + +Sylvia enters school the 1st of September, and Georgiana is to be +at home then to see to that. How surely she drives this family +before her--and with as gentle a touch as that of a slow south wind +upon the clouds. + +Those poor fist drawings of Audubon! He succeeded; we study his +early failures. The world never studies the failures of those who +do not succeed in the end. + +The birds are moulting. If man could only moult also--his mind +once a year its errors, his heart once a year its useless passions! +How fine we should all look if every August the old plumage of our +natures would drop out and be blown away, and fresh quills take the +vacant places! But we have one set of feathers to last us through +our threescore years and ten--one set of spotless feathers, which +we are told to keep spotless through all our lives in a dirty world. +If one gets broken it stays; if one gets blackened, nothing will +cleanse it. No doubt we shall all fly home at last, like a flock +of pigeons that were once turned loose snow-white from the sky, and +made to descend and fight one another and fight everything else for +a poor living amid soot and mire. If then the hand of the unseen +Fancier is stretched forth to draw us in, how can he possibly +smite any one of us, or cast us away, because we came back to him +black and blue with bruises and besmudged and bedraggled past all +recognition? + + + +IX + + +To-day, the 7th of September, I made a discovery. The pair of +red-birds that built in my cedar-trees last winter got duly away +with the brood. Several times during summer rambles I cast my eye +about, but they were not to be seen. Early this afternoon I struck +out across the country towards a sinkhole in a field two miles away, +some fifty yards in diameter, very deep, and enclosed by a fence. +A series of these circular basins, at regular distances apart, runs +across the country over there, suggesting the remains of ancient +earth-works. The bottom had dropped out of this one, probably +communicating with the many caves that are characteristic of this +blue limestone. + +Within the fence everything is an impenetrable thicket of weeds and +vines--blackberry, thistle, ironweed, pokeweed, elder, golden-rod. +As I drew near, I saw two or three birds dive down, with the shy way +they have at this season; and when I came to the edge, everything +was quiet. But I threw a stone at a point where the tangle was deep, +and there was a great fluttering and scattering of the pretenders. +And then occurred more than I had looked for. The stone had +hardly struck the brush when what looked like a tongue of vermilion +flame leaped forth near by, and, darting across, stuck itself out +of sight in the green vines on the opposite slope. A male and +a female cardinal flew up also, balancing themselves on sprays of +the blackberry, and uttering excitedly their quick call-notes. I +whistled to the male as I had been used, and he recognized me +by shooting up his crest and hopping to nearer twigs with louder +inquiry. All at once, as if an idea had struck him, he sprang +across to the spot where the first frightened male had disappeared. +I could still hear him under the vines, and presently he reappeared +and flew up into a locust-tree on the farther edge of the basin, +followed by the other. What had taken place or took place then I +do not know; but I wished he might be saying: "My son, that man +over there is the one who was very good to your mother and me last +winter, and who owns the tree you were born in. I have warned +you, of course, never to trust Man; but I would advise you, when +you have found your sweetheart, to give he a trial, and take her +to his cedar-trees." + +If he said anything like this, it certainly had a terrible effect +of the son; for, having mounted rapidly to the tree-top, he clove +the blue with his scarlet wings as though he were flying from death. +I lost sight of him over a corn-field. One fact pleased me: the +father retuned to his partner under the briers, for he is not of +the lower sort who forget the mother when the children are reared. +They hold faithfully together during the ever more silent, ever more +shadowy autumn days; his warming breast is close to hers through +frozen winter nights; and if they both live to see another May she +is still all the world to him, and woe to any brilliant vagabond +who should warble a wanton love-song under her holy windows. + +Georgiana returned the last of August. The nest morning she was +at her window, looking across into my yard. I was obliged to pass +that way, and welcomed her gayly, expressing my thanks for the +letter. + +"I had to come back, you see," she said, with calm simplicity. I +lingered awkwardly, stripping upward the stalks of some weeds. + +"Very few Kentucky birds are migratory," I replied at length, with +desperate brilliancy and an overwhelming grimace. + +"I shall go back some time--to say," she said, and turned away with +a parting faintest smile. + +I that West Point brother giving trouble? If so, the sooner a war +breaks out and he gets killed, the better. One thing is certain: +if, for the next month, fruit and flowers will give Georgiana any +pleasure, she shall have a good deal of pleasure. She is so changed! +But why need I take on about it? + +They have been cleaning out a drain under the streets along the +Town Fork of Elkhorn, and several people are down with fever. + + + +X + + +New-Year's night again, and bitter cold. + +When I forced myself away from my fire before dark, and ran down to +the stable to see about feeding and bedding the horses and cows, +every beast had its head drawn in towards its shoulders, and +looked at me with the dismal air of saying, "Who is tempering the +wind now?" The dogs in the kennel, with their noses between their +hind-legs, were shivering under their blankets and straw like +a nest of chilled young birds. The fowls on the roost were mere +white and blue puffs of feathers. Nature alone has the making of +her creatures; why doesn't she make them comfortable? + +After supper old Jack and Dilsy came in, and standing against the +wall with their arms folded, told me more of what happened after I +got sick. That was about the middle of September, and it is only +two weeks since I became well enough to go in and out through all +sorts of weather. + +It was the middle of September then, my servants said, and as within +a week after taking the fever I was very ill, a great many people +came out to inquire for me. Some of these, walking around the +garden, declared it was a pity for such fruit and flowers to be +wasted, and so helped themselves freely every time. The old doctor, +who always fears for my health at this season, stopped by nearly +every day to repeat how he had warned me, and always walked back to +his gig in a round-about way, which required him to pass a favorite +tree; and once he was so indignant to find several other persons +gathered there, and mournfully enjoying the last of the fruit as +they predicted I would never get well, that he came back to the +house--with two pears in each duster pocket and one in his mouth--and +told Jack it was an outrage. The preacher, likewise, who appears +in the spring-time, one afternoon knocked reproachfully at the +front door and inquired whether I was in a condition to be reasoned +with. In his hand he carried a nice little work-basket, which may +have been brought along to catch his prayers; but he took it home +piled with grapes. + +And then they told me, also, how many a good and kind soul came +with hushed footsteps and low inquires, turning away sometimes +with brightened faces, sometimes with rising tears--often people +to whom I had done no kindness or did not even know; how others, +whom I had quarrelled with or did not like, forgot the poor puny +quarrels and the dislike, and begged to do for me whatever they +could; how friends went softly around the garden, caring for a +flower, putting a prop under a too heavily-laden limb, or climbing +on step-ladders to tie sacks around the finest bunches of grapes, +with the hope that I might be well in time to eat them--touching +nothing themselves, having no heart to eat; how dear, dear ones +would never leave me day or night; how a good doctor wore himself +out with watching, and a good pastor sent up for me his spotless +prayers; and at last, when I began to mend, how from far and near +there poured in flowers and jellies and wines, until, had I been +the multitude by the Sea of Galilee, there must have been baskets +to spare. God bless them! God bless them all! And God forgive +us all the blindness, the weakness, and the cruelty with which we +judge each other when we are in health. + +This and more my beloved old negroes told me a few hours ago, as +I sat in deep comfort and bright health again before my blazing +hickories; and one moment we were in laughter and the next in +tears--as is the strange life we live. This is a gay household now, +and Dilsy cannot face me without a fleshly earthquake of laughter +that I have become such a high-tempered tiger about punctual meals. + +In particular, my two nearest neighbors were much at odds as to +which had better claim to nurse me; so that one day Mrs. Walters, +able to endure it no longer, thrust Mrs. Cobb out of the house by +the shoulder-blades, locked the door on her, and them opened the +shutters and scolded her out of the window. + +One thing I miss. My servants have never called the name of +Georgiana. The omission is unnatural, and must be intentional. +Of course I have not asked whether she showed any care; but that +little spot of silence affects me as the sight of a tree remaining +leafless in the woods where everything else is turning green. + + + +XI + + +To-day I was standing at a window, looking out at the aged row of +cedars, now laden with snow, and thinking of Horace and Soracte. +Suddenly, beneath a jutting pinnacle of white boughs which left +under themselves one little spot of green, I saw a cardinal hop +out and sit full-breasted towards me. The idea flashed through +my mind that this might be that shyest, most beautiful fellow whom +I had found in September, and whom I tried to make out as the son +of my last winter's pensioner. At least he has never lived in my +yard before; for when, to test his shyness, I started to raise the +window-sash, at the first noise of it he was gone. My birds are +not so afraid of me. I must get on better terms with this stranger. + +Mrs. Walters over for a while afterwards. I told her of my fancy +that this bird was one of last summer's brood, and that he appeared +a trifle larger than any male I had ever seen. She said of course. +Had I not fed the parents all last winter? When she fed her hens, +did they not lay bigger eggs? Did not bigger eggs contain bigger +chicks? Did not bigger chicks become bigger hens, again? According +to Mrs. Walters, a single winter's feeding of hot corn-meal, +scraps of bacon, and pods of red pepper will all but bring about +a variation of species; and so if the assumed rate at which I am +now going were kept up a hundred years, my cedar-trees might be +full of a race of red-birds as large and as fat as geese. + +Standing towards sundown at another window, I saw Georgiana sewing +at hers, as I have seen her every day since I got out of bed. Why +should she sew so much? There is a servant also; and they sew, +sew, sew, as if eternal sewing were eternal happiness, eternal +salvation. The first day she sprang up, letting her work roll off +her lap, and waved her handkerchief inside the panes, and smiled +with what looked to me like radiant pleasure that I was well again. +I was weak and began to tremble, and, going back to the fireside, +lay back in my chair with a beating of the heart that was a warning. +Since then she has recognized me by only a quiet kindly smile. Why +has no one ever called her name? I believe Mrs. Walters knows. +She comes nowadays as if to tell something, and goes away with a +struggle that she has not told it. But a secret can no more stay +in the depths of Mrs. Walter's mind than cork at the bottom of +water; some day I shall see this mystery riding on the surface. + + + +XII + + +Yes, she knew; while unconscious I talked of Georgiana, of being +in love with her. Mrs. Walters added, sadly, that Georgiana +came home in the fall engaged to that New York cousin. Hence the +sewing--he is to marry her in June. + +I am _not_ in love with her. It is now four weeks since hearing +this conventional fiction, and every day I have been perfectly +able to repeat: "I am _not_ in love with Georgiana!" There was +one question which I put severely to Mrs. Walters: Had she told +Georgiana of my foolish talk? She shook her head violently, and +pressed her lips closely together, suggesting how impossible it +would be for the smallest monosyllable in the language to escape +by that channel; but she kept her eyes wide open, and the truth +issued from them, as smoke in a hollow tree, if stopped in at a +lower hole, simply rises and comes out at a higher one. "You should +have shut your eyes also," I said. "You have told her every word +of it, and the Lord only knows how much more." + +This February has let loose its whole pack of grizzly sky-hounds. +Unbroken severe weather. Health has not returned as rapidly as was +promised, and I have not ventured outside the yard. But it is a +pleasure to chronicle the beginning of an acquaintanceship between +his proud eminence the young cardinal and myself. For a long time +he would have naught to do with me, fled as I approached, abandoned +the evergreens altogether and sat on the naked tree-tops, as much +as threatening to quit the place altogether if I did not leave him +in peace. Surely he is the shyest of his kind, and, to my fancy, +the most beautiful; and therefore Nature seems to have stored him +with extra caution towards archenemy. + +But in the old human way I have taken advantage of his necessities. +The north wind has been by friend against him. I have called +in the aid of sleets and snows, have besieged him in his white +castle behind the glittering array of his icicles with threats of +starvation. So one day, dropping like a glowing coal down among +the other birds, he snatched a desperate hasty meal from the public +poor-house table that I had spread under the trees. + +It is the first surrender that decides. Since then some progress +has been made in winning his confidence, but the struggle going on +in his nature is plain enough still. At times he will rush away +from me in utter terror; at others he lets me draw a little nearer, +a little nearer, without moving form a limb; and now, after a month +of persuasion, he begins to discredit the experience which he has +inherited from centuries upon centuries of ancestors. In all that +I have done I have tried to say to him: "Don't judge me by mankind +in general. With me you are safe. I pledge myself to defend you +from enemies, high and low." + +This had not escaped the notice of Georgiana at the window, and more +than once she had let her work drop to watch my patient progress +and to bestow upon me a rewarding smile. Is there nearly always +sadness in it, or is the sadness in my eyes? If Georgiana's brother +is giving her trouble, I'd like to take a hand-axe to _his_ feet. +I suppose I shall never know whether he cut her foot in two. She +carries the left one a little peculiarly; but so many women do +that. + +Sometimes, when the day's work is over and the servant is gone, +Georgiana comes to the window and looks away towards the sunsets +of winter, her hands clasped behind her back, her motionless figure +in relief against the darkness within, her face white and still. +Being in the shadow of my own room, so that she could not see me, +and knowing that I ought not to do it, but unable to resist, I have +softly taken up the spy-glass which I use in the study of birds, +and have drawn Georgiana's face nearer to me, holding it there +till she turns away. I have noted the traces of pain, and once +the tears which she could not keep back and was too proud to heed. +Then I have sat before my flickering embers, with I know not what +all but ungovernable yearning to be over there in the shadowy room +with her, and, whether she would or not, to fold my arms around +her, and, drawing her face against mine, whisper: "What is it +Georgiana? And why must it be?" + + + +XIII + + +The fountains of the great deep opened. A new heaven, a new earth. +Georgiana has broken her engagement with her cousin. Mrs. Cobb let +it out in the strictest confidence to Mrs. Walters. Mrs. Walters, +with stricter confidence still, has told me only. + +The West-Pointer had been writing for some months in regard to +the wild behavior of his cousin. This grew worse, and the crisis +came. Georgiana snapped her thread and put up her needle. He +travelled all the way down her to implore. I met him at the gate +as he left the house--a fine, straight, manly, handsome young +fellow, with his face pale with pain, and his eyes flashing with +anger--and bade him a long, affectionate, inward God-speed as he +hurried away. It was her father's influence. He had always wished +for this union. Ah, the evils that come to the living from the +wrongful wishes of the dead! Georgiana is so happy now, since she +has been forced to free herself, that spring in this part of the +United States seems to have advanced about half a month. + +"What on earth will she do with all those clothes?" inquired Mrs. +Walters the other night, eying me with curious impressiveness. + +"They ought to be hanged," I said, promptly. + +There is a young scapegrace who passes my house morning and evening +with his cows. He has the predatory instincts of that being +who loves to call himself the image of his Maker, and more than +once has given annoyance, especially last year, when he robbed a +damson-tree of a brood of Baltimore orioles. This winter and spring +his friendly interest in my birds has increased, and several times +I have caught him skulking among the pines. Last night what should +I stumble on but a trap, baited and sprung, under the cedar-tree in +which the cardinal roosts. I was up before daybreak this morning. +Awhile after the waking of the birds here comes my young bird-thief, +creeping rapidly to his trap. As he stooped I had him by the +collar, and within the next five minutes I must have set up in his +nervous system a negative disposition to the caging of red-birds +that will descend as a positive tendency to all the generations of +his offspring. + +All day this meditated outrage has kept my blood up. Think of this +beautiful cardinal beating his heart out against maddening bars, or +caged for life in some dark city street, lonely, sick, and silent, +bidden to sing joyously of that high world of light and liberty where +once he sported! Think of the exquisite refinement of cruelty in +wishing to take him on the eve of May! + +It is hardly a fancy that something as loyal as friendship has +sprung up between this bird and me. I accept his original shyness +as a mark of his finer instincts; but, like the nobler natures, +when once he found it possible to give his confidence, how frankly +and fearlessly has it been given. The other day, brilliant, warm, +windless, I was tramping across the fields a mile from home, when I +heard him on the summit of a dead sycamore, cleaving the air with +stroke after stroke of his long melodious whistle, as with the swing +of a silken lash. When I drew near he dropped down from bough to +bough till he reached the lowest, a few feet from where I stood, +and showed by every movement how glad he was to see me. We really +have reached the understanding that the immemorial persecution +of his race by mine is ended; and now more than ever my fondness +settles about him, since I have found his happiness plotted against, +and have perhaps saved his very life. It would be easy to trap +him. His eye should be made to distrust every well-arranged pile +of sticks under which lurks a morsel. + +To=night I called upon Georgiana and sketched the arrested tragedy +of the morning. She watched me curiously, and then dashed into a +little treatise on the celebrated friendships of man for the lower +creatures, in fact and fiction, from camels down to white mice. +Her father must have been a remarkably learned man. I didn't +like this. It made me somehow feel as though I were one of Asp's +Fables, or were being translated into English as that old school-room +horror of Androclus and the Lion. In the bottom of my soul I don't +believe that Georgiana cares for birds, or knows the difference +between a blackbird and a crow. I am going to send her a little +story, "The Passion of the Desert." Mrs. Walters is now confident +that Georgiana regrets having broken off her engagement. But then +Mrs. Walters can be a great fool when she puts her whole mind to +it. + + + +XIV + + +In April I commence to scratch and dig in my garden. + +To-day, as I was raking off my strawberry bed, Georgiana, whom I +have not seen since the night when she satirized me, called from +the window: + +"What are you going to plant this year?" + +"Oh, a little of everything," I answered, under my hat. "What are +_you_ going to plant this