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diff --git a/old/13091-8.txt b/old/13091-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..a758c52 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/13091-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,10233 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Hillsboro People, by Dorothy Canfield + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Hillsboro People + +Author: Dorothy Canfield + +Release Date: August 2, 2004 [EBook #13091] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HILLSBORO PEOPLE *** + + + + +Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Valerine Blas and PG Distributed +Proofreaders + + + + + + +HILLSBORO +PEOPLE + +BY +DOROTHY CANFIELD + +AUTHOR OF +THE BENT TWIG, THE SQUIRREL CAGE, ETC. + +WITH OCCASIONAL VERMONT VERSES +BY +SARAH N. CLEGHORN + +1915 + + + +CONTENTS + +VERMONT (Poem) +HEMLOCK MOUNTAIN (Poem) +AT THE FOOT OF HEMLOCK MOUNTAIN +PETUNIAS--THAT'S FOR REMEMBRANCE +THE HEYDAY OF THE BLOOD +AS A BIRD OUT OF THE SNARE +THE BEDQUILT +PORTRAIT OF A PHILOSOPHER +FLINT AND FIRE +A SAINT'S HOURS (Poem) +IN MEMORY OF L.H.W. +IN NEW NEW ENGLAND +THE DELIVERER +NOCTES AMBROSIANAE (Poem) +HILLSBORO'S GOOD LUCK +SALEM HILLS TO ELLIS ISLAND (Poem) +AVUNCULUS +BY ABANA AND PHARPAR (Poem) +FINIS +A VILLAGE MUNCHAUSEN +THE ARTIST +WHO ELSE HEARD IT? (Poem) +A DROP IN THE BUCKET +THE GOLDEN TONGUE OF IRELAND (Poem) +PIPER TIM +ADESTE FIDELES! +VERMONT + + Wide and shallow in the cowslip marshes + Floods the freshet of the April snow. + Late drifts linger in the hemlock gorges, + Through the brakes and mosses trickling slow + Where the Mayflower, + Where the painted trillium, leaf and blow. + + Foliaged deep, the cool midsummer maples + Shade the porches of the long white street; + Trailing wide, Olympian elms lean over + Tiny churches where the highroads meet. + Fields of fireflies + Wheel all night like stars among the wheat. + + Blaze the mountains in the windless autumn + Frost-clear, blue-nooned, apple-ripening days; + Faintly fragrant in the farther valleys + Smoke of many bonfires swells the haze; + Fair-bound cattle + Plod with lowing up the meadowy ways. + + Roaring snows down-sweeping from the uplands + Bury the still valleys, drift them deep. + Low along the mountain, lake-blue shadows, + Sea-blue shadows in the hollows sleep. + High above them + Blinding crystal is the sunlit steep. + + + + +HEMLOCK MOUNTAIN + + + By orange grove and palm-tree, we walked the southern shore, + Each day more still and golden than was the day before. + That calm and languid sunshine! How faint it made us grow + To look on Hemlock Mountain when the storm hangs low! + + To see its rocky pastures, its sparse but hardy corn, + The mist roll off its forehead before a harvest morn; + To hear the pine-trees crashing across its gulfs of snow + Upon a roaring midnight when the whirlwinds blow. + + Tell not of lost Atlantis, or fabled Avalon; + The olive, or the vineyard, no winter breathes upon; + Away from Hemlock Mountain we could not well forego, + For all the summer islands where the gulf tides flow. + + + + +AT THE FOOT OF HEMLOCK MOUNTAIN + + +"In connection with this phase of the problem of transportation it must be +remembered that the rush of population to the great cities was no temporary +movement. It is caused by a final revolt against that malignant relic of +the dark ages, the country village and by a healthy craving for the deep, +full life of the metropolis, for contact with the vitalizing stream of +humanity."--Pritchell's "Handbook of Economics," page 247. + +Sometimes people from Hillsboro leave our forgotten valley, high among the +Green Mountains, and "go down to the city," as the phrase runs, They always +come back exclaiming that they should think New Yorkers would just die of +lonesomeness, and crying out in an ecstasy of relief that it does seem so +good to get back where there are some folks. After the desolate isolation +of city streets, empty of humanity, filled only with hurrying ghosts, the +vestibule of our church after morning service fills one with an exalted +realization of the great numbers of the human race. It is like coming into +a warmed and lighted room, full of friendly faces, after wandering long +by night in a forest peopled only with flitting shadows. In the +phantasmagoric pantomime of the city, we forget that there are so many real +people in all the world, so diverse, so unfathomably human as those who +meet us in the little post-office on the night of our return to Hillsboro. + +Like any other of those gifts of life which gratify insatiable cravings of +humanity, living in a country village conveys a satisfaction which is +incommunicable. A great many authors have written about it, just as a great +many authors have written about the satisfaction of being in love, but in +the one, as in the other case, the essence of the thing escapes. People +rejoice in sweethearts because all humanity craves love, and they thrive in +country villages because they crave human life. Now the living spirit of +neither of these things can be caught in a net of words. All the foolish, +fond doings of lovers may be set down on paper by whatever eavesdropper +cares to take the trouble, but no one can realize from that record +anything of the glory in the hearts of the unconscious two. All the queer +grammar and insignificant surface eccentricities of village character may +be ruthlessly reproduced in every variety of dialect, but no one can guess +from that record the abounding flood of richly human life which pours along +the village street. + +This tormenting inequality between the thing felt and the impression +conveyed had vexed us unceasingly until one day Simple Martin, the town +fool, who always says our wise things, said one of his wisest. He was +lounging by the watering-trough one sunny day in June, when a carriage-load +of "summer folk" from Windfield over the mountain stopped to water their +horses. They asked him, as they always, always ask all of us, "For mercy's +sake, what do you people _do_ all the time, away off here, so far from +everything." + +Simple Martin was not irritated, or perplexed, or rendered helplessly +inarticulate by this question, as the rest of us had always been. He +looked around him at the lovely, sloping lines of Hemlock Mountain, at the +Necronett River singing in the sunlight, at the familiar, friendly faces +of the people in the street, and he answered in astonishment at the +ignorance of his questioners, "_Do_? Why, we jes' _live_!" + +We felt that he had explained us once and for all. We had known that, of +course, but we hadn't before, in our own phrase, "sensed it." We just +live. And sometimes it seems to us that we are the only people in America +engaged in that most wonderful occupation. We know, of course, that we +must be wrong in thinking this, and that there must be countless other +Hillsboros scattered everywhere, rejoicing as we do in an existence which +does not necessarily make us care-free or happy, which does not in the +least absolve us from the necessity of working hard (for Hillsboro is +unbelievably poor in money), but which does keep us alive in every fiber +of our sympathy and thrilling with the consciousness of the life of others. + +A common and picturesque expression for a common experience runs, "It's so +noisy I can't hear myself think." After a visit to New York we feel that +its inhabitants are so deafened by the constant blare of confusion that +they can't feel themselves live. The steady sufferers from this complaint +do not realize their condition. They find it on the whole less trouble +_not_ to feel themselves live, and they are most uneasy when chance forces +them to spend a few days (on shipboard, for instance) where they are not +protected by ceaseless and aimless activity from the consciousness that +they are themselves. They cannot even conceive the bitter-sweet, vital +taste of that consciousness as we villagers have it, and they cannot +understand how arid their existence seems to us without this unhurried, +penetrating realization of their own existence and of the meaning of their +acts. We do not blame city dwellers for not having it; we ourselves lose +it when we venture into their maelstrom. Like them, we become dwarfed by +overwhelming numbers, and shriveled by the incapacity to "sense" the +humanity of the countless human simulacra about us. But we do not stay +where we cannot feel ourselves live. We hurry back to the shadow of +Hemlock Mountain, feeling that to love life one does not need to be what +Is usually called happy, one needs only to live. + +It cannot be, of course, that we are the only community to discover this +patent fact; but we know no more of the others than they of us. All that +we hear from that part of America which is not Hillsboro is the wild yell +of excitement going up from the great cities, where people seem to be +doing everything that was ever done or thought of except just living. City +dwellers make money, make reputations (good and bad), make museums and +subways, make charitable institutions, make with a hysteric rapidity, like +excited spiders, more and yet more complications in the mazy labyrinths of +their lives, but they never make each others' acquaintances ... and that +is all that is worth doing in the world. + +We who live in Hillsboro know that they are to be pitied, not blamed, for +this fatal omission. We realize that only in Hillsboro and places like it +can one have "deep, full life and contact with the vitalizing stream of +humanity." We know that in the very nature of humanity the city is a small +and narrow world, the village a great and wide one, and that the utmost +efforts of city dwellers will not avail to break the bars of the prison +where they are shut in, each with his own kind. They may look out from the +windows upon a great and varied throng, as the beggar munching a crust may +look in at a banqueting hall, but the people they are forced to live with +are exactly like themselves; and that way lies not only monomania but an +ennui that makes the blessing of life savorless. + +If this does not seem the plainest possible statement of fact take a +concrete instance. Can a banker in the city by any possibility come to +know what kind of an individual is the remote impersonal creature who +waits on him in a department store? Most bankers recognize with a +misguided joy this natural wall between themselves and people who are not +bankers, and add to it as many stones of their own quarrying as possible; +but they are not shut off from all the quickening diversity of life any +more effectually than the college-settlement, boys' Sunday-school, brand +of banker. The latter may try as hard as he pleases, he simply cannot +achieve real acquaintanceship with a "storekeeper," as we call them, any +more than the clerk can achieve real acquaintanceship with him. + +Lack of any elements of common life form as impassable a barrier as lack +of a common language, whereas with us in Hillsboro all the life we have is +common. Everyone is needed to live it. + +There can be no city dweller of experience who does not know the result of +this herding together of the same kind of people, this intellectual and +moral inbreeding. To the accountant who knows only accounts, the world +comes to seem like one great ledger, and account-keeping the only vital +pursuit in life. To the banker who knows only bankers, the world seems one +great bank filled with money, accompanied by people. The prison doors of +uniformity are closed inexorably upon them. + +And then what happens? Why, when anything goes wrong with their trumpery +account books, or their trashy money, these poor folk are like blind men +who have lost their staves. With all the world before them they dare not +continue to go forward. We in Hillsboro are sorry for the account-keepers +who disappear forever, fleeing from all who know them because their +accounts have come out crooked, we pity the banker who blows out his +brains when something has upset his bank; but we can't help feeling with +this compassion an admixture of the exasperated impatience we have for +those Prussian school boys who jump out of third-story windows because +they did not reach a certain grade in their Latin examinations. Life is +not accounts, or banks, or even Latin examinations, and it is a sign of +inexperience to think it so. The trouble with the despairing banker is +that he has never had a chance to become aware of the comforting vastness +of the force which animates him in common with all the rest of humanity, +to which force a bank failure is no apocalyptic end of Creation, but a +mere incident or trial of strength like a fall in a slippery road. +Absorbed in his solitary progress, the banker has forgotten that his +business in life is not so much to keep from falling as to get up again +and go forward. + +If the man to whom the world was a bank had not been so inexorably shut +away from the bracing, tonic shock of knowing men utterly diverse, to whom +the world was just as certainly only a grocery store, or a cobbler's bench, +he might have come to believe in a world that is none of these things and +is big enough to take them all in; and he might have been alive this +minute, a credit to himself, useful to the world, and doubtless very much +more agreeable to his family than in the days of his blind arrogance. + +The pathetic feature of this universal inexperience among city dwellers of +real life and real people is that it is really entirely enforced and +involuntary. At heart they crave knowledge of real life and sympathy with +their fellow-men as starving men do food. In Hillsboro we explain to +ourselves the enormous amount of novel-reading and play-going in the great +cities as due to a perverted form of this natural hunger for human life. +If people are so situated they can't get it fresh, they will take it +canned, which is undoubtedly good for those in the canning business; but +we feel that we who have better food ought not to be expected to treat +their boughten canned goods very seriously. We can't help smiling at the +life-and-death discussions of literary people about their preferences in +style and plot and treatment ... their favorite brand on the can, so to +speak. + +To tell the truth, all novels seem to us badly written, they are so faint +and faded in comparison to the brilliant colors of the life which +palpitates up and down our village street, called by strangers, "so quaint +and sleepy-looking." What does the author of a novel do for you, after +all, even the best author? He presents to you people not nearly so +interesting as your next-door neighbors, makes them do things not nearly +so exciting as what happened to your grandfather, and doles out to you in +meager paragraphs snatches of that comprehending and consolatory +philosophy of life, which long ago you should have learned to manufacture +for yourself out of every incident in your daily routine. Of course, if +you don't know your next-door neighbors, and have never had time to listen +to what happened to your grandfather and are too busy catching trains to +philosophize on those subjects if you did know them, no more remains to be +said. By all means patronize the next shop you see which displays in its +show windows canned romances, adventures, tragedies, farces, and the like +line of goods. Live vicariously, if you can't at first hand; but don't be +annoyed at our pity for your method of passing blindfold through life. + +And don't expect to find such a shop in our village. To open one there +would be like trying to crowd out the great trees on Hemlock Mountain by +planting a Noah's Ark garden among them. Romances, adventures, tragedies, +and farces ... why, we are the characters of those plots. Every child who +runs past the house starts a new story, every old man whom we leave +sleeping in the burying-ground by the Necronsett River is the ending of +another ... or perhaps the beginning of a sequel. Do you say that in the +city a hundred more children run past the windows of your apartment than +along our solitary street, and that funeral processions cross your every +walk abroad? True, but they are stories written in a tongue +incomprehensible to you. You look at the covers you may even flutter the +leaves and look at the pictures but you cannot tell what they are all +about. You are like people bored and yawning at a performance of a tragedy +by Sophocles, because the actors speak in Greek. So dreadful and moving a +thing as a man's sudden death may happen before your eyes, but you do not +know enough of what it means to be moved by it. For you it is not really a +man who dies. It is the abstract idea of a man, leaving behind him +abstract possibilities of a wife and children. You knew nothing of him, +you know nothing of them, you shudder, look the other way, and hurry +along, your heart a little more blunted to the sorrows of others, a little +more remote from your fellows even than before. + +All Hillsboro is more stirred than that, both to sympathy and active help, +by the news that Mrs. Brownell has broken her leg. It means something +unescapably definite to us, about which we not only can, but must take +action. It means that her sickly oldest daughter will not get the care she +needs if somebody doesn't go to help out; it means that if we do not do +something that bright boy of hers will have to leave school, just when he +is in the way of winning a scholarship in college; it means, in short, a +crisis in several human lives, which by the mere fact of being known calls +forth sympathy as irresistibly as sunshine in May opens the leaf buds. + +Just as it is only one lover in a million who can continue to love his +mistress during a lifetime of absolute separation from her, so it is one +man in a million who can continue his sympathy and interest in his +fellow-men without continual close contact with them. The divine feeling +of responsibility for the well-being of others is diluted and washed away +in great cities by the overwhelming impersonal flood of vast numbers; in +villages it is strengthened by the sight, apparent to the dullest eyes, +of immediate personal and visible application. In other words, we are not +only the characters of our unwritten stories, but also part authors. +Something of the final outcome depends upon us, something of the creative +instinct of the artist is stirred to life within every one of +us ... however unconscious of it in our countrified simplicity we may be. +The sympathy we feel for a distressed neighbor has none of the impotent +sterility of a reader's sympathy for a distressed character in a book. +There is always a chance to try to help, and if that fail, to try again +and yet again. Death writes the only _Finis_ to our stories, and since a +chance to start over again has been so unfailingly granted us here, we +cannot but feel that Death may mean only turning over another page. + +I suppose we do not appreciate the seriousness of fiction-writing, nor its +importance to those who cannot get any nearer to real life. And yet it is +not that we are unprogressive. Our young people, returning from college, +or from visits to the city, freshen and bring up to date our ideas on +literature as rigorously as they do our sleeves and hats; but after a +short stay in Hillsboro even these conscientious young missionaries of +culture turn away from the feeble plots of Ibsen and the tame inventions +of Bernard Shaw to the really exciting, perplexing, and stimulating events +in the life of the village grocer. + +In "Ghosts," Ibsen preaches a terrible sermon on the responsibility of one +generation for the next, but not all his relentless logic can move you to +the sharp throb of horrified sympathy you feel as you see Nelse +Pettingrew's poor mother run down the street, her shawl flung hastily over +her head, framing a face of despairing resolve, such as can never look at +you out of the pages of a book. Somebody has told her that Nelse has been +drinking again and "is beginning to get ugly." For Hillsboro is no model +village, but the world entire, with hateful forces of evil lying in wait +for weakness. Who will not lay down "Ghosts" to watch, with a painfully +beating heart, the progress of this living "Mrs. Alving" past the house, +pleading, persuading, coaxing the burly weakling, who will be saved from a +week's debauch if she can only get him safely home now, and keep him quiet +till "the fit goes by." + +At the sight everybody in Hillsboro realizes that Nelse "got it from his +father," with a penetrating sense of the tragedy of heredity, quite as +stimulating to self-control in the future as Ibsen is able to make us feel +in "Ghosts." But we know something better than Ibsen, for Mrs. Pettingrew +is no "Mrs. Alving." She is a plain, hard-featured woman who takes in +sewing for a living, and she is quite unlettered, but she is a general in +the army of spiritual forces. She does not despair, she does not give up +like the half-hearted mother in "Ghosts," she does not waste her strength +in concealments; she stands up to her enemy and fights. She fought the +wild beast in Nelse's father, hand to hand, all his life, and he died a +better man than when she married him. Undaunted, she fought it in Nelse as +a boy, and now as a man; and in the flowering of his physical forces when +the wind of his youth blows most wildly through the hateful thicket of +inherited weaknesses she generally wins the battle. + +And this she has done with none of the hard, consistent strength and +intelligence of your make-believe heroine in a book, so disheartening an +example to our faltering impulses for good. She has been infinitely human +and pathetically fallible; she has cried out and hesitated and complained +and done the wrong thing and wept and failed and still fought on, till to +think of her is, for the weakest of us, like a bugle call to high +endeavor. Nelse is now a better man than his father, and we shut up +"Ghosts" with impatience that Ibsen should have selected that story to +tell out of all the tales there must have been in the village where _he_ +lived. + +Now imagine if you can ... for I cannot even faintly indicate to +you ... our excitement when Nelse begins to look about him for a wife. In +the first place, we are saved by our enforced closeness to real people +from wasting our energies in the profitless outcry of economists that +people like Nelse should be prohibited from having children. It occurs to +us that perhaps the handsome fellow's immense good-humor and generosity +are as good inheritance as the selfishness and cold avarice of priggish +young Horace Gallatin, who never drinks a drop. Perhaps at some future +date all people who are not perfectly worthy to have children will be kept +from it by law. In Hillsboro, we think, that after such a decree the human +race would last just one generation; but that is not the point now. The +question is, will Nelse find a wife who will carry on his mother's work, +or will he not? + +If you think you are excited over a serial story because you can't guess +if "Lady Eleanor" really stole the diamonds or not, it is only because you +have no idea of what excitement is. You are in a condition of stagnant +lethargy compared to that of Hillsboro over the question whether Nelse +will marry Ellen Brownell, "our Ellen," or Flossie Merton, the ex-factory +girl, who came up from Albany to wait at the tavern, and who is said to +have a taste for drink herself. + +Old Mrs. Perkins, whom everybody had thought sunk in embittered discontent +about the poverty and isolation of her last days, roused herself not long +ago and gave Ellen her cherished tortoise-shell back-comb, and her pretty +white silk shawl to wear to village parties; and racked with rheumatism, +as the old woman is, she says she sits up at night to watch the young +people go back from choir rehearsal so that she can see which girl Nelse +is "beauing home." Could the most artfully contrived piece of fiction more +blessedly sweep the self-centered complainings of old age into generous +and vitalizing interest in the lives of others? + +As for the "pity and terror," the purifying effects of which are so +vaunted in Greek tragedies, could Aeschylus himself have plunged us into a +more awful desolation of pity than the day we saw old Squire Marvin being +taken along the street on his way to the insane asylum? All the self-made +miseries of his long life were in our minds, the wife he had loved and +killed with the harsh violence of a nature he had never learned to +control, the children he had adored unreasonably and spoiled and turned +against, and they on him with a violence like his own, the people he had +tried to benefit with so much egotistic pride mixed in his kindness that +his favors made him hated, his vanity, his generosity, his despairing +outcries against the hostility he had so well earned ... at the sight of +the end of all this there was no heart in Hillsboro that was not wrung +with a pity and terror more penetrating and purifying even than +Shakespeare has made the centuries feel for Lear. + +Ah, at the foot of Hemlock Mountain we do not need books to help us feel +the meaning of life! + +Nor do we need them to help us feel the meaning of death. You, in the +cities, living with a feverish haste in the present only, and clutching at +it as a starving man does at his last crust, you cannot understand the +comforting sense we have of belonging almost as much to the past and +future as to the present. Our own youth is not dead to us as yours is, +from the lack of anything to recall it to you, and people we love do not +slip quickly into that bitter oblivion to which the dead are consigned by +those too hurried to remember. They are not remembered perfunctorily for +their "good qualities" which are carved on their tombstones, but all the +quaint and dear absurdities which make up personality are embalmed in the +leisurely, peaceable talk of the village, still enriched by all that they +brought to it. We are not afraid of the event which men call death, +because we know that, in so far as we have deserved it, the same homely +immortality awaits us. + +Every spring, at the sight of the first cowslip, our old people laugh and +say to each other, "Will you _ever_ forget how Aunt Dorcas used to take us +children out cowslipping, and how she never thought it 'proper' to lift +her skirt to cross the log by the mill, and always fell in the brook?" The +log has moldered away a generation ago, the mill is only a heap of +blackened timbers, but as they speak, they are not only children again, +but Aunt Dorcas lives again for them and for us who never saw +her ... dear, silly, kind old Aunt Dorcas, past-mistress in the lovely art +of spoiling children. Just so the children we have spoiled, the people we +have lived with, will continue to keep us living with them. We shall have +time to grow quite used to whatever awaits us after the tangled rosebushes +of Hillsboro burying-ground bloom over our heads, before we shall have +gradually faded painlessly away from the life of men and women. We +sometimes feel that, almost alone in the harassed and weary modern world, +we love that life, and yet we are the least afraid to leave it. + +It is usually dark when the shabby little narrow-gauge train brings us +home to Hillsboro from wanderings in the great world, and the big pond by +the station is full of stars. Up on the hill the lights of the village +twinkle against the blurred mass of Hemlock Mountain, and above them the +stars again. It is very quiet, the station is black and deserted, the road +winding up to the village glimmers uncertainly in the starlight, and dark +forms hover vaguely about. Strangers say that it is a very depressing +station at which to arrive, but we know better. There is no feeling in the +world like that with which one starts up the white road, stars below him +in the quiet pool, stars above him in the quiet sky, friendly lights +showing the end of his journey is at hand, and the soft twilight full of +voices all familiar, all welcoming. + +Poor old Uncle Abner Rhodes, returning from an attempt to do business in +the city, where he had lost his money, his health, and his hopes, said he +didn't see how going up to Heaven could be so very different from walking +up the hill from the station with Hemlock Mountain in front of you. He +said it didn't seem to him as though even in heaven you could feel more +than then that you had got back where there are some folks, that you had +got back home. + +Sometimes when the stars hang very bright over Hemlock Mountain and the +Necronsett River sings loud in the dusk, we remember the old man's speech, +and, though we smile at his simplicity, we think, too, that the best which +awaits us can only be very much better but not so very different from what +we have known here. + + + + +PETUNIAS--THAT'S FOR REMEMBRANCE + + +It was a place to which, as a dreamy, fanciful child escaping from +nursemaid and governess, Virginia had liked to climb on hot summer +afternoons. She had spent many hours, lying on the grass in the shade of +the dismantled house, looking through the gaunt, uncovered rafters of the +barn at the white clouds, like stepping-stones in the broad blue river of +sky flowing between the mountain walls. + +Older people of the summer colony called it forlorn and desolate--the +deserted farm, lying high on the slope of Hemlock Mountain--but to the +child there was a charm about the unbroken silence which brooded over the +little clearing. The sun shone down warmly on the house's battered shell +and through the stark skeleton of the barn. The white birches, strange +sylvan denizens of door and barnyard, stood shaking their delicate leaves +as if announcing sweetly that the kind forest would cover all the wounds +of human neglect, and soon everything would be as though man had not +lived. And everywhere grew the thick, strong, glistening grass, covering +even the threshold with a cushion on which the child's foot fell as +noiselessly as a shadow. It used to seem to her that nothing could ever +have happened in this breathless spot. + +Now she was a grown woman, she told herself, twenty-three years old and +had had, she often thought, as full a life as any one of her age could +have. Her college course had been varied with vacations in Europe; she had +had one season in society; she was just back from a trip around the world. +Her busy, absorbing life had given her no time to revisit the narrow green +Valley where she had spent so many of her childhood's holidays But now a +whim for self-analysis, a desire to learn if the old glamour about the +lovely enchanted region still existed for her weary, sophisticated +maturity, had made her break exacting social engagements and sent her back +alone, from the city, to see how the old valley looked in the spring. + +Her disappointment was acute. The first impression and the one which +remained with her, coloring painfully all the vistas of dim woodland +aisles and sunlit brooks, was of the meagerness and meanness of the +desolate lives lived in this paradise. This was a fact she had not noticed +as a child, accepting the country people as she did all other +incomprehensible elders. They had not seemed to her to differ noticeably +from her delicate, esthetic mother, lying in lavender silk negligées on +wicker couches, reading the latest book of Mallarmé, or from her +competent, rustling aunt, guiding the course of the summer colony's social +life with firm hands. There was as yet no summer colony, this week in May. +Even the big hotel was not open. Virginia was lodged in the house of one +of the farmers. There was no element to distract her mind from the narrow, +unlovely lives of the owners of that valley of beauty. + +They were grinding away at their stupefying monotonous tasks as though the +miracle of spring were not taking place before their eyes. They were +absorbed in their barnyards and kitchen sinks and bad cooking and worse +dressmaking. The very children, grimy little utilitarians like their +parents, only went abroad in the flood of golden sunshine, in order to +rifle the hill pastures of their wild strawberries. Virginia was no longer +a child to ignore all this. It was an embittering, imprisoning thought +from which she could not escape even in the most radiant vision of May +woods. She was a woman now, with a trained mind which took in the +saddening significance of these lives, not so much melancholy or tragic as +utterly neutral, featureless, dun-colored. They weighed on her heart as +she walked and drove about the lovely country they spoiled for her. + +What a heavenly country it was! She compared it to similar valleys in +Switzerland, in Norway, in Japan, and her own shone out pre-eminent with a +thousand beauties of bold skyline, of harmoniously "composed" distances, +of exquisitely fairy-like detail of foreground. But oh! the wooden +packing-boxes of houses and the dreary lives they sheltered! + +The Pritchard family, her temporary hosts, summed up for her the human +life of the valley. There were two children, inarticulate, vacant-faced +country children of eight and ten, out from morning till night in the +sunny, upland pastures, but who could think of nothing but how many quarts +of berries they had picked and what price could be exacted for them. There +was Gran'ther Pritchard, a doddering, toothless man of seventy-odd, and +his wife, a tall, lean, lame old woman with a crutch who sat all through +the mealtimes speechlessly staring at the stranger, with faded gray eyes. +There was Mr. Pritchard and his son Joel, gaunt Yankees, toiling with +fierce concentration to "get the crops in" after a late spring. Finally +there was Mrs. Pritchard, worn and pale, passing those rose-colored spring +days grubbing in her vegetable garden. And all of them silent, silent as +the cattle they resembled. There had been during the first few days of her +week's stay some vague attempts at conversation, but Virginia was soon +aware that they had not the slightest rudiments of a common speech. + +A blight was on even those faint manifestations of the esthetic spirit +which they had not killed out of their bare natures. The pictures in the +house were bad beyond belief, and the only flowers were some petunias, +growing in a pot, carefully tended by Grandma Pritchard. They bore a mass +of blossoms of a terrible magenta, like a blow in the face to anyone +sensitive to color. It usually stood on the dining-table, which was +covered with a red cloth. "Crimson! Magenta! It is no wonder they are lost +souls!" cried the girl to herself. + +On the last day of her week, even as she was trying to force down some +food at the table thus decorated, she bethought herself of her old haunt +of desolate peace on the mountainside. She pushed away from the table with +an eager, murmured excuse, and fairly ran out into the gold and green of +the forest, a paradise lying hard by the pitiable little purgatory of the +farmhouse. As she fled along through the clean-growing maple-groves, +through stretches of sunlit pastures, azure with bluets, through dark +pines, red-carpeted by last year's needles, through the flickering, +shadowy-patterned birches, she cried out to all this beauty to set her +right with the world of her fellows, to ease her heart of its burden of +disdainful pity. + +But there was no answer. + +She reached the deserted clearing breathless, and paused to savor its +slow, penetrating peace. The white birches now almost shut the house from +view; the barn had wholly disappeared. From the finely proportioned old +doorway of the house protruded a long, grayed, weather-beaten tuft of hay. +The last utilitarian dishonor had befallen it. It had not even its old +dignity of vacant desolation. She went closer and peered inside. Yes, hay, +the scant cutting from the adjacent old meadows, had been piled high in +the room which had been the gathering-place of the forgotten family life. +She stepped in and sank down on it, struck by the far-reaching view from +the window. As she lay looking out, the silence was as insistent as a +heavy odor in the air. + +The big white clouds lay like stepping-stones in the sky's blue river, +just as when she was a child. Their silver-gleaming brightness blinded +her ... "_Über allen Gipfeln ist Ruh ... warte nur ... balde ... ruhest +... du ..." she began to murmur, and stopped, awed by the immensity of +the hush about her. She closed her eyes, pillowed her head on her +upthrown arms, and sank into a wide, bright reverie, which grew +dimmer and vaguer as the slow changeless hours filed by. + +She did not know if it were from a doze, or but from this dreamy haze that +she was wakened by the sound of voices outside the house, under the window +by which she lay. There were the tones of a stranger and those of old Mrs. +Pritchard, but now flowing on briskly with a volubility unrecognizable. +Virginia sat up, hesitating Were they only passing by, or stopping? Should +She show herself or let them go on? In an instant the question was settled +for her. It was too late. She would only shame them if they knew her +there. She had caught her own name. They were talking of her. + +"Well, you needn't," said the voice of Mrs. Pritchard "You can just save +your breath to cool your porridge You can't get nothin' out'n her." + +"But she's traveled 'round so much, seems's though ..." began the other +woman's voice. + +"_Don't_ it?" struck in old Mrs. Pritchard assentingly, "But 'tain't so!" + +The other was at a loss. "Do you mean she's stuck-up and won't answer +you?" Mrs. Pritchard burst into a laugh, the great, resonant good-nature +of which amazed Virginia. She had not dreamed that one of these sour, +silent people could laugh like that. "No, _land_ no, Abby! She's as +soft-spoken as anybody could be, poor thing! She ain't got nothin' to say. +That's all. Why, I can git more out'n any pack-peddler that's only been +from here to Rutland and back than out'n her ... and she's traveled all +summer long for five years, she was tellin' us, and last year went around +the world." + +"Good land! Think of it!" cried the other, awestruck. "China! An' Afriky! +An' London!" + +"That's the way we felt! That's the reason we let her come. There ain't no +profit in one boarder, and we never take boarders, anyhow. But I thought +'twould be a chance for the young ones to learn something about how +foreign folks lived." She broke again into her epic laugh. "Why, Abby, +'twould ha' made you die to see us the first few days she was there, +tryin' to get somethin' out'n her. Italy, now ... had she been there? 'Oh, +yes, she _adored_ Italy!'" Virginia flushed at the echo of her own +exaggerated accent. "Well, we'd like to know somethin' about Italy. What +did they raise there? Honest, Abby, you'd ha' thought we'd hit her side +th' head. She thought and she _thought_, and all she could say was +'olives,' Nothing else? 'Well, she'd never noticed anything else ... oh, +yes, lemons.' Well, that seemed kind o' queer vittles, but you can't never +tell how foreigners git along, so we thought maybe they just lived off'n +olives and lemons; and Joel he asked her how they raised 'em, and if they +manured heavy or trusted to phosphate, and how long the trees took before +they began to bear, and if they pruned much, and if they had the same +trouble we do, come harvest time, to hire hands enough to git in th' +crop." + +She paused. The other woman asked, "Well, what did she say?" + +The echoes rang again to the old woman's great laugh. "We might as well +ha' asked her 'bout the back side of th' moon! So we gave up on olives and +lemons! Then Eben he asked her 'bout taxes there. Were they on land mostly +and were they high and who 'sessed 'em and how 'bout school tax. Did the +state pay part o' that? You see town meetin' being so all tore up every +year 'bout taxes, Eben he thought 'twould be a chance to hear how other +folks did, and maybe learn somethin'. Good land, Abby, I've set there and +'most died, trying to keep from yellin' right out with laugh to see our +folks tryin' to learn somethin' 'bout foreign parts from that woman that's +traveled in 'em steady for five years. I bet she was blind-folded and +gagged and had cotton in her ears the hull time she was there!" + +"Didn't she tell you anythin' 'bout taxes?" + +"Taxes? You'd ha' thought 'twas bumble-bees' hind legs we was askin' +'bout! She ackshilly seemed s'prised to be asked. Land! What had she ever +thought 'bout such triflin' things as taxes. She didn't know how they was +taxed in Italy, or _if_ they was ... nor anywhere else. That what it come +down to, every time. She didn't know! She didn't know what kind of schools +they had, nor what the roads was made of, nor who made 'em. She couldn't +tell you what hired men got, nor _any_ wages, nor what girls that didn't +get married did for a living, nor what rent they paid, nor how they 'mused +themselves, nor how much land was worth, nor if they had factories, nor if +there was any lumberin' done, nor how they managed to keep milk in such +awful hot weather without ice. Honest, Abby, she couldn't even say if the +houses had cellars or not. Why, it come out she never was _in_ a real +house that anybody lived in ... only hotels. She hadn't got to know a +single real person that b'longed there. Of course she never found out +anything 'bout how they lived. Her mother was there, she said, and her +aunt, and that Bilson family that comes to th' village summers, an' the +Goodriches an' the Phippses an' the ... oh, sakes alive, you know that +same old crowd that rides 'roun' here summers and thinks to be sociable by +sayin' how nice an' yellow your oats is blossomin'! You could go ten times +'roun' the world with them and know less 'bout what folks is like than +when you started. When I heard 'bout them being there, I called Eben and +Joel and Em'ly off and I says, 'Now, don't pester that poor do-less +critter with questions any more. How much do the summer folks down to th' +village know 'bout the way we live?' Well, they burst out laughin', of +course. Well, then,' I says, ''tis plain to be seen that all they do in +winter is to go off to some foreign part and do the same as here,' so I +says to them, same's I said to you, Abby, a while back, that they'd better +save their breath to cool their porridge. But it's awful solemn eatin' +now, without a word spoke." + +The other woman laughed. "Why, you don't have to talk 'bout foreign parts +or else keep still, do ye?" + +"Oh, it's just so 'bout everythin'. We heard she'd been in Washington last +winter, so Eben he brisked up and tried her on politics. Well, she'd never +heard of direct primaries, they're raisin' such a holler 'bout in York +State; she didn't know what th' 'nsurgent senators are up to near as much +as we did, and to judge by the way she looked, she'd only just barely +heard of th' tariff." The word was pronounced with true New England +reverence. "Then we tried bringin' up children, and lumberin' an' roads, +an' cookin', an' crops, an' stock, an' wages, an' schools, an' gardenin', +but we couldn't touch bottom nowhere. Never a word to be had out'n her. So +we give up and now we just sit like stotin' bottles, an' eat--an' do our +visitin' with each other odd minutes afterward." + +"Why, she don't look to be half-witted," said the other. + +"She ain't!" cried Mrs. Pritchard with emphasis. "She's got as good a +headpiece, natchilly, as anybody. I remember her when she was a young one. +It's the fool way they're brung up! Everythin' that's any fun or intrust, +they hire somebody else to do it for 'em. Here she is a great strappin' +woman of twenty-two or three, with nothing in the world to do but to +traipse off 'cross the fields from mornin' to night--an' nobody to need +her there nor here, nor anywhere. No wonder she looks peaked. Sometimes +when I see her set and stare off, so sort o' dull and hopeless, I'm so +sorry for her I could cry! Good land! I'd as lief hire somebody to chew my +vittles for me and give me the dry cud to live off of, as do the way those +kind of folks do." + +The distant call of a steam-whistle, silvered by the great distance into a +flute-like note, interrupted her. "That's the milk-train, whistling for +the Millbrook cross in'," she said. "We must be thinkin' of goin' home +before long. Where be those young ones?" She raised her voice in a call as +unexpectedly strong and vibrant as her laugh. "_Susie! Eddie_! Did they +answer? I'm gittin' that hard o' hearin' 'tis hard for me to make out." + +"Yes, they hollered back," said the other. "An' I see 'em comin' through +the pasture yonder. I guess they got their pails full by the way they +carry 'em." + +"That's good," said Mrs. Pritchard with satisfaction. "They can get +twenty-five cents a quart hulled, off'n summer folks. They're savin' up to +help Joel go to Middletown College in the fall." + +"They think a lot o' Joel, don't they?" commented the other. + +"Oh, the Pritchards has always been a family that knew how to set store by +their own folks," said the old woman proudly, "and Joel he'll pay 'em back +as soon as he gets ahead a little." + +The children had evidently now come up, for Virginia heard congratulations +over the berries and exclamations over their sun-flushed cheeks. "Why, +Susie, you look like a pickled beet in your face. Set down, child, an' +cool off. Grandma called you an' Eddie down to tell you an old-timey +story." + +There was an outbreak of delighted cries from the children and Mrs. +Pritchard said deprecatingly, "You know, Abby, there never was children +yet that wasn't crazy 'bout old-timey stories. I remember how I used to +hang onto Aunt Debby's skirts and beg her to tell me some more. + +"The story I'm goin' to tell you is about this Great-aunt Debby," she +announced formally to her auditors, "when she was 'bout fourteen years old +and lived up here in this very house, pretty soon after th' Rev'lution. +There was only just a field or two cleared off 'round it then, and all +over th' mounting the woods were as black as any cellar with pines and +spruce. Great-aunt Debby was the oldest one of five children and my +grandfather--your great-great-grandfather--was the youngest. In them days +there wa'n't but a few families in the valley and they lived far apart, so +when Great-aunt Debby's father got awful sick a few days after he'd been +away to get some grist ground, Aunt Debby's mother had to send her 'bout +six miles through th' woods to the nearest house--it stood where the old +Perkins barn is now. The man come back with Debby, but as soon as he saw +great-grandfather he give one yell--'smallpox!'--and lit out for home. +Folks was tur'ble afraid of it then an' he had seven children of his own +an' nobody for 'em to look to if he died, so you couldn't blame him none. +They was all like that then, every fam'ly just barely holdin' on, an' +scratchin' for dear life. + +"Well, he spread the news, and the next day, while Debby was helpin' her +mother nurse her father the best she could, somebody called her over +toward th' woods. They made her stand still 'bout three rods from 'em and +shouted to her that the best they could do was to see that the fam'ly had +vittles enough. The neighbors would cook up a lot and leave it every day +in the fence corner and Debbie could come and git it. + +"That was the way they fixed it. Aunt Debby said they was awful faithful +and good 'bout it and never failed, rain or shine, to leave a lot of the +best stuff they could git in them days. But before long she left some of +it there, to show they didn't need so much, because they wasn't so many to +eat. + +"First, Aunt Debby's father died. Her mother an she dug the grave in +th' corner of th' clearin', down there where I'm pointin'. Aunt Debby said +she couldn't never forget how her mother looked as she said a prayer +before they shoveled the dirt back in. Then the two of 'em took care of +the cow and tried to get in a few garden seeds while they nursed one of +the children--the boy that was next to Debby. That turned out to be +smallpox, of course, and he died and they buried him alongside his father. +Then the two youngest girls, twins they was, took sick, and before they +died Aunt Debby's mother fell over in a faint while she was tryin' to +spade up the garden. Aunt Debby got her into the house and put her to bed. +She never said another thing, but just died without so much as knowin' +Debby. She and the twins went the same day, and Debby buried 'em in one +grave. + +"It took her all day to dig it, she said. They was afraid of wolves in +them days and had to have their graves deep. The baby, the one that was to +be my grandfather, played 'round while she was diggin', and she had to +stop to milk the cow and git his meals for him. She got the bodies over to +the grave, one at a time, draggin' 'em on the wood-sled. When she was +ready to shovel the dirt back in, 'twas gettin' to be twilight, and she +said the thrushes were beginnin' to sing--she made the baby kneel down and +she got on her knees beside him and took hold of his hand to say a prayer. +She was just about wore out, as you can think, and scared to death, and +she'd never known any prayer, anyhow. All she could think to say was +'Lord--Lord--Lord!' And she made the baby say it, over and over. I guess +'twas a good enough prayer too. When I married and come up here to live, +seems as though I never heard the thrushes begin to sing in the evening +without I looked down there and could almost see them two on their knees. + +"Well, there she was, fourteen years old, with a two-year-old baby to look +out for, and all the rest of the family gone as though she'd dreamed 'em. +She was sure she and little Eddie--you're named for him, Eddie, and don't +you never forget it--would die, of course, like the others, but she wa'n't +any hand to give up till she had to, and she wanted to die last, so to +look out for the baby. So when she took sick she fought the smallpox just +like a wolf, she used to tell us. She had to live, to take care of Eddie. +She gritted her teeth and _wouldn't_ die, though, as she always said, +'twould ha' been enough sight more comfortable than to live through what +she did. + +"Some folks nowadays say it couldn't ha' been smallpox she had, or she +couldn't ha' managed. I don't know 'bout that. I guess 'twas plenty bad +enough, anyhow. She was out of her head a good share of th' time, but she +never forgot to milk the cow and give Eddie his meals. She used to fight +up on her knees (there was a week when she couldn't stand without fallin' +over in faint) and then crawl out to the cow-shed and sit down flat on +the ground and reach up to milk. One day the fever was so bad she was +clear crazy and she thought angels in silver shoes come right out there, +in the manure an' all, and milked for her and held the cup to +Eddie's mouth. + +"An' one night she thought somebody, with a big black cape on, come and +stood over her with a knife. She riz up in bed and told him to '_git out_! +She'd _have_ to stay to take care of the baby!' And she hit at the knife +so fierce she knocked it right out'n his hand. Then she fainted away agin. +She didn't come to till mornin', and when she woke up she knew she was +goin' to live. She always said her hand was all bloody that morning from a +big cut in it, and she used to show us the scar--a big one 'twas, too. But +I guess most likely that come from something else. Folks was awful +superstitious in them days, and Aunt Debby was always kind o' queer. + +"Well, an' so she did live and got well, though she never grew a mite from +that time. A little wizened-up thing she was, always; but I tell you folks +'round here thought a nawful lot of Aunt Debby! And Eddie, if you'll +believe it, never took the sickness at all. They say, sometimes, babies +don't. + +"They got a fam'ly to come and work the farm for 'em, and Debby she took +care of her little brother, same as she always had. And he grew up and got +married and come to live in this house and Aunt Debby lived with him. +They did set great store by each other! Grandmother used to laugh and say +grandfather and Aunt Debby didn't need no words to talk together. I was +eight, goin' on nine--why, Susie, just your age--when Aunt Debby died. I +remember as well the last thing she said. Somebody asked her if she was +afraid. She looked down over the covers--I can see her now, like a old +baby she looked, so little and so light on the big feather-bed, and she +said, 'Is a grain o' wheat scared when you drop it in the ground?' I +always thought that wa'n't such a bad thing for a child to hear said. + +"She'd wanted to be buried there beside the others and grandfather did it +so. While he was alive he took care of the graves and kept 'em in good +order; and after I married and come here to live I did. But I'm gettin' on +now, and I want you young folks should know 'bout it and do it after I'm +gone. + +"Now, here, Susie, take this pot of petunias and set it out on the head of +the grave that's got a stone over it. And if you're ever inclined to think +you have a hard time, just you remember Aunt Debby and shut your teeth and +_hang on_! If you tip the pot bottom-side up, and knock on it with a +stone, it'll all slip out easy. Now go along with you. We've got to be +starting for home soon." + +There was a brief pause and then the cheerful voice went on: "If there's +any flower I do despise, it's petunias! But 'twas Aunt Debby's 'special +favorite, so I always start a pot real early and have it in blossom when +her birthday comes 'round." + +By the sound she was struggling heavily to her feet. "Yes, do, for +goodness' sakes, haul me up, will ye? I'm as stiff as an old horse. +I don't know what makes me so rheumaticky. My folks ain't, as a +general thing." + +There was so long a silence that the girl inside the house wondered if +they were gone, when Mrs. Pritchard's voice began again: "I do like to +come up here! It 'minds me of him an' me livin' here when we was young. We +had a good time of it!" + +"I never could see," commented the other, "how you managed when he went +away t' th' war." + +"Oh, I did the way you do when you _have_ to! I'd felt he ought to go, you +know, as much as he did, so I was willin' to put in my best licks. An' I +was young too--twenty-three--and only two of the children born then--and I +was as strong as a ox. I never minded the work any. 'Twas the days after +battles, when we couldn't get no news, that was the bad part. Why, I could +go to the very spot, over there where the butternut tree stands--'twas +our garden then--where I heard he was killed at Gettysburg." + +"What did you do?" asked the other. + +"I went on hoein' my beans. There was the two children to be looked out +for, you know. But I ain't mindin' tellin' you that I can't look at a +bean-row since without gettin' sick to my stomach and feelin' the +goose-pimples start all over me." + +"How did you hear 'twan't so?" + +"Why, I was gettin' in the hay--up there where the oaks stand was our +hay-field. I remember how sick the smell of the hay made me, and when the +sweat run down into my eyes I was glad to feel 'em smart and sting--well, +Abby, you just wait till you hear your Nathan'l is shot through the head +and you'll know how it was--well, all of a sudden--somebody took the fork +out'n my hand an'--an' said--'here, you drive an' I'll pitch '--and +there--'twas--'twas----" + +"Why, Grandma Pritchard! You're----" + +"No, I ain't, either; I ain't such a fool, I hope! Why, see me cry like a +old numskull! Ain't it ridic'lous how you can talk 'bout deaths and +buryin's all right, and can't tell of how somebody come back from the +grave without--where in th' nation is my handkerchief! Why, Abby, things +ain't never looked the same to me from that minute on. I tell you--I tell +you--_I was real glad to see him_! + +"Good land, what time o' day do you suppose it can be? Susie! Eddie! Come, +git your berries and start home!" + +The two voices began to sound more faintly as the old woman's crutch rang +on the stones. "Well, Abby, when I come up here and remember how I farmed +it alone for four years, I say to myself that 'twan't only th' men that +set the slaves free. Them that stayed to home was allowed to have their +share in the good----" The syllables blurred into an indistinguishable hum +and there fell again upon the house its old mantle of silence. + +As if aroused by this from an hypnotic spell, the girl on the hay sat up +suddenly, pressing her hands over her eyes; but she did not shut out a +thousand thronging visions. There was not a sound but the loud throbbing +of the pulses at her temples; but never again could there be silence for +her in that spot. The air was thick with murmurs which beat against her +ears. She was trembling as she slipped down from the hay and, walking +unsteadily to the door, stood looking half-wildly out into the haunted +twilight. + +The faint sound of the brook rose liquid in the quiet evening air. + +There, where the butternut tree stood, had been the garden! + +The white birches answered with a rustling stir in all their lightly +poised leaves. + +Up there, where the oaks were, had been the hay-field! + +The twilight darkened. Through the forest, black on the crest of the +overhanging mountain, shone suddenly the evening star. + +There, before the door, had stood the waiting wood-sled! + +The girl caught through the gathering dusk a gleam of magenta from the +corner of the clearing. + + + +Two hermit thrushes, distant in the forest, began to send up their +poignant antiphonal evening chant. + + + + +THE HEYDAY OF THE BLOOD + + +The older professor looked up at the assistant, fumbling fretfully with a +pile of papers. "Farrar, what's the _matter_ with you lately?" he said +sharply. + +The younger man started, "Why...why..." the brusqueness of the other's +manner shocked him suddenly into confession. "I've lost my nerve, +Professor Mallory, that's what the matter with me. I'm frightened to +death," he said melodramatically. + +"What _of_?" asked Mallory, with a little challenge in his tone. + +The flood-gates were open. The younger man burst out in exclamations, +waving his thin, nervous, knotted fingers, his face twitching as he spoke. +"Of myself...no, not myself, but my body! I'm not well...I'm getting worse +all the time. The doctors don't make out what is the matter...I don't +sleep ... I worry...I forget things, I take no interest in life...the +doctors intimate a nervous breakdown ahead of me...and yet I rest ... I +rest...more than I can afford to! I never go out. Every evening I'm in bed +by nine o'clock. I take no part in college life beyond my work, for fear +of the nervous strain. I've refused to take charge of that summer-school +in New York, you know, that would be such an opportunity for me ... if I +could only sleep! But though I never do anything exciting in the +evening ... heavens! what nights I have. Black hours of seeing myself in a +sanitarium, dependent on my brother! I never ... why, I'm in +hell ... that's what the matter with me, a perfect hell of ignoble +terror!" + +He sat silent, his drawn face turned to the window. The older man looked +at him speculatively. When he spoke it was with a cheerful, casual quality +in his voice which made the other look up at him surprised. + +"You don't suppose those great friends of yours, the nerve specialists, +would object to my telling you a story, do you? It's very quiet and +unexciting. You're not too busy?" + +"Busy! I've forgotten the meaning of the word! I don't dare to be!" + +"Very well, then; I mean to carry you back to the stony little farm in the +Green Mountains, where I had the extreme good luck to be born and raised. +You've heard me speak of Hillsboro; and the story is all about my +great-grandfather, who came to live with us when I was a little boy." + +"Your great-grandfather?" said the other incredulously. "People don't +remember their great-grandfathers!" + +"Oh, yes, they do, in Vermont. There was my father on one farm, and my +grandfather on another, without a thought that he was no longer young, and +there was 'gran'ther' as we called him, eighty-eight years old and just +persuaded to settle back, let his descendants take care of him, and +consent to be an old man. He had been in the War of 1812--think of that, +you mushroom!