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diff --git a/12858-h/12858-h.htm b/12858-h/12858-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..73cea9c --- /dev/null +++ b/12858-h/12858-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,4958 @@ +<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"> +<html> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8"> +<title>The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Lilac Girl, by Ralph Henry Barbour</title> + <style type="text/css"> +/*<![CDATA[ XML blockout */ +<!-- + P { margin-top: .75em; + text-align: justify; + margin-bottom: .75em; + } + H1,H2,H3,H4,H5,H6 { + text-align: center; /* all headings centered */ + } + HR { width: 33%; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; } + hr.full { width: 100%; + height: 5px; } + a:link {color:blue; + text-decoration:none} + link {color:blue; + text-decoration:none} + a:visited {color:blue; + text-decoration:none} + a:hover {color:red} + pre {font-size: 9pt;} + + BODY{margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + } + .linenum {position: absolute; top: auto; left: 4%;} /* poetry number */ + .note {margin-left: 2em; margin-right: 2em; margin-bottom: 1em;} /* footnote */ + .blkquot {margin-left: 4em; margin-right: 4em;} /* block indent */ + .pagenum {position: absolute; left: 92%; font-size: smaller; text-align: right;} /* page numbers */ + .sidenote {width: 20%; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: 1em; padding-left: 1em; font-size: smaller; float: right; clear: right;} + + .poem {margin-left:10%; margin-right:10%; text-align: left;} + .poem br {display: none;} + .poem .stanza {margin: 1em 0em 1em 0em;} + .poem span {display: block; margin: 0; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} + .poem span.i2 {display: block; margin-left: 2em;} + .poem span.i4 {display: block; margin-left: 4em;} + .poem .caesura {vertical-align: -200%;} + + .figure { + text-align: center; + font-size: smaller; + } + // --> + /* XML end ]]>*/ + </style> +</head> +<body> +<div>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 12858 ***</div> +<h1>The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Lilac Girl, by Ralph Henry Barbour, +Illustrated by Clarence F. Underwood</h1> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<hr class="full" noshade> +<br> +<br> +<div class="figure"> +<img src="images/illus_cover.jpg" alt="Cover of book with illustration framed by line drawing" > +</div> + +<hr style='width: 65%;' /> +<div class="figure"> +<a name='illus_front'></a><img src="images/illus_front.jpg" alt="OVER THE TIPS OF THE SPRAYS SHE SHOT A GLANCE AT WADE"> +<h4>OVER THE TIPS OF THE SPRAYS SHE SHOT A GLANCE AT WADE</h4> +</div> +<hr style='width: 65%;' /> + +<h1>THE LILAC GIRL</h1> + +<h3>BY</h3> + +<h2>RALPH HENRY BARBOUR</h2> + + +<h4>AUTHOR OF "KITTY OF THE ROSES," "AN ORCHARD PRINCESS," <br> +"A MAID IN ARCADY," "HOLLY," "MY LADY OF THE FOG," ETC.</h4> + +<h3><i>With Illustrations in Color by</i> <br> +CLARENCE F. UNDERWOOD</h3> + +<h3><i>and Decorations by</i> <br> +EDWARD STRATTON HOLLOWAY</h3> + +<h4>1909</h4> + +<br /> + +<hr style='width: 65%;' /> + +<h4>To L.D.K.</h4> + +<hr style='width: 65%;' /> + +<h2><b>CONTENTS</b></h2><br /> +<center> +<a href='#LIST_OF_ILLUSTRATIONS'><b>LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS</b></a><br /> +<a href='#I'><b>I.</b></a><br /> +<a href='#II'><b>II.</b></a><br /> +<a href='#III'><b>III.</b></a><br /> +<a href='#IV'><b>IV.</b></a><br /> +<a href='#V'><b>V.</b></a><br /> +<a href='#VI'><b>VI.</b></a><br /> +<a href='#VII'><b>VII.</b></a><br /> +<a href='#VIII'><b>VIII.</b></a><br /> +<a href='#IX'><b>IX.</b></a><br /> +<a href='#X'><b>X.</b></a><br /> +<a href='#XI'><b>XI.</b></a><br /> +<a href='#XII'><b>XII.</b></a><br /> +<a href='#XIII'><b>XIII.</b></a><br /> +<a href='#XIV'><b>XIV.</b></a><br /> +<a href='#XV'><b>XV.</b></a><br /> +<a href='#XVI'><b>XVI.</b></a><br /> +</center> + + +<hr style='width: 65%;' /> +<div class="figure"> + <img src="images/illus_draw6.jpg" alt="Door" height=200 hspace="10"> +</div> + +<a name='LIST_OF_ILLUSTRATIONS'></a><h2>LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS</h2> +<br /> + +<p><a href="#illus_front">OVER THE TIPS OF THE SPRAYS SHE SHOT A GLANCE AT WADE</a></p> + +<p><a href="#illus_p59">"OH, NO, SIR," REPLIED ZEPHANIA, WITH A SHOCKED, PITYING EXPRESSION</a></p> + +<p><a href="#illus_p83">"YOUR HOUSE? THEN—THEN WHERE IS MINE, PLEASE?"</a></p> + +<p><a href="#illus_p131">"STERN IN HER ANGER, MR. HERRICK, BUT OF AN AMIABLE AND FORGIVING +DISPOSITION"</a></p> + +<p><a href="#illus_p205">"NOW WHAT HAVE YOU TO SAY?" HE DEMANDED</a></p> + + +<hr style='width: 65%;' /> +<a name='THE_LILAC_GIRL'></a><h2>THE LILAC GIRL</h2> + +<hr style='width: 65%;' /> +<a name='I'></a><h2>I.</h2> +<br /> + +<img src="images/illus_draw1.jpg" alt="Trees and mountains" align="right" hspace="10"> + +<p>Two men were sitting beside a camp-fire at Saddle Pass, a shallow notch +in the lower end of the Sangre de Cristo Range in southern Colorado. +Although it was the middle of June and summer had come to the valleys +below, up here in the mountains the evenings were still chill, and the +warmth of the crackling fire felt grateful to tired bodies. Daylight yet +held, although it was fast deepening toward dusk. The sun had been gone +some little time behind the purple grandeur of Sierra Blanca, but +eastward the snowy tips of the Spanish Peaks were still flushed with the +afterglow.</p> + +<p>Nearby three ragged burros were cropping the scanty growth. Behind them +the sharp elbow of the mountain ascended, scarred and furrowed and +littered with rocky debris. Before them the hill sloped for a few rods +and levelled into a narrow plateau, across which, eastward and +westward, the railway, tired from its long twisting climb up the +mountain, seemed to pause for a moment and gasp for breath before +beginning its descent. Beyond the tracks a fringe of stunted trees held +precarious foothold on the lower slope of a smaller peak, which reared +its bare cone against the evening sky. There were no buildings at Saddle +Pass save a snow-shed which began where the rails slipped downward +toward the east and, dropping from sight, followed for a quarter of a +mile around the long face of the mountain. It was very still up here on +the Pass, so still that when the Western Slope Limited, two hours and +more late at Eagle Cliff, whistled for the tunnel four miles below the +sound came echoing about them startlingly clear.</p> + +<p>"Train coming up from the west," said the elder of the two men. "Must be +the Limited." The other nodded as he drained the last drop in his tin +cup and looked speculatively at the battered coffee pot.</p> + +<p>"Any more of the Arbuckle nectar, Ed?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"Not a drop, but I can make some."</p> + +<p>"No, I've had enough, I reckon. That's the trouble with dining late, Ed; +you have too much appetite."</p> + +<p>"We'll have to get some more grub before long," was the reply, "or it'll +be appetite and nothing else with us. I can eat bacon with the next man, +but I don't want to feast on it six days running. What we need, Wade, is +variety."</p> + +<p>"And plenty of it," sighed the other, stretching his tired legs and +finding a new position. "The fact is, even after this banquet I feel a +little hollow."</p> + +<p>"Same here, but I figure we'd better go a little short till we get +nearer town. We ought to strike Bosa Grande to-morrow night."</p> + +<p>"Why not hop the train and go down to Aroya? We can find some real grub +there."</p> + +<p>"Couldn't get back before to-morrow afternoon. What's the good of +wasting a whole day?"</p> + +<p>"Looks to me like we'd wasted about twenty of them already, Ed."</p> + +<p>Craig made no reply. He fished a corn-cob pipe and a little sack of +tobacco from his pocket and began to fill the bowl. Wade watched for a +moment in silence. Then, with a protesting groan, he rolled over until +he could get at his own pipe. Craig drew an ember from the edge of the +fire with calloused fingers, held it to his bowl and passed it on to +Wade. Then with grunts of contentment they settled back against the +sagging canvas of their tent and puffed wreaths of acrid smoke into the +twilight.</p> + +<p>The shadows were creeping up the mountain side. Overhead the wide sweep +of sky began to glitter with white stars. A little chill breeze sprang +up in the west and fanned the fire, sending a fairy shower of tiny +lemon-yellow sparks into the air. And borne on the breeze came a hoarse +pounding and drumming that grew momentarily louder and reverberated from +wall to wall. The ground trembled and the grazing burros lifted their +shaggy heads inquiringly.</p> + +<p>"She's almost up," said Wade. Craig nodded and replaced his pipe between +his teeth. The noise became multisonous. With the clangor of the +pounding wheels came the stertorous gasping of the engines, the creak +and clatter of protesting metal. The uproar filled the pass deafeningly.</p> + +<p>"She's making hard work of it," shouted Craig.</p> + +<p>"Probably a heavy train," Wade answered.</p> + +<p>Then a path of pale light swept around the elbow of the mountain and the +wheezing, puffing monsters reached the head of the grade. The watchers +could almost hear the sighs of relief from the two big mountain-climbers +as they found the level track beneath them. Their breathing grew easier, +quieter as they clanged slowly across the pass a few rods below the +camp. The burros, having satisfied their curiosity, went back to supper. +The firemen in the cab windows raised their hands in greeting and the +campers waved back. Behind the engines came a baggage and express car, +then a day coach, a diner and a sleeper. Slower and slower moved the +train and finally, with a rasping of brakes and the hissing of released +steam, it stopped.</p> + +<p>"What's up?" asked Wade.</p> + +<p>"Hot-box on the diner; see it?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, and smell it. Let's go down."</p> + +<p>But Craig shook his head lazily, and Wade, cinching his loosened belt, +limped with aching legs down the slope. The trainmen were already +pulling the smouldering, evil-smelling waste from the box, and after +watching a minute he loitered along the track beside the car. Several of +the shades were raised and the sight of the gleaming white napery and +silver brought a wistful gleam to his eyes. But there was worse to come. +At the last table a belated diner was still eating. He was a large man +with a double chin, under which he had tucked a corner of his napkin. He +ate leisurely, but with gusto.</p> + +<p>"Hot roast beef," groaned Wade, "and asparagus and little green beans! +Oh Lord!"</p> + +<p>He suddenly felt very empty, and mechanically tightened his leather belt +another inch. It came over him all at once that he was frightfully +hungry. For the last two days he and his partner had been travelling on +short rations, and to-day they had been on the go since before sun-up. +For a moment the wild idea came to him of jumping on the train and +riding down to Aroya just so he could take a seat in the dining-car and +eat his fill.</p> + +<p>"They wouldn't make much out of me at a dollar a throw," he reflected, +with a grin. But it wouldn't be fair to Craig, and he abandoned the idea +in the next breath. He couldn't stand there any longer, though, and see +that man eat. He addressed himself to the closed window before he turned +away.</p> + +<p>"I hope it chokes you," he muttered, venomously.</p> + +<p>Some of the passengers had descended from the day coach to stretch their +limbs, and with a desire to avoid them Wade walked toward the rear of +the train. Daylight dies hard up here in the mountains, but at last +twilight held the world, a clear, starlit twilight. Overhead the vault +of heaven was hung with deep blue velvet, pricked out with a million +diamonds. Up the slope the camp-fire glowed ruddily. In the west the +smouldering sunset embers had cooled to ashes of dove-gray and steel, +against which Sierra Blanca crouched, a grim, black giant. Wade had +reached the observation platform at the end of the sleeping-car. With a +tired sigh he turned toward the slope and the beckoning fire. But the +sound of a closing door brought his head around and the fire no longer +beckoned.</p> + +<p>On the platform, one hand on the knob of the car door as though +meditating retreat, stood the straight, slim figure of a girl. She wore +a light skirt and a white waist, and a bunch of flowers drooped from her +breast. Her head was uncovered and the soft brown hair waved lustrously +away from a face of ivory. The eyes that looked down into his reflected +the stars in their depths, the gently-parted mouth was like a vivid red +rosebud in the dusk. To Wade she seemed the very Spirit of Twilight, +white and slim and ethereal, and so suddenly had the apparition sprung +into his vision that he was startled and bewildered. For a long moment +their looks held. Then, somewhat faintly,</p> + +<p>"Why have we stopped?" she asked.</p> + +<p>So unreal had she looked that his heart pounded with relief when she +spoke.</p> + +<p>"There's a hot-box," he answered, in the tones of one repeating a lesson +learned. His eyes devoured her face hungrily.</p> + +<p>"Oh!" said the girl, softly. "Then—then you aren't a robber, are you?" +Wade merely shook his head. "I heard noises, and then—when I opened the +door—and saw you standing there—." The first alarm was yielding to +curiosity. She glanced at the scarred and stained hand which grasped the +brass railing, and from there to the pleasant, eager, sunburnt face +under the upturned brim of the battered sombrero. "No, I see you're not +that," she went on reflectively. "Are you a miner?"</p> + +<p>"No, only a prospector. We're camped up there." He tilted his head +toward the slope without moving his gaze.</p> + +<p>"Oh," said the girl. Perhaps she found that steady, unwinking regard of +his disconcerting, for she turned her head away slightly so that her +eyes were hidden from him. But the soft profile of the young face stood +clear against the darkening sky, and Wade gazed enravished.</p> + +<p>"You are looking for gold?" she asked.</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"And—have you found it?"</p> + +<p>"No."</p> + +<p>"Oh, I'm so sorry!" There was sympathy in the voice and in the look she +turned upon him, and the boy's heart sang rapturously. Perhaps weariness +and hunger and the girl's radiant twilit beauty combined to make him +light-headed; otherwise how account for his behavior? Or perhaps +starlight as well as moonlight may affect the brain; the theory is at +least plausible. Or perhaps no excuse is needed for him save that he was +twenty-three, and a Southerner! He leaned against the railing and +laughed softly and exultantly.</p> + +<p>"I've found no gold," he said, "but I don't care about that now. For +I've found to-night what is a thousand times better!"</p> + +<p>"Better than—than gold!" she faltered, trying to meet his gaze. "Why, +what—"</p> + +<p>"The girl I love!" he whispered up to her.</p> + +<p>She gasped, and the hand on the knob began to turn slowly. Even in the +twilight he could see the swift blood staining the ivory of her cheek. +His eyes found hers and held them.</p> + +<p>"What is your name?" he asked, softly, imperatively.</p> + +<p>Oh, surely there is some quality, some magic power in mountain starlight +undreamed of in our philosophy, for,</p> + +<p>"Evelyn," whispered the girl, her wide eyes on his and a strange wonder +on her face.</p> + +<p>"Evelyn!" he echoed radiantly. "Evelyn! Evelyn what?"</p> + +<p>"Walton," answered the girl obediently. He nodded his head and murmured +the name half aloud to his memory.</p> + +<p>"Evelyn Walton. And you live in God's country?"</p> + +<p>"In New York." Her breath came fast and one hand crept to her breast +where the flowers drooped.</p> + +<p>"I'll remember," he said, "and some day—soon—I'll come for you. I love +you, girl. Don't forget."</p> + +<p>There was a quick, impatient blast from the engine. The wheels creaked +against the rails. The train moved forward.</p> + +<p>"Good night," he said. His hand reached over the railing and one of hers +fell into it. For a moment it lay hidden there, warm and tremulous. Then +his fingers released it and it fled to join its fellow at her breast.</p> + +<p>"Good night—dear," he said again. "Remember!"</p> + +<p>Then he dropped from the step. There was a long piercing wail of the +whistle that was smothered as the engine entered the snow-shed. The girl +on the platform stood motionless a moment. Then one of her hands dropped +from her breast, and with it came a faded spray of purple lilac. She +stepped quickly to the rail and tossed it back into the twilight. Wade +sprang forward, snatched it from the track and pressed it to his lips. +When the last car dipped into the mouth of the snow-shed he was still +standing there, gazing after, his hat in hand, a straight, lithe figure +against the starlit sky.</p> + +<div class="figure"> +<img src="images/illus_draw2.jpg" alt="Two-track country lane" hspace="10"> +</div> + + +<hr style='width: 65%;' /> +<a name='II'></a><h2>II.</h2> +<br /> + +<img src="images/illus_draw3.jpg" alt="Country lane with birch trees" align="right" hspace="10"> + +<p>Well down in the southeastern corner of New Hampshire, some twenty miles +inland from the sea, lies Eden Village. Whether the first settlers added +the word Village to differentiate it from the garden of the same name I +can't say. Perhaps when the place first found a name, over two hundred +years ago, it was Eden, plain and simple. Existence there proving +conclusively the dissimilarity between it and the original Eden, the New +England conscience made itself heard in Town Meeting, and insisted on +the addition of the qualifying word Village, lest they appear to be +practising deception toward the world at large. But this is only a +theory. True it is, however, that while Stepping and Tottingham and +Little Maynard and all the other settlements around are content to exist +without explanatory suffixes, Eden maintains and is everywhere accorded +the right to be known as Eden Village. Even as far away as Redding, a +good eight miles distant, where you leave the Boston train, Eden's +prerogative is known and respected.</p> + +<p>Wade Herrick discovered this when, five years after our first glimpse of +him, he stepped from the express at Redding, and, bag in hand, crossed +the station platform and addressed himself to a wise-looking, +freckle-faced youth of fourteen occupying the front seat of a rickety +carryall.</p> + +<p>"How far is it to Eden, son?" asked Wade.</p> + +<p>"You mean Eden Village?" responded the boy, leisurely.</p> + +<p>"I suppose so. Are there two Edens around here?"</p> + +<p>"Nope; just Eden Village."</p> + +<p>"Well, where is that, how far is it, and how do I get there?"</p> + +<p>"About eight miles," answered the boy. "I kin take you there."</p> + +<p>Wade viewed the discouraged-looking, flea-bitten gray horse dubiously. +"Are you sure?" he asked. "Have you ever driven that horse eight miles +in one day?"</p> + +<p>"Well, I guess! There ain't a better horse in town than he is."</p> + +<p>"How long will it take?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, about an hour; hour an' a half; two hours—"</p> + +<p>"Hold on! That's enough. This isn't exactly a sight-seeing expedition, +son. We'll compromise on an hour and a half; what do you say?"</p> + +<p>The boy examined the prospective passenger silently. Then he looked at +the horse. Then he cocked an eye at the sun. Finally he nodded his head.</p> + +<p>"All right," he said. Wade deposited his satchel in the carriage and +referred to an address written on the back of a letter.</p> + +<p>"Now, where does Mr. Rufus Lightener do business?"</p> + +<p>"Over there at the bank."</p> + +<p>"Good. And where can I get something to eat?"</p> + +<p>"Stand up or sit down?"</p> + +<p>"Well, preferably 'sit down.'"</p> + +<p>"Railroad Hotel. Back there about a block. Dinner, fifty cents."</p> + +<p>"I certainly am glad I found you," said Wade. "I don't know what I'd +have done in this great city without your assistance. Now you take me +over to the bank. After that we'll pay a visit to the hotel. You'd +better get something to eat yourself while I'm partaking of that +half-dollar banquet."</p> + +<p>An hour later the journey began. Wade, fairly comfortable on the back +seat of the carryall, smoked his after-dinner pipe. The month was June, +there had been recent rains and the winding, dipping country road +presented new beauties to the eyes at every stage. Wade, fresh from the +mountains of Colorado, revelled in the softer and gentler loveliness +about him. The lush, level meadow, the soft contour of the distant +hills, the ever-present murmur and sparkle of running water delighted +him even while they brought homesick memories of his own native +Virginia. It was a relief to get away from the towering mountains, the +eternal blue of unclouded skies, the parched, arid miles of unclothed +mesa, the clang and rattle of ore cars and the incessant grinding of +quartz mills. Yes, it was decidedly pleasant to have a whole summer—if +he wanted it—in which to go where he liked, do what he liked. One might +do much worse, he reflected, than find some such spot as this and idle +to one's heart's content. There would be trout, as like as not, in that +stony brook back there; sunfish, probably, in that lazy stream crossing +the open meadow yonder. It would be jolly to try one's luck on a day +like this; jolly to lie back on the green bank with a rod beside one and +watch the big white clouds sail across the wide blue of the sky. It +would seem almost like being a boy again!</p> + +<p>Presently, when, after passing through the sleepy village of Tottingham, +the road crossed a shallow stream, Wade bade the boy drive through it.</p> + +<p>"Don't have to," replied unimaginative fourteen. "There's a bridge."</p> + +<p>"I know there is," answered Wade, "but my doctor has forbidden bridges. +Drive through the water. I want to hear it gurgle against the wheels."</p> + +<p>He closed his eyes, expectantly content, and so did not see the alarmed +look which the boy shot at him. The horse splashed gingerly into the +stream, the wheels grated musically over the little stones, and the +water lapped and gurgled about the spokes. Wade leaned back with closed +eyes and nodded approvingly. "Just the same," he murmured. "It might be +the ford below Major Dabney's. This is surely God's own country again."</p> + +<p>Further on they rattled through the quiet streets of East Tottingham, a +typical New England village built around a square, elm-shaded common. It +was all as Ed had described it; the white church with its tall spire +lost behind the high branches, the Town Hall guarded by an ancient black +cannon, the white houses, the green blinds, the lilac hedges, the +toppling hitching-post before each gate. Tottingham Center succeeded +East Tottingham and they eventually reached Eden Village twenty minutes +behind schedule.</p> + +<p>It was difficult to say where country left off and village began, but +after passing the second modest white residence Wade believed he could +safely consider himself within the corporate limits. Before him +stretched a wide road lined with elms. So closely were they planted that +their far-reaching branches formed a veritable roof overhead, through +which at this time of day the sunlight barely trickled. They were sturdy +trees, many of them larger in the trunk than any hogs-head, and +doubtless some of them were almost as old as the village itself. The +cool green-shadowed road circled slightly, so that as they travelled +along it the vista always terminated in a wall of green, flecked at +intervals with a gleam of white where the sun-bathed front of some house +peeked through. Wade viewed the quaint old place with interest, for here +Ed had lived when a boy, and many a story of Eden Village had Wade +listened to.</p> + +<p>The houses were set, usually, close to the street, with sometimes a +wooden fence, sometimes a hedge of lilacs before them. But more often +yard and sidewalk fraternized. Flowers were not numerous; undoubtedly +the elms threw too much shade to allow of successful floriculture. But +there were lilacs still in bloom, lavender and white, and their perfume +stirred memories. The houses in Eden Village were not crowded; for the +first quarter of a mile they passed hardly more than a dozen. After +that, although they became more neighborly, each held itself well aloof. +Then came a small church with a disproportionately tall spire, a +watering trough, the Town Hall, and "Prout's Store, Zenas Prout 2nd, +Proprietor." Here the gray sidled up to the ancient hitching-post. The +boy tossed the reins over the dashboard and jumped out. "You don't need +to hold him," he said reassuringly. Presently he was back. "It's further +up the street," he announced. "But he says there ain't anybody livin' +there an' the house is locked up."</p> + +<p>"I've got the key," answered Wade. "Go ahead."</p> + +<p>They went on along the leafy nave. Now and then a road or grass-grown +lane started off from the main highway and wandered back toward the +meadow-lands. Presently the street straightened out, the elms presented +thinner ranks, houses stood farther apart. Then the street divided to +enclose a narrow strip of common adorned with a flagpole greatly in need +of a new coat of white paint. The elms dwindled away and an occasional +maple dotted the common with shade. The driver guided the patient gray +to the left and, near the centre of the common, drew up in front of a +little white house, which, like the picket fence in front of it, the +flagstaff on the common, and so many other things in Eden Village, +seemed to be patiently awaiting the painter.</p> + +<p>Inside the fence, thrusting its branches out between the pickets, ran a +head-high hedge of lilac bushes, so that, unless you stood directly in +front of the gate, all you saw of the first story were the tops of the +front door and the close-shuttered windows. Between house and hedge +there was the remains of a tiny formal garden. Rows of box, +winter-killed in spots, circled and angled about grass-grown spaces +which had once been flower-beds. The dozen feet of path from gate to +steps was paved with crumbling red bricks, moss-stained and +weed-embroidered. The front door had side-lights hidden by narrow, green +blinds and a fan-light above. Wade drew forth the key entrusted to him +by the agent and tried to fit it to the lock. But although he struggled +with it for several moments it refused stubbornly to have anything to do +with the keyhole.</p> + +<p>"There's a side door around there," advised the boy from the carryall. +"Maybe it's the key to it."</p> + +<p>"Maybe it is the key to it," responded Wade, wiping the perspiration +from his forehead. He pushed his way past the drooping branches of an +overgrown syringa, tripped over a box-bush, and passed around the left +of the house, following the remains of a path which led him to a door in +an ell. Back here there were gnarled apple and pear and cherry trees, a +tropical clump of rhubarb, and traces of what had evidently been at one +time a kitchen garden. Old-fashioned perennials blossomed here and +there; lupins and Sweet Williams and other sturdy things which had +resisted the encroachment of the grass. The key fitted readily, scraped +back, and the narrow door swung inward.</p> + +<p>Gloom and mustiness were his first reward, but as his eyes became +accustomed to the darkness he saw that he was in the kitchen. There was +the sink with a hand-pump on one side and a drain-board on the other. +Here a table, spread with figured yellow oil-cloth; a range, chairs, +corner-cupboard, a silent, staring clock. His steps beat lonesomely on +the floor. A door, reached by a single step, led to the front of the +house. He pushed it open and groped his way up and in, across to the +nearest window. When the blinds were thrust aside he found himself +confronted by a long mahogany sideboard whose top still held an array of +Sheffield platters, covered dishes, candlesticks. Save for the dust +which lay heavily on every surface and eddied across the sunlight, there +was nothing to suggest desertion. Wade could fancy that the owner had +stepped out of doors for the moment or had gone upstairs. He found +himself listening for the sound of footsteps overhead or on the +staircase or in the darkened hall. But the only sounds were faint sighs +and crepitations doubtless attributable to the air from the open windows +stirring through the long-closed house, but which Wade, letting his +fancy stray, chose to believe came from the Ghosts of Things Past. He +pictured them out there in the hall, peering through the crevice of the +half-open door at the intruder with little, sad, troubled faces. He +could almost hear them whispering amongst themselves. He felt a little +shiver go over him, and threw back his shoulders and laughed softly at +his foolishness.