year?" + +"Are you going to have many strawberries?" + +"It's too soon to tell: they haven't bloomed yet. It's too soon +to tell when they _do_ bloom. Sometimes strawberries are like +women: Whole beds full of showy blossoms; but when the time comes +to be ripe and luscious, you can't find them." + +"Indeed." + +"'Tis true, 'tis pity." + +I had always supposed that to a Southern gentleman woman was not a +berry but a rose. What does he hunt for in woman as much as bloom +and fragrance? But I don't belong to the rose-order of Southern +women myself. Sylvia does. Why did you send me that story?" + +"Didn't you like it?" + +"No. A woman couldn't care for a story about a man and a tigress. +Either she would feel that she was too much left out, or suspect +that she was too much put in. The same sort of story about a lion +and a woman--that would be better." + +I raked in silence for a minute, and when I looked up Georgiana +was gone. I remember her saying once that children should be kept +tart; but now and then I fancy that she would like to keep even a +middle-aged man in brine. Who knows but that in the end I shall +sell my place to the Cobbs and move away? + + +Five more days of April, and then May! For the last half of this +light-and-shadow month, when the clouds, like schools of changeable +lovely creatures, seem to be playing and rushing away through the +waters of the sun, life to me has narrowed more and more to the +red-bird, who gets tamer and tamer with habit, and to Georgiana, +who gets wilder and wilder with happiness. The bird fills the yard +with brilliant singing; she fills her room with her low, clear +songs, hidden behind the window-curtains, which are now so much +oftener and so needlessly closed. I work myself nearly to death in +my garden, but she does not open them. The other day the red-bird +sat in a tree near by, and his notes floated out on the air like +scarlet streamers. Georgiana was singing, so low that I was making +no noise with my rake in order to hear; and when he began, before +I realized what I was doing, I had seized a brickbat and hurled +it, barely missing him, and driving him away. He did not know what +to make of it; neither did I; but as I raised my eyes I saw that +Georgiana had opened the curtains to listen to him, and was closing +them with her eyes on my face, and a look on hers that has haunted +me ever since. + + +April the 26th. It's of no use. To-morrow night I will go to see +Georgiana, and ask her to marry me. + + +April 28th. Man that is born of woman is of few days and full +of trouble. I am not the least sick, but I am not feeling at all +well. So have made a will, and left everything to Mrs. Walters. +She has been over five times to-day, and this evening sat by me a +long time, holding my hand and smoothing my forehead, and urging +me to try a cream poultice--a mustard-plaster--a bowl of gruel--a +broiled chicken. + +I believe Georgiana thinks I'll ask her again. Not if I lived by +her through eternity! Thy rod and Thy staff--_they_ comfort me. + + + +XV + + +A Poor devil will ask a woman to marry him. She will refuse him. +The day after she will meet him as serenely as if he had asked her +for a pin. + +It is now May 15th, and I have not spoken to Georgians when I've +had a chance. She has been entirely too happy, to judge from her +singing, for me to get along with under the circumstances. But +this morning, as I was planting a hedge inside my fence under her +window, she leaned over and said, as though nothing were wrong +between us, "What are you planting?" + +I have sometimes thought that Georgiana can ask more questions than +Socrates. + +"A hedge." + +"What for?" + +"To grow." + +"What do you want it to grow for?" + +"My garden is too public. I wish to be protected from outsiders." + +"Would it be the same thing if I were to nail up this window? That +would be so much quicker. It will be ten years before your hedge +is high enough to keep me from seeing you. And even then, you +know, I could move up-stairs. But I am so sorry to be an outsider." + +"I merely remarked that I was planting a hedge." + +When Georgiana spoke again her voice was lowered: "Would you open +a gateway for me into your garden, to be always mine, so that I +might go out and come in, and never another human soul enter it?" + +Now Jacob had often begged me to cut _him_ a private gateway on +that side of the garden, so that only _he_ might come in and go +out; and I had refused, since I did not wish him to get to me so +easily with his complaints. Besides, a gate once opened, who may +not use it? and I was indignant that Georgiana should lightly ask +anything at my hands; therefore I looked quickly and sternly up at +her and said, "I will not." + +Afterwards the thought rushed over me that she had not spoken of +any gateway through my garden fence, but of another one, mystical, +hidden, infinitely more sacred. For her voice descended almost in +a whisper, and her face, as she bent down towards me, had on it I +know not what angelic expression. She seemed floating to me from +heaven. + + +May 17th. To-day I put a little private gate through my fence +under Georgiana's window, as a sign to her. Balaam's beast that +I am! Yes, seven times more than the inspired ass. + + +As I passed to-day, I noticed Georgiana looking down at the gate +that I made yesterday. She held a flower to her nose and eyes, +but behind the leaves I detected that she was laughing. + +"Good-morning!" she called to me. "What did you cut that ugly hole +in your fence for?" + +"That's not an ugly hole. That's a little private gateway." + +"But what's the little private gateway _for_?" + +"Oh, well! You don't understand these matters. I'll tell your +mother." + +"My mother is too old. She no longer stoops to such things. Tell +_me_! + +"Impossible!" + +"I'm dying to know!" + +"What will you give me?" + +"Anything--this flower!" + +"But what would the flower stand for in that case? A little pri--" + +"Nothing. Take it!" and she dropped it lightly on my face and +disappeared. As I stood twirling it ecstatically under my nose, +and wondering how I could get her to come back to the window, the +edge of a curtain was lifted, and a white hand stole out and softly +closed the shutters. + +In the evening Sylvia went in to a concert of the school, which was +to be held at the Court-house, a chorus of girls being impaneled +in the jury-box, and the principal, who wears a little wig, taking +her seat on the woolsack. I promised to have the very pick of the +garden ready, and told Sylvia to come to the arbor the last thing +before starting. She wore big blue rosettes in her hair, and at +that twilight hour looked as lovely, soft, and pure as moonshine; +so that I lost control of myself and kissed her twice--once for +Georgiana and once for myself. Surely it must have been Sylvia's +first experience. I hope so. Yet she passed through it with the +composure of a graduate of several year's standing. But, then, +women inherit a great stock of fortitude from their mothers in +this regard, and perpetually add to it by their own dispositions. +Ought I to warn Georgiana--good heavens! in a general way, of +course--that Sylvia should be kept away from sugar, and well under +the influence of vulgar fractions? + +It made me feel uncomfortable to see her go tripping out of her +front gate on the arm of a youth. Can it be possible the _he_ would +try to do what _I_ did? Men differ so in their virtues, and are +so alike in their transgressions. This forward gosling displayed +white duck pantaloons, brandished pumps on his feet, which looked +flat enough to have been webbed, and was scented as to his marital +locks with a far-reaching pestilence of bergamot and cinnamon. + +After they were gone I strolled back to my arbor and sat down amid +the ruins of Sylvia's flowers. The nigh was mystically beautiful. +The moon seemed to me to be softly stealing down the sky to kiss +Endymion. I looked across towards Georgiana's window. She was +there, and I slipped over and stood under it. + +"Georgiana," I whispered, "were you, too, looking at the moon?" + +"Part of the time," she said, sourly. "Isn't it permitted?" + +"Sylvia left her scissors in the arbor, and _I_ can't find them." + +"_She'll_ find them to-morrow." + +"If they get wet, you know, they'll rust." + +"I keep something to take rust off." + +"Georgiana, I've got something to tell you about Sylvia." + +"What? That you kissed her?" + +"N--o! Not _that_, exactly!" + +"Good-night!" + + +May 21st. Again I asked Georgiana to be mine. I am a perfect fool +about her. But she's coming my way at last--God bless her! + + +May 24th. I renewed my suit to Georgiana. + + +May 27th. I besought Georgiana to hear me. + + +May 28th. For the last time I offered my hand in marriage to the +elder Miss Cobb. Now I am done with her forever. I am no fool. + + +May 29th. Oh, _damn_ Mrs. Walters! + + + +XVI + + +This morning, the 3d of June, I went out to pick the first dish +of strawberries for my breakfast. As I was stooping down I heard +a timid, playful voice at the window like the echo of a year ago: +"Are you the gardener?" + +Since Georgiana will not marry me, if she would only let me alone! + +"Old man, are you the gardener?" + +"Yes, I'm the gardener. I _know_ what _you_ are." + +"How much do you ask for your strawberries?" + +"They come high. _Nothing_ of mine is to be as cheap hereafter as +it has been." + +"I am so glad--for your sake. I should like to possess _something_ +of yours, but I suppose everything is too high now." + +"Entirely too high!" + +"If I only could have foreseen that there would be an increase of +value! As for me, I have felt that I am getting cheaper lately. +I may have to _give_ myself away soon. If I only knew of some one +who loved the lower animals." + +"The fox, for instance?" + +"Yes; do you know of any one who would accept the present of a +fox?" + +"Ahem! I wouldn't mind having a _tame_ fox. I don't care much +for wild foxes." + +"Oh, this one would get tame--in time." + +"I don't believe I know of any one just at present." + +"Very well. Sylvia will get the highest mark in arithmetic. And +Joe is distinguishing himself at West Point. That's what I wanted +to tell you. I'll send you over the cream and sugar, and hope you +will enjoy all your berries. _We_ shall buy some in the market-house +next week." + +Later in the forenoon I sent the strawberries over to Georgiana. +I have a variety that is the shape of the human heart, and when +ripe it matches in color that brighter current of the heart through +which runs the hidden history of our passions. All over the top +of the dish I carefully laid these heart-shaped berries, and under +the biggest one, at the very top, I slipped this little note: "Look +at the shape of them, Georgiana! I send them all to you. They +are perishable." + +This afternoon Georgiana sent back the empty dish, and inside the +napkin was this note: "They are exactly the shape and color of my +emery needle-bag. I have been polishing my needles in it for many +years." + +Later, as I was walking to town, I met Georgiana and her mother +coming out. No explanation had ever been made to the mother of +that goose of a gate in our division fence; and as Georgiana had +declined to accept the sign, I determined to show her that the gate +could now stand for something else. So I said: "Mrs. Cobb, when +you send your servants over for green corn, you can let them come +through that little gate. It will be more convenient." + +Only, I was so angry and confused that I called her Mrs. Corn, +and said that when she sent her little Cobbs over . . . my green +servants, etc. + + +After Georgiana's last treatment of me I resolved not to let her +talk to me out of her window. So about nine o'clock this morning +I took a Negro boy and set him to picking the berries, while I +stood by, directing him in a deep, manly voice as to the best way +of managing that intricate business. Presently I heard Georgiana +begin to sing to herself behind the curtains. + +"Hurry up and fill that cup," I said to him, savagely. "And that +will do this morning. You can go to the mill. The meal's nearly +out." + +When he was gone I called, in an undertone: "Georgiana! Come to +the window! Please! Oh, Georgiana!" + +But the song went on. What was the matter? I could not endure +it. There was one way by which perhaps she could be brought. I +whistled long and loud again and again. The curtains parted a +little space. + +"I was merely whistling to the _bird_," I said. + +"I knew it," she answered, looking as I had never seen her. +"Whenever you speak to _him_ your voice is full of confidence and +of love. I believe in it and like to hear it." + +"What do you mean, Georgiana?" I cried, imploringly. + +"Ah, Adam!" she said, with a rush of feeling. It was the first time +she had ever called me by name. She bent her face down. Over it +there passed a look of sweetness and sadness indescribably blended. +"Ah, Adam! you have asked me many times to _marry_ you! Make me +believe once that you _love_ me! Make me feel that I could trust +myself to you for life!" + +"What else can I do?" I answered, stirred to the deepest that was +in me, throwing my arms backward, and standing with an open breast +into which she might gaze. + +And she did search my eyes and face in silence. + +"What more," I cried again, "in God's name?" + +She rested her face on her palm, looking thoughtfully across the +yard. Over there the red-bird was singing. Suddenly she leaned +down towards me. Love was on her face now. But her eyes held +mine with the determination to wrest from them the last truth they +might contain, and her voice trembled with doubt: + +"Would you put the red-bird in a cage for me? Would you be willing +to do that for me, Adam?" + +At those whimsical, cruel words I shall never be able to reveal +all that I felt--the surprise, the sorrow, the pain. Scenes of +boyhood flashed through my memory. A conscience built up through +years of experience stood close by me with admonition. I saw the +love on her face, the hope with which she hung upon my reply, as +though it would decide everything between us. I did not hesitate; +my hands dropped to my side, the warmth died out of my heart as +out of spent ashes, and I answered her, with cold reproach, + +"I--will--not!" + +The color died out of her face also. Her eyes still rested on +mine, but now with pitying sadness. + +"I feared it," she murmured, audibly, but to herself, and the +curtains fell together. + + +Four days have passed. Georgiana has cast me off. Her curtains +are closed except when she is not there. I have tried to see her; +she excuses herself. I have written; my letters come back unread. +I have lain in wait for her on the streets; she will not talk with +me. The tie between us has been severed. With her it could never +have been affection. + +And for what? I ask myself over and over and over--for what? Was +she jealous of the bird, and did she require that I should put it +out of the way? Sometimes women do that. Did she take that means +of forcing me to a test? Women do that. Did she wish to show +her power over me, demanding the one thing she knew would be the +hardest for me to grant? Women do that. Did she crave the pleasure +of seeing me do wrong to humor her caprice? Women do that. But +not one these things can I even associate with the thought of +Georgiana. I have in every way to have her explain, to explain +myself. She will neither give nor receive an explanation. + +I had supposed that her unnatural request would have been the end +of my love, but it has not; that her treatment since would have +fatally stung my pride, but it has not. I understand neither; forgive +both; love her now with that added pain which comes from a man's +discovering that the woman dearest to him must be pardoned--pardoned +as long as he shall live. + +Never since have I been able to look at the red-bird with the old +gladness. He is the reminder of my loss. Reminder? Do I ever +forget? Am I not thinking of that before his notes lash my memory +at dawn? All day can they do more than furrow deeper the channel +of unforgetfulness? Little does he dream what my friendship for +him has cost me. But this solace I have at heart--that I was not +even tempted to betray him. + + +Three days more have passed. No sign yet that Georgiana will +relent soon or ever. Each day the strain becomes harder to bear. +My mind has dwelt upon my last meeting with her, until the truth +about it weavers upon my memory like vague, uncertain shadows. +She doubted my love for her. What proof was it she demanded? I +must stop looking at the red-bird, lying here and there under the +trees, and listening to him as he sings above me. My eyes devour +him whenever he crosses my path with an uncomprehended fascination +that is pain. How gentle he has become, and how, without intending +it, I have deepened the perils of his life by the very gentleness +that I have brought upon him. Twice already the fate of his species +has struck at him, but I have pledged myself to be his friend. +This is his happiest season; a few days now, and he will hear the +call of his young in the nest. + +I shut myself in my workshop in the yard this morning. I did not +wish my servants to know. In there I made a bird-trap such as I +had often used when a boy. And late this afternoon I went to town +and bought a bird-cage. I was afraid the merchant would misjudge +me, and explained. He scanned my face silently. To-morrow I will +snare the red-bird down behind the pines long enough to impress on +his memory a life-long suspicion of every such artifice, and then +I will set him free again in his wide world of light. Above all +things, I must see to it that he does not wound himself or have +the least feather broken. + + +It is far past midnight now, and I have not slept or wished for +slumber. + +Constantly since darkness came on I have been watching Georgiana's +window for the light of her candle, but there has been no kindly +glimmer yet. The only radiance shed upon the gloom outside comes +from the heavens. Great cage-shaped white clouds are swung up to +the firmament, and within these pale, gentle, imprisoned lightnings +flutter feebly to escape, fall back, rise, and try again and again, +and fail. + +. . . _A little after dark this evening I carried the red-bird +over to Georgiana_. . . . + +I have seen her so little of late that I did not know she had +been away from home for days. But she expected to-night, or, at +furthest, to-morrow morning. I left the bird with the servant at +the door, who could hardly believe what he saw. As I passed out +of my front gate on my way there, the boy who returns about that +time from the pasture for his cows joined me as I hurried along, +attracted by the fluttering of the bird in the cage. + +"Is it the red-bird? _I_ tried to ketch him once," he said, +with entire forgiveness of me, as having served him right, "but +I caught something else. I'll never forget _that_ whipping. Oh, +but _wouldn't_ I like to have him! Mr. Moss, you wouldn't mind +my trying to ketch one of them little bits o' brown fellows, would +you, that hops around under them pine-trees? They ain't no account +to nobody. Oh my! but _wouldn't_ I like to have him! May I bring +_my_ trap some time, and will you help me to ketch one o' them +little bits o' brown ones? You can beat _me_ ketchin' 'em!" + +Several times to-night I have gone across and listened under +Georgiana's window. The servant must have set the cage in her +room, for, as I listened, I am sure I heard the red-bird beating +his head and breast against the wires. Awhile ago I went again, +and did not hear him. I waited a long time. . . . _He may +be quieted_. . . . + +Ah, if any one had said to me that I would ever do what I have +done, with what full, deep joy could I have throttled the lie in +his throat! I put the trap under one of the trees where I have +been used to feed him. When it fell he was not greatly frightened. +He clutched the side of it, and looked out at me. My own mind supplied +his words: "Help! I'm caught! Take me out! You promised!" When +I transferred him to the cage, for a moment his confidence lasted +still. He mounted the perch, shook his plumage, and spoke out +bravely and cheerily. Then all at once came on the terror. + + +The dawn came on this morning with its old splendor. The birds +in my yard, as of old, poured forth their songs. But those loud, +long, clear, melodious, deep-hearted, passionate, best-loved notes! +As the chorus swelled from shadowy shrubs and vines to the sparking +tree-tops I listened for some sound from Georgiana's room, but over +there I saw only the soft, slow flapping of the white curtains like +signals of distress. + +Towards ten o'clock, wandering restless, I snatched up a book, which +I had no wish to read, and went to the arbor where I had so often +discoursed to Sylvia about children's cruelty to birds. Through +the fluttering leaves the sunlight dripped as a weightless shower +of gold, and the long pendants of young fruit swayed gently in +their cool waxen greenness. Where some rotting planks crossed the +top of the arbor a blue-jay sat on her coarse nest; and presently +the mate flew to her with a worm, and then talked to her in a low +voice, as much as saying that they must now leave the place forever. +I was thinking how love softens even the voice of this file-throated +screamer, when along the garden walk came the rustle of a woman's +clothes, and, springing up, I stood face to face with Georgiana. + +"What have you done?" she implored. + +"What have _you_ done? I answered as quickly. + +"Oh, Adam, _Adam_! You have killed it! How could you? How could +you?" + +". . . Is he dead, Georgiana? Is he dead?. . ." + +I forgot everything else, and pulling my hat down over my eyes, +turned from her in the helpless shock of silence that came with +those irreparable words. + +Then in ungovernable anger, suffering, remorse, I turned upon her +where she sat: "It is _you_ who killed him! Why do you come here +to blame me? And now you pretend to be sorry. You felt no pity +when pity would have done some good. Trifler! Hypocrite! + +"It is false!" she cried, her words flashing from her whole +countenance, her form drawn up to repel the shock of the blow. + +"Did you not ask me for him?" + +"No!" + +"Oh, deny it all! It is a falsehood--invented by me on the spot. +You know nothing of it! You did not ask me to do this! And when +I have yielded, you have not run to reproach me here and to cry, +'How could you? How could you?'" + +"No! No! Every word of it--" + +"Untruth added to it all! Oh, that I should have been so deceived, +blinded, taken in!" + +"Adam!" + +"Lovely innocence! It is too much! Go away!" + +"I will not _stand_ this any longer!" she cried. "I _will_ go +away; but not till I have told you why I have acted as I have." + +"It is too late for that! I do not care to hear!" + +"Then you _shall_ hear!" she replied. "You shall know that it is +because I have believed you capable of speaking to me as you have +just spoken; believed you at heart unsparing and unjust. You think +I asked you to do what you have done? No! I asked you whether +you would be willing to do it; and when you said you would _not_, +I saw then--by your voice, your eyes, your whole face and manner--that +you _would_. Saw it as plainly at that moment, in spite of your +denial, as I see it now--the cruelty in you, the unfaithfulness, +the willingness to betray. It was for _this_ reason--not because +I heard you refuse, but because I saw you consent--that I could +not forgive you." + +She paused abruptly and looked across into my face. What she may +now have read in it I do not know. Then anger swept her on: + +"How often had I not heard you bitter and contemptuous towards +people because _they_ are treacherous, cruel! How often have you +talked of _your_ love of nature, of _our_ inhumanity towards lower +creatures! But what have _you_ done? + +"You set your fancy upon one of these creatures, lie in wait for +it, beset it with kindness, persevere in overcoming its wildness. +You are amused, delighted, proud of your success. One day--you +remember?