--and had lost an arm and a good deal of his health there. He +had lately begun to get a pension of twelve dollars a month, so that for +an old man he was quite independent financially, as poor Vermont farmers +look at things; and he was a most extraordinary character, so that his +arrival in our family was quite an event. + +"He took precedence at once of the oldest man in the township, who was +only eighty-four and not very bright. I can remember bragging at school +about Gran'ther Pendleton, who'd be eighty-nine come next Woodchuck day, +and could see to read without glasses. He had been ailing all his life, +ever since the fever he took in the war. He used to remark triumphantly +that he had now outlived six doctors who had each given him but a year to +live; 'and the seventh is going downhill fast, so I hear!' This last was +his never-failing answer to the attempts of my conscientious mother and +anxious, dutiful father to check the old man's reckless indifference to +any of the rules of hygiene. + +"They were good disciplinarians with their children, and this naughty old +man, who would give his weak stomach frightful attacks of indigestion by +stealing out to the pantry and devouring a whole mince pie because he had +been refused two pieces at the table--this rebellious, unreasonable, +whimsical old madcap was an electric element in our quiet, orderly life. +He insisted on going to every picnic and church sociable, where he ate +recklessly of all the indigestible dainties he could lay his hands on, +stood in drafts, tired himself to the verge of fainting away by playing +games with the children, and returned home, exhausted, animated, and quite +ready to pay the price of a day in bed, groaning and screaming out with +pain as heartily and unaffectedly as he had laughed with the pretty girls +the evening before. + +"The climax came, however, in the middle of August, when he announced his +desire to go to the county fair, held some fourteen miles down the valley +from our farm. Father never dared let gran'ther go anywhere without +himself accompanying the old man, but he was perfectly sincere in saying +that it was not because he could not spare a day from the haying that he +refused pointblank to consider it. The doctor who had been taking care of +gran'ther since he came to live with us said that it would be crazy to +think of such a thing. He added that the wonder was that gran'ther lived +at all, for his heart was all wrong, his asthma was enough to kill a +young man, and he had no digestion; in short, if father wished to kill his +old grandfather, there was no surer way than to drive fourteen miles in +the heat of August to the noisy excitement of a county fair. + +"So father for once said 'No,' in the tone that we children had come to +recognize as final. Gran'ther grimly tied a knot in his empty sleeve--a +curious, enigmatic mode of his to express strong emotion--put his one hand +on his cane, and his chin on his hand, and withdrew himself into that +incalculable distance from the life about him where very old people spend +so many hours. + +"He did not emerge from this until one morning toward the middle of +fair-week, when all the rest of the family were away--father and the +bigger boys on the far-off upland meadows haying, and mother and the girls +off blackberrying. I was too little to be of any help, so I had been left +to wait on gran'ther, and to set out our lunch of bread and milk and +huckleberries. We had not been alone half an hour when gran'ther sent me +to extract, from under the mattress of his bed, the wallet in which he +kept his pension money. There was six dollars and forty-three cents--he +counted it over carefully, sticking out his tongue like a schoolboy doing +a sum, and when he had finished he began to laugh and snap his fingers and +sing out in his high, cracked old voice: + +"'We're goin' to go a skylarkin'! Little Jo Mallory is going to the county +fair with his Granther Pendleton, an' he's goin' to have more fun than +ever was in the world, and he--' + +"'But, gran'ther, father said we mustn't!' I protested, horrified. + +"'But I say we _shall_! I was your gre't-gran'ther long before he was your +feyther, and anyway I'm here and he's not--so, _march_! Out to the barn!' + +"He took me by the collar, and, executing a shuffling fandango of triumph, +he pushed me ahead of him to the stable, where old white Peggy, the only +horse left at home, looked at us amazed. + +"'But it'll be twenty-eight miles, and Peg's never driven over eight!' I +cried, my old-established world of rules and orders reeling before my +eyes. + +"'Eight--and--twenty-eight! But I--am--_eighty-eight_!' + +"Gran'ther improvised a sort of whooping chant of scorn as he pulled the +harness from the peg. 'It'll do her good to drink some pink lemonade--old +Peggy! An' if she gits tired comin' home, I'll git out and carry her part +way myself!' + +"His adventurous spirit was irresistible. I made no further objection, and +we hitched up together, I standing on a chair to fix the check-rein, and +gran'ther doing wonders with his one hand. Then, just as we +were--gran'ther in a hickory shirt, and with an old hat flapping over his +wizened face, I bare-legged, in ragged old clothes--so we drove out of the +grassy yard, down the steep, stony hill that led to the main valley road, +and along the hot, white turnpike, deep with the dust which had been +stirred up by the teams on their way to the fair. Gran'ther sniffed the +air jubilantly, and exchanged hilarious greetings with the people who +constantly overtook old Peg's jogging trot. Between times he regaled me +with spicy stories of the hundreds of thousands--they seemed no less +numerous to me then--of county fairs he had attended in his youth. He was +horrified to find that I had never been even to one. + +"'Why, Joey, how old be ye? 'Most eight, ain't it? When I was your age I +had run away and been to two fairs an' a hangin'.' "'But didn't they lick +you when you got home?' I asked shudderingly. + +"'You _bet_ they did!' cried gran'ther with gusto. + +"I felt the world changing into an infinitely larger place with every word +he said. + +"'Now, this is somethin' _like_!' he exclaimed, as we drew near to +Granville and fell into a procession of wagons all filled with country +people in their best clothes, who looked with friendly curiosity at the +little, shriveled cripple, his face shining with perspiring animation, and +at the little boy beside him, his bare feet dangling high above the floor +of the battered buckboard, overcome with the responsibility of driving a +horse for the first time in his life, and filled with such a flood of new +emotions and ideas that he must have been quite pale." + +Professor Mallory leaned back and laughed aloud at the vision he had been +evoking--laughed with so joyous a relish in his reminiscences that the +drawn, impatient face of his listener relaxed a little. He drew a long +breath, he even smiled a little absently. + +"Oh, that was a day!" went on the professor, still laughing and wiping his +eyes. "Never will I have such another! At the entrance to the grounds +gran'ther stopped me while he solemnly untied the knot in his empty +sleeve. I don't know what kind of hairbrained vow he had tied up in it, +but with the little ceremony disappeared every trace of restraint, and we +plunged head over ears into the saturnalia of delights that was an +old-time county fair. + +"People had little cash in those days, and gran'ther's six dollars and +forty-three cents lasted like the widow's cruse of oil. We went to see the +fat lady, who, if she was really as big as she looked to me then, must +have weighed at least a ton. My admiration for gran'ther's daredevil +qualities rose to infinity when he entered into free-and-easy talk with +her, about how much she ate, and could she raise her arms enough to do up +her own hair, and how many yards of velvet it took to make her gorgeous, +gold-trimmed robe. She laughed a great deal at us, but she was evidently +touched by his human interest, for she confided to him that it was not +velvet at all, but furniture covering; and when we went away she pressed +on us a bag of peanuts. She said she had more peanuts than she could +eat--a state of unbridled opulence which fitted in for me with all the +other superlatives of that day. + +"We saw the dog-faced boy, whom we did not like at all; gran'ther +expressing, with a candidly outspoken cynicism, his belief that 'them +whiskers was glued to him.' We wandered about the stock exhibit, gazing at +the monstrous oxen, and hanging over the railings where the prize pigs +lived to scratch their backs. In order to miss nothing, we even +conscientiously passed through the Woman's Building, where we were very +much bored by the serried ranks of preserve jars. + +"'Sufferin' Hezekiah!' cried gran'ther irritably 'Who cares how gooseberry +jel _looks_. If they'd give a felly a taste, now--' + +"This reminded him that we were hungry, and we went to a restaurant under +a tent, where, after taking stock of the wealth that yet remained of +gran'ther's hoard, he ordered the most expensive things on the bill of +fare." + +Professor Mallory suddenly laughed out again. "Perhaps in heaven, but +certainly not until then, shall I ever taste anything so ambrosial as that +fried chicken and coffee ice-cream! I have not lived in vain that I have +such a memory back of me!" + +This time the younger man laughed with the narrator, settling back in his +chair as the professor went on: + +"After lunch we rode on the merry-go-round, both of us, gran'ther clinging +desperately with his one hand to his red camel's wooden hump, and crying +out shrilly to me to be sure and not lose his cane. The merry-go-round had +just come in at that time, and gran'ther had never experienced it before. +After the first giddy flight we retired to a lemonade-stand to exchange +impressions, and finding that we both alike had fallen completely under +the spell of the new sensation, gran'ther said that we 'sh'd keep on +a-ridin' till we'd had enough! King Solomon couldn't tell when we'd ever +git a chance again!' So we returned to the charge, and rode and rode and +rode, through blinding clouds of happy excitement, so it seems to me now, +such as I was never to know again. The sweat was pouring off from us, and +we had tried all the different animals on the machine before we could tear +ourselves away to follow the crowd to the race-track. + +"We took reserved seats, which cost a quarter apiece, instead of the +unshaded ten-cent benches, and gran'ther began at once to pour out to me a +flood of horse-talk and knowing race-track aphorisms, which finally made a +young fellow sitting next to us laugh superciliously. Gran'ther turned on +him heatedly. + +"'I bet-che fifty cents I pick the winner in the next race!' he said +sportily, "'Done!' said the other, still laughing. + +"Gran'ther picked a big black mare, who came in almost last, but he did +not flinch. As he paid over the half-dollar he said: 'Everybody's likely +to make mistakes about _some_ things; King Solomon was a fool in the head +about women-folks! I bet-che a dollar I pick the winner in _this_ race!' +and 'Done!' said the disagreeable young man, still laughing. I gasped, for +I knew we had only eighty-seven cents left, but gran'ther shot me a +command to silence out of the corner of his eyes, and announced that he +bet on the sorrel gelding. + +"If I live to be a hundred and break the bank at Monte Carlo three times a +week," said Mallory, shaking his head reminiscently, "I could not know a +tenth part of the frantic excitement of that race or of the mad triumph +when our horse won. Gran'ther cast his hat upon the ground, screaming like +a steam-calliope with exultation as the sorrel swept past the judges' +stand ahead of all the others, and I jumped up and down in an agony of +delight which was almost more than my little body could hold. + +"After that we went away, feeling that the world could hold nothing more +glorious. It was five o'clock and we decided to start back. We paid for +Peggy's dinner out of the dollar we had won on the race--I say 'we,' for +by that time we were welded into one organism--and we still had a dollar +and a quarter left. 'While ye're about it, always go the whole hog!' said +gran'ther and we spent twenty minutes in laying out that money in trinkets +for all the folks at home. Then, dusty, penniless, laden with bundles, we +bestowed our exhausted bodies and our uplifted hearts in the old +buckboard, and turned Peg's head toward the mountains. We did not talk +much during that drive, and though I thought at the time only of the +carnival of joy we had left, I can now recall every detail of the +trip--how the sun sank behind Indian Mountain, a peak I had known before +only through distant views; then, as we journeyed on, how the stars came +out above Hemlock Mountain--our own home mountain behind our house, and +later, how the fireflies filled the darkening meadows along the river +below us, so that we seemed to be floating between the steady stars of +heaven and their dancing, twinkling reflection in the valley. + +"Gran'ther's dauntless spirit still surrounded me. I put out of mind +doubts of our reception at home, and lost myself in delightful ruminatings +on the splendors of the day. At first, every once in a while, gran'ther +made a brief remark, such as, ''Twas the hind-quarters of the sorrel I bet +on. He was the only one in the hull kit and bilin' of 'em that his +quarters didn't fall away'; or, 'You needn't tell _me_ that them Siamese +twins ain't unpinned every night as separate as you and me!' But later on, +as the damp evening air began to bring on his asthma, he subsided into +silence, only broken by great gasping coughs. + +"These were heard by the anxious, heart-sick watchers at home, and, as old +Peg stumbled wearily up the hill, father came running down to meet us. +'Where you be'n?' he demanded, his face pale and stern in the light of his +lantern. 'We be'n to the county fair!' croaked gran'ther with a last flare +of triumph, and fell over sideways against me. Old Peg stopped short, +hanging her head as if she, too, were at the limit of her strength. I was +frightfully tired myself, and frozen with terror of what father would say. +Gran'ther's collapse was the last straw. I began to cry loudly, but father +ignored my distress with an indifference which cut me to the heart. He +lifted gran'ther out of the buckboard, carrying the unconscious little old +body into the house without a glance backward at me. But when I crawled +down to the ground, sobbing and digging my fists into my eyes, I felt +mother's arms close around me. + +"'Oh, poor, naughty little Joey!' she said. 'Mother's bad, dear little +boy!'" + +Professor Mallory stopped short. + +"Perhaps that's something else I'll know again in heaven," he said +soberly, and waited a moment before he went on: "Well, that was the end of +our day. I was so worn out that I fell asleep over my supper, in spite of +the excitement in the house about sending for a doctor for gran'ther, who +was, so one of my awe-struck sisters told me, having some kind of 'fits,' +Mother must have put me to bed, for the next thing I remember, she was +shaking me by the shoulder and saying, 'Wake up, Joey Your +great-grandfather wants to speak to you. He's been suffering terribly all +night, and the doctor think's he's dying.' + +"I followed her into gran'ther's room, where the family was assembled +about the bed. Gran'ther lay drawn up in a ball, groaning so dreadfully +that I felt a chill like cold water at the roots of my hair; but a moment +or two after I came in, all at once he gave a great sigh and relaxed, +stretching out his legs and laying his arms down on the coverlid. He +looked at me and attempted a smile. + +"Well, it was wuth it, warn't it, Joey?" he said gallantly, and closed his +eyes peacefully to sleep. + +"Did he die?" asked the younger professor, leaning forward eagerly. + +"Die? Gran'ther Pendleton? Not much! He came tottering down to breakfast +the next morning, as white as an old ghost, with no voice left, his legs +trembling under him, but he kept the whole family an hour and a half at +the table, telling them in a loud whisper all about the fair, until father +said really he would have to take us to the one next year. Afterward he +sat out on the porch watching old Peg graze around the yard. I thought he +was in one of his absent-minded fits, but when I came out, he called me to +him, and, setting his lips to my ear, he whispered: + +"'An' the seventh is a-goin' down-hill fast, so I hear!' He chuckled to +himself over this for some time, wagging his head feebly, and then he +said: 'I tell ye, Joey, I've lived a long time, and I've larned a lot +about the way folks is made. The trouble with most of 'em is, they're +fraid-cats! As Jeroboam Warner used to say--he was in the same rigiment +with me in 1812--the only way to manage this business of livin' is to give +a whoop and let her rip! If ye just about half-live, ye just the same as +half-die; and if ye spend yer time half-dyin', some day ye turn in and die +all over, without rightly meanin' to at all--just a kind o' bad habit +ye've got yerself inter.' Gran'ther fell into a meditative silence for a +moment. 'Jeroboam, he said that the evenin' before the battle of Lundy's +Lane, and he got killed the next day. Some live, and some die; but folks +that live all over die happy, anyhow! Now I tell you what's my motto, an' +what I've lived to be eighty-eight on--'" + +Professor Mallory stood up and, towering over the younger man, struck one +hand into the other as he cried: "This was the motto he told me: 'Live +while you live, and then die and be done with it!'" + + + + +AS A BIRD OUT OF THE SNARE + + +After the bargain was completed and the timber merchant had gone away, +Jehiel Hawthorn walked stiffly to the pine-tree and put his horny old fist +against it, looking up to its spreading top with an expression of hostile +exultation in his face. The neighbor who had been called to witness the +transfer of Jehiel's woodland looked at him curiously. + +"That was quite a sight of money to come in without your expectin', wa'n't +it?" he said, fumbling awkwardly for an opening to the question he burned +to ask. + +Jehiel did not answer. The two old men stood silent, looking down the +valley, lying like a crevasse in a glacier between the towering white +mountains. The sinuous course of the frozen river was almost black under +the slaty sky of March. + +"Seems kind o' providential, havin' so much money come to you just now, +when your sister-in-law's jest died, and left you the first time in your +life without anybody you got to stay and see to, don't it?" commented the +neighbor persistently. + +Jehiel made a vague sign with his head. + +"I s'pose likely you'll be startin' aout to travel and see foreign parts, +same's you've always planned, won't you--or maybe you cal'late you be too +old now?" + +Jehiel gave no indication that he had heard. His faded old blue eyes were +fixed steadily on the single crack in the rampart of mountains, through +which the afternoon train was just now leaving the valley. Its whistle +echoed back hollowly, as it fled away from the prison walls into the great +world. + +The neighbor stiffened in offended pride. "I bid you good-night, Mr. +Hawthorn," he said severely, and stumped down the steep, narrow road +leading to the highway in the valley. + +After he had disappeared Jehiel turned to the tree and leaned his forehead +against it. He was so still he seemed a part of the great pine. He stood +so till the piercing chill of evening chilled him through, and when he +looked again about him it was after he had lived his life all through in a +brief and bitter review. + +It began with the tree and it ended with the tree, and in spite of the +fever of unrest in his heart it was as stationary as any rooted creature +of the woods. When he was eleven and his father went away to the Civil +War, he had watched him out of sight with no sorrow, only a burning envy +of the wanderings that lay before the soldier. A little later, when it was +decided that he should go to stay with his married sister, since she was +left alone by her husband's departure to the war, he turned his back on +his home with none of a child's usual reluctance, but with an eager +delight in the day-long drive to the other end of the valley. That was the +longest journey he had ever taken, the man of almost three-score thought, +with an aching resentment against Fate. + +Still, those years with his sister, filled with labor beyond his age as +they were, had been the happiest of his life. In an almost complete +isolation the two had toiled together five years, the most impressionable +of his life; and all his affection centered on the silent, loving, always +comprehending sister. His own father and mother grew to seem far away and +alien, and his sister came to be like a part of himself. To her alone of +all living souls had he spoken freely of his passion for adventuring far +from home, which devoured, his boy-soul. He was six-teen when her husband +finally came back from the war, and he had no secrets from the young +matron of twenty-six, who listened with such wide tender eyes of sympathy +to his half-frantic outpourings of longing to escape from the dark, narrow +valley where his fathers had lived their dark, narrow lives. + +The day before he went back to his own home, now so strange to him, he was +out with her, searching for some lost turkey-chicks, and found one with +its foot caught in a tangle of rusty wire. The little creature had beaten +itself almost to death in its struggle to get away. Kneeling in the grass, +and feeling the wild palpitations of its heart under his rescuing hand, he +had called to his sister, "Oh, look! Poor thing! It's 'most dead, and yet +it ain't really hurt a mite, only desperate, over bein' held fast." His +voice broke in a sudden wave of sympathy: "Oh, ain't it _terrible_ to feel +so!" + +For a moment the young mother put her little son aside and looked at her +brother with brooding eyes. A little later she said with apparent +irrelevance, "Jehiel, as soon as you're a man grown, I'll help you to get +off. You shall be a sailor, if you like, and go around the world, and +bring back coral to baby and me." + +A chilling premonition fell on the lad. "I don't believe it!" he said, +with tears in his eyes. "I just believe I've got to stay here in this hole +all my life." + +His sister looked off at the tops of the trees. Finally, "Surely He shall +deliver thee from the snare of the fowler," she quoted dreamily. + +When she came to see him and their parents a few months later, she brought +him a little square of crimson silk, on which she had worked in tiny +stitches, "Surely He shall deliver thee from the snare of the fowler." She +explained to her father and mother that it was a "text-ornament" for +Jehiel to hang up over his desk; but she drew the boy aside and showed him +that the silk was only lightly caught down to the foundation. + +"Underneath is another text," she said, "and when your day of freedom +comes I want you should promise me to cut the stitches, turn back the +silk, and take the second text for your motto, so you'll remember to be +properly grateful. This is the second text." She put her hands on his +shoulders and said in a loud, exultant voice, "My soul is escaped as a +bird out of the snare of the fowler. The snare is broken and I am +escaped." + +For answer the boy pulled her eagerly to the window and pointed to a young +pine-tree that stood near the house. + +"Sister, that tree's just as old as I be. I've prayed to God, and I've +promised myself that before it's as tall, as the ridge-pole of the house, +I'll be on my way." + +As this scene came before his eyes, the white-haired man, leaning against +the great pine, looked up at the lofty crown of green wreathing the +giant's head and shook his fist at it. He hated every inch of its height, +for every inch meant an enforced renunciation that had brought him +bitterness and a sense of failure. + +His sister had died the year after she had given him the double text, and +his father the year after that. He was left thus, the sole support of his +ailing mother, who transferred to the silent, sullen boy the irresistible +rule of complaining weakness with which she had governed his father. It +was thought she could not live long, and the boy stood in terror of a +sudden death brought on by displeasure at some act of his. In the end, +however, she died quietly in her bed, an old woman of seventy-three, +nursed by her daughter-in-law, the widow of Jehiel's only brother. Her +place in the house was taken by Jehiel's sister-in-law, a sickly, helpless +woman, alone in the would except for Jehiel, and all the neighbors +congratulated him on having a housekeeper ready to his hand. He said +nothing. + +By that time, indeed, he had sunk into a harsh silence on all topics. He +went through the exhausting routine of farming with an iron-like +endurance, watched with set lips the morning and afternoon trains leave +the valley, and noted the growth of the pine-tree with a burning heart. +His only recreation was collecting time-tables, prospectuses of steamship +companies, and what few books of travel he could afford. The only society +he did not shun was that of itinerant peddlers or tramps, and occasionally +a returned missionary on a lecture tour. + +And always the pine-tree had grown, insolent in the pride of a creature +set in the right surroundings. The imprisoned man had felt himself dwarfed +by its height. But now, he looked up at it again, and laughed aloud. It +had come late, but it had come. He was fifty-seven years old, almost +three-score, but all his life was still to be lived. He said to himself +that some folks lived their lives while they did their work, but he had +done all his tasks first, and now he could live. The unexpected arrival of +the timber merchant and the sale of that piece of land he'd never thought +would bring him a cent--was not that an evident sign that Providence was +with him. He was too old and broken now to work his way about as he had +planned at first, but here had come this six hundred dollars like rain +from the sky. He would start as soon as he could sell his stock. + +The thought reminded him of his evening chores, and he set off for the +barn with a fierce jubilation that it was almost the last time he would +need to milk. How far he wondered, could he go on that money? He hurried +through his work and into the house to his old desk. The faded +text-ornament stood on the top shelf, but he did not see it, as he hastily +tumbled out all the time tables and sailing-lists. The habit of looking at +them with the yearning bitterness of unreconciled deprivation was still so +strong on him that even as he handled them eagerly, he hated them for the +associations of years of misery they brought back to him. + +Where should he go? He was dazed by the unlimited possibilities before +him. To Boston first, as the nearest seaport. He had taken the trip in his +mind so many times that he knew the exact minute when the train would +cross the State line and he would be really escaped from the net which had +bound him all his life. From Boston to Jamaica as the nearest place that +was quite quite different from Vermont. He had no desire to see Europe or +England. Life there was too much like what he had known. He wanted to be +in a country where nothing should remind him of his past. From Jamaica +where? His stiff old fingers painfully traced out a steamship line to the +Isthmus and thence to Colombia. He knew nothing about that country. All +the better. It would be the more foreign. Only this he knew, that nobody +in that tropical country "farmed it," and that was where he wanted to go. +From Colombia around the Cape to Argentina. He was aghast at the cost, but +instantly decided that he would go steerage. There would be more real +foreigners to be seen that way, and his money would go twice as far. + +To Buenos Ayres, then. He did not even attempt to pronounce this name, +though its strange, inexplicable look on the page was a joy to him. From +there by muleback and afoot over the Andes to Chile. He knew something +about that trip. A woman who had taught in the Methodist missionary school +in Santiago de Chile had taken that journey, and he had heard her give a +lecture on it. He was the sexton of the church and heard all the lectures +free. At Santiago de Chile (he pronounced it with a strange distortion of +the school-teacher's bad accent) he would stay for a while and just live +and decide what to do next. His head swam with dreams and visions, and his +heart thumped heavily against his old ribs. The clock striking ten brought +him back to reality. He stood up with a gesture of exultation almost +fierce. "That's just the time when the train crosses the State line!" he +said. + +He slept hardly at all that night, waking with great starts, and imagining +himself in strange foreign places, and then recognizing with a scornful +familiarity the worn old pieces of furniture in his room. He noticed at +these times that it was very cold, and lifelong habit made him reflect +that he would better go early to the church because it would be hard to +get up steam enough to warm the building before time for service. After he +had finished his morning chores and was about to start he noticed that the +thermometer stood at four above zero. + +That was certainly winter temperature; the snow lay like a heavy shroud on +all the dead valley, but the strange blind instinct of a man who has lived +close to the earth stirred within him. He looked at the sky and the +mountains and held up his bare palm. "I shouldn't be surprised if the +spring break-up was near," he said. "I guess this is about the last winter +day we'll get." + +The church was icy cold, and he toiled in the cellar, stuffing wood into +the flaming maw of the steam-heater, till it was time to ring the bell. As +he gave the last stroke, Deacon Bradley approached him. "Jehiel, I've got +a little job of repairing I want you should do at my store," he said in +the loud, slow speech of a man important in the community. "Come to the +store to-morrow morning and see about it." He passed on into his pew, +which was at the back of the church near a steam radiator, so that he was +warm, no matter what the weather was. + +Jehiel Hawthorn went out and stood on the front steps in the winter +sunshine and his heart swelled exultingly as he looked across at the +deacon's store. "I wish I'd had time to tell him I'd do no repairs for him +to-morrow, nor any time---that I'm going to travel and see the world." + +The last comers disappeared in the church and the sound of singing came +faintly to Jehiel's ears. Although he was the sexton he rarely was in +church for the service, using his duties as an excuse for absence. He felt +that it was not for him to take part in prayer and thanksgiving. As a boy +he had prayed for the one thing he wanted, and what had it come to? + +A penetrating cold wind swept around the corner and he turned to go inside +to see about the steam-pipes. In the outer hall he noticed that the +service had progressed to the responsive readings. As he opened the door +of the church the minister read rapidly, "Praised be the Lord who hath not +given us over for a prey unto their teeth." + +The congregation responded in a timid inarticulate gabble, above which +rose Deacon Bradley's loud voice,--"Our soul is escaped even as a bird out +of the snare of the fowler. The snare is broken and we are escaped." He +read the responses in a slow, booming roar, at least half a sentence +behind the rest, but the minister always waited for him. As he finished, +he saw the sexton standing in the open door. "A little more steam, +Jehiel," he added commandingly, running the words on to the end of the +text. + +Jehiel turned away silently, but as he stumbled through the dark, +unfinished part of the cellar he thought to himself, "Well, that's the +last time he'll give me an order for _one_ while!" + +Then the words of the text he had heard came back to his mind with a +half-superstitious shock at the coincidence. He had forgotten all about +that hidden part of the text-ornament. Why, now that had come true! He +ought to have cut the stitches and torn off the old text last night. He +would, as soon as he went home. He wished his sister were alive to know, +and suddenly, there in the dark, he wondered if perhaps she did know. + +As he passed the door to the rooms of the Ladies' Auxiliary Society he +noticed that it was ajar, and saw through the crack that there was a +sleeping figure on the floor near the stove--a boy about sixteen. When +Jehiel stepped softly in and looked at him, the likeness to his own sister +struck him even before he recognized the lad as his great-nephew, the son +of the child he had helped his sister to care for all those years ago. + +"Why, what's Nathaniel doin' here?" he asked himself, in surprise. He had +not known that the boy was even in town, for he had been on the point of +leaving to enlist in the navy. Family matters could not have detained him, +for he was quite alone in the world since both his father and his mother +were dead and his stepmother had married again. Under his great-uncle's +gaze the lad opened his eyes with a start and sat up confused. + +"What's the matter with you, Nat?" asked the older man not ungently. He +was thinking that probably he had looked like that at sixteen. The boy +stared at him a moment, and then, leaning his head on a chair, he began to +cry. Sitting thus, crouched together, he looked like a child. + +"Why, Natty, what's the trouble?" asked his uncle alarmed. + +"I came off here because I couldn't hold in at home any longer," answered +the other between sobs. "You see I can't go away. Her husband treats her +so bad she can't stay with him. I don't blame her, she says she just +_can't!_ So she's come back and she ain't well, and she's goin' to have a +baby, and I've got to stay and support her. Mr. Bradley's offered me a +place in his store and I've got to give up goin' to the navy." He suddenly +realized the unmanliness of his attitude, rose to his feet, closing his +lips tightly, and faced the older man with a resolute expression of +despair in his young eyes. + +"Uncle Jehiel, it does seem to me I _can't_ have it so! All my life I've +looked forward to bein' a sailor and goin' around the world, and all. I +just hate the valley and the mountains! But I guess I got to stay. She's +only my stepmother, I know, but she was always awful good to me, and she +hasn't got anybody else to look after her." + +His voice broke, and he put his arm up in a crook over his face. "But it's +awful hard! I feel like a bird that's got caught in a snare." + +His uncle had grown very pale during this speech, and at the last words he +recoiled with an exclamation of horror. There was a silence in which he +looked at his nephew with the wide eyes of a man who sees a specter. Then +he turned away into the furnace-room, and picking up his lunch-box brought +it back. "Here, you," he said roughly, "part of what's troublin' you is +that you ain't had any breakfast. You eat this and you'll feel better. +I'll be back in a minute." + +He went away blindly into the darkest part of the cellar. It was very +black there, but his eyes stared wide before him. It was very cold, but +drops of sweat stood on his forehead as if he were in the hay-field. He +was alone, but his lips moved from time to time, and once he called out in +some loud, stifled exclamation which resounded hollowly in the vault-like +place. He was there a long time. + +When he went back into the furnace cellar, he found Nathaniel sitting +before the fire. The food and warmth had brought a little color into his +pale face, but it was still set in a mask of tragic desolation. + +As his uncle came in, he exclaimed, "Why, Uncle Jehiel, you look awful +bad. Are you sick?" + +"Yes, I be," said the other harshly, "but 'tain't nothin'. It'll pass +after a while. Nathaniel, I've thought of a way you can manage. You know +your uncle's wife died this last week and that leaves me without any house +keeper. What if your stepmother sh'd come and take care of me and I'll +take care of her. I've just sold a piece of timber land I never thought to +get a cent out of and that'll ease things up so we can hire help if she +ain't strong enough to do the work." + +Nathaniel's face flushed in a relief which died quickly down to a somber +hopelessness. He faced his uncle doggedly. "Not _much_, Uncle Jehiel!" he +said heavily, "I ain't a-goin' to hear to such a thing. I know all about +your wantin' to get away from the valley--you take that money and go +yourself and I'll---" + +Hopelessness and resolution were alike struck out of his face by the fury +of benevolence with which the old man cut him short. "Don't you dare to +speak a word against it, boy!" cried Jehiel in a labored anguish. "Good +Lord! I'm only doin' it for you because I _have_ to! I've been through +what you're layin' out for yourself an' stood it, somehow, an' now I'm +'most done with it all. But 'twould be like beginnin' it all again to see +you startin' in." + +The boy tried to speak, but he raised his voice. "No, I couldn't stand it +all over again. 'Twould cut in to the places where I've got calloused." +Seeing through the other's stupor the beginnings of an irresolute +opposition, he flung himself upon him in a strange and incredible appeal, +crying out, "Oh, you must! You _got_ to go!" commanding and imploring in +the same incoherent sentence, struggling for speech, and then hanging on +Nathaniel's answer in a sudden wild silence. It was as though his next +breath depended on the boy's decision. + +It was very still in the twilight where they stood. The faint murmur of a +prayer came down from above, and while it lasted both were as though held +motionless by its mesmeric monotony. Then, at the boom of the organ, the +lad's last shred of self-control vanished. He burst again into muffled +weary sobs, the light from the furnace glistening redly on his streaming +cheeks. "It ain't right, Uncle Jehiel. I feel as though I was murderin' +somethin'! But I can't help it. I'll go, I'll do as you say, but----" + +His uncle's agitation went out like a wind-blown flame. He, too, drooped +in an utter fatigue. "Never mind, Natty," he said tremulously, "it'll all +come out right somehow. Just you do as Uncle Jehiel says." + +A trampling upstairs told him that the service was over. "You run home now +and tell her I'll be over this afternoon to fix things up." + +He hurried up the stairs to open the front doors, but Deacon Bradley was +before him. "You're late, Jehiel," he said severely, "and the church was +cold." + +"I know, Deacon," said the sexton humbly, "but it won't happen again. And +I'll be around the first thing in the morning to do that job for you." His +voice sounded dull and lifeless. + +"What's the matter?" asked the deacon. "Be you sick?" + +"Yes, I be, but 'tain't nothin'. 'Twill pass after a while." + +That evening, as he walked home after service, he told himself that he had +never known so long a day. It seemed longer than all the rest of his life. +Indeed he felt that some strange and racking change had come upon him +since the morning, as though he were not the same person, as though he had +been away on a long journey, and saw all things with changed eyes. "I feel +as though I'd died," he thought with surprise, "and was dead and buried." + +This brought back to his mind the only bitter word he had spoken +throughout the endless day. Nathaniel had said, as an excuse for his haste +(Jehiel insisted on his leaving that night), "You see, mother, it's really +a service to Uncle Jehiel, since he's got nobody to keep house for him." +He had added, in the transparent self-justification of selfish youth, "And +I'll pay it back to him every cent." At this Jehiel had said shortly, "By +the time you can pay it back what I'll need most will be a tombstone. Git +a big one so's to keep me down there quiet." + +But now, walking home under the frosty stars, he felt very quiet already, +as though he needed no weight to lie heavy on his restless heart. It did +not seem restless now, but very still, as though it too were dead. He +noticed that the air was milder, and as he crossed the bridge below his +house he stopped and listened. Yes, the fine ear of his experience caught +a faint grinding sound. By tomorrow the river would begin to break up. It +was the end of winter. He surprised himself by his pleasure in thinking of +the spring. + +Before he went into the house after his evening chores were done, he +stopped for a moment and looked back at the cleft in the mountain wall +through which the railroad left the valley. He had been looking longingly +toward that door of escape all his life, and now he said goodby to it. +"Ah, well, 'twan't to be," he said, with an accent of weary finality; but +then, suddenly out of the chill which oppressed his heart there sprang a +last searing blast of astonished anguish. It was as if he realized for the +first time all that had befallen him since the morning. He was racked by a +horrified desolation that made his sturdy old body stagger as if under an +unexpected blow. As he reeled he flung his arm about the pine-tree and so +stood for a time, shaking in a paroxysm which left him breathless when it +passed. For it passed as suddenly as it came. He lifted his head and +looked again at the great cleft in the mountains, with new eyes. Somehow, +insensibly, his heart had been emptied of its fiery draught by more than +mere exhaustion. The old bitter pain was gone, but there was no mere void +in its place. He felt the sweet, weak light-headedness of a man in his +first lucid period after a fever, tears stinging his eyelids in confused +thanksgiving for an unrecognized respite from pain. + +He looked up at the lofty crown of the pine-tree, through which shone one +or two of the brightest stars, and felt a new comradeship with it. It was +a great tree, he thought, and they had grown up together. He laid his +hardened palm on it, and fancied that he caught a throb of the silent +vitality under the bark. How many kinds of life there were! Under its +white shroud, how all the valley lived. The tree stretching up its head to +the stars, the river preparing to throw off the icy armor which compressed +its heart--they were all awakening in their own way. The river had been +restless, like himself, the tree had been tranquil, but they passed +together through the resurrection into quiet life. + +When he went into the house, he found that he was almost fainting with +fatigue. He sat down by the desk, and his head fell forward on the pile of +pamphlets he had left there. For the first time in his life he thought of +them without a sore heart. "I suppose Natty'll go to every one of them +places," he murmured as he dropped to sleep. + +He dreamed strange, troubled dreams that melted away before he could seize +on them, and finally he thought his sister stood before him and called. +The impression was so vivid that he started up, staring at the empty room. +For an instant he still thought he heard a voice, and then he knew it was +the old clock striking the hour. It was ten o'clock. + +"Natty's just a-crossin' the State line," he said aloud The text-ornament +caught his eye. Still half asleep, with his sister's long-forgotten voice +ringing in his ears, he remembered vaguely that he had meant to bring the +second text to light. For a moment he hesitated, and then, "Well, it's +come true for Natty, anyhow," he thought. + +And clumsily using his heavy jackknife, he began to cut the tiny stitches +which had so long hidden from his eyes the joyous exultation of the +escaped prisoner. + + + + +THE BEDQUILT + + +Of all the Elwell family Aunt Mehetabel was certainly the most unimportant +member. It was in the New England days, when an unmarried woman was an old +maid at twenty, at forty was everyone's servant, and at sixty had gone +through so much discipline that she could need no more in the next world. +Aunt Mehetabel was sixty-eight. + +She had never for a moment known the pleasure of being important to +anyone. Not that she was useless in her Brother's family; she was +expected, as a matter of course, to take upon herself the most tedious and +uninteresting part of the household labors. On Mondays she accepted as her +share the washing of the men's shirts, heavy with sweat and stiff with +dirt from the fields and from their own hard-working bodies. Tuesdays she +never dreamed of being allowed to iron anything pretty or even +interesting, like the baby's white dresses or the fancy aprons of her +young lady nieces. She stood all day pressing out a tiresome monotonous +succession of dish-cloths and towels and sheets. + +In preserving-time she was allowed to have none of the pleasant +responsibility of deciding when the fruit had cooked long enough, nor did +she share in the little excitement of pouring the sweet-smelling stuff +into the stone jars. She sat in a corner with the children and stoned +cherries incessantly, or hulled strawberries until her fingers were dyed +red to the bone. + +The Elwells were not consciously unkind to their aunt, they were even in a +vague way fond of her; but she was so utterly insignificant a figure in +their lives that they bestowed no thought whatever on her. Aunt Mehetabel +did not resent this treatment; she took it quite as unconsciously as they +gave it. It was to be expected when one was an old-maid dependent in a +busy family. She gathered what crumbs of comfort she could from their +occasional careless kindnesses and tried to hide the hurt which even yet +pierced her at her brother's rough joking. In the winter when they all sat +before the big hearth, roasted apples, drank mulled cider, and teased the +girls about their beaux and the boys about their sweethearts, she shrank +into a dusky corner with her knitting, happy if the evening passed without +her brother saying, with a crude sarcasm, "Ask your Aunt Mehetabel about +the beaux that used to come a-sparkin' her!" or, "Mehetabel, how was't +when you was in love with Abel Cummings." As a matter of fact, she had +been the same at twenty as at sixty, a quiet, mouse-like little creature, +too timid and shy for anyone to notice, or to raise her eyes for a moment +and wish for a life of her own. + +Her sister-in-law, a big hearty housewife, who ruled indoors with as +autocratic a sway as did her husband on the farm, was rather kind in an +absent, offhand way to the shrunken little old woman, and it was through +her that Mehetabel was able to enjoy the one pleasure of her life. Even as +a girl she had been clever with her needle in the way of patching +bedquilts. More than that she could never learn to do. The garments which +she made for herself were the most lamentable affairs, and she was humbly +grateful for any help in the bewildering business of putting them +together. But in patchwork she enjoyed a tepid importance. She could +really do that as well as anyone else. During years of devotion to this +one art she had accumulated a considerable store of quilting patterns. +Sometimes the neighbors would send over and ask "Miss Mehetabel" for such +and such a design. It was with an agreeable flutter at being able to help +someone that she went to the dresser, in her bare little room under the +eaves, and extracted from her crowded portfolio the pattern desired. + +She never knew how her great idea came to her. Sometimes she thought she +must have dreamed it, sometimes she even wondered reverently, in the +phraseology of the weekly prayer-meeting, if it had not been "sent" to +her. She never admitted to herself that she could have thought of it +without other help; it was too great, too ambitious, too lofty a project +for her humble mind to have conceived. Even when she finished drawing the +design with her own fingers, she gazed at it incredulously, not daring to +believe that it could indeed be her handiwork. At first it seemed to her +only like a lovely but quite unreal dream. She did not think of putting it +into execution--so elaborate, so complicated, so beautifully difficult a +pattern could be only for the angels in heaven to quilt. But so curiously +does familiarity accustom us even to very wonderful things, that as she +lived with this astonishing creation of her mind, the longing grew +stronger and stronger to give it material life with her nimble old +fingers. + +She gasped at her daring when this idea first swept over her and put it +away as one does a sinfully selfish notion, but she kept coming back to it +again and again. Finally she said compromisingly to herself that she would +make one "square," just one part of her design, to see how it would look. +Accustomed to the most complete dependence on her brother and his wife, +she dared not do even this without asking Sophia's permission. With a +heart full of hope and fear thumping furiously against her old ribs, she +approached the mistress of the house on churning-day, knowing with the +innocent guile of a child that the country woman was apt to be in a good +temper while working over the fragrant butter in the cool cellar. + +Sophia listened absently to her sister-in-law's halting, hesitating +petition. "Why, yes, Mehetabel," she said, leaning far down into the huge +churn for the last golden morsels--"why, yes, start another quilt if you +want to. I've got a lot of pieces from the spring sewing that will work in +real good." Mehetabel tried honestly to make her see that this would be no +common quilt, but her limited vocabulary and her emotion stood between her +and expression. At last Sophia said, with a kindly impatience: "Oh, there! +Don't bother me. I never could keep track of your quiltin' patterns, +anyhow. I don't care what pattern you go by." + +With this overwhelmingly, although unconsciously, generous permission +Mehetabel rushed back up the steep attic stairs to her room, and in a +joyful agitation began preparations for the work of her life. It was even +better than she hoped. By some heaven-sent inspiration she had invented a +pattern beyond which no patchwork quilt could go. + +She had but little time from her incessant round of household drudgery for +this new and absorbing occupation, and she did not dare sit up late at +night lest she burn too much candle. It was weeks before the little square +began to take on a finished look, to show the pattern. Then Mehetabel was +in a fever of impatience to bring it to completion. She was too +conscientious to shirk even the smallest part of her share of the work of +the house, but she rushed through it with a speed which left her panting +as she climbed to the little room. This seemed like a radiant spot to her +as she bent over the innumerable scraps of cloth which already in her +imagination ranged themselves in the infinitely diverse pattern of her +masterpiece. Finally she could wait no longer, and one evening ventured to +bring her work down beside the fire where the family sat, hoping that some +good fortune would give her a place near the tallow candles on the +mantelpiece. She was on the last corner of the square, and her needle flew +in and out with inconceivable rapidity. No one noticed her, a fact which +filled her with relief, and by bedtime she had but a few more stitches to +add. + +As she stood up with the others, the square fluttered out of her trembling +old hands and fell on the table. Sophia glanced at it carelessly. "Is that +the new quilt you're beginning on?" she asked with a yawn. "It looks like +a real pretty pattern. Let's see it." Up to that moment Mehetabel had +labored in the purest spirit of disinterested devotion to an ideal, but as +Sophia held her work toward the candle to examine it, and exclaimed in +amazement and admiration, she felt an astonished joy to know that her +creation would stand the test of publicity. + +"Land sakes!" ejaculated her sister-in-law, looking at the many-colored +square. "Why, Mehetabel Elwell, where'd you git that pattern?" + +"I made it up," said Mehetabel quietly, but with unutterable pride. + +"No!" exclaimed Sophia incredulously. "_Did_ you! Why, I never see such a +pattern in my life. Girls, come here and see what your Aunt Mehetabel is +doing." + +The three tall daughters turned back reluctantly from the stairs. "I don't +seem to take much interest in patchwork," said one listlessly. + +"No, nor I neither!" answered Sophia; "but a stone image would take an +interest in this pattern. Honest, Mehetabel, did you think of it yourself? +And how under the sun and stars did you ever git your courage up to start +in a-making it? Land! Look at all those tiny squinchy little seams! Why +the wrong side ain't a thing _but_ seams!" + +The girls echoed their mother's exclamations, and Mr. Elwell himself came +over to see what they were discussing. "Well, I declare!" he said, looking +at his sister with eyes more approving than she could ever remember. "That +beats old Mis' Wightman's quilt that got the blue ribbon so many times at +the county fair." + +Mehetabel's heart swelled within her, and tears of joy moistened her old +eyes as she lay that night in her narrow, hard bed, too proud and excited +to sleep. The next day her sister-in-law amazed her by taking the huge pan +of potatoes out of her lap and setting one of the younger children to +peeling them. "Don't you want to go on with that quiltin' pattern?" she +said; "I'd kind o' like to see how you're goin' to make the grape-vine +design come out on the corner." + +By the end of the summer the family interest had risen so high that +Mehetabel was given a little stand in the sitting-room where she could +keep her pieces, and work in odd minutes. She almost wept over such +kindness, and resolved firmly not to take advantage of it by neglecting +her work, which she performed with a fierce thoroughness. But the whole +atmosphere of her world was changed. Things had a meaning now. Through the +longest task of washing milk-pans there rose the rainbow of promise of her +variegated work. She took her place by the little table and put the +thimble on her knotted, hard finger with the solemnity of a priestess +performing a sacred rite. + +She was even able to bear with some degree of dignity the extreme honor of +having the minister and the minister's wife comment admiringly on her +great project. The family felt quite proud of Aunt Mehetabel as Minister +Bowman had said it was work as fine as any he had ever seen, "and he +didn't know but finer!" The remark was repeated verbatim to the neighbors +in the following weeks when they dropped in and examined in a perverse +silence some astonishingly difficult _tour de force_ which Mehetabel had +just finished. + +The family especially plumed themselves on the slow progress of the quilt. +"Mehetabel has been to work on that corner for six weeks, come Tuesday, +and she ain't half done yet," they explained to visitors. They fell out of +the way of always expecting her to be the one to run on errands, even for +the children. "Don't bother your Aunt Mehetabel," Sophia would call. +"Can't you see she's got to a ticklish place on the quilt?" + +The old woman sat up straighter and looked the world in the face. She was +a part of it at last. She joined in the conversation and her remarks were +listened to. The children were even told to mind her when she asked them +to do some service for her, although this she did but seldom, the habit of +self-effacement being too strong. + +One day some strangers from the next town drove up and asked if they could +inspect the wonderful quilt which they had heard of, even down in their end +of the valley. After that such visitations were not uncommon, making the +Elwells' house a notable object. Mehetabel's quilt came to be one of the +town sights, and no one was allowed to leave the town without having paid +tribute to its worth. The Elwells saw to it that their aunt was better +dressed than she had ever been before, and one of the girls made her a +pretty little cap to wear on her thin white hair. + + +A year went by and a quarter of the quilt was finished, a second year +passed and half was done. The third year Mehetabel had pneumonia and lay +ill for weeks and weeks, overcome with terror lest she die before her work +was completed. A fourth year and one could really see the grandeur of the +whole design; and in September of the fifth year, the entire family +watching her with eager and admiring eyes, Mehetabel quilted the last +stitches in her creation. The girls held it up by the four corners, and +they all looked at it in a solemn silence. Then Mr. Elwell smote one horny +hand within the other and exclaimed: "By ginger! That's goin' to the +county fair!" + +Mehetabel blushed a deep red at this. It was a thought which had occurred +to her in a bold moment, but she had not dared to entertain it. The family +acclaimed the idea, and one of the boys was forthwith dispatched to the +house of the neighbor who was chairman of the committee for their village. +He returned with radiant face, "Of course he'll take it. Like's not it may +git a prize, so he says; but he's got to have it right off, because all +the things are goin' to-morrow morning." + +Even in her swelling pride Mehetabel felt a pang of separation as the +bulky package was carried out of the house. As the days went on she felt +absolutely lost without her work. For years it had been her one +preoccupation, and she could not bear even to look at the little stand, +now quite bare of the litter of scraps which had lain on it so long. One +of the neighbors, who took the long journey to the fair, reported that the +quilt was hung in a place of honor in a glass case in "Agricultural Hall." +But that meant little to Mehetabel's utter ignorance of all that lay +outside of her brother's home. The family noticed the old woman's +depression, and one day Sophia said kindly, "You feel sort o' lost without +the quilt, don't you, Mehetabel?" + +"They took it away so quick!" she said wistfully; "I hadn't hardly had one +real good look at it myself." + +Mr. Elwell made no comment, but a day or two later he asked his sister how +early she could get up in the morning. + +"I dun'no'. Why?" she asked. + +"Well, Thomas Ralston has got to drive clear to West Oldton to see a +lawyer there, and that is four miles beyond the fair. He says if you can +git up so's to leave here at four in the morning he'll drive you over to +the fair, leave you there for the day, and bring you back again at night." + +Mehetabel looked at him with incredulity. It was as though someone had +offered her a ride in a golden chariot up to the gates of heaven. "Why, +you can't _mean_ it!" she cried, paling with the intensity of her emotion. +Her brother laughed a little uneasily. Even to his careless indifference +this joy was a revelation of the narrowness of her life in his home. "Oh, +'tain't so much to go to the fair. Yes, I mean it. Go git your things +ready, for he wants to start to-morrow morning." + +All that night a trembling, excited old woman lay and stared at the +rafters. She, who had never been more than six miles from home in her +life, was going to drive thirty miles away--it was like going to another +world. She who had never seen anything more exciting than church supper +was to see the county fair. To Mehetabel it was like making the tour of +the world. She had never dreamed of doing it. She could not at all imagine +what would be like. + +Nor did the exhortations of the family, as they bade good-by to her, throw +any light on her confusion. They had all been at least once to the scene +of gayety she was to visit, and as she tried to eat her breakfast they +called out conflicting advice to her till her head whirled. Sophie told +her to be sure and see the display of preserves. Her brother said not to +miss inspecting the stock, her niece said the fancywork was the only thing +worth looking at and her nephews said she must bring them home an account +of the races. The buggy drove up to the door, she was helped in, and her +wraps tucked about her. They all stood together and waved good-by to her +as she drove out of the yard. She waved back, but she scarcely saw them. +On her return home that evening she was very pale, and so tired and stiff +that her brother had to lift her out bodily, but her lips were set in a +blissful smile. They crowded around her with thronging questions, until +Sophia pushed them all aside, telling them Aunt Mehetabel was too tired to +speak until she had had her supper. This was eaten in an enforced silence +on the part of the children, and then the old woman was helped into an +easy-chair before the fire. They gathered about her, eager for news of the +great world, and Sophia said, "Now, come, Mehetabel, tell us all about +it!" + +Mehetabel drew a long breath. "It was just perfect!" she said; "finer even +than I thought. They've got it hanging up in the very middle of a sort o' +closet made of glass, and one of the lower corners is ripped and turned +back so's to show the seams on the wrong side." + +"What?" asked Sophia, a little blankly. + +"Why, the quilt!" said Mehetabel in surprise. "There are a whole lot of +other ones in that room, but not one that can hold a candle to it, if I do +say it who shouldn't. I heard lots of people say the same thing. You ought +to have heard what the women said about that corner, Sophia. They +said--well, I'd be ashamed to _tell_ you what they said. I declare if I +wouldn't!" + +Mr. Elwell asked, "What did you think of that big ox we've heard so much +about?" + +"I didn't look at the stock," returned his sister indifferently. "That set +of pieces you gave me, Maria, from your red waist, come out just lovely!" +she assured one of her nieces. "I heard one woman say you could 'most +smell the red silk roses." + +"Did any of the horses in our town race?" asked young Thomas. + +"I didn't see the races." + +"How about the preserves?" asked Sophia. + +"I didn't see the preserves," said Mehetabel calmly. + +"You see, I went right to the room where the quilt was and then I didn't +want to leave it. It had been so long since I'd seen it. I had to look at +it first real good myself and then I looked at the others to see if there +was any that could come up to it. And then the people begin comin' in and +I got so interested in hearin' what they had to say I couldn't think of +goin' anywheres else. I ate my lunch right there too, and I'm as glad as +can be I did, too; for what do you think?"--she gazed about her with +kindling eyes--"while I stood there with a sandwich in one hand didn't +the head of the hull concern come in and open the glass door and pin +'First Prize' right in the middle of the quilt!" + +There was a stir of congratulation and proud exclamation. Then Sophia +returned again to the attack, "Didn't you go to see anything else?" she +queried. + +"Why, no," said Mehetabel. "Only the quilt. Why should I?" + +She fell into a reverie where she saw again the glorious creation of her +hand and brain hanging before all the world with the mark of highest +approval on it. She longed to make her listeners see the splendid vision +with her. She struggled for words; she reached blindly after unknown +superlatives. "I tell you it looked like----" she said, and paused, +hesitating. Vague recollections of hymn-book phraseology came into her +mind, the only form of literary expression she knew; but they were +dismissed as being sacrilegious, and also not sufficiently forcible. +Finally, "I tell you it looked real _well!