</p> + +<p>But the feeling that he was an intruder, a trespasser, remained with him +as he passed from room to room, throwing open windows and blinds, and +now and then sneezing as the impalpable dust tickled his nostrils. In +the sitting-room, as in every other apartment, everything looked as +though the occupant had passed out of the room but a moment before. +Wade's face grew grave and tender as he looked about him. On the sewing +machine a shallow basket held sewing materials and a few pairs of coarse +woollen stockings, neatly rolled. The poker was laid straight along the +ledge of the big "base-burner" in the corner. A table with a green cloth +stood in front of a window and bore a few magazines dated almost ten +years before. A set of walnut book-shelves held a few sober-clad +volumes, Bulfinch's "Age of Fable," "Webster's Dictionary," Parker's +"Aids to English Composition," Horace's "Odes" in Latin, "The Singer's +Own Book," "Henry Esmond" and "Vanity Fair," "A Chance Acquaintance," +two cook-books, a number of yellow-covered "Farmer's Almanacs," and "A +Guide to the City of Boston." A sewing-stand supported a huge family +Bible. The walls were papered in brown and a brown ingrain carpet +covered the floor. There was a couch under the side window and a few +upholstered chairs were scattered about. Now that the windows were open +and the warm sunlight was streaming in, it was a cosy, shabby, homey +little room.</p> + +<p>Wade opened the door into the hall. Perhaps the Ghosts of Things Past +scampered up the winding stairway; at least, they were not to be seen. +He found the front-door key in the lock and turned the bolt. When the +door swung inward a little thrill touched him. For the first time in his +life he was standing on his own doorsill, looking down his own front +path and through his own front gate!</p> + +<p>In every man's nature there is the desire for home-owning. It may lie +dormant for many years, but sooner or later it will stir and call. Wade +heard its voice now, and his heart warmed to it. Fortune had brought him +the power to choose his home where he would, and build an abode far +finer than this little cottage. And yet this place, which had come to +him unexpectedly and through sorrow, seemed suddenly to lay a claim upon +him. It was such a pathetic, down-at-heels, likable little house! It +seemed to Wade as though it were saying to him: "I'm yours now. Don't +turn your back on me. I've been so very, very lonesome for so many +years! But now you've come, and you've opened my doors and windows and +given me the beautiful sunlight again, and I shall be very happy. Stay +with me and love me."</p> + +<p>In the carryall the boy was leaning back with his feet on the dasher and +whistling softly through his teeth. The gray was nibbling sleepily at +the decrepit hitching-post. Wade glanced at his watch, and looked again +in surprise. It was later than he had thought. If he meant to get out of +Redding that night it was time he thought of starting back. But after a +moment of hesitation he turned from the door and went on with his +explorations. In the parlor there was light enough from the front door +to show him the long formal room with its white marble centre-table +adorned with a few gilt-topped books and a spindly lamp, the square +piano, the stiff-looking chairs and rockers, the few pictures against +the faded gold paper, the white mantel, set with shells and vases and a +few photographs, the quaint curving-backed sofa between the side +windows. He closed the door again and turned down the hall.</p> + +<p>The stairway was narrow and winding, with a mahogany rail set upon white +spindles. It was uncarpeted and his feet sounded eerily on the steps. On +the floor above doors opened to left and right. The first led into what +had evidently been used as a spare bedroom. It was uncarpeted and but +scantily furnished. The door of the opposite room was closed. Wade +opened it reverently and unconsciously tiptoed to the window. When the +sunlight was streaming in he turned and surveyed the apartment with a +catch of his breath. It had been Her room. He had never seen her, yet he +had heard Ed speak of her so much that it seemed that he must have known +her. He tried not to think of the days when, lying there on the old +four-post bed with the knowledge of approaching death for company, she +had waited and waited for her son to come back to her. Ed had never +forgiven himself that, reflected Wade. He had been off in Wyoming at +the time, and when he had returned the two telegrams lay one upon the +other with a month's dust over them, the one apprising him of his +mother's illness and asking him to hurry home, the other tersely +announcing her death. Well, she knew all about it now, reflected Wade. +Ed had told her long before this.</p> + +<p>It was a pleasant little room with its sloping ceilings and cheerful +pink paper. The bed was neatly spread with a patchwork quilt, and the +blankets and counterpane were folded and piled upon the foot. The old +mahogany bureau was just as she had left it, doubtless. The little, +knick-knacks still stood upon the brackets, and in the worsted-worked +pincushion a gold brooch was sticking.</p> + +<p>He closed the window and returned to the floor below. A door under the +stairway led from the hall to the kitchen. He crossed the latter and +passed out into the yard. Back of the house the ground sloped slightly +to a distant stone wall, which apparently marked the limit there of +Wade's domain. At one time there had been a fence between the orchard +and the meadow beyond, but now only an occasional crumbling post +remained. Trees had grown up here and there in the meadow, a few young +maples, a patch of locusts, and some straggling sumacs. Birds sang in +the trees, and once, when he listened, Wade thought he could hear the +tinkling of a brook.</p> + +<p>Toward the centre of the village his ground ran only to a matter of ten +or twelve yards from the kitchen door. There was just room for the +little garden between house and fence. On that side his nearest neighbor +was distant the width of several untenanted lots. On the other side, +however, there was more space. There were some shade-trees here, and +around one of them, an ancient elm, ran a wooden seat, much carved and +lettered. The boundary here was a continuation of the lilac hedge which +fronted the street, and in it was an arched gate leading to the next +yard. But from the gate all Wade could discern was the end of a white +house and a corner of a brick chimney some forty yards distant; trees +and shrubbery hid more of his neighbor's estate.</p> + +<p>Wade returned to the front of the house, hands in his pockets, a tune on +his lips. He had taken his valise from the back of the carryall before +the driver, who was half asleep, discovered his presence. He blinked and +dropped his feet from the dashboard.</p> + +<p>"You all ready?" he asked.</p> + +<p>Wade shook his head.</p> + +<p>"I've changed my mind," he said. "I'm going to stay awhile."</p> + +<div class="figure"> +<img src="images/illus_draw4.jpg" alt="Bushes, rocks, and stream" hspace="10"> +</div> + + + +<hr style='width: 65%;' /> +<a name='III'></a><h2>III.</h2> +<br /> + +<img src="images/illus_draw5.jpg" alt="Trees and pond" align="right" hspace="10"> + +<p>That was a stirring afternoon in Eden Village. Wade's advent was like +the dropping of a stone into the centre of a quiet pool. Prout's Store +was the centre of the pool, and it was there that the splash and +upheaval occurred, and from there the waves of commotion circled and +spread to the farthest margins. By supper time it was known from one +length of Main Street to the other that the Craig place was tenanted +again. As to who the tenant was rumor was vague and indefinite. But +before bedtime even that point was definitely settled, Zenas Prout 2nd +having kept the store open a full half-hour later than usual to +accommodate delayed seekers after knowledge.</p> + +<p>It was a rather stirring afternoon for Wade, too. First there was a +visit to the store in the carryall for the purchase of supplies. Mr. +Prout, who combined the duties of merchant with those of postmaster and +express agent, was filling out a requisition for postal supplies when +Wade entered. Poking his pen behind his ear, he stepped out from behind +the narrow screen of lock-boxes and greeted the visitor.</p> + +<p>"Afternoon, sir. You found the house all right?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, thanks." Wade drew forth a pencil and tore off a piece of wrapping +paper.</p> + +<p>"Sort of out of repairs, of course, seem' it ain't been lived in for +most ten years, not since Mrs. Craig died. Was you considerin' +purchasin', sir?"</p> + +<p>"Er—no." Wade was writing rapidly on the brown paper. "The fact is, Mr. +Prout, I own the Craig house now."</p> + +<p>"You don't say?" exclaimed the store-keeper in genuine surprise. "You +ain't—surely you ain't Ed Craig?"</p> + +<p>"No, my name's Herrick. Ed was a good friend of mine. We were partners +in a mining enterprise in Colorado. Ed died almost a year ago now; +typhoid."</p> + +<p>"I want to know! Well, well! So Ed Craig's gone, has he? I remember him +when he was 'bout so high. Used to come down here an' I'd set him up on +the counter right where you be now, Mr. Herring, and give him a stick of +candy. I recollect he always wanted the kind with the pink stripes on +it. An' he's dead, you say? We often wondered what had become of Ed. +Folks thought it kind of queer he didn't come home the time his mother +died."</p> + +<p>"He was away and didn't learn of her illness until it was too late," +said Wade. "He felt mighty badly about that, Mr. Prout, and I wish you'd +let the people here know how it happened. Not that it matters much to Ed +now, but he was the best friend I ever had, and I don't want folks who +used to know him to think he deliberately stayed away that time."</p> + +<p>"That's so, sir. An' I'm glad to hear the truth of it. Ed didn't seem to +me when I knew him the sort of feller to do a thing like that. Folks'll +be glad to know about it, Mr. Herring."</p> + +<p>"Herrick, please. Now just look over that list and check off what you +can let me have, will you? I'm going to stay awhile, and so I will have +to get in a few provisions."</p> + +<p>Mr. Prout ran his eye down the list dubiously, checking now and then. +When he laid it down and pushed it across the counter his tone was +apologetic.</p> + +<p>"Ain't a great deal there I can sell you, Mr. Herrick. I'm kind of out +of some things. I guess I can get most of 'em for you, though, if you +ain't got to have 'em right away."</p> + +<p>Wade looked at the slip.</p> + +<p>"You put up what you've got," he said, "and I'll send over to Tottingham +Center for the rest."</p> + +<p>"Don't believe you'll get 'em all there," commented Mr. Prout. "Things +like bacon in jars an' canned mushrooms there ain't much call for around +here."</p> + +<p>But Wade was busy revising his list, and made no comment. Presently he +went out and despatched the boy to the Center. When he returned to the +store Mr. Prout was weighing out sugar.</p> + +<p>"So you come into the Craig place, Mr. Herrick. I suppose you bought +it."</p> + +<p>"No, Ed left it to me in his will. Wanted me to come on here and have a +look at it and see that it was all right. He was very fond of that +place. So I came. And—well, it's a pleasant place, Mr. Prout, and it's +a pretty country you have around here, and so I reckon I'll stay awhile +and camp out in the cottage."</p> + +<p>"Going to do your own cooking?" asked Mr. Prout.</p> + +<p>"Have to, I reckon. It won't be the first time, though."</p> + +<p>"Guess you wouldn't have any trouble findin' some one to come in an' do +for you, if you wanted they should," said Mr. Prout. "There's my gal, +now. She's only fifteen, but she's capable an' can cook pretty tolerable +well. Course you know your business best, Mr. Herrick, but—"</p> + +<p>"Send her over in the morning," said Wade, promptly. "Is there a mail +out of here to-night?"</p> + +<p>"Five o'clock."</p> + +<p>"Then let me have a sheet of paper and a stamped envelope, if you +please. I'll write down to Boston and have them send my trunk up."</p> + +<p>He met but few persons on his way back to the cottage, but many a +curious gaze followed him from behind curtained windows, and, since the +ripples had not yet widened, he left many excited discussions in his +wake. Back in the cottage he threw off coat and vest, lighted his pipe +and set to work. First of all, up went the parlor windows and shades. +But a dubious examination of that apartment was sufficient. If he should +ever really live here the parlor could be made habitable, but for the +present its demands were too many. He closed the windows again and +abandoned the room to its musty solitude. From the spare room upstairs +he brought bed and bedding and placed it in the sitting room. It +required some ingenuity to convert the latter apartment into a bedroom, +but the difficulty was at last solved by relegating the sewing machine +to the parlor and moving the couch. When the bed was made Wade went out +to the kitchen and looked over the situation there. Closet and +cup-board displayed more dishes and utensils than he would have known +what to do with. He tried the pump and after a moment's vigorous work +was rewarded with a rushing stream of ice-cold water that tasted pure +and fresh. Then he looked for fuel. The lean-to shed, built behind the +kitchen, was locked, and, after a fruitless search for the key, he pried +off the hasp with a screw-driver. The shed held the accumulated rubbish +of many years, but Wade didn't examine it. Fuel was what he wanted and +he found plenty of it. There was a pile of old shingles and several feet +of maple and hickory neatly stowed against the back wall. Near at hand +was a chopping-block, the axe still leaning against it. There was a +saw-horse, too, and a saw hung above it on a nail. But there was no wood +cut in stove size, and so Wade swung the door wide open to let in light, +and set to work with the saw and axe. It felt good to get his muscles +into play again and he was soon whistling merrily. Fifteen minutes later +he was building a fire in the kitchen stove. It was too early for +supper, but the iron kettle looked very lonely without any steam curling +from its impertinent spout. After he had solved the secrets of the +perplexing drafts, and ascertained by the simple expedient of placing a +sooty finger in it that the water was really getting warm, he washed his +hands at the sink and returned to the sitting-room to don vest and coat. +He had done that and was ruminantly filling his pipe when something drew +his gaze to one of the side windows. The pipe fell to the floor and the +tobacco trailed across the carpet.</p> + +<p>For a moment, for just the tiny space of time which it took his heart to +charge madly up into his throat, turn over and race back again, the open +casement framed the shoulders and face of a woman. There were greens and +blues in the background, and sunlight everywhere, and a blue shadow fell +athwart the sill. The picture glared with light and color, but for that +brief fragment of time Wade's eyes, half-blinded by the dazzlement, +looked into the woman's. His widened with wonder and dawning +recognition; hers—but the vision passed. The frame was empty again.</p> + +<p>Wade passed a hand over his eyes, blinked and asked himself startledly +what it meant. Had he dreamed? He gazed dazedly from the fallen pipe to +the empty window. The sunlight dazzled and hurt, and he closed his eyes +for an instant. And in that instant another vision came.... It was +twilight on Saddle Pass.... Two starlit eyes looked wonderingly down +into his. The mouth beneath was like a crimson bud with parted +petals.... A slim, warm hand was in his and his heart danced on his +lips.... The slender form lessened and softened in the tender darkness +and became only a pale blur far down the track, and he was standing +alone under the cold white stars, with a spray of lilac against his +mouth.</p> + +<p>He opened his eyes with a shiver. It was uncanny. All that had been five +years ago, five years filled to the brim with work and struggle and +final attainment, all making for forgetfulness. The thing was utterly +absurd and impossible! His senses had tricked him! The light had +blinded his eyes and imagination had done the rest! And yet—</p> + +<p>He strode to the window and looked out. The garden was empty and still. +Only, under the window, at the edge of the path, lay a spray of purple +lilac.</p> + +<div class="figure"> +<img src="images/illus_draw6.jpg" alt="Door" hspace="10"> +</div> + +<hr style='width: 65%;' /> +<a name='IV'></a><h2>IV.</h2> +<br /> + +<img src="images/illus_draw7.jpg" alt="Garden gate" align="right" hspace="10"> + +<p>"Eh? Yes? What is it?"</p> + +<p>Wade sat up in bed and stared stupidly about him. In Heaven's name where +was he? And what was the noise that had awakened him? There it was +again!</p> + +<p><i>Rat, tat, tat, tat!</i></p> + +<p>Was he still asleep? What was this room? The stove looked dimly +familiar, and there were his clothes over the back of a green rep +rocker. But where—Then memory routed sleep and he sank back onto the +pillow with a sigh of relief. It was all right. He remembered now. He +was in his own cottage in Eden Village, he had had a fine long sleep and +felt ready for—</p> + +<p><i>Rat, tat, tat, tat—TAT!</i></p> + +<p>"Hello! What is it? Who is it? Why in thunder don't you—"</p> + +<p>"Please, sir, it's me."</p> + +<p>The reply came faintly through the dining room. Some one was knocking at +the kitchen door. The apologetic tones sounded feminine, however, and +Wade was in no costume to receive lady visitors. He looked desperately +around for his dressing-gown and remembered that it was in his trunk and +that his trunk still reposed in the porter's room of a Boston hotel.</p> + +<p>"Who—who is 'me'?" he called.</p> + +<p>"Zephania."</p> + +<p>Zephania! Who in thunder was Zephania?</p> + +<p>"I'm very sorry, Miss Zephania, but I'm not dressed yet. If you wouldn't +mind calling again in, say, half an hour—"</p> + +<p>"Please, sir, I'll wait."</p> + +<p>"Oh, well—er—was there something you wanted?"</p> + +<p>"Please, sir, I've come to do for you."</p> + +<p>To do for him! Wade clasped his knees with his arms and frowned +perplexedly at the big stove. It was distinctly threatening. He wondered +how she intended to accomplish her awful purpose. Perhaps she had +stopped in the woodshed and secured the axe. To do for him! Then he +laughed and sprang out of bed. It was Zenas Prout's girl, and she had +come to get his breakfast.</p> + +<p>"Zephania!" he called.</p> + +<p>"Yes, sir?" It sounded as though she were sitting on the back doorstep.</p> + +<p>"The door is unlocked. Come in. You'll find things to eat on the table +and things to cook with in the closets. I'll be dressed in a few +minutes."</p> + +<p>He heard the door open as he closed his own portal, and in a moment a +stove-lid fell clanging to the floor. After that Zephania's presence in +the house was never for a moment in doubt. Rattle-bang went the poker, +clicketty-click went the shaker, and triumphant over all rose Zephania's +shrill young voice:</p> + +<span style='margin-left: 1em;'>"'O Beulah land, sweet Beulah land,</span><br /> +<span style='margin-left: 1em;'>As on thy highest mount I stand;</span><br /> +<span style='margin-left: 1em;'>I look away across the sea,</span><br /> +<span style='margin-left: 1em;'>Where mansions are prepared for me.'"</span><br /> + +<p>"She has a cheerful presence," muttered Wade. "I wonder if she does that +all the time."</p> + +<p>But Zephania's vocal efforts were forgotten for the moment in the +annoying discovery that he had neglected to provide washing +accommodations. He had intended using the kitchen sink for ablutions, +but with Zephania in possession of that apartment it was out of the +question. It was evident that if he meant to wash in the kitchen he +would have to get up earlier. What time of day was it, anyhow? He looked +at his watch and whistled.</p> + +<p>"Twenty minutes of seven!" he ejaculated. "This won't do. I guess I'd +better get my own breakfasts. If there's one thing a chap wants to do in +vacation it's sleep late."</p> + +<p>He raised the shades and flung open the front windows. On the lilac +hedge a bird was poised singing his heart out. Wade watched him in +admiration and wondered what kind of a bird he was. To Wade a bird was a +bird as long as it was neither a buzzard nor a crow.</p> + +<p>"You're not a buzzard," he told the songster, "nor a crow. You have a +gray breast and brown body and a black cap on your head. Wonder who you +are. Guess you're a sparrow. I believe I'll get a book telling about +birds. They're interesting little devils. Look at him put his head back! +Just as though he meant to crack things wide open. By Jove! I have it! +Your name's Zephania!"</p> + +<p>A baker's cart ambled by beyond the hedge, the driver leaning around the +corner of the vehicle to regard the cottage curiously. Out on the common +a bay horse, his halter-rope dragging under his feet, cropped the lush +grass.</p> + +<p>"You're happy," murmured Wade. "The bird's happy. Zephania's happy. This +must be a happy village." He pondered a moment, gazing contentedly about +the cosy sunlit room. Then, "And I'm happy myself," he added with +conviction. And to prove it he began to whistle merrily while he +finished dressing. Presently there was a knock on the dining-room door.</p> + +<p>"Yes?" responded Wade.</p> + +<p>"Please, sir, what will you have for breakfast?" Being by this time +decently dressed, Wade opened the door.</p> + +<p>"Hello!" he said.</p> + +<p>"Good morning," answered Zephania.</p> + +<p>If he had not been informed that her age was fifteen Wade would have +supposed Zephania's years to be not over a baker's dozen. She was a +round-faced, smiling-visaged, black-haired, black-eyed, ruddy-cheeked +little mite who simply oozed cheerfulness and energy. She wore a +shapeless pink cotton dress which reached almost to her ankles, and over +that a blue-checked apron which nearly trailed on the floor. Her sleeves +were rolled elbow-high and one little thin hand clutched a dish-cloth as +a badge of office. Wade stared dubiously at Zephania and Zephania smiled +brightly back.</p> + +<p>"Look here, my child," said Wade, "how old are you, anyway?"</p> + +<p>"Fifteen in March, sir."</p> + +<p>"Next March?"</p> + +<p>"No, sir, last."</p> + +<p>"You don't look it."</p> + +<p>"No, sir, folks say I'm small for my age," agreed Zephania, cheerfully.</p> + +<p>"I agree with them. Do you think you're strong enough to do the work +here?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes, sir. This is a very easy house to look after."</p> + +<p>"Well," said Wade, hesitatingly, "you can have a try at it, but it seems +to me you're too young to be doing housework."</p> + +<p>"I've always done it," replied Zephania, beamingly. "What'll you have +for breakfast, sir?"</p> + +<p>"Coffee—can you make coffee?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, sir, three ways."</p> + +<p>"Well, one way will do," said Wade, hurriedly. "And you'll find some +eggs there, I believe, and some bread. You might fry the eggs and toast +the bread. I guess that will do for this morning."</p> + +<p>"Yes, sir, thank you," answered Zephania, politely. "Wouldn't you rather +have the eggs poached?"</p> + +<p>"Er—why, yes, if you can do it."</p> + +<p>"I can cook eggs eleven ways," said Zephania, proudly. "Are you going to +eat breakfast in here or in there?" She nodded past Wade at the +sitting-room.</p> + +<p>"Well, what do you think?"</p> + +<p>"It's sunnier in there, sir. I could just clear the end of that table. +There's a fine big tray, sir."</p> + +<p>"An excellent idea," replied Wade. "I place myself—and my house—in +your hands, Zephania."</p> + +<p>"Thank you, sir," said Zephania.</p> + +<p>Breakfast was prepared that morning to the strains of "Jesus, Lover of +My Soul." Wade went out to the kitchen presently to wash hands and face +at the sink and dry them on a roller towel, which Zephania whisked +before him as if by magic. Watching her for a minute or two dispelled +all doubts as to her ability. The way in which she broke the eggs and +slipped them into the boiling water was a revelation of dexterity. And +all the while she sang on uninterruptedly, joyously, like the +gray-breast on the hedge. Wade went out into the garden and breathed in +deep breaths of the cool, moist air. The grass and the shrubs were heavy +with dew and the morning world was redolent of the perfume exhaled from +moist earth and growing things. In the neglected orchard the birds were +chattering and piping, and from a nearby field came the excited cawing +of crows. It was corn-planting time.</p> + +<p>Wade ate his breakfast by the open window. He didn't know in which of +the three ways Zephania had prepared his coffee, but it was excellent, +and even the condensed milk couldn't spoil it. The eggs were snowy +cushions of delight on golden tablets of toast, and the butter was hued +like old ivory. Zephania objected to condensed milk, however, and +suggested that she be allowed to bring a quart of "real milk" with her +when she came in the mornings.</p> + +<p>"Of course, you won't need a whole quart, unless you drink it, but, if +you like cream in your coffee, it'll be a great deal heavier from a +quart than from a pint. We get six cents for milk."</p> + +<p>"By all means, let us have a quart," replied Wade, recklessly. "Such +good coffee as this, Zephania, deserves the best cream to be had." +Zephania blushed with pleasure and beamed down upon him radiantly.</p> + +<p>"And maybe, sir, you'd like me to make you some bread?"</p> + +<p>"I would. I was about to broach the subject," was the mendacious answer. +"Could you do it?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, indeed. Why, when they had the church fair over to The Center last +winter I sent four loaves, and Mrs. Whitely, that's the minister's wife, +sir, said it was just as good as any there."</p> + +<p>"I want to know!" said Wade, unconsciously falling into local idiom.</p> + +<p>"Yes, sir. I can make two kinds of bread. I'll make the milk bread +first, though, and let you try that. Most folks likes milk bread the +best. Shall I set some to-night?"</p> + +<p>"Set some? Oh, yes, please do."</p> + +<p>While she was removing the tray Zephania asked: "Which room would you +like to have me clean first, sir?"</p> + +<p>"Well, I suppose we ought to clean the whole place up, hadn't we?"</p> + +<div class="figure"> +<a name='illus_p59'></a><img src="images/illus_p59.jpg" alt=""OH, NO, SIR," REPLIED ZEPHANIA, WITH A SHOCKED, PITYING +EXPRESSION"> +<h4>"OH, NO, SIR," REPLIED ZEPHANIA, WITH A SHOCKED, PITYING +EXPRESSION</h4> +</div> + +<p>"Oh, yes, sir! Everything's just covered with dust. I never did see such +a dirty house. Houses do get that way, though, if they're shut up for +a long time. Maybe I'd just better begin at the top and work down?"</p> + +<p>"That seems sensible," said Wade. "You could just sort of sweep the dirt +down the front stairs and right out of the front door, couldn't you?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, no, sir," replied Zephania, with a shocked, pitying expression. +"I'd never do that. I'd clean each room separately, sir; sweep and wash +up the floors and around the mop-board and—"</p> + +<p>"Whatever way you think best," interrupted Wade. "I leave it all to you, +Zephania, and I'm sure it will be done beautifully."</p> + +<p>"Thank you, sir. Mother says I'm a real smart cleaner. Shall I get some +more flowers in this vase, sir? This piece of lilac's dreadfully +wilted."</p> + +<p>"No, Zephania, just let that remain, please. The fact, is, that—that's +a rather particular piece of lilac; something out of the common."</p> + +<p>"Out of the common?" echoed Zephania, in faint surprise, surveying as +much of the common as she could see through the window. "You don't mean +our common?"</p> + +<p>"No," answered Wade, gravely, "not our common. That piece of lilac, +Zephania, is a clue; at least, I think it is. Do you know what a clue +is?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, sir. It's something you find that puts you on the trail of the +murderer." Zephania eyed the lilac interestedly.</p> + +<p>"Well, something of that sort. Only in this case there isn't any +murderer."</p> + +<p>"A thief?" asked Zephania, eagerly and hopefully.</p> + +<p>"Not even a thief," laughed Wade. "Just—just somebody I want very much +to find. I suppose, Zephania, you know about every one in the village, +don't you?"</p> + +<p>"Pretty nearly, I guess."</p> + +<p>"Good. Now suppose you tell me something about my neighbors. Every one +ought to know about his neighbors, eh?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, sir. After you've been here some time, though, you'll know all +about them."</p> + +<p>"Yes, but the trouble is I don't want to wait that long. Now, for +instance, who lives over there on my left; the square white house with +the drab blinds?"</p> + +<p>"Miss Cousins, sir. She's a maiden lady and has a great deal of money. +They say she owns some of the railroad. She plays the organ in church, +and—"</p> + +<p>"Youngish, is she, with sort of wavy brown hair and—"</p> + +<p>"No, sir," Zephania tittered, "Miss Cousins is kind of old and has real +gray hair."</p> + +<p>"Really? On my other side, then, who's my neighbor there? Or haven't I +one?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes, sir," answered Zephania, eagerly. "That's the Walton house, +and that's—"</p> + +<p>"The—<i>what</i>?" asked Wade, sitting up very suddenly in the green rep +rocker.</p> + +<p>"The Walton house, sir."</p> + +<p>"Oh! Hum! And—er—who lives there, Zephania?"</p> + +<p>"Miss Walton and Miss Mullett."</p> + +<p>"What's this Miss—Miss Walton like? Is she rather stout with quite +black hair, Zephania?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, no, Mr. Herring! I guess you saw Mrs. Sampson, the dressmaker. She +lives over there across the common, in the little yellowish house with +the vines; see?