--it sang as you had always wished to hear it. It annoyed +you, and you threw a stone at it. With a little less angry aim +you would have killed it. I have never seen anything more inhuman. +How do I know that some day you would not be tired of me, and throw +a stone at _me_? When a woman submits to this once, she will have +them thrown at her whenever she sings at the wrong time, and she +will never know when the right time is. + +"Then you thought you were asked to sacrifice it, and now you have +done that. How do I know that some day you might not be tempted +to sacrifice me?" She paused, her voice breaking, and remained +silent, as if unable to get beyond that thought. + +"If you have finished," I said, very quietly, "I have something to +say to you, and we need not meet after this. + +"I trapped the _bird_; you trapped _me_. I understood you to ask +something of me, to cast me off when I refused it. Such was my +faith in you that beneath your words I did not look for a snare. How +hard it was for me to forgive you what you asked is my own affair +now; but forgive you I did. How hard it was to grant it, that also +is now, and will always be, my own secret. I beg you merely to +believe this: knowing it to be all that you have described--and +far more than you can ever understand--still, I did it. Had you +demanded of me something worse, I should have granted that. If +you think a man will not do wrong for a woman, you are mistaken. +If you think men always love the wrong that they do for the women +whom they love, you are mistaken again. + +"You have held up my faults to me. I knew them before. I have +not loved them. Do not think that I am trying to make a virtue out +of anything I say; but in all my thoughts of you there has been no +fault of yours that I have not hidden from my sight, and have not +resolved as best I could never to see. Yet do not dream that I +have found you faultless. + +"You fear I might sacrifice you to something else. It is possible. +Every man resists temptation only to a certain point; every man +has his price. It is a risk you will run with any. + +"If you doubt that a man is capable of sacrificing one thing that +he loves to another that he loves more, tempt him, lie in wait for +his weakness, ensnare him in the toils of his greater passion, and +learn the truth. + +"I make no defence--believe all that you say. But had you loved +me, I might have been all this, and it would have been nothing." + +With this I walked slowly out of the arbor, but Georgiana stood +beside me. Her light touch was on my arm. + +"Let me see things clearly!" + +"You have a lifetime in which to see things clearly," I answered. +"How can that concern me now?" And I passed on into the house. + +During the morning I wandered restless. For a while I lay on the +grass down behind the pines. How deep and clear are the covered +springs of memory! All at once it was a morning in my boyhood on +my father's farm. I, a little Saul of Tarsus among the birds, was +on my way to the hedge-rows and woods, as to Damascus, breathing +out threatenings and slaughter. Then suddenly the childish miracle, +which no doubt had been preparing silently within my nature, wrought +itself out; for from the distant forest trees, from the old orchard, +from thicket and fence, from the wide green meadows, and down out +of the depths of the blue sky itself, a vast chorus of innocent +creatures sang to my newly opened ears the same words: "Why +persecutest thou me?" One sang it with indignation; another with +remonstrance; still another with resignation; others yet with +ethereal sadness or wild elusive pain. Once more the house-wren +aloud, "_per-se-cu-test--per-se-cu-test--per-se-cu-test--per-se-cu-test_!" +And as I peeped into the brush-pile, again the brown thrush, building +within, said, "_thou--thou--thou_!" + +Through all the years since I had thought myself changed, and craved +no greater glory than to be accounted the chief of their apostles. +But now I was stained once more with the old guilt, and once more +I could hear the birds in my yard singing that old, old chorus +against man's inhumanity. + +Towards the middle of the afternoon I went away across the country--by +any direction; I cared not what. On my way back I passed through +a large rear lot belonging to my neighbors, and adjoining my own, +in which is my stable. There has lately been imported into this +part of Kentucky from England the much-prized breed of the beautiful +white Berkshire. As I crossed the lot, near the milk-trough, +ash-heap, and paring of fruit and vegetables thrown from my neighbor's +kitchen, I saw a litter of these pigs having their awkward sport +over some strange red plaything, which one after another of them +would shake with all its might, root and tear at, or tread into +greater shapelessness. It was all there was left of him. + +I entered my long yard. If I could have been spared the sight +of that! The sun was setting. Around me was the last peace and +beauty of the world. Through a narrow avenue of trees I could see +my house, and on its clustering vines fell the angry red of the +sun darting across the cool green fields. + +The last hour of light touches the birds as it touches us. When +they sing in the morning, it is with the happiness of the earth; +but as the shadows fall strangely about them, and the helplessness +of the night comes on, their voices seem to be lifted up like the +loftiest poetry of the human spirit, with sympathy for realities +and mysteries past all understanding. + +A great choir was hymning now. On the tops of the sweet old +honeysuckles the cat-birds; robins in the low boughs of maples; on +the high limb of the elm the silvery-throated lark, who had stopped +as he passed from meadow to meadow; on a fence rail of the distant +wheat-field the quail--and many another. I walked to and fro, +receiving the voice of each as a spear hurled at my body. The sun +sank. The shadows rushed on and deepened. Suddenly, as I turned +once more in my path, I caught sight of the figure of Georgiana +moving straight towards me from the direction of the garden. She +was bareheaded, dressed in white; and she advanced over the smooth +lawn, through evergreens and shrubs, with a gentle grace and dignity +of movement such as I had never beheld. I kept my weary pace, and +when she came up I did not lift my eyes. + +"Adam!" she said, with gentle reproach. I stood still then, but +with my face turned away. + +"Forgive me!" All girlishness was gone out of her voice. It was +the woman at last. + +I turned my face farther from her, and we stood in silence. + +"I have suffered enough, Adam," she pleaded. + +I answered quietly, doggedly, for there was nothing left in me to +appeal to: + +"I am glad we can part kindly. . . . Neither of us may care much +for the kindness now, but we will not be sorry hereafter. . . . +The quarrels, the mistakes, the right and the wrong of our lives, +the misunderstandings--they are so strange, so pitiful, so full of +pain, and come so soon to nothing." And I lifted my hat, and took +the path towards my house. + +There was a point ahead where it divided, the other branch leading +towards the little private gate through which Georgiana had come. +Just before reaching the porch I looked that way, with the idea +that I should see Georgiana's white figure moving across the lawn; +but I discovered that she was following me. Mounting my door-steps, +I turned. She had paused on the threshold. I waited. At length +she said, in a voice low and sorrowful: + +"And you are not going to forgive me, Adam?" + +"I _do_ forgive you!" The silence fell and lasted. I no longer +saw her face. At last her despairing voice barely reached me again: + +"And--is--_that_--all?" + +I had no answer to make, and sternly waited for her to go. + +A moment longer she lingered, then turned slowly away; and I watched +her figure growing fainter and fainter till it was lost. I sprang +after her; my voice rang out hollow, and broke with terror and pain +and longing: + +"Georgiana! Georgiana!" + +"Oh, Adam, _Adam_!" I heard her cry, with low, piercing tenderness, +as she ran back to me through the darkness. + + +When we separated we lighted fresh candles and set them in our +windows, to burn a pure pathway of flame across the intervening +void. Henceforth we are like poor little foolish children, so +sick and lonesome in the night without one another. Happy, happy +night to come when one short candle will do for us both! + +. . . Ah, but the long, long silence of the trees! . . . + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 11532 *** diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..a0d9f80 --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #11532 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/11532) diff --git a/old/11532.txt b/old/11532.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..3396aa9 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/11532.txt @@ -0,0 +1,2795 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, A Kentucky Cardinal, by James Lane Allen + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: A Kentucky Cardinal + +Author: James Lane Allen + +Release Date: March 10, 2004 [eBook #11532] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: US-ASCII + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A KENTUCKY CARDINAL*** + + +This eBook produced by Jared Fuller. + + + +A KENTUCKY CARDINAL _A Story_ + +by James Lane Allen + + + + +Dedication + +This to her from one who in childhood used to stand at the windows +of her room and watch for the Cardinal among the snow-buried cedars. + + + + +I + + +All this New-year's Day of 1850 the sun shone cloudless but wrought +no thaw. Even the landscapes of frost on the window-panes did not +melt a flower, and the little trees still keep their silvery boughs +arched high above the jeweled avenues. During the afternoon a lean +hare limped twice across the lawn, and there was not a creature +stirring to chase it. Now the night is bitter cold, with no sounds +outside but the cracking of the porches as they freeze tighter. +Even the north wind seems grown too numb to move. I had determined +to convert its coarse, big noise into something sweet--as may +often be done by a little art with the things of this life--and so +stretched a horse-hair above the opening between the window sashes; +but the soul of my harp has departed. I hear but the comfortable +roar and snap of hickory logs, at long intervals a deeper breath +from the dog stretched on his side at my feet, and the crickets +under the hearth-stones. They have to thank me for that nook. One +chill afternoon I came upon a whole company of them on the western +slope of a woodland mound, so lethargic that I thumped them repeatedly +before they could so much as get their senses. There was a branch +near by, and the smell of mint in the air, so that had they been +young Kentuckians one might have had a clew to the situation. With +an ear for winter minstrelsy, I brought two home in a handkerchief, +and assigned them an elegant suite of apartments under a loose +brick. + +But the finest music in the room is that which streams out to the +ear of the spirit in many an exquisite strain from the hanging shelf +of books on the opposite wall. Every volume there is an instrument +which some melodist of the mind created and set vibrating with music, +as a flower shakes out its perfume or a star shakes out its light. +Only listen, and they soothe all care, as though the silken-soft +leaves of poppies had been made vocal and poured into the ear. + +Towards dark, having seen to the comfort of a household of kind, +faithful fellow-beings, whom man in his vanity calls the lower +animals, I went last to walk under the cedars in the front yard, +listening to that music which is at once so cheery and so sad--the +low chirping of birds at dark winter twilights as they gather in +from the frozen fields, from snow-buried shrubbery and hedge-rows, +and settle down for the night in the depths of the evergreens, the +only refuge from their enemies and shelter from the blast. But this +evening they made no ado about their home-coming. To-day perhaps +none had ventured forth. I am most uneasy when the red-bird is +forced by hunger to leave the covert of his cedars, since he, on +the naked or white landscapes of winter, offers the most far-shining +and beautiful mark for Death. I stepped across to the tree in +which a pair of these birds roost and shook it, to make sure they +were at home, and felt relieved when they fluttered into the next +with the quick startled notes they utter when aroused. + +The longer I live here, the better satisfied I am in having pitched +my earthly camp-fire, gypsylike, on the edge of a town, keeping it +on one side, and the green fields, lanes, and woods on the other. +Each, in turn, is to me as a magnet to the needle. At times +the needle of my nature points towards the country. On that side +everything is poetry. I wander over field and forest, and through +me runs a glad current of feeling that is like a clear brook across +the meadows of May. At others the needle veers round, and I go +to town--to the massed haunts of the highest animal and cannibal. +That way nearly everything is prose. I can feel the prose rising +in me as I step along, like hair on the back of a dog, long before +any other dogs are in sights. And, indeed, the case is much that +of a country dog come to town, so that growls are in order at +every corner. The only being in the universe at which I have ever +snarled, or with which I have rolled over in the mud and fought +like a common cur, is Man. + +Among my neighbors who furnish me much of the plain prose of life, +the nearest hitherto has been a bachelor named Jacob Mariner. I +called him my rain-cow, because the sound of his voice awoke +apprehensions of falling weather. A visit from him was an endless +drizzle. For Jacob came over to expound his minute symptoms; and +had everything that he gave out on the subject of human ailments +been written down, it must have made a volume as large, as solemn, +and as inconvenient as a family Bible. My other nearest neighbor +lives across the road--a widow, Mrs. Walters. I call Mrs. Walters +my mocking-bird, because she reproduces by what is truly a divine +arrangement of the throat the voices of the town. When she flutters +across to the yellow settee under the grape-vine and balances herself +lightly with expectation, I have but to request that she favor me +with a little singing, and soon the air is vocal with every note +of the village songsters. After this, Mrs. Walters usually begins +to flutter in a motherly way around the subject of _my_ symptoms. + +Naturally it has been my wish to bring about between this rain-cow +and mocking-bird the desire to pair with one another. For, if a +man always wanted to tell his symptoms and a woman always wished +to hear about them, surely a marriage compact on the basis of such +a passion ought to open up for them a union of overflowing and +indestructible felicity. They should associate as perfectly as the +compensating metals of a pendulum, of which the one contracts as +the other expands. And then I should be a little happier myself. +But the perversity of life! Jacob would never confide in Mrs. +Walter. Mrs. Walters would never inquire for Jacob. + +Now poor Jacob is dead, of no complaint apparently, and with so few +symptoms that even the doctors did not know what was the matter, +and the upshot of this talk is that his place has been sold, and +I am to have new neighbors. What a disturbance to a man living on +the edge of a quiet town! + +Tidings of the calamity came to-day from Mrs. Walters, who flew +over and sang--sang even on a January afternoon--in a manner to +rival her most vociferous vernal execution. But the poor creature +was so truly distressed that I followed her to the front gate, and +we twittered kindly at each other over the fence, and ruffled our +plumage with common disapproval. It is marvellous how a member of +her sex will conceive dislike of people that she has never seen; +but birds are sensible of heat or cold long before either arrives, +and it may be that this mocking-bird feels something wrong at the +quill end of her feathers. + + + +II + + +Mrs. Walters this morning with more news touching our incoming +neighbors. Whenever I have faced towards this aggregation of unwelcome +individuals, I have beheld it moving towards me as a thick gray +mist, shutting out nature beyond. Perhaps they are approaching +this part of the earth like comet that carries its tail before it, +and I am already enveloped in a disturbing, befogging nebulosity. + +There is still no getting the truth, but it appears that they are +a family of consequence in their way--which, of course, may be +a very poor way. Mrs. Margaret Cobb, mother, lately bereaved of +her husband, Joseph Cobb, who fell among the Kentucky boys at the +battle of Buena Vista. A son, Joseph Cobb, now cadet at West Point, +with a desire to die like his father, but destined to die--who +knows?