_" she assured them, and sat +staring into the fire, on her tired old face the supreme content of an +artist who has realized his ideal. + + + + +PORTRAIT OF A PHILOSOPHER + +I + + +The news of Professor Gridley's death filled Middletown College with +consternation. Its one claim to distinction was gone, for in spite of the +excessive quiet of his private life, he had always cast about the obscure +little college the shimmering aura of greatness. There had been no +fondness possible for the austere old thinker, but Middletown village, as +well as the college, had been touched by his fidelity to the very moderate +attractions of his birthplace. When, as often happened, some famous figure +was seen on the streets, people used to say first, "Here to see old Grid, +I suppose," and then, "Funny how he sticks here. They say he was offered +seven thousand at the University of California." In the absence of any +known motive for this steadfastness, the village legend-making instinct +had evolved a theory that he did not wish to move away from a State of +which his father had been Governor, and where the name of Gridley was like +a patent of nobility. + +And now he was gone, the last of the race. His disappearance caused the +usual amount of reminiscent talk among his neighbors. The older people +recalled the bygone scandals connected with his notorious and popular +father and intimated with knowing nods that there were plenty of other +descendants of the old Governor who were not entitled legally to bear the +name; but the younger ones, who had known only the severely ascetic life +and cold personality of the celebrated scholar, found it difficult to +connect him with such a father. In their talk they brought to mind the man +himself, his quiet shabby clothes, his big stooping frame, his sad black +eyes absent almost to vacancy as though always fixed on high and distant +thoughts; and those who had lived near him told laughing stories about the +crude and countrified simplicity of his old aunt's housekeeping--it was +said that the president of Harvard had been invited to join them once in a +Sunday evening meal of crackers and milk--but the general tenor of feeling +was, as it had been during his life, of pride in his great fame and in the +celebrated people who had come to see him. + +This pride warmed into something like affection when the day after his +death, came the tidings that he had bequeathed to his college the Gino +Sprague Fallères portrait of himself. Of course, at that time, no one in +Middletown had seen the picture, for the philosopher's sudden death had +occurred, very dramatically, actually during the last sitting. He had, in +fact, had barely one glimpse of it himself, as, according to Fallères's +invariable rule no one, not even the subject of the portrait, had been +allowed to examine an unfinished piece of work. But though Middletown had +no first-hand knowledge of the picture, there could be no doubt about the +value of the canvas. As soon as it was put on exhibition in London, from +every art-critic in the three nations who claimed Fallères for their own +there rose a wail that this masterpiece was to be buried in an unknown +college in an obscure village in barbarous America. It was confidently +stated that it would be saved from such an unfitting resting-place by +strong action on the part of an International Committee of Artists; but +Middletown, though startled by its own good fortune, clung with Yankee +tenacity to its rights. Raphael Collin, of Paris, commenting on this in +the _Revue des Deux Mondes_, cried out whimsically upon the woes of an +art-critic's life, "as if there were not already enough wearisome +pilgrimages necessary to remote and uncomfortable places with jaw-breaking +names, which must nevertheless be visited for the sake of a single +picture!" And a burlesque resolution to carry off the picture by force was +adopted at the dinner in London given in honor of Fallères the evening +before he set off for America to attend the dedicatory exercises with +which Middletown planned to install its new treasure. + +For the little rustic college rose to its one great occasion. Bold in +their confidence in their dead colleague's name, the college authorities +sent out invitations to all the great ones of the country. Those to whom +Gridley was no more than a name on volumes one never read came because +the portrait was by Fallères, and those who had no interest in the world +of art came to honor the moralist whose noble clear-thinking had +simplified the intimate problems of modern life. There was the usual +residuum of those who came because the others did, and, also as usual, +they were among the most brilliant figures in the procession which filed +along, one October morning, under the old maples of Middletown campus. + +It was a notable celebration. A bishop opened the exercises with prayer, a +United States senator delivered the eulogy of the dead philosopher, the +veil uncovering the portrait was drawn away by the mayor of one of +America's largest cities, himself an ardent Gridleyite, and among those +who spoke afterward were the presidents of three great universities. The +professor's family was represented but scantily. He had had one brother, +who had disappeared many years ago under a black cloud of ill report, and +one sister who had married and gone West to live. Her two sons, +middle-aged merchants from Ohio, gave the only personal note to the +occasion by their somewhat tongue-tied and embarrassed presence, for +Gridley's aunt was too aged and infirm to walk with the procession from +the Gymnasium, where it formed, to the Library building, where the +portrait was installed. + +After the inevitable photographers had made their records of the memorable +gathering, the procession began to wind its many-colored way back to the +Assembly Hall, where it was to lunch. Everyone was feeling relieved that +the unveiling had gone off so smoothly, and cheerful at the prospect of +food. The undergraduates began lustily to shout their college song, which +was caught up by the holiday mood of the older ones. This cheerful +tumult gradually died away in the distance, leaving the room of the +portrait deserted in an echoing silence. A janitor began to remove the +rows of folding chairs. The celebration was over. + +Into the empty room there now limped forward a small, shabby old woman +with a crutch. "I'm his aunt, that lived with him," she explained +apologetically, "and I want to see the picture." + +She advanced, peering nearsightedly at the canvas. The janitor continued +stacking up chairs until he was stopped by a cry from the newcomer. She +was a great deal paler than when she came in. She was staring hard at the +portrait and now beckoned him wildly to do the same. "Look at it! Look at +it!" + +Surprised, he followed the direction of her shaking hand. "Sure, it's +Professor Grid to the life!" he said admiringly. + +"Look at it! Look at it!" She seemed not to be able to find any other +words. + +After a prolonged scrutiny he turned to her with a puzzled line between +his eyebrows. "Since you've spoken of it, ma'am, I will say that there's a +something about the expression of the eyes ... and mouth, maybe ... that +ain't just the professor. He was more absent-like. It reminds me of +somebody else ... of some face I've seen ..." + +She hung on his answer, her mild, timid old face drawn like a mask of +tragedy. "Who? Who?" she prompted him. + +For a time he could not remember, staring at the new portrait and +scratching his head. Then it came to him suddenly: "Why, sure, I ought to +ha' known without thinkin', seeing the other picture as often as every +time I've swep' out the president's office. And Professor Grid always +looked like him some, anyhow." + +The old woman leaned against the wall, her crutch trembling in her hand. +Her eyes questioned him mutely. + +"Why, ma'am, who but his own father, to be sure ... the old Governor." + + + + +II + + +While they had been duly sensible of the luster reflected upon them by the +celebration in honor of their distinguished uncle, Professor Gridley's two +nephews could scarcely have said truthfully that they enjoyed the +occasion. As one of them did say to the other, the whole show was rather +out of their line. Their line was wholesale hardware and, being eager to +return to it, it was with a distinct feeling of relief that they waited +for the train at the station. They were therefore as much displeased as +surprised by the sudden appearance to them of their great-aunt, very +haggard, her usual extreme timidity swept away by overmastering emotion. +She clutched at the two merchants with a great sob of relief: "Stephen! +Eli! Come back to the house," she cried, and before they could stop her +was hobbling away. They hurried after her, divided between the fear of +losing their train and the hope that some inheritance from their uncle had +been found. They were not mercenary men, but they felt a not unnatural +disappointment that Professor Gridley had left not a penny, not even to +his aunt, his one intimate. + +They overtook her, scuttling along like some frightened and wounded little +animal. "What's the matter, Aunt Amelia?" they asked shortly. "We've got +to catch this train." + +She faced them. "You can't go now. You've got to make them take that +picture away." + +"Away!" Their blankness was stupefaction. + +She raged at them, the timid, harmless little thing, like a creature +distraught. "Didn't you see it? Didn't you _see_ it?" + +Stephen answered: "Well, no, not to have a good square look at it. The man +in front of me kept getting in the way." + +Eli admitted: "If you mean you don't see anything in it to make all this +hurrah about, I'm with you. It don't look half finished. I don't like that +slap-dash style." + +She was in a frenzy at their denseness. "Who did it look like?" she +challenged them. + +"Why, like Uncle Grid, of course. Who else?" + +"Yes, yes," she cried; "who else? Who else?" + +They looked at each other, afraid that she was crazed, and spoke more +gently: "Why, I don't know, I'm sure, who else. Like Grandfather Gridley, +of course; but then Uncle Grid always did look like his father." + +At this she quite definitely put it out of their power to leave her by +fainting away. + +They carried her home and laid her on her own bed, where one of them +stayed to attend her while the other went back to rescue their deserted +baggage. As the door closed behind him the old woman came to herself. "Oh, +Stephen," she moaned, "I wish it had killed me, the way it did your +uncle." + +"What _is_ the matter?" asked her great-nephew wonderingly. "What do you +think killed him?" + +"That awful, awful picture! I know it now as plain as if I'd been there. +He hadn't seen it all the time he was sitting for it, though he'd already +put in his will that he wanted the college to have it, and when he did see +it--" she turned on the merchant with a sudden fury: "How _dare_ you say +those are your uncle's eyes!" + +He put his hand soothingly on hers. "Now, now, Aunt 'Melia, maybe the +expression isn't just right, but the color is _fine_... just that +jet-black his were ... and the artist has got in exact that funny stiff +way uncle's hair stood up over his forehead." + +The old woman fixed outraged eyes upon him. "Color!" she said. "And hair! +Oh, Lord, help me!" + +She sat up on the bed, clutching her nephew's hand, and began to talk +rapidly. When, a half-hour later, the other brother returned, neither of +them heard him enter the house. It was only when he called at the foot of +the stairs that they both started and Stephen ran down to join him. + +"You'll see the president ... you'll fix it?" the old woman cried after +him. + +"I'll see, Aunt 'Melia," he answered pacifyingly, as he drew his brother +out of doors. He looked quite pale and moved, and drew a long breath +before he could begin. + + + +"Aunt Amelia's been telling me a lot of things I never knew, Eli. It seems +that ... say, did you ever hear that Grandfather Gridley, the Governor, +was such a bad lot?" + +"Why, mother never said much about her father one way or the other, but I +always sort of guessed he wasn't all he might have been from her never +bringing us on to visit here until after he died. She used to look queer, +too, when folks congratulated her on having such a famous man for father. +All the big politicians of his day thought a lot of him. He _was_ as smart +as chain-lightning!" + +"He was a disreputable old scalawag!" cried his other grandson. "Some of +the things Aunt Amelia has been telling me make me never want to come back +to this part of the country again. Do you know why Uncle Grid lived so +poor and scrimped and yet left no money? He'd been taking care of a whole +family grandfather had beside ours; and paying back some people +grandfather did out of a lot of money on a timber deal fifty years ago; +and making it up to a little village in the backwoods that grandfather +persuaded to bond itself for a railroad that he knew wouldn't go near it." + +The two men stared at each other an instant, reviewing in a new light the +life that had just closed. "That's why he never married," said Eli +finally. + +"No, that's what I said, but Aunt Amelia just went wild when I did. She +said ... gee!" he passed his hand over his eyes with a gesture of mental +confusion. "Ain't it strange what can go on under your eyes and you never +know it? Why, she says Uncle Grid was just like his father." + +The words were not out of his mouth before the other's face of horror made +him aware of his mistake. "No! No! Not that! Heavens, no! I mean ... made +like him ... _wanted_ to be that kind, 'specially drink ..." His tongue, +unused to phrasing abstractions, stumbled and tripped in his haste to +correct the other's impression. "You know how much Uncle Grid used to look +like grandfather ... the same black hair and broad face and thick red lips +and a kind of knob on the end of his nose? Well, it seems he had his +father's insides, too ... _but his mother's conscience!_ I guess, from +what Aunt Amelia says, that the combination made life about as near Tophet +for him ...! She's the only one to know anything about it, because she's +lived with him always, you know, took him when grandmother died and he was +a child. She says when he was younger he was like a man fighting a wild +beast ... he didn't dare let up or rest. Some days he wouldn't stop +working at his desk all day long, not even to eat, and then he'd grab up a +piece of bread and go off for a long tearing tramp that'd last 'most all +night. You know what a tremendous physique all the Gridley men have had. +Well, Uncle Grid turned into work all the energy the rest of them spent in +deviltry. Aunt Amelia said he'd go on like that day after day for a month, +and then he'd bring out one of those essays folks are so crazy about. She +said she never could bear to _look_ at his books ... seemed to her they +were written in his blood. She told him so once and he said it was the +only thing to do with blood like his." + +He was silent, while his listener made a clucking noise of astonishment. +"My! My! I'd have said that there never was anybody more different from +grandfather than uncle. Why, as he got on in years he didn't even look +like him any more." + +This reference gave Stephen a start. "Oh, yes, that's what all this came +out for. Aunt Amelia is just wild about this portrait. It's just a notion +of hers, of course, but after what she told me I could see, easy, how the +idea would come to her. It looks this way, she says, as though Uncle Grid +inherited his father's physical make-up complete, and spent all his life +fighting it ... and won out! And here's this picture making him look the +way he would if he'd been the worst old ... as if he'd been like the +Governor. She says she feels as though she was the only one to defend +uncle ... as if it could make any difference to him! I guess the poor old +lady is a little touched. Likely it's harder for her, losing uncle, than +we realized. She just about worshiped him. Queer business, anyhow, wasn't +it? Who'd ha' thought he was like that?" + +He had talked his unwonted emotion quite out, and now looked at his +brother with his usual matter-of-fact eye. "Did you tell the station agent +to hold the trunk?" + +The other, who was the younger, looked a little abashed. "Well, no; I +found the train was so late I thought maybe we could ... you know there's +that business to-morrow ...!" + +His senior relieved him of embarrassment. "That's a good idea. Sure we +can. There's nothing we could do if we stayed. It's just a notion of Aunt +'Melia's, anyhow. I agree with her that it don't look so awfully like +Uncle Grid, but, then, oil-portraits are never any good. Give me a +photograph!" + +"It's out of our line, anyhow," agreed the younger, looking at his watch. + + + + +III + + +The president of Middletown College had been as much relieved as pleased +by the success of the rather pretentious celebration he had planned. His +annoyance was correspondingly keen at the disturbing appearance, in the +afternoon reception before the new portrait, of the late professor's aunt, +"an entirely insignificant old country woman," he hastily assured M. +Fallères after she had been half forced, half persuaded to retire, "whose +criticisms were as negligible as her personality." + +The tall, Jove-like artist concealed a smile by stroking his great brown +beard. When it came to insignificant country people, he told himself, it +was hard to draw lines in his present company. He was wondering whether he +might not escape by an earlier train. + +To the president's remark he answered that no portrait-painter escaped +unreasonable relatives of his sitters. "It is an axiom with our guild," he +went on, not, perhaps, averse to giving his provincial hosts a new +sensation, "that the family is never satisfied, and also that the family +has no rights. A sitter is a subject only, like a slice of fish. The only +question is how it's done. What difference does it make a century from +now, if the likeness is good? It's a work of art or it's nothing." He +announced this principle with a regal absence of explanation and turned +away; but his thesis was taken up by another guest, a New York art-critic. + +"By Jove, it's inconceivable, the ignorance of art in America!" he told +the little group before the portrait. "You find everyone so incurably +personal in his point of view ... always objecting to a masterpiece +because the watch-chain isn't the kind usually worn by the dear departed." + +Someone else chimed in. "Yes, it's incredible that anyone, even an old +village granny, should be able to look at that canvas and not be struck +speechless by its quality." + +The critic was in Middletown to report on the portrait and he now began +marshaling his adjectives for that purpose. "I never saw such use of +pigment in my life ... it makes the Whistler 'Carlyle' look like burnt-out +ashes ... the luminous richness of the blacks in the academic gown, the +masterly generalization in the treatment of the hair, the placing of those +great talons of hands on the canvas carrying out the vigorous lines of the +composition, and the unforgettable felicity of those brutally red lips as +the one ringing note of color. As for life-likeness, what's the old dame +talking about! I never saw such eyes! Not a hint of meretricious emphasis +on their luster and yet they fairly flame." + +The conversation spread to a less technical discussion as the group was +joined by the professor of rhetoric, an ambitious young man with an +insatiable craving for sophistication, who felt himself for once entirely +in his element in the crowd of celebrities. "It's incredibly good luck +that our little two-for-a-cent college should have so fine a thing," he +said knowingly. "I've been wondering how such an old skinflint as Gridley +ever got the money loose to have his portrait done by--" + +A laugh went around the group at the idea. "It was Mackintosh, the sugar +king, who put up for it. He's a great Gridleyite, and persuaded him to +sit." + +"_Persuade_ a man to sit to Fallères!" The rhetoric professor was outraged +at the idea. + +"Yes, so they say. The professor was dead against it from the first. +Fallères himself had to beg him to sit. Fallères said he felt a real +inspiration at the sight of the old fellow ... knew he could make a good +thing out of him. He _was_ a good subject!" + +The little group turned and stared appraisingly at the portrait hanging so +close to them that it seemed another living being in their midst. The +rhetoric professor was asked what kind of a man the philosopher had been +personally, and answered briskly: "Oh, nobody knew him personally ... the +silent old codger. He was a dry-as-dust, bloodless, secular monk--" + +He was interrupted by a laugh from the art-critic, whose eyes were still +on the portrait. + +"Excuse me for my cynical mirth," he said, "but I must say he doesn't look +it. I was prepared for any characterization but that. He looks like a +powerful son of the Renaissance, who might have lived in that one little +vacation of the soul after medievalism stopped hag-riding us, and before +the modern conscience got its claws on us. And you say he was a blue-nosed +Puritan!" + +The professor of rhetoric looked an uneasy fear that he was being +ridiculed. "I only repeated the village notion of him," he said airily. +"He may have been anything. All I know is that he was as secretive as a +clam, and about as interesting personally." + +"Look at the picture," said the critic, still laughing; "you'll know all +about him!" + +The professor of rhetoric nodded. "You're right, he doesn't look much like +my character of him. I never seem to have had a good, square look at him +before. I've heard several people say the same thing, that they seemed to +understand him better from the portrait than from his living face. There +was something about his eyes that kept you from thinking of anything but +what he was saying." + +The critic agreed. "The eyes are wonderful ... ruthless in their +power ... fires of hell." He laughed a deprecating apology for his +overemphatic metaphor and suggested: "It's possible that there was more to +the professorial life than met the eye. Had he a wife?" + +"No; it was always a joke in the village that he would never look at a +woman." + +The critic glanced up at the smoldering eyes of the portrait and smiled. +"I've heard of that kind of a man before," he said. "Never known to drink, +either, I suppose?" + +"Cold-water teetotaler," laughed the professor, catching the spirit of the +occasion. + +"Look at the color in that nose!" said the critic. "I fancy that the +ascetic moralist--" + +A very young man, an undergraduate who had been introduced as the junior +usher, nodded his head. "Yep, a lot of us fellows always thought old Grid +a little too good to be true." + +An older man with the flexible mouth of a politician now ventured a +contribution to a conversation no longer bafflingly esthetic: "His father, +old Governor Gridley, wasn't he ... Well, I guess you're right about the +son. No halos were handed down in _that_ family!" + +The laugh which followed this speech was stopped by the approach of +Fallères, his commanding presence dwarfing the president beside him. He +was listening with a good-natured contempt to the apparently rather +anxious murmurs of the latter. + +"Of course I know, Mr. Fallères, it is a great deal to ask, but she is so +insistent ... she won't go away and continues to make the most distressing +spectacle of herself ... and several people, since she has said so much +about it, are saying that the expression is not that of the late +professor. Much against my will I promised to speak to you--" + +His mortified uneasiness was so great that the artist gave him a rescuing +hand. "Well, Mr. President, what can I do in the matter? The man is dead. +I cannot paint him over again, and if I could I would only do again as I +did this time, choose that aspect which my judgment told me would make the +best portrait. If his habitual vacant expression was not so interesting as +another not so permanent a habit of his face ... why, the poor artist must +be allowed some choice. I did not know I was to please his grandmother, +and not posterity." + +"His aunt," corrected the president automatically. + +The portrait-painter accepted the correction with his tolerant smile. "His +aunt," he repeated. "The difference is considerable. May I ask what it was +you promised her?" + +The president summoned his courage. It was easy to gather from his +infinitely reluctant insistence how painful and compelling had been the +scene which forced him to action. "She wants you to change it ... to make +the expression of the--" + +For the first time the artist's equanimity was shaken. He took a step +backward. "Change it!" he said, and although his voice was low the casual +chat all over the room stopped short as though a pistol had been fired. + +"It's not _my_ idea!" The president confounded himself in +self-exoneration. "I merely promised, to pacify her, to ask you if you +could not do some little thing that would--" + +The critic assumed the role of conciliator. "My dear sir, I don't believe +you quite understand what you are asking. It's as though you asked a +priest to make just a little change in the church service and leave out +the 'not' in the Commandments." + +"I only wish to know Mr. Fallères's attitude," said the president stiffly, +a little nettled by the other's note of condescension. "I presume he will +be willing to take the responsibility of it himself and explain to the +professor's aunt that _I_ have done--" + +The artist had recovered from his lapse from Olympian to calm and now +nodded, smiling: "Dear me, yes, Mr. President, I'm used to irate +relatives." + +The president hastened away and the knots of talkers in other parts of the +room, who had been looking with expectant curiosity at the group before +the portrait, resumed their loud-toned chatter. When their attention was +next drawn in the same direction, it was by a shaky old treble, breaking, +quavering with weakness. A small, shabby old woman, leaning on a crutch, +stood looking up imploringly at the tall painter. + +"My dear madam," he broke in on her with a kindly impatience, "all that +you say about Professor Gridley is much to his credit, but what has it to +do with me?" + +"You painted his portrait," she said with a simplicity that was like +stupidity. "And I am his aunt. You made a picture of a bad man. I know he +was a good man." + +"I painted what I saw," sighed the artist wearily. He looked furtively at +his watch. + +The old woman seemed dazed by the extremity of her emotion. She looked +about her silently, keeping her eyes averted from the portrait that stood +so vividly like a living man beside her. "I don't know what to do!" she +murmured with a little moan. "I can't _bear_ it to have it stay +here--people forget so. Everybody'll think that Gridley looked like +_that_! And there isn't anybody but me. He never had anybody but me." + +The critic tried to clear the air by a roundly declaratory statement of +principles. "You'll pardon my bluntness, madam; but you must remember that +none but the members of Professor Gridley's family are concerned in the +exact details of his appearance. Fifty years from now nobody will remember +how he looked, one way or the other. The world is only concerned with +portraits as works of art." + +She followed his reasoning with a strained and docile attention and now +spoke eagerly as though struck by an unexpected hope: "If that's all, why +put his name to it? Just hang it up, and call it anything." + +She shrank together timidly and her eyes reddened at the laughter which +greeted this naïve suggestion. + +Fallères looked annoyed and called his +defender off. "Oh, never mind explaining me," he said, snapping his watch +shut. "You'll never get the rights of it through anybody's head who hasn't +himself sweat blood over a composition only to be told that the other side +of the sitter's profile is usually considered the prettier. After all, we +have the last word, since the sitter dies and the portrait lives." + +The old woman started and looked at him attentively. + +"Yes," said the critic, laughing, "immortality's not a bad balm for +pin-pricks." + +The old woman turned very pale and for the first time looked again at the +portrait. An electric thrill seemed to pass through her as her eyes +encountered the bold, evil ones fixed on her. She stood erect with a rigid +face, and "Immortality!" she said, under her breath. + +Fallères moved away to make his adieux to the president, and the little +group of his satellites straggled after him to the other end of the room. +For a moment there no one near the old woman to see the crutch furiously +upraised, hammer-like, or to stop her sudden passionate rush upon the +picture. + +At the sound of cracking cloth, they turned back, horrified. They saw her, +with an insane violence, thrust her hands into the gaping hole that had +been the portrait's face and, tearing the canvas from end to end, fall +upon the shreds with teeth and talon. + +All but Fallères flung themselves toward her, dragging her away. With a +movement as instinctive he rushed for the picture, and it was to him, as +he stood aghast before the ruined canvas, that the old woman's shrill +treble was directed, above the loud shocked voices of those about her: +"There ain't anything immortal but souls!" she cried. + + + + +FLINT AND FIRE + + +My husband's cousin had come up from the city, slightly more fagged and +sardonic than usual, and as he stretched himself out in the big +porch-chair he was even more caustic than was his wont about the bareness +and emotional sterility of the lives of our country people. + +"Perhaps they had, a couple of centuries ago, when the Puritan +hallucination was still strong, a certain fierce savor of religious +intolerance; but now that that has died out, and no material prosperity +has come to let them share in the larger life of their century, there is a +flatness, a mean absence of warmth or color, a deadness to all emotions +but the pettiest sorts--" + +I pushed the pitcher nearer him, clinking the ice invitingly, and directed +his attention to our iris-bed as a more cheerful object of contemplation +than the degeneracy of the inhabitants of Vermont. The flowers burned on +their tall stalks like yellow tongues of flame. The strong, sword-like +green leaves thrust themselves boldly up into the spring air like a +challenge. The plants vibrated with vigorous life. + +In the field beyond them, as vigorous as they, strode Adoniram Purdon +behind his team, the reins tied together behind his muscular neck, his +hands grasping the plow with the masterful sureness of the successful +practitioner of an art. The hot, sweet spring sunshine shone down on +'Niram's head with its thick crest of brown hair, the ineffable odor of +newly turned earth steamed up about him like incense, the mountain stream +beyond him leaped and shouted. His powerful body answered every call made +on it with the precision of a splendid machine. But there was no elation +in the grimly set face as 'Niram wrenched the plow around a big stone, or +as, in a more favorable furrow, the gleaming share sped steadily along +before the plowman, turning over a long, unbroken brown ribbon of earth. + +My cousin-in-law waved a nervous hand toward the sternly silent figure as +it stepped doggedly behind the straining team, the head bent forward, the +eyes fixed on the horses' heels. + +"There!" he said. "There is an example of what I mean. Is there another +race on earth which could produce a man in such a situation who would not +on such a day sing, or whistle, or at least hold up his head and look at +all the earthly glories about him?" + +I was silent, but not for lack of material for speech. 'Niram's reasons +for austere self-control were not such as I cared to discuss with a man of +my cousin's mental attitude. As we sat looking at him the noon whistle +from the village blew and the wise old horses stopped in the middle of a +furrow. 'Niram unharnessed them, led them to the shade of a tree, and put +on their nose-bags. Then he turned and came toward the house. + +"Don't I seem to remember," murmured my cousin under his breath, "that, +even though he is a New-Eng-lander, he has been known to make up errands +to your kitchen to see your pretty Ev'leen Ann?" + +I looked at him hard; but he was only gazing down, rather cross-eyed, on +his grizzled mustache, with an obvious petulant interest in the increase +of white hairs in it. Evidently his had been but a chance shot. 'Niram +stepped up on the grass at the edge of the porch. He was so tall that he +overtopped the railing easily, and, reaching a long arm over to where I +sat, he handed me a small package done up in yellowish tissue-paper. +Without hat-raisings, or good-mornings, or any other of the greetings +usual in a more effusive civilization, he explained briefly: + +"My stepmother wanted I should give you this. She said to thank you for +the grape-juice." As he spoke he looked at me gravely out of deep-set blue +eyes, and when he had delivered his message he held his peace. + +I expressed myself with the babbling volubility of one whose manners have +been corrupted by occasional sojourns in the city. "Oh, 'Niram!" I cried +protestingly, as I opened the package and took out an exquisitely +wrought old-fashioned collar. "Oh, 'Niram! How _could_ your stepmother +give such a thing away? Why, it must be one of her precious old relics. I +don't _want_ her to give me something every time I do some little thing +for her. Can't a neighbor send her in a few bottles of grape-juice without +her thinking she must pay it back somehow? It's not kind of her. She has +never yet let me do the least thing for her without repaying me with +something that is worth ever so much more than my trifling services." + +When I had finished my prattling, 'Niram repeated, with an accent of +finality, "She wanted I should give it to you." + +The older man stirred in his chair. Without looking at him I knew that his +gaze on the young rustic was quizzical and that he was recording on the +tablets of his merciless memory the ungraceful abruptness of the other's +action and manner. + +"How is your stepmother feeling to-day, 'Niram?" I asked. + +"Worse." + +'Niram came to a full stop with the word. My cousin covered his satirical +mouth with his hand. + +"Can't the doctor do anything to relieve her?" I asked. + +'Niram moved at last from his Indian-like immobility. He looked up under +the brim of his felt hat at the skyline of the mountain, shimmering +iridescent above us. "He says maybe 'lectricity would help her some. I'm +goin' to git her the batteries and things soon's I git the rubber bandages +paid for." + +There was a long silence. My cousin stood up, yawning, and sauntered away +toward the door. "Shall I send Ev'leen Ann out to get the pitcher and +glasses?" he asked in an accent which he evidently thought very humorously +significant. + +The strong face under the felt hat turned white, the jaw muscles set hard, +but for all this show of strength there was an instant when the man's eyes +looked out with the sick, helpless revelation of pain they might have had +when 'Niram was a little boy of ten, a third of his present age, and less +than half his present stature. Occasionally it is horrifying to see how a +chance shot rings the bell. + +"No, no! Never mind!" I said hastily. "I'll take the tray in when I go." + +Without salutation or farewell 'Niram Purdon turned and went back to his +work. + +The porch was an enchanted place, walled around with starlit darkness, +visited by wisps of breezes shaking down from their wings the breath of +lilac and syringa, flowering wild grapes, and plowed fields. Down at the +foot of our sloping lawn the little river, still swollen by the melted +snow from the mountains, plunged between its stony banks and shouted its +brave song to the stars. + +We three middle-aged people--Paul, his cousin, and I--had disposed our +uncomely, useful, middle-aged bodies in the big wicker chairs and left +them there while our young souls wandered abroad in the sweet, dark glory +of the night. At least Paul and I were doing this, as we sat, hand in +hand, thinking of a May night twenty years before. One never knows what +Horace is thinking of, but apparently he was not in his usual captious +vein, for after a long pause he remarked, "It is a night almost +indecorously inviting to the making of love." + +My answer seemed grotesquely out of key with this, but its sequence was +clear in my mind. I got up, saying: "Oh, that reminds me--I must go and +see Ev'leen Ann. I'd forgotten to plan to-morrow's dinner." + +"Oh, everlastingly Ev'leen Ann!" mocked Horace from his corner. "Can't you +think of anything but Ev'leen Ann and her affairs?" + +I felt my way through the darkness of the house, toward the kitchen, both +doors of which were tightly closed. When I stepped into the hot, close +room, smelling of food and fire, I saw Ev'leen Ann sitting on the straight +kitchen chair, the yellow light of the bracket-lamp beating down on her +heavy braids and bringing out the exquisitely subtle modeling of her +smooth young face. Her hands were folded in her lap. She was staring at +the blank wall, and the expression of her eyes so startle and shocked me +that I stopped short and would have retreated if it had not been too late. +She had seen me, roused herself, and said quietly, as though continuing +conversation interrupted the moment before: + +"I had been thinking that there was enough left of the roast to make +hash-balls for dinner"--"hash-balls" is Ev'leen Ann's decent Anglo-Saxon +name for croquette--"and maybe you'd like a rhubarb pie." + +I knew well enough she had been thinking of no such thing, but I could as +easily have slapped a reigning sovereign on the back as broken in on the +regal reserve of Ev'leen Ann in her clean gingham. + +"Well, yes, Ev'leen Ann," I answered in her own tone of reasonable +consideration of the matter; "that would be nice, and your pie-crust is so +flaky that even Mr. Horace will have to be pleased." + +"Mr. Horace" is our title for the sardonic cousin whose carping ways are +half a joke, and half a menace in our family. + +Ev'leen Ann could not manage the smile which should have greeted this +sally. She looked down soberly at the white-pine top of the kitchen table +and said, "I guess there is enough sparrow-grass up in the garden for a +mess, too, if you'd like that." + +"That would taste very good," I agreed, my heart aching for her. + +"And creamed potatoes," she finished bravely, thrusting my unspoken pity +from her. + +"You know I like creamed potatoes better than any other kind," I +concurred. + +There was a silence. It seemed inhuman to go and leave the stricken young +thing to fight her trouble alone in the ugly prison, her work-place, +though I thought I could guess why Ev'leen Ann had shut the doors so +tightly. I hung near her, searching my head for something to say, but she +helped me by no casual remark. Niram is not the only one of our people who +possesses so the full the supreme gift of silence. Finally I mentioned the +report of a case of measles in the village, and Ev'leen Ann responded in +kind with the news that her Aunt Emma had bought a potato-planter. Ev'leen +Ann is an orphan, brought up by a well-to-do spinster aunt, who is +strong-minded and runs her own farm. After a time we glided by way of +similar transitions to the mention of his name. + +"'Niram Purdon tells me his stepmother is no better," I said. "Isn't it +too bad?" I thought it well for Ev'leen Ann to be dragged out of her black +cave of silence once in a while, even if it could be done only by force. +As she made no answer, I went on. "Everybody who knows Niram thinks it +splendid of him to do so much for his stepmother." + +Ev'leen Ann responded with a detached air, as though speaking of a matter +in China: "Well, it ain't any more than what he should. She was awful good +to him when he was little and his father got so sick. I guess 'Niram +wouldn't ha' had much to eat if she hadn't ha' gone out sewing to earn it +for him and Mr. Purdon." She added firmly, after a moment's pause, "No, +ma'am, I don't guess it's any more than what 'Niram had ought to do." + +"But it's very hard on a young man to feel that he's not able to marry," I +continued. Once in a great while we came so near the matter as this. +Ev'leen Ann made no answer. Her face took on a pinched look of sickness. +She set her lips as though she would never speak again. But I knew that a +criticism of 'Niram would always rouse her, and said: "And really, I think +'Niram makes a great mistake to act as he does. A wife would be a help to +him. She could take care of Mrs. Purdon and keep the house." + +Ev'leen Ann rose to the bait, speaking quickly with some heat: "I guess +'Niram knows what's right for him to do! He can't afford to marry when he +can't even keep up with the doctor's bills and all. He keeps the house +himself, nights and mornings, and Mrs. Purdon is awful handy about taking +care of herself, for all she's bedridden. That's her way, you know. She +can't bear to have folks do for her. She'd die before she'd let anybody do +anything for her that she could anyways do for herself!" + +I sighed acquiescingly. Mrs. Purdon's fierce independence was a rock on +which every attempt at sympathy or help shattered itself to atoms. There +seemed to be no other emotion left in her poor old work-worn shell of a +body. As I looked at Ev'leen Ann it seemed rather a hateful +characteristic, and I remarked, "It seems to me it's asking a good deal of +'Niram to spoil his life in order that his stepmother can go on pretending +she's independent." + +Ev'leen Ann explained hastily: "Oh, 'Niram doesn't tell her anything +about--She doesn't know he would like to--he don't want she should be +worried--and, anyhow, as 'tis, he can't earn enough to keep ahead of all +the: doctors cost." + +"But the right kind of a wife--a good, competent girl--could help out by +earning something, too." + +Ev'leen Ann looked at me forlornly, with no surprise. The idea was +evidently not new to her. "Yes, ma'am, he could. But 'Niram says he ain't +the kind of man to let his wife go out working." Even while she drooped +under the killing verdict of his pride she was loyal to his standards +and uttered no complaint. She went on, 'Niram wants Aunt Em'line to have +things the way she wants 'em, as near as he can give 'em to her--and it's +right she should." + +"Aunt Emeline?" I repeated, surprised at her absence of mind. "You mean +Mrs. Purdon, don't you?" + +Ev'leen Ann looked vexed at her slip, but she scorned to attempt any +concealment. She explained dryly, with the shy, stiff embarrassment our +country people have in speaking of private affairs: "Well, she _is_ my +Aunt Em'line, Mrs. Purdon is, though I don't hardly ever call her that. +You see, Aunt Emma brought me up, and she and Aunt Em'line don't have +anything to do with each other. They were twins, and when they were girls +they got edgeways over 'Niram's father, when 'Niram was a baby and his +father was a young widower and come courting. Then Aunt Em'line married +him, and Aunt Emma never spoke to her afterward." + +Occasionally, in walking unsuspectingly along one of our leafy lanes, some +such fiery geyser of ancient heat uprears itself in a boiling column. I +never get used to it, and started back now. + +"Why, I never heard of that before, and I've known your Aunt Emma and Mrs. +Purdon for years!" + +"Well, they're pretty old now," said Ev'leen Ann listlessly, with the +natural indifference of self-centered youth to the bygone tragedies of the +preceding generation. + +"It happened quite some time ago. And both of them were so touchy, if +anybody seemed to speak about it, that folks got in the way of letting it +alone. First Aunt Emma wouldn't speak to her sister because she'd married +the man she'd wanted, and then when Aunt Emma made out so well farmin' and +got so well off, why, then Mrs. Purdon wouldn't try to make it up because +she was so poor. That was after Mr. Purdon had had his stroke of paralysis +and they'd lost their farm and she'd taken to goin' out sewin'--not but +what she was always perfectly satisfied with her bargain. She always acted +as though she'd rather have her husband's old shirt stuffed with straw +than any other man's whole body. He was a real nice man, I guess, Mr. +Purdon was." + +There I had it--the curt, unexpanded chronicle of two passionate lives. +And there I had also the key to Mrs. Purdon's fury of independence. It was +the only way in which she could defend her husband against the charge, so +damning in her world, of not having provided for his wife. It was the only +monument she could rear to her husband's memory. And her husband had been +all there was in life for her! + +I stood looking at her young kinswoman's face, noting the granite under +the velvet softness of its youth, and divining the flame underlying the +granite. I longed to break through her wall and to put my arms about her, +and on the impulse of the moment I cast aside the pretense of casualness +in our talk. + +"Oh, my dear!" I said. "Are you and 'Niram always to go on like this? +Can't anybody help you?" + +Ev'leen Ann looked at me, her face suddenly old and gray. "No, ma'am; we +ain't going to go on this way. We've decided, 'Niram and I have, that it +ain't no use. We've decided that we'd better not go places together any +more or see each other. It's too--If 'Niram thinks we can't"--she flamed +so that I knew she was burning from head to foot--"it's better for us +not--" She ended in a muffled voice, hiding her face in the crook of +her arm. + +Ah, yes; now I knew why Ev'leen Ann had shut out the passionate breath of +the spring night! + +I stood near her, a lump in my throat, but I divined the anguish of her +shame at her involuntary self-revelation, and respected it. I dared do no +more than to touch her shoulder gently. + +The door behind us rattled. Ev'leen Ann sprang up and turned her face +toward the wall. Paul's cousin came in, shuffling a little, blinking his +eyes in the light of the unshaded lamp, and looking very cross and tired. +He glanced at us without comment as he went over to the sink. "Nobody +offered me anything good to drink," he complained, "so I came in to get +some water from the faucet for my nightcap." + +When he had drunk with ostentation from the tin dipper he went to the +outside door and flung it open. + +"Don't you people know how hot and smelly it is in here?" he said, with +his usual unceremonious abruptness. + +The night wind burst in, eddying, and puffed out the lamp with a breath. +In an instant the room was filled with coolness and perfumes and the +rushing sound of the river. Out of the darkness came Ev'leen Ann's young +voice. "It seems to me," she said, as though speaking to herself, "that I +never heard the Mill Brook sound loud as it has this spring." + +I woke up that night with the start one has at a sudden call. But there +had been no call. A profound silence spread itself through the sleeping +house. Outdoors the wind had died down. Only the loud brawl of the river +broke the stillness under the stars. But all through the silence and this +vibrant song there rang a soundless menace which brought me out of bed and +to my feet before I was awake. I heard Paul say, "What's the matter?" in a +sleepy voice, and "Nothing," I answered, reaching for my dressing-gown and +slippers. I listened for a moment, my head ringing with all the +frightening tales of the morbid vein of violence which runs through the +character of our reticent people. There was still no sound. I went along +the hall and up the stairs to Ev'leen Ann room, and I opened the door +without knocking. The room was empty. + +Then how I ran! Calling loudly for Paul to join me, I ran down the two +flights of stairs, out of the open door and along the hedged path which +leads down to the little river. The starlight was clear. I could see +everything as plainly as though in early dawn. I saw the river, and +saw--Ev'leen Ann! + +There was a dreadful moment of horror, which I shall never remember very +clearly, and then Ev'leen Ann and I--both very wet--stood on the bank, +shuddering in each other's arms. + +Into our hysteria there dropped, like a pungent caustic the arid voice of +Horace, remarking, "Well, are you two people crazy, or are you walking in +your sleep?" I could feel Ev'leen Ann stiffen in my arms, and I nearly +stepped back from her in astonished admiration as I heard her snatch at +the straw thus offered, and still shuddering horribly from head to foot, +force herself to say quite connectedly: "Why--yes--of course--I've always +heard about my grandfather Parkman's walking in his sleep. Folks _said_ +'twould come out in the family some time." + +Paul was close behind Horace--I wondered a little at his not being +first--and with many astonished and inane ejaculations, such as people +always make on startling occasions, we made our way back into the house to +hot blankets and toddies. But I slept no more that night. Some time after +dawn, however, I did fall into a troubled unconsciousness full of bad +dreams, and only awoke when the sun was quite high. I opened my eyes +to see Ev'leen Ann about to close the door. "Oh, did I wake you up?" she +said. "I didn't mean to. That little Harris boy is here with a letter for +you." + +She spoke with a slightly defiant tone of self-possession. I tried to play +up to her interpretation of her role. "The little Harris boy?" I said, +sitting up in bed. "What in the world is he bringing me a letter for?" +Ev'leen Ann, with her usual clear perception of the superfluous in +conversation, vouchsafed no opinion on a matter where she had no +information, but went downstairs and brought back the note. It was of four +lines, and--surprisingly enough--from old Mrs. Purdon, who asked me +abruptly if I would have my husband take me to see her. She specified, and +underlined the specification, that I was to come "right off, and in the +automobile." Wondering extremely at this mysterious bidding I sought out +Paul, who obediently cranked up our small car and carried me off. There +was no sign of Horace about the house, but some distance on the other side +of the village we saw his tall, stooping figure swinging along the road. +He carried a cane and was characteristically occupied in violently +switching off the heads from the wayside weeds as he walked. He refused +our offer to take him in, alleging that he was out for exercise and to +reduce his flesh--an ancient jibe at his bony frame which made him for an +instant show a leathery smile. + +There was, of course, no one at Mrs. Purdon's to let us into the tiny, +three-roomed house, since the bedridden invalid spent her days there alone +while 'Niram worked his team on other people's fields. Not knowing what we +might find, Paul stayed outside in the car, while I stepped inside in +answer to Mrs. Purdon's "Come _in_, why don't you!" which sounded quite as +dry as usual. But when I saw her I knew that things were not as usual. + +She lay flat on her back, the little emaciated wisp of humanity, hardly +raising the piecework quilt enough to make the bed seem occupied, and to +account for the thin, worn old face on the pillow. But as I entered the +room her eyes seized on mine, and I was aware of nothing but them and some +fury of determination behind them. With a fierce heat of impatience at my +first natural but quickly repressed exclamation of surprise she explained +briefly that she wanted Paul to lift her into the automobile and take her +into the next township to the Hulett farm. "I'm so shrunk away to nothin', +I know I can lay on the back seat if I crook myself up," she said, with a +cool accent but a rather shaky voice. Seeming to realize that even her +intense desire to strike the matter-of-fact note could not take the place +of any and all explanation of her extraordinary request, she added, +holding my eyes steady with her own: "Emma Hulett's my twin sister. I +guess it ain't so queer, my wanting to see her." + +I thought, of course, we +were to be used as the medium for some strange, sudden family +reconciliation, and went out to ask Paul if he thought he could carry the +old invalid to the car. He replied that, so far as that went, he could +carry so thin an old body ten times around the town, but that he refused +absolutely to take such a risk without authorization from her doctor. I +remembered the burning eyes of resolution I had left inside, and sent him +to present his objections to Mrs. Purdon herself. + +In a few moments I saw +him emerge from the house with the old woman in his arms. He had evidently +taken her up just as she lay. The piecework quilt hung down in long folds, +flashing its brilliant reds and greens in the sunshine, which shone so +strangely upon the pallid old countenance, facing the open sky for the +first time in years. + +We drove in silence through the green and gold lyric of the spring day, +an elderly company sadly out of key with the triumphant note of eternal +youth which rang through all the visible world. Mrs. Purdon looked at +nothing, said nothing, seemed to be aware of nothing but the purpose in +her heart, whatever that might be. Paul and I, taking a leaf from our +neighbors' book, held, with a courage like theirs, to their excellent +habit of saying nothing when there is nothing to say. We arrived at the +fine old Hulett place without the exchange of a single word. + +"Now carry me in," said Mrs. Purdon briefly, evidently hoarding her +strength. + +"Wouldn't I better go and see if Miss Hulett is at home?" I asked. + +Mrs. Purdon shook her head impatiently and turned her compelling eyes on +my husband, I went up the path before them to knock at the door, wondering +what the people in the house would possibly be thinking of us There was no +answer to my knock. "Open the door and go in," commanded Mrs. Purdon from +out her quilt. + +There was no one in the spacious, white-paneled hall and no sound in all +the big, many-roomed house. + +"Emma's out feeding the hens," conjectured Mrs. Purdon, not, I fancied, +without a faint hint of relief in her voice. "Now carry me up-stairs to +the first room on the right." + +Half hidden by his burden, Paul rolled wildly inquiring eyes at me; but he +obediently staggered up the broad old staircase, and, waiting till I had +opened the first door to the right, stepped into the big bedroom. + +"Put me down on the bed, and open them shutters," Mrs. Purdon commanded. + +She still marshaled her forces with no lack of decision, but with a +fainting voice which made me run over to her quickly as Paul laid her down +on the four-poster. Her eyes were still indomitable, but her mouth hung +open slackly and her color was startling. "Oh, Paul, quick! quick! Haven't +you your flask with you?" + +Mrs. Purdon informed me in a barely audible whisper, "In the corner +cupboard at the head of the stairs," and I flew down the hallway. I +returned with a bottle, evidently of great age. There was only a little +brandy in the bottom, but it whipped up a faint color into the sick +woman's lips. + +As I was bending over her and Paul was thrusting open the shutters, +letting in a flood of sunshine and flecky leaf-shadows, a firm, rapid step +came down the hall, and a vigorous woman, with a tanned face and a clean, +faded gingham dress, stopped short in the doorway with an expression of +stupefaction. + +Mrs. Purdon put me on one side, and although she was physically incapable +of moving her body by a hair's breadth, she gave the effect of having +risen to meet the newcomer. "Well, Emma, here I am," she said in a queer +voice, with involuntary quavers in it. As she went on she had it more +under control, although in the course of her extraordinarily succinct +speech it broke and failed her occasionally. When it did, she drew in her +breath with an audible, painful effort, struggling forward steadily in +what she had to say. "You see, Emma, it's this way: My 'Niram and your +Ev'leen Ann have been keeping company--ever since they went to school +together--you know that's well as I do, for all we let on we didn't, only +I didn't know till just now how hard they took it. They can't get married +because 'Niram can't keep even, let alone get ahead any, because I cost so +much bein' sick, and the doctor says I may live for years this way, same's +Aunt Hettie did. An' 'Niram is thirty-one, an' Ev'leen Ann is +twenty-eight, an' they've had 'bout's much waitin' as is good for folks +that set such store by each other. I've thought of every way out of +it--and there ain't any. The Lord knows I don't enjoy livin' any, not so's +to notice the enjoyment, and I'd thought of cutting my throat like Uncle +Lish, but that'd make 'Niram and Ev'leen Ann feel so--to think why I'd +done it; they'd never take the comfort they'd ought in bein' married; so +that won't do. There's only one thing to do. I guess you'll have to take +care of me till the Lord calls me. Maybe I won't last so long as the +doctor thinks." + +When she finished, I felt my ears ringing in the silence. She had walked +to the sacrificial altar with so steady a step, and laid upon it her +precious all with so gallant a front of quiet resolution, that for an +instant I failed to take in the sublimity of her self-immolation. Mrs. +Purdon asking for charity! And asking the one woman who had most reason to +refuse it to her. + +Paul looked at me miserably, the craven desire to escape a scene written +all over him. "Wouldn't we better be going, Mrs. Purdon?" I said uneasily. +I had not ventured to look at the woman in the doorway. + +Mrs. Purdon motioned me to remain, with an imperious gesture whose +fierceness showed the tumult underlying her brave front. "No; I want you +should stay. I want you should hear what I say, so's you can tell folks, +if you have to. Now, look here, Emma," she went on to the other, still +obstinately silent; "you must look at it the way 'tis. We're neither of us +any good to anybody, the way we are--and I'm dreadfully in the way of the +only two folks we care a pin about--either of us. You've got plenty to do +with, and nothing to spend it on. I can't get myself out of their way by +dying without going against what's Scripture and proper, but--" Her steely +calm broke. She burst out in a screaming, hysterical voice: "You've just +_got_ to, Emma Hulett! You've just _got_ to! If you don't, I won't never +go back to 'Niram's house! I'll lie in the ditch by the roadside till the +poor-master comes to git me--and I'll tell everybody that it's because my +own twin sister, with a house and a farm and money in the bank, turned me +out to starve--" A fearful spasm cut her short. She lay twisted and limp, +the whites of her eyes showing between the lids. + +"Good God, she's gone!" cried Paul, running to the bed. + +I was aware that the woman in the doorway had relaxed her frozen +immobility and was between Paul and me as we rubbed the thin, icy hands +and forced brandy between the flaccid lips. We all three thought her dead +or dying, and labored over her with the frightened thankfulness for one +another's living presence which always marks that dreadful moment. But +even as we fanned and rubbed, and cried out to one another to open the +windows and to bring water, the blue lips moved to a ghostly whisper: "Em, +listen--" The old woman went back to the nickname of their common youth. +"Em--your Ev'leen Ann--tried to drown herself--in the Mill Brook last +night ... That's what decided me--to--" And then we were plunged into +another desperate struggle with Death for the possession of the battered +old habitation of the dauntless soul before us. + +"Isn't there any hot water in the house?" cried Paul, and "Yes, yes; a +tea-kettle on the stove!" answered the woman who labored with us. Paul, +divining that she meant the kitchen, fled down-stairs. I stole a look at +Emma Hulett's face as she bent over the sister she had not seen in thirty +years, and I knew that Mrs. Purdon's battle was won. It even seemed that +she had won another skirmish in her never-ending war with death, for a +little warmth began to come back into her hands. + +When Paul returned with the tea-kettle, and a hot-water bottle had been +filled, the owner of the house straightened herself, assumed her rightful +position as mistress of the situation, and began to issue commands. "You +git right in the automobile, and go git the doctor," she told Paul. +"That'll be the quickest. She's better now, and your wife and I can keep +her goin' till the doctor gits here." + +As Paul left the room she snatched something white from a bureau-drawer, +stripped the worn, patched old cotton nightgown from the skeleton-like +body, and, handling the invalid with a strong, sure touch, slipped on a +soft, woolly outing-flannel wrapper with a curious trimming of zigzag +braid down the front. Mrs. Purdon opened her eyes very slightly, but shut +them again at her sister's quick command, "You lay still, Em'line, and +drink some of this brandy." She obeyed without comment, but after a pause +she opened her eyes again and looked down at the new garment which clad +her. She had that moment turned back from the door of death, but her first +breath was used to set the scene for a return to a decent decorum. + +"You're still a great hand for rick-rack work, Em, I see," she murmured in +a faint whisper. "Do you remember how surprised Aunt Su was when you made +up a pattern?" + +"Well, I hadn't thought of it for quite some time," returned Miss Hulett, +in exactly the same tone of everyday remark. As she spoke she slipped her +arm under the other's head and poked the pillow up to a more comfortable +shape. "Now you lay perfectly still," she commanded in the hectoring tone +of the born nurse; "I'm goin' to run down and make you up a good hot cup +of sassafras tea." + +I followed her down into the kitchen and was met by the same refusal to +be melodramatic which I had encountered in Ev'leen Ann. I was most anxious +to know what version of my extraordinary morning I was to give out to the +world, but hung silent, positively abashed by the cool casualness of the +other woman as she mixed her brew. Finally, "Shall I tell 'Niram--What +shall I say to Ev'leen Ann? If anybody asks me--" I brought out with +clumsy hesitation. + +At the realization that her reserve and family pride were wholly at the +mercy of any report I might choose to give, even my iron hostess faltered. +She stopped short in the middle of the floor, looked at me silently, +piteously, and found no word. + +I hastened to assure her that I would attempt no hateful picturesqueness +of narration. "Suppose I just say that you were rather lonely here, now +that Ev'leen Ann has left you, and that you thought it would be nice to +have your sister come to stay with you, so that 'Niram and Ev'leen Ann can +be married?" + +Emma Hulett breathed again. She walked toward the stairs with the steaming +cup in her hand. Over her shoulder she remarked, "Well, yes, ma'am; that +would be as good a way to put it as any, I guess." + +'Niram and Ev'leen Ann were standing up to be married. They looked very +stiff and self-conscious, and Ev'leen Ann was very pale. 