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, yes, I see. That's where Miss Sampson lives, eh? Well, well! But +we were speaking about Miss Walton, weren't we?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, sir. Miss Walton's a young lady and as pretty as—as—" Zephania's +words failed her and she looked about apparently in search of a simile.</p> + +<p>"Now let's see what you call pretty," said Wade. "What color is her +hair?"</p> + +<p>"It's brown."</p> + +<p>"Oh, well, brown hair isn't uncommon."</p> + +<p>"No, sir, but hers is kind of wavy and light and I don't believe she +ever has to curl it."</p> + +<p>"You don't tell me! And her eyes, now? I suppose they're brown too?"</p> + +<p>"Blue, sir. She has beautiful eyes, Mr. Herring, just heavenly! +Sometimes I think I'd just give almost anything if my eyes were like +hers."</p> + +<p>"Really? But you seem to have a very good pair of your own. Don't +trouble you, do they?"</p> + +<p>"They're black," said Zephania, cheerfully. "Black eyes aren't pretty."</p> + +<p>"Oh, I wouldn't go as far as that," murmured Wade, politely.</p> + +<p>"No, sir, but Miss Walton's are just as blue as—as the sky up there +between those two little white clouds. She's awfully pretty, Mr. +Herring."</p> + +<p>"Complexion dark, I suppose."</p> + +<p>"No, sir, not dark at all. It's real light. Some folks say she's too +pale, but I don't think so. And sometimes she has just lots of pink in +her cheeks, like—like a doll I have at home. Folks that think she's too +pale ought to have seen her yesterday afternoon."</p> + +<p>"Why is that?'"</p> + +<p>"'Cause she was just pink all over," answered Zephania. "I took some +eggs up to her house and just when I was coming out she came up on the +porch. She looked like; she'd been running and her face was just as +pink as—as that lamp-mat!"</p> + +<p>The object in question was an excruciating magenta, but Wade let it +pass.</p> + +<p>"Yesterday was rather a warm day for running, too," observed Wade.</p> + +<p>"Yes, sir, and I don't see what made her run, because she had been in +the garden. Maybe a bee or a wasp—"</p> + +<p>"How did you know she had been in the garden?"</p> + +<p>"Why, 'cause she came from there. She hadn't ought to run like that in +hot weather, and I told her so. I said 'Miss Eve'—What, sir?"</p> + +<p>"Nothing," answered Wade, poking industriously at the tobacco in the +bowl of his pipe. "You were saying—"</p> + +<p>"I just told her, 'Miss Eve, you hadn't ought to overheat yourself like +that, 'cause if you do you'll have a sunstroke.' There was a man over at +the Center last summer who—"</p> + +<p>"And what did she say?" asked Wade.</p> + +<p>"She said she'd remember and not do it again. And then Miss Mullett +came out and I went home."</p> + +<p>"Who's Miss Mullett, Zephania?"</p> + +<p>"She's Miss Walton's friend. They live there together in the Walton +house every summer. Folks say Miss Mullett's very poor and Miss Walton +looks after her."</p> + +<p>"Young, is she?"</p> + +<p>"Not so very. She's kind of middle-aged, I guess. She's real pleasant. +Miss Walton thinks a lot of her."</p> + +<p>"And they're here only in the summer?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, sir. They come in June and stay until September. This is the third +summer they've been here. Before that the house was empty for a long, +long time; just like this one."</p> + +<p>"Very interesting, Zephania. Thank you. Now don't let me keep you from +your labors any longer."</p> + +<p>"No, sir, but don't you want to hear about any one else?"</p> + +<p>"Another time, thanks. We'll do it by degrees. If you tell me too much +at once I shan't be able to remember it, you see."</p> + +<p>"All right," answered Zephania, cheerfully. "Now I'll wash up the +dishes."</p> + +<p>After she had gone Wade sat for a long while in the green rep rocker, +his eyes on the spray of lilac on the table and his unlighted pipe +dangling from his mouth. From the kitchen came a loud clatter of dishes +and pans and Zephania's voice raised in song:</p> + +<span style='margin-left: 1em;'>"'We shall sleep, but not forever,</span><br /> +<span style='margin-left: 1em;'>There will be a glorious dawn;</span><br /> +We shall meet to part, no, never,<br /> +<span style='margin-left: 1em;'>On the resurrection morn!'"</span><br /> + + +<div class="figure"> +<img src="images/illus_draw8.jpg" alt="Picket fence" hspace="10"> +</div> + + +<hr style='width: 65%;' /> +<a name='V'></a><h2>V.</h2> +<br /> + +<img src="images/illus_draw9.jpg" alt="Flower garden" align="right" hspace="10"> + +<p>When one has spent six years prospecting and mining in Colorado and the +Southwest one has usually ceased to be capable of surprise at any tricks +Fate may spring. Nevertheless Wade was forced to wonder at the chain of +events which had deposited him here in a green rep rocking chair in Eden +Village. That the Western Slope Limited, two hours late and trying to +make up time, should have had a hot-box and, perhaps for the first time +in months, stopped at the top of Saddle Pass and presented Evelyn Walton +to him was one of Fate's simpler vagaries; but that now, after five +years, he should find himself beside her nearly two thousand miles from +their first place of meeting was something to think about. First event +and last were links in a closely-welded chain of circumstance. Looking +back, he saw that one had followed the other as logically as night +follows day. By a set of quite natural, unforced incidents Fate had +achieved the amazing.</p> + +<p>Wade no longer had any doubt as to the identity of the person who had +looked in upon him through the window yesterday. The marvellous +resemblance to the face he remembered so well, the dropped lilac spray +were in themselves inconclusive, but the evidence of her name made the +case clear and left but one verdict possible. Chance, Fate, Providence, +what you will, had brought them together again.</p> + +<p>It would, I realize, add interest to a dull narrative to say that Wade's +heart beat suffocatingly with passionate longing, and that a wild desire +to go to her possessed him. As a matter of fact his heart behaved itself +quite normally and he showed no disposition to leave his chair. He was +chiefly concerned with wondering whether she had recognized him, whether +she even remembered him at all, and, if she did, what she thought of him +for the idiotic way in which he had acted. Oh, he had been sincere +enough at the moment, but, looked at calmly with the austere eyes of +twenty-eight, his behavior on that occasion had been something—well, +<i>fierce</i>! He groaned at the thought of it and almost wished that Fate +had let things alone and spared him a second meeting. Of course there +had been extenuating circumstances. She had stepped suddenly into his +vision out of the twilight, a veritable vision of love and romance, and +his heart, a boy's heart, starved and hungry for those things, had taken +fire on the instant. He had—well, he had lost his head, to put it +charitably. And after a fashion he had lost his heart as well. For a +week he had dreamed of her at night and thought of her by day, had +wondered and longed and built air castles. Doubtless, had he seen her +again within the next year, the romance would have grown and flourished. +But at the end of that first week they had found gold. The intoxication +of success succeeded the intoxication of love, and in the busy months +that followed the vision of Evelyn Walton's face visited him less and +less frequently. At the end of a year she had become a pleasant memory, +a memory that never failed to bring a half-sad, half-joyous little +throb. That he had never actually forgotten her meant little, when you +think how very tiny and unimportant a thing must be to utterly escape +memory. He didn't want to forget her, for she represented the only +sentimental episode that had come to him since school days. He had been +much too busy to seek love affairs, and up in the mountains they don't +lie in wait for one. Therefore at twenty-eight Wade Herrick was +heart-whole. He wondered with a smile how long he was destined to remain +so unless that same meddling Fate removed either him or Evelyn Walton +from Eden Village.</p> + +<p>Zephania went through the hall singing, on her way upstairs to +inaugurate her war of extermination against dirt. Wade roused himself +and lighted his pipe. After all, he had done nothing criminal and there +were ninety-nine chances in a hundred that the girl wouldn't connect him +for a moment with the astounding youth who had made violent love to her +for an ecstatic five minutes on the top of Saddle Pass so many years +ago. He got up and looked at himself in the old gold-framed mirror above +the table.</p> + +<p>"My boy," he muttered, "you're quite safe. You used to be fairly good +looking then, if I do say it myself. But now look at you! You have +day-laborer written all over you! Your hair—I wonder when and why you +ever began to part it away down near your left ear. But that's easily +changed. Your nose—well, you couldn't alter that much, and it's still +fairly straight and respectable. But that scar on the cheek-bone doesn't +help your looks a bit, my boy. Still, you mustn't kick about that, I +reckon, for if that slice of rock had come along an inch or so farther +to the right you'd have been <i>tuerto</i> now. Not that your eyes are +anything to be stuck up about, though; they're neither brown nor green, +nor any other recognized color; just a sort of mixture—like Pedro's +<i>estofados</i>. Your mouth, now—you always had a homely sort of mouth, too +big by far. And you were an idiot to shave off your mustache. You might +let it grow again, now that you're where you could have it trimmed once +in awhile, but I suppose it would take a month and look like a +nail-brush in the meanwhile! And then there's your complexion, you poor +ugly <i>hombre</i>. I remember when it was like anybody else's and there was +pink in the cheeks. Look at it now! It's like a saddle-flap. And your +hands!"</p> + +<p>He viewed them disdainfully. They were immaculately clean and the nails +were well tended, but two years of pick and shovel had broadened them, +and at the base of each finger a calloused spot still remained. On the +left hand the tip of one finger was missing and another was bent and +disfigured. They were honorable scars, these, like the one on his cheek, +but he looked at them disgustedly and finally shoved them out of sight +in his pockets.</p> + +<p>"No, don't you worry about her recognizing you," he said to the +reflection in the mirror. "Even if she did she'd be ashamed to own it!"</p> + +<p>Wade, however, was over-critical. Whatever might be said of the +features individually, collectively they were distinctly pleasing. The +impression one received was of a clean, straight-limbed, clear-eyed +fellow, who, if he had worked with his hands, had won with his brain. He +looked a little older than his twenty-eight years warranted, and a +little taller than his scant five-feet-eleven proved. Above all, he +appeared healthful, alert, capable, and kindly. He made friends at sight +with men, children, and dogs and wore his friendships as easily as he +wore his clothes. The West puts an indefinable stamp on a man, and Wade +had it. When presently he donned a cloth cap, torn from the confused +depths of his valise, and passed out of doors he walked like a man who +was used to covering long distances afoot, and with a certain swing of +his broad shoulders that suggested a jovial egotism. And as he made his +way through the orchard and into the meadow beyond his mind was still +busy with Evelyn Walton.</p> + +<p>Of course he would meet her sooner or later; he was bound to unless he +pulled up stakes and hiked out at once. And he didn't want to do that. +He was enjoying a totally new sensation, that of householder. And he +liked Eden Village with its big elms and shaded roads, its wide meadows +and encircling green hills. It was all new and delightful after the +bare, primeval grandeur of the mountains. Besides, and Wade laughed +softly to himself, when all was said and done, he really wanted to meet +her. The prospect brought a flutter to his heart and a pleasant +excitement to his mind. He would probably fall in love with her again, +but there was no harm in that since he would be off before the disease +could strike in very deep.</p> + +<p>He had reached the stone wall dividing his property from the land +beyond. At a little distance a brook bubbled along its sunken course. +Bushes, ferns, and here and there a small tree lined its banks, and Wade +could follow its journeying with his eyes for some distance. He vaulted +the wall and crossed to the brook, examining it with the curiosity of a +fisherman. It was rather disappointing. He didn't believe any +self-respecting fish would deign to inhabit such meagre quarters. But +it was a fascinating little stream for all of that, and it sang and +purled and had such a jolly good time all to itself that unconsciously +Wade fell into step with it, so to speak, and kept it company through +the meadow. Swallows darted above him and sparrows took flight before +him in mild alarm. Once he disturbed a catbird on her nest and she flew +circling about his head, scolding harshly.</p> + +<p>What had he been thinking about a moment before? Oh, yes, he had been +considering the danger of overdoing the falling in love business. Well, +there was a proverb about its being better to have loved and lost than +never to have loved at all. Wade agreed with those sentiments. To go +head over ears in love with some nice girl like—well, like Evelyn +Walton—even if you got turned down was better than nothing. Of course +the girl mustn't know. It wasn't a part of his plan to worry her any. He +was quite certain that if he was careful she needn't even guess his +sentiments. Perhaps—well, what if it was nonsense? A fellow could think +nonsense if he wanted to, couldn't he, on a day like this? Perhaps she +might care for him enough to marry him! There wasn't any reason why he +shouldn't marry. He had plenty of money and would have more; he could +give the woman that married him about as much as the next man. She could +have a house in New York if she wanted it! And servants and—and motors +and—all the things a woman usually wants. Of course he didn't want to +be married for his money, but—well, he wondered whether it would help +if he managed to convey the idea that he was pretty well off, that he +owned more than a controlling interest in one of the richest gold mines +in Colorado. Undoubtedly there were girls who would jump at the chance +to marry the principal owner of a mine like the—</p> + +<p>He stopped with a gasp.</p> + +<p>Great Scott! she mustn't hear the name of that mine! At least, not +unless things turned out as they never could turn out. He groaned. He +would have to watch himself every minute when he was with her or he +would be blurting it out!</p> + +<p>He found himself confronted by a fence, beyond which a wooded hill +sloped upward. Should he return the way he had come, or—no, he could +commit trespass on somebody's wheat field and so in all probability +reach the highway. Five minutes later he found himself on the road and +started back towards the cottage. He rather hoped that Miss Walton would +not be on her front porch as he went by. He wasn't quite ready yet to +show himself. It was a good ten minutes' walk to the end of the common, +but he was so busy with his thoughts that he paid little attention to +time or distance. He only came to himself when he suddenly found the +lilac hedge beside him and the gate hospitably open. He walked up the +steps, dimly conscious that his cottage looked this morning far less +disreputable than it had seemed yesterday, and tried the front door. He +didn't remember whether he had locked it last night. But evidently he +had not, for it swung open and he found himself staring blankly into a +pair of very lovely and much surprised blue eyes.</p> + + +<div class="figure"> +<img src="images/illus_draw10.jpg" alt="House through trees" hspace="10"> +</div> + +<hr style='width: 65%;' /> +<a name='VI'></a><h2>VI.</h2> +<br /> + +<img src="images/illus_draw1.jpg" alt="Trees and mountains" align="left" hspace="10"> + +<p>Time passed.</p> + +<p>Somewhere about the house a canary twittered softly. Evelyn Walton, +arrested on the sitting room threshold, a fold of the light portière +clasped in one hand, gazed at the intruder. Wade, frozen to immobility +just inside the door, one hand still grasping the knob, gazed at the +girl. His mind was a blank. His lips moved mechanically, but no words +issued from them. It seemed to him that whole minutes had passed, +although in reality the old-fashioned clock at the end of the hall had +ticked not more than thrice. He felt the color surging into his face, +and at last sheer desperation loosened his tongue.</p> + +<p>"Is there anything I can do—" he began.</p> + +<p>But at the very same moment Evelyn Walton's power of speech returned +likewise, and—</p> + +<p>"You wished to see—some one?" she inquired.</p> + +<p>As they spoke absolutely together neither heard the other's question +and each silently awaited an answer.</p> + +<p>"<i>Tick ... tock</i>" said the old clock, sleepily.</p> + +<p>Wade's gaze wandered. He wondered whether it would be unforgivable to +dash quickly out and slam the door behind him. But in the next breath +escape was forgotten and he was looking about him in sheer amazement. +Here was his hallway, but no longer empty. A shield-backed chair stood +beside the parlor door. A settle ran along the wall beyond. A +pink-cheeked moon leered at him from the top of a tall clock. +Bewilderedly he looked toward the sitting-room. There, too, everything +was changed. The floor was painted gray. Rugs took the place of carpet. +Gauzy lace curtains hung at the windows. A canary in a gilt cage sung +above an open window. Oh, plainly he was bewitched or the world was +topsy-turvy! The look he turned on the girl was so helpless, so +entreating that her face, which had begun to set coldly, softened +instantly. The hand clasping the curtain fold fell to her side and she +took a step toward him.</p> + +<p>"Can I help you?" she asked, kindly.</p> + +<p>Wade passed a hand over his eyes.</p> + +<p>"I don't know," he murmured. "Will you please tell me where I am?"</p> + +<p>"You're in my house. I am Miss Walton."</p> + +<p>"Your house? Then—then where is mine, please?" he asked, helplessly.</p> + +<p>"Just beyond here; the next one."</p> + +<p>"Oh!" he said. He sought for words with which to explain the situation, +but found none. He backed out, tripped slightly over the sill and found +himself on the top step. He dared one more look into the girl's amused +and sympathetic face and then turned and fled precipitately. At the gate +he brushed against some one, muttered an apology, and plunged through. +Evelyn Walton, following his course of flight from the doorway, laughed +softly. Miss Caroline Mullett, standing on tiptoe in the middle of the +path, strove to see over the hedge, and, failing, turned to the girl +with breathless curiosity.</p> + +<div class="figure"> +<a name='illus_p83'></a><img src="images/illus_p83.jpg" alt=""YOUR HOUSE? THEN—THEN WHERE IS MINE, PLEASE?""> +<h4>"YOUR HOUSE? THEN—THEN WHERE IS MINE, PLEASE?"</h4> +</div> + +<p>"Why, Eve, who was that?"</p> + +<p>"He didn't leave his card, dear," replied Eve, with a gurgle of +suppressed laughter, "but there is every reason to believe that his name +is Herrick."</p> + +<p>"The gentleman who has taken the next house? And what did he want? He +seemed in such a hurry, and so very much excited! You don't think, do +you, that he is going to have a sunstroke? His face was extremely +congested."</p> + +<p>"No, dear," replied Eve, as she followed Miss Mullett into the +sitting-room, "I don't think he's in danger of sunstroke. You're getting +to be quite as bad as Zephania on that subject. The fact is, dear, that +the ensanguined condition of Mr. Herrick's face was due to his having +mistaken our humble abode for his."</p> + +<p>"My dear! How embarrassing!"</p> + +<p>"So he seemed to think," laughed Evelyn.</p> + +<p>"But I can quite understand it," continued Miss Mullett, laying aside +her hat and smoothing down her hair. Miss Mullett's hair was somewhat of +the shade of beech leaves in fall and was not as thick as it had once +been. She wore it parted in the middle and combed straight down over the +tips of her ears. Such severe framing emphasized the gentleness of her +face. "You know yourself, Eve dear, that the first summer we were here +we often found ourselves entering the wrong gate. The houses are as much +alike as two peas."</p> + +<p>"I know. But, oh, Carrie, if you could have seen his expression when it +dawned on him that he was in the wrong house! It's too bad to laugh at +him, but I just have to."</p> + +<p>"I hope you didn't laugh while he was here," said Miss Mullett, +anxiously.</p> + +<p>"I'm afraid I did—just a little," replied Eve, contritely. "But I don't +think he saw it. He was too—too bewildered and horrified, and terribly +embarrassed. I really pitied him. I don't think I ought to pity him, +either, for he gave me quite a fright when he opened the front door and +walked in just as though he'd come to murder us all."</p> + +<p>"Poor man!" sighed Miss Mullett. "He must be feeling awfully about it. +And—and didn't you think him exceedingly nice looking? So big and—and +manly!"</p> + +<p>"Manly?" laughed Eve. "He looked to me more like a very small boy +discovered in the preserve closet!"</p> + +<p>"Of course, but I'm afraid you were a little—oh, the least little bit +unfeeling, dear."</p> + +<p>"Perhaps I was," owned Eve, thoughtfully. "I shouldn't want him to think +me—impolite."</p> + +<p>"No indeed! Do you think he will call?"</p> + +<p>"After this morning? My dear Carrie, did he look to you like a man +coming to call?"</p> + +<p>"But in a day or two, perhaps? Don't you think that it is possibly our +duty to convey to him in some delicate manner that he—that we—that his +mistake was quite natural—"</p> + +<p>"We might put a personal in the Tottingham <i>Courier</i>. 'If the gentleman +who inadvertently called at The Cedars on Tuesday morning will return, +no questions will be asked and all will be forgiven.' How would that +do?"</p> + +<p>"I'm afraid he would never see the paper unless we lent him our copy," +replied Miss Mullett, with a smile. "But surely we might convey by our +manner when meeting him on the street that we would be pleased to make +his acquaintance?"</p> + +<p>"Why, Caroline Mullett!" gasped Eve, in mock astonishment. "What kind of +behavior is that for two respectable maiden ladies?"</p> + +<p>"My dear, I'm an old maid, I know, but you're not. And if you think for +a moment that I'm going to sit here and twiddle my thumbs while there's +a nice-looking bachelor in the next house, you're very much mistaken. +Dear knows, Eve, I love Eden Village from end to end, but I never heard +of an Eden yet that wasn't better for having a man in it!"</p> + +<p>"You're right," sighed Eve. "Do you realize, Carrie, that the only +eligible man we know here is Doctor Crimmins? And he's old enough to be +father to both of us."</p> + +<p>"The Doctor plays a very good hand of cribbage," replied Miss Mullett, +approvingly. And then triumphantly: "I have it, dear!"</p> + +<p>"What?"</p> + +<p>"The Doctor shall call on Mr. Herrick and bring him to see us!"</p> + +<p>"Splendid!" laughed Eve. "And he will never know that we schemed and +intrigued to get him. Carrie, I don't see how, with your ability, you +ever missed marriage."</p> + +<p>"I never have missed it," replied Miss Mullett, with a sniff. She took +up her hat and started toward the hall. At the door she turned and +seemed about to speak, but evidently thought better of it and +disappeared. Eve smiled. And then Miss Mullett's plain, sweet little +face peered around the corner of the door, and—</p> + +<p>"Much," she whispered.</p> + +<div class="figure"> +<img src="images/illus_draw2.jpg" alt="Two-track country lane" hspace="10"> +</div> + +<hr style='width: 65%;' /> +<a name='VII'></a><h2>VII.</h2> +<br /> + +<img src="images/illus_draw3.jpg" alt="Country lane with birch trees" align="right" hspace="10"> + +<p>When Wade came to himself he discovered that he was standing with folded +arms staring blankly at the Declaration of Independence which, framed in +walnut and gilt, adorned the wall of the sitting-room. How long he had +been standing there he didn't know. He swung around in sudden uneasiness +and examined the room carefully. Then he gave a deep sigh of relief. It +was all right this time; this was his own house! He sank into the green +rocker and mechanically began to fill his pipe. From the floor above +came the swish of the broom and Zephania's voice raised in joyful song:</p> + +<span style='margin-left: 1em;'>"'I was a wand'ring sheep, I did not love the fold;</span><br /> +<span style='margin-left: 1em;'>I did not love my Shepherd's voice, I would not be controlled.</span><br /> +<span style='margin-left: 1em;'>I was a wayward child, I did not love my home;</span><br /> +<span style='margin-left: 1em;'>I did not love my Father's voice, I loved afar to roam.'"</span><br /> + +<p>Wade lighted his pipe, and when he had filled the adjacent atmosphere +with blue smoke he groaned. After that he gazed for a long time at his +hands, turning them this way and that as though he had never really +noticed them before. Then he laughed shortly a laugh seemingly quite +devoid of amusement, and got up to wander aimlessly about the room. At +last he caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror and walked over to it, +and glared fiercely at the reflection for a full round minute. Twice he +opened his mouth, only to close it again without a sound. At length, +however, the right words came to him. He looked himself witheringly in +the eyes.</p> + +<p>"You blundering, God-forsaken ass!" he enunciated.</p> + +<p>That seemed to cheer him up quite a bit, for he turned away from the +mirror with a less hopeless expression on his face and began to unpack +his valise and distribute the contents about the room. Later he borrowed +some of Zephania's hot water from the singing kettle and shaved himself. +No matter to what depths of degradation a man may fall, shaving +invariably raises him again to a fair level of self-respect. He ate +luncheon with a good appetite, and then wandered down to Prout's Store, +ostensibly to ask if his trunk had arrived, but in reality to satisfy a +craving for human intercourse. The trunk had not come, Mr. Prout +informed him, but, as Wade couldn't well expect it before the morning, +he wasn't disappointed. He purchased one of Mr. Prout's best +cigars—price one nickel—and sat himself on the counter.</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Mr. Prout, "them two houses is a good deal alike. In fact I +guess they're just alike. Anyway, old Colonel Selden Phelps built 'em +alike, an' I guess they ain't been much changed. I recollect my mother +tellin' how the old Colonel had them two houses built. The Colonel lived +over near Redding and folks used to say he was land-crazy. Every cent +the Colonel would get hold of he'd up an' buy another tract of land with +it. Owned more land hereabouts than you could find on the county map, +and they say he never had enough to eat in the house from one year's end +to t'other. Family half starved most of the time, so they used to tell. +The boy, Nathan, he up an' said he couldn't stand it; said he might's +well be a Roman Catholic, because then he would be certain of a full +meal once in awhile, but as it was every day was fast day. So he run +away down to Boston an' became a sailor. The Colonel never saw him +again, because he was lost at sea on his second voyage. That just left +the two girls, Mary and Evelyn. My mother used to say that every one +pitied them two girls mightily. Always looked thin and peaked, they did, +while as for Mrs. Phelps, why, folks said she just starved to death. +Anyway, she died soon after Nathan was drowned. Just to show how pesky +mean the old Colonel was, Mr. Herrick, they tell how one night the women +folks was sewing in the sittin'-room. Seems they was workin' on some +mighty particular duds and Mrs. Phelps had lighted an extra candle; the +Colonel never would allow a lamp in his house. Well, there they was +sittin' with the two candles burnin' when in stomps the Colonel. 'Hey,' +says he, blowin' out one of the candles, 'what's all this blaze of +light? Want to ruin your eyes?</p> + +<p>"Folks liked the Colonel, too, spite of his meanness. He was a great +church man, an' more'n half supported the Baptist church over there. +Seemed as if he was willin' to give money to the Lord an' no one else, +not even his own family. Mary was the first of the girls to get married, +she bein' the eldest. She married George Craig, from over Portsmouth +way, an'—"</p> + +<p>"Craig? Then she was Ed's mother?" interrupted Wade.</p> + +<p>"Yes. About a month after the engagement was given out the Colonel drew +up the plans of those two houses. He made the drawin's himself, and then +sot down an' figured out just how much they'd cost; so much for stone +an' masonry; so much for lumber and carpentry; so much for brick an' so +much for paint. Then he went to a carpenter over in Redding an' showed +him the plans with the figures writ on 'em an' asked him if he'd put up +the houses. The carpenter figured an' said he'd be switched if he'd do +it for any such price. So the Colonel he goes to another feller with +like results. They say most every carpenter between here an' Portsmouth +figured on those houses an' wouldn't have anything to do with them. +Then, finally, the Colonel found a man who'd just settled down in +Tottingham and opened a shop there. Came from Biddeford, Maine, I +believe, and thought he was pretty foxy. 