--in a war that may break out in this country about the +negroes. + +While not reconciled, I am resigned. The young man when at home +may wish to practise the deadly vocation of an American soldier of +the period over the garden fence at my birds, in which case he and +I could readily fight a duel, and help maintain an honored custom +of the commonwealth. The older daughter will sooner or later turn +loose on my heels one of her pack of blue dogs. If this should +befall me in the spring, and I survive the dog, I could retort +with a dish of strawberries and a copy of "Lalla Rookh"; if in the +fall, with a basket of grapes and Thomson's "Seasons," after which +there would be no further exchange of hostilities. The younger +daughter, being a school-girl, will occasionally have to be subdued +with green apples and salt. The mother could easily give trouble; +or she might be one of those few women to know whom is to know the +best that there is in all this faulty world. + +The middle of February. The depths of winter reached. Thoughtful, +thoughtless words--the depths of winter. Everything gone inward +and downward from surface and summit, Nature at low tide. In its +time will come the height of summer, when the tides of life rise +to the tree-tops, or be dashed as silvery insect spray all but to +the clouds. So bleak a season touches my concern for birds, which +never seem quite at home in this world; and the winter has been +most lean and hungry for them. Many snows have fallen--snows that +are as raw cotton spread over their breakfast-table, and cutting +off connection between them and its bounties. Next summer I must +let the weeds grow up in my garden, so that they may have a better +chance for seeds above the stingy level of the universal white. Of +late I have opened a pawnbroker's shop for my hard-pressed brethren +in feathers, lending at a fearful rate of interest; for every +borrowing Lazarus will have to pay me back in due time by monthly +instalments of singing. I shall have mine own again with usury. +But were a man never so usurious, would he not lend a winter seed +for a summer song? Would he refuse to invest his stale crumbs in +an orchestra of divine instruments and a choir of heavenly voices? +And to-day, also, I ordered from a nursery-man more trees of holly, +juniper, and fir, since the storm-beaten cedars will have to come +down. For in Kentucky, when the forest is naked, and every shrub +and hedge-row bare, what would become of our birds in the universal +rigor and exposure of the world if there were no evergreens--nature's +hostelries for the homeless ones? Living in the depths of these, +they can keep snow, ice, and wind at bay; prying eyes cannot watch +them, nor enemies so well draw near; cones or seed or berries are +their store; and in these untrodden chambers each can have the +sacred company of his mate. But wintering here has terrible risks +which few run. Scarcely in autumn have the leaves begun to drop +from their high perches silently downward when the birds begin to +drop away from the bare boughs silently southward. Lo! some morning +the leaves are on the ground, and the birds have vanished. The +species that remain, or that come to us then, wear the hues of +the season, and melt into the tone of Nature's background--blues, +grays, browns, with touches of white on tail and breast and wing +for coming flecks of snow. + +Save only him--proud, solitary stranger in our unfriendly land--the +fiery grosbeak. Nature in Kentucky has no wintry harmonies for him. +He could find these only among the tufts of the October sumac, or +in the gum-tree when it stands a pillar of red twilight fire in +the dark November woods, or in the far depths of the crimson sunset +skies, where, indeed, he seems to have been nested, and whence to +have come as a messenger of beauty, bearing on his wings the light +of his diviner home. + +With almost everything earthly that he touches this high herald +of the trees is in contrast. Among his kind he is without a peer. +Even when the whole company of summer voyagers have sailed back to +Kentucky, singing and laughing and kissing one another under the +enormous green umbrella of Nature's leaves, he still is beyond them +all in loveliness. But when they have been wafted away again to +brighter skies and to soft islands over the sea, and he is left +alone on the edge of that Northern world which he has dared invade +and inhabit, it is then, amid black clouds and drifting snows, +that the gorgeous cardinal stands forth in the ideal picture of +his destiny. For it is than that his beauty I most conspicuous, +and that Death, lover of the peerless, strikes at him from afar. +So that he retires to the twilight solitude of his wild fortress. +Let him even show his noble head and breast at a slit in its green +window-shades, and a ray flashes from it to the eye of a cat; let +him, as spring comes on, burst out in desperation and mount to the +tree-tops which he loves, and his gleaming red coat betrays him to +the poised hawk as to a distant sharpshooter; in the barn near by +an owl is waiting to do his night marketing at various tender-meat +stalls; and, above all, the eye and heart of man are his diurnal and +nocturnal foe. What wonder if he is so shy, so rare, so secluded, +this flame-colored prisoner in dark-green chambers, who has only +to be seen or heard and Death adjusts an arrow. No vast Southern +swamps or forest of pine here into which he may plunge. If he +shuns man in Kentucky, he must haunt the long lonely river valleys +where the wild cedars grow. If he comes into this immediate +swarming pastoral region, where the people, with ancestral love of +privacy, and not from any kindly thought of him, plant evergreens +around their country homes, he must live under the very guns and +amid the pitfalls of the enemy. Surely, could the first male of +the species have foreseen how, through the generations of his race +to come, both their beauty and their song, which were meant to +announce them to Love, would also announce them to Death, he must +have blanched snow-white with despair and turned as mute as a stone. +Is it this flight from the inescapable just behind that makes the +singing of the red-bird thoughtful and plaintive, and, indeed, +nearly all the wild sounds of nature so like the outcry of the +doomed? He will sit for a long time silent and motionless in the +heart of a cedar, as if absorbed in the tragic memories of his +race. Then, softly, wearily, he will call out to you and to the +whole world: _Peace_.._Peace_.._Peace_.._Peace_.._Peace_..!--the +most melodious sigh that ever issued from the clefts of a dungeon. + +For color and form, brilliant singing, his very enemies, and the +bold nature he has never lost, I have long been most interested in +this bird. Every year several pairs make their appearance about +my place. This winter especially I have been feeding a pair; and +there should be finer music in the spring, and a lustier brood in +summer. + + + +III + + +March has gone like its winds. The other night as I lay awake with +that yearning which often beats within, there fell from the upper +air the notes of the wild gander as he wedged his way onward by +faith, not by sight, towards his distant bourn. I rose and, throwing +the unseen and unseeing explorer, startled, as a half-asleep soldier +might be startled by the faint bugle-call of his commander, blown +to him from the clouds. What far-off lands, streaked with mortal +dawn, does he believe in? In what soft sylvan water will he bury +his tired breast? Always when I hear his voice, often when not, +I too desire to be up and gone out of these earthly marshes where +hunts the darker Fowler--gone to some vast, pure, open sea, where, +one by one, my scattered kind, those whom I love and those who love +me, will arrive in safety, there to be together. + +March is a month when the needle of my nature dips towards the +country. I am away, greeting everything as it wakes out of winter +sleep, stretches arms upward and legs downward, and drinks goblet +after goblet of young sunshine. I must find the dark green snowdrop, +and sometimes help to remove from her head, as she lifts it slowly +from her couch, the frosted nightcap, which the old Nurse would still +insist that she should wear. The pale green tips of daffodils are +a thing of beauty. There is the sun-struck brook of the field, +underneath the thin ice of which drops form and fall, form and +fall, like big round silvery eyes that grow bigger and brighter +with astonishment that you should laugh at them as they vanish. But +most I love to see Nature do her spring house-cleaning in Kentucky, +with the rain-clouds for her water-buckets and the winds for her +brooms. What an amount of drenching and sweeping she can do in a +day! How she dashes pailful and pailful into every corner, till +the whole earth is as clean as a new floor! Another day she attacks +the piles of dead leaves, where they have lain since last October, +and scatters them in a trice, so that every cranny may be sunned and +aired. Or, grasping her long brooms by the handles, she will go +into the woods and beat the icicles off the big trees as a housewife +would brush down cobwebs; so that the released limbs straighten +up like a man who has gotten out of debt, and almost say to you, +joyfully, "Now, then, we are all right again!" This done, she +begins to hang up soft new curtains at the forest windows, and to +spread over her floor a new carpet of an emerald loveliness such +as no mortal looms could ever have woven. And then, at last, she +sends out invitations through the South, and even to some tropical +lands, for the birds to come and spend the summer in Kentucky. The +invitations are sent out in March, and accepted in April and May, +and by June her house is full of visitors. + +Not the eyes alone love Nature in March. Every other sense hies +abroad. My tongue hunts for the last morsel of wet snow on the +northern root of some aged oak. As one goes early to a concert-hall +with a passion even for the preliminary tuning of the musicians, +so my ear sits alone in the vast amphitheatre of Nature and waits +for the earliest warble of the blue-bird, which seems to start up +somewhere behind the heavenly curtains. And the scent of spring, +is it not the first lyric of the nose--that despised poet of the +senses? + +But this year I have hardly glanced at the small choice edition of +Nature's spring verses. This by reason of the on-coming Cobbs, at +the mere mention of whom I feel as though I were plunged up to my +eyes in a vat of the prosaic. Some days ago workmen went into the +house and all but scoured the very memory of Jacob off the face of +the earth. Then there has been need to quiet Mrs. Walters. + +Mrs. Walters does not get into our best society; so that the town +is to her like a pond to a crane: she wades round it, going in as +far as she can, and snatches up such small fry as come shoreward +from the middle. In this way lately I have gotten hints of what +is stirring in the vasty deeps of village opinion. + +Mrs. Cobb is charged, among other dreadful things, with having +ordered of the town manufacturer a carriage that is to be as fine +as President Taylor's, and with marching into church preceded by +a servant, who bears her prayer-book on a velvet cushion. What +if she rode in Cinderella's coach, or had her prayer-book carried +before her on the back of a Green River turtle? But to her sex +she promises to be an invidious Christian. I am rather disturbed +by the gossip regarding the elder daughter. But this is so conflicting +that one impression is made only to be effaced by another. + +A week ago their agent wanted to buy my place. I was so outraged +that I got down my map of Kentucky to see where these peculiar +beings originate. They come from a little town I the northwestern +corner of the State, on the Ohio River, named Henderson--named from +that Richard Henderson who in the year 1775 bought about half of +Kentucky from the Cherokees, and afterwards, as president of his +purchase, addressed the first legislative assembly ever held in the +West, seated under a big elm-tree outside the wall of Boonsborough +fort. These people must be his heirs, or they would never have +tried to purchase my few Sabine acres. It is no surprise to discover +that they are from the Green River country. They must bathe often +in that stream. I suppose they wanted my front yard to sow it in +penny-royal, the characteristic growth of those districts. They +surely distil it and use it as a perfume on their handkerchiefs. It +was perhaps from the founder of this family that Thomas Jefferson +got authority for his statement that the Ohio is the most beautiful +river in the world--unless, indeed, the President formed that notion +of the Ohio upon lifting his eyes to it from the contemplation of +Green River. Henderson! Green River region! To this town and to +the blue-grass country as Boeotia to Attica in the days of Pericles. +Hereafter I shall call these people my Green River Boeotians. + +A few days later their agent again, a little frigid, very urgent--this +time to buy me out on my own terms, _any_ terms. But what was back +of all this I inquired. I did not know these people, had never done +them a favor. Why, then, such determination to have me removed? +Why such bitterness, vindictiveness, ungovernable passion? + +That was the point, he replied. This family had never wronged _me_. +I had never even seen _them_. Yet they had heard of nothing but +my intense dislike of them and opposition to their becoming my +neighbors. They could not forego their plans, but they were quite +willing to give me the chance of leaving their vicinity, on whatever +I might regard the most advantageous terms. + +Oh, my mocking-bird, my mocking-bird! When you have been sitting +on _other_ front porches, have you, by the divine law of your being, +been reproducing _your_ notes as though they were _mine_, and even +pouring forth the little twitter that was meant for your private +ear? + +As March goes out, two things more and more I hear--the cardinal +has begun to mount to the bare tops of the locust-trees and scatter +his notes downward, and over the way the workmen whistle and sing. +The bird is too shy to sit in any tree on that side of the yard. +But his eye and ear are studying them curiously. Sometimes I even +fancy that he sings to them with a plaintive sort of joy, as though +he were saying, "Welcome--go away!" + + + +IV + + +The Cobbs will be the death of me before they get here. The report +spread that they and I had already had a tremendous quarrel, and +that, rather than live beside them, I had sold them my place. This +set flowing towards me for days a stream of people, like a line of +ants passing to and from the scene of a terrific false alarm. I +had nothing to do but sit perfectly still and let each ant, as it +ran up, touch me with its antennae, get the counter-sign, and turn +back to the village ant-hill. Not all, however. Some remained +to hear me abuse the Cobbs; or, counting on my support, fell to +abusing the Cobbs themselves. When I made not a word of reply, +except to assure them that I really had not quarrelled with the +Cobbs, had nothing against the Cobbs, and was immensely delighted +that the Cobbs were coming, they went away amazingly cool and +indignant. And for days I continued to hear such things attributed +to me that, had that young West-Pointer been in the neighborhood, +and known how to shoot, he must infallibly have blown my head off +me, as any Kentucky gentleman would. Others of my visitors, having +heard that I was not to sell my place, were so glad of it that they +walked around my garden and inquired for my health and the prospect +for fruit. For the season has come when the highest animal +begins to pay me some attention. During the winter, having little +to contribute to the community, I drop from communal notice. But +there are certain ladies who bow sweetly to me when my roses and +honeysuckles burst into bloom; a fat old cavalier of the South +begins to shake hands with me when my asparagus bed begins to send +up its tender stalks; I am in high favor with two or three young +ladies at the season of lilies and sweet-pea; there is one old soul +who especially loves rhubarb pies, which she makes to look like +little latticed porches in front of little green skies, and it is +she who remembers me and my row of pie-plant; and still another, +who knows better than cat-birds when currants are ripe. Above all, +there is a preacher, who thinks my sins are as scarlet so long as +my strawberries are, and plants himself in my bed at that time to +reason with me of judgment to come; and a doctor, who gets despondent +about my constitution in pear-time--after which my health seems to +return, but never my pears. + +So that, on the whole, from May till October I am the bright side +of the moon, and the telescopes of the town are busy observing +my phenomena; after which it is as though I had rolled over on my +dark side, there to lie forgotten till once more the sun entered +the proper side of the zodiac. But let me except always the few +steadily luminous spirits I know, with whom is no variableness, +neither shadow of turning. If any one wishes to become famous in +a community, let him buy a small farm on the edge of it and cultivate +fruits, berries, and flowers, which he freely gives away or lets +be freely taken. + +All this has taken freely of my swift April days. Besides, I have +made me a new side-porch, made it myself, for I like to hammer and +drive things home, and because the rose on the old one had rotted +it from post to shingle. And then, when I had tacked the rose in +place again, the little old window opening above it made that side +of my house look like a boy in his Saturday hat and Sunday breeches. +So in went a large new window; and now these changes have mysteriously +offended Mrs. Walter, who says the town is laughing at me for +trying to outdo the Cobbs. The highest animal is the only one who +is divinely gifted with such noble discernment. But I am not sorry +to have my place look its best. When they see it, they will perhaps +understand why I was not to be driven out by a golden cracker on +their family whip. They could not have bought my little woodland +pasture, where for a generation has been picnic and muster and +Fourth-of-July ground, and where the brave fellows met to volunteer +for the Mexican war. They could not have bought even the heap of +brush back of my wood-pile, where the brown thrashers build. + + + +V + + +In May I am of the earth earthy. The soul loses its wild white +pinions; the heart puts forth its short, powerful wings, heavy with +heat and color, that flutter, but do not lift it off the ground. +The month comes and goes, and not once do I think of lifting my +eyes to the stars. The very sunbeams fall on the body as a warm +golden net, and keep thought and feeling from escape. Nature uses +beauty now not to uplift, but to entice. I find her intent upon +the one general business of seeing that no type of her creatures +gets left out of the generations. Studied in my yard full of birds, +as with a condensing-glass of the world, she can be seen enacting +among them the dramas of history. Yesterday, in the secret recess +of a walnut, I saw the beginning of the Trojan war. Last week +I witnessed the battle of Actium fought out in mid-air. And down +among my hedges--indeed, openly in my very barn-yard--there is a +perfectly scandalous Salt Lake City. + +And while I am watching the birds, they are watching me. Not a little +fop among them, having proposed and been accepted, but perches on +a limb, and has the air of putting his hands mannishly under his +coattails and crying out at me, "Hello! Adam, what were you made +for?" "You attend to your business, and I'll attend to mine," I +answer. "You have one May; I have twenty-five!" He didn't wait +to hear. He caught sight of a pair of clear brown eyes peeping +at him out of a near tuft of leaves, and sprang thither with open +arms and the sound of a kiss. + +But if I have twenty-five Mays remaining, are not some Mays gone? +Ah, well! Better a single May with the right mate than the full +number with the wrong. And where is she--the right one? If she +ever comes near my yard and answers my whistle, I'll know it; and +then I'll teach these popinjays in blue coats and white pantaloons +what Adam was made for. + +But the wrong one--there's the terror! Only think of so composite +a phenomenon as Mrs. Walters, for instance, adorned with limp +nightcap and stiff curl-papers, like garnishes around a leg of +roast mutton, waking up beside me at four o'clock in the morning +as some gray-headed love-bird of Madagascar, and beginning to chirp +and trill in an ecstasy! + +The new neighbors have come--mother, younger daughter, and servants. +The son is at West Point; and the other daughter lingers a few days, +unable, no doubt, to tear herself away from her beloved pennyroyal +and dearest Green River. They are quiet; have borrowed nothing +from any one in the neighborhood; have well-dressed, well-trained +servants; and one begins to be a little impressed. The curtains +they have put up at the windows suggest that the whole nest is being +lined with soft, cool spotless loveliness, that is very restful +and beguiling. + +No one has called yet, since they are no at home till June; but +Mrs. Walters has done some tall wading lately, and declares that +people do not know what to think. They will know when the elder +daughter arrives; for it is the worst member of the family that +settles what the world shall think of the others. + +If only she were not the worst! If only as I sat here beside my +large new window, around which the old rose-bush has been trained +and now is blooming, I could look across to her window where the +white curtains hang, and feel that behind them sat, shy and gentle, +the wood-pigeon for whom through Mays gone by I have been vaguely +waiting! + +And yet I do not believe that I could live a single year with only +the sound of cooing in the house. A wood-pigeon would be the death +of me. + + + +VI + + +This morning, the 3d of June, the Undine from Green River rose +above the waves. + +The strawberry bed is almost under their windows. I had gone out +to pick the first dish of the season for breakfast; for while I +do not care to eat except to live, I never miss an opportunity of +living upon strawberries. + +I was stooping down and