'Niram's big +hands, bent in the crook of a man who handles tools, hung down by his new +black trousers. Ev'leen Ann's strong fingers stood out stiffly from one +another. They looked hard at the minister and repeated after him in low +and meaningless tones the solemn and touching words of the marriage +service. Back of them stood the wedding company, in freshly washed and +ironed white dresses, new straw hats, and black suits smelling of camphor. +In the background, among the other elders, stood Paul and Horace and I--my +husband and I hand in hand; Horace twiddling the black ribbon which holds +his watch, and looking bored. Through the open windows into the stuffiness +of the best room came an echo of the deep organ note of midsummer. + +"Whom God hath joined together--" said the minister, and the epitome of +humanity which filled the room held its breath--the old with a wonder upon +their life-scarred faces, the young half frightened to feel the stir of +the great wings soaring so near them. + +Then it was all over. 'Niram and Ev'leen Ann were married, and the rest of +us were bustling about to serve the hot biscuit and coffee and chicken +salad, and to dish up the ice-cream. Afterward there were no citified +refinements of cramming rice down the necks of the departing pair or tying +placards to the carriage in which they went away. Some of the men went out +to the barn and hitched up for 'Niram, and we all went down to the gate to +see them drive off. They might have been going for one of their Sunday +afternoon "buggy-rides" except for the wet eyes of the foolish women and +girls who stood waving their hands in answer to the flutter of Ev'leen +Ann's handkerchief as the carriage went down the hill. + +We had nothing to say to one another after they left, and began soberly to +disperse to our respective vehicles. But as I was getting into our car a +new thought suddenly struck me. + +"Why," I cried, "I never thought of it before! However in the world did +old Mrs. Purdon know about Ev'leen Ann--that night?" + +Horace was pulling at the door, which was badly adjusted and shut hard. He +closed it with a vicious slam. "_I_ told her," he said crossly. + + + + +A SAINT'S HOURS + + + In the still cold before the sun + HER LAUDS Her brothers and her sisters small + She woke, and washed and dressed each one. + + And through the morning hours all, + PRIME Singing above her broom, she stood + And swept the house from hall to hall. + + At noon she ran with tidings good + TERCE Across the field and down the lane + To share them with the neighborhood. + + Four miles she walked and home again, + SEXT To sit through half the afternoon + And hear a feeble crone complain; + + But when she saw the frosty moon + NONES And lakes of shadow on the hill + Her maiden dreams grew bright as noon. + + She threw her pitying apron frill + VESPERS Over a little trembling mouse + When the sleek cat yawned on the sill, + + In the late hours and drowsy house. + COMPLINE At last, too tired, beside her bed + She fell asleep ... her prayers half said. + + + + +IN MEMORY OF L.H.W. + + +He began life characteristically, depreciated and disparaged. When he was +a white, thin, big-headed baby, his mother, stripping the suds from her +lean arms, used to inveigh to her neighbors against his existence. "Wa'n't +it just like that _do_-less Lem Warren, not even to leave me foot-free +when he died, but a baby coming!" + +"_Do_-less," in the language of our valley, means a combination of +shiftless and impractical, particularly to be scorned. + +Later, as he began to have some resemblance to the appearance he was to +wear throughout life, her resentment at her marriage, which she considered +the one mistake of her life, kept pace with his growth. "Look at him!" she +cried to anyone who would listen. "Ain't that Warren, all over? Did any of +_my_ folks ever look so like a born fool? Shut your mouth, for the Lord's +sake, Lem, and maybe you won't scare folks quite so much." + +Lem had a foolish, apologetic grin with which he always used to respond to +these personalities, hanging his head to one side and opening and shutting +his big hands nervously. + +The tumble-down, two-roomed house in which the Warrens lived was across +the road from the schoolhouse, and Mrs. Warren's voice was penetrating. +Lem was accepted throughout his school-life at the home estimate. The +ugly, overgrown boy, clad in cast-off, misfit clothing was allowed to play +with the other children only on condition that he perform all the hard, +uninteresting parts of any game. Inside the schoolroom it was the same. + +He never learned to shut his mouth, and his speech was always halting and +indistinct, so that he not only did not recite well in class, but was +never in one of the school entertainments. He chopped the wood and brought +it in, swept the floor and made the fires, and then listened in grinning, +silent admiration while the others, arrayed in their best, spoke pieces +and sang songs. + +He was not "smart at his books" and indeed did not learn even to read very +fluently. This may have been partly because the only books he ever saw +were old school books, the use of which was given him free on account of +his mother's poverty. He was not allowed, of course to take them from the +schoolroom. But if he was not good at book-learning he was not without +accomplishments. He early grew large for his age, and strong from much +chopping of wood and drawing of water for his mother's washings, and he +was the best swimmer of all those who bathed in the cold, swift mountain +stream which rushes near the schoolhouse. The chief consequence of this +expertness was that in the summer he was forced to teach each succeeding +generation of little boys to swim and dive. They tyrannized over him +unmercifully--as, in fact, everyone did. + +Nothing made his mother more furious than such an exhibition of what she +called "Lem's meachin'ness." "Ain't you got no stand-up _in_ ye?" she was +wont to exhort him angrily. "If you don't look out for yourself in this +world, you needn't think anybody else is gunto!" + +The instructions in ethics he received at her hands were the only ones he +ever knew, for, up to his fourteenth year, he never had clothes +respectable enough to wear to church, and after that he had other things +to think of. Fourteen years is what we call in our State "over school +age." It was a date to which Mrs. Warren had looked forward with +eagerness. After that, the long, unprofitable months of enforced schooling +would be over, Lem would be earning steady wages, and she could sit back +and "live decent." + +It seemed to her more than she could bear, that, almost upon her son's +birthday, she was stricken down with paralysis. It was the first calamity +for which she could not hold her marriage responsible, and her bitterness +thereupon extended itself to fate in general. She cannot have been a +cheerful house-mate during the next ten years, when Lem was growing +silently to manhood. + +He was in demand as "help" on the farms about him, on account of his great +strength and faithfulness, although the farmers found him exasperatingly +slow and, when it was a question of animals, not always sure to obey +orders. He could be trusted to be kind to horses, unlike most hired men we +get nowadays, but he never learned "how to get the work out of their +hide." It was his way, on a steep hill with a heavy load, to lay down the +whip, get out, and put his own powerful shoulder to the wheel. If this +failed, he unloaded part of the logs and made two trips of it. The +uncertainty of his progress can be imagined. The busy and impatient farmer +and sawyer at the opposite ends of his route were driven to exhaust their +entire vocabulary of objurgation on him. He was, they used to inform him +in conclusion, "the most _do_-less critter the Lord ever made!" + +He was better with cows and sheep--"feller-feelin," his mother said +scornfully, watching him feed a sick ewe--and he had here, even in +comparison with his fellow-men, a fair degree of success. It was indeed +the foundation of what material prosperity he ever enjoyed. A farmer, +short of cash, paid him one year with three or four ewes and a ram. He +worked for another farmer to pay for the rent of a pasture and had, that +first year, as everybody admitted, almighty good luck with them. There +were several twin lambs born that spring and everyone lived. Lem used to +make frequent night visits during lambing-time to the pasture to make sure +that all was well. + +I remember as a little girl starting back from some village festivity late +one spring night and seeing a lantern twinkle far up on the mountainside. +"Lem Warren out fussin' with his sheep," some one of my elders remarked. +Later, as we were almost home, we saw the lantern on the road ahead of us +and stopped the horses, country-fashion, for an interchange of salutation. +Looking out from under the shawl in which I was wrapped, I saw his tall +figure stooping over something held under his coat. The lantern lighted +his weather-beaten face and the expression of his eyes as he looked down +at the little white head against his breast. + + "You're foolish, Lem," said +my uncle. "The ewe won't own it if you take it away so long the first +night." + +"I--I--know," stuttered Lem, bringing out the words with his usual +difficulty; "but it's mortal cold up on the mounting for little fellers! +I'll bring him up as a cosset." + +The incident reminded me vaguely of something I had read about, and it has +remained in my memory. + +After we drove on I remember that there were laughing speculations about +what language old Ma'am Warren would use at having another cosset brought +to the house. Not that it could make any more work for her, since Lem did +all that was done about the housekeeping. Chained to her chair by her +paralyzed legs, as she was, she could accomplish nothing more than to sit +and cavil at the management of the universe all day, until Lem came home, +gave her her supper, and put her to bed. + +Badly run as she thought the world, for a time it was more favorable to +her material prosperity than she had ever known it. Lem's flock of sheep +grew and thrived. For years nobody in our valley has tried to do much with +sheep because of dogs, and all Lem's neighbors told him that some fine +morning he would find his flock torn and dismembered. They even pointed +out the particular big collie dog who would most likely go "sheep-mad." +Lena's heavy face drew into anxious, grotesque wrinkles at this kind of +talk, and he visited the uplying pasture more and more frequently. + +One morning, just before dawn, he came, pale and shamefaced, to the house +of the owner of the collie. The family, roused from bed by his knocking, +made out from his speech, more incoherent than usual, that he was begging +their pardon for having killed their dog. "I saw wh-where he'd bit th-the +throats out of two ewes that w-was due to lamb in a few days and I guess +I--I--I must ha' gone kind o' crazy. They was ones I liked special. I'd +brought 'em up myself. They--they was all over blood, you know." + +They peered at him in the gray light, half-afraid of the tall apparition. +"How _could_ you kill a great big dog like Jack?" They asked wonderingly. + +In answer he held out his great hands and his huge corded arms, red with +blood up to the elbow. "I heard him worrying another sheep and I--I +just--killed him." + +One of the children now cried out: "But I shut Jackie up in the woodshed +last night!" + +Someone ran to open the door and the collie bounded out. Lem turned white +in thankfulness, "I'm _mortal_ glad," he stammered. "I felt awful +bad--afterward. I knew your young ones thought a sight of Jack." + +"But what dog did you kill?" they asked. + +Some of the men went back up on the mountain with him and found, torn in +pieces and scattered wide in bloody fragments, as if destroyed by some +great revenging beast of prey, the body of a big gray wolf. Once in a +while one wanders over the line from the Canada forests and comes down +into our woods, following the deer. + +The hard-headed farmers who looked on that savage scene drew back from the +shambling man beside them in the only impulse of respect they ever felt +for him. It was the one act of his life to secure the admiration of his +fellow-men; it was an action of which he himself always spoke in horror +and shame. + +Certainly his marriage aroused no admiration. It was universally regarded +as a most addle-pated, imbecile affair from beginning to end. One of the +girls who worked at the hotel in the village "got into trouble," as our +vernacular runs, and as she came originally from our district and had gone +to school there, everyone knew her and was talking about the scandal. Old +Ma'am Warren was of the opinion, spiritedly expressed, that "Lottie was a +fool not to make that drummer marry her. She could have, if she'd gone the +right way to work." But the drummer remained persistently absent. + +One evening Lem, starting for his sheep-pasture for his last look for the +night, heard someone crying down by the river and then, as he paused to +listen, heard it no more. He jumped from the bridge without stopping to +set down his lantern, knowing well the swiftness of the water, and caught +the poor cowardly thing as she came, struggling and gasping, down with the +current. He took her home and gave her dry clothes of his mother's. Then +leaving the scared and repentant child by his hearth, he set out on foot +for the minister's house and dragged him back over the rough country +roads. + +When Ma'am Warren awoke the next morning, Lem did not instantly answer her +imperious call, as he had done for so many years. Instead, a red-eyed girl +in one of Mrs. Warren's own nightgowns came to the door and said +shrinkingly: "Lem slept in the barn last night. He give his bed to me; but +he'll be in soon. I see him fussin' around with the cow." + +Ma'am Warren stared, transfixed with a premonition of irremediable evil. +"What you doin' here?" she demanded, her voice devoid of expression +through stupefaction. + +The girl held down her head. "Lem and I were married last night," she +said. + +Then Mrs. Warren found her voice. + +When Lem came in it was to a scene of the furious wrangling which was +henceforth to fill his house. + +"... to saddle himself with such trash as you!" his mother was saying +ragingly. + +His wife answered in kind, her vanity stung beyond endurance. "Well, you +can be sure he'd never have got him a wife any other way! Nobody but a +girl hard put to it would take up with a drivel-headed fool like Lem +Warren!" + +And then the bridegroom appeared at the door and both women turned their +attention to him. + +When the baby was born, Lottie was very sick. Lem took care of his mother, +his wife, and the new baby for weeks and weeks. It was at lambing-time, +and his flock suffered from lack of attention, although as much as he +dared he left his sick women and tended his ewes. He ran in debt, too, to +the grocery-stores, for he could work very little and earned almost +nothing. Of course the neighbors helped out, but it was no cheerful +morning's work to care for the vitriolic old woman, and Lottie was too +sick for anyone but Lem to handle. We did pass the baby around from house +to house during the worst of his siege, to keep her off Lem's hands; but +when Lottie began to get better it was haying-time; everybody was more +than busy, and the baby was sent back. + +Lottie lingered in semi-invalidism for about a year and then died, Lem +holding her hand in his. She tried to say something to him that last +night, so the neighbors who were there reported, but her breath failed her +and she could only lie staring at him from eyes that seemed already to +look from the other side of the grave. + +He was heavily in debt when he was thus left with a year-old child not his +own, but he gave Lottie a decent funeral and put up over her grave a stone +stating that she was "Charlotte, loved wife of Lemuel Warren," and that +she died in the eighteenth year of her life. He used to take the little +girl and put flowers on the grave, I remember. + +Then he went to work again. His sandy hair was already streaked with gray, +though he was but thirty. The doctor said the reason for this phenomenon +was the great strain of his year of nursing; and indeed throughout that +period of his life no one knew when he slept, if ever. He was always up +and dressed when anyone else was, and late at night we could look across +and see his light still burning and know that he was rubbing Lottie's back +or feeding little Susie. + +All that was changed now, of course. Susie was a strong, healthy child +who slept all through the night in her little crib by her stepfather's +corded bed, and in the daytime went everywhere he did. Wherever he "worked +out" he used to give her her nap wrapped in a horse blanket on the hay in +the barn; and he carried her in a sling of his own contrivance up to his +sheep-pasture. Old Ma'am Warren disliked the pretty, laughing child so +bitterly that he was loath to leave her at home; but when he was there +with her, for the first time he asserted himself against his mother, +bidding her, when she began to berate the child's parentage, to "be +still!" with so strange and unexpected an accent of authority that she was +quite frightened. + +Susie was very fond of her stepfather at first, but when she came of +school age, mixed more with the other children, and heard laughing, +contemptuous remarks about him, the frank and devouring egotism of +childhood made her ashamed of her affection, ashamed of him with his +uncouth gait, his mouth always sagging open, his stammering, ignorant +speech, which the other children amused themselves by mocking. Though he +was prospering again with his sheep, owned the pasture and his house now, +and had even built on another room as well as repairing the older part, he +spent little on his own adornment. It all went for pretty clothes for +Susie, for better food, for books and pictures, for tickets for Susie to +go to the circus and the county fair. Susie knew this and loved him by +stealth for it, but the intolerably sensitive vanity of her twelve years +made her wretched to be seen in public with him. + +Divining this, he ceased going with her to school-picnics and +Sunday-school parties, where he had been a most useful pack-animal, and, +dressing her in her best with his big calloused hands, watched her from +the window join a group of the other children. His mother predicted +savagely that his "spoilin' on that bad-blooded young one would bring her +to no good end," and when, at fifteen, Susie began to grow very pretty and +saucy and willful and to have beaux come to see her, the old woman exulted +openly over Lem's helpless anxiety. + +He was quite gray now, although not yet forty-five, and so stooped that he +passed for an old man. He owned a little farm, his flock of sheep was the +largest in the township, and Susie was expected to make a good marriage in +spite of her antecedents. + +And then Frank Gridley's oldest son, Ed, came back from business college +with store clothes and city hats and polished tan shoes, and began idling +about, calling on the girls. From the first, he and Susie ran together +like two drops of water. Bronson Perkins, a cousin of mine, a big, silent, +ruminative lad who had long hung about Susie, stood no show at all. One +night in county-fair week, Susie, who had gone to the fair with a crowd of +girl friends, was not at home at ten o'clock. Lem, sitting in his doorway +and watching the clock, heard the approach of the laughing, singing +straw-ride in which she had gone, with a long breath of relief; but the +big hay-wagon did not stop at his gate. + +He called after it in a harsh voice and was told that "Ed Gridley and she +went off to the hotel to get supper. He said he'd bring her home later." + +Lem went out to the barn, hitched up the faster of his two heavy +plow-horses and drove from his house to Woodville, eight miles and +up-hill, in forty-five minutes. When he went into the hotel, the clerk +told him that the two he sought had had supper served in a private room. +Lem ascertained which room and broke the door in with one heave of his +shoulders. Susie sprang up from the disordered supper-table and ran to him +like a frightened child, clinging to him desperately and crying out that +Ed scared her so! + +"It's all right now, Susie," he said gently, not looking at the man. +"Poppa's come to take you home." + +The man felt his dignity wounded. He began to protest boisterously and to +declare that he was ready to marry the girl--"_now_, this instant, if you +choose!" + +Lem put one arm about Susie. "I didn't come to make you marry her. I come +to keep you from doin' it," he said, speaking clearly for once in his +life. "Susie shan't marry a hound that'd do this." And as the other +advanced threateningly on him, he struck him a great blow across the mouth +that sent him unconscious to the ground. + +Then Lem went out, paid for the broken lock, and drove home with Susie +behind the foundered plow-horse. + +The next spring her engagement to Bronson Perkins was announced, though +everybody said they didn't see what use it was for folks to get engaged +that couldn't ever get married. Mr. Perkins, Bronson's father, was daft, +not enough to send him to the asylum, but so that he had to be watched all +the time to keep him from doing himself a hurt. He had a horrid way, I +remember, of lighting matches and holding them up to his bared arm until +the smell of burning flesh went sickeningly through the house and sent +someone in a rush to him. Of course it was out of the question to bring a +young bride to such a home. Apparently there were years of waiting before +them, and Susie was made of no stuff to endure a long engagement. + +As a matter of fact, they were married that fall, as soon as Susie could +get her things ready. Lem took old Mr. Perkins into the room Susie left +vacant. "'Twon't be much more trouble taking care of two old people than +one," he explained briefly. + +Ma'am Warren's comments on this action have been embalmed forever in the +delighted memories of our people. We have a taste for picturesque and +forceful speech. + +From that time we always saw the lunatic and the bent +shepherd together. The older man grew quieter under Lem's care than he had +been for years, and if he felt one of his insane impulses overtaking him, +ran totteringly to grasp his protector's arm until, quaking and shivering, +he was himself again. Lem used to take him up to the sheep-pasture for the +day sometimes. He liked it up there himself, he said, and maybe 'twould be +good for Uncle Hi. He often reported with pride that the old man talked as +sensible as anybody, "get him off where it's quiet." Indeed, when Mr. +Perkins died, six years later, we had forgotten that he was anything but +a little queer, and he had known many happy, lucid hours with his +grandchildren. + +Susie and Bronson had two boys--sturdy, hearty children, in whom Lem took +the deepest, shyest pride. He loved to take them off into the woods with +him and exulted in their quick intelligence and strong little bodies. +Susie got into the way of letting him take a good deal of the care of +them. + +It was Lem who first took alarm about the fall that little Frank had, down +the cellar stairs. He hurt his spine somehow--our local doctor could not +tell exactly how--and as the injury only made him limp a little, nobody +thought much about it, until he began to have difficulty in walking. Then +Lem sent for a doctor from Rutland who, as soon as he examined the child, +stuck out his lower lip and rubbed his chin ominously. He pronounced the +trouble something with a long name which none of us had ever heard, and +said that Frank would be a hopeless cripple if it, were not cured soon. +There was, he said, a celebrated doctor from Europe now traveling in this +country who had a wonderful new treatment for this condition. But under +the circumstances--he looked about the plain farm sitting-room--he +supposed that was out of the question. + +"What did the doctor from foreign parts ask?" queried Bronson, and, being +informed of some of the customary prices for major operations, fell back +hopeless. Susie, her pretty, childish face drawn and blanched into a wan +beauty, put her arms about her sick little son and looked at her +stepfather. He had never failed her. + +He did not fail her now. He sold the land he had accumulated field by +field; he sold the great flock of sheep, every one of which he could call +by name; he mortgaged the house over the protesting head of his now +bedridden mother; he sold the horse and cow, and the very sticks of +furniture from the room where Susie had grown up and where the crazy +grandfather of Susie's children had known a peaceful old age and death. +Little Frank was taken to New York to the hospital to have the great +surgeon operate on him--he is there yet, almost completely recovered and +nearly ready to come home. + +Back in Hillsboro, Lem now began life all over again, hiring out humbly to +his neighbors and only stipulating that he should have enough free time to +take care of his mother. Three weeks ago she had her last stroke of +paralysis and, after lying speechless for a few days, passed away, grim to +the last, by the expression in her fierce old eyes. + +The day after her funeral Lem did not come to work as he was expected. We +went over to his house and found, to our consternation, that he was not +out of bed. + +"Be ye sick, Lem?" asked my uncle. + +He looked at us over the bedclothes with his old foolish, apologetic +smile. "Kind o' lazy, I guess," he whispered, closing his eyes. + +The doctor was put out by the irregularity of the case. + +"I can't make out anything _really_ the trouble!" he said. "Only the +wheels don't go round as fast as they ought. Call it failing heart action +if you want a label." + +The wheels ran more and more slowly until it was apparent to all of us +that before long they would stop altogether. Susie and Bronson were in New +York with little Frank, so that Lem's care during his last days devolved +on the haphazard services of the neighbors. He was out of his head most of +the time, though never violent, and all through the long nights lay flat +on his back, looking at the ceiling with bright, blank eyes, driving his +ox-team, skidding logs, plowing in stony ground and remembering to favor +the off-horse whose wind wasn't good, planting, hoeing, tending his sheep, +and teaching obstinate lambs to drink. He used quaint, coaxing names for +these, such as a mother uses for her baby. He was up in the +mountain-pasture a good deal, we gathered, and at night, from his constant +mention of how bright the stars shone. And sometimes, when he was in +evident pain, his delusion took the form that Susie, or the little boys, +had gone up with him, and got lost in the woods. + +I was on duty the night he died. We thought a change was near, because he +had lain silent all day, and we hoped he would come to himself when he +awoke from this stupor. Near midnight he began to talk again, and I could +not make out at first whether he was still wandering or not. "Hold on +hard, Uncle Hi," I heard him whisper. + +A spoon fell out of my hand and clattered against a plate. He gave a great +start and tried to sit up. "Yes, mother--coming!" he called hoarsely, and +then looked at me with his own eyes. "I must ha' forgot about mother's +bein' gone," he apologized sheepishly. + +I took advantage of this lucid interval to try to give him some medicine +the doctor had left. "Take a swallow of this," I said, holding the glass +to his lips. + +"What's it for?" he asked. + +"It's a heart stimulant," I explained. "The doctor +said if we could get you through to-night you have a +good chance." + +His face drew together in grotesque lines of anxiety. "Little Frank +worse?" + +"Oh, no, he's doing finely." + +"Susie all right?" + +"Why, yes," I said wonderingly. + +"Nothing the matter with her other boy?" + +"Why, no, no," I told him. "Everybody's all right Here, just take this +down." + +He turned away his head on the pillow and murmured something I did not +catch. When I asked him what he said, he smiled feebly as in deprecation +of his well-known ridiculous ways. "I'm just as much obliged to you," he +said, "but if everybody's all right, I guess I won't have any medicine." +He looked at me earnestly. "I'm--I'm real tired," he said. + +It came out in one great breath--apparently his last, for he did not move +after that, and his ugly, slack-mouthed face was at once quite still. Its +expression made me think of the time I had seen it as a child, by +lantern-light, as he looked down at the new-born lamb on his breast. + + + + +IN NEW NEW ENGLAND + +I. + + +This is a true story, for I have heard it ever so many times from my +grandmother. She heard it from her grandmother, who told it about her own +mother; and it began and ended right here in our village of Hillsboro, +Vermont, in 1762. + +Probably you think at once of the particular New England old town you +know, and imagine Hillsboro of that date as an elm-shaded, well-kept +street, with big, white, green-shuttered houses, full of shining mahogany +furniture and quaint old silver. But my grandmother gives an entirely +different picture of old times in this corner of Vermont. Conditions here, +at that time, were more as they had been in Connecticut and Massachusetts +a hundred and forty years before. Indeed, the Pilgrim Fathers endured no +more hardships as pioneers in a wild, new country than did the first +Vermonters. + +Hillsboro had been settled only about fifteen years before this story +begins, and the people had had to make for themselves whatever they +possessed, since there was no way to reach our dark, narrow valley except +by horseback over the ridge of the Green Mountains. There were no fine +houses, because there was no sawmill. There were little, low log cabins of +two rooms each, and the furniture, such as it was, was rough-hewn out of +native woods. Our great-grandfathers were too busy clearing the forest and +planting their crops to spend much time designing or polishing table-legs. + +And the number of things they did not have! No stoves, no matches, no + books, no lamps, and very few candles; no doctors, no schools, no clocks, +and so nearly no money that what they had is not worth mentioning But the +fact that there were no schools did not mean that life was one long +vacation for the children. + +"No, indeedy!" as grandmother always says emphatically. + +In the urgent bustle of pioneer life, the children could not be spared +from work for long school-hours. They picked up what they could from the +elders of their families, and worked, as grandmother puts it, "as tight as +they could leg it" from morning to night. Everybody else worked that same +way, so the children did not know that they were being abused. Indeed, +grandmother seemed to doubt if they were. + +At any rate, they all ran about as fast as ants in an ant-hill, and the +busiest of all was sixteen-year-old Hannah Sherwin. Since she was my +grandmother's grand mother's mother, at last the story is really begun. + +Hannah had been a baby of eighteen months when the Sherwins came over the +mountains from the old home in Connecticut, so she knew nothing about any +other way of living than what she saw in rough little Hillsboro. But her +elder sister, Ann Mary, who was a tall girl of nineteen, remembered--or +thought she remembered--big houses that were made all over of sawn planks, +and chairs that were so shiny you could see your face in them or else +stuffed and cushioned in brocade as soft--"as soft as a feather tick!" +she told Hannah. + +Her listener, having no idea of what brocade might be, and taking the +feather-tick simile literally, must have imagined a very queer kind of +chair. + +Hannah was a short, fair, rosy-cheeked child, who passed for good-looking +enough; but Ann Mary was slender and dark and a real beauty, although +Hillsboro people did not realize it. She looked fragile, as if she could +not do much hard work and that is always a serious blemish in feminine +beauty to the eyes of pioneers. + +So far in her life she had not been forced to do any hard work, because +Hannah had done it all for her. Their mother had died when they were both +little girls, and their father was so busy outdoors, every minute he was +awake, that, for all his affection for them, he did not know or care which +of his daughters cooked and washed, and swept and spun, so long as these +things were done. And Hannah delighted to do them, because she adored Ann +Mary, and could not bear to have her sister troubled with any of the +coarse tasks which made up her own happy, busy day. + +Now, all that grandmother ever tells me about the beginning of this story +is that when the lovely Ann Mary was nineteen years old she "fell into a +decline," as they called it. She grew pale and thin, never smiled, could +not eat or sleep, and lay listlessly on the bed all day, looking sadly at +Hannah as she bustled about. + +A great many girls in those days fell into declines and died. Of course, +nobody knows the reason for most of the cases, but it seems as plain as +the nose on my face that Ann Mary's sickness was entirely Hannah's fault +for not letting her sister do her share of the household work. There she +was--pretty and ignorant and idle--with nothing to interest her, and +nothing to look forward to, for in those days marriage was the only thing +a girl could look forward to, and in the workaday little world of pioneer +Hillsboro nobody would dare to think of marrying a girl who looked like a +tea-rose and did not know how to make soft soap. No wonder she lost her +appetite! + +It might not have gone any further, however, if Hannah, distracted with +anxiety, had not run to all the old women in town about her sick sister. +Every one of them had had a niece, or a daughter--or at least a +granddaughter--who had died in a decline; so, of course, they knew just +what to do for Ann Mary, and they came and did it. + +Then poor Ann Mary was sick, indeed, I promise you! They shut her up in +the inner room of the little log house, although it was the end of May, +and the weather was fit for the angels. They darkened the one window, and +kept the door closed, and put the sick girl to bed between two mountains +of feathers. They gave her "sut" (soot) tea and "herb-drink" and steeped +butternut bark, and goodness knows what else; and they tiptoed in and out, +and stared at her mournfully, and shook their heads and pursed up their +lips, until it is a wonder to me that Ann Mary did not die at once. + + + + +II. + + +Very likely she would have died, if one day in June there had not come +through Hillsboro a trader on his way from "over the mountain" up to +Canada, looking for furs. That morning, when Hannah got up, she found the +fire in their big fireplace completely extinguished. She snatched up the +warming-pan--not a polished brass one with a smooth, turned handle, like +those you see in Colonial museums, but a common iron pan, fastened to a +hickory sapling; and she went as fast as she could, without running--for +girls never ran "before folks" in those days--over to the nearest +neighbor, to "borrow a handful of fire." + +The neighbors were just getting up, and their fire was too low to spare +any, so Hannah had to wait until some hardwood sticks got well to burning. +While she waited, the trader, who was staying overnight in that house, +went on with a long story about an Indian herb-doctor, of whose cures he +had heard marvelous tales, three days' journey back. It seemed that the +Indian's specialty was curing girls who had gone into a decline, and that +he had never failed in a single case he had undertaken. + +You can imagine how Hannah's loving, anxious heart leaped up, and how +eagerly she questioned the trader about the road to the settlement where +the Indian lived. It was in a place called Heath Falls, on the Connecticut +River, the trader told her; but he could not find words strong enough to +advise her against trying the trip. + +The trail lay through thick woods, filled with all the terrors of early +New Englanders--bears and wolves and catamounts. And when she got to Heath +Falls, she would find it a very different place from Hillsboro, where +people took you in gladly for the sake of the news you brought from the +outside world. No, the folks in Heath Falls were very grand. They traveled +themselves, and saw more strangers than a little. You had to pay good +money for shelter and food, and, of course, the doctor did not cure for +nothing. He was a kind man, the trader, and he did his best to keep Hannah +from a wildly foolish enterprise. + +But his best was not good enough. She went home and looked at her poor Ann +Mary, as white as a snowdrift, her big dark eyes ringed with black +circles, and Hannah knew only two things in the world--that there was a +doctor who could cure her sister, and that she must get her to him. She +was only a child herself; she had no money, no horses, no experience; but +nothing made any difference to her. Ann Mary should go to the doctor, if +Hannah had to carry her every step! + +A spirit like that knows no obstacles. Although Hillsboro held up hands +of horror, and implored John Sherwin to assert his parental authority and +forbid his girl such a rash, unmaidenly, bold undertaking, the end of it +was that Hannah got her father's permission. He loved his daughters +dearly, did John Sherwin, and, although he could not see how the thing was +to be managed, he told Hannah she might go if she could. + +Now it happened that the wife of one of their neighbors had long coveted +the two great feather-beds between which Ann Mary lay sweltering. Hannah +went to her, and said that she could have them if she would loan her son, +a sturdy boy of fourteen, and two horses, for the trip to Heath Falls. The +neighbor-woman hesitated; but when Hannah threw in the two pewter +candlesticks, which came from her mother's family, she could resist no +longer. In her own family they had only spike-iron candlesticks, and it +was her one chance of acquiring a pair of fine ones. So she wheedled her +husband into agreeing to the bargain; and there was Hannah with her +transportation provided. + +As soon as it was definitely settled that she was to make the long +journey, people began to; take rather a proud interest in her grit. As +everybody liked her, they gave what they could toward helping her get +ready--all but the old women, who were furious that Ann Mary was to be +taken away from their care. + +There was in town a saddle with a pillion back of it, and this was loaned +for Remember Williams, the neighbor's boy, to ride and carry Ann Mary +behind him. Hannah folded a blanket across her horse's back, and sat on +sideways as best she could. Behind her was a big bundle of extra clothing, +and food, and an iron pot--or, as she called it, a "kittle"--for cooking +their noonday meals. Her father brought out all the money he had--one +large four-shilling piece--and Hannah was sure that so much wealth as that +would buy anything in the world. The old women had prophesied that Ann +Mary would not be strong enough to sit upon a horse, even clinging to +Remember Williams's thick waist; but, judging from what grandmother says, +I surmise that Ann Mary, without being really aware of it, was a little +sick of being sick. At any rate, she took a great interest in the +preparations. She asked over and over again about the girls the +herb-doctor had cured; and when the day for their departure came she was +quite pleased and excited, and walked out through the crowd of sympathetic +neighbors. To be sure, she leaned weakly on her father, but there was a +little faint color in her cheeks. + +"A very bad sign!" the old women whispered. "She'll never live the journey +out. If only Hannah were not so headstrong and obstinate! But then you +can't blame the child for it--all the Sherwins are that way!" + +As for Ann Mary, she sat up quite straight and looked as pretty as +possible when the little company rode off. After all, she had been +"declining" only about a month, and people had vigorous constitutions in +those days. + +You may think it odd that she was not afraid to make the long journey, but +there are advantages in being of a dependent nature. Hannah had always +done everything for her, and had kept her safe from harm. Hannah was with +her now, so there was nothing to fear. She left all that to Hannah, who +did it, poor child, with the greatest thoroughness! + +Now that the excitement of overcoming Hillsboro opposition was passed; now +that they were really started, with herself as sole leader and guide, +responsibility fell like a black cloud upon her young heart. There was +nothing she did _not_ fear--for Ann Mary, of course--from wolves and +Indians to fatigue or thunderstorms. + +A dozen times that day, as they paced slowly over the rough trail, she +asked her sister anxiously if she were not too hot or too cold, or too +tired or too faint, imitating as best she could the matter and manner of +the doctoring old women. However, Ann Mary surprised herself, as well as +Hannah, by being none of the uncomfortable things that her sister kept +suggesting to her she might very well be. It was perfect June weather, +they were going over some of the loveliest country in the world, and Ann +Mary was out of doors for the first time in four weeks or more. + +She "kept up" wonderfully well, and they made good time, reaching by dusk, +as they had hoped to do, a farmer's house on the downward dip of the +mountain to the east. Here, their story being told, they were hospitably +received, and Ann Mary was clapped into the airless inner room and fed +with gruel and dipped toast. But she had had fresh air and exercise all +day, and a hearty meal of cold venison and corn bread at their noonday +rest, so she slept soundly. + +The next day they went across a wide, hilly valley, up another range of +low mountains, and down on the other side. The country was quite strange +to them, and somehow, before they knew it, they were not on the road +recommended to them by their hosts of the night before. Night overtook +them when they were still, as the phrase has come down in our family, "in +a miserable, dismal place of wood." + +Hannah's teeth chattered for very terror as she saw their plight; but she +spoke cheerfully to Ann Mary and the boy, who looked to her for courage, +and told them that they were to have the fun of sleeping under the stars. + +Boys were the same then as now, and Remember Williams was partly shivering +with dread of bears and Indians and things, and partly glowing with +anticipatory glory of telling the Hillsboro boys all about the adventure. +Hannah soothed the first and inflamed the second emotion until she had +Remember strutting about gathering firewood, as brave as a lion. + +Very probably Ann Mary would have been frightened to death, if she had not +been so sleepy from her long day out of doors that she could not keep her +eyes open. And then, of course, everything must be all right, because +there was Hannah! + +This forlorn terrified little captain wrapped the invalid in all the extra +clothing, managed to get a fire started, and cooked a supper of hot +cornmeal mush in her big iron "kittle." Ann Mary ate a great deal of this, +sweetened as it was with maple sugar crumbled from the big lump Hannah Had +brought along and immediately afterward she fell sound asleep. + +Soon the soft night air of June was too strong a soporific for Remember's +desire to keep awake and hear the catamounts scream, as he had heard they +did in those woods. Hannah was left quite alone to keep watch and to tend +the fire, her heart in her mouth, jumping and starting at every shadow +cast by the flames. + +She knew that wild beasts would not come near them if a big fire burned +briskly; and all that night she piled on the wood, scraped away the ashes, +and watched Ann Mary to see that she did not grow chilly. Hannah does not +seem to have been much inclined to talk about her own feelings, and there +is no record of what she suffered that night; but I think we may be sure +that it seemed a long time to her before the sky began to whiten in the +east. + +As soon as she could see plainly, she cooked a hearty breakfast of broiled +bacon and fried mush, and wakened her two charges to eat it. They made a +very early start, and there is nothing more to tell about their journey +except that at about seven o'clock that evening the two tired +horses crept into the main street of Heath Falls, and a very much excited +girl asked the first passer-by where the Indian herb-doctor lived. + +They found him in a little old house of logs--the only one that looked +natural to them in the prosperous settlement. When Hannah knocked at the +door, he opened it himself. He was a small, very old, dark-brown, and +prodigiously wrinkled individual, who held up a candle and looked at +Hannah with the most impassive eyes she had ever seen--like little pools +of black water unstirred by any wind. + +Hannah's breath came fast. + + +"Is this the Indian herb-doctor?" she asked. + +"Aye," he answered. + +When you remember that Hannah was only a little girl, and that she thought +she had come to the end of a nightmare of responsibility, it will not +surprise you to learn that she now began to cry a little, out of +agitation. + +"I have brought Ann Mary," she said, "my sister, to be cured. She is in a +decline. Will you cure her?" + +The herb-doctor showed no surprise. He set the candle down on the shelf, +and went out in the bright starlight to where Ann Mary clung to Remember +Williams's waist. When he put up his brown old hands to her, she slid down +into them and upon the ground. He still held one wrist, and this he +continued to do for some moments, looking at the white, drooping girl +without moving a muscle of his solemn old face. Then he turned to Hannah, +who had stopped crying and was holding her breath in suspense. + +"Aye," he said. + +At this Hannah caught her sister around the neck, sobbing joyfully: + +"He will cure you, Ann Mary; he will cure you!" Then she asked the doctor: +"And how long will it take? We can stay but a few days, for the boy and +the horses must get back soon." + +The herb-doctor considered for a moment. + +"It is now the end of June month. By the end of September month she will +be cured--not before." + +I think I know that that was a black moment for Hannah. She said nothing +at all, but the sick girl fell to weeping. + +"But, Master Doctor, we cannot stay--we cannot! And now, after all, I +shall not be cured!" + +Hannah could not bear to see her sweet Ann Mary in tears, and she cried +out stoutly: + +"Yes, you shall, too! Remember can take the horses back without us, and +tell our father. Somehow--I can earn--oh, we _must_!" Then a new fear +sprang into her heart. "Oh, sir," she cried to the doctor, "is it dear, +your cure? Must one have much silver for it?" + +The stolid little old gnome did not look toward her or change his position +as he said: + +"It costs time--no silver," He moved toward the house. "Go to the +minister's to-night," he called from his doorstep. "It is the house of +brick." Just before he closed his door he added: "Come here to-morrow +morning." + +When they reached the great brick house, the other two hung back, afraid +of so much grandeur; but three days of travel through the dangers of a +primitive forest had hardened Hannah to the lesser fear of strange people. +To the old minister and his wife she told their story very briefly, with a +desperate kind of self-possession, so concerned about poor Ann Mary, tired +and hungry, waiting out in the night air, that she did not remember to be +afraid of the minister's fine linen and smooth, white hands, or of the +laces and dark silk of his handsome, white-haired wife, or of the gold +braid and red coat of a dark young man with a quick eye who sat in the +corner. + +The young man said nothing until after the old people had gone out to +bring in the wanderers. Then: + +"You must be fond, indeed, of your sister, my little lass," he said +kindly. + +"Sir," said Hannah, "you should _see_ my sister!" + +And just then he did see her. Ann Mary came into the brightly lighted +room, her eyes wide and dark from the dusk outside, her long black hair, +shaken loose from its fastenings, curling up beautifully with the dew, and +making a frame for the pearl-like oval of her face. I have seen a +miniature of Ann Mary in her youth, and I can guess how she must have +looked to the young officer that evening. + +The minister's wife gave them all a hot supper, and hurried them off to +bed with motherly authority. For the first time in her life, Hannah found +herself between linen sheets. She tried to call her sister's attention to +this astonishing magnificence, but fell asleep in the middle of the +sentence, and did not wake until late the next morning. Ann Mary had been +awake for some time, but did not dare get up, so overcome was she by +shyness and reverence for the grandeur of the room and of her hosts. + +"Oh, Hannah! Would it not be like heaven to live always in such a place?" +she said. + +Hannah could not stop to be shy, or to think about how she would like +mahogany beds all the time. She had too much on her mind. They must go at +once to the herb-doctor's--they should have been there before--and they +must hurry through their breakfast. It is, perhaps, worthy of note that +both girls came down the stairs backward, ladders having been, up to that +time, their only means of reaching elevations. + +During their breakfast, the dark young man, who turned out to be a cousin +of the minister's, sat in a corner, playing with his dog's ears, and +looking at Ann Mary until she was quite abashed, although the younger +girl, at whom he glanced smilingly from time to time, thought he looked +very good-natured. After this, Hannah sent Remember Williams home with the +horses, giving him fresh and elaborate directions about the right road to +take. Then she marched Ann Mary to the herb-doctor's. + +"Here, Master Necronsett," she said, "here is Ann Mary to be cured!" + + + + +III. + + +When the doctor told them about his system, Hannah did not like the sound +of it at all. Not a drop of "sut tea" or herb-drink was mentioned, but the +invalid was to eat all the hearty food Hannah could earn for her. Then, so +far from sleeping in a decently tight room, their bed was to stand in a +little old shed, set up against Master Necronsett's house. One side of the +shed was gone entirely, so that the wind and the sun would come right in +on poor, delicate Ann Mary, and there was only an awning of woven +bark-withes to let down when it rained. + +But even that was not the worst. Hannah listened with growing suspicion +while Master Necronsett explained the rest of it. All his magic consisted +in the use of a "witch plant," the whole virtue of which depended on one +thing. The sick person must be the only one to handle or care for it, from +the seed up to the mature plant. + +He took them up to his garret, where row after row of dried plants hung, +heavy with seed-pods, and with the most careful precautions to avoid +touching them himself, or having Hannah do so, he directed Ann Mary to fill +a two-quart basin with the seed. + +"That will plant a piece of ground about six paces square," he said. "That +will raise enough seed for you." + +"But who is to dig the ground, and plant, and weed, and water, and all?" +asked Hannah. "If I am to be earning all day, when--" + +"The sick person must do all," said the herb-doctor. + +Hannah could not believe her senses. Her Ann Mary, who could not even +brush her own hair without fatigue, she to take a spade in her-- + +"Oh, Master Doctor," she cried, "can I not do it for her?" + +The old Indian turned his opaque black eyes upon her. + +"Nay," he said dryly, "you cannot." + +And with that he showed them where the witch garden was to be, close +before their little sleeping-hut. That was why, he explained, the patient +must spend all her time there, so that by night, as well as by day, she +could absorb the magical virtues of the growing plant Hannah thought those +were the first sensible words she had heard him say. + +She had promised the minister's wife to be back at a certain hour to see +about employment, so she dared not stay longer, though it was with a +sinking heart that she left her sister to that grim old savage, with his +brusque lack of sympathy. However, the minister's wife reassured her with +stories of all the other girls from far and near whom he had cured by that +same foolish, silly method; so Hannah turned all her energies upon the +spinning which a neighbor-woman had set her to do. + +Hired workers have been the same from the days of the Psalmist down to our +own, and Hannah, putting her whole heart into her work, accomplished, so +her surprised employer told her, twice as much spinning as any +serving-girl she had ever hired. + +"And excellent good thread, too!" she said, examining it. + +If Hannah kept up to _that_, she added, she could have all the work she +had time for. She gave the little girl two pennies--two real pennies, the +first money Hannah had ever earned. With a head spinning with triumph, she +calculated that at that rate she could earn fourpence a day! + +She spent a farthing for some fish a little boy brought up from the river, +and a halfpenny for some fresh-baked bread, and a part of her precious +four-shilling piece for an iron fry-pan, or "spider." Laden with these, +she hurried back to see how Ann Mary had endured the old doctor's +roughness. She found her sister very tired, but, proudly anxious to show a +little spot, perhaps six feet; square, which she had spaded up with +intervals of rest. + +"The herb-doctor says that I have done well, and that I will finish the +spading in a week, or perhaps even less," she said: "and I _like_ Master +Necronsett! He is a good old man, and I know that he will cure me. He +makes me feel very rested when he comes near." + +Hannah felt a little pang to think that her sister should not miss her own +brooding care, but when Ann Mary cried out joyfully at the sight of the +food, "Oh, how hungry I am!" everything but pleasure was immediately +swept away from the little sister's loyal heart. + +They cooked their supper--Hannah still had some of the cornmeal and the +flitch of bacon their Hillsboro friends had given them--and went to bed +directly on the queer, hard bed, with a straw tick and no feathers, which +Dr. Necronsett had prescribed, warmly wrapped up in the pair of heavy +Indian blankets he had loaned them. They were so close to the house that +they heard the old doctor moving around inside, and they could see the +light of his candle, so they were not afraid. + +Indeed, the two sisters were so sleepy that even if they had been timorous +it could scarcely have kept them from the deep slumber into which they +fell at once, and which lasted until the sun shone in on them the next +morning. + + + + +IV. + + +That was the first day of that wonderful summer, and most of the days +which followed were like it. Every morning Hannah rose early, made a +little open fire, cooked their breakfast, and was off to her spinning. +Just as her first employer had said, there was no lack of work for a +spinner who worked as fast and yet as carefully as if it were for herself. +In Hannah's thread there were never any thin places which broke as soon as +the weaver stretched it on the loom, nor yet any thick lumps where the +wool had insisted, in grandmother's phrase, "on going all kim-kam." + +At first, she went about to people's houses; but, seeing her so neat and +careful, the minister's wife loaned her one of her own wheels, and the +minister had an old granary cleared out for her workroom. Here, day after +day, the wheel whirred unceasingly, like a great bee, and Hannah stepped +back and forth, back and forth, on her tireless young feet, only glancing +out through the big door at the bright glories of the summer weather, and +never once regretting her imprisonment. + +Indeed, she said, all her life afterward, that she was so happy, that +summer, it seemed heaven itself could hold no greater joy for her. Of +course, first always in her thoughts was Ann Mary, pulling weeds and +tending her witch garden, and growing plump and rosy, and so strong that +she laughed and ran about and sang as never in her life before. + +Hannah put very little faith in the agricultural part of the cure. She +thought that very probably it was nothing more than a blind, and that +Master Necronsett came out at night and said charms and things over Ann +Mary as she slept. However that might be, she could have kissed his funny, +splay feet every time she looked at her sister's bright eyes and red lips; +and when she thought of the joy it would be to her father, she could have +kissed his ugly, wrinkled old face. + +But, besides her joy over her sister's health, the summer was for Hannah +herself a continual feast of delight Captain Winthrop, the minister's +young cousin, was staying in Heath Falls to recover from an arrow-wound +got in a skirmish with the Indians in Canada. He was very idle, and very +much bored by the dullness of the little town, which seemed such a +metropolis to the two girls from Hillsboro. One day, attracted by Hannah's +shining face of content, he lounged over to the step of her granary, and +began to talk to her through the open doorway. + +It happened to come out that the little spinner, while she knew her +letters from having worked them into a sampler, and could make shift to +write her name, could not read or write, and had never had the slightest +instruction in any sort of book-learning. Thereupon the young officer +good-naturedly proposed to be her teacher, if Hannah would like. + +Would she _like_! She turned to him a look of such utter ecstasy that he +was quite touched, and went off at: once to get an old "A-B, ab" book. + +That was the beginning of a new world to Hannah. She took her young +instructor's breath away by the avidity with which she devoured the +lessons he set her. By the rapt air of exultation with which Hannah +recited them, stepping back and forth by her wheel, you would have +thought that "c-a-t, cat; r-a-t, rat," was the finest poetry ever written. +And in no time at all it was no longer "c-a-t, cat," but "parallel," +and "phthisis," and such orthographical atrocities, on which the eager +scholar was feeding; for, Hannah's mind was as fresh as her round, rosy +face, and as vigorous as her stout little body. + +Captain Winthrop had several reasons for being interested in Hannah; and +when he found her so quick at her spelling, he said he was willing to +occupy some of his enforced leisure in giving her instruction in other +branches. Hannah fell to at this feast of knowledge like a young bear in a +bee-tree. + +But there were some difficulties. Like the spelling, arithmetic was all +very well, since she could do that in her head while she spun; but reading +and writing were different. She would not stop her work for them, and so +Captain Winthrop fell into the habit of going over to Master Necronsett's +house in the afternoon with his books, and being there, all ready for a +lesson, when Hannah came hurrying back after she had finished her day's +"stint." As long as there was light to see, she pored over her writing and +reading, while the young officer sat by, ready to help, and talking in a +low tone to Ann Mary. + +After a time there grew up a regular routine for Captain Winthrop. In the +mornings he went out to the granary and read aloud to Hannah from a book +called "The Universal Preceptor; being a General Grammar of Art, Science, +and Useful Knowledge." Out of this he taught her about "mechanical powers" +and "animated nature" and astronomy and history and geography--almost +anything that came to his hand. + +Up in our garret we have the very book he used, and modern research and +science have proved that there is scarcely a true word in it. But don't +waste any pity on Hannah for having such a mistaken teacher, for it is +likely enough, don't you think, that research and science a hundred years +from now will have proved that there is scarcely a word of truth in our +school-books of to-day? It really doesn't seem to matter much. + +At any rate, those were the things of which Captain Winthrop talked to +Hannah in the mornings. In the afternoon, he went over to an apple-tree by +the edge of the witch garden, and there he found Ann Mary; and what he +talked to her about nobody knew but herself, although Master Necronsett +passed back and forth so often in his herb-gathering that it is likely he +may have caught something. It seems not improbable, from what happened +afterward, that the young man was telling the young girl things which did +not come out of a book, and which are consequently safe from science and +research, for they are certainly as true to-day as they were then. + +Once, in her anxiety to have everything exactly right for her sister, +Hannah asked Master Necronsett about Captain Winthrop's being there so +much. + +"Master Doctor, will not Captain Winthrop absorb, perchance, some of the +great virtue of the plant away from Ann Mary? Will he not hurt her cure?" + +Grandmother never says so, but I have always imagined that even that +carven image of an old aborigine must, have smiled a little as he told +her: + +"Nay, the young man will not hurt your sister's cure." + +At the end of September, something tremendously exciting happened to +Hannah. She had been so busy learning the contents of that old calf-bound +book that she had never noticed how a light seemed to shine right through +Ann Mary's lovely face every time Captain Winthrop looked at her. The +little student was the most surprised girl in the world when the young +soldier told her, one morning in the granary, that he wanted her sister +to marry him, and that Ann Mary wanted it, too, if Hannah would allow it. + +He laughed a little as he said this last, but he looked anxiously at her, +for Ann