'Well,' he says, 'there ain't +any money in it for me at those figures, Colonel, but work's slack an' +I'll take the contract.' You see, he thought he could charge a little +more here an' there an' make something. But he didn't know the Colonel. +Every time he'd talk about things costin' more than he'd thought the +Colonel would flash that contract on him. When the houses was finished +he sued the Colonel for a matter of four hundred dollars, but there was +the contract, plain as day, an' he lost his suit. Just about put him out +of business an' he had to move away. The Colonel gave one of the houses +to Mary—Mrs. Craig she was by that time—and the other to Evelyn when +she married Irv Walton a year afterwards."</p> + +<p>"But look here," said Wade. "Do you mean that Ed Craig's mother and Miss +Walton's mother were sisters?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, Ed and Eve was first cousins."</p> + +<p>"Well, I'll be hanged!" sighed Wade. "I never savvied that. What became +of Mr. Walton, Ed's uncle?"</p> + +<p>"Dead. Irv was what you call a genius, a writer chap. Came of a good +family over to Concord, he did, an' had a fine education at Exeter +Academy. He an' his wife never lived much at The Cedars—that's what +they called their place—but used to come here now and then in the +summer. They lived in New York. He had something to do with one of those +magazines published down there. Irv Walton was a fine lookin' man, but +sort of visionary. Made a lot of money at one time in mines out West an' +then lost it all about four years ago. That sort of preyed on his mind, +an' somethin' like a year after that he up an' died."</p> + +<p>"And his wife?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, she died when Eve was a little girl. An' Ed's mother died about +ten years ago. Miss Eve's the last one of the old Colonel's folks."</p> + +<p>Wade sat silent for a minute, puffing hard on his cigar and trying to +arrange his facts.</p> + +<p>"Does she know of Ed's death?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"Miss Eve? Oh, I guess so. I told Doctor Crimmins myself last night an' +I guess he's been up to The Cedars by this time. I guess Ed's death +wouldn't affect her much, though."</p> + +<p>"Why is that?"</p> + +<p>"Well, the brothers-in-law never got on very well together in the old +days, an' far as I know Miss Eve never saw Ed except, perhaps, when they +were both babies. Ed went away to school, winters down to Boston, to a +school of tech—tech—well, a place where they taught him engineerin' +an' minin' an' such. Summers he worked in a mill over to Lansing."</p> + +<p>"Is Miss Walton well off?"</p> + +<p>"Only tolerable, I guess. She's got that house and what little money +was saved out of her father's smash-up."</p> + +<p>"Where does she live when she's not here, Mr. Prout?"</p> + +<p>"New York. She does some sort of writing work, like her father. +Inherited some of his genius, I guess likely."</p> + +<p>Later Wade walked leisurely back to the cottage. The afternoon sunlight +lay in golden ribbons across the deserted street. Up in the high elms +the robins were swaying and singing. An ancient buggy crawled past him +and here and there an open window framed a housewife busy with her +needle. But save for these signs of life, he reflected, he might be +walking through the original Deserted Village. Come to think of it, +Craig's Camp was a busy metropolis compared to Eden Village, only—Wade +paused in front of his garden hedge and peered pleasurably up into the +leafy golden mists above him—only for some reason the absence of human +beings didn't make for loneliness here. Nature was more friendly. There +was jovial comradeship in every mellow note that floated down to him +from the happy songsters up there.</p> + +<p>"'The cheerful birds of sundry kind +Do sweet music to delight his mind.'"</p> + +<p>Wade swung around with a start and found himself looking over the +hedge-top into a smiling, ruddy, gold-spectacled countenance.</p> + +<p>"Spenser, I think, sir," continued the stranger, "but I'll not he +certain. Perhaps you recall the lines?"</p> + +<p>"I'm afraid I don't," replied Wade, passing through the gateway.</p> + +<p>"No? But like enough the poets aren't as much to a busy, practical man +like you, Mr. Herrick, as they are to me. Even I don't find as much time +to devote to them as I'd like, however. But I haven't introduced myself +nor explained my presence in your garden. My name is Crimmins, Doctor +Crimmins."</p> + +<p>"Glad to know you, Doctor," replied Wade, as they shook hands. "It was +friendly of you to call, sir."</p> + +<p>The Doctor tucked his gold-headed cane under his arm and thrust his +hands into the pockets of his slate-colored trousers, a proceeding which +brought to view the worn satin lining of the old black frock-coat.</p> + +<p>"Wait until you know us better, sir, and you'll not speak of it as +kindness. Why, 'tis a positive pleasure, a veritable debauch of +excitement, Mr. Herrick, to greet a newcomer to our mislaid village! The +kindness is on your side, sir, for dropping down upon us like—like—"</p> + +<p>"A bolt from the blue," suggested Wade.</p> + +<p>"Like a dispensation of Providence, sir."</p> + +<p>"That's flattering, Doctor. Won't you come in?"</p> + +<p>"Just for a moment." At the sitting-room door the Doctor paused. "Well! +well!" he exclaimed, reverently under his breath. "Nothing changed! It's +ten years ago since I stood here, Mr. Herrick. Dear me! A fine Christian +woman she was, sir. Well! Well! 'Time rolls his ceaseless course.' Bless +me, I believe I'm getting old!" And the Doctor turned his twinkling gray +eyes on Wade with smiling dismay.</p> + +<p>"Try the rocking chair, Doctor Crimmins. Let me take your hat and +cane."</p> + +<p>"No, no, I'll just lay them here beside me. I see you've chosen the best +room for your chamber, sir. You're not one of us, Mr. Herrick, that's +evident. Here we make the best room into a parlor, the next into a +sitting-room, the next into a spare room and sleep in what's left. We +take good care of our souls and let our bodies get along as best they +may. You, I take it, are a Southron."</p> + +<p>"From Virginia, Doctor, and, although I've been in the West for some six +years, I hope I haven't entirely forgotten Southern hospitality. +Unfortunately my sideboard isn't stocked yet, and all the hospitality I +can offer is here." He indicated his flask.</p> + +<p>"H'm," said the Doctor, placing his finger-tips together and eying the +temptation over his spectacles. "I believe I've heard that it is an +insult to refuse Southern hospitality. But just a moment, Mr. Herrick." +He arose and laid a restraining hand on. Wade's arm. "Let's not fly in +the face of Providence, sir." He guided his host into the dining-room +and softly closed the door, cutting off the view from the front window. +Then he drew a chair up to the table and settled himself comfortably. +"We are a censorious people, Mr. Herrick."</p> + +<p>"As bad as that, is it?" laughed Wade as he placed glasses on the cloth +and brought water from the kitchen.</p> + +<p>"We are strictly abstemious in Eden Village," replied the Doctor, +gravely, "and only drink in dark corners. Your very good health, sir. +May your visit to our Edenic solitude prove pleasant."</p> + +<p>"To our better acquaintance, Doctor."</p> + +<p>"Thank you, sir, thank you. Ha! H'm!" And the Doctor smacked his lips +with relish, wiped them carefully on his handkerchief and led the way +back to the sitting-room.</p> + +<p>"And now, Mr. Herrick, to come to the second object of my call, the +first being to extend you a welcome. Zenas—I refer to our worthy +Merchant Prince, Mr. Zenas Prout—Zenas informed me last evening that +you had been a close friend of Ed Craig's, had, in fact, been in +partnership with him in some Western mining-enterprise; that Ed had +died and that you had come into his property. That is correct?"</p> + +<p>"Quite, sir."</p> + +<p>"I brought him into the world. I'm sorry to hear of his death. Well, +well! 'Our birth is nothing but our death begun, as tapers waste that +instant they take fire.' Young's 'Night Thoughts,' Mr. Herrick. Full of +beautiful lines, sir." The Doctor paused a moment while he cleaned his +spectacles with a corner of his coat. "Let me see; ah, yes. I wonder if +you know that you have next door to you Ed's only surviving near +relative?"</p> + +<p>"I learned it only an hour ago, Doctor."</p> + +<p>"I see. I felt it my duty to inform Miss Walton of her cousin's death +and called on her at noon. Miss Walton's parents and Ed's were not +intimate when the two were children; some silly misunderstanding in +regard to a division of old Colonel Phelps's property after he died. As +it turned out they might have spared themselves the quarrel, for a later +will was afterwards found leaving his entire estate to churches and +schools. Well, I was going to say that Ed's death was not much of a +grief to Miss Walton because she had really never known him, but, +nevertheless, she would naturally wish to hear the particulars. I came +to suggest that you should give me the honor of allowing me to present +you to Miss Walton, Mr. Herrick."</p> + +<p>"I shall be very glad to meet her," replied Wade, "and tell her all I +can about Ed. We were very close friends for several years and a finer +chap never breathed."</p> + +<p>"I'm delighted to hear you say so. I've brought a good many into this +world, Mr. Herrick, but very few have ever made me proud of the fact."</p> + +<p>"I fear you're a bit of a pessimist, Doctor."</p> + +<p>"No, no, I'm only honest. With myself, that is. In my dealings with +others, sir, I'm—just an ordinary New Englander."</p> + +<p>"That sounds hard on New Englanders," said Wade with a smile. "Do you +mean to say that they're not honest?"</p> + +<p>"New Englanders are honest according to their lights, Mr. Herrick, but +their lights are sometimes dim. Shall we say this evening for our call +on the ladies? Miss Walton has with her a Miss Mullett, a very dear and +estimable girl who resides with her in the role of companion. I say +girl, but you mustn't be deceived. When you get to sixty-odd you'll find +that any lady under fifty is still a girl to you. Miss Mullett, through +regrettable circumstances, was overlooked by the seekers after wives and +is what you would call a maiden lady. She plays a remarkable hand of +cribbage, Mr. Herrick."</p> + +<p>"This evening will suit me perfectly, Doctor."</p> + +<p>"Then shall we say about half-past seven? We don't keep very late hours +in Eden Village. We sup at six, make our calls at seven or half-past, +and go to bed promptly at ten. A light in a window after ten o'clock +indicates but one thing, illness."</p> + +<p>"How about burglars?" laughed Wade.</p> + +<p>"Burglars? Bless my soul, we never have 'em, sir. Sometimes a tramp, but +never a burglar. Even tramps don't bother us much." The Doctor chuckled +as he rescued his hat and cane from beside his chair. "Zenas Prout tells +a story to show why Eden Village is exempt. We have a lady here, Mr. +Herrick, who should have been of rights a descendant of old Colonel +Phelps, Ed's grandfather on his mother's side. The old Colonel's name +was synonymous for—let us say self-denial. The lady in question is a +very estimable lady, sir, oh, very estimable, but, while she is probably +our richest citizen, she is extremely careful and saving. Zenas says a +tramp stopped at her door once and asked for food. Miss Cousins—there, +I didn't mean to give her name! But no matter—Miss Cousins brought him +a slice of stale bread thinly spread with butter. Zenas says the tramp +looked from the bread to Miss Cousins, who, I should explain is +extremely thin in face and figure, and back to the bread. Then he held +it out to her. 'Lady,' he said, 'I haven't the heart to take this from +you. You need it more than I do. Eat it yourself!'"</p> + +<p>Under cover of Wade's appreciative laughter the Doctor made his adieux, +promising to call again at half-past seven. Wade watched him depart down +the street, very erect and a trifle pompous, his gold-headed stick +serving no other purpose than that of ornament. Then he went indoors and +walked to the mirror.</p> + +<p>"Gee!" he muttered, "I wish my trunk were here!"</p> + +<div class="figure"> +<img src="images/illus_draw4.jpg" alt="Bushes, rocks, and stream"> +</div> + +<hr style='width: 65%;' /> +<a name='VIII'></a><h2>VIII.</h2> +<br /> + +<img src="images/illus_draw5.jpg" alt="Trees and pond" align="right" hspace="10"> + +<p>The parlor at The Cedars was very different from that in the Craig +cottage. It was pretty and comfortable, with lamps that diffused a +cheerful, mellow glow over the lower half of the room and left the upper +in pleasantly mysterious gloom. There was much old-fashioned +furniture—such as the spindle-legged card table at which Miss Mullett +and the Doctor were deeply absorbed in cribbage—but enough comfortable +modern chairs had been provided to render martyrdom unnecessary. The +four windows were hung with bright creton and muslin, and the dull-green +carpet neither stared one out of countenance nor made one fearful to set +foot upon it. It was a jolly, chummy sort of carpet that seemed to say, +"Walk on me all you want to, and don't be afraid to spill your crumbs; I +like crumbs." A very large tortoise-shell cat lay stretched along the +arm of the couch, half asleep, and purred as Eve dipped her fingers in +the long fur. The windows on the side of the room were open and the +draperies swayed gently with the little breeze. Wade, seated at the +other end of the couch from his hostess, was feeling happy and +inexplicably elated.</p> + +<p>"I feel quite guilty about this morning," Eve was saying. "I'm afraid I +wasn't very polite. Did I—did I smile?"</p> + +<p>"If you didn't, you were a saint," answered Wade. "It's a wonder to me +you didn't howl!"</p> + +<p>"It was funny, though, wasn't it? Now that it's all over, I mean; now +that I've apologized and Carrie has apologized for me and you've +apologized. You did look so—so utterly dumfounded!"</p> + +<p>"I was!" replied Wade grimly. "For a moment I thought I'd had a +sunstroke or something and was out of my head. At first, when I came in +and saw you standing there, I thought—it was a foolish thing to think, +of course—but I thought you had come to call on me!"</p> + +<p>"Again?"</p> + +<p>"Again? I'm afraid I don't—"</p> + +<p>"Now let's be honest, Mr. Herrick. You did see me the—the first time, +didn't you?"</p> + +<p>"Just as you wish," laughed Wade. "I did or I didn't."</p> + +<p>"You did. I wish you hadn't, but I know you did. I wonder what you +thought of me!"</p> + +<p>"I—there wasn't much chance to think anything," answered Wade +evasively. "You didn't stay long enough."</p> + +<p>"I was going by and saw the windows open and couldn't think what to make +of it, you see," she explained. "The cottage has been closed up so long +that it was quite breath-taking to see it open. My only idea was that it +was being aired out. So I thought I'd take a peep. I wanted to see +inside, for once I spent a whole day there with Aunt Mary, when I was +just a little bit of a girl, and I wondered whether it would look the +same. If you think you were surprised this morning when you came in and +found me confronting you, what do you suppose I was when I looked in +that window and right into your face? Don't you think we're quits now?"</p> + +<p>"I reckon we are. Only you didn't make such an ass of yourself as I did. +You had presence of mind to get away. In fact you got away so quick I +wasn't sure whether I'd seen you or just imagined you. If I hadn't found +a lilac bloom on the ground out there I reckon I'd have been sort of +worried about myself."</p> + +<p>"Did I drop it?"</p> + +<p>"You must have. You're fond of it, aren't you?" He nodded at the tiny +spray tucked in the front of her white gown.</p> + +<p>"Very. And I'm always sorry when it goes. This, I fear, is the very +last. It was later this year than usual; last summer it was almost all +gone when we got here."</p> + +<p>"It's awfully sweet," said Wade. "Driving into the village the other day +the fragrance was almost the first thing that struck me. I reckon when I +go back West my memory of Eden Village will be perfumed with lilac.</p> + +<p>"That's very pretty," said Eve. "Coup-ling lilacs with the West reminds +me of something that happened once when I was out there with papa."</p> + +<p>Wade's glance wavered and shifted to the couple at the card table. She +knew, after all, or suspected!</p> + +<p>"It was quite a few years ago. Papa was interested in some mines in +Nevada, and he took me out with him one spring on a business trip. +Coming back we stopped one morning at a little town. I don't remember +whether it was in Nevada or Colorado, and I've forgotten the funny, +outlandish name it had. There were just a few houses and stores there. +Papa and I got out of the Pullman and walked up and down the station +platform. Just across the road was a little frame house and in front of +it was a lilac bush just full of blooms. It seemed so strange to find +such a thing out there, and the blossoms were so lovely that I called +papa's attention to it. 'I do wish I could have some!' I said. There +were some men standing about the station, great big rough-looking men, +miners or ranchers, I suppose. One of them heard me and whipped off his +hat. 'Do the flowers please you, ma'am?' he asked. He looked so kind of +wild and ferocious that I was too startled to answer him at first, +'Cause if they do,' he went on, 'I'll get all you want.' 'Indeed they +do,' I said, 'but they're not yours, are they?' 'No, ma'am, they're +yourn,' he said. He pulled out a big knife, strode across to the bush +and began cutting the poor thing all to pieces. 'Oh, please don't!' I +cried. 'That's more than enough!' 'Just as you say, ma'am,' and he came +back with a dozen great branches of them. I took them and thanked him. I +told him it was dear of him to give them to me and I did hope he hadn't +spoiled his bush. He—he—well, he emptied his mouth of a great deal of +tobacco juice, wiped his big hand across it and said: 'It ain't my bush, +ma'am, but you're just as welcome to them lilocks as if it was. There +ain't nothin' in this town a pretty girl can't have for the askin'!' +Thank goodness, the conductor cried 'All aboard' just then and I ran up +the steps. There wasn't any reply I could have made to that, was there? +As the train went off we could see the other men on the platform +laughing and hitting my friend on the back, and enjoying it all greatly. +But wasn't it dear of him?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," answered Wade, warmly. "They're like that out there, though rough +and uncultured, maybe, but kind and big-hearted underneath. I dare say +that incident made him feel so good that he went out and shot a +Greaser."</p> + +<p>"Oh, I hope not!" laughed Eve. "But he looked as though he might have +shot dozens of them, one every morning for breakfast! The flowers lasted +me all the way to Chicago. The porter put them in the ice-water tank and +I picked fresh lilacs every day."</p> + +<p>Wade wondered whether she had forgotten another incident, which must +have happened on the evening of that same day. He hoped she had, and +then he hoped she hadn't. If she recalled it she made no mention of it, +nor did the smiling unconsciousness of her face suggest that she +connected him with her trip in the remotest degree. He felt a little +bit aggrieved. It wasn't flattering to be forgotten so completely.</p> + +<p>"You said your father was interested in some mines in Nevada. Do you +mind telling me the name?"</p> + +<p>"The New Century Consolidated, they were called."</p> + +<p>"Oh, that was too bad," exclaimed Wade, regretfully. "That property +never was any good. The whole thing was a swindle from first to last. +Was your father very badly hit?"</p> + +<p>"Ruined," answered Eve, simply. "He had to sell everything he had. They +had made him a director, you see, and when the exposure came he paid up +his share. The lawyer said he didn't have to, but he insisted. He was +right, don't you think, Mr. Herrick?"</p> + +<p>"No—well, perhaps. I don't know. It depends how you look at it, I +reckon."</p> + +<p>"There was only one way to look at it, wasn't there? Either it was right +or it was wrong. Father believed it was right."</p> + +<p>"So it was! But plenty of men would have hidden behind the law. I wish +your father might have bought into our property instead of the New +Century. I wanted Ed to write to him; we needed money badly at first, +and I'd heard Ed speak of him once; but he wouldn't do it; said his +uncle wouldn't have anything to do with any schemes of his."</p> + +<p>"I'm afraid he was right," said Eve, sadly. "When I was a little girl my +father and Ed's father had some sort of a misunderstanding and would +never have anything to do with each other afterwards. It made it very +hard for mamma, for she and Aunt Mary were very fond of each other. +Please tell me about Cousin Edward, Mr. Herrick. I think I only saw him +once or twice in my life, but he was my cousin just the same, and now +that he's dead I suddenly realize that all the time I was unconsciously +taking a sort of comfort out of the knowledge that somewhere I had some +one that belonged to me, even if I never saw him and hardly knew him. +What was he like?"</p> + +<p>"A big, silent, good-hearted fellow. I think there was a resemblance to +you, Miss Walton. He was dark complexioned, with almost black eyes, +but—there's something in your expression at times—that reminds me of +Ed." Wade frowned and studied the girl's face. "But I have a photograph +of him at the Camp. I'll send for it. Shall I?"</p> + +<p>"It wouldn't be too much trouble?"</p> + +<p>"No trouble at all. I'll just send a wire to Whitehead, the +superintendent. I met Ed in a queer way. It was at Cripple Creek. I'd +been there almost a year. After my mother died there wasn't anything to +keep me at home in Virginia, and there wasn't much money. So I hiked out +to Colorado, thinking about all I'd have to do was to cinch up my belt +and start to pick up gold nuggets in the streets. The best I could find +was work with a shovel in one of the mines over Victor way. Then I got +work in another mine handling explosives. I got in front of a missed +hole one fine day and was blown down a slope with about a hundred tons +of rock on top of me. As luck had it, however, the big ones wedged over +me and I wasn't hurt much, just scratched up a bit."</p> + +<p>"But that was wonderful!" breathed Eve.</p> + +<p>"Yes, it was sort of funny. I was covered up from one in the afternoon +until five, quite conscious all the time and pretty well scared. You +see, I couldn't help wondering just what would happen if the rocks +should settle. My eyes got the worst of it and I had to stay in the +hospital about a month. But I'm afraid I'm boring you. I was just +leading up to my meeting with Ed."</p> + +<p>"Boring me! Don't be absurd! Then what happened?"</p> + +<p>"Well, after I got out of the hospital I bought a burro and a tent and +hiked out for the Sangre—for the southern part of the State. I still +had some money coming to me for work when the trouble happened, and +after I got out I cashed an accident policy I'd luckily taken out a +month before. I stayed in the mountains pretty much all summer +prospecting. I found the biggest bunch of rock I'd ever seen, but no +yellow iron—I mean gold. Came sort of near starving before I got out. I +sold my outfit and went back to Cripple and struck another job with the +shovel and pick, digging prospect ditches. It was pretty tiresome work +and pretty cold, too. So when I'd got a month's wages I told the boss +he'd either have to put me underground or I'd quit. I said I was a miner +and not a Dago. You see, I felt independently rich with a month's wages +in my jeans—pockets, that is. The boss said I could quit. I've been +wondering ever since," laughed Wade, "whether I quit or was fired."</p> + +<p>"That was lovely," said Eve. "Oh, dear, I've often wished I'd been a +man!"</p> + +<p>"H'm; well, every one to his taste. But look here, Miss Walton, you're +certain I'm not boring you to death?"</p> + +<p>"Quite. What did you do with all that money? And how much did a month's +wages amount to?"</p> + +<p>"About ninety dollars. You get three a day and work seven days a week. +But, of course, I owed a good deal of that ninety by the time I got it. +Well, I paid my bills and then did a fool thing. I got my laundry out of +the Chinaman's, put on a stiff shirt and went over to Colorado Springs. +It just seemed that I had to have a glimpse of—well, you know; +respectability—dress clothes—music—flowers. I remember how stiff and +uncomfortable that shirt felt and how my collar scratched my neck. When +I got over to the Springs I ran across some folks I'd known back home in +Virginia. Richmond folks, they were. I dined with them and had a fine +time. I forgot to tell them I'd been pushing a shovel with the +Pinheads—that is, Swedes. They asked me to be sure and visit them when +I went back to Virginia for Christmas, for of course I would go! I told +'em I'd do that very thing. Rather a joke, wasn't it? If railroads had +been selling at forty dollars a pair I couldn't have bought a headlight! +I went back to Cripple the next day, having spent most of my money, +feeling sort of grouchy and down on my luck. That night I thought I'd +have a go at the wheel—roulette, you know. I'd steered pretty clear of +that sort of thing up to then, but I didn't much care that night what +happened. I only had about fifteen dollars and I played it dollar by +dollar and couldn't win once. Finally I was down to my last. I remember +I took that out of my pocket and looked at it quite awhile. Then I put +it back and started to go. But before I'd reached the door I concluded +that a dollar wasn't much better than none in Cripple, and so I went +back to the table. It was pretty crowded and I had to work my way in +until I could reach it. Just when I got my dollar out again and was +going to toss it on, blind, some one took hold of my arm and pulled me +around. I'd never seen the fellow before and I started to get peeved. +But he—may I use his words? They weren't polite, but they were +persuasive. Said he: 'Put that back in your pocket, you damned fool, and +come out of here."</p> + +<p>Wade looked anxiously at his audience to see if she was shocked. She +didn't look so; only eager and sympathetic. He went on.</p> + +<p>"Well, I went. He lugged me over to his room across the street and—and +was hospitable. He made me talk and I told him how I was fixed. He told +me who he was and said he thought he could find a job for me. And he +did. He was partner with a man named Hogan in an assay office and knew a +good many mine managers and superintendents. The next day I went to work +running an air-drill at four dollars a day. That's how I met Ed. We got +to be pretty good friends after that. Later I went over and roomed with +him. He was only two years older than I, but he always seemed about ten. +I told him about the Sangre—about the country I'd prospected in the +summer and we agreed to go over it together. In the spring, when the +snow was off, we started out. We bought a good outfit, two burros, a +good tent, and everything we could need. We expected to be away all +summer, but we struck gold about five weeks after we reached the +mountains. Struck it rich, too. All that summer we slaved like Dagoes +and by fall we had a prospect good enough to show any one. But we needed +money for development, and it was then I suggested to Ed that he write +to Mr. Walton. You see, I'd heard a good deal about his folks and about +Eden Village by that time. Evenings, after you've had supper and while +you're smoking your pipe, there isn't much to talk about except your +people and things back in God's country. And we'd told each other about +everything we knew by autumn. But Ed wouldn't consider his uncle; said +we'd have to find some one else to put in the money. So we had a +clean-up and I started East with a trunk full of samples and a pocket +full of papers. Ed gave me the names of some men to see. As luck had it, +I didn't have to go further than Omaha. The first man I tackled bit and +three months later we started development. Ed and I kept a controlling +interest. Now the—" Wade pulled himself up, gulped and hesitated—"the +mine is the richest in that district and is getting better all the +time."</p> + +<p>"It's like a fairy tale, almost," said Eve.</p> + +<p>"What is the name of the mine, Mr. Herrick?"</p> + +<p>"Well—er—we usually just called it 'The Mine.' It isn't listed on the +exchange, you see. There aren't any shares on the market."</p> + +<p>"Really? But I wasn't thinking of investing, Mr. Herrick," responded +Eve, dryly. "If there's any reason why I shouldn't know the name, that's +sufficient."</p> + +<p>Wade observed her troubledly.</p> + +<p>"I—I beg your pardon, Miss Walton. I didn't mean to be rude. The mine +has a name, of course, and—and sometime I'll tell it to you. But just +now—there's a reason—"</p> + +<p>"It sounds," laughed Eve, "as though you were talking of a cereal +coffee. Indeed, though, I don't want to know if you don't want me to."