bending the wet leaves over, so as not +to miss any, when a voice at the window above said, timidly and +playfully, + +"Are you the gardener?" + +I picked on, turning as red as the berries. Then the voice said +again, + +"Old man, are you the gardener?" + +Of course a person looking down carelessly on the stooping figure +of _any_ man, and seeing nothing but a faded straw hat, and arms +and feet and ankles bent together, might easily think him decrepit +with age. Some things touch off my temper. But I answered, humbly, + +"I am the gardener, madam." + +"How much do you ask for your strawberries?" + +"The gentleman who owns this place does not sell his strawberries. +He gives them away, if he likes people. How much do you ask for +_your_ strawberries?" + +"What a nice old gentleman! Is he having those picked to give +away?" + +"He is having these picked for his breakfast." + +"Don't you think he'd like you to give me those, and pick him some +more?" + +"I fear not, madam." + +"Nevertheless, you might. He'd never know." + +"I think he'd find it out." + +"You are not afraid of him, are you?" + +"I am when he gets mad." + +"Does he treat you badly?" + +"If he does, I always forgive him." + +"He doesn't seem to provide you with very many clothes." + +I picked on. + +"But you seem nicely fed." + +I picked on. + +"What is his name, old man? Don't you like to talk?" + +"Adam Moss." + +"Such a green, cool, soft name! It is like his house and yard and +garden. What does he do?" + +"Whatever he pleases." + +"You must not be impertinent to me, or I'll tell him. What does +he like?" + +"Birds--red-birds. What do _you_ like?" + +"Red-birds! How does he catch them? Throw salt on their tails?" + +"He is a lover of Nature, madam, and particularly of birds." + +"What does _he_ know about birds? Doesn't he care for people?" + +"He doesn't think many worth caring for." + +"Indeed! And _he_ is perfect, then, is he?" + +"He thinks he is nearly as bad as any; but that doesn't make the +rest any better." + +"Poor old gentleman! He must have the blues dreadfully. What does +he do with his birds? Eat his robins, and stuff his cats, and sell +his red-birds in cages?" + +"He considers it part of his mission in life to keep them from +being eaten or stuffed or caged." + +"And you say he is nearly a hundred?" + +"He is something over thirty years of age, madam." + +"Thirty? Surely we heard he was very old. Thirty! And does he +live in that beautiful little old house all by himself?" + +"_I_ live with him!" + +"_You_! Ha! ha! ha! And what is _your_ name, you dear good old +man?" + +"Adam." + +"_Two_ Adams living in the same house! Are you the _old_ Adam? I +have heard so much of him." + +At this I rose, pushed back my hat, and looked up at her. + +"_I_ am Adam Moss," I said, with distant politeness. "You can have +these strawberries for your breakfast if you want them." + +There was a low quick "Oh!" and she was gone, and the curtains +closed over her face. It was rude; but neither ought she to have +called me the old Adam. I have been thinking of one thing: why +should she speak slightingly of _my_ knowledge of birds? What does +_she_ know about them? I should like to inquire. + +Late this afternoon I dressed up in my high gray wool hat, my fine +long-tailed blue cloth coat with brass buttons, by pink waistcoat, +frilled shirt, white cravat, and yellow nankeen trousers, and +walked slowly several times around my strawberry bed. Did no see +any more ripe strawberries. + + +Within the last ten days I have called twice upon the Cobbs, urged +no doubt by an extravagant readiness to find them all that I feared +they were not. How exquisite in life is the art of not seeing many +things, and of forgetting many that have been seen! They received +me as though nothing unpleasant had happened. Nor did the elder +daughter betray that we had met. She has not forgotten, for +more than once I surprised a light in her eyes as though she were +laughing. She has not, it is certain, told even her mother and +sister. Somehow this fact invest her character with a charm as +of subterranean roominess and secrecy. Women who tell everything +are like finger-bowls of clear water. + +But it is Sylvia that pleases me. She must be about seventeen; and +so demure and confiding that I was ready to take her by the hand, +lead her to the garden-gate, and say: Dear child, everything in +here--butterflies, flowers, fruit, honey, everything--is yours; +come and go and gather as you like. + +Yesterday morning I sent them a large dish of strawberries, with +a note asking whether they would walk during the day over to my +woodland pasture, where the soldiers had a barbecue before setting +out for the Mexican war. The mother and Sylvia accepted. Our walk +was a little overshadowed by their loss; and as I thoughtlessly +described the gayety of that scene--the splendid young fellows +dancing in their bright uniforms, and now and then pausing to wipe +their foreheads, the speeches, the cheering, the dinner under the +trees, and, a few days later, the tear-dimmed eyes, the hand-wringing +and embracing, and at last the marching proudly away, each with a +Bible in his pocket, and many never, never to return--I was sorry +that I had not foreseen the sacred chord I was touching. But +it made good friends of us more quickly, and they were well-bred, +so that we returned to all appearance in gay spirits. The elder +daughter came to meet us, and went at once silently to her mother's +side, as though she had felt the separation. I wondered whether +she had declined to go because of the memory of her father. As +we passed my front gate, I asked them to look at my flowers. The +mother praised also the cabbages, thus showing an admirably balanced +mind; the little Sylvia fell in love with a vine-covered arbor; +the elder daughter appeared to be secretly watching the many birds +about the grounds, but when I pointed out several less-known species, +she lost interest. + +What surprises most is that they are so refined and intelligent. +It is greatly to be feared that we Kentuckians in this part of the +State are profoundly ignorant as to the people in other parts. I +told Mrs. Walters this, and she, seeing that I am beginning to like +them, is beginning to like them herself. Dear Mrs. Walters! Her +few ideas are like three or four marbles on a level floor; they +have no power to move themselves, but roll equally well in any +direction you push them. + +This afternoon I turned a lot of little town boys into my strawberry +bed, and now it looks like a field that had been harrowed and rolled. +I think they would gladly have pulled up some of the plants to see +whether there might not be berries growing on the roots. + + +It is unwise to do everything that you can for people at once; for +when you can do nothing more, they will say you are no longer like +yourself, and turn against you. So I have meant to go slowly with +the Cobbs in my wish to be neighborly, and do not think that they +could reasonably be spoiled on one dish of strawberries in three +weeks. But the other evening Mrs. Cobb sent over a plate of golden +sally-lunn on a silver waiter, covered with a snow-white napkin; +and acting on this provocation, I thought they could be trusted +with a basket of cherries. + +So next morning, in order to save the ripening fruit on a rather small +tree of choice variety, I thought I should put up a scarecrow, and +to this end rummaged a closet for some last winter's old clothes. +These I crammed with straw, and I fastened the resulting figure +in the crotch of the tree, tying the arms to the adjoining limbs, +and giving it the dreadful appearance of shouting, "Keep out of +here, you rascals, or you'll get hurt!" And, in truth, it did look +so like me that I felt a little uncanny about it myself. + +Returning home late, I went at once to the tree, where I found not +a quart of cherries, and the servants told of an astonishing thing: +that no sooner had the birds discovered who was standing in the +tree, wearing the clothes in which he used to feed them during the +winter, than the news spread like wildfire to the effect that he +had climbed up there and was calling out: "Here is the best tree, +fellows! Pitch in and help yourselves!" So that the like of the +chattering and fetching away was never seen before. This was the +story; but little negroes love cherries, and it is not incredible +that the American birds were assisted in this instance by a large +family of fat young African spoon-bills. + +Anxious to save another tree, and afraid to use more of my own +clothes, I went over to Mrs. Walters, and got from her an old bonnet +and veil, a dress and cape, and a pair of her cast-off yellow +gaiters. These garments I strung together and prepared to look +life-like, as nearly as a stuffing of hay would meet the inner +requirements of the case. I them seated the dread apparition in the +fork of a limb, and awaited results. The first thief was an old +jay, who flew towards the tree with his head turned to one side +to see whether any one was overtaking him. But scarcely had he +alighted when he uttered a scream of horror that was sickening to +hear, and dropped on the grass beneath, after which he took himself +off with a silence and speed that would have done credit to a +passenger-pigeon. That tree was rather avoided for some days, or +it may have been let alone merely because others were ripening; so +that Mrs. Cobb got her cherries, and I sent Mrs. Walter some also +for the excellent loan of her veil and gaiters. + + +As the days pass I fall in love with Sylvia, who has been persuaded +to turn my arbor into a reading-room, and is often to be found +there of mornings with one of Sir Walter's novels. Sometimes I +leave her alone, sometimes lie on the bench facing her, while she +reads aloud, or, tiring, prattles. Little half-fledged spirit, to +whom the yard is the earth and June eternity, but who peeps over +the edge of the nest at the chivalry of the ages, and fancies that +she knows the world. The other day, as we were talking, she tapped +the edge of her _Ivanhoe_ with a slate-pencil--for she is also +studying the Greatest Common Divisor--and said, warningly, "You +must not make epigrams; for if you succeeded you would be brilliant, +and everything brilliant is tiresome." + +"Who is your authority for _that_ epigram, Miss Sylvia?" I said, +laughing. + +"Don't you suppose that I have any ideas but what I get from books?" + +"You may have all wisdom, but those sayings proceed only from +experience." + +"I have my intuitions; they are better than experience." + +"If you keep on, _you_ will be making epigrams presently, and then +I shall find you tiresome, and go away." + +"You couldn't. I am your guest. How unconventional I am to come +over and sit in your arbor! But it is Georgiana's fault." + +"Did _she_ tell you to come?" + +"No; but she didn't keep me from coming. Whenever any one +of us does anything improper we always say to each other, 'It's +Georgiana's fault. She ought not to have taught us to be so simple +and unconventional.'" + +"And is she the family governess?" + +"She governs the family. There doesn't seem to be any real +government, but we all do as she says. You might think at first +that Georgiana was the most light-headed member of the family, but +she isn't. She's deep. I'm shallow in comparison with her. She +calls me sophisticated, and introduces me as the elder Miss Cobb, +and says that if I don't stop reading Scott's novels and learn +more arithmetic she will put white caps on me, and make me walk to +church in carpet slippers and with grandmother's stick." + +"But you don't seem to have stopped, Miss Sylvia." + +"No; but I'm stopping. Georgiana always gives us time, but we get +right at last. It was two years before she could make my brother +go to West Point. He was wild and rough, and wanted to raise +tobacco, and float with it down to New Orleans, and have a good +time. Then when she had gotten him to go she was afraid he'd come +back, and so she persuaded my mother to live here, where there +isn't any tobacco, and where I could be sent to school. That took +her a year, and now she is breaking up my habit of reading nothing +but novels. She gets us all down in the end. One day when she +and Joe were little children they were out at the wood-pile, and +Georgiana was sitting on a log eating a jam biscuit, with her feet +on the log in front of her. Joe had a hand-axe, and was chopping +at anything till he caught sight of her feet. Then he went to the +end of the log, and whistled like a steamboat, and began to hack +down in that direction, calling out to her: 'Take your toes out of +the way, Georgiana. I am coming down the river. The current is +up and I can't stop.' 'My toes were there first,' said Georgiana, +and went on eating her biscuit. 'Take them out of the way, I tell +you,' he shouted as he came nearer, 'or they'll get cut off.' 'They +were there first,' repeated Georgiana, and took another delicious +nibble. Joe cut straight along, and went whack right into her five +toes. Georgiana screamed with all her might, but she held her foot +on the log, till Joe dropped the hatchet with horror, and caught +her in his arms. 'Georgiana, I _told_ you to take your toes away,' +he cried; 'you are such a little fool,' and ran with her to the +house. But she always had control over him after that." + +To-day I saw Sylvia enter the arbor, and shortly afterwards I +followed with a book. + +"When you stop reading novels and begin to read history, Miss +Sylvia, here is the most remarkable history of Kentucky that was +ever written or ever will be. It is by my father's old teacher of +natural history in Transylvania University, Professor Rafinesque, +who also had a wonderful botanical garden on this side of the town; +perhaps the first ever seen in this country." + +"I know all about it," replied Sylvia, resenting this slight +upon her erudition. "Georgiana has my father's copy, and his was +presented to him by Mr. Audubon." + +"Audubon?" I said, with a doubt. + +"Never heard of Audubon?" cried Sylvia, delighted to show up my +ignorance. + +"Only of the great Audubon, Miss Sylvia; the _great_, the very +_great_ Audubon." + +"Well, this was the _great_, the very _great_ Audubon. He lived +in Henderson, and kept a corn-mill. He and my father were friends, +and he gave my father some of his early drawings of Kentucky +birds. Georgiana has them now, and that is where she gets her love +of birds--from my father, who got his from the _great_, the very +_great_ Audubon." + +"Would Miss Cobb let me see these drawings?" I asked, eagerly. + +"She might; but she prizes them as much as if they were stray leaves +out of the only Bible in the world." + +As Sylvia turned inside out this pocket of her mind, there had +dropped out a key to her sister's conduct. Now I understood her +slighting attitude towards my knowledge of birds. But I shall +feel some interest in Miss Cobb from this time on. I never dreamed +that she could bring me fresh news of that rare spirit whom I have +so wished to see, and for one week in the woods with whom I would +give any year of my life. Are they possibly the Henderson family +to whom Audubon intrusted the box of his original drawings during +his absence in Philadelphia, and who let a pair of Norway rats rear +a family in it, and cut to pieces nearly a thousand inhabitants of +the air? + + +There are two more days of June. Since the talk with Sylvia I have +called twice more upon the elder Miss Cobb. Upon reflection, it +is misleading to refer to this young lady in terms so dry, stiff, +and denuded; and I shall drop into Sylvia's form, and call her +simply Georgiana. That looks better--Georgiana! It sounds well, +too--Georgiana! + +Georgiana, then, is a rather elusive character. The more I see of +her the less I understand her. If your nature draws near hers, it +retreats. If you pursue, it flies--a little frightened perhaps. +If then you keep still and look perfectly safe, she will return, +but remain at a fixed distance, like a bird that will stay in your +yard, but not enter your house. It is hardly shyness, for she is not +shy, but more like some strain of wild nature in her that refuses +to be domesticated. One's faith is strained to accept Sylvia's +estimate that Georgiana is deep--she is so light, so airy, so +playful. Sylvia is a demure little dove that has pulled over itself +an owl's skin, and is much prouder of its wicked old feathers than +of its innocent heart; but Georgiana--what is she? Secretly an +owl with the buoyancy of a humming-bird? However, it's nothing to +me. She hovers around her mother and Sylvia with a fondness that +is rather beautiful. I did not mention the subject of Audubon and +her father, for it is never well to let an elder sister know that +a younger one has been talking about her. I merely gave her several +chances to speak of birds, but she ignored them. As for me and +_my_ love of birds, such trifles are beneath her notice. I don't +like her, and it will not be worth while to call again soon, though +it would be pleasant to see those drawings. + +This morning as I was accidentally passing under her window I saw +her at it and lifted my hat. She leaned over with her cheek in +her palm, and said, smiling, + +"You mustn't spoil Sylvia!" + +"What is my definite offence in that regard?" + +"Too much arbor, too many flowers, too much fine treatment." + +"Does fine treatment ever harm anybody? Is it not bad treatment +that spoils people?" + +"Good treatment may never spoil people who are old enough to know +its rarity and value. But you say you are a student of nature; +have you not observed that nature never lets the sugar get to things +until they are ripe? Children must be kept tart." + +"The next time that Miss Sylvia comes over, then, I am to give +her a tremendous scolding and a big basket of green apples." + +"Or, what is worse, suppose you encourage her to study the Greatest +Common Divisor? I am trying to get her ready for school in the +fall." + +"Is she being educated for a teacher?" + +"You know that Southern ladies never teach." + +"Then she will never need the Greatest Common Divisor. I have +known many thousands of human beings, and none but teachers ever +have the least use for the Greatest Common Divisor." + +"But she needs to do things that she dislikes. We all do." + +I smiled at the memory of a self-willed little bare foot on a log +years ago. + +"I shall see that my grape arbor does not further interfere with +Miss Sylvia's progress towards perfection." + +"Why didn't you wish us to be your neighbors?" + +"I didn't know that you were the right sort of people." + +"_Are_ we the right sort?" + +"The value of my land has almost been doubled." + +It is a pleasure to know that you approve of us on those grounds. +Will the value of _our_ land rise also, do you think? And why do +you suppose we objected to _you_ as a neighbor?" + +"I cannot imagine." + +"The imagination can be cultivated, you know. Then tell me this: +why do Kentuckians in this part of Kentucky think so much of +themselves compared with the rest of the world?" + +"Perhaps it's because they are Virginians. There may be various +reasons." + +"Do the people ever tell what the reasons are?" + +"I have never heard one." + +"And if we stayed here long enough, and imitated them very closely, +do you suppose we would get to feel the same way?" + +"I am sure of it." + +"It must be so pleasant to consider Kentucky the best part of +the world, and _your_ part of Kentucky the best of the State, and +_your_ family the best of all the best families in that best part, +and yourself the best member of your family. Ought not that to +make one perfectly happy?" + +"I have often observed that it seems to do so." + +"It is delightful to remember that _you_ approve of us. And we +should feel _so_ glad to be able to return the compliment. Good-bye!" + + +Any one would have to admit, however, that there is no sharpness +in Georgiana's pleasantry. The child-nature in her is so sunny, +sportive, so bent on harmless mischief. She still plays with life +as a kitten with a ball of yarn. Some day Kitty will fall asleep +with the Ball poised in the cup of one foot. Then, waking, when +her dream is over, she will find that her plaything has become +a rocky, thorny, storm-swept, immeasurable world, and that she, a +woman, stands holding out towards it her imploring arms, and asking +only for some littlest part in its infinite destinies. + + +After the last talk with Georgiana I felt renewed desire to see those +Audubon drawings. So yesterday morning I sent over to her some +things written by a Northern man, whom I call the young Audubon +of the Maine woods. His name is Henry D. Thoreau, and it is, I +believe, known only to me down here. Everything that I can find of +his is as pure and cold and lonely as a wild cedar of the mountain +rocks, standing far above its smokeless valley and hushed white +river. She returned them to-day with word that she would thank me +in person, and to-night I went over in a state of rather senseless +eagerness. + +Her mother and sister had gone out, and she sat on the dark porch +alone. The things of Thoreau's have interested her, and she asked +me to tell her