Mary, who was as sweet as she was pretty and useless, had felt it +to be a poor return for Hannah's devotion, now after all, just to go off +and desert her. She had said that, if Hannah thought she ought to, she +would go back to Hillsboro, and they would have to wait ever so long. So +now Captain Winthrop looked very nervously at Ann Mary's little sister. + +But he did not know Hannah. She gave a little cry, as if someone had +stabbed her, turned very pale, and, leaving her wheel still whirling, she +ran like the wind toward Dr. Necronsett's. She wanted to see her sister; +she wanted to _see_ if this---- + +Close to the minister's house she met Ann Mary, who could not wait any +longer, and was coming to meet her. After one glimpse of that beautiful, +radiant face, Hannah fell a weeping for very joy that her dear Ann Mary +was so happy, and was to marry the grand and learned and goodly Captain +Winthrop. + +There was not a thought in Hannah's mind, then or later, that she must +lose Ann Mary herself. Grandmother explains here that the truth is that a +heart like Hannah's cannot lose anything good; and perhaps that is so. + +Thus, hand in hand, laughing and crying together, the two girls came back +to the granary, where Ann Mary's lover took her in his arms and kissed her +many times out of light-heartedness that Hannah would put no obstacle in +the way. This made little Hannah blush and feel very queer. She looked +away, and there was her wheel still languidly stirring a little. Dear me! +How many, many times have I heard the next detail in the story told! + +"And, without really, so to speak, sensing what she was doing, didn't she +put her hand to the rim and start it up again? And when the other two +looked around at her, there she was, spinning and smiling, with the tears +in her eyes. It had all happened in less time than it takes a spin-wheel +to run down." + +After that day things happened fast. Captain Winthrop rode off over the +mountains to Hillsboro, to ask John Sherwin if he might marry his +daughter; and when he came back, there was John Sherwin himself riding +along beside him, like an old friend. And when he saw his two dear +daughters--Ann Mary, who had gone away like a lily, now blooming like a +rose, and Hannah, stout little Hannah, with her honest blue eyes +shining--when he saw his two daughters, I say--well, I'm sure I have no +idea what happened, for at this point grandmother always takes off her +glasses, and sniffs hard, and wipes her eyes before she can go on. + +So there was a wedding at the minister's house, and everybody in Heath +Falls was invited, because Hannah said they had been so good to her. +Everybody came, too, except old Master Necronsett, and that was nothing, +because he never went anywhere except to the woods. + +I know just what the bride and Hannah wore, for we have pieces of the +material in our oldest cedar chest; but, of course, as they weren't your +own great-great-great-grandmother and aunt, perhaps you wouldn't care to +have me tell you all about their costumes. It was a grand occasion, +however--that you can take from me; and the family tradition is that Ann +Mary looked like a wonderful combination of an angel and a star. + +And then Captain and Mrs. Winthrop rode off in one direction, and Hannah +and her father in another, and there were a great many tears shed, for all +everybody; was so happy. + + + + +VI. + + +Hannah went home with her head full of new ideas, and with four books in +her saddle-bags--which, for those days, was a large library. These were +the Bible, the "Universal Preceptor," a volume of the Shakespeare +comedies, and Plutarch's "Lives." Armed with these weapons, how she did +stir things up in Hillsboro! She got the children together into a school, +and taught them everything she had learned in Heath Falls; and that was +so much--what with the studying which she always kept up by herself--that +from our little scrap of a village three students went down to the college +at William's Town, in Massachusetts, the first year it was started, and +there has been a regular procession of them ever since. + +After a time she married Giles Wheeler, and began to teach her own +children--she had nine--and very well instructed they were. She was too +busy, then, to go into the schoolroom to teach; but never, then or later, +even when she was an old, old woman, did she take her vigilant eyes and +her managing hand off the schools of our county. + +It was due to her that Hillsboro could boast for so long that its +percentage of illiterates was zero. If, by chance, anyone grew up without +knowing how to read, Aunt Hannah pounced on him and made him learn, +whether he would or not. She loaned about, to anyone who would read them, +the books she brought from Heath Falls; and in time she started a little +library. Remembering the days when Captain Winthrop had read aloud to her +in the granary, she had her children go about to read aloud to sick +people, and to busy seamstresses or spinners who had no time for books. + +And the number of girls in declines she cured by Master Necronsett's +system! You would not believe it, if I told you. And she had our river +named after that wise old heathen, and we think it the prettiest name +possible for a river. + +All this time, Ann Mary's position was getting grander and grander, for +Captain Winthrop was on the American side when the Revolution came, and +grew to be a very important man. Ann Mary dressed in brocade every day and +all day, and went to Philadelphia, where she met General and Mrs. +Washington, and ever so many more famous people. + +Wherever she went, she was admired and loved for her beauty and +gentleness; but she did not forget Hannah. Nearly every traveler from the +South brought a message or a present from Madam Winthrop to Mistress +Wheeler, and once she and General Winthrop came and made a long visit in +Hillsboro. + +Grandmother's grandmother was old enough, by that time, to remember the +visit very clearly; and it was from talk between the two sisters that she +learned all about this story. She said she never saw a more beautiful +woman than Madam Winthrop, nor heard a sweeter voice. But how Hannah had +to hush the unmannerly surprise of her brood of quick-witted youngsters +when they found out that elegant Aunt Ann Mary did not know her letters, +and had never heard of Julius Caesar or Oliver Cromwell! For marriage did +not change Ann Mary very much; but as her husband was perfectly satisfied +with her, I dare say it was just as well. + +However, when the Winthrop cousins begin to put on airs, and to talk about +autograph letters from Benjamin Franklin and Jefferson addressed to their +great-great-great-grandmother, and to show beautiful carved fans and +lace handkerchiefs which she carried at State balls in Philadelphia and +New York, I have to bite my tongue to keep from reminding them that they +have no autograph letters of _hers_! + +Then I go up into our garret, and look at Hannah's shabby old books, and I +ride over to the place on the road where she tended the fire that night, +and I think of the number of Hillsboro boys and girls to whom she opened +the great world of books, and--somehow, I am just as well pleased that it +was not the lovely Ann Mary who came back to our town and became my +great-great-great-grandmother. + + + + +THE DELIVERER + + +"I shall not die, but live; and declare the works of the Lord." + +The great lady pointed with a sigh of pleasure to the canvas hung between +a Greuze and a Watteau! "Ah, is there anyone like LeMaury! Alone in the +eighteenth century he had eyes for the world of wood and stream. +You poets and critics, why do you never write of him? Is it true that no +one knows anything of his life?" + +The young writer hesitated. "I do not think I exaggerate, madame, when I +say that I alone in Paris know his history. He was a compatriot of mine." + +"Oh, come, Mr. Everett, LeMaury an American! With that name!" + +"He called himself LeMaury after his protector, the man who brought him +to France. His real name was Everett, like my own. He was cousin to one of +my great-grandfathers." + +"Ah, an old family story. That is the best kind. You must tell it to me." + +"I will write it for you, madame." + + + + +I + + +At the foot of Hemlock Mountain spring came late that year, now a century +and a half gone by, as it comes late still to the remote back valley, +lying high among the Green Mountains; but when it came it had a savor of +enchantment unknown to milder regions. The first day of spring was no +uncertain date in Hillsboro, then as now. One morning generally about the +middle of May, people woke up with the sun shining in their eyes, and the +feeling in their hearts that something had happened in the night. The +first one of the family dressed, who threw open the house-door, felt the +odor of stirring life go to his head, was the Reverend Mr. Everett +himself. In the little community of Puritans, whose isolation had +preserved intact the rigidity of faith which had begun to soften somewhat +in other parts of New England, there was no one who openly saluted the +miracle of resurrection by more than the brief remark, "Warm weather's +come"; but sometimes the younger men went back and kissed their wives. It +was an event, the first day of spring, in old-time Hillsboro. + +In the year of our Lord 1756 this event fell upon a Sabbath, a fact which +the Reverend Mr. Everett commemorated by a grim look out at the budding +trees, and by taking from his store of sermons a different one from that +he had intended to preach. It was his duty to scourge natural man out of +the flock committed to his charge by an angry and a jealous God, and he +had felt deep within him a damnable stirring of sensual pleasure as the +perfumed breath of the new season had blown across his face. If the +anointed of the Lord had thus yielded to the insidious wiles of +unregenerate nature what greater dangers lay in wait for the weaklings +under his care! The face of his son Nathaniel, as he came back from the +brook, his slender body leaning sideways from the weight of the dripping +bucket, told the shepherd of souls that he must be on his guard against +the snares of the flesh. + +The boy's thin, dark face, so astonishingly like his father's, was lifted +toward the sky as he came stumbling up the path, but his eyes were +everywhere at once. Just before he reached the door, he set the bucket +down with a cry of ecstasy and darted to the edge of the garden, where the +peas were just thrusting green bowed heads through the crumbling earth. He +knelt above them breathless, he looked up to the maple-twigs, over which a +faint reddish bloom had been cast in the night, beyond to the lower slopes +of the mountain, delicately patterned with innumerable white stems of +young birch-trees, and clasped his hands to see that a shimmer of green +hung in their tops like a mist. His lips quivered, he laid his hand upon a +tuft of grass with glossy, lance-like blades, and stroked it. + +His father came to the door and called him. "Nathaniel!" + +He sprang up with guilty haste and went toward the house. A shriveling +change of expression came over him. + +The minister began, "A wise son heareth his father's instructions; but a +scorner heareth not rebuke." + +"I hear you, father." + +"Why did you linger in the garden and forget your duty?" + +"I--I cannot tell you, father." + +"Do you mean you do not know why?" + +"I cannot say I do not know." + +"Then answer me." + +Nathaniel broke out desperately, "I _cannot_, father--I know no words--I +was--it is so warm--the sun shines--the birches are out--I was glad----" + +The minister bowed his head sadly. "Aye, even as I thought. Sinful lust of +the eye draggeth you down to destruction. You whose salvation even now +hangs in the balance, for whose soul I wrestle every night in prayer that +you may be brought to the conviction of sin, 'you were glad.' Remember the +words, 'If I prefer not Jerusalem above my chief joy, may my tongue cleave +to the roof of my mouth.'" + +Nathaniel made no reply. He caught at the door, looking up wretchedly at +his father. When the minister turned away without speaking again, he drew +a long breath of relief. + +Breakfast was always a silent meal in the Everett house, but on Sabbath +mornings the silence had a heavy significance. The preacher was beginning +then to work himself up to the pitch of storming fervor which made his +sermons so notable, and his wife and son cowered under the unspoken +emanations of the passion which later poured so terribly from the pulpit. +The Reverend Mr. Everett always ate very heartily on Sabbath mornings, but +Nathaniel usually pushed his plate away. + +As a rule he walked to church between his father and his mother, like a +little child, although he was now a tall lad of sixteen, but to-day he was +sent back for a psalm-book, forgotten in the hurry of their early start. +When he set out again the rest of the village folk were all in the +meeting-house. The sight of the deserted street, walled in by the forest, +lying drowsily in the spring sunshine, was like balm to him. He loitered +along, free from observation, his eyes shining. A fat, old negro woman +sat on a doorstep in the sun, the only other person not in meeting. She +was a worn-out slave, from a Connecticut seaport, who had been thrown in +for good measure in a sharp bargain driven by the leading man of +Hillsboro. A red turban-like cloth was bound above her black face, she +rested her puffy black arms across her knees and crooned a monotonous +refrain. Although the villagers regarded her as imbecile, they thought her +harmless, and Nathaniel nodded to her as he passed. She gave him a rich +laugh and a "Good morrow, Marse Natty, _good_ morrow!" + +A hen clucking to her chicks went across the road before him. The little +yellow balls ran briskly forward on their wiry legs, darting at invisible +insects, turning their shiny black eyes about alertly and filling the air +with their sweet, thin pipings. Nathaniel stopped to watch them, and as he +noticed the pompously important air with which one of the tiny creatures +scratched the ground with his ineffectual little feet, cocking his eye +upon the spot afterward as if to estimate the amount of progress made, the +boy laughed out loud. He started at the sound and glanced around him +hurriedly, moving on to the meeting-house from which there now burst forth +a harshly intoned psalm. He lingered for a moment at the door, gazing back +at the translucent greens of the distant birches gleaming against the +black pines. A gust of air perfumed with shad-blossom blew past him, and +with this in his nostrils he entered the whitewashed interior and made his +way on tiptoe up the bare boards of the aisle. + + + + +II + + +After meeting the women and children walked home to set out the cold +viands for the Sabbath dinner, while the men stood in a group on the green +before the door for a few minutes' conversation. + +"Verily, Master Everett, the breath of the Almighty was in your words this +day as never before," said one of them. "One more such visitation of the +anger of God and your son will be saved." + +"How looked he when they bore him out?" asked the minister faintly. His +face was very white. + +The other continued, "Truly, reverend sir, your setting forth of the devil +lying in wait for the thoughtless, and the lake burning with brimstone, +did almost affright me who for many years now have known myself to be of +the elect. I could not wonder that terrors melted the soul of your son." + +"How looked he when they bore him out?" repeated the minister impatiently. + +The other answered encouragingly, "More like death than life, so the women +say." The minister waved the men aside and went swiftly down the street. +The hen and chickens fled with shrill cries at his approach, and the old +negress stopped her song. After he had passed she chuckled slowly to +herself, thrust her head up sideways to get the sun in a new place, and +began her crooning chant afresh. + +"How is the boy?" asked the minister of his wife as he stepped inside the +door. "Not still screaming out and----" + +Mistress Everett shook her head reassuringly. "Nay, he is quiet now, up in +his room." + +Nathaniel lay on his trundle bed, his eyes fixed on the rafters, his pale +lips drawn back. At the sight his father sat down heavily on the edge of +the bed. The boy sprang upon him with a cry, "Oh, father, I see fire +always there--last winter when I burned my finger--oh, always such pain!" + +The minister's voice broke as he said, "Oh, Nathaniel, the blessed ease +when all this travail is gone by and thou knowest thyself to be of the +elect." + +Nathaniel screamed out at this, a fleck of froth showing on his lips. +"That is the horrible thing--I know I am not one of the saved. My heart is +all full of carnal pleasures and desires. To look at the sun on the +hillside--why I love it so that I forget my soul--hell--God--" + +His father gave a deep shocked groan and put his hand over the quivering +lips. "Be not a bitterness to him that begot you. Hush!" + +The fever of excitement left the boy and he fell down with his face in the +pillow to lie there motionless until his parents went out for second +meeting, leaving him alone in the house. "Confidence must be rooted out of +his tabernacle," said his father sternly. "The spirit of God is surely +working in his heart in which I see many of my own besetting sins." + +Nathaniel sprang up, when he heard the door shut, with a distracted idea +of escape, now that his jailers were away, and felt an icy stirring in the +roots of his hair at the realization that his misery lay within, that the +walls of his own flesh and blood shut it inexorably into his heart +forever. He threw open the window and leaned out. + +The old negress came out of the woods at the other end of the street, her +turban gleaming red. She moved in a cautious silence past the +meeting-house, but when she came opposite the minister's house, thinking +herself alone, she burst into a gay, rapid song, the words of which she so +mutilated in her barbarous accent that only a final "Oh, Molly-oh!" could +be distinguished. She carried an herb-basket on her arm now, into which, +from time to time, she looked with great satisfaction. + +Nathaniel ran down the stairs and out of the door calling. She paused, +startled. "How can you sing and laugh and walk so lightly?" he cried out. + +She cocked her head on one side with her turtle-like motion. "Why should +she not sing?" she asked in her thick, sweet voice. She had never learned +the difference between the pronouns. "She's be'n gatherin' yarbs in the +wood, an' th' sun is warm," she blinked at it rapidly, "an' the winter it +is pas', Marse Natty, no mo' winter!" + +Nathaniel came close up to her, laying his thin fingers on her fat, black +arm. His voice quivered. "But they say if you love those things and if +they make you glad you are damned to everlasting brimstone fire. Tell me +how you dare to laugh, so that I will dare too." + +The old woman laughed, opening her mouth so widely that the red lining to +her throat showed moistly, and all her fat shook on her bones. "Lord love +ye, chile, dat's white folks' talk. Dat don't scare a old black woman!" +She shifted her basket to the other arm and prepared to go on. "You're +bleeged to be keerful 'bout losin' yo' soul. Black folks ain't got no +souls, bless de Lord! When _dey_ dies dey _dies_!" + +She shuffled along, laughing, and began to sing again. Nathaniel looked +after her with burning eyes. After she had disappeared between the tree +trunks of the forest, the breeze bore back to him a last joyous whoop of +"_Oh_, Molly-oh!" He burst into sobs, and shivering, made his way back +into his father's darkening, empty house. + + + + +III + + +At the breakfast table the next morning his father looked at him +neutrally. "This day you shall go to salt the sheep in the Miller lot," he +announced, "and you may have until the hour before sundown to walk in the +wood." + +"Oh, _father_, really!" + +"That is what I said," repeated the minister dryly, pushing away from the +table. + +After the boy had gone, carrying the bag of salt and the little package of +his noonday meal, the minister sighed heavily. "I fear my weak heart +inclines me to too great softness to our son." To his wife he cried out a +moment later, "Oh, that some instance of the wrath of Jehovah could come +before us now, while our son's spirit is softened. Deacon Truitt said +yesterday that one more visitation would save him." + +Nathaniel walked along soberly, his eyes on the road at his feet, his face +quite pale, a sleepless night evidently behind him. He came into the +birches without noticing them at first, and when he looked up he was for a +moment so taken by surprise that he was transfigured. The valley at his +feet shimmered like an opal through the slender white pillars of the +trees. The wood was like a many-columned chapel, unroofed and open to the +sunlight. Nathaniel gave a cry of rapture, and dropped the bag of salt. +"Oh!" he cried, stretching out his arms, and then again, "Oh!" + +For a moment he stood so, caught into a joy that was almost anguish, and +then at a sudden thought he shrank together, his arm crooked over his +eyes. He sank forward, still covering his eyes, into a great bed of fern, +just beginning to unroll their whitey-green balls into long, pale plumes. +There he lay as still as if he were dead. + +Two men came riding through the lane, their horses treading noiselessly +over the leaf-mold. They had almost passed the motionless, prostrate +figure when the older reined in and pointed with his whip. "What is that, +LeMaury?" + +At the unexpected sound the boy half rose, showing a face so convulsed +that the other horseman cried out alarmed, "It ees a man crazed! Ride on, +_mon colonel_!" He put spurs to his horse and sprang forward as he spoke. + +The old soldier laughed a little, and turned to Nathaniel. "Why, 'tis the +minister his son. I know you by the look of your father in you. What bad +dream have we waked you from, you pretty boy?" + +"You have not waked me from it," cried Nathaniel. "I will never wake as +long as I live, and when I die--!" + +"Why, LeMaury is right. The poor lad is crazed. We must see to this." + +He swung himself stiffly from the saddle and came limping up to Nathaniel. +Kneeling by the boy he brought him up to a sitting position, and at the +sight of the ashen face and white, turned-back eyeballs he sat down +hastily, drawing the young head upon his shoulder with a rough tenderness. +"Why, so lads look under their first fire, when they die of fear. What +frights you so?" + +Nathaniel opened great solemn eyes upon him. "I suppose it is the +conviction of sin. That is what they call it." + +For an instant the old man's face was blank with astonishment, and then it +wrinkled into a thousand lines of mirth. He began to laugh as though he +would never stop. Nathaniel had never heard anyone laugh like that. He +clutched at the old man. + +"How dare you laugh!" + +The other wiped his eyes and rocked to and fro, "I laugh--who would +not--that such a witless baby should talk of his sin. You know not what +sin is, you silly innocent!" + +At the kindliness of the tone an aching knot in the boy's throat relaxed. +He began to talk hurriedly, in a desperate whisper, his hands like little +birds' claws gripping the other's great gauntleted fist. "You do not know +how wicked I am--I am so wholly forward the wonder is the devil does not +take me at once. I live only in what my father calls the lust of the eye. +I--I would rather look at a haw-tree in bloom than meditate on the +Almighty!" He brought out this awful confession with a gasp at its +enormity, but hurried on to a yet more terrible climax. "I cannot be +righteous, but many times there are those who cannot--but oh, worse than +that, I cannot even _wish_ to be! I can only wish to be a painter." + +At this unexpected ending the old man gave an exclamation of extreme +amazement. + +"But, boy, lad, what's your name? However did you learn that there are +painters in the world, here in this prison-house of sanctity?" + +Nathaniel had burrowed into his protector's coat as though hiding from the +imminent wrath of God. He now spoke in muffled tones. "Two years ago, when +I was but a little child, there came a man to our town, a Frenchman, they +said, and his horse fell lame, and he stopped two days at my Uncle +Elzaphan's. My Uncle Elzaphan asked him what business did he in the world, +and he said he put down on cloth or paper with brushes and colors all the +fair and comely things he saw. And he showed a piece of paper with on it +painted the row of willows along our brook. I sat in the chimney-corner +and no one heeded me. I saw--oh, then I _knew_! I have no paint, but ever +since I have made pictures with burnt sticks on birchbark--though my +father says that of all the evil ways of evil men none lead down more +swift to the chambers of death and the gates of hell than that. Every +night I make a vow unto the Lord that I will sin no more; but in the +morning the devil whispers in my ear and I rise up and sin again--no man +knows this--and I am never glad unless I think I have done well with my +pictures, and I hate the meeting-house and--" His voice died away +miserably. + +"Two years ago, was't?" asked the old man. "And the man was French?" + +"Aye." + +The old soldier shifted his position, stretched out a stiff knee with a +grimace of pain, and pulled the tall lad bodily into his lap like a child. +For some time the two were silent, the sun shining down warmly on them +through the faint, vaporous green of the tiny leaves. The old horse +cropped the young shoots with a contented, ruminative air, once in a while +pausing to hang his head drowsily, and bask motionless in the warmth. + +Then the old man began to speak in a serious tone, quite different from +his gentle laughter. "Young Everett, of all the people you have seen, is +there one whom you would wish to have even a moment of the tortures of +hell?" + +Nathaniel looked at him horrified. "Why, no!" he cried indignantly. + +"Then do you think your God less merciful than you?" + +Nathaniel stared long into the steady eyes. "Oh, do you mean it is not +_true_?" He leaned close in an agony of hope. "Sometimes I have thought it +_could_ not be true!" + +The old soldier struck him on the shoulder inspiritingly, his +weather-beaten face very grave. "Aye, lad, I mean it is not true. I am an +old man and I have learned that they lie who say it is true. There is no +hell but in our own hearts when we do evil; and we can escape a way out of +that by repenting and doing good. There is no devil but our evil desires, +and God gives to every man strength to fight with those. There is only +good in your love for the fair things God made and put into the world for +us to love. No man but only your own heart can tell you what is wrong and +what is right. Only _do not fear_, for all is well." + +The scene was never to fade from Nathaniel Everett's eyes. In all the +after crises of his life the solemn words rang in his ears. + +The old man suddenly smiled at him, all quaint drollery again. "And now +wait." He put hand to mouth and hallooed down the lane. "Ho there! +LeMaury!" + +As the Frenchman came into sight, the old man turned to Nathaniel, "Is +this the gentleman who painted your willows?" + +"Oh, aye!" cried Nathaniel. + +The Frenchman dismounted near them with sparkling glances of inquiry. +"See, LeMaury, this is young Master Everett, whom you have bewitched with +your paint-pots. He would fain be an artist--_de gustibus_--! Perhaps you +have in him an apprentice for your return to France." + +The artist looked sharply at Nathaniel. "Eh, so? Can young master draw? +Doth he know aught of _chiaroscuro_?" + +Nathaniel blushed at his ignorance and looked timidly at his protector. + +"Nay, he knows naught of your painter's gibberish. Give him a crayon and a +bit of white bark and see can he make my picture. I'll lean my head back +and fold my hands to sleep." + +In the long sunny quiet that followed, the old man really slipped away +into a light doze, from which he was awakened by a loud shout from +LeMaury. The Frenchman had sprung upon Nathaniel and was kissing his +cheeks, which were now crimson with excitement. "Oh, it is Giotto come +back again. He shall be anything--Watteau." + +Nathaniel broke away and ran toward the old man, his eyes blazing with +hope. + +"What does he mean?" he demanded. + +"He means that you're to be a painter and naught else, though how a man +can choose to daub paint when there are swords to be carried--well, well," +he pulled himself painfully to his feet, wincing at gouty twinges, "I will +go and see your father about--" + +"_Mais, Colonel Hall, dites_! How can I arrange not to lose this pearl +among artists?" + +At the name, for he had not understood the title before, pronounced as it +was in French, the boy fell back in horrified recognition. "Oh! you are +Colonel Gideon Hall!" + +"Aye, lad, who else?" The old soldier swung himself up to the saddle, +groaning, "Oh, damn that wet ground! I fear I cannot sit the nag home." + +"But then you are the enemy of God--the chosen one of Beelzebub----" + +"Do they call me _that_ in polite and pious Hillsboro?" + +The Frenchman broke in, impatient of this incomprehensible talk. "See, +boy, you--Everett--I go back to France now soon. I lie next Friday night +at Woodburn. If you come to me there we will go together to France--to +Paris--you will be the great artist----" + +He was silenced by a gesture from the colonel, who now sat very straight +on his horse and beckoned to Nathaniel. The boy came timorously. "You have +heard lies about me, Everett. Be man enough to trust your own heart." He +broke into a half-sad little laugh at Nathaniel's face of fascinated +repulsion. + +"You can laugh now," whispered the boy, close at his knee, "but when you +come to die? Why, even my father trembles at the thought of death. Oh, if +I could but believe you!" + +"Faugh! To fear death when one has done his best!" + +He had turned his horse's head, but Nathaniel called after him, bringing +out the awful words with an effort. "But they say--that you do not believe +in God." + +The colonel laughed again. "Why, lad, I'm the only man in this damn town +who does." He put his horse into a trot and left Nathaniel under the +birch-trees, the sun high over his head, the bag of salt forgotten at his +feet. + + + + +IV + + +A little before sundown the next day the minister strode into his house, +caught up his Bible, and called to his wife, "Deborah, the Lord hath +answered me in my trouble. Call Nathaniel and bring him after me to the +house of Gideon Hall." + +Mistress Everett fell back, her hand at her heart, "To _that_ house?" + +"Aye, even there. He lieth at the point of death. So are the wicked +brought into desolation. Yesterday, as he rode in the wood, his horse cast +him down so that it is thought he may not live till dark. I am sent for by +his pious sisters to wrestle with him in prayer. Oh, Deborah, now is the +time to strike the last blow for the salvation of our son. Let him see how +the devil carries off the transgressor into the fires of hell, or let him +see how, at the last, the proudest must make confession of his wicked +unbelief----" + +He hurled himself through the door like a javelin, while his wife turned +to explain to Nathaniel the reason for the minister's putting on his +Sabbath voice of a week-day morning. He cried out miserably, "Oh, mother, +_don't_ make me go there!" + +"Nay, Nathaniel, there is naught new. You have been with us before to many +a sickbed and seen many a righteous death. This is an ill man, whose +terrors at the reward of his unbelief will be like goodly medicine to your +sick soul, and teach you to lay hold on righteousness while there is yet +time." + +"But, mother, my Uncle Elzaphan said--I asked him this morning about +Colonel Hall--that he had done naught but good to all men, that he had +fought bravely with French and Indians, that the poor had half of his +goods, that--" + +She took him by the hand and dragged him relentlessly out upon the street. +"Your Uncle Elzaphan is a man of no understanding, and does not know that +the devil has no more subtile lure than a man who does good works but who +is not of the true faith. Aye, he maketh a worse confusion to the simple +than he who worketh iniquity by noonday." + +She led him through the village street, through a long curving lane where +he had never been before, and down an avenue of maple-trees to a house at +which he had always been forbidden even to look. Various of the neighbor +women were hurrying along in the same direction. As they filed up the +stairs he trembled to hear his father's voice already raised in the +terrible tones of one of his inspired hours. At the entrance to the sick +chamber he clung for a moment to the door, gazing at the wild-eyed women +who knelt about the room, their frightened eyes fixed on his father. His +knees shook under him. He had a qualm of nausea at the slimy images of +corruption and decay which the minister was trumpeting forth as the end to +all earthly pride. + +His mother pushed him inexorably forward into the room, and then, across +the nightmare of frenzy, he met the calm gaze of the dying man. It was the +turning-point of his life. + +He ran to the bed, falling on his knees, clasping the great knotty hand +and searching the eyes which were turned upon him, gently smiling. The +minister, well pleased with this evidence of his son's emotion, caught his +breath for another flight of eloquence which should sear and blast the +pretensions of good works as opposed to the true faith. "See how low the +Lord layeth the man who thinks to bargain with the Almighty, and to ransom +his soul from hell by deeds which are like dust and ashes to Jehovah." + +Nathaniel crept closer and whispered under cover of his father's +thunderings, "Oh, you are truly not afraid?" + +The dying man looked at him, his eyes as steady as when they were in the +woods. "Nay, little comrade, it is all a part of life." + +After that he seemed to sink into partial unconsciousness. Nathaniel felt +his hand grow colder, but he still held it, grasping it more tightly when +he felt the fumes of his father's reeking eloquence mount to his brain. +The women were all sobbing aloud. A young girl was writhing on the floor, +her groans stifled by her mother's hand. The air of the room was stifling +with hysteria. The old sister of the dying man called out, "Oh, quick, +Master Everett. He is going. Exhort him now to give us some token that at +the last he repents of his unbelief." + +The minister whirled about, shaking with his own violence. The sweat was +running down his face. "Gideon Hall, I charge you to say if you repent of +your sins." + +There was a pause. The silence was suffocating. + +The old man gradually aroused himself from his torpor, although he did not +open his eyes. "Aye, truly I repent me of my sins," he whispered mildly, +"for any unkindness done to any man, or----" + +The minister broke in, his voice mounting shrilly, "Nay, not so, thou +subtle mocker. Dost thou repent thee of thy unbelief in the true faith?" + +Colonel Gideon Hall opened his eyes. He turned his head slowly on the +pillow until he faced the preacher, and at the sight of his terrible eyes +and ecstatic pallor he began to laugh whimsically, as he had laughed in +the wood with Nathaniel. "Why, man, I thought you did but frighten women +with it--not yourself too. Nay, do not trouble about me. _I_ don't believe +in your damned little hell." + +The smile on his face gradually died away into a still serenity, which was +there later, when the minister lifted his son away from the dead man's +bed. + + + + +V + + +The four old men walked sturdily forward with their burden, although at +intervals they slipped their tall staves under the corners and rested, +wiping their foreheads and breathing hard. As they stood thus silent, +where the road passed through a thicket of sumac, a boy came rapidly +around the curve and was upon them before he saw that he was not alone. +He stopped short and made a guilty motion to hide a bundle that he +carried. The old men stared at him, and reassured by this absence of +recognition he advanced slowly, looking curiously at the great scarlet +flag which hung in heavy folds from their burden. + +"Is this the road to Woodburn?" he asked them. + +"Aye," they answered briefly. + +He had almost passed them when he stopped again, drawing in his breath. + +"Oh, are you--is this Colonel--" + +"Aye, lad," said the oldest of the bearers, "this is the funeral +procession of the best commander and truest man who ever lived." + +"But why--" began the boy, looking at the flag. + +"He's wrapped in the flag of the king that he was a loyal servant to, +because the damned psalm-singing hypocrites in the town where he lived of +late would not make a coffin for him--no, nor allow ground to bury +him--no, nor men to bear him out to his grave! We be men who have served +under him in three wars, and we come from over the mountain to do the last +service for him. He saved our lives for us more than once--brave Colonel +Gid!" + +They all uncovered at the name, and the boy shyly and awkwardly took his +cap off. + +"May I--may I see him once again?" he asked, dropping his bundle. "He +saved my life too." + +Two men put their gnarled old hands to the flag and drew it down from the +head of the bier. The boy did not speak, but he went nearer and nearer +with an expression on his face which one of the old men answered aloud. +"Aye, is he not at peace! God grant we may all look so when the time +comes." + +They let the flag fall over the dead face again, set their shoulders to +the bier, and moved forward, bringing down their great staves rhythmically +as they walked. The boy stood still looking after them. When they passed +out into the sunshine of the open hillside he ran to the edge of the +thicket so that he could still follow them with his eyes. They plodded on, +growing smaller and smaller in the distance, until as they paused on the +crest of the hill only a spot of red could be seen, brilliant against the +brilliant sky. + +The boy went back and picked up his bundle. When he returned to the edge +of the thicket the spot of red was disappearing over the hill. He took off +his cap and stood there until there was nothing before him but the sun +shining on the hillside. + +Then he turned about, and walking steadily, Nathaniel Everett entered into +his own world. + + + + +NOCTES AMBROSIANAE + + + From Hemlock Mountain's barren crest + The roaring gale flies down the west + And drifts the snow on Redmount's breast + In hollows dark with pine. + + Full in its path from hill to hill + There stands, beside a ruined mill, + A lonely house, above whose sill + A brace of candles shine. + + And there an ancient bachelor + And maiden sister, full three-score, + Sit all forgetful of the roar + Of wind and mountain stream; + + Forgot the wind, forgot the snow, + What magic airs about them blow? + They read, in wondering voices low, + The Midsummer Night's Dream! + + And, reading, past their frozen hill + In charmed woods they range at will + And hear the horns of Oberon shrill + Above the plunging Tam;-- + + Yea, long beyond the cock's first crow + In dreams they walk where windflowers blow; + Late do they dream, and liker grow + To Charles and Mary Lamb. + + + + +HILLSBORO'S GOOD LUCK + + +When the news of Hillsboro's good fortune swept along the highroad there +was not a person in the other three villages of the valley who did not +admit that Hillsboro deserved it. Everyone said that in this case +Providence had rewarded true merit, Providence being represented by Mr. +Josiah Camden, king of the Chicago wheat pit, whose carelessly bestowed +bounty meant the happy termination of Hillsboro's long and arduous +struggles. + +The memory of man could not go back to the time when that town had not +had a public library. It was the pride of the remote village, lost among +the Green Mountains, that long before Carnegie ever left Scotland there +had been a collection of books free to all in the wing of Deacon +Bradlaugh's house. Then as now the feat was achieved by the united efforts +of all inhabitants. They boasted that the town had never been taxed a cent +to keep up the library, that not a person had contributed a single penny +except of his own free will; and it was true that the public spirit of the +village concentrated itself most harmoniously upon this favorite feature +of their common life. Political strife might rage in the grocery-stores, +religious differences flame high in the vestibule of the church, and +social distinctions embitter the Ladies' Club, but the library was a +neutral ground where all parties met, united by a common and disinterested +effort. + +Like all disinterested and generous actions it brought its own reward. The +great social event of the year, not only for Hillsboro, but for all the +outlying towns of Woodville, Greenford, and Windfield, was the annual +"Entertainment for buying new books," as it was named on the handbills +which were welcomed so eagerly by the snow-bound, monotony-ridden +inhabitants of the Necronsett Valley. It usually "ran" three nights so +that every one could get there, the people from over Hemlock Mountain +driving twenty miles. There was no theater for forty miles, and many a +dweller on the Hemlock slopes had never seen a nearer approach to one than +the town hall of Hillsboro on the great nights of the "Library Show." + +As for Hillsboro itself, the excitement of one effort was scarcely over +before plans for the next year's were begun. Although the date was fixed +by tradition on the three days after Candlemas (known as "Woodchuck Day" +in the valley), they had often decided what the affair should be and had +begun rehearsals before the leaves had turned in the autumn. There was no +corner of the great world of dramatic art they had not explored, borne up +to the loftiest regions of endeavor by their touchingly unworldly +ignorance of their limitations. As often happens in such cases they +believed so ingenuously in their own capacities that their faith wrought +miracles. + +Sometimes they gave a cantata, sometimes a nigger-minstrel show. The year +the interior of the town hall was changed, they took advantage of the time +before either the first or second floor was laid, and attempted and +achieved an indoor circus. And the year that an orchestra conductor from +Albany had to spend the winter in the mountains for his lungs, they +presented _Il Trovatore_. Everybody sang, as a matter of course, and those +whose best efforts in this direction brought them no glory had their +innings the year it was decided to give a play. + +They had done _East Lynne_ and _Hamlet, Uncle Tom's Cabin_ and _Macbeth_, +and every once in a while the local literary man, who was also the +undertaker, wrote a play based on local traditions. Of course they gave +_The Village School_ and _Memory's Garland_, and if you don't remember +those delectable home-made entertainments, so much the worse for you. It +is true that in the allegorical tableau at the end of _Memory's Garland_ +the wreath, which was of large artificial roses, had been made of such +generous proportions that when the Muses placed it on the head of slender +Elnathan Pritchett, representing "The Poet," it slipped over his ears, +down over his narrow shoulders, and sliding rapidly toward the floor was +only caught by him in time to hold it in place upon his stomach. That +happened only on the first night, of course. The other performances it was +perfect, lodging on his ears with the greatest precision. + +It must not be supposed, however, that the responsibilities of Hillsboro +for the library ended with the triumphant counting out of the money after +the entertainment. This sum, the only actual cash ever handled by the +committee, was exclusively devoted to the purchase of new books. It was +the pride of the village that everything else was cared for without price, +by their own enterprise, public spirit, and ingenuity. When the books, had +overflowed the wing of Deacon Bradlaugh's house, back in 1869, they were +given free lodging in the rooms of the then newly established and +flourishing Post of the G.A.R. In 1896 they burst from this chrysalis into +the whole lower floor of the town hall, newly done over for the purpose. +From their shelves here the books looked down benignly on church suppers +and sociables, and even an occasional dance. It was the center of village +life, the big, low-ceilinged room, its windows curtained with white +muslin, its walls bright with fresh paper and colored pictures, like any +sitting-room in a village home. The firewood was contributed, a load +apiece, by the farmers of the country about, and the oil for the lamps was +the common gift of the three grocery-stores. There was no carpet, but +bright-colored rag rugs lay about on the bare floor, and it was a point of +honor with the Ladies' Aid Society of the church to keep these renewed. + +The expense of a librarian's salary was obviated by the expedient of +having no librarian. The ladies of Hillsboro took turns in presiding over +the librarian's table, each one's day coming about once in three weeks. +"Library Day" was as fixed an institution in Hillsboro as "wash day," and +there was not a busy housewife who did not look forward to the long quiet +morning spent in dusting and caring for the worn old books, which were +like the faces of friends to her, familiar from childhood. The afternoon +and evening were more animated, since the library had become a sort of +common meeting-ground. The big, cheerful, sunlighted room full of +grown-ups and children, talking together, even laughing out loud at times, +did not look like any sophisticated idea of a library, for Hillsboro was +as benighted on the subject of the need for silence in a reading-room as +on all other up-to-date library theories. If you were so weak-nerved and +sickly that the noise kept you from reading, you could take your book, go +into Elzaphan Hall's room and shut the door, or you could take your book +and go home, but you could not object to people being sociable. + +Elzaphan Hall was the janitor, and the town's only pauper. He was an old +G.A.R. man who had come back from the war minus an arm and a foot, and +otherwise so shattered that steady work was impossible. In order not to +wound him by making him feel that he was dependent on public charity, it +had been at once settled that he should keep the fire going in the +library, scrub the floor, and keep the room clean in return for his food +and lodging. He "boarded round" like the school-teacher, and slept in a +little room off the library. In the course of years he had grown +pathetically and exasperatingly convinced of his own importance, but he +had been there so long that his dictatorial airs and humors were regarded +with the unsurprised tolerance granted to things of long standing, and +were forgiven in view of his devotion to the best interests of the +library, which took the place of a family to him. + +As for the expenses of cataloguing, no one ever thought of such a thing. +Catalogue the books? Why, as soon hang up a list of the family so that you +wouldn't forget how many children you had; as soon draw a plan of the +village so that people should not lose their way about. Everybody knew +what and where the books were, as well as they knew what and where the +fields on their farms were, or where the dishes were on the pantry +shelves. The money from the entertainment was in hand by the middle of +February; by April the new books, usually about a hundred in number, had +arrived; and by June any wide-awake, intelligent resident of Hillsboro +would have been ashamed to confess that he did not know the location of +every one. + +The system of placing on the shelves was simplicity itself. Each year's +new acquisitions were kept together, regardless of subject, and located by +the name of the entertainment which had bought them. Thus, if you wished +to consult a certain book on geology, in which subject the library was +rich, owing to the scientific tastes of Squire Pritchett, you were told by +the librarian for the day, as she looked up from her darning with a +friendly smile, that it was in the "Uncle Tom's Cabin section." The +Shakespeare set, honorably worn and dog's-eared, dated back to the unnamed +mass coming from early days before things were so well systematized, and +was said to be in the "Old Times section"; whereas Ibsen (for some of +Hillsboro young people go away to college) was bright and fresh in the +"East Lynne section." + +The books were a visible and sincere symbol of Hillsboro's past and +present. The honest, unpretending people had bought the books they wished +to read, and everyone's taste was represented, even a few French legends +and pious tales being present as a concession to the Roman Catholic +element among the French Canadians. There was a great deal of E.P. Roe, +there was all of Mrs. Southworth--is it possible that anywhere else in the +world there is a complete collection of that lady's voluminous +productions?--but beside them stood the Elizabethan dramatists and a +translation of Dante. The men of the town, who after they were grown up +did not care much for fiction, cast their votes for scientific treatises +on agriculture, forestry, and the like; and there was an informal history +club, consisting of the postmaster, the doctor, and the druggist, who bore +down heavily on history books. The school-teacher, the minister, and the +priest had each, ex officio, the choice of ten books with nobody to +object, and the children in school were allowed another ten with no advice +from elders. + +It would have made a scientific librarian faint, the Hillsboro system, but +the result was that not a book was bought which did not find readers eager +to welcome it. A stranger would have turned dizzy trying to find his way +about, but there are no strangers in Hillsboro. The arrival even of a new +French-Canadian lumberman is a subject of endless discussion. + +It can be imagined, therefore, how electrified was the village by the +apparition, on a bright June day, of an automobile creaking and wheezing +its slow way to the old tavern. The irritated elderly gentleman who +stepped out and began blaming the chauffeur for the delay announced +himself to Zadok Foster, the tavern-keeper, as Josiah Camden, of Chicago, +and was electrified in his turn by the calmness with which that mighty +name was received. + +During the two days he waited in Hillsboro for the repair of his machine +he amused himself first by making sure of the incredible fact that nobody +in the village had ever heard of him, and second by learning with an +astounded and insatiable curiosity all the details of life in this +forgotten corner of the mountains. It was newer and stranger to him than +anything he had seen during his celebrated motor-car trip through the +Soudan. He was stricken speechless by hearing that you could rent a whole +house (of only five rooms, to be sure) and a garden for thirty-six dollars +a year, and that the wealthiest man in the place was supposed to have +inherited and accumulated the vast sum of ten thousand dollars. When he +heard of the public library he inquired quickly how much it cost to run +_that_? Mr. Camden knew from experience something about the cost of public +libraries. + +"Not a cent," said Zadok Foster proudly. + +Mr. Camden came from Chicago and not from Missouri, but the involuntary +exclamation of amazed incredulity which burst from his lips was, "Show +_me_!" + +So they showed him. The denizen of the great world entered the poor, +low-ceilinged room, looked around at the dreadful chromos on the walls, at +the cheap, darned muslin curtains, at the gaudy rag rugs, at the shabby, +worn books in inextricable confusion on the shelves, and listened with +gleaming eyes to the account given by the librarian for the day of the +years of patient and uncomplaining struggles by which these +poverty-stricken mountaineers had secured this meager result. He struck +one hand into the other with a clap. "It's a chance in a million!" he +cried aloud. + +When his momentous letter came back from Chicago, this was still the +recurrent note, that nowadays it is so hard for a poor millionaire to find +a deserving object for his gifts, that it is the rarest opportunity +possible when he really with his own eyes can make sure of placing his +money where it will carry on a work already begun in the right spirit. He +spoke in such glowing terms of Hillsboro's pathetic endeavors to keep +their poor little enterprise going, that Hillsboro, very unconscious +indeed of being pathetic, was bewildered. He said that owing to the +unusual conditions he would break the usual rules governing his +benefactions and ask no guarantee from the town. He begged, therefore, to +have the honor to announce that he had already dispatched an architect and +a contractor to Hillsboro, who would look the ground over, and put up a +thoroughly modern library building with no expense spared to make it +complete in equipment; that he had already placed to the credit of the +"Hillsboro Camden Public Library" a sufficient sum to maintain in +perpetuity a well-paid librarian, and to cover all expenses of fuel, +lights, purchase of books, cataloguing, etc.; and that the Library School +in Albany had already an order to select a perfectly well-balanced library +of thirty thousand books to begin with. + +Reason recoils from any attempt to portray the excitement of Hillsboro +after this letter arrived. To say that it was as if a gold mine had been +discovered under the village green is the feeblest of metaphors. For an +entire week the town went to bed at night tired out with exclaiming, woke +in the morning sure it had dreamed it all, rushed with a common impulse to +the post-office where the letter was posted on the wall, and fell to +exclaiming again. + +Then the architect and contractor arrived, and Hillsboro drew back into +its shell of somber taciturnity, and acted, the contractor told the +architect, as though they were in the habit of having libraries given them +three times a week regularly. + +The architect replied that these mountaineers were like Indians. You +_couldn't_ throw a shock into them that would make them loosen up any. + +Indeed, this characterization seemed just enough, in view of the passive +way in which Hillsboro received what was done for it during the months +which followed. + +It was the passivity of stupefaction, however, as one marvel after another +was revealed to them. The first evening the architect sketched the plans +of a picturesque building in the old Norse style, to match the romantic +scenery of the lovely valley. The next morning he located it upon a knoll +cooled by a steady breeze. The contractor made hasty inquiries about +lumber, labor, and houses for his men, found that none of these essentials +were at hand, decided to import everything from Albany; and by noon of the +day after they arrived these two brisk young gentlemen had departed, +leaving Hillsboro still incredulous of its good fortune. + +When they returned, ten days later, however, they brought solid and +visible proof in the shape of a trainload of building materials and a +crowd of Italian laborers, who established themselves in a boarding-car on +a sidetrack near the station. + +"We are going," remarked the contractor to the architect, "to make the +dirt fly." + +"We will make things hum," answered the architect, "as they've never +hummed before in this benighted spot." + +And indeed, as up to this time they had never hummed at all, it is not +surprising that Hillsboro caught its breath as the work went forward like +Aladdin's palace. The corner-stone was laid on the third of July and on +the first of October the building stood complete. By the first of November +the books had come already catalogued by the Library School and arranged +in boxes so that they could be put at once upon the shelves; and the last +details of the interior decoration were complete. The architect was in the +most naïve ecstasy of admiration for his own taste. The outside was +deliciously unhackneyed in design, the only reproduction of a Norwegian +_Stave-Kirke_ in America, he reported to Mr. Camden; and while that made +the interior a little dark, the quaint wooden building was exquisitely in +harmony with the landscape. As for the interior it was a dream! The +reading-room was like the most beautiful drawing-room, an education in +itself, done in dark oak, with oriental rugs, mission furniture, and +reproductions of old masters on the walls. Lace sash-curtains hung at the +windows, covered by rich draperies in oriental design, which subdued the +light to a delightful soberness. The lamps came from Tiffany's. + +When the young-lady librarian arrived from Albany and approved +enthusiastically of the stack-room and cataloguing, the architect's cup of +satisfaction fairly ran over; and when he went away, leaving her installed +in her handsome oak-finished office, he could hardly refrain from +embracing her, so exactly the right touch did she add to the whole thing +with her fresh white shirt-waist and pretty, business-like airs. There had +been no ceremony of opening, because Mr. Camden was so absorbed in an +exciting wheat deal that he could not think of coming East, and indeed the +whole transaction had been almost blotted from his mind by a month's +flurried, unsteady market. So one day in November the pretty librarian +walked into her office, and the Hillsboro Camden Public Library was open. + +She was a very pretty librarian indeed, and she wore her tailor suits with +an air which made the village girls look uneasily into their mirrors and +made the village boys look after her as she passed. She was moreover as +permeated with the missionary fervor instilled into her at the Library +School as she was pretty, and she began at once to practice all the latest +devices for automatically turning a benighted community into the latest +thing in culture. When Mrs. Bradlaugh, wife of the deacon, and president +of the Ladies' Aid Society, was confined to the house with a cold, she +sent over to the library, as was her wont in such cases, for some +entertaining story to while away her tedious convalescence. Miss Martin +sent back one of Henry James's novels, and was surprised that Mrs. +Bradlaugh made no second attempt to use the library. When the little girls +in school asked for the Elsie books, she answered with a glow of pride +that the library did not possess one of those silly stories, and offered +as substitute, "Greek Myths for Children." + +Squire Pritchett came, in a great hurry, one morning, and asked for his +favorite condensed handbook of geology, in order to identify a stone. He +was told that it was entirely out of date and very incomplete, and the +library did not own it, and he was referred to the drawer in the card +catalogue relating to geology. For a time his stubbed old fingers rambled +among the cards, with an ever-rising flood of baffled exasperation. How +could he tell by looking at a strange name on a little piece of paper +whether the book it represented would tell him about a stone out of his +gravel-pit! Finally he appealed to the librarian, who proclaimed on all +occasions her eagerness to help inquirers, and she referred him to a +handsome great Encyclopedia of Geology in forty-seven volumes. He wandered +around hopelessly in this for about an hour, and in the end retreated +unenlightened. Miss Martin tried to help him in his search, but, half +amused by his rustic ignorance, she asked him finally, with an air of +gentle patience, "how, if he didn't know _any_ of the scientific names, +he expected to be able to look up a subject in an alphabetically arranged +book?" Squire Pritchett never entered the library again. His son Elnathan +might be caught by her airs and graces, he said rudely enough in the +post-office, but he was "too old to be talked down to by a chit who didn't +know granite from marble." + +When the schoolboys asked for "Nick Carter" she gave them those classics, +"The Rollo Books"; and to the French-Canadians she gave, reasonably +enough, the acknowledged masters of their language, Voltaire, Balzac, and +Flaubert, till the horrified priest forbade from the pulpit any of his +simple-minded flock to enter "that temple of sin, the public library." She +had little classes in art-criticism for the young ladies in town, +explaining to them with sweet lucidity why the Botticellis and Rembrandts +and Dürers were better than the chromos which still hung on the walls of +the old library, now cold and deserted except for church suppers and +sociables. These were never held in the new reading-room, the oriental +rugs being much too fine to have doughnut crumbs and coffee spilled on +them. After a time, however, the young ladies told her that they found +themselves too busy getting the missionary barrels ready to continue +absorbing information about Botticelli's rhythm and Dürer's line. + +Miss Martin was not only pretty and competent, but she was firm of +purpose, as was shown by her encounter with Elzaphan Hall, who had +domineered over two generations of amateur librarians. The old man had +received strict orders to preserve silence in the reading-room when the +librarian could not be there, and yet one day she returned from the +stack-room to find the place in a most shocking state of confusion. +Everybody was laughing, Elzaphan himself most of all, and they did not +stop when she brought her severe young face among them. Elzaphan +explained, waving his hand at a dark Rembrandt looking gloomily down upon +them, that Elnathan Pritchett had said that if _he_ had such a dirty face +as that he'd _wash_ it, if he had to go as far as from here to the Eagle +Rock Spring to get the water! This seemed the dullest of bucolic wit to +Miss Martin, and she chilled Elnathan to the marrow by her sad gaze of +disappointment in him. Jennie Foster was very jealous of Miss Martin (as +were all the girls in town), and she rejoiced openly in Elnathan's +witticism, continuing to laugh at intervals after the rest of the room had +cowered into silence under the librarian's