</p> + +<p>"But I do! That is—sometime—"</p> + +<p>"I understand; it's a guilty secret. But you were telling me about my +cousin. When did he die, Mr. Herrick?"</p> + +<p>"Last August. We'd both been working pretty hard and Ed was sort of run +down, I reckon. He got typhoid and went quick. I got him to Pueblo as +soon as I learned what the trouble was, but the doctor there said he +never had a chance. We buried him in Pueblo."</p> + +<p>Wade was looking down at his roughened hands and spoke so low that Eve +had to bend forward a little to hear him.</p> + +<p>"It—it was a pretty decent funeral," he added simply. "There were seven +carriages."</p> + +<p>"Really?" she murmured.</p> + +<p>"Yes." He raised his head and looked at her a trifle wistfully. "You +can't understand just what Ed's death meant to me, Miss Walton. You see, +he was about the only real friend I ever had, the only fellow I ever got +real close to. And he was such a thoroughbred, and—and was so darn—so +mighty good to me! I tell you, it sort of knocked me out for awhile."</p> + +<p>"I'm sorry I didn't know him," said Eve, softly. "I'm sure I'd have +liked him as well as you did. And perhaps he'd have liked me."</p> + +<p>"I'm sure of that," said Wade with conviction.</p> + +<p>"I suppose he never spoke of me?"</p> + +<p>"Only once, I think. Before he died he told me he had made a will and +left me his share of the mine and everything else he had. I—oh, well, I +didn't like it and said so. 'You'll have to take it,' he answered. +'There's no one else to leave it to; I've got no relatives left except +an uncle and a cousin, and they have all the money they need. You see, +he didn't know about—"</p> + +<p>"I understand. And even had papa been alive he would have accepted +nothing from Edward, I'm certain."</p> + +<p>"But you—"</p> + +<p>"Nor I."</p> + +<p>"I'm sorry to hear you say that," said Wade, frowningly. "I've been +thinking that perhaps—something might be done. There's so much money, +Miss Walton, and it doesn't belong to me. Don't you think—"</p> + +<p>"No." Eve shook her head gently, but decisively. "It's nice of you to +want it, Mr. Herrick, but you mustn't think any more about it. Papa +would never have allowed me to accept any of Cousin Edward's property if +he had been alive, and I shan't do it now that he is dead. We won't +speak about that any more, please. Tell me how you came to visit Eden +Village. To see the house you'd inherited?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. Ed wanted me to. He was very fond of this place and fond of the +house. 'I'd rather you always kept it,' he told me. 'If the time ever +comes when you have to sell it, all right; but until then see that it's +looked after and kept up.' So this summer, when I found I was going to +have a vacation—the first real one for six years, Miss Walton—I +decided that the first thing I'd do would be to come here and look after +Ed's place."</p> + +<p>"Then yours is only a flying visit? I'm sorry."</p> + +<p>"No, I think I shall stay some time," replied Wade. "I like it +immensely. It's so different from where I've been. And, besides, the +house needs looking after. I think I'll have it painted."</p> + +<p>"Then you'll be sure to make mistakes," laughed Eve. "Or perhaps you'll +paint it a different color from this?"</p> + +<p>"No, I shan't; white it must be. Then, you see, I'll have every excuse +for mistaking this house for my own."</p> + +<p>"I hope you won't feel that you need an excuse to come here, Mr. +Herrick. We're not a ceremonious people here. We can't afford to be; +neighbors are too scarce."</p> + +<p>Wade thanked her and there was a moment's silence. Then Eve, who had +been smilingly watching the players, turned with lowered voice.</p> + +<p>"And sometimes when you come to see us, Mr. Herrick, won't you come +through the gate in the hedge, please?"</p> + +<p>"Certainly," he answered, looking a little puzzled.</p> + +<p>"Does that sound queer?" she asked with a soft laugh. "I suppose it +does. There was a time when the dwellers in your house and in mine used +that gate in the hedge as my poor old grandfather meant they should. +Perhaps I have a fancy to see it used so again. Or perhaps that isn't +the reason at all. You have your secret; we'll call this mine. Maybe +some day we'll tell our secrets."</p> + +<p>"Is that a promise?" he asked, eagerly.</p> + +<p>She hesitated a moment. Then, "If you like," she answered, smiling +across at him.</p> + +<p>"Good! Then let us have it all shipshape, in contract form."</p> + +<p>"Oh, you business men!"</p> + +<p>"I hereby agree to tell you before I leave Eden Village the name of my +mine, and you agree to tell me why—why—"</p> + +<p>"Why you are to come to see us by way of the gate in the hedge. Agreed, +signed, sealed, and delivered in the presence of Miss Caroline Mullett +and Doctor Joseph Crimmins."</p> + +<p>"Eh?" asked the Doctor. "What's that? I heard my name spoken, didn't I?"</p> + +<p>"You did, Doctor, but quite respectfully," answered Eve.</p> + +<p>"Respectfully!" grumbled the Doctor. "That's all age gets, just respect! +Thirty years ago, madam, you wouldn't have dared to respect me! I beg +your pardon, Miss Mullett; you are right, it is my first count. +Fifteen-two, fifteen-four, fifteen-six, and a pair's eight and one's +nine. And that puts me out!"</p> + +<p>"Brute!" said Miss Mullett.</p> + +<p>"Who won?" asked Eve.</p> + +<p>"I, Miss Eve, but an empty victory since I have incurred this dear +lady's displeasure," replied the Doctor, arising. "I had the misfortune +to run out when she needed but one to win, an unpardonable crime in the +game of cribbage, Mr. Herrick."</p> + +<p>"I'm not sure we wouldn't hang you for that out our way, Doctor," said +Wade, with a smile.</p> + +<p>"Well, something ought to be done to him," grumbled Miss Mullett, +closing the cribbage box with a snap.</p> + +<p>"Madam, leave me to the reproaches of my conscience," advised the +offender.</p> + +<p>"Your conscience!" jeered Miss Mullett. "You haven't any. You're a +doctor."</p> + +<div class="figure"> +<a name='illus_p131'></a><img src="images/illus_p131.jpg" alt=""STERN IN HER ANGER, MR. HERRICK, BUT OF AN AMIABLE AND +FORGIVING DISPOSITION""> +<h4>"STERN IN HER ANGER, MR. HERRICK, BUT OF AN AMIABLE AND +FORGIVING DISPOSITION"</h4> +</div> + +<p>"Mr. Herrick, let us be going, I pray.</p> + +<span style='margin-left: 1em;'>"'From pole to pole the thunder roars aloud,</span><br /> +<span style='margin-left: 1em;'>And broken lightnings flash from ev'ry cloud.'</span><br /> + +<p>"Besides which, sir, it is close upon ten o'clock, I see, the bed-hour +of our virtuous village. Miss Mullett, I shall pray for your +forgiveness. Miss Eve, I trust you to say a good word for me. If the +storm clears, do you hang a white handkerchief from the window there and +I, going by, will see it and be comforted." The Doctor laid a hand on +Wade's shoulder and, with a mischievous glance at Miss Mullett, +whispered hoarsely: "Stern in her anger, Mr. Herrick, but of an amiable +and forgiving disposition."</p> + +<p>"I'll forgive you when I've had my revenge," answered Miss Mullett, +laughingly.</p> + +<p>"Ah, the clouds break! Let us be gone, Mr. Herrick, while the sun shines +on our pathway!"</p> + +<p>When the front door had closed Miss Mullett turned eagerly to Eve.</p> + +<p>"Sit down, dear, and tell me! Was he nice? What did he say?"</p> + +<div class="figure"> +<img src="images/illus_draw6.jpg" alt="Door"> +</div> + +<hr style='width: 65%;' /> +<a name='IX'></a><h2>IX.</h2> + +<img src="images/illus_draw7.jpg" alt="Garden gate" align="left" hspace="10"> + +<span style='margin-left: 1em;'>"'When He cometh, when He cometh</span><br /> +<span style='margin-left: 2em;'>To make up His jewels,</span><br /> +<span style='margin-left: 1em;'>All His jewels, precious jewels,</span><br /> +<span style='margin-left: 2em;'>His loved and His own.</span><br /> +<span style='margin-left: 1em;'>Like the stars of the morning,</span><br /> +<span style='margin-left: 2em;'>His bright crown adorning,</span><br /> +<span style='margin-left: 1em;'>They shall shine—'"</span><br /> + +<p>"Mr. Herring, sir, breakfast's most ready."</p> + +<p>"So am I," answered Wade, throwing open the door. "It certainly smells +good, Zephania. Got lots of coffee?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes, Mr. Herring."</p> + +<p>"Herrick, Zephania."</p> + +<p>"Yes, sir; excuse me; Herrick."</p> + +<p>After breakfast Zene, as his father and Zephania called him, or Zenas +Third, as he was known to the Village, appeared with Wade's trunk on a +wheelbarrow. Zenas Third was a big, broad-shouldered youth of twenty +with a round, freckled, smiling face and eager yellow-brown eyes. He +always reminded Wade of an amiable animated pumpkin. Wade got his +fishing tackle out of the trunk and he and Zenas Third started off for a +day's fishing.</p> + +<p>They took the road past The Cedars, Wade viewing the house on the chance +of seeing the ladies. But although he failed and was a little +disappointed he did not escape observation himself.</p> + +<p>"There goes Mr. Herrick with Zenas Third," announced Miss Mullett, +hurrying cautiously to the sitting-room window. As she had been in the +act of readjusting her embroidery hoops when she arose, her efforts to +secure all the articles in her lap failed and the hoops went circling +off in different directions. "They're going fishing, Eve."</p> + +<p>"Are they?" asked Eve from the old mahogany desk by the side window, +with only a glance from her writing.</p> + +<p>"Yes, and—<i>Did</i> you see where those hoops rolled to?"</p> + +<p>"No, I didn't notice. But your handkerchief is over by the couch and +you're stepping on a skein of linen."</p> + +<p>"So I am." Miss Mullett rescued and reassembled her things and sat down +again. "Are you very busy, dear?"</p> + +<p>"No." Eve sighed impatiently and laid her pen down. "I'm not at all +busy. I wish I were. I can't seem to write this morning."</p> + +<p>"I'm so glad. Not that you can't write, of course, but that you're not +busy. I want to talk."</p> + +<p>"Talk on." Eve placed her hands behind her head and eyed the few lines +of writing distastefully.</p> + +<p>"But I want you to talk, too," said Miss Mullett, snipping a thread with +her tiny scissors.</p> + +<p>"I haven't anything to say."</p> + +<p>"Nonsense, dear! There's always plenty to say. Why, I'm sure if I lived +to be a thousand, I'd not be talked out. There's always so many +interesting things to talk about."</p> + +<p>"And what is it this morning?" asked Eve, smiling across at the sleek +head bent above the embroidery frame.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Herrick. Tell me what you think of him, Eve."</p> + +<p>"I haven't thought—much."</p> + +<p>"But you ought to. I'm positive he is very much impressed, dear."</p> + +<p>"Really? With what?"</p> + +<p>"With you." Eve laughed, softly.</p> + +<p>"Carrie, you're incorrigible! You won't be satisfied until you've got me +married to some one."</p> + +<p>"Of course I shan't. I don't intend that you shall make the mistake I +did."</p> + +<p>"You didn't make a mistake, you dear thing. Your mistake would have been +to marry. You'd never have been contented with just one man, Carrie; you +know you think every one you meet is perfectly beautiful."'</p> + +<p>"Because I haven't one of my very own," replied Miss Mullett, +tranquilly. "I made a great mistake in not marrying. I would have been +happier married, I'm sure. Every woman ought to have a man to look +after; it keeps her from worrying over trifles."</p> + +<p>"Do you think I worry over trifles?" asked Eve.</p> + +<p>"You're worrying over that story this minute."</p> + +<p>"If I am, it's unkind of you to call my stories trifles. Please +remember that if it wasn't for the stories, such as they are, I couldn't +afford marmalade with my tea."</p> + +<p>"And you probably couldn't afford me," said Miss Mullett, "and I guess +I'm a good deal like marmalade myself—half sweet and half bitter." Miss +Mullett laughed at the conceit.</p> + +<p>"Anyway, dear, you don't cloy," said Eve. "But you're not like marmalade +the least bit; you're—you're like a nice currant jelly, just tart +enough to be pleasant. How's that?"</p> + +<p>"Just so long as you don't call me a pickle I don't mind," replied the +other. Presently: "You must acknowledge that he's very attractive, +dear."</p> + +<p>"Who?" asked Eve, coming suddenly out of her thoughts.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Herrick. And I think he has the most wonderful voice, too; don't +you? It's so deep and—and manly."</p> + +<p>"Carrie, if his Satanic Majesty called on us, you'd be telling me after +he'd gone how manly he looked!"</p> + +<p>"Well, I'm not one to deny the resemblance between man and the Devil," +responded Miss Mullett, with a chuckle. "I dare say that's why we like +them so—the men, I mean."</p> + +<p>"Does Mr. Herrick strike you as being somewhat devilish?" inquired Eve, +idly.</p> + +<p>"N-no, I suppose not. Not too much so, at least. I think he must be very +kind; he has such nice eyes. He's the sort of man that makes a lovely +husband."</p> + +<p>Eve clapped her hands to her ears, laughing.</p> + +<p>"Carrie, stop it! I refuse to listen to any more laudations of Mr. +Herrick! Think how the poor man's ears must burn!"</p> + +<p>"Let them. He has very nice ears, Eve. Did you notice how small and +close they were?"</p> + +<p>"I did not!" declared Eve despairingly. "Nor did I specially observe his +teeth or his hair or his feet, or—"</p> + +<p>"But you noticed the scar on his face, didn't you?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, I couldn't very well help doing that," owned Eve. "Any more than +I could help noticing his hands."</p> + +<p>"So strong looking, aren't they?" asked Miss Mullett, eagerly.</p> + +<p>"Are they? I thought them rather ugly."</p> + +<p>"Oh, how can you say so? Just think of all the wonderful things those +hands must have done! And as for the scar, I thought it gave him quite a +distinguished air, didn't you?"</p> + +<p>"Carrie Mullett, I am not interested in Mr. Herrick. If you say another +word about him before luncheon—"</p> + +<p>"You can say that if you like," interrupted Miss Mullett placidly, "but +you are interested in him, my dear."</p> + +<p>"Carrie!"</p> + +<p>"Then why can't you write your story? Oh, you can't fool me, my dear!"</p> + +<p>Eve turned a disdainful back and picked up her pen, resentful of the +warmth that she felt creeping into her cheeks.</p> + +<p>Miss Mullett smiled and drew a new thread from the skein.</p> + +<div class="figure"> +<img src="images/illus_draw8.jpg" alt="Picket fence"> +</div> + +<hr style='width: 65%;' /> +<a name='X'></a><h2>X.</h2> +<br /> + +<img src="images/illus_draw9.jpg" alt="Flower garden" align="right" hspace="10"> + +<p>"You observe," said Wade the next morning, "I come through the gate in +the hedge."</p> + +<p>The intermittent showers of yesterday afternoon and night had cleaned +the June world, and the four ancient cedars from which the Walton place +had received its name, and in the broken shade of which Eve was reading, +exhaled a spicy odor under the influence of moisture and warmth. Eve, a +slim white figure against the dark-green of the foliage, the sun +flecking her waving hair, looked up, smiled and laid her book down.</p> + +<p>"Good morning," she said. "Have you come to help me be lazy?"</p> + +<p>"If you need help," he replied. "I brought these. They're not much, but +I think they're the last in the village." He handed her a half-dozen +sprays of purple lilac, small and in some places already touched with +brown.</p> + +<p>"Oh," she said, "they're lovely!" She buried her face in them and +crooned over them delightedly. Witnessing her pleasure, Wade had no +regrets for his hour's search over the length and breadth of Eden +Village. She laid them in her lap and looked up curiously. "Where did +you get them? Not from your hedge?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, I just stopped at the florist's as I came along," he laughed. "He +apologized for them and wanted me to take orchids, but I told him they +were for the Lilac Girl."</p> + +<p>"Is that me?" smiled Eve. "Thank you very much." She made a little bow. +"I feel dreadfully impolite and inhospitable, Mr. Herrick, at not asking +you to sit down, but—you see!" She waved a hand before her. "There's +nothing but the ground, and that's damp, I'm afraid. So let us go +indoors. Besides, I must put these in water."</p> + +<p>"Please don't," he begged. "The ground isn't damp where the sun shines, +and I wouldn't mind if it were. If I'm not keeping you from your book +I'll sit down here. May I?"</p> + +<p>"You'll catch rheumatism or ague or something else dreadful," she +warned.</p> + +<p>"Not I," he laughed. "I've never been sick a day in my life, unless it +was after I'd got mixed up with dynamite that time. Don't you think you +might wear those lilacs?"</p> + +<p>"Surely not all of them. One, perhaps." She tucked a spray in at the +bosom of her white waist. "You haven't told me yet where you got them. +Have you been stealing?"</p> + +<p>"Some I stole, some I begged, and some I—just took. I think I can +truthfully declare, though, that there is not another bit of lilac at +this moment in the whole village. I went on a foraging expedition after +breakfast and there is the result. I've examined every bush and hedge +with a microscope."</p> + +<p>"And all that trouble for me!" she exclaimed. "I'm sure I'm flattered." +A little flush of rose-pink crept into her clear cheeks. "Do you know, +Mr. Herrick, you're a perfectly delightful neighbor? Last night fish, +to-day flowers! And I haven't thanked you for the fish, have I? They +were delicious, and it was good of you to send them. Especially as +Zenas Third said you didn't have very good luck."</p> + +<p>"No, we didn't catch many," answered Wade, "but we had a good time. I +was sorry I couldn't send more, though."</p> + +<p>"More! Pray how many trout do you think two ladies of delicate appetites +can eat, Mr. Herrick? You sent six, and we didn't begin to eat all of +those."</p> + +<p>"Really? They were little chaps, too. I'm glad you liked them. Next time +I hope I'll have some better ones to offer. Zenas and I are going to try +again the first cloudy day."</p> + +<p>"I hope you have good luck." There was a moment's silence. Eve raised +the lilacs to her face again and over the tips of the sprays shot a +glance at Wade. He had crossed his legs under him and was feeling for +his pipe. He looked up and their eyes met.</p> + +<p>"I'm afraid I can't offer you any tobacco," she said.</p> + +<p>"I've got plenty," he laughed, "if you don't mind my smoking."</p> + +<p>"Not a bit. Perhaps I should call Carrie. I think she likes the smell +of tobacco better than any perfume she knows."</p> + +<p>"Is she well?" asked Wade, contritely. "I should have asked before, +but—you—something put it out of my head."</p> + +<p>"Quite well, thanks. She's making something for luncheon and has +forbidden me the kitchen. It's a surprise. Do you like surprises, Mr. +Herrick?"</p> + +<p>"Some. It depends on the nature of them."</p> + +<p>"I suppose it does. An earthquake, for instance, would be a rather +disagreeable surprise, wouldn't it?"</p> + +<p>"Decidedly. I can imagine a surprise that would be distinctly pleasant, +though," said Wade, giving a great deal of attention to the selection of +a match from his silver case. "For instance, if you were to give me a +small piece of that lilac for my buttonhole."</p> + +<p>"That would surprise you?" laughed Eve. "Then I'm to understand that you +think me ungenerous?"</p> + +<p>"No, indeed, I was—was considering my unworthiness."</p> + +<p>"Such humility is charming," answered Eve, breaking off a tiny spray and +tossing it to him. "There; aren't you awfully surprised? Please look +so."</p> + +<p>Wade struck an attitude and made a grimace which to a third person would +have indicated wild alarm.</p> + +<p>"Oh, dear," laughed Eve, "if that's your idea of looking pleasant I'd +hate to see you in an earthquake!"</p> + +<p>Wade placed the spray in his buttonhole. "Thank you," he said, "I shall +have quite a collection—"</p> + +<p>"You were going to say?" asked Eve politely as he paused.</p> + +<p>"I was going to say"—he paused again. "You know I already have a spray +of this that belongs to you." He shot a quick, curious glance at her.</p> + +<p>"You have? And where did you get it?"</p> + +<p>Wade lighted his pipe very deliberately.</p> + +<p>"You dropped it outside my window the other day."</p> + +<p>"Oh!" said Eve, with a careless laugh.</p> + +<p>"I'm afraid that must be withered by this time."</p> + +<p>"It is," said Wade. There was no reply to this, and he looked up to find +her gazing idly at the pages of her book, which she was ruffling with +her fingers. "I'm keeping you from reading," he said.</p> + +<p>"No, I don't want to read. It's not interesting."</p> + +<p>"May I see what it is?" She held the cover up for his inspection.</p> + +<p>"Have you read it?" she asked. He shook his head slowly.</p> + +<p>"I don't read many novels, and those I do read I forget all about the +next minute. Of course I try to keep up with the important ones, the +ones folks always ask you about, like Mrs. Humphrey Ward's and Miss +Wharton's."</p> + +<p>"Yes? And do you like them?"</p> + +<p>"I suppose so," he replied, dubiously. "I think the last one I read was +'The Fruit of Mirth.' I didn't care very much for that, did you? If I'd +had my way I'd have passed around the morphine to the whole bunch early +in the book."</p> + +<p>Eve smiled. "I'm afraid you wouldn't care for this one either," she +said, indicating the book in her lap. "I heard this described as 'forty +chapters of agony and two words of relief.'"</p> + +<p>"'The End,' eh? That was clever. You write stories yourself, don't you?"</p> + +<p>"Of a sort, stories for little children about fairies, usually. They +don't amount to much."</p> + +<p>"I'll bet they're darn—mighty good," said Wade, stoutly.</p> + +<p>"I wish they were 'darned good,'" she laughed. "If they were they'd sell +better. I used to write little things for our college paper, and then, +when papa died, and there wasn't very much left after the executors had +got through, writing seemed about the only thing I could do. I took some +stories to the magazine that papa was editor of, and they were splendid +to me. They couldn't use them, but they told me where to take them and I +sold several. That was the beginning. Now I'm fast becoming a specialist +in 'Once-Upon-a-Time' stories."</p> + +<p>"I'd like to read some of them," said Wade. "I'm awfully fond of fairy +stories." "Oh, but these are very young fairy stories, like—like this +one." Eve pulled a pencilled sheet of paper from the pages of her book, +smiled, hesitated, and read: "'Once upon a time there was a Fairy +Princess whose name was Dewdrop. She lived in a beautiful Blue Palace +deep in the heart of a Canterbury Bell that swayed to and fro, to and +fro, at the top of the garden wall. And when the sun shone against the +walls of her palace it was filled with a lovely lavender light, and when +the moon shone it was all asparkle with silver. It was quite the most +desirable palace in the whole garden, for it was the only one that had a +view over the great high wall, and many fairies envied her because she +lived in it. One of those who wanted the Blue Palace for himself was a +very wicked fairy who lived under a toadstool nearby. He was so terribly +wicked that I don't like to even tell you about him. He never got up to +breakfast when he was called, he never did as he was told, and he used +to sit for hours on top of his toadstool, putting out his tongue at all +the other fairies who flew by. And he did lots and lots of other +things, too, that only a thoroughly depraved fairy could ever think of, +like putting cockleburs in the nests where the baby birds lived, and +making them very uncomfortable, and chasing the moles about underground, +and making a squeaking noise like a hungry weasel, and scaring the poor +little moles almost to death. Oh, I could tell you lots of dreadful +things about the wicked fairy if I wanted to. His name was Nettlesting, +and his father and mother were both dead, and he lived all alone with +his grandmother, who simply spoiled him! And—'and that's all there is. +How do you like it?"</p> + +<p>"Bully," said Wade. "What's the rest of it?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know. That's as far as I've got. I suppose, though, that the +wicked fairy tried to oust the Princess from the Blue Palace, and there +were perfectly scandalous doings in Fairyland."</p> + +<p>"I hope you'll finish it," said Wade. "I rather like Nettlesting."</p> + +<p>"Oh, but you mustn't! The moral is that fairies who don't get up to +breakfast when they're called always come to some bad end. You must +like the Princess and think the wicked fairy quite detestable."</p> + +<p>"Can't help it," Wade replied, apologetically. "The wicked fairy had a +sense of humor and I like him. That chasing the moles around and +squeaking like a weasel appeals to me. I'll bet that's just what I'd do +if I were a fairy!"</p> + +<p>"I know," said Eve, nodding her head sympathetically. "I'm ashamed to +say it, but I always like the wicked fairies, too. It's dreadfully hard +sometimes for me to give them their deserts. I'm afraid I don't make +them mean enough. What is your idea of a thoroughly depraved fairy, Mr. +Herrick?"</p> + +<p>Wade frowned a moment, thinking deeply.</p> + +<p>"Well," he said finally, "you might have him go around and upset the +bird-nests and spill the little birds out. How would that do?"</p> + +<p>"Beautifully! Oh, he <i>would</i> be wicked; even I couldn't like a fairy who +did that. Thank you ever so much, Mr. Herrick; I would never have +thought of that myself. What a beautifully wicked imagination you must +have! I'll make Nettlesting do that very thing."</p> + +<p>"No, don't change him, please; I like him the way he is. When will that +story he published?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, I may never finish it, and, if I do, it may never be accepted."</p> + +<p>Wade pondered a minute. Then—"Of course, you know it's perfect +nonsense," he charged.</p> + +<p>"My story? Isn't that a little cruel, Mr. Herrick?"</p> + +<p>"I don't mean your story. I mean the idea of you having to write things +to make a living when—when there's all that money that really belongs +to you. I wish, Miss Walton, you'd look at it sensibly."</p> + +<p>"Mr. Herrick, you're not flattering any more."</p> + +<p>"Can't help it," answered Wade, doggedly. "You ought to consider the +matter from—from a practical point of view. Now you can't deny—"</p> + +<p>"A woman can deny anything," laughed Eve, "especially if it's logic."</p> + +<p>"This isn't logic; it's incontrovertible fact."</p> + +<p>"Good gracious! No, I don't believe I'd have the courage to deny such a +thing as that. I'm sure it would be quite unlawful, wouldn't it, Mr. +Herrick?"</p> + +<p>"Won't you please be serious?" he begged.</p> + +<p>"No, not to-day, thank you."</p> + +<p>"Then we'll talk about it some other day."</p> + +<p>"No, but we won't, please. I'd like you to understand, Mr. Herrick, that +I appreciate your—your kindness, your generosity, but all the argument +in the world won't shake my resolution to take none of Cousin Edward's +money. Now we understand each other, don't we?"</p> + +<p>"I suppose so," answered Wade, regretfully. "But you're making a +mistake, Miss Walton. Won't you just think about it?' Won't you take +advice from—from your friends?"</p> + +<p>"The last thing I'd do," Eve replied, smilingly. "One's friends are the +very ones to avoid when you want unbiased advice. For instance, there's +Carrie Mullett. I told her what you said the other night, and what do +you suppose her advice was?"</p> + +<p>"I'm sure it was sensible," said Wade. "She's a very sensible, as well +as a very charming, lady."</p> + +<p>"H'm; well, she said: 'Accept enough to live on, my dear. Your father +would never have wanted you to be dependent on yourself for your +living.'"</p> + +<p>"Well?" asked Wade, hopefully.</p> + +<p>"She never knew papa," replied Eve. "Besides, I am not dependent on +myself for my living. I have enough to live on even if I never sold a +thing. I'm not so poverty-stricken as you imagine."</p> + +<p>"If you'd talk it over with a lawyer—"</p> + +<p>"But it isn't a question of law, Mr. Herrick. It's something between me +and my conscience, you see. And surely," she ended with a smile, "you +wouldn't consult a lawyer about an affair of conscience? Why, I might +have to explain what a conscience was!"</p> + +<p>"Well," said Wade, grimly. "I've made no promises, and I haven't given +up yet. And you'll find, Miss Walton, that I'm a tiresome chap when it +comes to having my own way."</p> + +<p>"And you'll find, Mr. Herrick, that I'm a stubborn woman when it comes +to having mine. There, the battle is on!"</p> + +<p>"And I shall win," said Wade, looking up at her with a sudden gleam in +his eyes. For an instant she met his gaze and found herself a little +dismayed at some expression she found there. But—</p> + +<p>"We'll see," she answered, calmly. "Is it to be war to the knife, Mr. +Herrick?"</p> + +<p>"I hope it won't come to that," he answered. "But there's another thing +I want you to do, and as it's something you can do without wounding your +conscience, I hope you will."</p> + +<p>"It sounds formidable. What is it, please?"