all I knew of him, which was little enough. Then +of her own accord she began to speak of her father and Audubon--of +the one with the worship of love, of the other with the worship +of greatness. I felt as though I were in a moonlit cathedral; for +her voice, the whole revelation of her nature, made the spot so +impressive and so sacred. She scarcely addressed _me_; she was +communing with them. Nothing that her father told her regarding +Audubon appears to have been forgotten; and, brought nearer than +ever before to that lofty, tireless spirit in its wanderings through +the Kentucky forests, I almost forgot her to whom I was listening. +But in the midst of it she stopped, and it was again kitten and yarn. +I left quite as abruptly. Upon my soul, I believe that Georgiana +doesn't think me worth talking to seriously. + + + +VII + + +July has dragged like a log across a wet field. + +There was the Fourth, which is always the grandest occasion of the +year with us. Society has taken up Sylvia and rejected Georgiana; +and so with its great gallantry, and to her boundless delight, +Sylvia was invited to sit with a bevy of girls in a large furniture +wagon covered with flags and bunting. The girls were to be dressed +in white, carry flowers and flags, and sing "The Star-spangled +Banner" in the procession, just before the fire-engine. I wrote a +note to Georgiana, asking whether it would interfere with Sylvia's +Greatest Common Divisor if I presented her with a profusion of +elegant flowers on that occasion. Georgiana herself had equipped +Sylvia with a truly exquisite silken flag on a silver staff; and +as Sylvia both sang and waved with all her might, not only to keep +up the Green River reputation in such matters, but with a mediaeval +determination to attract a young man on the fire-engine behind, +she quite eclipsed every other miss in the wagon, and was not even +hoarse when persuaded at last to stop. So that several of the +representatives of the other States voted afterwards in a special +congress that she was loud, and in no way as nice as they had +fancied, and that they ought never to recognize her again except +in church and a funerals. + +And then the month brought down from West Point the son of the +family, who cut _off_--or cut _at_--Georgiana's toes, I remember. +With him a sort of cousin, who lives in New York State; and after +a few days of toploftical strutting around town, and a pussillanimous +crack or two over the back-garden fence at my birds, they went away +again, to the home of this New York cousin, carrying Georgiana with +them to spend the summer. + +Nothing has happened since. Only Sylvia and I have been making hay +while the sun shines--or does not shine, if one chooses to regard +Georgiana's absence in that cloudy fashion. Sylvia's ordinary armor +consists of a slate-pencil for a spear, a slate for a shield, and +a volume of Sir Walter for a battle-axe. Now and then I have found +her sitting alone in the arbor with the drooping air of Lucy Ashton +beside the fountain; and she would be better pleased if I met her +clandestinely there in cloak and plume with the deadly complexion +of Ravenswood. + +The other day I caught her toiling at something, and she admitted +being at work on a poem which would be about half as long as the +"Lay of the Last Minstrel." She read me the opening lines, after +that bland habit of young writer; and as nearly as I recollect, +they began as follows: + +"I love to have gardens, I love to have plants, I love to have +air, and I love to have ants." + +When not under the spell of mediaeval chivalry she prattles needlessly +of Georgiana, early life, and their old home in Henderson. Although +I have pointed out to her the gross impropriety of her conduct, she +has persisted in reading me some of Georgiana's letters, written +from the home of that New York cousin, whose mother they are now +visiting. I didn't like _him_ particularly. Sylvia relates that +he was a favorite of her father's. + +The dull month passes to-day. One thing I have secretly wished to +learn; did her brother cut Georgiana's toes entirely off? + + + +VIII + + +In August the pale and delicate poetry of the Kentucky land makes +itself felt as silence and repose. Still skies, still woods, still +sheets of forest water, still flocks and herds, long lanes winding +without the sound of a traveller through fields of the universal +brooding stillness. The sun no longer blazing, but muffled in a +veil of palest blue. No more black clouds rumbling and rushing up +from the horizon, but a single white one brushing slowly against +the zenith like the lost wing of a swan. Far beneath it the +silver-breasted hawk, using the cloud as his lordly parasol. The +eagerness of spring gone, now all but incredible as having ever +existed; the birds hushed and hiding; the bee, so nimble once, +fallen asleep over his own cider-press in the shadow of the golden +apple. From the depths of the woods may come the notes of the +cuckoo; but they strike the air more and more slowly, like the +clack, clack of a distant wheel that is being stopped at the close +of harvest. The whirring wings of the locust let themselves go +in one long wave of sound, passing into silence. All nature is a +vast sacred goblet, filling drop by drop to the brim, and not to +be shaken. But the stalks of the later flowers begin to be stuffed +with hurrying bloom lest they be too late; and the nighthawk rapidly +mounts his stairway of flight higher and higher, higher and higher, +as though he would rise above the warm white sea of atmosphere and +breathe in cold ether. + +Always in August my nature will go its own way and seek its own +peace. I roam solitary, but never alone, over this rich pastoral +land, crossing farm after farm, and keeping as best I can out of +sight of the laboring or loitering negroes. For the sight of them +ruins every landscape, and I shall never feel myself free till +they are gone. What if they sing? The more is the pity that any +human being could be happy enough to sing so long as he was a slave +in any thought or fibre of his nature. + +Sometimes it is through the after-math of fat wheat-fields, where +float like myriad little nets of silver gauze the webs of the +crafty weavers, and where a whole world of winged small folk flit +from tree-top to tree-top of the low weeds. They are all mine--these +Kentucky wheat-fields. After the owner has taken from them his +last sheaf I come in and gather my harvest also--one that he did +not see, and doubtless would not begrudge me--the harvest of beauty. +Or I walk beside tufted aromatic hemp-fields, as along the shores +of softly foaming emerald seas; or past the rank and file of fields +of Indian-corn, which stand like armies that had gotten ready +to march, but been kept waiting for further orders, until at last +the soldiers had gotten tired, as the gayest will, of their yellow +plumes and green ribbons, and let their big hands fall heavily down +at their sides. There the white and the purple morning-glories +hang their long festoons and open to the soft midnight winds their +elfin trumpets. + +This year as never before I have felt the beauty of the world. +And with the new brightness in which every common scene has been +apparelled there has stirred within me a need of human companionship +unknown in the past. It is as if Nature had spread out her last +loveliness and said: "See! You have before you now all that you +can ever get from me! It is not enough. Realize this in time. I +am your Mother. Love me as a child. But remember! such love can +be only a little part of your life." + +Therefore I have spent the month restless, on the eve of change, +drawn to Nature, driven from her. In September it will be different, +for then there are more things to do on my small farm, and I see +people on account of my grapes and pears. My malady this August +has been an idle mind--so idle that a letter from Georgiana seems +its main event. This was written from the old home of Audubon on +the Hudson, whither they had gone sight-seeing. It must have been +to her much like a pilgrimage to a shrine. She wrote informally, +telling me about the place and enclosing a sprig of cedar from one +of the trees in the yard. Her mind was evidently overflowing on +the subject. It was rather pleasant to have the overflow turned +my way. I shall plant the cedar where it will say always green. + +I saw Georgiana once more before he leaving. The sudden appearance +of her brother and cousin, and the new that she would return with +them for the summer, spurred me up to make another attempt at those +Audubon drawings. + +How easy it was to get them! It is what a man thinks a woman will +be willing to do that she seldom does. But she made a confession. +When she first found that I was a smallish student of birds, she +feared I would not like Audubon, since men so often sneer at those +who do in a grand way what they can do only in a poor one. I had +another revelation of Georgiana's more serious nature, which is +always aroused by the memory of her father. There is something +beautiful and steadfast in this girl's soul. In our hemisphere vines +climb round from left to right; if Georgiana loved you she would, +if bidden, reverse every law of her nature for you as completely +as a vine that you had caused to twine from right to left. + +Sylvia enters school the 1st of September, and Georgiana is to be +at home then to see to that. How surely she drives this family +before her--and with as gentle a touch as that of a slow south wind +upon the clouds. + +Those poor fist drawings of Audubon! He succeeded; we study his +early failures. The world never studies the failures of those who +do not succeed in the end. + +The birds are moulting. If man could only moult also--his mind +once a year its errors, his heart once a year its useless passions! +How fine we should all look if every August the old plumage of our +natures would drop out and be blown away, and fresh quills take the +vacant places! But we have one set of feathers to last us through +our threescore years and ten--one set of spotless feathers, which +we are told to keep spotless through all our lives in a dirty world. +If one gets broken it stays; if one gets blackened, nothing will +cleanse it. No doubt we shall all fly home at last, like a flock +of pigeons that were once turned loose snow-white from the sky, and +made to descend and fight one another and fight everything else for +a poor living amid soot and mire. If then the hand of the unseen +Fancier is stretched forth to draw us in, how can he possibly +smite any one of us, or cast us away, because we came back to him +black and blue with bruises and besmudged and bedraggled past all +recognition? + + + +IX + + +To-day, the 7th of September, I made a discovery. The pair of +red-birds that built in my cedar-trees last winter got duly away +with the brood. Several times during summer rambles I cast my eye +about, but they were not to be seen. Early this afternoon I struck +out across the country towards a sinkhole in a field two miles away, +some fifty yards in diameter, very deep, and enclosed by a fence. +A series of these circular basins, at regular distances apart, runs +across the country over there, suggesting the remains of ancient +earth-works. The bottom had dropped out of this one, probably +communicating with the many caves that are characteristic of this +blue limestone. + +Within the fence everything is an impenetrable thicket of weeds and +vines--blackberry, thistle, ironweed, pokeweed, elder, golden-rod. +As I drew near, I saw two or three birds dive down, with the shy way +they have at this season; and when I came to the edge, everything +was quiet. But I threw a stone at a point where the tangle was deep, +and there was a great fluttering and scattering of the pretenders. +And then occurred more than I had looked for. The stone had +hardly struck the brush when what looked like a tongue of vermilion +flame leaped forth near by, and, darting across, stuck itself out +of sight in the green vines on the opposite slope. A male and +a female cardinal flew up also, balancing themselves on sprays of +the blackberry, and uttering excitedly their quick call-notes. I +whistled to the male as I had been used, and he recognized me +by shooting up his crest and hopping to nearer twigs with louder +inquiry. All at once, as if an idea had struck him, he sprang +across to the spot where the first frightened male had disappeared. +I could still hear him under the vines, and presently he reappeared +and flew up into a locust-tree on the farther edge of the basin, +followed by the other. What had taken place or took place then I +do not know; but I wished he might be saying: "My son, that man +over there is the one who was very good to your mother and me last +winter, and who owns the tree you were born in. I have warned +you, of course, never to trust Man; but I would advise you, when +you have found your sweetheart, to give he a trial, and take her +to his cedar-trees." + +If he said anything like this, it certainly had a terrible effect +of the son; for, having mounted rapidly to the tree-top, he clove +the blue with his scarlet wings as though he were flying from death. +I lost sight of him over a corn-field. One fact pleased me: the +father retuned to his partner under the briers, for he is not of +the lower sort who forget the mother when the children are reared. +They hold faithfully together during the ever more silent, ever more +shadowy autumn days; his warming breast is close to hers through +frozen winter nights; and if they both live to see another May she +is still all the world to him, and woe to any brilliant vagabond +who should warble a wanton love-song under her holy windows. + +Georgiana returned the last of August. The nest morning she was +at her window, looking across into my yard. I was obliged to pass +that way, and welcomed her gayly, expressing my thanks for the +letter. + +"I had to come back, you see," she said, with calm simplicity. I +lingered awkwardly, stripping upward the stalks of some weeds. + +"Very few Kentucky birds are migratory," I replied at length, with +desperate brilliancy and an overwhelming grimace. + +"I shall go back some time--to say," she said, and turned away with +a parting faintest smile. + +I that West Point brother giving trouble? If so, the sooner a war +breaks out and he gets killed, the better. One thing is certain: +if, for the next month, fruit and flowers will give Georgiana any +pleasure, she shall have a good deal of pleasure. She is so changed! +But why need I take on about it? + +They have been cleaning out a drain under the streets along the +Town Fork of Elkhorn, and several people are down with fever. + + + +X + + +New-Year's night again, and bitter cold. + +When I forced myself away from my fire before dark, and ran down to +the stable to see about feeding and bedding the horses and cows, +every beast had its head drawn in towards its shoulders, and +looked at me with the dismal air of saying, "Who is tempering the +wind now?" The dogs in the kennel, with their noses between their +hind-legs, were shivering under their blankets and straw like +a nest of chilled young birds. The fowls on the roost were mere +white and blue puffs of feathers. Nature alone has the making of +her creatures; why doesn't she make them comfortable? + +After supper old Jack and Dilsy came in, and standing against the +wall with their arms folded, told me more of what happened after I +got sick. That was about the middle of September, and it is only +two weeks since I became well enough to go in and out through all +sorts of weather. + +It was the middle of September then, my servants said, and as within +a week after taking the fever I was very ill, a great many people +came out to inquire for me. Some of these, walking around the +garden, declared it was a pity for such fruit and flowers to be +wasted, and so helped themselves freely every time. The old doctor, +who always fears for my health at this season, stopped by nearly +every day to repeat how he had warned me, and always walked back to +his gig in a round-about way, which required him to pass a favorite +tree; and once he was so indignant to find several other persons +gathered there, and mournfully enjoying the last of the fruit as +they predicted I would never get well, that he came back to the +house--with two pears in each duster pocket and one in his mouth--and +told Jack it was an outrage. The preacher, likewise, who appears +in the spring-time, one afternoon knocked reproachfully at the +front door and inquired whether I was in a condition to be reasoned +with. In his hand he carried a nice little work-basket, which may +have been brought along to catch his prayers; but he took it home +piled with grapes. + +And then they told me, also, how many a good and kind soul came +with hushed footsteps and low inquires, turning away sometimes +with brightened faces, sometimes with rising tears--often people +to whom I had done no kindness or did not even know; how others, +whom I had quarrelled with or did not like, forgot the poor puny +quarrels and the dislike, and begged to do for me whatever they +could; how friends went softly around the garden, caring for a +flower, putting a prop under a too heavily-laden limb, or climbing +on step-ladders to tie sacks around the finest bunches of grapes, +with the hope that I might be well in time to eat them--touching +nothing themselves, having no heart to eat; how dear, dear ones +would never leave me day or night; how a good doctor wore himself +out with watching, and a good pastor sent up for me his spotless +prayers; and at last, when I began to mend, how from far and near +there poured in flowers and jellies and wines, until, had I been +the multitude by the Sea of Galilee, there must have been baskets +to spare. God bless them! God bless them all! And God forgive +us all the blindness, the weakness, and the cruelty with which we +judge each other when we are in health. + +This and more my beloved old negroes told me a few hours ago, as +I sat in deep comfort and bright health again before my blazing +hickories; and one moment we were in laughter and the next in +tears--as is the strange life we live. This is a gay household now, +and Dilsy cannot face me without a fleshly earthquake of laughter +that I have become such a high-tempered tiger about punctual meals. + +In particular, my two nearest neighbors were much at odds as to +which had better claim to nurse me; so that one day Mrs. Walters, +able to endure it no longer, thrust Mrs. Cobb out of the house by +the shoulder-blades, locked the door on her, and them opened the +shutters and scolded her out of the window. + +One thing I miss. My servants have never called the name of +Georgiana. The omission is unnatural, and must be intentional. +Of course I have not asked whether she showed any care; but that +little spot of silence affects me as the sight of a tree remaining +leafless in the woods where everything else is turning green. + + + +XI + + +To-day I was standing at a window, looking out at the aged row of +cedars, now laden with snow, and thinking of Horace and Soracte. +Suddenly, beneath a jutting pinnacle of white boughs which left +under themselves one little spot of green, I saw a cardinal hop +out and sit full-breasted towards me. The idea flashed through +my mind that this might be that shyest, most beautiful fellow whom +I had found in September, and whom I tried to make out as the son +of my last winter's pensioner. At least he has never lived in my +yard before; for when, to test his shyness, I started to raise the +window-sash, at the first noise of it he was gone. My birds are +not so afraid of me. I must get on better terms with this stranger. + +Mrs. Walters over for a while afterwards. I told her of my fancy +that this bird was one of last summer's brood, and that he appeared +a trifle larger than any male I had ever seen. She said of course. +Had I not fed the parents all last winter? When she fed her hens, +did they not lay bigger eggs? Did not bigger eggs contain bigger +chicks? Did not bigger chicks become bigger hens, again? According +to Mrs. Walters, a single winter's feeding of hot corn-meal, +scraps of bacon, and pods of red pepper will all but bring about +a variation of species; and so if the assumed rate at which I am +now going were kept up a hundred years, my cedar-trees might be +full of a race of red-birds as large and as fat as geese. + +Standing towards sundown at another window, I saw Georgiana sewing +at hers, as I have seen her every day since I got out of bed. Why +should she sew so much? There is a servant also; and they sew, +sew, sew, as if eternal sewing were eternal happiness, eternal +salvation. The first day she sprang up, letting her work roll off +her lap, and waved her handkerchief inside the panes, and smiled +with what looked to me like radiant pleasure that I was well again. +I was weak and began to tremble, and, going back to the fireside, +lay back in my chair with a beating of the heart that was a warning. +Since then she has recognized me by only a quiet kindly smile. Why +has no one ever called her name? I believe Mrs. Walters knows. +She