eye. + +Miss Martin took the old janitor aside and told him sternly that if such +a thing happened again she would dismiss him; and when the old man, +crazily trying to show his spirit, allowed a spelling-match to go on, full +blast, right in library hours, she did dismiss him, drawing on the endless +funds at her disposal to import a young Irishman from Albany, who was soon +playing havoc with the pretty French-Canadian girls. Elzaphan Hall, +stunned by the blow, fell into bad company and began to drink heavily, +paying for his liquor by exceedingly comic and disrespectful imitations of +Miss Martin's talks on art. + +It was now about the middle of the winter, and the knoll which in June had +been the center of gratefully cool breezes was raked by piercing north +winds which penetrated the picturesquely unplastered, wood-finished walls +as though they had been paper. The steam-heating plant did not work very +well, and the new janitor, seeing fewer and fewer people come to the +reading-room, spent less and less time in struggling with the boilers, or +in keeping the long path up the hill shoveled clear of snow. Miss Martin, +positively frightened by the ferocity with which winter flings itself upon +the high narrow valley, was helpless before the problem of the new +conditions, and could think of nothing to do except to buy more fuel and +yet more, and to beseech the elusive Celt, city-trained in plausible +excuses for not doing his duty, to burn more wood. Once she remarked +plaintively to Elnathan Pritchett, as she sat beside him at a church +supper (for she made a great point of "mingling with the people"), that it +seemed to her there must be something the _matter_ with the wood in +Hillsboro. + +Everybody within earshot laughed, and the saying was repeated the next day +with shameless mirth as the best joke of the season. For the wood for the +library had had a history distinctly discreditable and as distinctly +ludicrous, at which Hillsboro people laughed with a conscious lowering of +their standards of honesty. The beginning had been an accident, but the +long sequence was not. For the first time in the history of the library, +the farmer who brought the first load of wood presented a bill for this +service. He charged two dollars a cord on the scrawled memorandum, but +Miss Martin mistook this figure for a seven, corrected his total with the +kindest tolerance for his faulty arithmetic, and gave the countryman a +check which reduced him for a time to a paralyzed silence. It was only on +telling the first person he met outside the library that the richness of a +grown person knowing no more than that about the price of wood came over +him, and the two screamed with laughter over the lady's beautifully formed +figures on the dirty sheet of paper. + +Miss Martin took the hesitating awkwardness of the next man presenting +himself before her, not daring to ask the higher price and not willing to +take the lower, for rustic bashfulness, and put him at his ease by saying +airily, "Five cords? That makes thirty-five dollars. I always pay seven +dollars a cord." After that, the procession of grinning men driving +lumber-sleds toward the library became incessant. The minister attempted +to remonstrate with the respectable men of his church for cheating a poor +young lady, but they answered roughly that it wasn't her money but +Camden's, who had tossed them the library as a man would toss a penny to a +beggar, who had now quite forgotten about them, and, finally, who had made +his money none too honestly. + +Since he had become of so much importance to them they had looked up his +successful career in the Chicago wheat pit, and, undazzled by the millions +involved, had penetrated shrewdly to the significance of his operations. +The record of his colossal and unpunished frauds had put to sleep, so far +as he was concerned, their old minute honesty. It was considered the best +of satires that the man who had fooled all the West should be fooled in +his turn by a handful of forgotten mountaineers, that they should be +fleecing him in little things as he had fleeced Chicago in great. There +was, however, an element which frowned on this shifting of standards, and, +before long, neighbors and old friends were divided into cliques, calling +each other, respectively, cheats and hypocrites. Hillsboro was intolerably +dull that winter because of the absence of the usual excitement over the +entertainment, and in that stagnation all attention was directed to the +new joke on the wheat king. It was turned over and over, forward and back, +and refurbished and made to do duty again and again, after the fashion of +rustic jokes. This one had the additional advantage of lining the pockets +of the perpetrators. They egged one another on to fresh inventions and +variations, until even the children, not to be left out, began to have +exploits of their own to tell. The grocers raised the price of kerosene, +groaning all the time at the extortions of the oil trust, till the +guileless guardian of Mr. Camden's funds was paying fifty cents a gallon +for it. The boys charged a quarter for every bouquet of pine-boughs they +brought to decorate the cold, empty reading-room. The washer-woman charged +five dollars for "doing-up" the lace sash-curtains. As spring came on, and +the damages wrought by the winter winds must be repaired, the carpenters +asked wages which made the sellers of firewood tear their hair at wasted +opportunities. They might have raised the price per cord! The new janitor, +hearing the talk about town, demanded a raise in salary and threatened to +leave without warning if it were not granted. + +It was on the fifth of June, a year to a day after the arrival of Mr. +Camden in his automobile, that Miss Martin yielded to this last extortion, +and her action made the day as memorable as that of the year before. The +janitor, carried away by his victory, celebrated his good fortune in so +many glasses of hard cider that he was finally carried home and deposited +limply on the veranda of his boarding-house. Here he slept till the cold +of dawn awoke him to a knowledge of his whereabouts, so inverted and tipsy +that he rose, staggered to the library, cursing the intolerable length of +these damn Vermont winters, and proceeded to build a roaring fire on the +floor of the reading-room. As the varnished wood of the beautiful fittings +took light like a well-constructed bonfire, realization of his act came to +him, and he ran down the valley road, screaming and giving the alarm at +the top of his lungs, and so passed out of Hillsboro forever. + +The village looked out of its windows, saw the wooden building blazing +like a great torch, hurried on its clothes and collected around the fire. +No effort was made to save the library. People stood around in the chilly +morning air, looking silently at the mountain of flame which burned as +though it would never stop. They thought of a great many things in that +silent hour as the sun rose over Hemlock Mountain, and there were no +smiles or their faces. They are ignorant and narrow people in Hillsboro, +but they have an inborn capacity unsparingly to look facts in the face. + +When the last beam had fallen in with a crash to the blackened cellar-hole +Miss Martin, very pale and shaken, stepped bravely forward. "I know how +terribly you must be feeling about this," she began in her carefully +modulated voice, "but I want to assure you that I _know_ Mr. Camden will +rebuild the library for you if--" + +She was interrupted by the chief man of the town, Squire Pritchett, who +began speaking with a sort of bellow only heard before in exciting moments +in town-meeting. "May I never live to see the day!" he shouted; and from +all the tongue-tied villagers there rose a murmur of relief at having +found a voice. They pressed about him closely and drank in his dry, curt +announcement: "As selectman I shall write Mr. Camden, tell him of the +fire, thank him for his kindness, and inform him that we don't want any +more of it" Everybody nodded. "I don't know whether his money is what they +call tainted or not, but there's one thing sure, it ain't done us any +good." He passed his hand over his unshaven jaw with a rasping wipe and +smiled grimly as he concluded, "I'm no hand to stir up lawbreakin' and +disorder, but I want to say right here that I'll never inform against any +Hillsboro man who keeps the next automobile out of town, if he has to take +a ax to it!" + +People laughed, and neighbors who had not spoken to one another since the +quarrel over the price of wood fell into murmured, approving talk. + +Elnathan Pritchett, blushing and hesitating, twitched at his father's +sleeve. "But, father--Miss Martin--We're keeping her out of a position." + +That young lady made one more effort to reach these impenetrable people. +"I was about to resign," she said with dignity. "I am going to marry the +assistant to the head of the Department of Bibliography at Albany." + +The only answer to this imposing announcement was a giggle from Jennie +Foster, to whose side Elnathan now fell back, silenced. + +People began to move away in little knots, talking as they went. Elzaphan +Hall stumped hastily down the street to the town hall and was standing in +the open door as the first group passed him. + +"Here, Mis' Foster, you're forgittin' somethin'," he said roughly, with +his old surly, dictatorial air. "This is your day to the library." + +Mrs. Foster hesitated, laughing at the old man's manner. + +"It seems foolish, but I don't know why _not_!" she said. "Jennie, you run +on over home and bring a broom for Elzaphan. The book must be in an +_awful_ state!" + +When Jennie came back, a knot of women stood before the door, talking to +her mother and looking back at the smoldering ruins. The girl followed the +direction of their eyes and of their thoughts. "I don't believe but what +we can plant woodbine and things around it so that in a month's time you +won't know there's been anything there!" she said hopefully. + + + + +SALEM HILLS TO ELLIS ISLAND + + + A single sleighbell, tinkling down + The virgin road that skirts the wood, + Makes poignant to the lonely town + Its silence and its solitude. + + A single taper's feeble flare + Makes darker by its lonely light + The cold and empty farmsteads square + That blackly loom to left and tight; + + And she who sews, by that dim flame, + The patient quilt spread on her knees, + Hears from her heirloom quilting-frame + The frolic of forgotten bees. + + Yea, all the dying village thrills + With echoes of its cheerful past, + The golden days of Salem Hills; + Its only golden days? Its last? + + + + +II + + + From Salem Hills a voiceless cry + Along the darkened valley rolls. + Hear it, great ship, and forward ply + With thy rich freight of venturous souls. + + Hear it, O thronging lower deck, + Brave homestead-seekers come from far; + And crowd the rail, and crane the neck; + In Salem Hills your homesteads are! + + Where flourish now the brier and thorn, + The barley and the wheat shall spring, + And valleys standing thick with corn + (Praise God, my heart!), shall laugh and sing. + + + + +AVUNCULUS + +I + + +The library of Middletown College had been founded, like the college +itself, in 1818, and it was a firm article of undergraduate belief that +the librarian, Mr. J.M. Atterworthy, had sat behind his battered desk +from that date on to the present time. As a matter of fact, he was but +just gliding down-hill from middle age, having behind him the same number +of years as the active and high-spirited president of the college. And yet +there was ground for the undergraduate conviction that "Old J.M." as he +was always called, was an institution whose beginnings dated back into the +mists of antiquity, for of his sixty years he had spent forty-four in +Middletown, and forty as librarian of the college. + +He had come down, a shy, lanky freshman of sixteen, from a little village +in the Green Mountains, and had found the only consolation for his +homesick soul in the reading-room of the library. During his sophomore and +junior years, there had sprung up in the bookish lad, shrinking from the +rough fun of his fellows, the first shoots of that passionate attachment +to the library which was later to bind him so irrevocably to the old +building. In those early days there was no regular librarian, the +professors taking turn and turn about in keeping the reading-room open for +a few hours, three or four days a week. In his senior year, "J.M." (even +at that time his real name was sunk in the initials, the significance of +which he jealously concealed) petitioned the faculty to be allowed to take +charge of the reading-room. They gave a shrug of surprise at his +eccentricity, investigated briefly his eminently sober-minded college +career, and heaved a sigh of relief as they granted his extraordinary +request. + +On the evening of Commencement day, J.M. went to the president and made +the following statement: He said that his father and his mother had both +died during his senior year, leaving him entirely alone in the world, with +a small inheritance yielding about fifty dollars a month. He had no +leaning to any profession, he shrank with all his being from the savage +struggles of the business world, and he could not bear to return to +Woodville, to find himself lonely and bereaved in the spot where he had +had such a cloudlessly happy childhood. In short, Middletown was the only +place he knew and liked, except Woodville, which he loved too poignantly +to live there with the soul gone out of things; and the library was the +only home he now had. If the president could get the trustees, at their +next meeting, to allow him the use of the three rooms in the library +tower, and if they would vote him a small nominal salary, say thirty +dollars a month, enough to make him a regular member of the college corps, +he would like nothing better than to settle down and be the librarian of +his _alma mater_ for the rest of his life. + +The president of that date was, like all the other presidents of +Middletown College, a florid, hearty old gentleman with more red blood +than he knew what to do with, in spite of his seventy years. He was vastly +amused at the inexperienced young fellow's simple-minded notion, and, +clapping him on the shoulder, said with his cheerfully Johnsonian +rotundity: "Why, my dear young sir, your recent sad bereavement must have +temporarily deranged your mental faculties, that at your age you can +contemplate adopting such a desiccated mode of existence. Your +proposition is, however, a highly advantageous one to your college, and I +shall see that it is accepted. However, I am willing to lay a wager with +you that a year will not be out before you are asking to be freed from +your contract." + + +J.M., trembling in suspense, took in nothing of the president's speech +beyond the acceptance of his offer, and, pale with relief, he tried to +stammer his thanks and his devotion to his chosen cause. He made no +attempt to contradict the president's confident prophecies; he only made +the greatest possible haste to the tower-rooms which were to be his home. +His eyes filled with thankfulness at his lot as he paced about them, and, +looking out of the windows upon the campus, he had a prophetic vision of +his future, of the simple, harmless, innocent life which was to be his. + +Of the two prophets he proved himself the truer. The head of his college +and one generation after another of similar presidents laughed and joked +him about the _Wanderlust_ which would some day sweep him away from his +old moorings, or the sensible girl who would some day get hold of him and +make a man of him. He outlasted all these wiseacres, however, watching +through mild, spectacled eyes the shifting changes of the college world, +which always left him as immovable as the old elms before the library +door. He never went away from Middletown, except on the most necessary +trips to New York or Boston on business connected with book-buying for the +library. + +He explained this unheard-of stagnation by saying that the utter +metamorphosis of the village after the college life stopped gave him +change enough. Only once had he gone farther and, to one of the younger +professors who had acquired an odd taste for old J.M.'s society, +confessed hesitatingly that he did not go away because he had no place to +which he could go, except to his childhood home. He said he couldn't bear +to go there lest he find it so changed that the sight of it would rob him +of his old memories, the dearest--in fact the only possessions of his +heart. After a pause he had added to his young listener, who found the +little old secular monk a tremendously pathetic figure: "Do you know, +Layton, I sometimes feel that I have missed a great deal in life--and yet +not at all what everybody thought I would miss, the stir of active life or +the vulgar excitement of being in love. All that kind of thing seems as +distasteful to me now as ever." + +There he stopped and poked the fire until the young professor, overcome +with sympathetic curiosity, urged him to go on. He sighed at this, and +said: "Why, fortune ought not to have made me an only child, although I +can't say that I've ever longed for brothers or sisters.... But now I feel +that I should like very much to have some nephews and nieces. I never +could have stood having children of my own--I should have been crushed +under the responsibility; but a nephew, now--a young creature with a brain +and soul developing--to whom I could be a help ... I find as I get older +that I have an empty feeling as the college year draws to a close. I have +kept myself so remote from human life, for fear of being dragged into that +feverish center of it which has always so repelled me, that now I do not +touch it at all." He ended with a gentle resignation, taking off his +glasses and rubbing them sadly: "I suppose I do not deserve anything more, +because I was not willing to bear the burdens of common life ... and yet +it almost seems that there should be some place for such as I--?" + +The heart of his young friend had melted within him at this revelation of +the submissive isolation of the sweet-tempered, cool-blooded old scholar. +Carelessly confident, like all the young, that any amount or variety of +human affection could be his for the asking, he promised himself to make +the dear old recluse a sharer in his own wealth; but the next year he +married a handsome, ambitious girl who made him accept an advantageous +offer in the commercial world. With his disappearance, the solitary door +in the prison walls which kept J.M. remote from his fellows swung shut. + +He looked so hopelessly dull and becalmed after this that the president +was moved to force on him a little outing. Stopping one day with his +touring-car at the door of the library, he fairly swept the sedentary +little man off his feet and out to the machine. J.M. did not catch his +breath during the swift flight to the president's summer home in a trim, +green, elm-shaded village in the Berkshires. When he recovered a little he +was startled by the resemblance of the place to his old recollections of +Woodville. There were the same white houses with green shutters, and big +white pillars to the porches, the same green lawns and clumps of peonies +and carefully tended rose-gardens, and the same old-New-England air of +distance from the hurry and smoky energy of modern commercial life. + +He spoke of this to the president's wife and she explained that it was no +wonder. The village was virtually owned by a summer colony of oldish +people who had lived there in their youth and who devoted themselves to +keeping the old place just as it had been. "We haven't any children to +bother about any more," she said, laughing, "so we take it out in putting +knockers on the doors instead of bells and in keeping the grocery-stores +out of sight so that the looks of the village green shan't be spoiled." + +After J.M. returned to deserted Middletown, he could not keep out of his +mind the vision of the village he had just left, and the thought of the +village like it which he had loved so well in his boyhood. It seemed to +him that if Woodville kept its old aspect at all, he would find it a +comfort to try to inspire the people now living there to preserve the +old-timey look of it, as the president was doing for his old home. There +was positively a thrill for J.M. in the thought of his possibly +influencing other people, and before he knew it the plan had made itself +the main interest of the interminably long, empty days of the summer +vacation. His vague feeling of a lack in his life crystallized about a +definite attempt at filling it. He was stirred from his inertia and, +leaving word with the registrar of the college, a newcomer who was not at +all surprised that the librarian should follow the example of all the rest +of the faculty, J.M. made the three hours' journey which had separated +him for so many years from the home of his youth. + +As the train wound along the valley beside the river, and as the familiar +outlines of the mountains rose up like the faces of dear, unforgotten +friends, J.M. expanded and bloomed with delight in his new idea; but it +was a very shriveled and dusty little old scholar who finally arrived at +the farther end of the Main Street of Woodville and stood, in the hush of +the noon hour, gazing back with a stricken face at the row of slovenly +unlovely front yards separating the wretched old houses from the street. + +He stood before the house that had been his home, and when he looked at it +he turned very pale and sat down quickly as though his knees had failed +him. Apparently the house had not been painted since his childhood, and +certainly it had not been repaired. Broken, dangling shutters gave it a +blear-eyed look which it made him sick to see, and swarms of untidily +pin-feathered chickens wandered about over the hard-beaten earth of the +yard, which was without a spear of grass, littered with old boxes and +crates and unsightly rags, and hung with a flapping, many-legged wash. +From the three rural mail-delivery boxes at the gate, he gathered that +three families were crowded into the house which had seemed none too large +for his father, his mother, and himself. He put on his glasses and read +the names shudderingly--Jean-Baptiste Loyette, Patrick McCartey, and S. +Petrofsky. + +"Good heavens!" he observed feebly to the vacant, dusty road beside him, +and in answer a whistle from the big, barrack-like building at the other +end of the street screamed so stridently that the heavy August air seemed +to vibrate about him in hot waves. + +At once, as if all the houses on the street were toy barometers, every +door swung open and a stream of men and boys in dirty shirts and overalls +flowed out through the squalid yards along the sidewalks toward the +factory. From the house before which the librarian of Middletown College +sat in a crushed heap of resentment came three men to correspond to the +three mail-boxes: one short and red-haired; one dark, thick-set, and +grizzle-bearded; and the third tall, clumsily built, with an impassive +face and dark, smoldering eyes. They stared at the woebegone old stranger +before their gate, but evidently had no time to lose, as their house was +the last on the street, and hurried away toward the hideous, many-windowed +factory. + +J.M. gazed after them, shaking his head droopingly, until a second +eruption from the house made him look back. The cause of the hard-beaten +bare ground of the yard was apparent at once, even to his inexperienced +eyes. The old house seemed to be exuding children from a thousand +pores--children red-haired and black-haired, and tow-headed, boys and +girls, little and big, and apparently yelling on a wager about who owned +the loudest voice, all dirty-faced, barelegged, and scantily clothed. +J.M. mechanically set himself to counting them, but when he got as high +as seventeen, he thought he must have counted some of them twice, and left +off. + +A draggle-tailed woman stepped to a door and threw out a pan of +dish-water. J.M. resolved to overcome his squeamish disgust and make a +few inquiries before he fled back to the blessed cleanliness and quiet of +Middletown Library. Picking his way gingerly through the chickens and +puppies and cats and children, the last now smitten into astonished +silence by his appearance, he knocked on the door. The woman who came to +answer him was dressed in what had been a black and purple percale, +wrapper, she had a baby on her arm, and was making vain attempts to fasten +up a great coil of hair at the back of her head. No, she told him volubly, +she couldn't remember the town when it was any different, though she and +Pat had lived there ever since they were married and came over from +Ireland, and that was the whole of sixteen years ago. + +"Oh!" with a sudden gush of sympathy, "and so it was your old home! Isn't +that interring now! You must come in and sit awhile. Pat, git a chair for +the gentleman, and Molly, take the baby so I can talk better. Oh, _won't_ +you come in? You'd _better_, now, and have a bite to eat and a sup of tea. +I've some ready made." Of course, she went on, she knew the house didn't +look so nice as in his day.... "It's all along of the children! Irish +people can't kape so tidy, now, _can_ they, with siven or eight, as +Yankees can with one--" But it certainly was a grand house, she didn't +wonder he came back to look at it. Wasn't it fairly like a palace, now, +compared with anything her kin back in Ireland had, and such a fine big +place for the children to play an' all. + +J.M. broke in to ask a final question, which she answered, making vain +attempts to button her buttonless collar about a fat white neck, and +following him as he retreated toward the street, through a lively game of +baseball among the older boys. No, so far as she knew there wasn't one of +the Yankees left that had lived here in old times. They had gone away when +the factory had come in, she'd heard said. J.M. had expected this answer, +but when it came, he turned a little sick for an instant, and felt giddy +with the heat of the sun and lack of food and a desolation in his heart +sharper and more searching than any emotion he had known since his +boyhood. Through a mist before his eyes, he saw his hostess make a wild +warning gesture, and heard a yell of dismay from the crowd of boys, but +before he could turn his head, something cruelly hard struck him in the +side. In the instant before he fell, his clearest impression was utter +amazement that anything in the world could cause him such incredible pain, +but then his head struck heavily against a stone, and he lay quite still +in a little crumpled heap under the old elm which had sheltered his +boyhood. + + + + +II + + +For an instant after he opened his eyes again, all his life after leaving +Woodville seemed to have melted away, for there at the foot of his bed was +the little, many-paned window out of which he had watched the seasons +change all through his boyhood, and close above him hung the familiar +slanting roof of his own little, old room. However, when he stirred, it +was not his mother but a rosy-faced Irish woman who stopped her sewing and +asked him in a thick, sweet brogue if he needed anything. As he stared at +her, recollecting but dimly having seen her glossy brown hair and fair, +matronly face before, she exclaimed: "Ah, I'm Bridget McCartey, you know, +an' you were hurted by the lads throwin' a baseball into your ribs. It's +lyin' here a week sick you've been, and, savin' your pardon, the sooner +you tell me where your folks live the better. They'll be fair wild about +you." + +The sick man closed his eyes again. "I have no family at all," he said. It +was the first time in years that the thoroughgoing extent of that fact had +been brought home to him. + +His nurse was moved to sympathy over so awful a fate. "Sure an' don't I +know how 'tis. Pat an' I left every one of our kith behind us, mostly, +when we come away, and it's that hungry for thim that I get. I dare say it +ill becomes me to say it, but the first thing I says to myself when I see +you was how like you are to one of my father's brothers in County Kerry. +It's been a real comfort to have you here sick, as though I had some of my +own kin near. _His_ name was Jerry. It's not possible, is't, that the J. +on your handkerchief stands for Jerry, too?" + +For the first time since he had left Woodville J.M. disclosed the +grotesque secret of his initials. In the flaccid indifference of +convalescence it flowed from him painlessly. "My name is Jeroboam +Mordecai." + +"Exactly to a hair like Uncle Jerry's!" cried Mrs. McCartey, overjoyed by +the coincidence. "Except that his J. stood for Jeremiah and his M. for +Michael. If you will tell me your last name, too, I'll try and lambaste +the children into callin' you proper. Not havin' sorra name to speak of +you by, and hearin' me say to Pat how you favored my father's brother, +haven't they taken to callin' _you_ Uncle Jerry--more shame to them!" + +The mention of the children awoke to life J.M.'s old punctilious habits. +He tried to sit up. "But you have so little space for all your family--you +should not have taken me in; where can the children sleep?" + +Mrs. McCartey pushed him back on the pillow with an affectionate firmness +born of "the bringin' up of sivin." "Now lay still, Uncle Jerry, and kape +yourself cool." The name slipped out unnoticed in her hospitable fervor +"Wasn't it the least we could do when 'twas our own Mike's ball that came +near killin' you? An' the children--the boys, that is, that this is their +room--isn't it out in the barn they're sleepin' on the hay? An' that +pleased with it. Pat and I were thinkin' that now was a good chance to +teach them to give up things--when you've no old folks about you, the +children are so apt to grow up selfish-like--but they think the barn's +better nor the house, bless them, so don't _you_ worry." + +She pulled the bedclothes straight (J.M. noticed that they were quite +clean), settled the pillow, and drew down the shade. "Now thin, you've +talked enough," she said. "Take a sup of sleep for a while." And to +J.M.'s feeble surprise he found himself doing exactly as he was told, +dozing off with a curious weak-headed feeling of comfort. + +He came to his strength slowly, the doctor forbidding him to think of +taking a journey for a month at least. Indeed, J.M., thinking of his +isolated tower-rooms in the deserted college town, was in no haste to +leave Mrs. McCartey's kindly, dictatorial care. He had been very sick +indeed, the doctor told him seriously, and he felt it in the trembling +weakness of his first attempts at sitting up, and in the blank vacancy of +his mind. + +At first he could not seem to remember for more than an instant at a time +how he came to be there, and later, as his capacity for thought came back, +he found his surroundings grown insensibly familiar to him. He felt +himself somehow to have slipped so completely into the inside of things +that it was impossible to recover the remote, hostile point of view which +had been his as he had looked over the gate a fortnight ago. For instance, +knowing now, not only that the children's faces were scrubbed to a +polished redness every morning, but being: cognizant through his window of +most of the palpably unavoidable accidents of play which made them dirty +half an hour later, he would have resented as unreasonable intolerance any +undue emphasis on this phase of their appearance. + +The first day that he was well enough to sit out on the porch was a great +event. The children, who before had made only shy, fleeting visits to his +room with "little handfuls of bokays," as their mother said, were as +excited and elated over his appearance as though it reflected some credit +on themselves. Indeed, J.M. found that he was the subject of +unaccountable pride to all the family, and one of the first of those +decisions of his between McCartey and Loyette occurred that very morning. +The Loyette children insisted on being included in the rejoicing over the +convalescent's step forward, and soon Pierre, the oldest boy, was haled +before J.M. himself to account for his having dared to use the McCartey +name for the sick man. + +"You're _not_ his Uncle Jerry, _are_ you?" demanded Mike McCartey. + +J.M. thought that now was the time to repress the too exuberant McCartey +familiarity. "I'm his Uncle Jerry just as much as I am yours!" he said +severely. + +It took him a whole day to understand the jubilant triumph of the +French-Canadians and to realize that he had apparently not only upheld the +McCarteys in their preposterous nickname, but that he had added all the +black-eyed Loyettes to his new family. Mrs. McCartey said to him that +evening, with an innocent misconception of the situation, "Sure an' +mustn't it sound fine to you, that name, when you've no kith of your own." +J.M. realized that that speech broke down the last bridge of retreat into +his forsaken dignity. It is worthy of note that as he lay in bed that +evening, meditating upon it, he suddenly broke into a little laugh of +utter amusement, such as the assistants at Middletown Library had never +heard from his lips. + +The rapidity with which he was fitted into the routine of the place took +his breath away. At first when he sat on the porch, which was the common +ground of all the families, either Mrs. McCartey or Mrs. Loyette sewed +near him to keep an eye on the children, but, as his strength came back, +they made him, with a sigh of relief, their substitute, and disappeared +into the house about neglected housework. "Oh, ain't it lovely now!" cried +Mrs. McCartey to Mrs. Loyette, "to have an old person of your own about +the place that you can leave the children with a half-minute, while you +snatch the wash-boiler off the fire or keep the baby from cuttin' her +throat with the butcher-knife." + +Mrs. Loyette agreed, shaking her sleek black head a great many times in +emphasis. "Zose pipple," she added, "zose lucky pipple who have all zere +old pipple wiz zem, they can _not_ know how hard is eet to be a mozzer, +wizout a one grand'mère, or oncle." + +So J.M. at the end of his first fortnight in Woodville found himself +undisputed umpire in all the games, discussions, quarrels, +and undertakings of seven young, Irish-Americans and more +French-Canadian-Americans than he could count. He never did find out +exactly how many Loyettes there were. The untidy front yard, littered with +boxes and barrels, assumed a strangely different aspect to him as he +learned its infinite possibilities, for games and buildings and +imaginations generally. Sometimes it was a village with a box as house for +each child, ranged in streets and lanes, and then Uncle Jerry was the +mayor and had to make the laws. Sometimes the yard foamed and heaved in +salt waves as, embarked in caravels, the expedition for the discovery of +America (out of the older children's history-books) dashed over the +Atlantic. It is needless to state that Uncle Jerry was Christopher +Columbus. + +Both the grateful mothers whom he was relieving cried out that never had +there been such peace as since he came, not only because the children +could appeal to him for decisions instead of running to their mothers, but +because, the spectacular character in every game belonging to him as +"company," there were no more quarrels between Mike and Pierre about the +leadership. J.M. could not seem to find his old formal personality for +weeks after Mike's baseball had knocked it out of him, and in the meantime +he submitted, meekly at first and later with an absurd readiness, to being +an Indian chieftain, and the head of the fire department, and the +principal of a big public school, and the colonel of a regiment, and the +owner of a cotton factory, and the leader of Arctic expeditions, and all +the other characters which the fertile minds inhabiting the front yard +forced upon him. He realized that he was a changed soul when he found +himself rejoicing as the boys came tugging yet another big crate, obtained +from the factory, to add to the collection before him. They needed it for +the car for the elephant as the circus they were then performing moved +from one end of the yard to the other. + +He was often very, very tired when night came, but he surprised himself by +never having a touch of his old enemy, insomnia. At first he went to bed +when the children did, but as he progressed out of convalescence, he sat +out on the porch with Pat and Bridget, as they insisted he should call +them. It was very quiet then, when the cool summer dusk had hushed all the +young life which made each day such an absorbing series of unexpected +events. The puppies and kittens slept in their boxes, the hens had +gathered the chickens under their wings, the children were sound asleep, +and the great elms cast kindly shadows on the porch where the older people +sat. The Loyettes often came out and joined them, and J.M. listened with +an interest which surprised him as they told stories about hard times in +their old homes, rejoiced in their present prosperity, and made humbly +aspiring plans for their children. + +For the first time in his life J.M. felt himself to be a person of almost +unlimited resources, both of knowledge and wealth, as the pitiful +meagerness of his hosts supply of these commodities was revealed to him in +these talks, more intimate than any he had known, more vitally human than +any he had ever heard. The acquisition of rare first edition, perhaps the +most stirring event in his life in Middletown, had never aroused him to +anything like the eagerness with which he heard the Loyettes helplessly +bemoaning their inability to do anything for their oldest child, Rosalie, +a slim girl of seventeen. Her drawing-teacher at school had said that the +child had an unusual gift for designing, and a manufacturer of wallpaper, +who had seen some of her work on a visit to the Woodville factory, had +confirmed this judgment and said that "something ought to be done for +her." + +"But _what?_" her parents wondered with an utter ignorance of the world +outside of Woodville which astonished J.M. + +"Why don't you send her to a school of design?" he asked. + +"Vat is _zat_?" asked Papa Loyette blankly, and "We have no money," sighed +Maman. + +J.M. stirred himself, wrote to the director of a school of design in +Albany, consulted the priest of the parish, sent some of Rosalie's work, +and asked about scholarships. When a favorable answer came, he hurried to +explain the matter to the Loyettes and offered to provide the four dollars +a week necessary for her board at the Catholic Home for Working Girls, of +which the priest had told him. He went to bed that night with his heart +beating faster from the reflection of their agitated joy than it had done +for years. He could not get to sleep for a long time, such a thrill of +emotion did he get from each recollection of Maman Loyette's broad face +bathed in tears of gratitude. + +After this they fell into the way of asking him about all their problems, +from the management of difficult children to what to do about an unjust +foreman and whether to join the union. The childless, unpractical, +academic old bachelor, forced to meditate on these new subjects, gave +utterance to advice whose sagacity amazed himself. He had not known it was +in him to have such sensible ideas about how to interest a growing boy in +athletics to keep him from drinking; and as for the question of unions, he +boiled at the memory of some of the half-baked, pedantic theories he had +heard promulgated by the professor of political economy in Middletown. + +On the other hand, he stood in wonder at the unconscious but profound +wisdom which these ignorant people showed as to the fundamentals of life. + +"No, we're not much for _clothes!_" said Mrs. McCartey, comfortably +tucking up her worn and faded sleeves. "Haven't we all of us enough good +clothes to go to Mass in, and that's a'plenty! The rest of Pat's money +goes to gettin' lots of good food for the children, bless their red faces +and fat little bellies! and laying by a dollar or so a week against the +rainy day. Children can play better, anyhow, with only overalls and +shirts. The best times for kids is the cheapest!" + +J.M. thought of the heavy-eyed, harassed professors of his acquaintance, +working nights and Sundays at hack work to satisfy the nervous ambitions +of their wives to keep up appearances, and gave a sudden swift embrace to +the ragged child on his lap, little Molly, who had developed an especial +cult for him, following him everywhere with great pansy eyes of adoring +admiration. + +On his first expedition out of the yard since his illness, he was touched +by the enthusiastic interest which all Main Street took in his progress. +Women with babies came down to nearly every gate to pass the time of day +with Rosalie, on whose arm he leaned, and to say in their varying foreign +accents that they were glad to see the sick gentleman able to be out. +Since J.M. had had a chance at first-hand observation of the variety of +occupation forced upon the mother of seven, he was not surprised that they +wore more or less dilapidated wrappers and did not Marcel-wave their hair. +Now he noticed the motherly look in their eyes, and the exuberant health +of the children laughing and swarming about them. When he returned to the +house he sat down on the porch to consider a number of new ideas which +were springing up in his mind, beginning to return to its old vigor. Mrs. +McCartey came out to see how he had stood the fatigue and said: "Sure you +look smarter than before you went! It inter_est_ed you now, didn't it, to +have a chance really to see the old place?" + +"Yes," said J.M., "it did, very much." + +Mrs. McCartey went on: "I've been thinkin' so many times since you come +how much luckier you are than most Yankees that come back to their old +homes. It must seem so good to you to see the houses just swarmin' with +young life and to know that the trees and yards and rocks and brooks that +give you such a good time when you was a boy, are goin' on givin' good +times to a string of other boys." + +J.M. looked at her with attentive, surprised eyes. "Why, do you know," he +cried, "it _does_ seem good, to be sure!" + +The other did not notice the oddness of his accent as she ended +meditatively: "You can never get me to believe that it don't make old +Yankees feel low in their minds to go back to their old homes and find +just a few white-headed rheumatickers potterin' around, an' the grass +growing over everything as though it was a molderin' graveyard that nobody +iver walked in, and sorra sign of life anyway you look up and down the +street." + +J.M.'s mind flew back to the summer home of the president of Middletown. +"Good gracious," he exclaimed, "you're right!" + +Mrs. McCartey did not take in to the full this compliment, her mind being +suddenly diverted by the appearance of a tall figure at the door of the +farther wing of the house. "Say, Uncle Jerry," she said, lowering her +voice, "Stefan Petrofsky asked me the other day if I thought you would let +him talk to you about Ivan some evening?" + +"Why, who are they, anyhow?" asked J.M. "I've often wondered why they +kept themselves so separate from the rest of us." As he spoke he noticed +the turn of his phrase and almost laughed aloud. + +"Petrofsky's wife, poor thing, died since they come here, and now there's +only Stefan, he's the father, and Ivan, he's the boy. He's awful smart +they say, and Stefan, he's about kilt himself to get the boy through the +high school. He graduated this spring and now Stefan he says he wants him +to get some _more_ education. He says their family, back in Russia, was +real gentry and he wants Ivan to learn a lot so that he can help the poor +Roosians who come here to do the right thing by the government--" + +"_ What_?" asked J.M. "I don't seem to catch his idea." + +"Well, no more do I, sorra bit," confessed Mrs. McCartey serenely. "Not a +breath of what he meant got to me, but what he _said_ was that Ivan's +schoolin' had put queer ideas in his head to be an anarchist or somethin' +and he thought that maybe more schoolin' would drive out _thim_ ideas and +put in other ones yet. Hasn't it a foolish sound, now?" She appealed to +J .M. for a sympathy she did not get. + +"It sounds like the most interesting case I ever heard of," he cried, with +a generous looseness of superlative new to him. "Is Ivan that tall, shy, +sad-looking boy who goes with his father to work?" + +"That's _him_. An' plays the fiddle fit to tear the heart out of your +body, and reads big books till God knows what hour in the mornin'. His +father, he says _he_ don't know what to do with him ... There's a big, bad +devil of a Polack down to the works that wants him to join the anarchists +in the fall and go to----" + +J.M. rose to his feet and hurried down the porch toward the Petrofsky +wing of the house, addressing himself to the tall, grave-faced figure in +the doorway. "Oh, Mr. Petrofsky, may I have a few minutes' talk with you +about your son?" he said. + + + + +III + + +The registrar of Middletown College, being a newcomer, saw nothing unusual +in the fact that the librarian came to his office on matriculation day to +enroll as a freshman a shy, dark-eyed lad with a foreign name; but the +president and older professors were petrified into speechlessness by the +news that old J.M. had returned from parts unknown with a queer-looking +boy, who called the old man uncle. Their amazement rose to positive +incredulity when they heard that the fastidious, finical old bachelor had +actually installed a raw freshman in one of his precious tower-rooms, +always before inexorably guarded from the mildest and most passing +intrusion on their hallowed quiet. + +The president made all haste to call on J.M. and see the phenomenon with +his own eyes. As discreetly as his raging curiosity would allow him, he +fell to questioning the former recluse. When he learned that J.M. had +spent six weeks in Woodville, no more explanation seemed needed. "Oh, of +course, your old home?" + +"Yes," said J.M., "my old home." + +"And you had a warm welcome there, I dare say?" + +"Yes, indeed," said J.M. + +"Found the old town in good condition?" + +"Excellent!" this with emphasis. + +The president saw it all, explaining it competently to himself. "Yes, yes, +I see it from here--vacation spent in renewing your youth playing with the +children--promised to go back at Christmas, I suppose." + +"Oh, yes, of course," said J.M. + +"Children cried when you came away, and gave you dotty little things +they'd made themselves?" + +"Just like that," with a reminiscent smile. + +"Well, well," the president got to his feet. "Of course, most natural +thing in the world to take an interest in your brothers' and sisters' +children." + +J.M. did not contradict the president. He never contradicted the +presidents. He outlasted them so consistently that it was not necessary. +This time he took off his glasses and rubbed them on an awkwardly +fashioned chamois spectacle-wiper made for him by little Molly McCartey. +He noticed the pattern of the silk in his visitor's necktie and it made +him think of one of Rosalie Loyette's designs. He smiled a little. + +The president regarded this smiling silence with suspicion. He cocked his +eye penetratingly upon his librarian. "But it is very queer, J.M., that as +long as I have known you, I never heard that you _had_ any family at all." + +J.M. put his clean and polished spectacles back on his nose and looked +through them into the next room, where Ivan Petrofsky sat devouring his +first lesson in political economy. Then he turned, beaming like an amiable +sphinx upon his interrogator. "Do you know--I never realized it myself +until just lately," he said. + + + + +BY ABANA AND PHARPAR + + + Fields, green fields of Shining River, + Lightly left too soon + In the stormy equinoctial, + In the hunter's moon,-- + + Snow-blown fields of Shining River + I shall once more tread; + I shall walk their crested hollows, + Living or dead. + + + + +FINIS + + +To old Mrs. Prentiss, watching apprehensively each low mountain dawn, the +long, golden days of the warm autumn formed a series of blessed reprieves +from the loom which hung over her. With her inherited and trained sense of +reality, she could not cheat herself into forgetting, even for a moment, +that her fate was certain, but, nevertheless, she took a breathless +enjoyment in each day, as it passed and did not bring the dreaded change +in her life. She spoke to her husband about this feeling as they sat on +the front step one October evening, when the air was as mild as in late +May, breaking the calm silence, in which they usually sat, by saying, +"Seems as though this weather was just made for us, don't it, father?" + +The old man stirred uneasily in his chair. "I dun'no'--seems sometimes to +me as though I'd ruther have winter come and be done with it. If we've got +to go as soon as cold weather sets in, we might as well go and have it +over with. As 'tis, I keep on saying good-by in my mind to things and +folks every minute, and then get up in the morning to begin it all again. +This afternoon I was down the river where I saved Hiram's life when he was +a little fellow--the old black whirl-hole. I got to thinking about that +time, I never was real sure till then I wouldn't be a coward if it come +right down _to_ it. Seems as though I'd been more of a man ever since. +It's been a real comfort to me to look at that whirl-hole, and that +afternoon it come over me that after this there wouldn't be a single thing +any more to remind us of anything _good_ or bad, we've ever done. It'll be +most as if we hadn't lived at all. I just felt as though I _couldn't_ go +away from everything and everybody I've ever known down to Hiram's stuffy +little flat. And yet I suppose we are real lucky to have such a good son +as Hiram now the others are all gone. I dun'no' what we'd do if 'tweren't +for him." + +"Do!" cried his wife bitterly. "We could go on living right in this valley +where we belong, if 'twas only in the poor-house!" + +The old man answered reasonably, as though trying to convince himself, +"Well, I suppose it's really flying in the face of Providence to feel so. +The doctor says your lungs ain't strong enough to stand another of our +winters in the mountains, fussing over stove fires, and zero weather and +all, and I'm so ailing I probably wouldn't last through, either. He says +it's a special dispensation that we've got such a nice place to go where +there's steam heat, and warm as summer, day and night." + +"Nathaniel!" exclaimed his wife, attempting to turn her bulky body toward +him in the energy of her protest, "how can you talk so! We've visited +Hiram and we know what an awful place he lives in. I keep a-seeing that +little narrow room that's to be all the place you and I'll have, with the +one window that gets flapped by the wash of the Lord knows who, and that +kitchen as big as the closet to my bedroom here, and that long narrow +hall--why, it's as much as ever I can walk down that all without sticking +fast--and Hiram's queer Dutch wife--" + +She stopped, silenced by the scantiness of her vocabulary, but through her +mind still whirled wordless outcries of rebellion. Her one brief visit to +the city rose before her with all the horror of the inexplicable, strange, +and repellent life which it had revealed to her. The very conveniences of +the compact city apartment were included in her revulsion from all that it +meant. The very kindnesses of the pretty, plump German woman who was her +daughter-in-law startled and repelled her, as did the familiar, easy, +loud-voiced affection of the blond young German-Americans who were her +grandchildren. Even her own son, Hiram, become half Teutonic through the +influence of his business and social relations among the Germans, seemed +alien and remote to her. The stout, beer-drinking, good-natured and +easygoing man seemed another person from the shy, stiff lad who had gone +away from them many years ago, looking so like his father at nineteen that +his mother choked to see him. + +She passed in review all the small rooms of her son's home, "strung along +the hall like buttons on a string," and thought of the three flights of +stairs which were the only escape from them--three long, steep flights, +which left her breathless, her knees trembling under her great weight, and +which led out on the narrow side street, full of noisy, impertinent +children and clattering traffic. Beyond that, nothing--a city full of +strangers whose every thought and way of life were foreign to her, whose +very breath came in hurried, feverish gasps, who exhaled, as they passed +her, an almost palpable emanation of hostile indifference to her and her +existence. It was no new vision to her. Ever since the doctor's verdict +had made it impossible longer to resist her son's dutiful urging of his +parents to make his home theirs she had spent scarcely an hour without a +sudden sick wave of dread of what lay before her; but the picture was the +none the less horrifying because of familiarity, and she struck her hands +together with a sharp indrawn breath. + +The gaunt old man turned toward her, a helpless sympathy twisting his +seamed and weather-marked face. "It's too _bad_, mother," he said. "I know +just how you feel about it. But Hiram's a good son, and"--he hesitated, +casting about for a redeeming feature--"there's always the Natural +History Museum and the birds." + +"That's just it, Nathaniel," returned the old rebel against fate. "You +have something there that's going on with _one_ thing you've done here. +You've always noticed birds and studied 'em in the woods, and you can go +on doing it in a museum. But there ain't a thing for me! All I've ever +done is to live right here in this house ever since I was born, and look +out at the mountains and the big meadows and the river and the churchyard, +and keep house and take care of you and the children. + +"Now the children are all gone, and I haven't the strength to take care of +you the way you need; my life is all done--there ain't no more to it! + +"It's like a book--there's still a chapter _you_ can write, or one you can +finish up; but me--I've come right down to _Finis_, only the Lord won't +write it for me. It's as if somebody wanted to scrawl on the back flyleaf +something that hasn't a thing to do with the rest of the book, some +scratching stuff in a furrin' language that I can't even understand." + +Her husband did not contradict her. He sighed heavily and they both fell +again into a cheerless silence. The moon rose with a strange, eerie +swiftness over the wall of mountain before them, and its wavering +reflection sprang at once to life in the swirling waters of the black hole +in the Necronsett on the other side of the meadow. The old woman's heart +gave a painful leap in her breast at the sight. It was probably one of the +last times she would see it. Numberless occasions when she had noted it +before hurried through her mind. + +She felt herself again the little girl who had sat in summer evenings, +miles away from the talk of her elders in a happy child's reverie, and who +had grown dizzy with watching the swimming reflection in the whirlpool. +She had a strange fleeting hallucination that she was again sitting in the +moonlight, her cheeks flushed and her strong young pulse beating high to +hear Nathaniel's footfall draw nearer down the road. She felt again the +warm, soft weight of her little son, the first-born, the one who had died +young, as she remembered how proud she and Nathaniel had been when he +first noticed the moon. + +An odd passion of recollection possessed her. As the moon rose higher she +seemed to be living over at one time a thousand hours of her busy, ardent +life. She looked at the high, drooping line of the mountains with her +childhood's delight in its clear outline against the sky; she saw the +white stones of the old graveyard, next door, glimmer through the shadow +cast by the church tower, with the half uneasy, fearful pleasure of her +romantic girlhood; she felt about her the solidity and permanency of the +old house, her father's and her grandfather's home, with the joy in +protected security of her young married life; and through it all there ran +a heavy sick realization that she was, in fact, a helpless old woman, +grown too feeble to conduct her own life, and who was to be forced to die +two deaths, one of the spirit and one of the body. + +"Come, mother," said Nathaniel, rising, "we'd better go to bed. We both of +us get notiony sitting here in the moonlight." + +He helped her raise her weighty body with the deftness of long practice +and they both went dully into the house. + +The knowledge of the sky and of the signs of weather which was almost an +instinct with the descendant of generations of farmers, was put to an +anxious use during the days which followed. + +Not since the days when, as a young girl, she had roamed the mountains, as +much a part of the forest and fields as any wild inhabitant, had she so +scanned the face of the valley which was her world. + +She had stopped hoping for any release from her sentence. She only prayed +now for one more day of grace, and into each day she crowded a fullness of +life which was like a renewal of her vigorous youth. + +Of late years, existence had flowed so uniform a passage through the +channels of habit that it had become but half sentient. The two old people +had lived in almost as harmoniously vacant and vital a silence as the old +trees in the forest back of the house. In the surroundings which +generations of human use had worn to an exquisite fitness for their needs, +and to which a long lifetime had adjusted their every action, they +convicted their life with the unthinking sureness of a process of Nature. +But now the old woman, feeling exile close upon her, drew from every +moment of the familiar life an essential savor. + +She knew there was no hope for her; the repeated visits of the doctor and +his decided judgments left her no illusions as to the possibility of +escape. "The very first cold snap you must certainly go," he said, with +the inflexibility of the young. "Mr. Prentiss is likely to have one of his +bad turns and you simply cannot give him the are he must have. Besides, +when he is sick, you will have to look after the fires, and the slightest +exposure would mean pneumonia. I've just written your son so." He drew on +his overcoat. He was so recently from the hospital that it was still of a +fashionable cut and texture. "_I_ can't see anyway why you object to +going. Your son can't afford to keep you both here, and hire somebody to +look after you into the bargain. Think of the advantages you have there, +theaters and museums and the like." + +Mrs. Prentiss spoke sharply. "I've never been in a theater in my life and +I hope I'll go to my grave without being; and as for museums and things, +look at me! I'm so big I can hardly get into the cars, and my city +grandchildren are ashamed to go out with me and have all the folks looking +at the fat old woman from the country." + +The doctor laughed involuntarily at this picture as he turned away. + +"Do you think you are so big it takes the whole Necronsett valley to hold +you?" he called lightly over his shoulder. + +Mrs. Prentiss looked after him with burning eyes What did _he_ know about +the continuity of human life He had told her himself that he had never +lived more than four years in one place. What did he know of ordering your +life, not only for yourself, but for your parents and grandparents? She +felt often as she looked upon the unchanging line of the mountains +guarding the valley, as in her great-grandfather's time, that she saw with +the eyes of her ancestors as well as her own. The room in which she stood +had been her grandmother's bedroom, and her father had been born there, as +she had been herself, and as her children had been. In her childhood she +had looked up to the top of the tall chest of drawers as to a mountain +peak, and her children had, after her. Every inequality in the floor was +as familiar to her feet as to those of her great-grandmother. The big +chest, where she had always kept her children's clothes, had guarded hers +and her mother's, and as often as she had knelt by it, she had so vivid a +recollection of seeing her mother and her grandmother in the same +attitude, that she seemed to lose for a moment the small and confining +sense of individual personality, and to become merged in a noble +procession of mothers of the race. + +She had been an undisciplined girl, called a tomboy in those days, whose +farmer forbears had given to her a pagan passion for the soil and the open +sky. Although brought up with a rigid training in theology, religion had +never meant more to her than a certainty of hell as a punishment for +misdeeds which neither she nor any of the valley people were likely to +commit--murder, suicide, false swearing, and the like. Of definite +religious feeling, she had none, although the discipline of a hard if +happy life had brought her spiritual life in an unconsciously profound +form. She had shrunk from that discipline with all the force of her +nature, and in her girl's heart had vowed that she would never marry and +lead the slave's life of a New England farmer's wife. But then had arrived +Nathaniel, the big, handsome lad who had taken her wild, shy heart and +lost his own when they first met. + +So, half rebellious, she had begun the life of a wife in the old house +from which her mother had just gone to the churchyard next door, and which +was yet filled with her brave and gentle spirit. The old woman, looking +miserably about her, remembered how at every crisis of her life the old +house had spoken to her of the line of submissive wives and mothers which +lay back of her, and had tamed her to a happy resignation in the common +fate of women. On her mother's bed she had borne the agony of childbirth +without a murmur, she whose strong young body had never known pain of any +kind. She had been a joyful prisoner to her little children, she who had +always roamed so foot-free in her girlhood, and with a patience