</p> + +<p>"Come over this afternoon and have tea, you and Miss Mullett. Will you?"</p> + +<p>"Gladly. I haven't had afternoon tea since I left New York."</p> + +<p>"Then shall we say four o'clock? Don't fail me, please, Miss Walton, +for Zephania and I will be terribly disappointed if you do. It's our +first tea, you know."</p> + +<p>"Indeed we won't fail you!" answered Eve. "And, please, I like lemon +with mine."</p> + +<p>All was ready for the guests long before the time appointed, and Wade, +attired in his best blue serge, whitest vest, and bluest silk tie, and +clean-shaven to a painful degree, paced impatiently between the kitchen, +fragrant with the odor of newly-baked cake, and the parlor, less chill +and formal than usual under the humanizing influence of several bowls +and vases of flowers.</p> + +<p>The ladies were quite on time, Miss Mullett looking sweet and cheerful +in pink and white, and Eve absolutely lovely and adorable in pale-blue +linen that matched her eyes to the fraction of a tone. They settled +themselves in the cool parlor and talked while the shades rustled and +whispered in the little scented breeze that stole through the open +windows. Zephania, starched and ribboned, bore proudly in the best +silver tea service, Wade watching the progress of the heavily laden tray +across the room with grave anxiety.</p> + +<p>"I'd like you to know," he announced when it was safely deposited on the +little table at Eve's side, "that this is Zephania's spread. She made +the cake herself—and the bread too."</p> + +<p>"The dear child!" said Miss Mullett.</p> + +<p>"Why, Zephania!" exclaimed Eve.</p> + +<p>And Zephania, very proud and rosy, and trying hard to look unconcerned, +made her escape just as Doctor Crimmins, happening by, heard the voices +and demanded admittance with the head of his cane on the window-sill. +That was a very jolly tea-party. The Doctor ate six pieces of cake and +drank three cups of tea, praising each impartially between mouthfuls. +Wade, eating and drinking spasmodically, told of his adventures in +search of lemons.</p> + +<p>"Prout's emporium was quite out of them," he explained. "Prout said he +had had some a few weeks ago, but they were sold. So I walked over to +The Centre and got them there."</p> + +<p>Miss Mullett eluded him anxiously and insisted that the Doctor should +examine his pulse.</p> + +<p>"You ought never to have taken such a walk on such a hot day, Mr. +Herrick. The idea! Why, you might have died! Why don't you scold him, +Eve?"</p> + +<p>Eve's eyebrows went up.</p> + +<p>"Why should I scold him, Carrie? Mr. Herrick knew that I liked lemon in +my tea and, being a very gallant gentleman, he obtained lemon. You all +know that I am quite heartless where my wants are concerned."</p> + +<p>"Well, I think it was extremely wrong, Mr. Herrick, and I shan't touch +another slice of lemon."</p> + +<p>"Which," laughed Eve, "considering that you already have four pieces +floating about in your cup, is truly heroic!"</p> + +<p>After the ladies had gone the Doctor lingered, and presently, in some +strange way, he found himself in the dining-room with the doors +carefully closed, saying "Ha! H'm!" and wiping his lips gratefully. He +made Wade promise to come and see him, quoted a couplet anent +hospitality—neglecting to give the author's name—and took his +departure. After supper Wade lighted his pipe and started in the +direction of the Doctor's house, but he never got there that evening. +For an hour or more he wandered along the quiet, almost deserted street, +and smoked and thought and watched the effect of the moonlight amidst +the high branches of the elms, finally finding himself back at his own +gate, tapping his pipe against the post and watching the red sparks +drop.</p> + +<p>"It isn't going to be very hard, after all," he murmured.</p> + +<div class="figure"> +<img src="images/illus_draw10.jpg" alt="House through trees"> +</div> + +<hr style='width: 65%;' /> +<a name='XI'></a><h2>XI.</h2> +<br /> + +<img src="images/illus_draw3.jpg" alt="Country lane with birch trees" align="right" hspace="10"> + +<p>June mellowed into July and July moved by in a procession of hot, +languorous days and still, warm nights. Sometimes it rained, and then +the leaves and flowers, adroop under the sun's ardor, quivered and +swayed with delight and scented the moist air with the sweet, faint +fragrance of their gratitude. Often the showers came at night, and Wade, +lying in bed with doors and windows open, could hear it pattering upon +the leaves and drumming musically upon the shingles. And he fancied, +too, that he could hear the thankful earth drinking it in with its +millions of little thirsty mouths. After such a night he awoke to find +the room filled with dewy, perfumed freshness and radiant with sunshine, +while out of doors amidst the sparkling leaves the birds trilled pæans +to the kindly heavens.</p> + +<p>By the middle of July Wade had settled down comfortably into the quiet +life of Eden Village. Quiet it was, but far from hum-drum. On the +still, mirrored surface of a pool even the dip of an insect's wing will +cause commotion. So it was in Eden Village. On the placid surface of +existence there the faintest zephyr became a gale that raised waves of +excitement; the tiniest happening was an event. It is all a matter of +proportion. Wade experienced as much agitation when a corner of the +woodshed caught on fire, and he put it out with a broom, as when with +forty men behind him, he had fought for hours to save the buildings at +the mine two years before. Something of interest was always happening. +There was the day when the serpent appeared in Eden. Appropriately +enough, it was Eve who discovered it, curled up in the sun right by the +gate. Her appeals for assistance brought Wade in a hurry, and the +serpent, after an exciting chase through the hedges and flower beds, was +finally dispatched. It proved to be an adder of blameless character, but +neither Eve nor Miss Mullett had any regrets. Eve declared that a snake +was a snake, no matter what any one—meaning Wade—said, and Wade was +forced to acknowledge the fact. Armed with a shovel, they marched to the +back garden, Wade holding the snake by its unquiet tail, and interred it +there, so that Alexander the Great, the tortoise-shell cat, wouldn't eat +it and be poisoned. Subsequently the affair had to be discussed in all +its aspects by Eve and Wade in the shade of the cedars.</p> + +<p>And then there was the anxious week when Zephania had a bad sore throat +that looked for awhile like diphtheria, and Wade prepared his own +breakfasts and lunches and dined alternately at The Cedars and with +Doctor Crimmins. And, of course, there was the stirring occasion of +Zephania's return to duty, Zephania being patently proud of the +disturbance she had created, and full of quaint comments on life, death, +and immortality, those subjects seemingly having engaged her mind +largely during her illness. For several days her voice was noticeably +lacking in quality and volume, and "There is a Happy Land," which was +her favorite hymn during that period, was rendered so subduedly that +Wade was worried, and had to have the Doctor's assurance that Zephania +was not going into a decline.</p> + +<p>These are only a few of the exciting things that transpired during +Wade's first month in Eden Village. There were many others, but as I +tell them they seem much less important than they really were, and I +shall mention only one more. That was something other than a mere event; +it savored of the stupendous; it might almost be called a phenomenon. +Its fame spread abroad until folks discussed it over the tea-table or in +front of the village stores in places as far distant as Stepping and +Tottingham and Bursley. In Eden Village it caused such a commotion as +had not disturbed the tranquillity since the weather-vane on the church +steeple was regilded. As you are by this time, kind reader, in a fever +of excitement and curiosity, I'll relieve your suspense.</p> + +<p>Wade had his cottage painted, inside and out!</p> + +<p>Not content with that, he had a new roof put on, built a porch on the +south side of the house, cut a door from the sitting-room, and had the +fence mended and the gate rehung! It was the consensus of Eden Village +opinion that you can't beat a Westerner for extravagance and sheer +audacity.</p> + +<p>But I haven't told you all even yet. I've saved something for a final +thrill. Wade had dormer windows built into the sleeping-rooms, a thing +which so altered the appearance of the house that the neighbors stood +aghast. Some of the older ones shook their heads and wondered what old +Colonel Selden Phelps would say if he could say anything. And the spirit +of progress and improvement reached even to the grounds. Zenas Third +toiled with spade and pruning-knife and bundles of shrubs and plants +came from Boston and were set out with lavish prodigality. In the matter +of alterations to the house Eve was consulted on every possible +occasion, while garden improvements were placed entirely in Miss +Mullett's capable hands. That lady was in her element, and for a week or +more one could not pass the cottage without spying Miss Mullett and +Zenas Third hard at work somewhere about. Miss Mullett wore a +wide-brimmed straw hat to keep the sun from her pink cheeks and a pair +of Wade's discarded gloves to save her hands. The gloves were very, very +much too large for her, and, when not actually engaged in using her +trowel, Miss Mullett stood with arms held out in scarecrow style so as +not to contaminate her gown with garden mold, and presented a strange +and unusual appearance. Every afternoon, as regular as clockwork, the +Doctor came down the street and through the gate to lavish advice, +commendation, and appropriate quotations from his beloved poets. At five +Zephania appeared with the tea things and the <i>partie carrée</i> gathered +in the parlor and brought their several little histories up to date, and +laughed and poked fun at each other, and drew more and more together as +time passed.</p> + +<p>Perhaps you've been thinking that Wade's advent in Eden Village was the +signal for calls and invitations to dinners, receptions, and bridge. If +you have you don't know New England, or, at least, you don't know Eden +Village. One can't dive into society in Eden Village; one has to wade +in, and very cautiously. In the course of events the newcomer became +thoroughly immersed, and the waters of Eden Village society enclosed him +beneficently, but that was not yet. He was still undergoing his +novitiate, and to raise his hat to Miss Cousins, when he encountered +that austere lady on the street, was as yet the height of social +triumph. Wade, however, was experiencing no yearnings for a wider social +sphere. Eve and Miss Mullett and the Doctor, Zephania, and the two +Zenases were sufficient for him. In fact he would have been quite +satisfied with one of that number could he have chosen the one.</p> + +<p>For Wade's deliberate effort to fall in love with Eve had proved +brilliantly successful. In fact he had not been conscious of the effort +at all, so simple and easy had the process proved. Of course he ought to +have been delighted, but, strange to tell, after the first brief moment +of self-gratulation, he began to entertain doubts as to the wisdom of +his plan. Regrets succeeded doubts. Being in love with a girl who didn't +care a rap whether you stayed or went wasn't the unalloyed bliss he had +pictured. He would know better another time.</p> + +<p>That was in the earlier stage. Later it dawned upon him that there never +could be another time, and he didn't want that there should. This +knowledge left him rather dazed. He felt a good deal like a man who, +walking across a pleasant beach and enjoying the view, suddenly finds +himself up to his neck in quicksand. And, like a person in such a +quandary, Wade's first instinctive thought was to struggle.</p> + +<p>The struggle lasted three days, three days during which he sedulously +avoided The Cedars and tramped dozens of miles with Zenas Third in +search of fish—and very frequently lost his bait because his thoughts +were busy elsewhere. At the end of the three days he found himself, to +return to our comparison, deeper than ever.</p> + +<p>Then it was that he looked facts in the face. He reduced the problem to +simple quantities and studied it all one evening, with the aid of an +eighth of a pound of tobacco and a pile of lumber which the carpenters +had left near the woodshed. The problem, as Wade viewed it, was this:</p> + +<p>A man, with little to recommend him save money, is head over heels in +love with the loveliest, dearest girl the Lord ever made, a girl a +thousand times too good for the man, and who doesn't care any more for +him than she does for the family cat or the family doctor. What's the +answer?</p> + +<p>Wade gave it up—the problem, not the girl. He wasn't good at problems. +Out West it had been Ed Craig who had figured out the problems on paper, +and Wade who had reached the same conclusions with pick and shovel and +dynamite. Their methods differed, but the results attained were similar. +So, as I have said, Wade abandoned the problem on paper and set to work, +metaphorically, with steel and explosives.</p> + +<div class="figure"> +<img src="images/illus_draw2.jpg" alt="Two-track country lane"> +</div> + +<hr style='width: 65%;' /> +<a name='XII'></a><h2>XII.</h2> +<br /> + +<img src="images/illus_draw5.jpg" alt="Trees and pond" align="right" hspace="10"> + +<p>There was a bench outside the kitchen door at The Cedars, a +slant-legged, unpainted bench which at one time had been used to hold +milk-cans. Wade settled himself on this in company with several dozen +glasses of currant jelly. From his position he could look in at the +kitchen door upon Eve and Miss Mullett, who, draped from chin to toes in +blue-checked aprons, were busy over the summer preserving. A sweet, +spicy fragrance was wafted out to him from the bubbling kettles, and now +and then Eve, bearing a long agate-ware spoon and adorned on one cheek +with a brilliant streak of currant juice, came to the threshold and +smiled down upon him in a preoccupied manner, glancing at the jelly +tumblers anxiously.</p> + +<p>"If you spill them," she said, "Carrie will never forgive you, Mr. +Herrick."</p> + +<p>"Nonsense," declared Miss Mullett from the kitchen. "I'd just send you +for more, Mr. Herrick, and make you help me put them up."</p> + +<p>"I think I'd like that," answered Wade.</p> + +<p>"It must be rather good fun messing about with sugar and currants and +things."</p> + +<p>"Messing about!" exclaimed Eve, indignantly. "It's quite evident that +you've never done any of it!"</p> + +<p>"Well, I stewed some dried apricots once," said Wade, "and they weren't +half bad. I suppose you're going to be busy all the morning, aren't +you?" he asked, forlornly.</p> + +<p>"I'm afraid so."</p> + +<p>"Indeed you're not," said Miss Mullett, decisively. "You're going to +stop as soon as we get this kettleful off. I can do the rest much better +without you, dear."</p> + +<p>"Did you ever hear such ingratitude?" laughed Eve. "Here I've been hard +at work since goodness only knows what hour of the morning, and now I'm +informed that my services are valueless! I shall stay and help just to +spite you, Carrie."</p> + +<p>"I wanted you to take a walk," said Wade, boldly. "It's a great +morning, too fine to be spent indoors."</p> + +<p>"Is it?" Eve looked up at the fleecy sky critically. "Don't you think it +looks like rain?"</p> + +<p>"Not a bit," he answered, stoutly. "We're in for a long drought. +Zephania told me so not half an hour ago."</p> + +<p>"Is Zephania a weather prophet?"</p> + +<p>"She's everything. She knows so much that she makes me ashamed of +myself. And she never makes a mistake about the weather."</p> + +<p>Wade waited anxiously.</p> + +<p>"We-ll," said Eve, finally, "if you're sure it isn't going to rain, and +Carrie really doesn't want me—"</p> + +<p>"I do not," said Miss Mullett, crisply. "A walk will do you good. She +stayed up until all hours last night, Mr. Herrick, writing. I wish you'd +say something to her; she pays no attention to me."</p> + +<p>Wade flushed. Eve turned and shot an indignant glance at Miss Mullett, +but that lady was busy over the kettle with her back toward them.</p> + +<p>"I'm afraid she would pay less heed to me than to you," answered Wade +with a short laugh. "But if you'll persuade her to walk, I'll lecture +her as much as you wish."</p> + +<p>"If I'm to be lectured," replied Eve, "I shan't go."</p> + +<p>"Well, of course, if you put it that way," hedged Wade.</p> + +<p>"Go along, dear," said Miss Mullett. "You need fresh air. But do keep +out of the sun if it gets hot."</p> + +<p>"I wonder," observed Wade, with a smile, "what you folks up here would +do down in New Mexico, where the temperature gets up to a hundred and +twenty in the shade."</p> + +<p>"I'd do as the Irishman suggested," answered Eve, pertly, "and keep out +of the shade. If you'll wait right where you are and not move for ten +minutes I'll go and get ready."</p> + +<p>"I won't ruffle a feather," Wade assured her. "But you'd better come +before dinner time or I may get hungry and eat all the jelly."</p> + +<p>Twenty minutes later she was back, a cool vision of white linen and +lace. She wore no hat, but had brought a sunshade. Pursued by Miss +Mullett's admonitions to keep out of the sun as much as possible, they +went down the garden and through the gate, and turned countryward under +the green gloom of the elms. Alexander the Great, laboring perhaps under +the delusion that he was a dog instead of a cat, followed them +decorously for some distance, and then, being prevailed on to desist, +climbed a fence-post and blinked gravely after them.</p> + +<p>"It really is nice to-day," said Eve. "When the breeze comes from the +direction of the coast it cools things off deliciously. I suppose it's +only imagination, but sometimes I think I can smell the salt—or taste +it. That's scarcely possible, though, for we're a good twenty miles +inland."</p> + +<p>"I'm not so sure," he answered. "Lots of times I've thought I could +smell the ocean here. Does it take very long to get to Portsmouth or the +beach? Couldn't we go some day, you and Miss Mullett and the Doctor and +I?"</p> + +<p>"That would be jolly," said Eve. "We must talk it over with them. I'm +afraid, though, the Doctor couldn't go. There's always some one sick +hereabouts."</p> + +<p>"Oh, he could leave enough of his nasty medicine one day to last through +the next. He's one of the nicest old chaps I ever met, Miss Walton. He's +awfully fond of you, isn't he?"</p> + +<p>"I think he is," she answered, "and I'm awfully fond of him, I don't +know whether I ought to tell this, but I have a suspicion that he used +to be very fond of my mother before she was married. He's told me so +many little things about her, and he always speaks of her in such a +quiet, dear sort of way. I wonder—I wonder if he ever asked her to +marry him."</p> + +<p>"Somehow I don't believe he ever did," said Wade, thoughtfully. "I could +imagine him being sort of shy if he were in love. Perhaps, while he was +working his courage up to the sticking point, your father stepped in and +carried off the prize. That happens sometimes, you know."</p> + +<p>"I suppose it does," laughed Eve. "Or perhaps he was so busy quoting +bits of poetry to her that he never had time!"</p> + +<p>"That's so." Wade smiled. "There's one thing certain, and that is, if +she did refuse him, he had a quotation quite ready for the occasion."</p> + +<p>"''Tis better to have loved and lost' and so on?"</p> + +<p>"Something of the sort," answered Wade. "I wonder, though, if that is +true, Miss Walton?"</p> + +<p>"What?" asked Eve.</p> + +<p>"That it's better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at +all."</p> + +<p>"I'm sure I don't know. Probably not. Perhaps, like a great many of the +Doctor's quotations, it's more poetical than truthful."</p> + +<p>"I think it must be," mused Wade. "It doesn't sound logical to me. To +say that, when you've seen a thing you want and can't have it, you're +better off than before you wanted it, doesn't sound like sense."</p> + +<p>"Have you ever wanted much you didn't get?" asked Eve.</p> + +<p>Wade thought a minute.</p> + +<p>"Come to think of it, Miss Walton, I don't believe I have. I can't think +of anything just now. Perhaps that's why I'd hate all the more to be +deprived of what I want now," he said, seriously. She shot a glance at +him from under the edge of the sunshade.</p> + +<p>"You talk as though some one was trying to cheat you out of something +you'd set your heart on," she said lightly.</p> + +<p>"That isn't far wrong," he answered. "I have set my heart on something +and it doesn't look now as though I'd ever get it."</p> + +<p>"Oh, I hope you will," said Eve, sincerely.</p> + +<p>"Your saying that makes it look farther off than ever," responded Wade, +with a wry smile.</p> + +<p>"My saying that? But why?" she asked in surprise.</p> + +<p>"Because," he answered, after a moment's silence, "if you knew what it +is I want, I don't think you'd want me to have it, and that you don't +know proves that I'm a long way off from it."</p> + +<p>"It sounds like a riddle," said Eve, perplexedly. "Please, Mr. Herrick, +what is the answer?"</p> + +<p>Wade clenched his hands in his pockets and looked very straight ahead up +the road.</p> + +<p>"You," he said.</p> + +<p>"<i>Me?</i>" The sunshade was raised for an instant. "<i>Oh!</i>" The sunshade +dropped. They walked on in silence for a few paces. Then said Wade, with +a stolen glance at the white silken barrier:</p> + +<p>"I hope I haven't offended you, Miss Walton. I had no more intention of +saying anything like that when we started out than—than the man in the +moon. But it's true, and you might as well know it now as any other +time. You're what I want, more than I've ever wanted anything before or +ever shall again, and you're what I'm very much afraid I won't get. I'm +not quite an idiot, after all. I know mighty well that—that I'm not the +sort of fellow you'd fall in love with, barring a miracle. But maybe I'm +trusting to the miracle. Anyhow, I'm cheeky enough to hope that—that +you may get to like me enough to marry me some day. Do you think you +ever could?"</p> + +<p>"But—oh, I don't know what to say," cried Eve, softly. "I haven't +thought—!"</p> + +<p>"Of course not," interrupted Wade, cheerfully. "Why should you? All I +ask is that you think about it now—or some time when you—when you're +not busy, you know. I guess I could say a whole lot about how much I +love you, but you're not ready to hear that yet and I won't. If you'll +just understand that you're the one girl in the whole darn—in the whole +world for me, Miss Walton, we'll let it go at that for the present. You +think about it. I'm not much on style and looks, and I don't know much +outside of mining, but I pick up things pretty quickly and I could +learn. I don't say anything about money, except that if you cared for me +I'd be thankful I had plenty of it, so that I could give you most +anything you wanted. You—you don't mind thinking it over, do you?"</p> + +<p>"No," said Eve, a little unsteadily, "but—oh, I do wish you wouldn't +talk as you do! You make me feel so little and worthless, and I don't +like to feel that way."</p> + +<p>"But how?" cried Wade, in distress. "I don't mean to!"</p> + +<p>"I know you don't. That's just it. But you do. When you talk so meanly +of yourself, I mean. Just as though any girl wouldn't feel proud at +having—at hearing—oh, you must know what I mean!" And Eve turned a +flushed, beseeching face toward him.</p> + +<p>"Not quite, I'm afraid," Wade answered. "Anyhow, I don't want you to +feel proud, Miss Walton. If any one should feel proud, it's I, to think +you've let me say this to you and haven't sent me off about my +business."</p> + +<p>"Oh, please!" begged Eve, with a little vexed laugh.</p> + +<p>"What?" he asked, perplexedly.</p> + +<p>"Don't talk of yourself as though you were—were just nothing, and of me +as though I were a princess. It's absurd! I'm only a very ordinary sort +of person with ordinary faults—perhaps more than my share of them."</p> + +<p>"You're the finest woman I ever saw, and the loveliest," replied Wade +stoutly. "And if you're not for me no other woman is."</p> + +<p>The sunshade intervened again and they walked on for some little +distance in silence. Then Wade began slowly, choosing his words: "Maybe +I've talked in a way to give you a wrong impression. You mustn't think +that there's any—false modesty about me. I reckon I have rather too +good an opinion of myself, if anything. I wouldn't want you to be +disappointed in me—afterwards, you know. I reckon I've got an average +amount of sense and ability. I've been pretty successful for a man of +twenty-eight, and it hasn't been all luck, not by a whole lot! Maybe +most folks would say I was conceited, had a swelled head. It's only when +it comes to—to asking you to marry me that I get kind of down on +myself. I know I'm not good enough, Miss Walton, and I own up to it. The +only comforting thought is that there aren't many men who are. I'm +saying this because I don't want to fool you into thinking me any more +modest and humble than I am. You understand?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, I understand," replied Eve, from under the sunshade.</p> + +<p>"And you won't forget your promise?"</p> + +<p>"You mean—"</p> + +<p>"To think it over."</p> + +<p>"No, I won't forget. But please don't hope too much, Mr. Herrick, for I +can't promise anything, really! It isn't that I don't like you, for I +do, but"—her voice trailed off into silence.</p> + +<p>"I hardly dared hope for that much," said Wade, gratefully. "Of course +it isn't enough, but it's something to start on."</p> + +<p>"But liking isn't love," objected Eve, gravely.</p> + +<p>"I know. And there was never love without liking. You don't mind if I +get what comfort I can out of that, do you?"</p> + +<p>"N-no, I suppose not," answered Eve, slowly.</p> + +<p>"It doesn't bind you to anything, you see. Shall we turn back now? The +breeze seems to have left us."</p> + +<p>Presently he said: "There's something I want very much to ask you, but +I don't know whether I have any right to."</p> + +<p>"If there's anything I can answer, I will," said Eve.</p> + +<p>"Then I'll ask it, and you can do as you please about answering. It's +just this. Is there anyone who has—a prior claim? I mean is there any +one you must consider in this, Miss Walton. Please don't say a word +unless you want to."</p> + +<p>Eve made no reply for a moment. Then, "I think I'm glad you did ask +that, Mr. Herrick," she said, "for it gives me a chance to explain why I +haven't answered you this morning, instead of putting it off. I am not +bound in any way by any promise of mine, and yet—there is some one +who—I hardly know how to put it, Mr. Herrick."</p> + +<p>"Don't try if it is too hard. I think I understand."</p> + +<p>"I don't believe you do, though. I'm not quite sure—it's only this; +that I want to feel quite free before—I answer you. I may have to keep +you waiting for awhile, perhaps a few days. May I? You won't mind?"</p> + +<p>"I can wait for a year as long as waiting means hope," replied Wade, +gravely.</p> + +<p>"But maybe—it doesn't."</p> + +<p>"But it does. If there was no hope, absolutely none, you'd have told me +so ten minutes ago, wouldn't you?"</p> + +<p>"I suppose so. I don't know. I mean"—she stopped and faced him, half +laughing, half serious. "Oh, I don't know what I mean; you've got me all +mixed up! Please, let's not talk any more about it now. Let's—let's go +home!"</p> + +<p>"Very well," said Wade, cheerfully. "I hope I haven't walked you too +far."</p> + +<div class="figure"> +<img src="images/illus_draw6.jpg" alt="Door"> +</div> + +<hr style='width: 65%;' /> +<a name='XIII'></a><h2>XIII.</h2> +<br /> + +<img src="images/illus_draw8.jpg" alt="Picket fence" align="left" hspace="10"> + +<p>After supper that night Wade called on Doctor Crimmins. The Doctor +occupied a small house which had many years before been used as a +school. At one side the Doctor had built a little office, with an +entrance from a short brick walk leading to the street. The ground-glass +door held the inscription, "Josiah L. Crimmins, M.D. Office." Wade's +ring brought the Doctor's housekeeper, a bent, near-sighted, mumbling +old woman, who informed Wade that the Doctor was out on a call, but +would be back presently. She led the way into the study, turned up the +lamp and left him. The study was office and library and living-room in +one, a large, untidy room with books lining two sides of it, and a third +devoted to shelf on shelf of bottles and jars and boxes. Near the bottle +end of the apartment the Doctor had his desk and his few appliances. At +the other end was a big oak table covered with a debris of books, +magazines, newspapers, tobacco cans, pipes, and general litter. There +was a mingled odor, not unpleasant, of drugs and disinfectants, tobacco +and leather. Wade made himself comfortable in a big padded armchair, one +of those genuinely comfortable chairs which modern furnishers have +thrust into oblivion, picked up a magazine at random, slapped the dust +off it and filled his pipe. He was disturbed by the sound of brisk +footsteps on the bricks outside. Then a key was inserted in the lock and +the Doctor entered from the little lobby, bag in hand.