comes nowadays as if to tell something, and goes away with a +struggle that she has not told it. But a secret can no more stay +in the depths of Mrs. Walter's mind than cork at the bottom of +water; some day I shall see this mystery riding on the surface. + + + +XII + + +Yes, she knew; while unconscious I talked of Georgiana, of being +in love with her. Mrs. Walters added, sadly, that Georgiana +came home in the fall engaged to that New York cousin. Hence the +sewing--he is to marry her in June. + +I am _not_ in love with her. It is now four weeks since hearing +this conventional fiction, and every day I have been perfectly +able to repeat: "I am _not_ in love with Georgiana!" There was +one question which I put severely to Mrs. Walters: Had she told +Georgiana of my foolish talk? She shook her head violently, and +pressed her lips closely together, suggesting how impossible it +would be for the smallest monosyllable in the language to escape +by that channel; but she kept her eyes wide open, and the truth +issued from them, as smoke in a hollow tree, if stopped in at a +lower hole, simply rises and comes out at a higher one. "You should +have shut your eyes also," I said. "You have told her every word +of it, and the Lord only knows how much more." + +This February has let loose its whole pack of grizzly sky-hounds. +Unbroken severe weather. Health has not returned as rapidly as was +promised, and I have not ventured outside the yard. But it is a +pleasure to chronicle the beginning of an acquaintanceship between +his proud eminence the young cardinal and myself. For a long time +he would have naught to do with me, fled as I approached, abandoned +the evergreens altogether and sat on the naked tree-tops, as much +as threatening to quit the place altogether if I did not leave him +in peace. Surely he is the shyest of his kind, and, to my fancy, +the most beautiful; and therefore Nature seems to have stored him +with extra caution towards archenemy. + +But in the old human way I have taken advantage of his necessities. +The north wind has been by friend against him. I have called +in the aid of sleets and snows, have besieged him in his white +castle behind the glittering array of his icicles with threats of +starvation. So one day, dropping like a glowing coal down among +the other birds, he snatched a desperate hasty meal from the public +poor-house table that I had spread under the trees. + +It is the first surrender that decides. Since then some progress +has been made in winning his confidence, but the struggle going on +in his nature is plain enough still. At times he will rush away +from me in utter terror; at others he lets me draw a little nearer, +a little nearer, without moving form a limb; and now, after a month +of persuasion, he begins to discredit the experience which he has +inherited from centuries upon centuries of ancestors. In all that +I have done I have tried to say to him: "Don't judge me by mankind +in general. With me you are safe. I pledge myself to defend you +from enemies, high and low." + +This had not escaped the notice of Georgiana at the window, and more +than once she had let her work drop to watch my patient progress +and to bestow upon me a rewarding smile. Is there nearly always +sadness in it, or is the sadness in my eyes? If Georgiana's brother +is giving her trouble, I'd like to take a hand-axe to _his_ feet. +I suppose I shall never know whether he cut her foot in two. She +carries the left one a little peculiarly; but so many women do +that. + +Sometimes, when the day's work is over and the servant is gone, +Georgiana comes to the window and looks away towards the sunsets +of winter, her hands clasped behind her back, her motionless figure +in relief against the darkness within, her face white and still. +Being in the shadow of my own room, so that she could not see me, +and knowing that I ought not to do it, but unable to resist, I have +softly taken up the spy-glass which I use in the study of birds, +and have drawn Georgiana's face nearer to me, holding it there +till she turns away. I have noted the traces of pain, and once +the tears which she could not keep back and was too proud to heed. +Then I have sat before my flickering embers, with I know not what +all but ungovernable yearning to be over there in the shadowy room +with her, and, whether she would or not, to fold my arms around +her, and, drawing her face against mine, whisper: "What is it +Georgiana? And why must it be?" + + + +XIII + + +The fountains of the great deep opened. A new heaven, a new earth. +Georgiana has broken her engagement with her cousin. Mrs. Cobb let +it out in the strictest confidence to Mrs. Walters. Mrs. Walters, +with stricter confidence still, has told me only. + +The West-Pointer had been writing for some months in regard to +the wild behavior of his cousin. This grew worse, and the crisis +came. Georgiana snapped her thread and put up her needle. He +travelled all the way down her to implore. I met him at the gate +as he left the house--a fine, straight, manly, handsome young +fellow, with his face pale with pain, and his eyes flashing with +anger--and bade him a long, affectionate, inward God-speed as he +hurried away. It was her father's influence. He had always wished +for this union. Ah, the evils that come to the living from the +wrongful wishes of the dead! Georgiana is so happy now, since she +has been forced to free herself, that spring in this part of the +United States seems to have advanced about half a month. + +"What on earth will she do with all those clothes?" inquired Mrs. +Walters the other night, eying me with curious impressiveness. + +"They ought to be hanged," I said, promptly. + +There is a young scapegrace who passes my house morning and evening +with his cows. He has the predatory instincts of that being +who loves to call himself the image of his Maker, and more than +once has given annoyance, especially last year, when he robbed a +damson-tree of a brood of Baltimore orioles. This winter and spring +his friendly interest in my birds has increased, and several times +I have caught him skulking among the pines. Last night what should +I stumble on but a trap, baited and sprung, under the cedar-tree in +which the cardinal roosts. I was up before daybreak this morning. +Awhile after the waking of the birds here comes my young bird-thief, +creeping rapidly to his trap. As he stooped I had him by the +collar, and within the next five minutes I must have set up in his +nervous system a negative disposition to the caging of red-birds +that will descend as a positive tendency to all the generations of +his offspring. + +All day this meditated outrage has kept my blood up. Think of this +beautiful cardinal beating his heart out against maddening bars, or +caged for life in some dark city street, lonely, sick, and silent, +bidden to sing joyously of that high world of light and liberty where +once he sported! Think of the exquisite refinement of cruelty in +wishing to take him on the eve of May! + +It is hardly a fancy that something as loyal as friendship has +sprung up between this bird and me. I accept his original shyness +as a mark of his finer instincts; but, like the nobler natures, +when once he found it possible to give his confidence, how frankly +and fearlessly has it been given. The other day, brilliant, warm, +windless, I was tramping across the fields a mile from home, when I +heard him on the summit of a dead sycamore, cleaving the air with +stroke after stroke of his long melodious whistle, as with the swing +of a silken lash. When I drew near he dropped down from bough to +bough till he reached the lowest, a few feet from where I stood, +and showed by every movement how glad he was to see me. We really +have reached the understanding that the immemorial persecution +of his race by mine is ended; and now more than ever my fondness +settles about him, since I have found his happiness plotted against, +and have perhaps saved his very life. It would be easy to trap +him. His eye should be made to distrust every well-arranged pile +of sticks under which lurks a morsel. + +To=night I called upon Georgiana and sketched the arrested tragedy +of the morning. She watched me curiously, and then dashed into a +little treatise on the celebrated friendships of man for the lower +creatures, in fact and fiction, from camels down to white mice. +Her father must have been a remarkably learned man. I didn't +like this. It made me somehow feel as though I were one of Asp's +Fables, or were being translated into English as that old school-room +horror of Androclus and the Lion. In the bottom of my soul I don't +believe that Georgiana cares for birds, or knows the difference +between a blackbird and a crow. I am going to send her a little +story, "The Passion of the Desert." Mrs. Walters is now confident +that Georgiana regrets having broken off her engagement. But then +Mrs. Walters can be a great fool when she puts her whole mind to +it. + + + +XIV + + +In April I commence to scratch and dig in my garden. + +To-day, as I was raking off my strawberry bed, Georgiana, whom I +have not seen since the night when she satirized me, called from +the window: + +"What are you going to plant this year?" + +"Oh, a little of everything," I answered, under my hat. "What are +_you_ going to plant this year?" + +"Are you going to have many strawberries?" + +"It's too soon to tell: they haven't bloomed yet. It's too soon +to tell when they _do_ bloom. Sometimes strawberries are like +women: Whole beds full of showy blossoms; but when the time comes +to be ripe and luscious, you can't find them." + +"Indeed." + +"'Tis true, 'tis pity." + +I had always supposed that to a Southern gentleman woman was not a +berry but a rose. What does he hunt for in woman as much as bloom +and fragrance? But I don't belong to the rose-order of Southern +women myself. Sylvia does. Why did you send me that story?" + +"Didn't you like it?" + +"No. A woman couldn't care for a story about a man and a tigress. +Either she would feel that she was too much left out, or suspect +that she was too much put in. The same sort of story about a lion +and a woman--that would be better." + +I raked in silence for a minute, and when I looked up Georgiana +was gone. I remember her saying once that children should be kept +tart; but now and then I fancy that she would like to keep even a +middle-aged man in brine. Who knows but that in the end I shall +sell my place to the Cobbs and move away? + + +Five more days of April, and then May! For the last half of this +light-and-shadow month, when the clouds, like schools of changeable +lovely creatures, seem to be playing and rushing away through the +waters of the sun, life to me has narrowed more and more to the +red-bird, who gets tamer and tamer with habit, and to Georgiana, +who gets wilder and wilder with happiness. The bird fills the yard +with brilliant singing; she fills her room with her low, clear +songs, hidden behind the window-curtains, which are now so much +oftener and so needlessly closed. I work myself nearly to death in +my garden, but she does not open them. The other day the red-bird +sat in a tree near by, and his notes floated out on the air like +scarlet streamers. Georgiana was singing, so low that I was making +no noise with my rake in order to hear; and when he began, before +I realized what I was doing, I had seized a brickbat and hurled +it, barely missing him, and driving him away. He did not know what +to make of it; neither did I; but as I raised my eyes I saw that +Georgiana had opened the curtains to listen to him, and was closing +them with her eyes on my face, and a look on hers that has haunted +me ever since. + + +April the 26th. It's of no use. To-morrow night I will go to see +Georgiana, and ask her to marry me. + + +April 28th. Man that is born of woman is of few days and full +of trouble. I am not the least sick, but I am not feeling at all +well. So have made a will, and left everything to Mrs. Walters. +She has been over five times to-day, and this evening sat by me a +long time, holding my hand and smoothing my forehead, and urging +me to try a cream poultice--a mustard-plaster--a bowl of gruel--a +broiled chicken. + +I believe Georgiana thinks I'll ask her again. Not if I lived by +her through eternity! Thy rod and Thy staff--_they_ comfort me. + + + +XV + + +A Poor devil will ask a woman to marry him. She will refuse him. +The day after she will meet him as serenely as if he had asked her +for a pin. + +It is now May 15th, and I have not spoken to Georgians when I've +had a chance. She has been entirely too happy, to judge from her +singing, for me to get along with under the circumstances. But +this morning, as I was planting a hedge inside my fence under her +window, she leaned over and said, as though nothing were wrong +between us, "What are you planting?" + +I have sometimes thought that Georgiana can ask more questions than +Socrates. + +"A hedge." + +"What for?" + +"To grow." + +"What do you want it to grow for?" + +"My garden is too public. I wish to be protected from outsiders." + +"Would it be the same thing if I were to nail up this window? That +would be so much quicker. It will be ten years before your hedge +is high enough to keep me from seeing you. And even then, you +know, I could move up-stairs. But I am so sorry to be an outsider." + +"I merely remarked that I was planting a hedge." + +When Georgiana spoke again her voice was lowered: "Would you open +a gateway for me into your garden, to be always mine, so that I +might go out and come in, and never another human soul enter it?" + +Now Jacob had often begged me to cut _him_ a private gateway on +that side of the garden, so that only _he_ might come in and go +out; and I had refused, since I did not wish him to get to me so +easily with his complaints. Besides, a gate once opened, who may +not use it? and I was indignant that Georgiana should lightly ask +anything at my hands; therefore I looked quickly and sternly up at +her and said, "I will not." + +Afterwards the thought rushed over me that she had not spoken of +any gateway through my garden fence, but of another one, mystical, +hidden, infinitely more sacred. For her voice descended almost in +a whisper, and her face, as she bent down towards me, had on it I +know not what angelic expression. She seemed floating to me from +heaven. + + +May 17th. To-day I put a little private gate through my fence +under Georgiana's window, as a sign to her. Balaam's beast that +I am! Yes, seven times more than the inspired ass. + + +As I passed to-day, I noticed Georgiana looking down at the gate +that I made yesterday. She held a flower to her nose and eyes, +but behind the leaves I detected that she was laughing. + +"Good-morning!" she called to me. "What did you cut that ugly hole +in your fence for?" + +"That's not an ugly hole. That's a little private gateway." + +"But what's the little private gateway _for_?" + +"Oh, well! You don't understand these matters. I'll tell your +mother." + +"My mother is too old. She no longer stoops to such things. Tell +_me_! + +"Impossible!" + +"I'm dying to know!" + +"What will you give me?" + +"Anything--this flower!" + +"But what would the flower stand for in that case? A little pri--" + +"Nothing. Take it!" and she dropped it lightly on my face and +disappeared. As I stood twirling it ecstatically under my nose, +and wondering how I could get her to come back to the window, the +edge of a curtain was lifted, and a white hand stole out and softly +closed the shutters. + +In the evening Sylvia went in to a concert of the school, which was +to be held at the Court-house, a chorus of girls being impaneled +in the jury-box, and the principal, who wears a little wig, taking +her seat on the woolsack. I promised to have the very pick of the +garden ready, and told Sylvia to come to the arbor the last thing +before starting. She wore big blue rosettes in her hair, and at +that twilight hour looked as lovely, soft, and pure as moonshine; +so that I lost control of myself and kissed her twice--once for +Georgiana and once for myself. Surely it must have been Sylvia's +first experience. I hope so. Yet she passed through it with the +composure of a graduate of several year's standing. But, then, +women inherit a great stock of fortitude from their mothers in +this regard, and perpetually add to it by their own dispositions. +Ought I to warn Georgiana--good heavens! in a general way, of +course--that Sylvia should be kept away from sugar, and well under +the influence of vulgar fractions? + +It made me feel uncomfortable to see her go tripping out of her +front gate on the arm of a youth. Can it be possible the _he_ would +try to do what _I_ did? Men differ so in their virtues, and are +so alike in their transgressions. This forward gosling displayed +white duck pantaloons, brandished pumps on his feet, which looked +flat enough to have been webbed, and was scented as to his marital +locks with a far-reaching pestilence of bergamot and cinnamon. + +After they were gone I strolled back to my arbor and sat down amid +the ruins of Sylvia's flowers. The nigh was mystically beautiful. +The moon seemed to me to be softly stealing down the sky to kiss +Endymion. I looked across towards Georgiana's window. She was +there, and I slipped over and stood under it. + +"Georgiana," I whispered, "were you, too, looking at the moon?" + +"Part of the time," she said, sourly. "Isn't it permitted?" + +"Sylvia left her scissors in the arbor, and _I_ can't find them." + +"_She'll_ find them to-morrow." + +"If they get wet, you know, they'll rust." + +"I keep something to take rust off." + +"Georgiana, I've got something to tell you about Sylvia." + +"What? That you kissed her?" + +"N--o! Not _that_, exactly!" + +"Good-night!" + + +May 21st. Again I asked Georgiana to be mine. I am a perfect fool +about her. But she's coming my way at last--God bless her! + + +May 24th. I renewed my suit to Georgiana. + + +May 27th. I besought Georgiana to hear me. + + +May 28th. For the last time I offered my hand in marriage to the +elder Miss Cobb. Now I am done with her forever. I am no fool. + + +May 29th. Oh, _damn_ Mrs. Walters! + + + +XVI + + +This morning, the 3d of June, I went out to pick the first dish +of strawberries for my breakfast. As I was stooping down I heard +a timid, playful voice at the window like the echo of a year ago: +"Are you the gardener?" + +Since Georgiana will not marry me, if she would only let me alone! + +"Old man, are you the gardener?" + +"Yes, I'm the gardener. I _know_ what _you_ are." + +"How much do you ask for your strawberries?" + +"They come high. _Nothing_ of mine is to be as cheap hereafter as +it has been." + +"I am so glad--for your sake. I should like to possess _something_ +of yours, but I suppose everything is too high now." + +"Entirely too high!" + +"If I only could have foreseen that there would be an increase of +value! As for me, I have felt that I am getting cheaper lately. +I may have to _give_ myself away soon. If I only knew of some one +who loved the lower animals." + +"The fox, for instance?" + +"Yes; do you know of any one who would accept the present of a +fox?" + +"Ahem! I wouldn't mind having a _tame_ fox. I don't care much +for wild foxes." + +"Oh, this one would get tame--in time." + +"I don't believe I know of any one just at present." + +"Very well. Sylvia will get the highest mark in arithmetic. And +Joe is distinguishing himself at West Point. That's what I wanted +to tell you. I'll send you over the cream and sugar, and hope you +will enjoy all your berries. _We_ shall buy some in the market-house +next week." + +Later in the forenoon I sent the strawberries over to Georgiana. +I have a variety that is the shape of the human heart, and when +ripe it matches in color that brighter current of the heart through +which runs the hidden history of our passions. All over the top +of the dish I carefully laid these heart-shaped berries, and under +the biggest one, at the very top, I slipped this little note: "Look +at the shape of them, Georgiana! I send them all to you. They +are perishable." + +This afternoon Georgiana sent back the empty dish, and inside the +napkin was this note: "They are exactly the shape and color of my +emery needle-bag. I have been polishing my needles in it for many +years." + +Later, as I was walking to town, I met Georgiana and her mother +coming out. No explanation had ever been made to the mother of +that goose of a gate in our division fence; and as Georgiana had +declined to accept the sign, I determined to show her that the gate +could now stand for something else. So I said: "Mrs. Cobb, when +you send your servants over for green corn, you can let them come +through that little gate. It will be more convenient." + +Only, I was so angry and confused that I called her Mrs. Corn, +and said that when she sent her little Cobbs over . . . my green +servants, etc. + + +After Georgiana's last treatment of me I resolved not to let her +talk to me out of her window. So about nine o'clock this morning +I took a Negro boy and set him to picking the berries, while I +stood by, directing him in a deep, manly voice as to the best way +of managing