inspired +by the thought of her place in the pilgrimage of her race, she had turned +the great strength of her love for her husband toward a contented +acceptance of the narrow life which was all he could give her. + +Each smallest detail in the room had a significance running back over +years. The ragged cuts in the window-sill moved her to a sudden +recollection of how naughty little Hiram had cut them with his first +knife. With what a repressed intensity she had loved the child while she +had reproved him! How could she go away and leave every reminder of her +children! With a quick and characteristic turn she caught herself in the +flagrant contradiction involved in her reluctance to leave behind her mere +senseless reminders of her son when she was going to his actual self. And +then, with the despairing clear sight of one in a crisis of life, she knew +that, in very fact, Hiram was no longer the boy who had left them years +ago. Away from all that made up her life, under influences utterly foreign +and alien, he had spent almost twice as many years as he had with her. Not +only had the reaction from his severe training carried him to another +extreme of laxness, but as result of his continued absence he had lost all +contact with her world. He no longer consciously repudiated it, he had +crossed the deeper gulf of forgetting it. He was a stranger to her. + +Always before the memories which clung about every corner of the dark old +house had helped her, but now she was forced to face a crisis which none +of her people had known. It was not one of the hardships of life which +were to be accepted, and the hot rebellion of her girlhood burned in her +aching old heart. She thought resentfully of the doctor's blind and stony +lack of understanding. His last ironic sentence came to her mind and she +flamed at the recollection. Yes, it did take the whole valley to hold her, +the valley which was as much a part of her as her eyes which beheld it. +There were moments when she stood under the hazy autumn sky, so acutely +conscious of every line and color of the great wall of mountains +surrounding her that she grew in very fact to be an indivisible portion of +the whole--felt herself as actually rooted to that soil and as permanent +under that sky as the great elm before the door. + +She made no more outcries against fate to her husband, partly because of +the anguish which came upon his gentle old face at the sight of her +suffering, and partly because she felt herself to have no tangible reason +for rebellion. During the last years they had gone drearily around and +around the circle which they felt closing so inexorably upon them, and +there was no longer any use to wear themselves out in futile discussions +of impossible plans. They had both been trained to regard reasonableness +as one of the cardinal virtues, and to the mild nature of the old man it +was a natural one, so they tried conscientiously to force themselves not +only to act, but to feel, "like sensible folks," as they put it bravely to +themselves. + +"Other folks have gone to live with their children, and not near such good +sons as Hiram either, and they didn't make such a fuss about it," said Mr. +Prentiss one evening, out of a long silence, as they sat in front of the +hearth. He looked at his wife, hoping for a cheerful response, but her +lips were set in a quivering line of pain, and the flickering light showed +her fair broad face glistening with tears. "Oh, _mother_!" he cried, in a +helpless misery of sympathy. "Oh, mother, don't! I can't stand it! If I +could only do it for you! But we _can't_ stay, you know." + +The other nodded dumbly, although after a moment she said, "Every day I +live all my life over again, and my mother's, and all my folks. It has +never seemed as though they really died as long as we lived here same as +they did. It's like killing them all again to go away and sell the house +to strangers." + +There was a silence and then, "Oh, Nathaniel, what was that?" she cried, +her voice rising in a quaver of apprehension. + +"The wind," said her husband, stirring the fire. + +"I know. But _what_ wind? It sounds like the first beginning of the wind +over Eagle Rock, and that means snow!" + +She hastened heavily to the window, and raised the shade. "There's a ring +around the moon as plain as my wedding ring!" And then as she looked there +clung to the window-pane a single flake of snow, showing ghastly white in +the instant before it melted. + +"Nathaniel, the end has come," she said solemnly. "Help me get to bed." + +The next morning there was a foot of snow and the thermometer was going +steadily down. When the doctor arrived, red-nosed and gasping from the +knife-like thrusts of the wind over Eagle Rock, he announced that it was +only eight above zero, and he brought a kindly telegram from Hiram, saying +that he had started for the mountains to accompany his parents back to the +city. "I envy you!" said the doctor, blowing on his stiff fingers. "Think +of the bliss of being where you have only to turn a screw in your +steam-radiator to escape from this beastly cold. Your son will be here on +the evening train, and I'll bring him right over. You'll be ready to start +tomorrow, won't you? You've had all the autumn to get packed up in." + +Mrs. Prentiss did not answer. She was so irrationally angry with him that +she could not trust herself to speak. She stood looking out of the low +window at the Necronsett, running swift and black between the white banks. +She felt a wave of her old obsession that in her still lived the bygone +dwellers in the old house, that through her eyes they still saw the +infinitely dear and familiar scenes, something in her own attitude +reminded her of how her father had looked as he stood every morning at +that same window and speculated on the weather. For a moment she had an +almost dizzy conviction that he did in all reality stand there again. + +Then she heard the doctor saying, "I'm coming over there myself when you +start for the station, to see that you're well wrapped up. The least +exposure----" He looked at Mrs. Prentiss's broad and obstinate back, +turned, to her husband, and tapped his chest significantly. + +After he had gone the room was intensely quiet. Mr. Prentiss sat by the +fire, looking vacantly at his withered old hands on his knees, and his +wife did not stir from the window. Her heavy, wide figure was immovable, +but a veritable whirlwind of despair raged within her. She had supposed +she knew all along how bad it was going to be, but it had been a foolish +child's play, like shutting your eyes to pretend you were blind. Now that +utter darkness was upon her, it was as great a shock as though it came +with the most extreme and cruel surprise. A thousand furious fancies went +through her mind, although she continued to gaze out of the window with +the same blank look of stunned incredulity. The whirlpool in the river +caught her eye and she had a wild impulse to throw herself into it. Even +in her frenzy, however, there came the thought, instantly dissuading, of +the scandal in the village and family which such an action would cause. + +No, there was no escape at all, since that simple and obvious one was +closed. + +The valley lay about her, the mountain walls iridescent with snow in +sunshine, the river gleaming with its curious, rapid, serpentine life, in +all the peaceful death of winter; everything was as it always had been. +Her mind refused to accept the possibility of her living under other +conditions with as irresistible and final a certainty as if she had been +called upon to believe she could live with her head separated from her +body. + +And yet, battering at that instinctive feeling, came the knowledge that +she was to start for New York the next day. She felt suddenly that she +could not. "I can't! I can't!" she cried dumbly. "I can't, even if I +_have_ to!" + +An instant later, like an echo, a fiercer gust than usual swept down off +the ledge of rock above the little house, rattled the loose old window, +and sent a sharp blade of icy air full in the old woman's eyes. She gasped +and started back. And then, all in a breath, her face grew calm and +smooth, and her eyes bright with a sudden resolve. Without a moment's +hesitation, she turned to her husband and said in a tone more like her old +self than he had heard for some time, "Father, I wish you'd go over to +Mrs. Warner's and take back that pattern. If we're going to leave +to-morrow, you know----" + +The old man rose obediently, and began putting on his wraps. His wife +helped him, and hurried him eagerly off. When she was alone, she tore at +the fastening of her gown in a fury of haste, baring her wrinkled old +throat widely. Then without a glance about her, she opened the door to the +woodshed, stepped out, and closed it behind her. The cold clutched at her +throat like a palpable hand of ice, and her first involuntary gasp set her +into a fit of coughing. + +She sat down on the stump where kindlings were always split and opened her +gown wider. She noticed how fair and smooth the skin on her shoulders +still was and remembered that her husband had always been proud of her +pretty neck. She had worn a low-necked dress when he had told her he loved +her. That had been in the garden, into which she could now look as she sat +on the stump. She had been picking currants for tea, and he had gone out +to see her. The scene came up before her so vividly that she heard his +voice, and felt herself turn to him with the light grace of her girlhood +and cry again, in an ecstasy of surprised joy, "Oh, _Nathaniel!_" + +A gust of wind whirled a handful of snow against her and some of it +settled on her bare shoulders. She watched it melt and felt the icy little +trickle with a curious aloofness. Suddenly she began to shiver, gripped by +a dreadful chill, which shook her like a strong hand. After that she was +very still again, the death-like cold penetrating deeper and deeper until +her breath came in constricted gasps. She did not stir until she heard the +front door bang to her husband's return. Then she rose with infinite +effort and struggled back into the kitchen. When he came in, she was +standing by the sink, fumbling idly with the dishes. Already her head was +whirling, and she scarcely knew what she was doing. + +In the nightmare of horror which his wife's sudden sickness brought upon +him, old Mr. Prentiss felt that he could bear everything except the sight +and sound of his wife's struggles for breath. He hardly saw the neighbor +women who filled the house, taking advantage of this opportunity to +inspect the furniture with an eye to the auction which would follow the +removal of the old people to the city. He hardly heeded the doctor's +desperate attempts with all varieties of new-fangled scientific +contrivances to stay the hand of death. He hardly knew that his son had +come, and in his competent, prosperous way was managing everything for +him. He sat in one corner of the sick-room, and agonized over the +unconscious sick woman, fighting for every breath. + +On the third day he was left alone with her, by some chance, and suddenly +the dreadful, heaving gasp was still. He sprang to the bedside, sick with +apprehension, but his wife looked up at him with recognition in her eyes. +"This is the end, Nathaniel," she said in so low a whisper that he laid +his ear to her lips to hear. "Don't let anybody in till I'm gone. I don't +want 'em to see how happy I look." Her face wore, indeed, an unearthly +look of beatitude. + +"Nathaniel," she went on, "I hope there's no life after this--for _me_ +anyway. I don't think I ever had very much soul. It was always enough for +me to live in the valley with you. When I go back into the ground I'll be +where I belong. I ain't fit for heaven, and, anyway, I'm tired. We've +lived hard, you and I, Nathaniel; we loved hard when we were young, and +we've lived all our lives right out to the end. Now I want to rest." + +The old man sat down heavily in a chair by the bed. His lips quivered, but +he said nothing. His wife's brief respite from pain had passed as suddenly +as it came, and her huge frame began again to shake in the agony of +straining breath. She managed to speak between gasps. + +"Don't let a soul in here, Nathaniel. I'll be gone in a few minutes. +I don't want 'em to see----" + +The old man stepped to the door and locked it. As he came back, the sick +woman motioned him to come closer. + +"Natty, I thought I could keep it, but I never did have a secret from you, +and I can't die without telling you, if there _is_ a heaven and +hell----Oh, Natty, I've done a wicked thing and I'm dying without +repenting. I'd do it again. That time you went to Mrs. Warner's with the +pattern--this cold I got that day I went out----" + +Her husband interrupted her. For the first time in years he did not call +her "mother," but used the pet name of their courtship. The long years of +their parenthood had vanished. They had gone back to the days when each +had made up all the world to the other. "I know, Matey," he said. "I met +young Warner out in the road and give the pattern to him, and I come right +back, and see you sitting out there. I knew what 'twas for." + +His wife stared at him, amazement silencing her. + +"I thought it was the only thing left I could do for you, Matey, to let +you stay there. You know I never wished for anything but that you should +have what you wanted." He had spoken in a steady, even tone, which now +broke into an irrepressible wail of selfish, human anguish. "But you leave +me all _alone_, Matey! How can I get on without you! I thought I'd die +myself as I sat inside the house watching you. You're all I ever had, +Matey! All there has ever been in the world for me!" + +The old woman stopped her gasping by a superhuman effort. "Why, Natty, I +never supposed you thought so much of me still. I thought that had gone +when we got old. But, oh, my dear! I'm afraid I've dragged you down with +me to destruction. It wa'n't any matter about me, but I'm afraid you've +lost your soul. That was a wicked thing for us to do!" + +Her husband lifted his tear-stained, old face and laid it on the pillow +beside her. He did not put his arms about her, as a younger lover or one +of another country might have done, but because he was a man who had loved +deeply all his life, his answer came with the solemn significance and +sincerity of a speech before the Judgment Seat. "I ain't afraid of hell if +you're there, Matey," he said. + +His wife turned her head and looked at him, her whole face transfigured. +She was no longer a fat old woman on her deathbed. Before his very eyes +she grew again to be the girl among the currant bushes, and with the same +amazed intonation of incredulous joy she cried his name aloud. "Oh, +Nathaniel!" she said, and with the word the longed for _Finis_ was written +to her life. + + + + +A VILLAGE MUNCHAUSEN + + +I + + +When I was a little girl, and lived in Hillsboro with my grandparents, +there were two Decoration Days in every year. One was when all we +school-children took flowers put to the cemetery and decorated the graves +of the soldiers; and the other was when the peonies and syringas bloomed, +and grandfather and I went alone to put a bouquet on the grave of old +Jedediah Chillingworth. + +Grandfather did this as a sort of penance for a great mistake he had made, +and I think it was with the idea of making an atonement by confession that +he used always to tell me the story of his relations with the old man. At +any rate, he started his narrative when we left the house and began to +walk out to the cemetery, and ended it as he laid the flowers on the +neglected grave. I trotted along beside him, faster and faster as he grew +more and more interested, and then stood breathless on the other side of +the grave as he finished, in his cracked old voice, harsh with emotion. + +The first part of his story happened a very long time ago, even before +grandfather was born, when Jedediah Chillingworth first began to win for +himself the combination title of town-fool and town-liar. By the time +grandfather was a half-grown boy, big enough to join in the rough crowd of +village lads who tormented Jed, the old dizzard had been for years the +local butt. Of course I never saw him, but I have keard so much about him +from all the gossips in the village, and grandfather used to describe him +so vividly, that I feel as if I know all about him. + +For about ten years of his youth Jedediah had been way from our little +Vermont town, wandering in the great world. From his stories, he had been +everywhere on he map. In the evening, around the stove in the village +post-office, when somebody read aloud from the newspaper a remarkable +event, all the loafers turned to Jed with wide, malicious grins, to hear +him cap it with a yet ore marvelous tale of what had happened to him. They +gathered around the simple-minded little old man, their tongues in their +cheeks, and drew from him one silly, impossible, boastful story after +another. They made him amplify circumstantially by clumsily artful +questions, and poked one another in the ribs with delight over his deluded +joy in their sympathetic interest. + +As he grew older, his yarns solidified like folk-lore, into a consecrated +and legendary form, which he repeated endlessly without variation. There +were many of them--"How I drove a team of four horses over a falling +bridge," "How I interviewed the King of Portugal," "How I saved big Sam +Harden's life in the forest fire." But the favorite one was, "How I rode +the moose into Kennettown, Massachusetts." This was the particular +flaunting, sumptuous yarn which everybody made old Jed bring out for +company. If a stranger remarked, "Old man Chillingworth can tell a tale or +two, can't he?" everybody started up eagerly with the cry: "Oh, but have +you heard him tell the story of how he rode the moose into Kennettown, +Massachusetts?" + +If the answer was negative; all business was laid aside until the withered +little old man was found, pottering bout some of the odd jobs by which he +earned his living. He was always as pleased as Punch to be asked to +perform, and laid aside his tools with a foolish, bragging grin on his +face, of which grandfather has told me so many times that it seems as if I +had really seen it. + +This is how he told the story, always word for word the same way: + +"Wa'al, sir, I've had queer things happen to me in my time, hain't I, +boys?"--at which the surrounding crowd always wagged mocking heads--"but +nothin' to beat that. When I was ashore wunst, from one of my long v'y'ges +on the sea, I was to Kennettown, Massachusetts." + +"How'd ye come to go there, Jed?" This was a question never to be omitted. + +"Oh, I had a great sight of money to take to some folks that lived there. +The captain of our ship had died at sea, and he give me nine thousand five +hundred and seventy-two English gold guineas, to take to his brother and +sister." + +Here he always stared around at the company, and accepted credulously the +counterfeit coin of grotesquely exaggerated amazement which was given him. + +"Wa'al, sir, I done it. I give the gold to them as it belonged to, and I +was to leave town on the noon stagecoach. I was stayin' in the captain's +brother's house. It was spang up against the woods, on the edge of town; +and, I tell ye, woods _was_ woods in them days. + +"The mornin' I was to leave I was up early, lookin' out of my window, when +what should I see with these mortial eyes but a gre't bull moose, as big +as two yoke o' oxen, comin' along toward the house. He sort o' staggered +along, and then give a gre't sigh I could hear from my room--I was on the +ground floor--fell down on his knees, and laid his head on the ground 's +if he was too beat out to go another step. Wa'al, sir, I never waited not +long enough even to fetch a holler to wake the folks I just dove out o' +the window, and made for him as fast as I could lick in. As I went by the +wood-pile, I grabbed up a big stick of wood----" + +"What kind of wood?" everybody asked in chorus. + +"'Twas a big stick of birch-wood, with the white bark on it as clean as +writin'-paper. I grabbed that up for a club--'twas the only thing in +sight--and when I got to the moose I hit him a clip on the side of the +head as hard as I could lay on. He didn't so much as open an eye, but I +saw he was still breathing and I climbed up on his back so's to get a good +whack at the top of his head. And then, sir, by Jupiter! he riz right up +like a earthquake under me, and started off at forty miles an hour. He +throwed his head back as he run, and ketched me right between his horns, +like a nut in a nutcracker. I couldn't have got out of them horns--no, +sir, a charge of powder couldn't scarcely have loosened me." + +There was another pause at this place for the outcries of astonishment and +marvel which were never lacking. Then Jed went on, mumbling his toothless +gums in delight over his importance. + +"Wa'al, sir, I dassent tell ye how long we careered around them woods and +pastures, for, after a while, he got so plumb crazy that he run right out +into the open country. I'd hit him a whack over the head with my stick of +wood every chanst I got and he was awful weak anyhow, so he'd kind o' +stagger whenever he made a sharp turn. By an' by we got to goin' toward +town. Somehow he'd landed himself in the road; an', sir, we rid up to the +hotel like a coach and four, and he drapped dead in front of the steps, me +stickin' as fast between his horns as if I'd 'a' growed to him. Yes, sir, +they ackchally had to saw one of them horns off'n his head before they got +me out." + +He came to a full stop here, but this was not the end. + +"What became of the horns, Jed? Why didn't ye bring 'em along?" + +"I did take the one they sawed off, to give to my partner, big Sam Harden. +He was the biggest man I ever see, Sam Harden was. I left th' other horn +in Kennettown for the captain's sister. She was as smart an' handsome a +widow-woman as ever I see, an' I wanted for her to have a keepsake from +me." + +This was really the end. The circle of inquisitors left their unconscious +victim nodding and grinning to himself, and went on down the road. +Grandfather said he still felt mean all over to remember how they laughed +among themselves, and how they pointed out to the stranger the high lights +in the story. + +"Not only ain't there never been seen a moose in the State of +Massachusetts, and not only are a moose's horns set too wide to catch a +little squinch of a man like Jed, but what do you think?--there ain't no +Kennettown in Massachusetts! No, nor in any other State. No, nor never +was. Old Jed just made the town up out of his head, like the moose, an' +the money, and the birch-bark and the handsome widow. Don't he beat +_all_?" + + + + +II + + +My grandfather was one of these boys; in fact, he always used to say he +was the ringleader, but that may have been another form of his penance. As +he grew up he began to work into his father's business of tanning leather, +and by and by, when a man grown, he traveled down to a big tannery at +Newtonville, in Massachusetts, to learn some new processes in +leather-curing. + +When grandfather got along to this part of the story he began stretching +his long legs faster and faster, until I was obliged to trot along, +panting. He always lived the hurried last part over again, and so did I, +although it happened so long before I was born. + +One evening he was asked to tea by the mother of the prettiest girl in the +village--she afterward became my grandmother--and was taken into the "best +room" to see all the family curiosities. There were wax flowers and +silhouettes and relics of every description. Mrs. Hamilton spared him not +one of these wonders. + +"This," she said, "is the chain that was made of my grandfather's hair. It +was finished and brought home on a Wednesday, and Thursday, the next day, +grandfather was burned up in the great tannery fire, and this was all my +grandmother had to remember him by. These are the front teeth of a savage +that my uncle Josiah Abijah killed in the South Sea Islands. Uncle Josiah +Abijah always said it was either him or the black man, but I have always +felt that it was murder, just the same, and this is the stick of +birch-wood that a sailor-man, who came here once to see my mother, killed +a bull moose with." + +My grandmother has told me that never before or since did she see a human +face change as did grandfather's. + +"What?" he shouted, and his voice cracked. + +"Yes, it sounds queer, but it's so. It's the only time a moose was ever +seen here, and folks thought the wolves must have chased it till it was +crazy or tired out. This sailor-man, who happened to be here, saw it, ran +out, snatched up a stick from the wood-pile, and went at that great animal +all alone. Folks say he was the bravest man this town ever saw. He got +right up on its back--" + +Grandmother said grandfather had turned so pale by this time that she +thought he was going to faint and he sat down as if somebody had knocked +him down. On the dusty road to the cemetery, however, he only strode along +the faster, half forgetting the little girl who dragged at his hand, and +turned a sympathetically agitated face up to his narrative. + +Mrs. Hamilton went on through the whole incident, telling every single +thing just the way old Jed did. She showed the dark places on the +birch-bark where the blood had stained it, and she said the skull of the +animal, with its one horn sawed off, was over among the relics in her +aunt's home. + +"My Aunt Maria was accounted a very good-looking woman in her day, and +there were those that thought she might have taken a second husband, if +the sailor had been so disposed. He was so brave and so honest, bringing +all that money from my uncle, the sea-captain, when goodness knows, he +might have run off with every cent of it, and nobody been any the wiser!" + +At this grandfather gave a loud exclamation and stood up, shaking his head +as if he had the ague. He just couldn't believe his ears, he said. + +"No! No! _No_! It can't be the same!" he said over and over. "Why, he said +it happened in Kennettown." + +"Well, _now_!" said Mrs. Hamilton, surprised. "Where did you ever get hold +of _that_ old name? I didn't suppose a soul but some of our old folks +remembered that. Why, Newtonville wasn't named that but six months. Folks +got mad at the Kennetts for being so highfalutin' over having the town +named after them, and so 'twas changed back." + +Grandfather said he'd no notion of another word she said after that. When +he went back to his room, he found a letter from home, telling him all the +news, and mentioning, among other things, that old Jedediah Chillingworth +wasn't expected to live much longer. Age had withered the little old man +until there wasn't enough of him left to go on living. Grandfather usually +reached this part of the story just as we arrived under the big maples +that stand on each side of the cemetery gate, and always stopped short to +say solemnly: + +"Thank the _Lord_! I've two things to my credit. I never waited one minute +to start back to Hillsboro, and from that time on I wanted to do what was +right by the old man, even if it did turn out so different." + + +Then we went on into the cemetery, and paced slowly along the winding +paths as he continued: + +"I got to Hillsboro late one night, and I'd 'most killed my horse to do +it. They said Jedediah was still alive, but wasn't expected to last till +morning. I went right up to his little old shack, without waiting to see +my folks or to get a mouthful to eat. A whole lot of the neighbors had +come in to watch with him, and even then, with the old dizzard actually +dying, they were making a fool of him. + +"He was half propped up in bed--he wasn't bigger than my fist by that +time--with red spots in his cheeks, and his eyes like glass, and he was +just ending up that moose story. The folks were laughing and winking and +nudging one another in the ribs, just the way I used to. I was done up +with my long, hard ride, and some nervous, I guess, for it fair turned my +stomach to see them. + +"I waited till they were all through laughing, and then I broke loose. I +just gave them a piece of my mind! 'Look-a-here, you fellows!' I said. +'You think you're awful smart, don't you, making fun of poor old Jed as he +lies a-dying? Now, listen to me. I've ridden forty miles over the +mountains to get here before he goes, and make every man jack of you beg +the old man's pardon. _That story's true_. I've just found out that every +word of it is absolutely, literally the way it happened. Newtonville, +where I'm staying in Massachusetts, used to be called Kennettown, and +Jedediah _did_ take the money there--yes, that exact sum we've laughed at +all these years. They call him the honestest man in the world over there. +They've got the stick of birch-wood, with the bloodstains on it, and the +moose's skull, with the horn sawed off, and there are lots of old people +who remember all about it. And I'm here to say I believe old Jed's been +telling the truth, not only about that, but about all his adventures. +I don't believe he's ever lied to us!' + +"I felt so grand and magnanimous," grandfather went on, "to think how I +was making it up to the poor old man, and so set up over bringing a piece +of news that just paralyzed everybody with astonishment. They all jumped +up, yelling and carrying on. '_What_? That story _true_! Well, did you +ever! Wouldn't that beat all? To think old Jed's been telling--" + +"And then we all thought of him, and started toward the bed to say how bad +we felt. + +"I'll never forget how he looked. His eyes were fairly coming out of his +head, and his face was as white as paper. But that wasn't the dreadful +thing. What always comes back to me whenever I think of him is the +expression on his face. You could just see his heart breaking. He was so +hurt, so surprised, so ashamed, that it wasn't decent to look at him. But +we couldn't look away. We stood there, hanging our heads--I never felt so +mean in my life--while he tried to get breath enough to say something. And +then he screamed out--'twas dreadful to hear: + +"'Why, didn't you fellers _believe_ me? Did you think I was _lyin_?'" + +Here grandfather stopped and blew his nose, and I choked. + +"Those were his last words. He had some kind of a spasm, and never came to +enough to know anything before he died. Those were the last words he said; +and though they told us that in the coffin he looked just as he always +had, only more quiet, with the foolish look gone, we were all of us +ashamed to look the dead man in the face." + +Here grandfather laid the flowers on the unkempt grave, as if to serve as +an "Amen" to his confession. + +After this I always went around and held his hand tightly, and we stood +very still. It was the solemnest time of the year. + + + + +III + + +All this used to happen, as I said, when I was a little girl; but I, too, +grew up, as grandfather grew bent and feeble. When he was an old, old man +of eighty-five, and when I had been away from Hillsboro several years +teaching school, the last of my grandmother's relatives in Newtonville +died. I was sent for to decide what should be done with the few family +relics, and one Saturday and Sunday I went all through the little old +house, looking over the things. + +In the garret I came across the moose-skull with one horn. It made me feel +queer to think what a part it had played in the development of my +grandfather's honorable and tender old soul. There were a few sticks of +furniture, some daguerrotypes and silhouettes, and a drawerful of yellow +papers. The first I sent home to Hillsboro to grandmother. I took the +papers back to the town where I was teaching, to look over them. + +Among other things was a quaint old diary of my grandmother's great-aunt, +she that was the buxom widow of Jed's story. It was full of homely items +of her rustic occupations; what day she had "sett the broune hen," and how +much butter was made the first month she had the "party-colored cowe from +over the mount'n." I glanced idly at these faded bits of insignificant +news, when I was electrified by seeing the following entry: + +#This day came to my Bro. Amos and Me, a sea-man, bringeing news of my +Bro. Elijah's the capt'n's dethe, and allso mutch monie in gold, sent to +us by our Bro. The sea-man is the greatest in size aver I saw. No man in +towne his bed can reach so mutch as to his sholder. And comely withal#. + +The words fairly whirled on the page before my astonished eyes. Where was +the image of the ill-favored little old Jed, so present to my imagination? +I read on breathlessly, skipping news of the hen-house and barnyard, until +I came upon this, the only other reference, but quite sufficient: + +This day the sea-man, Samuel Harden, left us. + +The self-restrained woman had said nothing of any disappointment she might +have felt. The item stood quite alone, however, in a significant +isolation. At least on that day she had not noticed the number of eggs. + +I doubt if grandfather himself had been more excited when he saw the +birch-wood club than I was to read those few words. I could hardly wait +till the next Saturday to rush back to Hillsboro, and relieve the poor old +man of the burden of remorse he had carried so faithfully and so +mistakenly all these years, and to snatch the specious crown of martyrdom +from that shameless thief of another man's exploits. + +And yet, when I finally arrived at Hillsboro, I found it not so easy to +begin. Some strange spell, exhaled from the unchanging aspect of the old +house and the old people, fell on me, and, though I tried several times, I +could not find a suitable opening. On Sunday morning grandfather asked me +if I would help him to get out to Jed's grave. The peonies and syringas +were in bloom, and grandmother had the bouquet made up ready. Drawing me +aside, she to me that grandfather was really too infirm to try to make the +expedition at all, and certainly could not go alone. Even then I could +find no words to tell her. I thought it might be easier to do so out of +doors. + +It was the middle of a bright spring morning, when we started off, +grandfather leaning on his cane and holding to my arm, while I carried the +great clump of red peonies and white syringas. The sun was warm, but a +cool breeze blew down from the mountains, and grandfather hobbled along +bravely. + +It made me feel like a little girl again to have him begin the story of +the moose, and tell it word for word as he always had. He was forced to +stop often now, and wait for breath to come back to him. At each of these +halts beside the road, which was white in the clear spring sunshine, it +was harder and harder to think of breaking in on him with my discovery. + +As he finally told about Jedediah's wounded virtue on his deathbed--that +outcry which seemed to me the most brazen part of the whole +imposture--suddenly my heart softened, and I, too, believed that by that +time of his life old Jed was--I really don't know just what it was that I +believed, but it was something as comforting as the quiet warmth of the +sunshine. + +We were standing by the sunken old grave when grandfather finished. I +looked at him, the sun shining down on his bent figure and bared white +head, the flowers reflecting their brightness up into his withered old +face, and a lump came into my throat. I could not have told him if I had +wished to. + +"We were ashamed to look the dead man in the face," he said humbly, and +laid the flowers down on the young grass. + +Then I went around and held his dear old hand tightly in mine; and we +stood very still for a long, long time. + + + + +THE ARTIST + + +"After the sickening stench of personality in theatrical life," the great +Madame Orloff told the doctor with her usual free-handed use of language, +"it is like breathing a thin, pure air to be here again with our dear +inhuman old Vieyra. He hypnotizes me into his own belief that nothing +matters--not broken hearts, nor death, nor success, nor first love, nor +old age---nothing but the chiaroscuro of his latest acquisition." + +The picture-dealer looked at her in silence, bringing the point of his +white beard up to his chin with a meditative fist. The big surgeon gazed +about him with appreciative eyes, touched his mustache to his gold-lined +coffee-cup, and sighed contentedly. "You're not the only one, my dear +Olga," he said, "who finds Vieyra's hard heart a blessing. When I am here +in his magnificent old den, listening to one of his frank accounts of his +own artistic acumen and rejoicing in his beautiful possessions, why the +rest of the world--real humanity--seems in retrospect like one great +hospital full of shrieking incurables." + +"Oh, humanity----!" The actress thrust it away with one of her startling, +vivid gestures. + +"You think it very clever, my distinguished friends, to discuss me before +my face," commented the old picture-dealer indifferently. He fingered the +bright-colored decorations on his breast, looking down at them with absent +eyes. After a moment he added, "and to show your in-ti-mate knowledge of +my character." Only its careful correctness betrayed the foreignness of +his speech. + +There was a pause in which the three gazed idly at the fire's reflection +in the brass of the superb old andirons Then, "Haven't you something new +to show us?" asked the woman. "Some genuine Masaccio, picked up in a +hill-town monastery--a real Ribera?" + +The small old Jew drew a long breath. "Yes, I have something new." He +hesitated, opened his lips, closed them again and, looking at the fire, +"Oh yes, very new indeed--new to me." + +"Is it here?" The great surgeon looked about the picture-covered walls. + +"No; I have it in--you know what you call the inner sanctuary--the light +here is not good enough." + +The actress stood up, her glittering dress flashing a thousand eyes at the +fire. "Let me see it," she commanded. "Certainly I would like to see +anything that was new to _you_!" + +"You shall amuse yourself by identifying the artist without my aid," said +old Vieyra. + +He opened a door, held back a portière, let his guests pass through into a +darkened room, turned on a softly brilliant light, and: "Whom do you make +the artist?" he said. He did not look at the picture. He looked at the +faces of his guests, and after a long silent pause, he smiled faintly into +his beard. "Let us go back to the fire," he said, and clicked them into +darkness again. + +"And what do you say?" he asked as they sat down. + +"By Jove!" cried the doctor. "By Jove!" + +Madame Orloff turned on the collector the somber glow of her deep-set +eyes. "I have dreamed it," she said. + +"It is real," said Vieyra. "You are the first to see it. I wished to +observe how----" + +"It's an unknown Vermeer!" The doctor brought his big white hand down +loudly on this discovery. "Nobody but Vermeer could have done the plaster +wall in the sunlight. And the girl's strange gray head-dress must be +seventeenth-century Dutch of some province I don't----" + +"I am a rich man, for a picture-dealer," said Vieyra, "but only national +governments can afford to buy Vermeers nowadays." + +"But you picked it up from some corner, some attic, some stable----" + +"Yes, I picked it up from a stable," said the collector. + +The actress laid her slender, burning fingers on his cool old hand. "Tell +us--tell us," she urged. "There is something different here." + +"Yes, there is something different," he stirred in his chair and thrust +out his lips. "So different that I don't know if you----" + +"Try me! try me!" she assured him ardently. "You have educated me well to +your own hard standards all these years." + +At this he looked at her, startled, frowning, attentive, and ended by +shaking off her hand. "No, I will not tell you." + +"You shall----" her eyes commanded, adjured him. There was a silence. "I +will understand," she said under her breath. + +"You will not understand," he said in the same tone; but aloud he began: +"I heard of it first from an American picture-dealer over here scraping up +a mock-Barbizon collection for a new millionaire. He wanted to get my +judgment, he said, on a canvas that had been brought to him by a cousin of +his children's governess. I was to be sure to see it when I went to New +York--you knew did you not, that I had been called to New York to testify +in the prosecution of Paullsen for selling a signed copy?" + +"Did you really go?" asked the doctor. "I thought you swore that nothing +could take you to America." + +"I went," said the old man grimly. "Paullsen did me a bad turn once, +thirty years ago. And while I was there I went to see the unknown canvas. +The dealer half apologized for taking my time--said he did not as a rule +pay any attention to freak things brought in from country holes by +amateurs, but--I remember his wording--this thing, some ways he looked at +it, didn't seem bad somehow." + +The collector paused, passed his tongue over his lips, and said briefly: +"Then he showed it to me. It was the young girl and kitten in there." + +"By Jove!" cried the doctor. + +"You have too exciting a profession, my good old dear," said the actress. +"Some day you will die of a heart failure." + +"Not after living through that!" + +"What did you tell him?" + +"I asked for the address of the cousin of his children's governess, of +course. When I had it, I bought a ticket to the place, and when I reached +there, I found myself at the end of all things--an abomination of +desolation, a parched place in the wilderness. Do you know America, either +of you?" + +The doctor shook his head. + +"I have toured there, three times," said the actress. + +"Did you ever hear of a place called Vermont?" + +Madame Orloff looked blank. "It sounds French, not English. Perhaps you do +not pronounce it as they do." + +"Heaven forbid that I should do anything as 'they' do! This place, then, +call it what you will, is inhabited by a lean, tall, sullenly silent race +who live in preposterously ugly little wooden houses of the most naked +cleanliness ... God of my Fathers! the hideousness of the huddle of those +huts where I finally found the cousin! He was a seller of letter-paper and +cheap chromos and he knew nothing of the picture except that it was +brought to him to sell by the countryman who sold him butter. So I found +the address of the butter-maker and drove endless miles over an execrable +road to his house, and encountered at last a person who could tell me +something of what I wanted to know. It was the butter-maker's mother, a +stolid, middle-aged woman, who looked at me out of the most uncanny quiet +eyes ... all the people in that valley have extraordinary piercing and +quiet eyes ... and asked, 'Is it about the picture? For if it is, I don't +want you should let on about it to anybody but me. Nobody but the family +knows he paints 'em!" + +At this the doctor burst out, "Gracious powers! You don't mean to say that +the man who painted that picture is alive now ... in 1915!" + +The actress frowned at the interruption and turned with a lithe petulance +on the big Briton. "If you want to know, let him alone!" she commanded. + +"And soon I had it all," the narrator went on. "Almost more than I could +bear. The old woman could tell me what I wished to know, she said. He was +her uncle, the only brother of her mother, and he had brought up her and +her brothers and sisters. She knew... oh, she knew with good reason, all +of his life. All, that is, but the beginning. She had heard from the older +people in the valley that he had been wild in his youth (he has always +been, she told me gravely, 'queer') and she knew that he had traveled far +in his young days, very, very far." + +"'To New York?' I ventured. + +"'Oh, no, beyond that. Across the water.' + +"'To Paris?' + +"That she didn't know. It was a foreign country at least, and he had stayed +there two, three years, until he was called back by her father's +death--his brother-in-law's--to take care of his mother, and his sister +and the children. Here her mind went back to my question, and she said she +had something perhaps I could tell from, where he had been. She kept it in +her Bible. He had given it to her when she was a child as a reward the day +she had kept her little brother from falling in the fire. She brought it +out. It was a sketch, hasty, vigorous, suggestive, haunting as the +original itself, of the Leonardo da Vinci Ste. Anne. + +"Yes, I told her, now I knew where he had been. And they had called him +back from there--_here_? + +"'When my father died,' she repeated, 'my uncle was all my grandmother and +my mother had. We were five little children, and the oldest not seven, and +we were all very poor,' + +"'How old was your uncle then?' I asked. + +"'A young man--he was younger than my mother. Perhaps he was twenty-five,' + +"I looked at the sketch in my hand. Twenty-five, and called back from +Paris--_here_! + +"'When did he go back to Paris?' + +"'Oh, he never went back,' She told me this quite placidly, as she said +everything else. 'He never went back at all.' + +"He had stayed there the rest of his life, and worked the little farm that +was all his sister had, and made a living for them--not large, the farm +being poor and he not a first-class farmer, but still enough. He had +always been kind to them--if he was quite queer and absent. She had heard +her grandmother say that at first, the first ten years, perhaps, he had +had strange, gloomy savage fits like a person possessed that you read of +in the Bible; but she herself could never remember him as anything but +quiet and smiling. He had a very queer smile unlike anyone else, as I +would notice for myself when I went to see him about the picture. You +could tell him by that, and by his being very lame. + +"That brought me back with a start. I rushed at her with questions. 'How +about the picture? Were there others? Were there many? Had he always +painted? Had he never shown them to anyone? Was he painting now? + +"She could not tell me much. It had been a detail of their common life she +had but absently remarked, as though she had lived with a man who +collected snail-shells, or studied the post-marks on letters. She 'had +never noticed'--that was the answer to most of my questions. No, she did +not think there were very many now, though he must have painted 'most a +million. He was always at it, every minute he could spare from farming. +But they had been so poor he had not felt he could afford many canvases. +The paints cost a good deal too. So he painted them over and over, first +one thing and then another, as he happened to fancy. He painted in the +horse-barn. 'Had a place rigged up,' in her phrase, in one corner of the +room where the hay was stored, and had cut a big window in the roof that +was apt to let in water on the hay if the rain came from the north. + +"'What did he paint?' 'Oh, anything. He was queer about that. He'd paint +_any_thing! He did one picture of nothing but the corner of the barnyard, +with a big white sow and some little pigs in the straw, early in the +morning, when the dew was on everything. He had thought quite a lot of +that, but he had had to paint over it to make the picture of her little +sister with the yellow kittie--the one she'd sent down to the village to +try to sell, the one--' + +"'Yes, yes,' I told her, 'the one I saw. But did he never try to sell any +himself? Did he never even show them to anyone?' + +"She hesitated, tried to remember, and said that once when they were very +poor, and there was a big doctor's bill to pay, he _had_ sent a picture +down to New York. But it was sent back. They had made a good deal of fun +of it, the people down there, because it wasn't finished off enough. She +thought her uncle's feelings had been hurt by their letter. The express +down and back had cost a good deal too, and the only frame he had got +broken. Altogether, she guessed that discouraged him. Anyhow, he'd never +tried again. He seemed to get so after a while that he didn't care whether +anybody liked them or even saw them or not--he just painted them to amuse +himself, she guessed. He seemed to get a good real of comfort out of it. +It made his face very still and smiling to paint. Nobody around there so +much as knew he did it, the farm was so far from neighbors. + +"'Twas a real lonely place, she told me, and she had been glad to marry +and come down in the valley to live closer to folks. Her uncle had given +her her wedding outfit. He had done real well by them all, and they were +grateful; and now he was getting feeble and had trouble with his heart, +they wanted to do something for him. They had thought, perhaps, they could +sell some of his pictures for enough to hire a man to help him with the +farm work. She had heard that pictures were coming into fashion more than +they had been, and she had borrowed that one of her little sister and the +kittie, and without her uncle's knowing anything about it, had sent it +off. She was about discouraged waiting for somebody down in the city to +make up his mind whether he'd buy it or not. + +"I asked her a thousand other questions but she could answer none of them. +The only detail I could get from her being an account of her uncle's habit +of 'staring' for sometimes a half an hour at something, without once +looking away. She'd seen him stop that way, when he'd be husking corn +maybe, and stare at a place where a sunbeam came in on a pile of corn. It +put him back quite considerable in his work, that habit, but they had +nothing to complain of. He'd done well by them, when you considered they +weren't his own children. + +"'Hadn't he ever tried to break away?' I asked her amazed. 'To leave them? +To go back?' + +"She told me: 'Oh, no, he was the only support his mother and his sister +had, and there were all the little children. He _had_ to stay.'" + +The actress broke in fiercely: "Oh, stop! stop! it makes me sick to hear. +I could boil them in oil, that family! Quick! You saw him? You brought him +away? You--" + +"I saw him," said Vieyra, "yes, I saw him." + +Madame Orloff leaned toward him, her eyebrows a line of painful attention. + +"I drove that afternoon up to a still tinier village in the mountains near +where he lived, and there I slept that night--or, at least, I lay in a +bed." + +"Of course, you could not sleep," broke in the listening woman; "I shall +not to-night." + +"When dawn came I dressed and went out to wander until people should be +awake. I walked far, through fields, and then through a wood as red as +red-gold--like nothing I ever saw. It was in October, and the sun was late +to rise. When I came out on an uplying heath, the mists were just +beginning to roll away from the valley below. As I stood there, leaning +against a tree in the edge of the wood, some cows came by, little, +pinched, lean cows and a young dog bounding along, and then, after them, +slowly, an old man in gray--very lame." + +The actress closed her eyes. + +"He did not see me. He whistled to the dog and stroked his head, and then +as the cows went through a gate, he turned and faced the rising sun, the +light full on his face. He looked at the valley coming into sight through +the mists. He was so close to me I could have tossed a stone to him--I +shall never know how long he stood there--how long I had that face before +me." + +The narrator was silent. Madame Orloff opened her eyes and looked at him +piercingly. + +"I cannot tell you--I cannot!" he answered her. 'Who can tell of life and +death and a new birth? It was as though I were thinking with my +finger-nails, or the hair of my head--a part of me I had never before +dreamed had feeling. My eyes were dazzled. I could have bowed myself to +the earth like Moses before the burning bush. How can I tell you--? How +can I tell you?" + +"He was--?" breathed the woman. + +"Hubert van Eyck might have painted God the Father with those eyes--that +mouth--that face of patient power--of selfless, still beatitude.--Once the +dog, nestling by his side, whimpered and licked his hand. He looked down, +he turned his eyes away from his vision, and looked down at the animal and +smiled. Jehovah! What a smile. It seemed to me then that if God loves +humanity, he can have no kinder smile for us. And then he looked back +across the valley--at the sky, at the mountains, at the smoke rising from +the houses below us--he looked at the world--at some vision, some +knowledge--what he saw--what he saw--! + +"I did not know when he went. I was alone in that crimson wood. + +"I went back to the village. I went back to the city. I would not speak to +him till I had some honor worthy to offer him. I tried to think what would +mean most to him. I remembered the drawing of the Ste. Anne. I remembered +his years in Paris, and I knew what would seem most honor to him. I cabled +Drouot of the Luxembourg Gallery. I waited in New York till he came. I +showed him the picture. I told him the story. He was on fire! + +"We were to go back to the mountains together, to tell him that his +picture would hang in the Luxembourg, and then in the Louvre--that in all +probability he would be decorated by the French government, that other +pictures of his would live for all time in Paris, in London, in +Brussels--a letter came from the woman, his niece. He was dead." + +The actress fell back in her chair, her hands over her face. + +The surgeon stirred wrathfully. "Heavens and earth, Vieyra, what beastly, +ghastly, brutally tragic horror are you telling us, anyhow?" + +The old Jew moistened his lips and was silent. After a moment he said: "I +should not have told you. I knew you could not understand." + +Madame Orloff looked up sharply. "Do you mean--is it possible that _you_ +mean that if we had seen him--had seen that look--we would--that he had +had all that an artist--" + +The picture-dealer addressed himself to her, turning his back on the +doctor. "I went back to the funeral, to the mountains. The niece told me +that before he died he smiled suddenly on them all and said: 'I have had a +happy life,' I had taken a palm to lay on his coffin, and after I had +looked long at his dead face, I put aside the palm. I felt that if he had +lived I could never have spoken to him---could never have told him." + +The old Jew looked down at the decorations on his breast, and around at +the picture-covered walls. He made a sweeping gesture. + +"What had I to offer him?" he said. + + + + +WHO ELSE HEARD IT? + + + A lady walking through the square + With steamship tickets in her hand, + To spend her summer in the Alps, + Her winter in the Holy Land, + + Heard (or else dreamed), as she passed by + The Orphan Home across the way, + A small and clear and wondering voice + From out a dormer window say, + + "And would you really rather climb + Mont Blanc alone, than walk with me + Out hunting Mayflowers in the woods + Of Westerburn and Cloverlea? + + "Alas! And would you rather hear + Cathedral choirs in cities far + Than one at bedtime, on your lap, + Say 'Twinkle, twinkle, little star'?" + + "A lonely Christmas would you spend + By Galilee or Jordan's tide + When a child's stocking you might fill + And hang it by your own fireside?" + + + + +A DROP IN THE BUCKET + + +There is no need to describe in detail the heroine of this tale, because +she represents a type familiar to all readers of the conventional +New-England-village dialect story. She was for a long time the sole +inhabitant of Hillsboro, who came up to the expectations of our visiting +friends from the city, on the lookout for Mary Wilkins characters. We +always used to take such people directly to see Cousin Tryphena, as +dwellers in an Italian city always take their foreign friends to see their +one bit of ruined city wall or the heap of stones which was once an +Inquisitorial torture chamber, never to see the new water-works or the +modern, sanitary hospital. + +On the way to the other end of the street, where Cousin Tryphena's tiny, +two-roomed house stood, we always laid bare the secrets of her somnolent, +respectable, unprofitable life; we always informed our visitors that she +lived and kept up a social position on two hundred and fifteen dollars a +year, and that she had never been further from home than to the next +village. We always drew attention to her one treasure, the fine Sheraton +sideboard that had belonged to her great-grandfather, old Priest Perkins; +and, when we walked away from the orderly and empty house, we were sure +that our friends from the city would always exclaim with great insight +into character, "What a charmingly picturesque life! Isn't she perfectly +delicious!" + +Next door to Cousin Tryphena's minute, snow-white house is a forlorn old +building, one of the few places for rent in our village, where nearly +everyone owns his own shelter. It stood desolately idle for some time, +tumbling to pieces almost visibly, until, one day, two years ago, a burly, +white-bearded tramp stopped in front of it, laid down his stick and bundle, +and went to inquire at the neighbor's if the place were for rent, then +moved in with his stick and bundle and sent away for the rest of his +belongings, that is to say, an outfit for cobbling shoes. He cut a big +wooden boot out of the side of an empty box, painted it black with +axle-grease and soot, hung it up over the door, and announced himself as +ready to do all the cobbling and harness-repairing he could get ... and a +fine workman he showed himself to be. + +We were all rather glad to have this odd new member of our community +settle down among us ... all, that is, except Cousin Tryphena, who was +sure, for months afterward, that he would cut her throat some night and +steal away her Sheraton sideboard. It was an open secret that Putnam, the +antique-furniture dealer in Troy, had offered her two hundred and fifty +dollars for it. The other women of the village, however, not living alone +in such dangerous proximity to the formidable stranger, felt reassured by +his long, white beard, and by his great liking for little children. + +Although, from his name, as from his strong accent, it was evident that +old Jombatiste belonged, by birth, to our French-Canadian colony, he never +associated himself with that easy-going, devoutly Catholic, law-abiding, +and rather unlettered group of our citizens. He allied himself with quite +another class, making no secret of the fact that he was an out-and-out +Socialist, Anti-clerical, Syndicalist, Anarchist, Nihilist. ... We in +Hillsboro are not acute in distinguishing between the different shades of +radicalism, and never have been able exactly to place him, except that, +beside his smashing, loudly-voiced theories, young Arthur Robbins' +Progressivism sounds like old Martin Pelham's continued jubilation over +the Hayes campaign. + +The central article of Jombatiste's passionately held creed seemed to be +that everything was exactly wrong, and that, while the Socialist party was +not nearly sweeping enough in its ideas, it was, as yet, the best means +for accomplishing the inevitable, righteous overturning of society. +Accordingly, he worked incessantly, not only at his cobbling, but at any +odd job he could find to do, lived the life of an anchorite, went in rags, +ate mainly crackers and milk, and sent every penny he could save to the +Socialist Headquarters. We knew about this not only through his own +trumpeting of the programme of his life, but because Phil Latimer, the +postmaster, is cousin to us all and often told us about the money-orders, +so large that they must have represented almost all the earnings of the +fanatical old shoemaker. + +And yet he was never willing to join in any of our charitable enterprises, +although his ardent old heart was evidently as tender as it was hot. +Nothing threw him into such bellowing fury as cruelty. He became the +terror of all our boys who trapped rabbits, and, indeed, by the sole +influence of his whirlwind descents upon them, and his highly illegal +destruction of their traps, he practically made that boyish pastime a +thing of the past in Hillsboro. Somehow, though the boys talked mightily +about how they'd have the law of dirty, hot-tempered old Jombatiste, +nobody cared really to face him. He had on tap a stream of red-hot +vituperation astonishingly varied for a man of his evident lack of early +education. Perhaps it came from his incessant reading and absorption of +Socialist and incendiary literature. + +He took two Socialist newspapers, and nobody knows how many queer little +inflammatory magazines from which he read aloud selections to anyone who +did not run away. + +Naturally enough, from his point of view, he began with his neighbor, +fastidious Cousin Tryphena. + +What Cousin Tryphena did not know about the way the world outside of +Hillsboro was run would have made a complete treatise on modern +civilization. She never took a newspaper, only borrowing, once in a while, +the local sheet to read the news items from Greenford, where she had some +distant cousins; and, though she occasionally looked at one of the +illustrated magazines, it was only at the pictures. + +It is therefore plain that old Jombatiste could not have found a worse +listener for his bellowed statements that ninety per cent. of the money of +this country was in the hands of two per cent. of the population; that the +franchise was a farce because the government was controlled by a Wall +Street clique; and that any man who could not earn a good living for his +family had a moral right to shoot a millionaire. For the most part, Cousin +Tryphena counted her tatting stitches and paid not the least attention to +her malcontent neighbor. When she did listen, she did not believe a word +he said. She had lived in Hillsboro for fifty-five years and she knew what +made people poor. It was shiftlessness. There was always plenty of work to +be had at the brush-back factory for any man who had the sense and +backbone to keep at it. If they _would_ stop work in deer-week to go +hunting, or go on a spree Town-meeting day, or run away to fish, she'd +like to know what business they had blaming millionaires because they lost +their jobs. She did not expound her opinions of these points to Jombatiste +because, in the first place, she despised him for a dirty