</p> + +<p>"Ha! Who have we here? Welcome, my dear Herrick, welcome! I hope you +come as a friend and not as a patient. Quite right, sir. Keep out of the +doctor's clutches as long as possible. Well, well, a warm night this." +The Doctor wiped his face with his handkerchief, wafting a strong odor +of ether about the room. Then he took off his black frock-coat, hung it +on a hook behind the door, and slipped into a rusty old brown velvet +house-coat. After that he filled his pipe, talking the while, and, when +it was lighted, said "Ha" again very loudly and contentedly, and took +down a half-gallon bottle from the medicine shelves. This he placed on +the table by the simple expedient of sweeping a pile of newspapers to +the floor.</p> + +<p>"Now where are those glasses, I wonder?" He looked about the room +searchingly over the tops of his spectacles. "There we are." He +discovered one on his desk and another on the shelf over the little +sink. The latter held some liquid which he first smelled, then tasted +and finally threw away. "Wonder what that was," he muttered. "Well, a +little rinsing will fix it. Here we are now, Mr. Herrick. Pour your +drink, sir, and I'll put the water in. Don't be afraid of it. It's as +mild as milk."</p> + +<p>"You're quite sure it isn't laudanum?" asked Wade, with a suspicious +look at the big bottle.</p> + +<p>"Bless you, no." The Doctor lowered himself into a chair with a sigh of +relief and contentment. "Now tell me the news, Mr. Herrick. I haven't +seen our good friends at The Cedars since yesterday."</p> + +<p>Wade sipped from his glass, set it down, hesitated.</p> + +<p>"The only piece of news I have, Doctor," he said, finally, "is that I +asked Miss Walton to marry me this morning."</p> + +<p>"Bless my soul!" The Doctor started to rise. "I do most heartily +congratulate you, Mr. Herrick!"</p> + +<p>"Hold on, though," said Wade. "Don't jump to conclusions. She hasn't +accepted me, Doctor."</p> + +<p>"What! But she's going to?"</p> + +<p>"I wish I was certain," replied Wade, with a smile.</p> + +<p>"But—why, I'd have said she was fond of you, Mr. Herrick. Miss Mullett +and I were talking it over just the other day. Old busy-bodies, I +suppose you'd call us. But what did she say—if that isn't an +impertinent question, sir."</p> + +<p>"Well, it seems that there's some one else."</p> + +<p>"Never!"</p> + +<p>"Yes. I don't know why there shouldn't be."</p> + +<p>"Miss Mullett told me that Miss Eve had never shown the slightest favor +to any one since she'd known her."</p> + +<p>"Maybe this was before that. It isn't very clear just how the other chap +stands with her. But she asked time to think it over."</p> + +<p>The Doctor chuckled. "Who hesitates is lost, Mr. Herrick. Take my word +for it,—she'll come around before long. I'm very glad. She's a fine +woman, a fine woman. I knew her mother."</p> + +<p>"Well, I hope you're right, Doctor. Maybe you'd better not say anything +about it just yet."</p> + +<p>"Not a word, sir. I presume, though, if you do marry her, you'll take +her out West with you."</p> + +<p>"I don't dare make plans yet. I'm sure, though, we'd come to Eden +Village in the summer."</p> + +<p>"I hope so. I wouldn't want to think I wasn't to see her again. I'm very +fond of her in an old man's way. How is the house getting along? Workmen +almost through, I guess."</p> + +<p>"They've promised to get out to-morrow. And that reminds me, Doctor. I +want the ladies and you to take dinner with me Saturday night. It's to +be a sort of house-warming, you know. Mrs. Prout is coming over to cook +for me and Zephania is to serve. I may depend on you?"</p> + +<p>"To be sure, sir. I'll just make a note of it. Saturday, you said? H'm, +yes, Saturday. About half-past six, I presume?" The Doctor pulled +himself from his chair and rummaged about his desk. "Well, I can't ... +seem to ... find my ... memorandum, but I'll remember without it. +You—ah—you might mention it to me again in a day or two. I hope by +that time we'll be able to drink a toast, sir, to you and Miss Eve."</p> + +<p>"You don't hope so any more than I do," said Wade gravely. "I only +wish—" He stopped, frowned at his pipe and went on. "The devil of it +is, Doctor, I feel so confoundedly cheeky."</p> + +<p>"Eh?"</p> + +<p>"I mean about asking her to marry a fellow like me."</p> + +<p>"What's the matter with you? You're of sound body and mind, aren't +you?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, I reckon so. But I'm such a useless sort, in a way. I've never +done anything except make some money."</p> + +<p>"Some women would think you'd done quite enough," replied the Doctor, +dryly.</p> + +<p>"But she's not that sort. I don't believe she cares anything about +money. I've been trying to get her to let me do the square thing with +Ed's property, but she won't listen."</p> + +<p>"Wanted to parcel some of it out to her, eh? Well, I guess Eve wouldn't +have it."</p> + +<p>"No, she wouldn't. She ought to, too. It should have been hers, by +rights. If it wasn't for that silly quarrel between her father and +Ed's—"</p> + +<p>"I know, I know. But she's right, according to her lights, Mr. Herrick. +Irv Walton wouldn't have touched any of that money with a pair of +pincers. Still, I don't see as you need to have such a poor opinion of +yourself. We can't all be great generals or statesmen or financiers. +Some of us have to wear the drab. And, after all, it doesn't matter +tuppence what you are, Mr. Herrick, if you've got the qualities that +appeal to Eve. Lord love us! Where would civilization be if it was only +the famous men who found wives? I don't think any the worse of myself, +Mr. Herrick, because I've never made the world sit up and take notice. +I've had my battles and victories, and I don't despise them because +there was no waving of flags or sounding of trumpets. I've lived +clean—as clean as human flesh may, I guess,—I've been true to my +friends and honest to my enemies, and here I am, as good as the next +man, to my own thinking."</p> + +<p>"I dare say you're right," answered Wade, "but when you love a woman, +you sort of want to have a few trophies handy to throw down at her feet, +if you see what I mean. You'd like to say, 'Look, I've done this and +that! I've conquered here and there! I am Somebody!'"</p> + +<p>"And if she didn't love you she'd turn up her nose at your trophies, and +like as not walk off with the village fool."</p> + +<p>"Well, but it seems to me that a woman isn't likely to love a man +unless he has something to show besides a pocketbook."</p> + +<p>"Mr. Herrick, there's just one reason why a woman loves a man, and +that's because she loves him. You can invent all the theories you want, +and you can write tons of poetry about it, and when you get through +you'll be just where you started. You can find a reason for pretty near +everything a woman does, though you may have to rack your brains like +the devil to do it, but you can't explain why she falls in love with +this man and not with that. Perhaps you recall Longfellows's lines: 'The +men that women marry, and why they marry them, will always be a marvel +and a mystery to the world.' Personally, I'm a bit of a fatalist +regarding love. I think hearts are mated when they're fashioned, and +when they get together you can no more keep them apart than you keep two +drops of quicksilver from running into each other when they touch. It's +as good a theory as any, for it can't be disproved."</p> + +<p>"Then how account for unhappy marriages?" asked Wade.</p> + +<p>"I said hearts were mated, not bodies and brains, nor livers, either. +Half the unhappy marriages are due, I dare say, to bad livers."</p> + +<p>"Well," laughed Wade, rising and finding his hat, "your theory sounds +reasonable. As for me, I have no theory—nor data. So I'll go home and +go to sleep. Don't forget Saturday night, Doctor."</p> + +<p>"Saturday night? Oh, to be sure, to be sure. I'll not forget, you may +depend. Good night, Mr. Herrick, and thank you for looking in on me. +And—ah—Mr. Herrick?"</p> + +<p>"Yes?"</p> + +<p>"Ah—I wouldn't be too meek, if I were you. Even Fate may relish a +little assistance. Good night. I wouldn't be surprised if we had a +thunder storm before morning."</p> + +<div class="figure"> +<img src="images/illus_draw9.jpg" alt="Flower garden"> +</div> + + +<hr style='width: 65%;' /> +<a name='XIV'></a><h2>XIV.</h2> +<br /> + +<img src="images/illus_draw6.jpg" alt="Door" align="left" hspace="10"> + +<p>Wade was relieved to find that Eve's manner toward him had undergone no +change by reason of his impromptu declaration. They met quite as before, +and if there was any embarrassment on the part of either of them it was +not on hers. During the next few days it happened that he seldom found +himself alone with her for more than a few moments, but it did not occur +to him that Chance alone was not responsible. As Wade understood it, it +was a period of truce, and he was careful not to give word or look that +might be construed into a violation of terms. Perhaps he overdid it a +little, for there were times, usually when he was not looking, when Eve +shot speculating, slightly puzzled glances at him. Perhaps she was +thinking that such subjects as last night's thunder storm, dormer +windows, and the apple crop outlook were not just what a declared lover +might be supposed to choose for conversation. Once or twice, notably +toward the end of the week, and when she had been presumably making up +her mind for three days, she exhibited signs of irritability and +impatience. These Wade construed as evidences of boredom and acted upon +as such, cheerfully taking himself off.</p> + +<p>The house-warming, as Wade chose to call his dinner-party, came off on +Saturday night. Wade had moved his bed back to the guest-room upstairs +and the sitting-room had regained its former character. In this room and +in the parlor and dining-room bowls and vases of pink roses—which had +come from Boston on ice in great wooden boxes, and about which the +village at large was already excitedly speculating—stood in every +available spot. But if Eden Village found subject for comment in the +extravagant shipment of roses, imagine its wonderment when it beheld, +shortly after six o'clock, Doctor Crimmins parading magnificently up the +street in swallow-tailed coat and white vest, a costume which Miss +Cousins was certain he had not worn in twenty years!</p> + +<p>Wade and his guests sat on the new side porch while awaiting dinner and +Wade came in for a lot of praise for the improvements he had worked in +his garden, praise which he promptly disclaimed in favor of Miss +Mullett.</p> + +<p>"Goodness only knows what I'd have done if it hadn't been for her," he +laughed. "I wanted to plant American Beauty roses and maiden-hair fern +all over the place. I even think I had some notion of growing +four-dollar orchids on the pear trees. The idea of putting in things +that would really grow was entirely hers."</p> + +<p>"I like the idea of planting the old-fashioned, hardy things," said the +Doctor. "They're the best, after all. Asters and foxgloves and deutzia +and snowballs and all the rest of them."</p> + +<p>"And phlox," said Wade. "They told us we were planting too late, but the +phlox has buds on it already. Come and see it."</p> + +<p>So they trooped down the new gray steps and strolled around the garden, +Wade exhibiting proudly and miscalling everything, and Miss Mullett +gently correcting him.</p> + +<p>Their travels took them around the house and finally to the gate in the +hedge, over the arch of which Miss Mullett was coaxing climbing roses. +When they turned back Eve and the Doctor walked ahead.</p> + +<p>"Eve told me once such a quaint thing about that gate," said Miss +Mullett. "It seems that when she was a little girl and used to play in +the garden over there, she imagined all sorts of queer things, as +children will. And one of them was that some day a beautiful prince +would come through the gate in the hedge and fall on his knee and ask +her to marry him. Such a quaint idea for a child to have, wasn't it?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," answered Wade thoughtfully. There was silence for a moment, and +then he glanced down and met Miss Mullett's gaze. He laughed ruefully.</p> + +<p>"Do you think I look much like a prince?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"Do looks matter," she said, gently, "if you <i>are</i> the prince?"</p> + +<p>"Perhaps not, but—I'm afraid I'm not."</p> + +<p>Thereupon Miss Mullett did a most unmaidenly thing. She found Wade's +hand and pressed it with her cool, slim fingers.</p> + +<p>"If I were a prince," she replied, "I'd be afraid of nothing."</p> + +<p>There was just time to return the pressure of her hand and give a +grateful look into the kindly face, and then they were back with the +others on the porch.</p> + +<p>That dinner was an immense success from every standpoint, Mrs. Prout +cooked like <i>cordon bleu</i>, Zephania, all starch and frills and +excitement, served like a—but no, she didn't; she served in a manner +quite her own, bringing on the oysters with a whispered aside to Wade +that she had "most forgot the ice," introducing the chicken with a +triumphant laugh, and standing off to observe the effect it made before +returning to the kitchen for the new potatoes, late asparagus, and +string-beans, so tiny that Mrs. Prout declared it was a sin and a shame +to pick them. There was a salad of lettuce and tomatoes, and the Doctor, +with grave mien, prepared the dressing, tasting it at every stage and +uttering congratulatory "Ha's!" And there were plenty of strawberries +and much cake—Zephania's very best maple-layer—and ice-cream from +Manchester, a trifle soft, but, as Eve maintained, all the better when +you put it over the berries. And—breathe it softly lest Eden Village +hear—there was champagne! Eve and Miss Mullett treated it with vast +respect, but the Doctor met it metaphorically with open arms, as one +welcomes an old friend, and, under its gentle influence, tossed aside +twenty years and made decorous, but desperate, love to Miss Mullett. And +then, to continue the pleasant formality of the occasion, the ladies +withdrew to the parlor, and Wade and the Doctor smoked two very stout +and very black cigars and sipped two tiny glasses of brandy.</p> + +<p>In the parlor Miss Mullett turned to Eve in excited trepidation. "My +dear," she asked, in a thrilling whisper, "<i>do</i> you think I took too +much champagne? My cheeks are positively burning!"</p> + +<p>"I don't know," laughed Eve, "but the color is very becoming, dear."</p> + +<p>"But I shouldn't want Mr. Herrick to think—"</p> + +<p>"He won't," replied Eve, soothingly. "No matter how intoxicated you got, +I'm sure he is too much of a gentleman to think any such thing."</p> + +<p>"Any such thing as what?"</p> + +<p>"Why, what you said."</p> + +<p>"But I hadn't said!" declared Miss Mullett, sinking tragically onto the +couch. Whereupon Eve laughed, and Miss Mullett declared that rather than +have the gentleman think her the least bit—well—the very least bit, +you understand!—she would go right home. And Eve was forced to assure +her with serious face that she wasn't the least bit, and wasn't in any +danger of becoming so. Miss Mullett was comforted and Eve, who had been +standing by the marble-topped table, idly opened a book lying there. It +wasn't a very interesting volume, from her point of view, being a work +on metallurgy. She turned to the front and found Wade's name written on +the fly-leaf, and was about to lay it down when she caught sight of a +piece of paper marking a place. With no thought of prying, she opened +the book again. The paper proved to be an empty envelope addressed to +Wade in typewritten characters. In the upper left-hand corner was an +inscription that interested her: "After five days return to The Evelyn +Mining Co., Craig's Camp, Colo."</p> + +<p>She studied the words for a long minute. Then she smiled and closed the +book again. Oddly enough, both she and Wade had discovered each other's +secrets that evening.</p> + +<p>When the men joined them the Doctor suggested whist. Wade protested his +stupidity, but was overruled and assigned to Miss Mullett as partner.</p> + +<p>"If you played like John Hobb," declared the Doctor, "you'd win with +Miss Mullett for partner."</p> + +<p>Eve and Wade desired to know who John Hobb was, and the Doctor was +forced to acknowledge him a quite mythical character, whose name in that +part of the world stood proverbially for incompetence. After that when +any of the four made a mistake he or she was promptly dubbed John Hobb. +For once the unwritten law was unobserved, and it was long past ten when +the party broke up, Eve and the Doctor having captured the best of a +series of rubbers. After they had gone Wade put out the downstair lights +and returned to the side porch, where, with his pipe flaring fitfully in +the moonlit darkness, he lived over in thought the entire evening and +conjured up all sorts of pictures of Eve. When he finally went to bed +his last waking sensation was one of gratitude toward Miss Mullett for +the words she had spoken in the garden.</p> + +<p>The next morning Eve was out under the cedars when the Doctor came +marching down the street, carrying his bag and swinging his cane, his +lips moving a little with the thoughts that came to him. Opposite Eve's +retreat he stood on tiptoes and smiled across the hedge, unseen. She +made a pretty picture there over her book, her brown hair holding +golden-bronze glints where the sun kissed it, and her smooth cheek +warmly pallid in the shade.</p> + +<span style='margin-left: 1em;'>"'Old as I am, for ladies' love unfit,</span><br /> +<span style='margin-left: 1em;'>The power of beauty I remember yet,'"</span><br /> + +<p>quoted the Doctor. "Good morning, fair Eve of Eden. And how do you find +yourself to-day? For my part I am haunted by a gentle, yet insistent, +regret." The Doctor placed a hand over his heavy gold watch-chain. "It +is here."</p> + +<p>"Better there than here," laughed Eve, touching her forehead.</p> + +<p>The Doctor pretended affront. "Do you mean to insinuate, young lady, +that I drank too much of the wine last night? Ha! I deny it; +emphatically I deny it. Besides, one couldn't drink too much of such +wine as that! To prove how steady my hand and brain are, I'll come in a +moment and talk with you."</p> + +<p>The Doctor entered through the gate and advanced toward Eve, who with +anxious solicitude cautioned him against colliding with the trees or +walking over the flower-beds. Things had changed in the cedars' shade, +and now there were three rustic chairs and an ancient iron table there. +The Doctor sat himself straightly in one of the chairs and glared at +Eve.</p> + +<p>"Now what have you to say?" he demanded.</p> + +<p>"That you conceal it beautifully," she replied, earnestly.</p> + +<p>"Madam, I have nothing to conceal."</p> + +<p>"Oh, well, if you persist! Where are you off to this morning?"</p> + +<p>"Mother Turner's."</p> + +<p>"Is she ill?"</p> + +<p>"Probably not. I think myself she's too old to ever be really ill any +more. At ninety-eight the body is too well seasoned to admit disease. +She will just run peacefully down like a clock some day."</p> + +<p>"Does she still smoke her pipe, Doctor?"</p> + +<div class="figure"> +<a name='illus_p205'></a><img src="images/illus_p205.jpg" alt=" "NOW WHAT HAVE YOU TO SAY?" HE DEMANDED"> +<h4> "NOW WHAT HAVE YOU TO SAY?" HE DEMANDED</h4> +</div> + +<p>"All day long, I think. I remonstrated with her once ten or fifteen +years ago when she had a touch of pleurisy. 'Mrs. Turner,' I said, 'if +you persist in smoking, you'll injure your health and die young.' She +was then eighty-something. 'Doctor,' said she, with a twinkle in those +bright little eyes of hers, 'I'll live to be a hundred, and that's +more than you'll do.' And, bless me, I think she will! To-day she +sent word for me to 'look in.' That means that she needs gossip and not +medicine. Well, I'm glad to go. It always does me good to talk with +Mother Turner. She's the best lesson in contentment I know. She's buried +two husbands, seven children, and the dear Lord only knows how many +grandchildren, she lives on charity and hasn't a soul near her she can +claim relationship to, and she's as cheerful as that oriole up there, +and almost as bright. The pathetic part of it is that she can't read any +more, although she puts on her spectacles and pretends that she can. +Three years ago she confided to me that her eye-sight was 'failing a +bit.' She's not blind yet, by any means, but print's beyond her. And so +when I see her she always gets me to read to her a little, explaining +that her eyes 'be a bit watery this morning.' Sometimes it's the Bible, +but more often it's a newspaper that some one has left. Just now her +hobby is airships. She can't hear enough about airships." The Doctor +chuckled. "She's been on a train but once in her life, she tells me, +and that was thirty years ago."</p> + +<p>"I don't want to live that long," said Eve thoughtfully. "I don't want +to live after every one I've cared for has gone."</p> + +<p>"So you think now," replied the Doctor, with a faint shrug of his +shoulders, "but wait till you are old. I've seen many snuffed out, my +dear, but there's only one or two I recall who went willingly. The love +of life is a strong passion. Bless my soul, what's that?"</p> + +<p>The Doctor turned toward the lilac hedge and the neighboring cottage, +listening. Eve laughed, merrily.</p> + +<p>"Why, that's Zephania," she said.</p> + +<span style='margin-left: 1em;'>"'We shall sleep, but not forever,</span><br /> +<span style='margin-left: 2em;'>There will be a glorious dawn!</span><br /> +<span style='margin-left: 1em;'>We shall meet to part, no, never,</span><br /> +<span style='margin-left: 2em;'>On the resurrection morn!'"</span><br /> + +<p>sang Zephania, in her piping voice. The Doctor smiled. Then he nodded +sideways in the direction of the voice.</p> + +<p>"Have you seen our host this morning?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"No," said Eve.</p> + +<p>"I wonder," he chuckled, "if I hadn't better go over and administer a +bromide. These fashionable dinner-parties—" He shook his head +eloquently.</p> + +<p>"I don't believe he's that bad," responded Eve. "I wish you'd tell me +what you think of him, Doctor."</p> + +<p>"Mr. Herrick? Well, aside from his intemperance—"</p> + +<p>"No, I'm in earnest, please. Afterwards I'll tell you why I +ask—perhaps."</p> + +<p>"I think him a very nice young man, Miss Eve, don't you?"</p> + +<p>"Ye-es."</p> + +<p>"I wouldn't call him strictly handsome; he doesn't remind me of the +copper-engraved pictures of Lord Byron, who, when I was a lad, was +considered the standard of masculine beauty, but he looks like a man, +which is something that Byron didn't, to my thinking."</p> + +<p>"But do you—do you think he's sincere?"</p> + +<p>"Lord, bless me, yes! I'd stake my word on his being that if nothing +else."</p> + +<p>"Even if he is a mining man?" asked Eve, with a smile.</p> + +<p>"H'm, well, I guess there are honest mining men as well as honest +lawyers."</p> + +<p>"Yes, I think he's honest," said Eve, thoughtfully, "but as to +sincerity—"</p> + +<p>"Aren't they the same?"</p> + +<p>"Perhaps they are," answered Eve, doubtfully. She was silent for a +moment, possibly considering the question. Then she looked across at the +Doctor with a little flush in her cheeks. "You see," she said, "he—he's +asked me to marry him."</p> + +<p>The Doctor rolled his cane under his palms and nodded his head slowly +several times. Eve waited. At last—</p> + +<p>"You don't seem much surprised," she said, questioningly.</p> + +<p>"Surprised? No. I'd have been surprised if he hadn't asked you to marry +him, my dear. It's what I'd have done in his place."</p> + +<p>"And I'd have accepted you," said Eve with a little laugh.</p> + +<p>"And him?" asked the Doctor.</p> + +<p>Eve was silent, looking across the garden. Finally she shrugged her +slim shoulders and sighed.</p> + +<p>"I don't know," she said, frankly.</p> + +<p>"Well," began the Doctor, slowly and judicially. Then he stopped, +wondering what he had started to say.</p> + +<p>"Why should I?" challenged Eve, a trifle querulously.</p> + +<p>"You shouldn't, unless you feel that you want to."</p> + +<p>"But I don't know whether I want to—or don't want to."</p> + +<p>The Doctor studied her face a moment, until her eyes dropped and the +flush deepened in her cheeks. Unseen of her, he smiled.</p> + +<p>"Take plenty of time to find out," said the Doctor, softly and kindly. +"Don't marry him until you are sure that you can't be happy without him, +my dear. Don't try it as an experiment. That's what makes unhappy +marriages; at least, that's one thing. There are others too numerous to +mention. There's just one reason why a man and a woman should join +themselves together in matrimony, and that is love, the love that the +poets sing and the rest of us poke fun at, the love that is the nearest +thing to Heaven we find on earth." The Doctor sat silent a moment, +looking past the girl's grave face into the green blur of the garden. +Then he stirred, sighed, and looked at his watch. "Well, well, I must be +on my way," he said briskly. "I'm a vastly busy old man."</p> + +<p>"But, Doctor, you haven't helped me a bit to decide," she said, +aggrievedly.</p> + +<p>"I can't, my dear. No one can. And, what's more, you don't want me to."</p> + +<p>"Why, Doctor, I"—she began. Then she dropped her eyes and a little +smile trembled at her lips. "How do you know?" she asked.</p> + +<p>"I know a few things yet, Miss Eve," he chuckled, picking up his old +black leather bag.</p> + +<p>"Just a moment, please," begged Eve. "Did he ever tell you that he +wanted me to take some of Cousin Edward's money?"</p> + +<p>"M'm, yes, he did tell me that," responded the Doctor cautiously. "But +that's nothing against him."</p> + +<p>"N-no, I know it isn't. And he said—says he will have his way."</p> + +<p>The Doctor settled his hat and gripped his stick.</p> + +<p>"Then I guess he will. He looks that kind of a man."</p> + +<p>"He never will," said Eve, firmly, "never!"</p> + +<p>"Unless," chuckled the Doctor, "you marry him." He waved his cane and +strode away toward the gate. "How about that?" he called back over the +hedge.</p> + +<p>Eve made no answer. She was thinking very busily. "Unless I marry him!" +she repeated, somewhat blankly, staring at the turquoise ring which she +was slipping around and around on her finger. The moments passed. A +frown crept into her forehead and grew there, dark and threatening, +under the warm shadow of her hair. "And so that's it," she thought +bitterly and angrily. "That's what it means. That's why he's acted so +strangely since—since he asked me to marry him. It's just a trick to +get his own way. He'd marry me as a sop to his conscience. It's just the +money, after all. Oh, I wish—I wish Cousin Edward had never had any +money!"</p> + +<p>She sat there a long time, while the shadows shortened and the birds +grew silent, one by one, and the noonday hush fell over the old garden; +sat there until Miss Mullett came to the kitchen door and summoned her +to luncheon.</p> + +<div class="figure"> +<img src="images/illus_draw7.jpg" alt="Garden gate"> +</div> + +<hr style='width: 65%;' /> +<a name='XV'></a><h2>XV.</h2> +<br /> + +<img src="images/illus_draw2.jpg" alt="Two-track country lane" align="left" hspace="10"> + +<p>Wade rolled a vest into a tight wad and tucked it into a corner of the +till. Then he glanced around the sitting-room, saw nothing else to pack, +and softly dropped the lid. That done he sat down on it and relighted +his pipe.</p> + +<p>It was two days since Eve and the Doctor had talked under the cedars, +one day since Wade had received her note. He had not seen her since. She +hadn't asked him not to, but Wade had stereotyped ideas as to the proper +conduct of a rejected suitor, and he intended to live up to them. Of +course he would call in the morning and say good bye.</p> + +<p>He felt no resentment against Eve, although her note would have supplied +sufficient excuse. He didn't quite know what he did feel. He had striven +the evening before to diagnose his condition, with the result that he +had decided that his heart was not broken, although there was a +peculiar dull aching sensation there that he fancied was destined to +grow worse before it got better. So far, what seemed to trouble him most +was leaving the cottage and Eden Village. He had grown very fond of +both. Already they seemed far more like home to him than Craig's Camp or +any place he had known. There had been nothing in that brief, +unsatisfactory note intimating that he was expected to leave Eden +Village, but he was quite sure that his departure would be the best +thing for all concerned. The Doctor, to whom he had confided his plan, +had thought differently, and had begged him to wait and see if things +didn't change. The Doctor was a mighty good sort, but—well, he hadn't +read Eve's note!</p> + +<p>He wasn't leaving Eden Village for good and all. There was comfort in +that thought. Some day, probably next summer, he would come back. By +that time he would have gotten over it in all probability. Until such +time Mr. Zenas Prout and Zephania, in fact the whole Prout family, there +to take care of the cottage. Zephania was to sweep it once a month from +top to bottom. Wade smiled. He hadn't suggested such care as that, but +Zephania had insisted. Zephania, he reflected with a feeling of +gratitude, had been rather cut up about his departure.