that intricate business. Presently I heard Georgiana +begin to sing to herself behind the curtains. + +"Hurry up and fill that cup," I said to him, savagely. "And that +will do this morning. You can go to the mill. The meal's nearly +out." + +When he was gone I called, in an undertone: "Georgiana! Come to +the window! Please! Oh, Georgiana!" + +But the song went on. What was the matter? I could not endure +it. There was one way by which perhaps she could be brought. I +whistled long and loud again and again. The curtains parted a +little space. + +"I was merely whistling to the _bird_," I said. + +"I knew it," she answered, looking as I had never seen her. +"Whenever you speak to _him_ your voice is full of confidence and +of love. I believe in it and like to hear it." + +"What do you mean, Georgiana?" I cried, imploringly. + +"Ah, Adam!" she said, with a rush of feeling. It was the first time +she had ever called me by name. She bent her face down. Over it +there passed a look of sweetness and sadness indescribably blended. +"Ah, Adam! you have asked me many times to _marry_ you! Make me +believe once that you _love_ me! Make me feel that I could trust +myself to you for life!" + +"What else can I do?" I answered, stirred to the deepest that was +in me, throwing my arms backward, and standing with an open breast +into which she might gaze. + +And she did search my eyes and face in silence. + +"What more," I cried again, "in God's name?" + +She rested her face on her palm, looking thoughtfully across the +yard. Over there the red-bird was singing. Suddenly she leaned +down towards me. Love was on her face now. But her eyes held +mine with the determination to wrest from them the last truth they +might contain, and her voice trembled with doubt: + +"Would you put the red-bird in a cage for me? Would you be willing +to do that for me, Adam?" + +At those whimsical, cruel words I shall never be able to reveal +all that I felt--the surprise, the sorrow, the pain. Scenes of +boyhood flashed through my memory. A conscience built up through +years of experience stood close by me with admonition. I saw the +love on her face, the hope with which she hung upon my reply, as +though it would decide everything between us. I did not hesitate; +my hands dropped to my side, the warmth died out of my heart as +out of spent ashes, and I answered her, with cold reproach, + +"I--will--not!" + +The color died out of her face also. Her eyes still rested on +mine, but now with pitying sadness. + +"I feared it," she murmured, audibly, but to herself, and the +curtains fell together. + + +Four days have passed. Georgiana has cast me off. Her curtains +are closed except when she is not there. I have tried to see her; +she excuses herself. I have written; my letters come back unread. +I have lain in wait for her on the streets; she will not talk with +me. The tie between us has been severed. With her it could never +have been affection. + +And for what? I ask myself over and over and over--for what? Was +she jealous of the bird, and did she require that I should put it +out of the way? Sometimes women do that. Did she take that means +of forcing me to a test? Women do that. Did she wish to show +her power over me, demanding the one thing she knew would be the +hardest for me to grant? Women do that. Did she crave the pleasure +of seeing me do wrong to humor her caprice? Women do that. But +not one these things can I even associate with the thought of +Georgiana. I have in every way to have her explain, to explain +myself. She will neither give nor receive an explanation. + +I had supposed that her unnatural request would have been the end +of my love, but it has not; that her treatment since would have +fatally stung my pride, but it has not. I understand neither; forgive +both; love her now with that added pain which comes from a man's +discovering that the woman dearest to him must be pardoned--pardoned +as long as he shall live. + +Never since have I been able to look at the red-bird with the old +gladness. He is the reminder of my loss. Reminder? Do I ever +forget? Am I not thinking of that before his notes lash my memory +at dawn? All day can they do more than furrow deeper the channel +of unforgetfulness? Little does he dream what my friendship for +him has cost me. But this solace I have at heart--that I was not +even tempted to betray him. + + +Three days more have passed. No sign yet that Georgiana will +relent soon or ever. Each day the strain becomes harder to bear. +My mind has dwelt upon my last meeting with her, until the truth +about it weavers upon my memory like vague, uncertain shadows. +She doubted my love for her. What proof was it she demanded? I +must stop looking at the red-bird, lying here and there under the +trees, and listening to him as he sings above me. My eyes devour +him whenever he crosses my path with an uncomprehended fascination +that is pain. How gentle he has become, and how, without intending +it, I have deepened the perils of his life by the very gentleness +that I have brought upon him. Twice already the fate of his species +has struck at him, but I have pledged myself to be his friend. +This is his happiest season; a few days now, and he will hear the +call of his young in the nest. + +I shut myself in my workshop in the yard this morning. I did not +wish my servants to know. In there I made a bird-trap such as I +had often used when a boy. And late this afternoon I went to town +and bought a bird-cage. I was afraid the merchant would misjudge +me, and explained. He scanned my face silently. To-morrow I will +snare the red-bird down behind the pines long enough to impress on +his memory a life-long suspicion of every such artifice, and then +I will set him free again in his wide world of light. Above all +things, I must see to it that he does not wound himself or have +the least feather broken. + + +It is far past midnight now, and I have not slept or wished for +slumber. + +Constantly since darkness came on I have been watching Georgiana's +window for the light of her candle, but there has been no kindly +glimmer yet. The only radiance shed upon the gloom outside comes +from the heavens. Great cage-shaped white clouds are swung up to +the firmament, and within these pale, gentle, imprisoned lightnings +flutter feebly to escape, fall back, rise, and try again and again, +and fail. + +. . . _A little after dark this evening I carried the red-bird +over to Georgiana_. . . . + +I have seen her so little of late that I did not know she had +been away from home for days. But she expected to-night, or, at +furthest, to-morrow morning. I left the bird with the servant at +the door, who could hardly believe what he saw. As I passed out +of my front gate on my way there, the boy who returns about that +time from the pasture for his cows joined me as I hurried along, +attracted by the fluttering of the bird in the cage. + +"Is it the red-bird? _I_ tried to ketch him once," he said, +with entire forgiveness of me, as having served him right, "but +I caught something else. I'll never forget _that_ whipping. Oh, +but _wouldn't_ I like to have him! Mr. Moss, you wouldn't mind +my trying to ketch one of them little bits o' brown fellows, would +you, that hops around under them pine-trees? They ain't no account +to nobody. Oh my! but _wouldn't_ I like to have him! May I bring +_my_ trap some time, and will you help me to ketch one o' them +little bits o' brown ones? You can beat _me_ ketchin' 'em!" + +Several times to-night I have gone across and listened under +Georgiana's window. The servant must have set the cage in her +room, for, as I listened, I am sure I heard the red-bird beating +his head and breast against the wires. Awhile ago I went again, +and did not hear him. I waited a long time. . . . _He may +be quieted_. . . . + +Ah, if any one had said to me that I would ever do what I have +done, with what full, deep joy could I have throttled the lie in +his throat! I put the trap under one of the trees where I have +been used to feed him. When it fell he was not greatly frightened. +He clutched the side of it, and looked out at me. My own mind supplied +his words: "Help! I'm caught! Take me out! You promised!" When +I transferred him to the cage, for a moment his confidence lasted +still. He mounted the perch, shook his plumage, and spoke out +bravely and cheerily. Then all at once came on the terror. + + +The dawn came on this morning with its old splendor. The birds +in my yard, as of old, poured forth their songs. But those loud, +long, clear, melodious, deep-hearted, passionate, best-loved notes! +As the chorus swelled from shadowy shrubs and vines to the sparking +tree-tops I listened for some sound from Georgiana's room, but over +there I saw only the soft, slow flapping of the white curtains like +signals of distress. + +Towards ten o'clock, wandering restless, I snatched up a book, which +I had no wish to read, and went to the arbor where I had so often +discoursed to Sylvia about children's cruelty to birds. Through +the fluttering leaves the sunlight dripped as a weightless shower +of gold, and the long pendants of young fruit swayed gently in +their cool waxen greenness. Where some rotting planks crossed the +top of the arbor a blue-jay sat on her coarse nest; and presently +the mate flew to her with a worm, and then talked to her in a low +voice, as much as saying that they must now leave the place forever. +I was thinking how love softens even the voice of this file-throated +screamer, when along the garden walk came the rustle of a woman's +clothes, and, springing up, I stood face to face with Georgiana. + +"What have you done?" she implored. + +"What have _you_ done? I answered as quickly. + +"Oh, Adam, _Adam_! You have killed it! How could you? How could +you?" + +". . . Is he dead, Georgiana? Is he dead?. . ." + +I forgot everything else, and pulling my hat down over my eyes, +turned from her in the helpless shock of silence that came with +those irreparable words. + +Then in ungovernable anger, suffering, remorse, I turned upon her +where she sat: "It is _you_ who killed him! Why do you come here +to blame me? And now you pretend to be sorry. You felt no pity +when pity would have done some good. Trifler! Hypocrite! + +"It is false!" she cried, her words flashing from her whole +countenance, her form drawn up to repel the shock of the blow. + +"Did you not ask me for him?" + +"No!" + +"Oh, deny it all! It is a falsehood--invented by me on the spot. +You know nothing of it! You did not ask me to do this! And when +I have yielded, you have not run to reproach me here and to cry, +'How could you? How could you?'" + +"No! No! Every word of it--" + +"Untruth added to it all! Oh, that I should have been so deceived, +blinded, taken in!" + +"Adam!" + +"Lovely innocence! It is too much! Go away!" + +"I will not _stand_ this any longer!" she cried. "I _will_ go +away; but not till I have told you why I have acted as I have." + +"It is too late for that! I do not care to hear!" + +"Then you _shall_ hear!" she replied. "You shall know that it is +because I have believed you capable of speaking to me as you have +just spoken; believed you at heart unsparing and unjust. You think +I asked you to do what you have done? No! I asked you whether +you would be willing to do it; and when you said you would _not_, +I saw then--by your voice, your eyes, your whole face and manner--that +you _would_. Saw it as plainly at that moment, in spite of your +denial, as I see it now--the cruelty in you, the unfaithfulness, +the willingness to betray. It was for _this_ reason--not because +I heard you refuse, but because I saw you consent--that I could +not forgive you." + +She paused abruptly and looked across into my face. What she may +now have read in it I do not know. Then anger swept her on: + +"How often had I not heard you bitter and contemptuous towards +people because _they_ are treacherous, cruel! How often have you +talked of _your_ love of nature, of _our_ inhumanity towards lower +creatures! But what have _you_ done? + +"You set your fancy upon one of these creatures, lie in wait for +it, beset it with kindness, persevere in overcoming its wildness. +You are amused, delighted, proud of your success. One day--you +remember?--it sang as you had always wished to hear it. It annoyed +you, and you threw a stone at it. With a little less angry aim +you would have killed it. I have never seen anything more inhuman. +How do I know that some day you would not be tired of me, and throw +a stone at _me_? When a woman submits to this once, she will have +them thrown at her whenever she sings at the wrong time, and she +will never know when the right time is. + +"Then you thought you were asked to sacrifice it, and now you have +done that. How do I know that some day you might not be tempted +to sacrifice me?" She paused, her voice breaking, and remained +silent, as if unable to get beyond that thought. + +"If you have finished," I said, very quietly, "I have something to +say to you, and we need not meet after this. + +"I trapped the _bird_; you trapped _me_. I understood you to ask +something of me, to cast me off when I refused it. Such was my +faith in you that beneath your words I did not look for a snare. How +hard it was for me to forgive you what you asked is my own affair +now; but forgive you I did. How hard it was to grant it, that also +is now, and will always be, my own secret. I beg you merely to +believe this: knowing it to be all that you have described--and +far more than you can ever understand--still, I did it. Had you +demanded of me something worse, I should have granted that. If +you think a man will not do wrong for a woman, you are mistaken. +If you think men always love the wrong that they do for the women +whom they love, you are mistaken again. + +"You have held up my faults to me. I knew them before. I have +not loved them. Do not think that I am trying to make a virtue out +of anything I say; but in all my thoughts of you there has been no +fault of yours that I have not hidden from my sight, and have not +resolved as best I could never to see. Yet do not dream that I +have found you faultless. + +"You fear I might sacrifice you to something else. It is possible. +Every man resists temptation only to a certain point; every man +has his price. It is a risk you will run with any. + +"If you doubt that a man is capable of sacrificing one thing that +he loves to another that he loves more, tempt him, lie in wait for +his weakness, ensnare him in the toils of his greater passion, and +learn the truth. + +"I make no defence--believe all that you say. But had you loved +me, I might have been all this, and it would have been nothing." + +With this I walked slowly out of the arbor, but Georgiana stood +beside me. Her light touch was on my arm. + +"Let me see things clearly!" + +"You have a lifetime in which to see things clearly," I answered. +"How can that concern me now?" And I passed on into the house. + +During the morning I wandered restless. For a while I lay on the +grass down behind the pines. How deep and clear are the covered +springs of memory! All at once it was a morning in my boyhood on +my father's farm. I, a little Saul of Tarsus among the birds, was +on my way to the hedge-rows and woods, as to Damascus, breathing +out threatenings and slaughter. Then suddenly the childish miracle, +which no doubt had been preparing silently within my nature, wrought +itself out; for from the distant forest trees, from the old orchard, +from thicket and fence, from the wide green meadows, and down out +of the depths of the blue sky itself, a vast chorus of innocent +creatures sang to my newly opened ears the same words: "Why +persecutest thou me?" One sang it with indignation; another with +remonstrance; still another with resignation; others yet with +ethereal sadness or wild elusive pain. Once more the house-wren +aloud, "_per-se-cu-test--per-se-cu-test--per-se-cu-test--per-se-cu-test_!" +And as I peeped into the brush-pile, again the brown thrush, building +within, said, "_thou--thou--thou_!" + +Through all the years since I had thought myself changed, and craved +no greater glory than to be accounted the chief of their apostles. +But now I was stained once more with the old guilt, and once more +I could hear the birds in my yard singing that old, old chorus +against man's inhumanity. + +Towards the middle of the afternoon I went away across the country--by +any direction; I cared not what. On my way back I passed through +a large rear lot belonging to my neighbors, and adjoining my own, +in which is my stable. There has lately been imported into this +part of Kentucky from England the much-prized breed of the beautiful +white Berkshire. As I crossed the lot, near the milk-trough, +ash-heap, and paring of fruit and vegetables thrown from my neighbor's +kitchen, I saw a litter of these pigs having their awkward sport +over some strange red plaything, which one after another of them +would shake with all its might, root and tear at, or tread into +greater shapelessness. It was all there was left of him. + +I entered my long yard. If I could have been spared the sight +of that! The sun was setting. Around me was the last peace and +beauty of the world. Through a narrow avenue of trees I could see +my house, and on its clustering vines fell the angry red of the +sun darting across the cool green fields. + +The last hour of light touches the birds as it touches us. When +they sing in the morning, it is with the happiness of the earth; +but as the shadows fall strangely about them, and the helplessness +of the night comes on, their voices seem to be lifted up like the +loftiest poetry of the human spirit, with sympathy for realities +and mysteries past all understanding. + +A great choir was hymning now. On the tops of the sweet old +honeysuckles the cat-birds; robins in the low boughs of maples; on +the high limb of the elm the silvery-throated lark, who had stopped +as he passed from meadow to meadow; on a fence rail of the distant +wheat-field the quail--and many another. I walked to and fro, +receiving the voice of each as a spear hurled at my body. The sun +sank. The shadows rushed on and deepened. Suddenly, as I turned +once more in my path, I caught sight of the figure of Georgiana +moving straight towards me from the direction of the garden. She +was bareheaded, dressed in white; and she advanced over the smooth +lawn, through evergreens and shrubs, with a gentle grace and dignity +of movement such as I had never beheld. I kept my weary pace, and +when she came up I did not lift my eyes. + +"Adam!" she said, with gentle reproach. I stood still then, but +with my face turned away. + +"Forgive me!" All girlishness was gone out of her voice. It was +the woman at last. + +I turned my face farther from her, and we stood in silence. + +"I have suffered enough, Adam," she pleaded. + +I answered quietly, doggedly, for there was nothing left in me to +appeal to: + +"I am glad we can part kindly. . . . Neither of us may care much +for the kindness now, but we will not be sorry hereafter. . . . +The quarrels, the mistakes, the right and the wrong of our lives, +the misunderstandings--they are so strange, so pitiful, so full of +pain, and come so soon to nothing." And I lifted my hat, and took +the path towards my house. + +There was a point ahead where it divided, the other branch leading +towards the little private gate through which Georgiana had come. +Just before reaching the porch I looked that way, with the idea +that I should see Georgiana's white figure moving across the lawn; +but I discovered that she was following me. Mounting my door-steps, +I turned. She had paused on the threshold. I waited. At length +she said, in a voice low and sorrowful: + +"And you are not going to forgive me, Adam?" + +"I _do_ forgive you!" The silence fell and lasted. I no longer +saw her face. At last her despairing voice barely reached me again: + +"And--is--_that_--all?" + +I had no answer to make, and sternly waited for her to go. + +A moment longer she lingered, then turned slowly away; and I watched +her figure growing fainter and fainter till it was lost. I sprang +after her; my voice rang out hollow, and broke with terror and pain +and longing: + +"Georgiana! Georgiana!" + +"Oh, Adam, _Adam_!" I heard her cry, with low, piercing tenderness, +as she ran back to me through the darkness. + + +When we separated we lighted fresh candles and set them in our +windows, to burn a pure pathway of flame across the intervening +void. Henceforth we are like poor little foolish children, so +sick and lonesome in the night without one another. Happy, happy +night to come when one short candle will do for us both! + +. . . Ah, but the long, long silence of the trees! . . . + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A KENTUCKY CARDINAL*** + + +******* This file should be named 11532.txt or 11532.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +https://www.gutenberg.org/1/1/5/3/11532 + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project +Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you +charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. 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