</p> + +<p>Of course it was nobody's fault but his own. He had deliberately fallen +in love, scorning consequences. Now he was staring at the consequences +and didn't like their looks. Thank Heaven, he was a worker, and there +was plenty of work to do. Whitehead and the others out there would be +surprised to see him coming into camp again so soon. Well, that was +nothing. Perhaps, too, it was just as well he was going back early. +There was the new shaft-house to get up, and the sooner that was ready +the sooner they could work the new lead. He raised his head, conscious +of a disturbing factor, and then arose and closed the door into the +hall. Closing the door muffled the strains that floated down from +upstairs, where Zephania, oppressed, but defiant of sorrow, was singing:</p> + +<span style='margin-left: 1em;'>"'My days are gliding swiftly by,</span><br /> +<span style='margin-left: 2em;'>And I, a pilgrim stranger,</span><br /> +<span style='margin-left: 1em;'>Would not detain them as they fly!</span><br /> +<span style='margin-left: 2em;'>Those hours of toil and danger.'"</span><br /> + +<p>After awhile, his pipe having gone out again from neglect, he strapped +and locked the trunk, glanced at his watch and took up his hat. He +passed out through the immaculate kitchen, odorous of soapsuds and +sunlight, and down through the orchard, which Zenas Third with his saw +and shears had converted from a neglected and scrubby riot into a spruce +and orderly parade. Unconsciously his feet led him over the same course +he had taken on that first walk of his, which ended in an unintentional +and disconcerting visit to The Cedars. As before, he followed the brook, +much less a brook now than then by reason of the summer drought, and +speculated as to the presence of fish therein. He had intended all along +to stroll down here some day and try for sunfish, but he had never done +it. Well, that was one of several dreamed-of things which had not come +to pass.</p> + +<p>The meadow grass had grown tall and heavy, and was touched with gold +and russet where the afternoon sunlight slanted across it. The birds +flew up at his approach and scattered in darts and circles. To-day when +he reached the fence he didn't turn aside toward the road, but climbed +over and found an open space on the side of the little hill under the +trees, and threw himself down there to smoke his pipe and stare back +across the meadow. It was very still in the woods, with only the sleepy +chirp of a bird or rustling of a squirrel to be heard, but from +somewhere in the hot glare of the afternoon came the rasping of the +first locust.</p> + +<p>Zephania served supper that evening with chastened mien, and for once +she neglected to sing.</p> + +<p>"You do think you'll come back, don't you, Mr. Herrick?" she asked.</p> + +<p>"Why, yes, Zephania, I expect to. Do you want me to?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes, sir! We all want you to. Father says if there was more +gentlemen like you here, Eden Village would perk right up. And Zenas +says you and he haven't done nearly all the fishing you were going to."</p> + +<p>"No, I suppose not. Tell him we'll try again next summer. I'm leaving my +tackle here, tell him, so as I will be sure to come back."</p> + +<p>"Yes, sir." Zephania hesitated, half-way to the door. Finally, "It's +been awful nice for me, Mr. Herrick," she said. "I've had just the best +summer I ever did have."</p> + +<p>"Why, you've had a lot of hard work," said Wade. "Is that what you call +nice?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, sir, but it ain't been very hard. I like to work. It seems as +though the harder I work the happier I am, Mr. Herrick."</p> + +<p>"Really? Well, now, I reckon that's the way with me, Zephania, come to +think about it. I suppose keeping busy at something you like doing comes +just as near to spelling happiness as anything can, eh?"</p> + +<p>"Yes sir."</p> + +<p>"By the way, Zephania, do you wear a hat?"</p> + +<p>"Why, yes, sir, of course!"</p> + +<p>"Oh! Well, I didn't know; I never saw you with one on. How would you +like me to send you a hatpin, then, with a nice little gold nugget for a +head?"</p> + +<p>"I'd love it! But—but what is a nugget, Mr. Herrick?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, a little—a little lump."</p> + +<p>"Do you mean real gold?" asked Zephania, awedly.</p> + +<p>"Yes, real gold, virgin gold, just as it comes out of the ground, you +know."</p> + +<p>"Wouldn't it be worth a good deal, though?" asked Zephania, doubtfully.</p> + +<p>"Oh, a few dollars; ten or fifteen. Why?"</p> + +<p>"I'd almost be afraid of losing it, Mr. Herrick. Would you please see +that it wasn't a very big nug—nug—"</p> + +<p>"Nugget'? All right," he laughed. "I'll see that it's only about as big +as your thumbnail."</p> + +<p>"Thank you, sir; I'd think a great deal of it. Will you have some more +tea?"</p> + +<p>"No, no more tea, Zephania. No more anything. You may take the things +out."</p> + +<p>Later in the evening came Doctor Crimmins, very regretful and full of +arguments in favor of postponing action. When twilight passed they went +out onto the porch with their pipes and glasses. They talked as friends +talk on the eve of parting, often of trivial things, with long pauses +between. The moon came up over the tree tops, round and full, and +flooded the garden with silver.</p> + +<p>"'The moon, serene in glory, mounts the sky,'" murmured the Doctor. +"'The wandering moon'—how does it go? I'm thinking of some lines of +Milton's. Let me see; ah!"</p> + +<span style='margin-left: 8em;'>"'The wandering moon,</span><br /> +<span style='margin-left: 1em;'>Riding near her highest noon,</span><br /> +<span style='margin-left: 1em;'>Like one that has been led astray</span><br /> +<span style='margin-left: 1em;'>Through the heaven's wide pathless way.'"</span><br /> + +<p>Later, when the lights of the village had disappeared one by one under +the tranquil elms, the Doctor returned to the attack.</p> + +<p>"Take another week to think it over, Herrick," he urged. "Who knows what +may happen in a week, eh? Women's minds have been known to change before +this, my friend."</p> + +<p>"Hers won't," answered Wade, convincedly. "Her note left little doubt +as to that."</p> + +<p>"But don't you think you ought to see her again?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, I shall call in the morning to say good-by."</p> + +<p>"H'm, yes," muttered the other, doubtfully. "I know what such a call is +like. You go into the parlor and Miss Eve and Miss Mullett come in +together, and you all talk a lot of pasty foolishness for five minutes +and then you shake hands and leave. That doesn't help any. See her alone +if only for a minute, Herrick; give yourselves a chance; bless my soul, +lad, don't you realize that you can't risk spoiling two lives for the +want of a moment's determination? If it's pride, put it in your pocket!"</p> + +<p>"I'd do anything," replied Wade, with a little laugh, "if I thought it +could do any good. The fact is, Doctor, I'm pretty certain that the +other fellow is too strong for me."</p> + +<p>"The other fellow! I don't believe there is or has been another fellow! +I'd bet my bottom dollar that you two young folks care for each other. +You've gone and made a mess of things between you, and damned if I don't +think it's my duty to meddle!"</p> + +<p>"Please don't," said Wade. "It's good of you to want to help, +but—what's the use of talking about it? Miss Walton knows her own +mind—"</p> + +<p>"She didn't a couple of days ago," said the Doctor, gruffly. "She asked +my advice about you. I told her to take you if she wanted you, and she +said she didn't know whether she did or didn't."</p> + +<p>"She seems to have found out since then," said Wade, dryly.</p> + +<p>"It must have been sudden, then. Look here, was there any quarrel? Any +misunderstanding?"</p> + +<p>"None. I haven't spoken to her since Saturday night."</p> + +<p>"Well, it beats me," said the Doctor, leaning over to knock the ashes +from his pipe. "I'm plumb certain she cares for you, and just as certain +that you're making a mistake by running away." He stood up and scowled +fiercely at the moon. "Well, I must be off. I'll see you to-morrow. +You're not going until afternoon, you said?"</p> + +<p>"I leave here about two," said Wade. "I shall spend to-morrow night in +Boston and take a morning train west."</p> + +<p>"Well, you know my opinion," the Doctor growled. "Sleep on it; think it +over again. Good night."</p> + +<p>After the Doctor had gone Wade sat for a while longer on the porch. He +didn't feel the least bit sleepy, and the Doctor had shaken his +determination in spite of himself. Supposing, after all—then he shook +his head and sighed. There was the note. He fumbled in his pocket and +found it and looked at it in the moonlight. There was no use in +imagining things when that sheet of paper stared him in the face. He +strove to reread the message, but the light was too faint. He folded it +again, started to drop it back in his pocket, hesitated, and then tore +it savagely into tiny bits and tossed it over the side of the porch. It +was as though he had destroyed a malign influence, for, even as the +little white fragments went floating down into the shadow, a new hope +crept into his heart, and he went upstairs, arguing this way and that in +a sudden fever of mental energy. In the bedroom there was no need to +light his lamp, and he started to undress in the broad path of moonlight +that flooded the little chamber. But after he had thrown his coat aside +he forgot to go on with the process, and after many minutes he found +himself leaning on the sill of the open window staring at the moon.</p> + +<p>"Bed?" he muttered, in a strange excitement. "Why should I go to bed? +I'm not sleepy. I'm moon-struck, probably. I'm full of crazy thoughts +and fancies. I don't want to sleep, I want to walk—and think. I want to +be out of doors."</p> + +<p>He found his way down the stairs, unmindful of the fact that he had left +his coat behind, and stepped out into the warm fragrant night. The road +was a dark cavern, splotched with silver. He turned away from it, +seeking the open spaces of the garden, his shadow stalking beside him, +purple-black in the moonlight. The air scarcely moved.</p> + +<p>The world was hushed and heavy with sleep. Once, as he passed under the +drooping branches of a tree, a bird stirred in its nest with a sleepy +<i>cheep</i>. He made his way around the house at the back, absentmindedly +feeling for his coat pocket and his pipe. He had left it upstairs, but +no matter. Why should one want to defile such a night as this with +tobacco-smoke, anyway? He stopped once under a pear-tree and wondered +why his pulse raced so.</p> + +<p>"What's the matter with me?" he murmured. "Am I going to be sick? Or am +I just plain locoed by that moon? Well!"</p> + +<p>He sighed, laughed softly at himself, and went on. He was in the shade +now, but beyond him was a moonlit space where stood the little arched +gateway in the hedge. He went toward it, his footsteps making scant +sound on the soft turf; reached it; passed—but no, he didn't pass +through just then. Instead he stopped suddenly, drew in his breath and +stared wonderingly into the startled face confronting him.</p> + +<div class="figure"> +<img src="images/illus_draw4.jpg" alt="Bushes, rocks, and stream"> +</div> + +<hr style='width: 65%;' /> +<a name='XVI'></a><h2>XVI.</h2> +<br /> + +<img src="images/illus_draw5.jpg" alt="Trees and pond" align="right" hspace="10"> + +<p>For a little time, perhaps as long as it took his heart to pound thrice +in wild tumult, they confronted each other in silence. Then—"Eve!" he +cried, softly; and—</p> + +<p>"You!" she whispered.</p> + +<p>Again a silence, in which he could have sworn that he heard his heart +beating with gladness and the stars singing in the heavens.</p> + +<p>"I—I wasn't sleepy," she said, breathlessly.</p> + +<p>"Nor I. I didn't want to sleep. I wanted"—he stepped through the +gateway and seized the hand that lay against her breast—"you."</p> + +<p>"Please!" she cried, straining away at the length of her slender arm. +"You mustn't! You got my note!"</p> + +<p>"And tore it to fragments—an hour since! I don't remember a word of +it!"</p> + +<p>"But I meant it!"</p> + +<p>"You didn't!"</p> + +<p>"Let me go, please; I ought not to be here; I don't want to stay here."</p> + +<p>"You must stay until—but you're trembling!" He dropped her hand and +stood back contritely. "Have I scared you?"</p> + +<p>"Yes.... I don't know.... Good night."</p> + +<p>She turned, but didn't go. The moonlight enfolded her slim form with +white radiance and danced in and out of her soft hair. Wade drew a deep +breath.</p> + +<p>"Will you listen a moment to me, please?" he asked, calmly.</p> + +<p>She bowed her head without turning.</p> + +<p>"You said in your note that you did not care to be made a convenience +of. What did that mean, please?"</p> + +<p>"You know!"</p> + +<p>"But I don't. You must tell me."</p> + +<p>"I don't wish to. Why do you try to pretend with me?" she asked with a +flash of scorn.</p> + +<p>"Pretend! Good Lord, is this pretense? What do you mean? Is it pretense +to be so madly in love with you that—that yesterday and to-day +have"—he caught himself up. "You must tell me," he said, quietly.</p> + +<p>"I meant that I would not marry you to salve your conscience." She +turned and faced him, her head back scornfully. "You thought some of +that money should be mine and because I refused to take it you—you +tried to trick me! You pretended you—cared for me. Don't I understand? +You threatened one day to have your way, and you thought I was so—so +simple that I wouldn't guess."</p> + +<p>"You mean," he asked, incredulously, "that you think I want to marry you +just so I can—can restore that money to you?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," she answered, defiantly. But there was a wavering note in the +word, as though she had begun to doubt. He was silent a moment. Then—</p> + +<p>"But if I told you—convinced you that you were wrong? What then?"</p> + +<p>There was no answer. She had turned her head away and stood as though +poised for flight, one little clenched hand hanging at her side and +gleaming like marble. He went toward her slowly across the few yards of +turf. She heard him coming and began to tremble again. She wanted to +run, but felt powerless to move. Then he was speaking to her and she +felt his breath on her cheek.</p> + +<p>"Eve, dear, such a thought never came to me. Won't you believe that, +please? I care nothing about Ed's money. If you like I'll never touch a +cent of it. All I want on this earth is just you."</p> + +<p>His arms went around her. She never stirred, save for the tremors that +shook her as a breeze shakes a reed.</p> + +<p>"Am I frightening you still?" he whispered. "I don't want to do that. I +only want to make you happy, dear, and, oh, I'd try very hard if you'd +let me. Won't you, Eve?"</p> + +<p>There was no answer. He held her very-lightly there with arms that ached +to strain her close against his fast-beating heart. After a moment she +asked, tremulously:</p> + +<p>"You tore up—the note?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," he answered. He felt a sigh quiver through her.</p> + +<p>"I'm glad," she whispered.</p> + +<p>Of a sudden she struggled free, pushing him away with her outstretched +arms.</p> + +<p>"You must stand there," she said, in laughing whispers. She crossed her +hands, palms out, above her forehead to keep the moonlight from her +eyes. "Now, sir, answer me truthfully. You didn't—do that, what I +said?"</p> + +<p>"No."</p> + +<p>"And you won't say anything more about having your way?"</p> + +<p>"No," he answered, with a happy laugh.</p> + +<p>"And you won't ever even want it?"</p> + +<p>"Never!"</p> + +<p>"And you—like me?"</p> + +<p>"Like you! I—"</p> + +<p>"Wait! Stay just where you are, please, Mr. Herrick."</p> + +<p>"Mr. Herrick?"</p> + +<p>"Well,—I haven't learnt any other name."</p> + +<p>"But you know it!"</p> + +<p>"No," she fibbed, with a soft laugh. "Anyhow—well, so far you've passed +the examination beautifully. Is there—is there anything more you have +to say for yourself before sentence is passed?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," he answered. "I came through the gate in the hedge." He went +forward and dropped on his knee. "And I ask you to be my wife."</p> + +<p>"Who told you?" she gasped, striving to recover the hand he had seized +on.</p> + +<p>"Miss Mullett."</p> + +<p>"Traitress!" Then she laughed. "That was my secret. But I know yours."</p> + +<p>"Mine? You mean—"</p> + +<p>"Yes, about the name of your mine. I saw it on an envelope in the parlor +the other night. I don't see why you didn't want me to know. I'm sure I +think it was very sweet of Edward to name the mine after me." She looked +down at him mischievously. He got to his feet, still holding her +hands—he had captured both now—and looked down at them as they lay in +his.</p> + +<p>"It wasn't Ed who—I mean it wasn't exactly his idea," he said.</p> + +<p>"You mean that it was yours?"</p> + +<p>"Well, yes, it was."</p> + +<p>"Indeed? But I suppose it was named after some one?"</p> + +<p>"Ye-es."</p> + +<p>"Another Evelyn, then," she said coldly.</p> + +<p>"No—that is—well, only in a way."</p> + +<p>"Let go of my hands, please."</p> + +<p>"No."</p> + +<p>"Very well. What was she like, this other Evelyn?"</p> + +<p>"Like—like you, dearest."</p> + +<p>"Oh, really!"</p> + +<p>"Listen, Eve; do you remember once five years ago when a train stopped +at the top of the Saddle Pass out in Colorado? There was a hot-box. It +was twilight in the valleys, but up there it was still half daylight and +half starlight. A little way off, in the shadow of the rocks, there was +a camp-fire burning."</p> + +<p>"Yes, I remember," she answered softly. "I thought we had been held up +by train-robbers and I went out to the back platform to see. I didn't +say anything to papa, because it might have scared him, you know."</p> + +<p>"Of course," said Wade, with a smile.</p> + +<p>"And so I went out and saw the track stretching back down the hill, with +the starlight gleaming on the rails, and—"</p> + +<p>"And the mountains in the west all purple against the sky."</p> + +<p>"Yes. And there was a breeze blowing and it was chilly out there. So I +was going back into the car when a dreadful-looking man appeared, oh, +a—a fearsome-looking man, really!"</p> + +<p>"Was he?" asked Wade, somewhat lamely.</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes! And I thought, of course, he was a robber or a highwayman or +something."</p> + +<p>"And—he wasn't?" asked Wade, eagerly.</p> + +<p>"No." She shook her head. "No, he was something much worse."</p> + +<p>"Oh! What?"</p> + +<p>"He was a deceiver, a—a Don Juan. He made love to me and made me +promise never to forget him, and he promised to come and get me some +day. That was five years ago. Why didn't you come?"</p> + +<p>"Eve! Then—you knew? You've known all along?"</p> + +<p>She fell to laughing, swaying away from him in the moonlight.</p> + +<p>"Why didn't you tell me?" he asked, wonderingly.</p> + +<p>"Why didn't you ask me? Yes, I knew from the moment I peeked in your +window that day."</p> + +<p>"Think of that! And I was sure you didn't remember at all. And now, +after all that time, I've got you again, dear! It's wonderful!"</p> + +<p>"Not so fast, please," she said, sternly. "You forgot me once—"</p> + +<p>"I never forgot you."</p> + +<p>"And you may do it again."</p> + +<p>"I didn't forget you, dear. I still have that lilac you threw me. I—"</p> + +<p>"You mean the one I dropped?" she asked, innocently.</p> + +<p>"It was a week later that we found gold, Eve, and I named the mine for +you. I worked hard that year, and—well, I'll be honest; I didn't forget +you; you were always a sort of vision of loveliness in my memory; +but—there was so much to do—and—"</p> + +<p>"And you changed your mind. I see. And you never thought of poor me, +waiting for you all these years!"</p> + +<p>"I guess you forgot me quick enough," said Wade, ruefully. "When that +other fellow came along, I mean."</p> + +<p>"Stupid!" she whispered. "That was you."</p> + +<p>"<i>Me?</i>"</p> + +<p>"Yes, the you I met out there on the mountain, the you that made love to +me and set my silly little girl's heart a-fluttering. Don't you think +now it was wicked of you? Why, Wade—oh!"</p> + +<p>"That's my name," he laughed.</p> + +<p>"It's a funny name, isn't it?" she murmured, shyly.</p> + +<p>"I suppose it is."</p> + +<p>"But I like it. Oh, dear, I must go! It must be midnight!"</p> + +<p>"No, only twenty minutes of," he answered, holding his watch to the +light. "Don't go yet. There's so much I want to say!"</p> + +<p>"To-morrow," she answered, smiling up at him. "Do you know that you're +still holding my hands?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know what I know," he answered, softly. "Only that I love you +and that I'm the happiest man alive."</p> + +<p>"Are you? Why?"</p> + +<p>"Because you're going to marry me."</p> + +<p>"I haven't said so," she objected.</p> + +<p>"But you're going to?"</p> + +<p>"To-morrow—perhaps."</p> + +<p>"No, to-night—surely."</p> + +<p>"To-morrow."</p> + +<p>"To-night."</p> + +<p>"Am I?" she sighed. "We-ell—do you want me to?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," he answered, tremulously. He drew her to him, unresistingly. The +moon made silver pools of her eyes. Her mouth, slightly parted, was like +a crimson rosebud.</p> + +<p>"Eve!" he whispered, hoarsely.</p> + +<p>Her eyes closed and her head dropped happily back against his arm. The +moonlight was gone now from her face.</p> + +<p>Ages later—or was it only a few moments?—they were standing apart +again, hands still linked, looking at each other across the little space +of magic light.</p> + +<p>"I must go now," she said softly. "Good night."</p> + +<p>"Please, not yet!"</p> + +<p>"But think of the time! Besides, it's quite—quite awful, anyway! +Suppose Carrie heard of it!"</p> + +<p>"Let her! You're mine, aren't you?"</p> + +<p>"Good night."</p> + +<p>"Aren't you?"</p> + +<p>"Every little bit of me, dear, for ever and ever," she answered.</p> + +<p>They said good night again a few minutes later and a little nearer the +house. And again after that.</p> + +<p>At a quarter to one Wade came to himself after a fashion at the end of +the village street, smiling insanely at a white gate-post. With a happy +sigh he turned homeward, his hands in his pockets, his head thrown back, +and his lips pursed for a tune that forgot to come. A few steps brought +him opposite the Doctor's house and the imp of mischief whispered in his +ear. Wade laughed aloud. Then he crossed the street under the dark +canopy of the elms and-pulled the office bell till it jangled wildly. A +head came out of a window above.</p> + +<p>"What's wanted?" asked the Doctor's sleepy voice. "Who is it?"</p> + +<p>"It's Herrick. Come down, please."</p> + +<p>After a moment the key turned and the Doctor, arrayed in a vast figured +dressing-gown stood in the open door.</p> + +<p>"Is it you?" he asked. "What's wrong? Who's ill"?"</p> + +<p>"No one's ill, Doctor," said Herrick. "I just wanted to know if you had +any remedy for happiness?"</p> + +<p>Perhaps Wade's radiant, laughing face gave the Doctor his cue, for, +after studying it a moment, he asked, with a chuckle:</p> + +<p>"Have you tried marriage?"</p> + +<p>"No, but I'm going to. Oh, I'm not crazy, Doctor. I was out for a stroll +and thought I'd just drop by and tell you that I'd taken your advice +and had decided not to leave to-morrow."</p> + +<p>"Humph; nor the next day, either, I guess! Lad, is it all right? Have +you seen her?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, I've seen her and it's all right! Everything's all right! Look at +this world, Doctor. Did you ever see a more beautiful one? For Heaven's +sake reel off some poetry for me!"</p> + +<p>"Go to bed," laughed the Doctor, "go to bed!"</p> + +<p>"Bed!" scoffed Wade.</p> + +<p>"H'm, you're right," said the Doctor. "Stay up and be mad as you can, my +lad. Bay to the moon! Sing under her window! Act the happy fool! Lord, +if I wasn't so old I'd come out and help you. Youth, youth! Now go away +before I hate you for it!"</p> + +<p>"You couldn't hate anything, you old fraud," laughed Wade. "Go back to +bed if you won't sing or dance with me or recite verses. But first, +congratulations, please."</p> + +<p>"My dear fellow," said the Doctor as he clasped Wade's hand, "you don't +need any one's good wishes, but I give mine just the same. It's good +news to me, the best of news."</p> + +<p>"Thanks, Doctor. Good night. I'm off to bay the moon."</p> + +<p>"Good night, good night!"</p> + +<p>The Doctor stood for a moment at the door and watched him pass across +the strip of moonlight and become engulfed in the gloom of the elms.</p> + +<p>"I wonder," he mused, "what he's done with his coat!" He chuckled as he +closed the door, and sighed as he locked it. Then, instead of returning +to the stairway, he passed into the study and walked across to the +book-shelves. You would have thought that he would have had difficulty +in finding What he wanted even in broad daylight in that confusion of +volumes. But he put his hand at once on what he sought and bore it to +the window where the moonlight shone. Bending closely, he turned the +pages, paused and read half-aloud to the silent room:</p> + + +<span style='margin-left: 1em;'>"'Oh, love, first love, so full of hope and truth,</span><br /> +<span style='margin-left: 1em;'>A guileless maiden and a gentle youth.</span><br /> +<span style='margin-left: 1em;'>Through arches of wreathed rose they take their way,</span><br /> +<span style='margin-left: 1em;'>He the fresh Morning, she the better May,</span><br /> +<span style='margin-left: 1em;'>'Twixt jocund hearts and voices jubilant.</span><br /> +<span style='margin-left: 1em;'>And unseen gods that guard on either hand,</span><br /> +<span style='margin-left: 1em;'>And blissful tears, and tender smiles that fall</span><br /> +<span style='margin-left: 1em;'>On her dear head—great summer over all!"</span><br /> + +<a name='THE_END'></a><h2>THE END.</h2> + +<div class="figure"> +<img src="images/illus_draw10.jpg" alt="House through trees" hspace="10"> +</div> + +<hr style='width: 65%;' /> + +<div class="figure"> +<img src="images/illus_endpaper.jpg" alt="Lilac spray with ribbons" > +</div> +<br> +<br> +<div>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 12858 ***</div> +</body> +</html> diff --git a/12858-h/images/illus_cover.jpg b/12858-h/images/illus_cover.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..0a653a7 --- /dev/null +++ b/12858-h/images/illus_cover.jpg diff --git a/12858-h/images/illus_draw1.jpg b/12858-h/images/illus_draw1.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..d8d4a02 --- /dev/null +++ b/12858-h/images/illus_draw1.jpg diff --git a/12858-h/images/illus_draw10.jpg b/12858-h/images/illus_draw10.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..c2a7044 --- /dev/null +++ b/12858-h/images/illus_draw10.jpg diff --git a/12858-h/images/illus_draw2.jpg b/12858-h/images/illus_draw2.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..a3946ba --- /dev/null +++ b/12858-h/images/illus_draw2.jpg diff --git a/12858-h/images/illus_draw3.jpg b/12858-h/images/illus_draw3.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..11ca553 --- /dev/null +++ b/12858-h/images/illus_draw3.jpg diff --git a/12858-h/images/illus_draw4.jpg b/12858-h/images/illus_draw4.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..432678c --- /dev/null +++ b/12858-h/images/illus_draw4.jpg diff --git a/12858-h/images/illus_draw5.jpg b/12858-h/images/illus_draw5.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..5b3cf71 --- /dev/null +++ b/12858-h/images/illus_draw5.jpg diff --git a/12858-h/images/illus_draw6.jpg b/12858-h/images/illus_draw6.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..7d31ab0 --- /dev/null +++ b/12858-h/images/illus_draw6.jpg diff --git a/12858-h/images/illus_draw7.jpg b/12858-h/images/illus_draw7.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..e422c8f --- /dev/null +++ b/12858-h/images/illus_draw7.jpg diff --git a/12858-h/images/illus_draw8.jpg b/12858-h/images/illus_draw8.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..1ccb142 --- /dev/null +++ b/12858-h/images/illus_draw8.jpg diff --git a/12858-h/images/illus_draw9.jpg b/12858-h/images/illus_draw9.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..31f1979 --- /dev/null +++ b/12858-h/images/illus_draw9.jpg diff --git a/12858-h/images/illus_endpaper.jpg b/12858-h/images/illus_endpaper.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..ca1a3c8 --- /dev/null +++ b/12858-h/images/illus_endpaper.jpg diff --git a/12858-h/images/illus_front.jpg b/12858-h/images/illus_front.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..b89efa9 --- /dev/null +++ b/12858-h/images/illus_front.jpg diff --git a/12858-h/images/illus_p131.jpg b/12858-h/images/illus_p131.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..3ac259d --- /dev/null +++ b/12858-h/images/illus_p131.jpg diff --git a/12858-h/images/illus_p205.jpg b/12858-h/images/illus_p205.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..4ee7450 --- /dev/null +++ b/12858-h/images/illus_p205.jpg diff --git a/12858-h/images/illus_p59.jpg b/12858-h/images/illus_p59.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..e25d3fc --- /dev/null +++ b/12858-h/images/illus_p59.jpg diff --git a/12858-h/images/illus_p83.jpg b/12858-h/images/illus_p83.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..b26c278 --- /dev/null +++ b/12858-h/images/illus_p83.jpg |