Canuck, and, +secondly, because opinions seemed shadowy and unsubstantial things to her. +The important matters were to make your starch clear and not to be late to +church. + +It is proverbial that people who are mostly silent often keep for some +time a reputation for more wisdom than is theirs. Cousin Tryphena +unconsciously profited in the estimation of her neighbor by this fact of +psychology. Old Jombatiste had thundered his per cents. of the +distribution of capital for many months before he discovered that he was +on the wrong track. + +Then, one winter day, as Cousin Tryphena was hanging out her washing, he +ran over to her, waving his favorite magazine. He read her a paragraph +from it, striking the paper occasionally for emphasis with his horny, +blackened, shoemaker's hand, and following her as she moved along the +clothes-lines---- + +"And it is thus definitely _proved,_" he shouted in conclusion, "that +Senator Burlingame was in the pay of J.D. Darby, when he held up the Rouse +Workingman's Bill in the Senate Committee...." He stopped and glared +triumphantly at his neighbor. A rare impulse of perversity rose in Cousin +Tryphena's unawakened heart. She took a clothes-pin out of her mouth and +asked with some exasperation, "Well, what _of_ it!" a comment on his +information which sent the old man reeling back as though she had struck +him. + +In the conversation which followed, old Jombatiste, exploring at last +Cousin Tryphena's mind, leaned giddily over the abyss of her ignorance of +political economy and sociology, dropping one exploring plummet after +another into its depths, only to find them fathomless. He went shakily +back to his own house, silenced for once. + +But, although for the first time he neglected work to do it, he returned +to the attack the next day with a new weapon. He made no more remarks +about industrial slavery, nor did he begin, as was his wont, with the +solemnly enunciated axiom, "Wealth comes from labor alone!" He laid down, +on the Sheraton sideboard, an armful of his little magazines, and settled +himself in a chair, observing with a new comprehension how instinctively +Cousin Tryphena reached for her tatting as he began to read aloud. He read +the story of a man who was burned to death in molten steel because his +employers did not install a rather expensive safety device, and who left +a young widow and three children. These tried to earn their livings by +making artificial flowers. They could earn, all of them working together, +three cents an hour. When the last dollar of the dead father's savings was +used up, and there was talk of separating the family so that the children +could be put in an asylum, the mother drowned the three little ones and +herself after them. Cousin Tryphena dropped her tatting, her country-bred +mind reeling. "Didn't she have any _folks_ to help her out?" + +Jombatiste explained that she came from East Poland, so that her folks, if +indeed she had any, were too far away to be of use. He struck one fist +inside his palm with a fierce gesture, such as he used when he caught a +boy trapping, and cried, "... and that in a country that produces three +times the food it consumes." For the first time, a statistical statement +awoke an echo in Cousin Tryphena's atrophied brain. + +Old Jombatiste read on, this time about a girl of seventeen, left by her +parents' death in charge of a small brother. She had been paid twenty +cents for making crocheted lace which sold for a dollar and a half. By +working twelve hours a day, she had been able to make forty-seven cents. +Seeing her little brother grow pale from lack of food, she had, in +desperation, taken the first, the awfully decisive first step downward, +and had almost at once thereafter vanished, drawn down by the maelstrom of +vice. The little brother, wild with grief over his sister's disappearance, +had been taken to an orphan asylum where he had since twice tried to +commit suicide. + +Cousin Tryphena sat rigid, her tatting fallen to the floor, her breath +coming with difficulty. It is impossible for the average modern mind, +calloused by promiscuous reading, to conceive the effect upon her +primitive organism of this attack from the printed page. She not only did +not dream that these stories might not be true, they seemed as real to her +as though she had seen the people. There was not a particle of blood in +her haggard face. + +Jombatiste read on--the story of a decent, ambitious man, employed in a +sweatshop tailoring establishment, who contracted tuberculosis from the +foul air, and who dragged down with him, in his agonizing descent to the +very depths of misery, a wife and two children. He was now dead, and his +wife was living in a corner of a moldy, damp basement, a pile of rags the +only bed for her and her children, their only heat what fire the mother +could make out of paper and rubbish picked up on the streets. + +Cousin Tryphena's horrified eyes fell on her well-blacked stove, sending +out the aromatic breath of burning white-birch sticks. She recoiled from +it with a shudder. + +Jombatiste read on, the story of the woman who, when her three sons died +in an accident due to negligence on their employer's part ... he read no +more that day, for Cousin Tryphena put her gray head down on the +center-table and wept as she never had done in her life. Jombatiste rose +softly and tiptoed out of the room. + +The tap-tap-tap of his hammer rang loud and fast the rest of that day. He +was exulting over having aroused another bourgeois from the sleep of +greasy complacency. He had made a convert. To his dire and utter +pennilessness, Cousin Tryphena's tiny income seemed a fortune. He had a +happy dream of persuading her to join him in his weekly contributions to +the sacred funds! As he stood at midnight, in the open door, for the long +draught of fresh air he always took before turning in on his pile of hay, +he heard in the wood on the hill back of the house the shrill shriek of a +trapped rabbit. He plowed furiously out through the deep snow to find it, +gave the tortured animal a merciful death, carried the trap back to the +river and threw it in with a furious splash. He strode home under the +frosty stars, his dirty shirt open over his corded, old neck, his burning +heart almost content. He had done a good day's work. + +Early the next morning, his neighbor came to his door, very white, very +hollow-eyed, evidently with a sleepless night back of her, and asked him +for the papers he had read from. Jombatiste gave them to her in a tactful +silence. She took them in one shaking hand, drawing her shawl around her +wrinkled face with the other, and went back through the snow to her own +house. + +By noon that day, everyone in the village was thrilling with wild surmise. +Cousin Tryphena had gone over to Graham and Sanders', asked to use their +long-distance telephone and had telephoned to Putnam to come and get her +sideboard. After this strange act, she had passed Albert Graham, then by +chance alone in the store, with so wild a mien that he had not ventured to +make any inquiries. But he took pains to mention the matter, to everyone +who happened to come in, that morning; and, by dinner-time, every family +in Hillsboro was discussing over its pie the possibility that the +well-known _queer streak_, which had sent several of Cousin Tryphena's +ancestors to the asylum, was suddenly making its appearance in her. + +I was detained, that afternoon, and did not reach her house until nearly +four; and I was almost the last to arrive. I found Cousin Tryphena very +silent, her usually pale face very red, the center of a group of neighbors +who all at once began to tell me what had happened. I could make nothing +out of their incoherent explanations. ... "Trypheny was crazy ... she'd +ought to have a guardeen ... that Canuck shoemaker had addled her +brains ... there'd ought to be a law against that kind of +newspaper. ... Trypheny was goin' like her great-aunt, Lucilly, that died +in the asylum. ..." I appealed directly to Cousin Tryphena for information +as to what the trouble was. + +"There ain't any trouble 's I know of," she answered in a shaking voice. +"I've just heard of a widow-woman, down in the city, who's bringin' up her +two children in the corner of a basement where the green mold stands out +on the wall, and I'm goin' down to fetch her an' the children up here to +live with me ... them an' a little orphan boy as don't like the 'sylum +where they've put him----" + +Somebody broke in on her to cry, "Why, Trypheny, you simple old critter, +that's four people! Where you goin' to put 'em in this little tucked-up +place?" + +Cousin Tryphena answered doggedly and pointedly, "Your own grandmother, +Rebecca Mason, brought up a family of seven in a house no bigger than +this, and no cellar." + +"But how, ..." another voice exclaimed, "air you goin' to get enough for +'em to eat? You ain't got but barely enough for yourself!" + +Cousin Tryphena paled a little, "I'm a good sewer, I could make money +sewing ... and I could do washings for city-folks, summer-times...." Her +set mouth told what a price she paid for this voluntary abandonment of the +social standing that had been hers by virtue of her idleness. She went on +with sudden spirit, "You all act as though I was doin' it to spite you and +to amuse myself! I don't _want_ to! When I think of my things I've kept so +nice always, I'm _wild_ ... but how can I help it, now I know about 'em! I +didn't sleep a wink last night. I'll go clean crazy if I don't do +something! I saw those three children strugglin' in the water and their +mother a-holdin' on 'em down, and then jumpin' in herself----Why, I give +enough milk to the _cat_ to keep a baby ... what else can I do?" + +I was touched, as I think we all were, by her helpless simplicity and +ignorance, and by her defenselessness against this first vision of life, +the vision which had been spared her so long, only to burst upon her like +a forest-fire. I hid an odd fancy that she had just awakened after a sleep +of half a century. + +"Dear Cousin Tryphena," I said as gently as I could, "you haven't had a +very wide experience of modern industrial or city conditions and there are +some phases of this matter which you don't take into consideration." Then +I brought out the old, wordy, eminently reasonable arguments we all use to +stifle the thrust of self-questioning: I told her that it was very likely +that the editor of that newspaper had invented, or at least greatly +exaggerated those stories, and that she would find on investigation that +no such family existed. + +"I don't see how that lets me out of _lookin'_ for them," said Cousin +Tryphena. + +"Well, at least," I urged, "don't be in such a hurry about it. Take time +to think it over! Wait till--" + +"Wait!" cried Cousin Tryphena. "Why, another one may be jumpin' in the +river this minute! If I'd ha' had the money, I'd ha' gone on the noon +train!" + +At this point, the man from Putnam's came with a team from our livery to +carry away the Sheraton sideboard. Cousin Tryphena bore herself like a +martyr at the stake, watching, with dry eyes, the departure of her one +certificate to dear gentility and receiving with proud indifference the +crisp bills of a denomination most of us had never seen before. + +"You won't need all that just to go down to the city," I remonstrated. + +She stopped watching the men load her shining old treasure into the wagon +and turned her anguished eyes to me. "They'll likely be needing clothes +and things." + +I gave up. She had indeed thought it all out. + +It was time for us to go home to prepare our several suppers and we went +our different ways, shaking our heads over Tryphena's queerness. I stopped +a moment before the cobbler's open door, watched him briskly sewing a +broken halter and telling a folk-tale to some children by his knee. When +he finished, I said with some acerbity, "Well, Jombatiste, I hope you're +satisfied with what you've done to poor old Miss Tryphena ... spoiling the +rest of her life for her!" + +"Such a life, Madame," said Jombatiste dryly, "ought to be spoiled, the +sooner the better." + +"She's going to start for the city to-morrow," I said, supposing of course +that he had heard the news. + +Jombatiste looked up very quickly. "For what goes she to the city?" + +"Why ... she's gone daft over those bogie-stories of yours ... she's +looked the list over and picked out the survivors, the widow of the man +who died of tuberculosis, and so on, and she's going to bring them back +here to share her luxurious life." + +Jombatiste bounded into the air as if a bomb had exploded under him, +scattering his tools and the children, rushing past me out of the house +and toward Cousin Tryphena's. ... As he ran, he did what I have never seen +anyone do, out of a book; he tore at his bushy hair and scattered handfuls +in the air. It seemed to me that some sudden madness had struck our dull +little village, and I hastened after him to protect Cousin Tryphena. + +She opened the door in answer to his battering knocks, frowned, and began +to say something to him, but was fairly swept off her feet by the torrent +of his reproaches.... "How dare you take the information I give you and +use it to betray your fellow-man! How do you _dare_ stand there, so +mealy-mouthed, and face me, when you are planning a cowardly attack on the +liberty of your country! You call yourself a nurse ... what would you +think of a mother who hid an ulcer in her child's side from the doctor +because it did not look pretty! What _else_ are you planning to do? What +would you think of a nurse who put paint and powder on her patient's face, +to cover up a filthy skin disease? What else are you planning to +do ... you with your plan to put court-plaster over one pustule in ten +million and thinking you are helping cure the patient! You are planning +simply to please yourself, you cowardly ... and you are an idiot too ..." +he beat his hands on the door-jambs, "... if you had the money of forty +millionaires, you couldn't do anything in that way ... how many people are +you thinking to help ... two, three ... maybe four! But there are hundreds +of others ... why, I could read you a thousand stories of worse--" + +Cousin Tryphena's limit had been reached. She advanced upon the intruder +with a face as excited as his own. ... "Jombatiste Ramotte, if you ever +dare to read me another such story, I'll go right out and jump in the +Necronsett River!" + +The mania which had haunted earlier generations of her family looked out +luridly from her eyes. + +I felt the goose-flesh stand out on my arms, and even Jombatiste's hot +blood was cooled. He stood silent an instant. + +Cousin Tryphena slammed the door in his face. + +He turned to me with a bewilderment almost pathetic so tremendous was +it--"Did you hear that ... what sort of logic do you call--" + +"Jombatiste," I counseled him, "if you take my advice you'll leave Miss +Tryphena alone after this." + +Cousin Tryphena started off on her crack-brained expedition, the very next +morning, on the six-thirty train. I happened to be looking out sleepily +and saw her trudging wearily past our house in the bleak gray of our +mountain dawn, the inadequate little, yellow flame of her old fashioned +lantern like a glowworm at her side. It seemed somehow symbolical of +something, I did not know what. + +It was a full week before we heard from her, and we had begun really to +fear that we would never see her again, thinking that perhaps, while she +was among strangers, her unsettled mind might have taken some new fancy +which would be her destruction. + +That week Jombatiste shut the door to his house. The children reported +that he would not even let them in, and that they could see him through +the window stitching away in ominous silence, muttering to himself. + +Eight days after Cousin Tryphena had gone away, I had a telegram from her, +which read, "Build fires in both my stoves to-morrow afternoon." + +The dark comes early in the mountains, and so, although I dare say there +was not a house in the village without a face at the pane after the late +evening train came up, none of us saw anything but our usual impenetrable +December darkness. That, too, seemed, to my perhaps overwrought +consciousness of the problem, highly suggestive of the usual course of our +lives. At least, I told myself, Cousin Tryphena had taken her absurd +little lantern and gone forth. + +The next morning, soon after breakfast, I set off for the other end of the +street. Cousin Tryphena saw me coming and opened the door. She did not +smile, and she was still very pale, but I saw that she had regained her +self-control, "Come right in," she said, in rather a tense voice, and, as +I entered she added, in our rustic phrase for introduction, "Make you +'quainted with my friend, Mrs. Lindstrom. She's come up from the city to +stay with me. And this is her little boy, Sigurd, and this is the baby." + +Blinking somewhat, I shook hands with a small, stoop-shouldered woman, in +a new, ready-made dress, with abundant yellow hair drawn back from the +thinnest, palest, saddest little face I had ever seen. She was holding an +immaculately clean baby, asleep, its long golden lashes lying on cheeks as +white and sunken as her own. A sturdily built boy of about six scrambled +up from where he lay on the floor, playing with the cat, and gave me a +hand shyly, hanging down his head. His mother had glanced up at me with a +quick, shrinking look of fright, the tears starting to her eyes. + +Cousin Tryphena was evidently afraid that I would not take her cue and +sound the right note, for she went on hastily, "Mrs. Lindstrom has been +real sick and kind o' worried over the baby, so's she's some nervous. I +tell her Hillsboro air is thought very good for people's nerves. Lots of +city folks come here in summer time, just for that. Don't you think Sigurd +is a real big boy for only six and a half? He knows his letters too! He's +goin' to school as soon as we get settled down. I want you should bring +over those alphabet blocks that your Peggy doesn't use any more--" + +The other woman was openly crying now, clinging to her benefactress' hand +and holding it against her cheek as she sobbed. + +My heroic old cousin patted her hair awkwardly, but kept on talking in her +matter-of-fact manner, looking at me sternly as though defying me to show, +by look or word, any consciousness of anything unusual in the situation; +and we fell at once, she and I, into a commonplace conversation about the +incidents of the trip up. + +When I came away, half an hour later, Cousin Tryphena slipped a shawl over +her head and came down the walk with me to the gate. I was much affected +by what seemed to me the dramatically fitting outcome of my old +kinswoman's Quixotism. I saw Cousin Tryphena picturesquely as the Happy +Fool of old folk-lore, the character who, through his very lack of worldly +wisdom, attains without effort all that self-seeking folks try for in +vain. The happy ending of her adventure filled me with a cheerful wonder +at the ways of Providence, which I tried to pass on to her in the +exclamation, "Why, Cousin Tryphena, it's like a story-book? You're going +to _enjoy_ having those people. The woman is as nice as she can be, and +that's the brightest little boy! He's as smart as a whip!" + +I was aware that the oddness of Cousin Tryphena's manner still persisted +even now that we were alone. She sighed heavily and said, "I don't sleep +much better nights now I've done it!" Then facing me, "I hadn't ought to +have brought them up here! I just did it to please myself! Once I saw +'em ... I wanted 'em!" + +This seemed to me the wildest possible perversion of the Puritan instinct +for self-condemnation and, half-vexed, I attempted some expostulation. + +She stopped me with a look and gesture Dante might have had, "You ain't +seen what I've seen." + +I was half-frightened by her expression but tried to speak coolly. "Why, +was it as bad as that paper said?" I asked. + +She laid her hand on my arm, "Child, it was nothing like what the paper +said...it was so much worse!" + +"Oh ..." I commented inadequately. + +"I was five days looking for her...they'd moved from the address the paper +give. And, in those five days, I saw so many others..._so many others_..." +her face twitched. She put one lean old hand before her eyes. Then, quite +unexpectedly, she cast out at me an exclamation which made my notion of +the pretty picturesqueness of her adventure seem cheap and trivial and +superficial. "Jombatiste is right!" she cried to me with a bitter +fierceness: "Everything is wrong! Everything is wrong! If I can do +anything, I'd ought to do it to help them as want to smash everything up +and start over! What good does it do for me to bring up here just these +three out of all I saw ..." Her voice broke into pitiful, self-excusing +quavers, "but when I saw them ...the baby was so sick ... and little +Sigurd is so cunning ... he took to me right away, came to me the first +thing ... this morning he wouldn't pick up his new rubbers off the floor +for his mother, but, when I asked him, he did, right off ... you ought to +have seen what he had on ... such rags ... such dirt ... and 'twan't her +fault either! She's ... why she's like anybody ... like a person's cousin +they never happened to see before ...why, they were all _folks_!" she +cried out, her tired old mind wandering fitfully from one thing to +another. + +"You didn't find the little boy in the asylum?" I asked. + + +"He was dead before I got there," she answered. + +"Oh ... !" I said again, shocked, and then tentatively, "Had he ...?" + +"I don't know whether he had or not," said Cousin Tryphena, "I didn't ask. +I didn't want to know. I know too much now!" She looked up fixedly at the +mountain line, high and keen against the winter sky. "Jombatiste is +right," she said again unsparingly, "I hadn't ought to be enjoying +them ... their father ought to be alive and with them. He was willing to +work all he could, and yet he ... here I've lived for fifty-five years and +never airned my salt a single day. What was I livin' on? The stuff these +folks ought to ha' had to eat ... them and the Lord only knows how many +more besides! Jombatiste is right ... what I'm doin' now is only a drop in +the bucket!" + +She started from her somber reverie at the sound of a childish wail from +the house. ... "That's Sigurd ...I _knew_ that cat would scratch him!" she +told me with instant, breathless agitation, as though the skies were +falling, and darted back. After a moment's hesitation I too, went back and +watched her bind up with stiff, unaccustomed old fingers the little +scratched hand, watched the frightened little boy sob himself quiet on her +old knees that had never before known a child's soft weight saw the +expression in her eyes as she looked down at the sleeping baby and gazed +about the untidy room so full of mire, which had always been so orderly +and so empty. + +She lifted the little boy up higher so that his tousled yellow hair rested +against her bosom. He put an arm around her neck and she flushed with +pleasure like a girl; but, although she held him close to her with a +sudden wistful tenderness, there was in her eyes a gloomy austerity which +forbade me to sentimentalize over the picture she made. + +"But, Cousin Tryphena," I urged, "it _is_ a drop in the bucket, you know, +and that's something!" + +She looked down at the child on her knee, she laid her cheek against his +bright hair, but she told me with harsh, self-accusing rigor, "Tain't +right for me to be here alive enjoying that dead man's little boy." + + * * * * * + +That was eighteen months ago. Mrs. Lindstrom is dead of consumption; but +the two children are rosy and hearty and not to be distinguished from the +other little Yankees of the village. They are devotedly attached to their +Aunt Tryphena and rule her despotically. + +And so we live along, like a symbol of the great world, bewildered Cousin +Tryphena toiling lovingly for her adopted children, with the memory of her +descent into hell still darkening and confusing her kind eyes; Jomatiste +clothing his old body in rags and his soul in flaming indignation as he +batters hopefully at the ramparts of intrenched unrighteousness ... and +the rest of us doing nothing at all. + + + + +THE GOLDEN TONGUE OF IRELAND + + + Tongue of spice and salt and wine and honey, + Magic, mystic, sweet, intemperate tongue! + Flower of lavish love and lyric fury, + Mixed on lips forever rash and young, + Wildly droll and quaintly tender;-- + + Hark, the hidden melodies of Elfland + In the under, in the over tone; + Clear faint wailing of the far-heard banshee, + Out of lands where never the sun shone, + Calling doom on chieftains dying.... + + + + +PIPER TIM + +I + + +When Moira O'Donnell was born, Timothy Moran was thirty-three years old, a +faëry number, as he often told himself afterward. When he was forty and +she was seven, another mystic number, he dedicated his life to her and she +gave him back his lost kingdom of enchantment. It was on the evening of +her seventh birthday that she led him to the Land of Heart's Desire he +thought he had left forever in green and desolate Donegal, and her +birthday fell on the seventh of October, and October is the month when the +little people are busiest. He never forgot what she did for him that +evening, although her part in it was so brief. + +His own birthday was on the thirteenth of the month, and he often laid his +sorrows to that unchancy date. On the seventh he sat on the old Round +Stone, his pipes lying silent beside him, and brooded on his heavy ill. +Father Delancey had just left him and had told him flatly that he had no +ills at all. Hence he sat, his heart heavier than ever, drooping, under +the great maple tree, the road white before him, leading away into the +empty, half-translucent shadows of starlight. Father Delancey had said it +was only the faëry nonsense in his head that made him miserable, and had +marshaled before him the irrefutable blessings of his life. Had he not +been cared for from the first minute of his landing from Ireland, a +penniless piper of nineteen, as though the holy saints themselves were +about him? Had he not gone direct to Father Delancey, sent by the priest +in Donegal, and had not Father Delancey at once placed him in the Wilcox +family, kindliest, heartiest, and most stirring of New England farmers? +And had he not lived in prosperity with them ever since? + +Timothy started at the faëry number. "Twinty-one years? So 'tis, +Father--an' more! 'Tis twinty-one years to-day since I came, aven and +true--the seventh day of October. Sure, somethin' ought to happen on such +a day--oughtn't it?" + +"Happen?" queried Father Delancey. + +"The seventh day of October, the twinty-first year and October bein' the +month for thim," said Timothy, elucidating confidently. + +Father Delancey frowned and broke into an angry exclamation, "'Tis simple +mad ye are, Timothy Moran, with your faëry foolishness, and I've a half a +mind to take your pipes away from you as a penance for your ignorant +superstition!" + +"But, Father, I'm the seventh son and sure ye must admit 'tis a lonesome +country, all this, that looks so like Donegal and Killarney mountains, an' +is so dead-like, wi' no little people to fill up the big gap between the +dead an' the livin', an' the good an' the bad. 'Tis empty, all this +valley." + +"Timothy Moran, that are my sister's husband's cousin's son, I'm ashamed +of ye, an' I bid ye note that 'twas the hand of the Blessed Virgin herself +that sent ye out o' Ireland, for if you'd 'a' stayed in th' ould country +you'd 'a' been bewitched long before now--not, savin' us all th' blessed +saints, that I belave in any of your nonsense!" + +Timothy smiled at this with an innocent malice. "You see how 'tis, Father. +You cannot kape yourself from belivin' in thim and you a man o' God." + +"I do _not_, Timothy! Tis but a way of speech that I learned in my +childhood. An' 'tis lucky for you that I have a knowledge of thim, for any +other priest would have driven you out of the parish, you and your +stubborn pipes that do naught but play faëry music. An' you a man of forty +in a trifle of six days, and no wife an' childer to keep you from foolish +notions. If ye had, now, you could be livin' in the proper tenant's house +for the Wilcox's man, instead of Michael O'Donnell, who has no business +livin' up here on the hill so far from his work that he can come home but +once a week to look after his poor motherless child. I will say for you, +Tim, that you do your duty by that bit of a slip of a girl baby, keepin' +her so neat and clean an' all, times when Mike's not here." + +Timothy did not raise his drooping head at this praise, and something +about his attitude struck sharp across the priest's trained observation. +The big, shambling, red-headed man looked like a guilty child. There was a +moment's silence, while Father Delancey speculated, and then his +experienced instinct sped him to the bull's-eye. "Timothy Moran, you're +not putting your foolish notions in the head of that innocent child o' +God, Moira O'Donnell, are you?" + +The red head sank lower. + +"Answer me, man! Are ye fillin' her mind with your sidhe[A] and your +red-hatted little people an' your stories of 'gentle places' an' the +leprechaun?" + +[Footnote A: Pronounced _shee_ (as in Banshee), the fairies.] + +Timothy arose suddenly and flung his long arms abroad in a gesture of +revolt. "I am that, Father Delancey, 'tis th' only comfort of my life, +livin' it, as I do, in a dead country--a valley where folks have lived and +died for two hundred years such lumps of clay that they niver had wan man +sharp enough to see the counts in between heaven and earth." He lapsed +again into his listless position on the Round Stone. "But ye needn't be +a-fearin' for her soul, Father--her wid th' black hair an' the big gray +eyes like wan that cud see thim if she wud! She's as dead a lump as anny +of th' rest--as thim meat-eatin' Protestants, the Wilcoxes, heaven save +the kindly bodies, for they've no souls at all, at all." From the stone he +picked up a curiously shaped willow whistle with white lines carved on it +in an odd criss-cross pattern. "To-day's her seventh birthday, an' I +showed her how to make the cruachan whistle, an' when I'd finished she +blew on it a loud note that wud ha' wakened the sidhe for miles around in +Donegal. An' then she looked at me as dumb as a fish, her big gray eyes +blank as a plowed field wid nothin' sown in it. She niver has a word to +show that she _hears_ me, even, when I tell o' the gentle people." He +added in a whisper to himself, "But maybe she's only waiting." + + +"'Tis the Virgin protectin' her from yer foolishness, Tim," returned the +priest, rising with a relieved air. "She'll soon be goin' to district +school along with all the other hard-headed little Yankees, and then your +tales can't give her notions." With which triumphant meditation he walked +briskly away, leaving Timothy to sit alone with his pipes under the +maple-tree, flaming with a still heat of burning autumn red, like a faëry +fire. + +His head sank heavily in his hands as his heart grew intolerably sad with +the lack he felt in all the world, most of all in himself. He had often +tried to tell himself what made the world so dully repellant, but he never +could get beyond, "'Tis as though I was aslape an' yet not quite +aslape--just half wakin', an' somethin' lovely is goin' on in the next +room, an' I can't wake up to see what 'tis. The trouble's with th' people. +They're all _dead_ aslape here, an' there's nobody to wake me up." + +"Piper Tim! Piper Tim!" was breathed close to his ear. He sprang up, with +wide, startled eyes. + +"Piper Tim," said the little girl gravely, "_I've seen them_." + +The man stared at her in a breathless silence. + +"A little wee woman with a red hat and kerchief around her neck, an' she +said, 'Go straight to Piper Tim an' tell him to play "The Call o' the +Sidhe" as he sits on the Round Stone, for this is th' day of the Cruachan +Whistle.'" + +The child put out her hand, and drew him to the pipes, still keeping her +deep eyes fixed on him, "Play, Piper Tim, an' shut your eyes an' I'll see +what you should see an' tell you what 'tis." + +The first notes were quavering as the man's big frame shook, but the +little hands across his eyes seemed to steady him, and the final flourish +was like a call of triumph. In the silence which followed the child spoke +in her high little treble with a grave elation. "They're here, Piper Tim, +all the river fog in the valley is full of them, dancin' and singin' so +gay-like to cheer up the poor hills. An' whist! Here they come up the +road, troops and troops of them, all so bright in the ferlie green; an' +sure," with a little catch of merriment, "sure, they've no toes on their +feet at all! They've danced them all away. And now, Piper Tim, hold your +breath, for they'll be after comin' by, but all so still, so still! so you +won't hear them and maybe think to open your eyes and see them--for that +'ud mean--sh! sh! Piper Tim, don't stir! _They're here! They're here_!" + +His eyes ached with the pressure of the strong little hands across them, +his ears ached with straining them into the silence which lay about them. +His heart beat fast with hope and then with certainty. Yes, it was no +longer the thin, dead silence of the New England woods he knew so +unhappily well. It was the still that comes with activity suspended. It +was like the quivering quiet of a dancer, suddenly stricken motionless to +listen for the sound of intruding footsteps. There was not the faintest +sound, but the silence was full of that rich consciousness of life which +marks the first awakening of a profound sleeper. + +The hands were withdrawn from before his eyes, but he did not open them. +He reached blindly for his pipes, and played "The Song of Angus to the +Stars," tears of joy running from between his closed eyelids, to recognize +in his own music the quality he had been starving for; the sense of the +futile, poignant beauty, of the lovely and harmless tragedy, of the sweet, +moving, gay sad meaning of things. + +When he looked about him he was quite alone. Moira was gone, and the road +lay white and still before him. + + + + +II + + +He did not see her all the next day, although he went down to the little +house to do the household tasks his big hands performed with so curious a +skill. He wished to see her and clear his mind of a weight which the +morning's light had put upon him; but she did not come in answer to his +call. The little house seemed full of her in its apparent emptiness, and +several times he had swung sharply about, feeling her back of him, but +always the room had turned a blank face. + +That evening he was returning late from the upland pastures where he had +been searching vainly for a lost cow. His path lay through a thick copse +of maple saplings where it was quite dark. As he emerged into a stony +pasture, he saw the child standing still in the center of a ring of fern, +brown and crumpled by the early frosts. When he appeared she held him +motionless by the sudden passion of her gestured appeal for silence. She +did not stir after this, her hands laid along her cheeks as though to hold +her head quite still, her eyes directed with a smiling eagerness toward a +huge rock, looming dimly in the transparent twilight. The silence was +oppressive. Timothy's blood ran chill as the expectancy grew more and more +strained in the child's eyes. He did not dare look at the rock himself. +He stared only at the elfin creature before him, and when her hands were +finally flung out in a gesture of welcoming ardor, he broke the unearthly +silence by crying out loud in a rapid whirl, "God save us. Christ save us! +The Holy Virgin guard us! St. Patrick defend us! St. Columba--" + +The little girl burst into a storm of tears and sank down on the ferns. +Timothy stopped his hysterical litany and ran toward her. "Don't you come +a-near me, bad Piper Tim!" she sobbed. "You don't dare step on the magic +circle anyhow. It 'ud burn your wicked foot!" + +The big farm laborer drew back in a terror he instantly disguised. "I was +just lookin' for you, Moira aroon," he said propitiatingly. "I was wishin' +to tell you--to tell you--why, that it's all pretend. There aren't any +little people really, you know. Tis just old Tim's nonsense." He shivered +at the blasphemy and crossed himself. "Or, if there are any, 'tis only in +th' ould country." The child rose to her feet, eying him strangely, her +eyes like deep pools. + +He went on conscientiously, with a mental eye on Father Delancey, "An' if +there _are_ any, which they aren't, they're bad things for Christians to +have aught to do with, because they know neither right nor wrong, and +'tisn't fit that mortals should iver be light an' gay wi' that burden +gone! So they're bad for us--an' we shouldn't think of thim, and just +cross ourselves wheniver--" + +The unspoken protest in the child's face was grown so passionate that he +interrupted himself to answer it in a burst of sympathy. "Och, Moira, +acushla, sure an' I know how 'tis to ye--" And then with a reaction to +virtue, he said sternly, "An' if they're not bad, why do they go when you +call on the blessed saints?" + +At this the child's face twisted again for tears. "Och, bad Piper Tim, to +scare them away from me! It's not that they're bad--only that good's too +heavy for them. They're such _little_ people! It's too heavy! It's too +heavy." She ran away through the dusk, sobbing and calling this over her +shoulder reproachfully. + +In the weeks which followed, old Timothy Moran, as he was called, could +scarcely complain that he was but half awake. He seemed to be making up +for the dull apathy of his long exile by the storminess of his days and +nights. Mrs. Wilcox, bustling housewife, hastening about the kitchen, +engaged in some late evening task, was moved to a sudden burst of +hysterical tears, by the faint sound of Tim's pipes, dropping down to her +from the Round Stone in a whirling roulade of ever-ascending merriness. +"You, Ralph!" she cried angrily through her sobs, to her oldest boy, +stricken open-mouthed and silent by his mother's amazing outburst, "you, +Ralph, run up to the Round Stone and tell the Irishman to stop playing +that jig over and over. I'm that tired to-night it drives me wild with +nerves!" As she brushed away the tears she said fretfully, "My sakes! +When my liver gets to tormenting me so I have the megrims like a girl, +it's time to do something." + +The boy came back to say that Old Tim had stopped playing "the jig" before +he reached him, and was lying sobbing on the stone. + +Moira was as approachable as a barn swallow, swooping into the house for a +mouthful of food and off again to the sky apparently. Timothy's +child-heart was guiltily heavy within him, for all his excitement, and +when he finally caught her in the pine woods he spoke briefly and firmly, +almost like Father Delancey himself. "Moira, Tim was a big fool to tell +you lies. There aren't really any little people. Tis only a way of +talkin'-like, to say how lovely the woods and stars an' all are." + +"Why do you sit on the Round Stone evenings?" asked Moira defiantly. + +"That's just it! I pretend all kind o' things, but it's really because the +moon is like gold, and the white fog comes up in puffs like incense in the +church, an' the valley's all bright wi' lamps like the sky wi' stars. +That's all anybody means by fairies--just how lovely things are if we can +but open our eyes to see thim, an' take time from th' ugly business o' +livin' to hear thim, and get a place quiet enough to half see what +everything means. I didn't know before, in Ireland, but now I'm like one +born again to the ferie country, and now I think I know. There aren't any +Little People really but just in your own head--" + +Moira shook off his hand and faced him, laughing mockingly, her dark eyes +wide with an elfin merriment. "Are there not, Piper Tim? Are there not? +Listen! You'll see!" She held up a tiny forefinger to the great man +towering above her. As he looked down on her, so pixy-like in the twilight +of the pines, he felt his flesh creep. She seemed to be waiting for +something infinitely comic which yet should startle her. She was poised, +half turned as though for flight, yet hung so, without a quiver in an +endless listening pause. The man tried in vain to remember the name of a +single saint, so held was he by the breathless expectancy in the eyes of +the little hobgoblin. His nerves gave way with a loud snap when she +suddenly leaped up at him with snapping fingers and some whispered, +half-heard exclamation of "_Now! Now_!" and turning he plunged down the +hill in panic-stricken flight. And the next day Father Delancey took her +down to the valley to begin her schooling. + + + + +III + + +Upon her return she had adopted the attitude which she never changed +during all the years until Timothy went away. She would not speak openly, +nor allow Tim to discuss "their" existence. "They mind their business and +we should mind ours," she said, eying him hard; but she made his world +over for him. Every spring she came back from the valley school and every +autumn she went away; and the months in between were golden. After +Timothy's work was done in the evenings, he left the hot kitchen, redolent +of food and fire and kindly human life, took his pipes up on the Round +Stone and played one after another of the songs of the sidhe, until the +child's white face shone suddenly from the dusk. + +Then their entertainment varied. Sometimes they sat and watched the white +river fog rise toward them, translucent and distant at first, and then +blowing upon them in gusty, impalpable billows. Timothy's tongue was +loosened by the understanding in the little girl's eyes and he poured out +to her the wise foolishness of his inconsequent and profound faëry lore. +He told her what was in the fog for him, the souls of mountain people long +dead, who came back to their home heights thus. He related long tales of +the doings of the leprechaun, with lovely, irrelevant episodes, and told +her what he thought was their meaning. + +Some nights the moon rode high and the air was clear and those were not +the times for words--only for sitting quite still and playing every air in +all the world on the pipes. Moira lay beside him, her strange, wide eyes +fixed intently on the road and the shadows until she peopled them almost +visibly to the musician with the folk of his melodies--with Angus, the +beautiful and strong, with Maive, the sad, the happy, with Congal of the +frightful Vision of War, and Mananan, strange wanderer on these mountain +tops. + +Sometimes it rained, the long steady downpour of summer nights, and they +sat on the steps of Michael O'Donnell's little cabin, Timothy's pipes +sounding sweet and shrill against the deep note of the rushing rain. This +was the time of the wildest stories, when sheltering walls were close +about them; of newly wed wives carried off by the fairies to live happy +always, always without a moment of pain, and then to perish utterly on the +Day of Judgment, like a last year's butterfly, for souls cannot live +without sorrow; of newly born babes whose souls were carried away by the +sidhe because a cock was not killed on the night of their birth, and of +the mystic meaning of vicarious sacrifice; of people who had lain down to +sleep unaware in a fairy ring and were foolish ever afterward--that is, as +people say, foolish, but really wise, for they saw how things are; of +homes built unknowingly across a fairy path where the sidhe take their +journeys, and how ill luck followed the inhabitants until they moved, and +of the strange penalties for living out of harmony with the little-known +currents of the soul's life; of how blind men see more than others; of how +a fool is one whose mind is so cleared of all futile commonplace traffic +that it reflects untroubled and serene the stars and their courses; of how +wisdom is folly, and life, death. All these things and many more did +Timothy say in words and play in music on his pipes, and to all of them +Moira gave her wide comprehending silence. + +The best of all was on evenings when the stars came out first, and then as +the two sat watching them from the Round Stone they suddenly began to +pale, and the moon flashed into sight, rising swiftly over the mountain +Moira called "The Hill o' Delights," because it was from a wide, white +door in it that the rushing, light-footed little people came out every +evening when the twilight fell and the harsh endeavor of human life was +stilled to peace. There was neither talk nor music on those evenings, but +a silence full, like the lovely world about them, of unsaid, quivering +joy. Sometimes Timothy would turn after such a long time of deep and +cheering mutual knowledge of how fair were all things, and find Moira +slipped away from beside him; but so impalpable was the companionship she +gave him in the strange and sweet confusion of his thoughts that he did +not feel himself alone, though she might be already deep in the pines +behind him. + +The girl grew taller, but the cool whiteness of her face was untinged by +any flush of young maidenhood. At seventeen she was a slender sprite of a +girl, to reach whose unearthly aloofness the warm human hands of her +companions strained unavailing. Each winter she descended to the valley +and to school and church, a silent, remote child, moving like one in a +dream. And every spring she came back to the hill, to Timothy and his +pipes, to the pines and the uplands, to the Round Stone and the white road +in front of it. Ralph Wilcox, hearty, kindly son of his hearty, kindly +parents, tried to speak to her long enough to make her seem real, but she +was rarely in the house except during the day and a half of each week when +her father was there; and on their casual encounters out of doors she +melted from before his eyes like a pixie, knowing the hiding places and +turns of his own land better than he. Sometimes he caught a glimpse of her +afterward, regarding him steadily and curiously from a nook in a hillside, +and once as she darted away she had dropped a handkerchief and turned her +head in time to see him pick it up; but she did not slacken her pace, or +speak to him then or at all. + +She rarely spoke, even to Timothy, but this was no barrier between them. +All the winter Timothy lived on the thoughts of the spring, and when the +arbutus and Moira came back he poured out to her the strange treasures he +had found in his heart. Scarcely to her, for she only gazed silent at the +stars as he talked. Rather she seemed to unlock in him the rich stores of +his own understanding and emotion. He marveled that he could ever have +found the valley empty. He felt within him a swelling flood, ever renewed, +of significance to fill all his world with a sweet and comforting meaning. + +And so his red hair grew threaded with white, and his foolish, idle heart +happier and happier as the years went on. Then, one midwinter day, Father +Delancey climbed the hill to say that Timothy's sister's husband was dead, +and that Timothy was sent for to take his place, hold the Nebraska claim, +work the land, and be a father to his sister's children. Timothy was +stunned with horror, but the unbending will of the never-contradicted +parish priest bore him along without question. + +"Sure, Tim, go! I tell you to! 'Tis the only thing _to_ do! And 'twill be +a man's work and earn ye many hours out of purgatory. An' 'twill be grand +for ye, ye that never would have a family o' your own--here's the Blessed +Virgin pushin' ye into one, ready-made. 'Twill be the makin' o' ye, 'twill +make ye rale human, an' ye'll have no more time for star-gazin' an' such +foolishness. Ye can find out what people are in the world for, instead +keepin' yerself so outside o' things. Sure, yes, man, yes, I'll tell Moira +ye said good-by to her, an'--yes, I give ye my word, and promise true and +true, I'll lave ye now if she moves away or if any harm comes to her." + + + + + + +IV + + +His grizzled hair was turned quite white when his sister kissed him +good-by, fresh tears in her eyes, scarcely dry from the excitement of her +youngest daughter's wedding. She had a moment of divination like his, and +said sadly, "There's no use trying to thank ye, Timmy, words can't do it. +If ye'd been anybody else, I cud ha' said ye got ye'r pay for all these +long, hard years in the love the childer bear ye. That's the pay folks get +for workin' an' livin' for others--but ye're not folks. Is't that ye're +the seventh son? Is't that ye've second sight? Is't that--_what_ is't that +makes ye so far away? An' what _is_ ye'r pay, Tim? Now that it's over and +the children all safe and grown up, ye look yerself like a child that's +done its lesson an' run out to play. Is't all just work or play with ye? +Can't ye niver just _live_?" + +In truth her brother's eagerness to be away was scarcely concealed at all +from the grateful, wistful Irish eyes about him. He was breathless with +haste to be off. The long trip to New England was a never-ending nightmare +of delay to him, and although he had planned for years to walk up the +hill, his trembling old legs dragged in a slow progress maddening to his +impatience. A farmer, driving by, offered him a lift, which he accepted +gratefully, sitting strained far forward on the high seat. At a turn of +the road he looked back and saw that he had passed the cluster of pines +where Moira had laughed at him, and where he had felt so thick about him +the thronging rush of his newly awakened perceptions of the finer meaning +of things, the gay, sweet crowd of gentle little people. + +He stopped the farmer and, leaping down from the high seat, he took his +pipes under his arm and fairly ran up the little path. His rheumatic knee +creaked a little, but the color came up hard in his tired old face as the +twilight of the pines and their pungent, welcoming breath fell about him. +He cast him down and buried his face in the rust-red dried needles. He did +not weep, but from time to time a long sigh heaved his shoulders. Then he +turned over and lay on his back, looking at the sunset-yellow sky through +the green, thick-clustered needles, noticing how the light made each one +glisten as though dipped in molten gold. His hand strayed out to his +pipes, lying beside him with mute, gaping mouths. "The Gold o' the +Glamour," he murmured to himself, and as he broke the silence with the old +tune faintly blown, he felt the wood peopled about him as of yore with +twilight forms. Unseen bright eyes gazed at him from behind tree-trunks, +and the branches were populous with invisible, kindly listeners. The very +hush was symbolic of the consciousness of the wood that he was there +again. There was none of the careless commonplace of rustling leaves, and +snapping twigs, and indifferent, fearless bird-song. In the death-like +still he felt life quivering and observant with a thousand innocent, +curious, welcoming eyes. + +When he had quavered through the last note he let the pipes fall and gazed +about him with a smile, like a happy old child. The sun sank behind the +mountain as he looked, and he pulled himself heavily up. His way to the +farm lay over bare upland pastures where his feet, accustomed for years to +the yielding prarie levels, stumbled and tripped among the loose stones. +Twilight came on rapidly, so that he found himself several times walking +blindly through fairy rings of fern. He crossed himself and bowed his head +three times to the west, where the evening star now shone pale in the +radiance of the glowing sky. Between two of the ridges he wandered into a +bog where his feet, hot in their heavy boots, felt gratefully the oozing, +cool brown water. + +And then, as he stepped into the lane, dark with dense maple-trees and +echoing faintly with the notes of the hermit thrush, he saw the light of +the little house glimmer through the trees in so exactly the spot where +his hungering eyes sought it that his heart gave a great hammering leap in +his breast. + +He knocked at the door, half doubtfully, for all his eagerness. It might +be she lived elsewhere in the parish now. He had schooled himself to this +thought so that it was no surprise, although a heavy disappointment, when +the door was opened by a small dark man holding a sleeping baby on his +arm. Timothy lowered his voice and the man gave a brief and hushed answer. +He spoke in a strong French-Canadian accent. "Moira O'Donnell? I nevaire +heard before. Go to ze house on ze hill--mebbe zey know--" + +He closed the door, and, through the open window, Timothy saw him sit +down, still holding the baby and looking at it as though the interrupting +episode were already forgotten. The old man shivered with a passing eerie +sense of being like a ghost knocking vainly at the doors of the living. He +limped up the hill, and knocked on the kitchen door of the old Wilcox +house. To his eyes, dilated with the wide dusk of the early evening, the +windows seemed to blaze with light, and when the door was opened to him he +shaded his eyes, blinking fast against the rays of a lamp held high in the +hand of a round, little woman who looked at him with an impersonal +kindness. His heart beat so he could not speak. + +Suddenly from the past rang out his old name, the one he had almost lost +in the dreary years of "Uncle Tim" which lay behind him. + +"Why, Piper Tim!" cried the woman in a voice of exceeding warmth and +affection. "Why, it's dear, dear, darling old Piper Tim come back to visit +his old home. I knew ye in a minute by the pipes. Come in! Come in! +There's not a soul livin' or dead that's welcomer in th' house of Moira +Wilcox." + +The name blazed high through all the confusion of his swimming senses. To +his blank look she returned a mellow laugh. "Why sure, Timmy darlint, +hasn't anybody; iver told ye I was married? I'd have written ye myself, +only that I knew you couldn't read it, and 'twas hard to tell through +other people. Though, saints preserve us, 'tis long since I thought +anything about it, one way _or_ th' other. 'Tis as nat'ral as breathing +now." + +She was pulling him into the warm, light room, taking his cap and pipes +from him, and at the last she pushed him affectionately into a chair, and +stood looking kindly at his pale agitation, her arms wide in a soft angle +as she placed her hands on her rounded hips. "Oh, Timothy Moran, you +darlint! Moira's that glad to see you! You mind me of the times when I was +young and that's comin' to be long ago." + +She turned and stepped hastily to the stove from which rose an appetizing +smell of frying ham. As she bent her plump, flushed face over this, the +door opened and two dark-eyed little girls darted in. On seeing a +stranger, they were frozen in mid-flight with the shy gaze of country +children. + +"Here, childer, 'tis Piper Tim come back to visit us. Piper Tim that I've +told ye so many tales about--an' the gran' tunes he can play on his pipes. +He can play with ye better nor I--he niver has aught else to do!" She +smiled a wide, friendly smile on the old man as she said this, to show she +meant no harm, and turned the slices of ham deftly so that they sent a +puff of blue savory smoke up to her face. "Don't th' ham smell good, ye +spalpeens, fresh from runnin' th' hills? Go an' wash ye'r faces an' hands +and call ye'r father an' brothers. I've four," she added proudly to the +man by the table watching her with horrified eyes. + +The fumes of the cooking made him sick, the close air suffocated him. He +felt as though he were in some oppressive nightmare, and the talk at the +supper-table penetrated but dully to his mind. The cordiality of Moira's +husband, the shy, curious looks of the children at his pipes, even Moira's +face rosy from brow to rounded chin, and beaming with indulgent, +affectionate interest all melted together into a sort of indistinguishable +confusion. This dull distress was rendered acute anguish by Moira's talk. +In that hot, indoor place, with all those ignorant blank faces about her, +she spoke of the pines and the upland bogs, of the fog and the Round +Stone, and desecrated a sacred thing with every word. + +It would have been a comfort to him if she had even talked with an +apostate's yearning bitterness for his betrayed religion, if she had +spoken harshly of their old, sweet folly; but she was all kindness and +eager, willing reminiscence. Just as she spoke his name, his faëry name of +"Piper Tim," in a tone that made it worse than "Uncle Tim," so she +blighted one after another of the old memories as she held them up in her +firm, assured hands, and laughed gently at their oddity. + +After supper as Tim sat again in the kitchen watching her do the evening +work, the tides of revulsion rose strong within him. "We were a queer lot, +an' no mistake, Piper Tim," she said, scraping at a frying pan with a +vigorous knife. "An' the childer are just like us. I've thried to tell +them some of our old tales, but--I dun'no'--they've kind o' gone from me, +now I've such a lot to do. I suppose you were up to the same always, with +your nephews an' nieces out West. 'Twas fine for ye to have a family of +your own that way, you that was always so lonely like." + +Timothy's shuddering horror of protest rose into words at this, incoherent +words and bursts of indignation that took his breath away in gasps. +"Moira! _Moira_! What are ye sayin' to me? _Me_ wid a family! Anyone who's +iver had th' quiet to listen to th' blessed little people--_him_ to fill +up his ears wid th' clatter of mortial tongues. No? Since I lift here I've +had no minute o' peace--oh, Moira, th' country there--th' great flat +hidjious country of thim--an' th' people like it--flat an' fruitful. An' +oh, Moira, aroon, it's my heart breakin' in me, that now I've worked and +worked there and done my mortial task an' had my purgatory before my time, +an' I've come back to live again--that ye've no single welcomin' word to +bid me stay." + +The loving Irish heart of the woman melted in a misunderstanding sympathy +and remorse. "Why, poor Piper Tim, I didn't mean ye should go back to them +or their country if ye like it better here. Ye're welcome every day of the +year from now till judgment tramp. I only meant--why--seem' they were your +own folks--and all, that ye'd sort o' taken to thim--the way most do, when +it's their own blood." + +She flowed on in a stream of fumbling, warm-hearted, mistaken apology +that sickened the old man's soul. When he finally rose for his great +adventure, he spoke timidly, with a wretched foreknowledge of what her +answer would be. + +"Och, Piper Tim, 'tis real sweet of ye to think of it and ask me, an' I'd +like fine to go. Sure, I've not been on the Round Stone of an +evening--why, not since you went away I do believe! But Ralph's goin' to +the grange meetin' to-night, an' one of th' childer is restless with a +cough, and I think I'll not go. My feet get sort of sore-like, too, after +bein' on them all day." + + + + +V. + + +As he stepped out from the warm, brightly lighted room, the night seemed +chill and black, but after a moment his eyes dilated and he saw the stars +shining through the densely hanging maple leaves. + +Up by the Round Stone the valley opened out beneath him. Restlessly he +looked up and down the road and across the valley with a questing glance +which did not show him what he sought. The night for all its dark corners +had nothing in it for him beyond what lay openly before him. He put out +his hand instinctively for his pipes, remembered that he had left them at +the house, and sprang to his feet to return for them. Perhaps Moira would +come out with him now. Perhaps the child had gone to sleep. The brief stay +in the ample twilight of the hillside had given him a faint, momentary +courage to appeal again to her against the narrow brightness of her +prison. + +Moira sat by the kitchen table, sewing, her smooth round face blooming +like a rose in the light from the open door of the stove. Her kindly eyes +beamed sweetly on the old man. "Ah, Piper Tim, ye're wise. 'Tis a damp +night out for ye'r rheumatis. The fog risin' too, likely?" + +The old piper went to her chair and stood looking at her with a fixed +gaze, "Moira!" he said vehemently, "Moira O'Donnell that was, the stars +are bright over the Round Stone, an' th' moon is risin' behind th' Hill o' +Delights, and the first white puffs of incense are risin' from th' +whirl-hole of th' river. I've come back for my pipes, and I'm goin' out to +play to th' little people--an' oh, shall old Piper Tim go without Moira?" + +He spoke with a glowing fervor like the leaping up of a dying candle. From +the inexorably kind woman who smiled so friendly on him his heart recoiled +and puffed itself out into darkness. She surveyed him with the wise, +tender pity of a mother for a foolish, much-loved child. "Sure, 'tis th' +same Piper Tim ye are!" she said cheerfully, laying down her work, "but, +Lord save ye, Timmy darlint, _Moira's grown up_! There's no need for my +pretendin' to play any more, is there, when I've got proper childer o' my +own to keep it up. _They_ are my little people--an' I don't have to have a +quiet place to fancy them up out o' nothin'. They're real! An' they're +takin' my place all over again. There's one--the youngest girl--the one +that looks so like me as ye noticed--she's just such a one as I was. +To-day only (she's seven to-morrow), she minded me of some old tales I had +told her about the cruachan whistle for the sidhe on the seventh birthday, +an' she'd been tryin' to make one, but I'd clean forgot how the +criss-cross lines go. It made me think back on that evening when I was +seven--maybe you've forgot, but you was sittin' on the Round Stone in +th'----" + +Timothy's sore heart rebelled at this last rifling of the shrine, and he +made for the door. Moira's sweet solicitude held him for an instant in +check. "Oh, Tim, ye'd best stay in an' warm your knee by the good fire. +I've a pile of mendin' to do, and you'll tell me all about your family in +th' West and how you farmed there. It'll be real cozy-like." + +Timothy uttered an outraged sound and snatching up his pipes fled out of +the pleasant, low-ceilinged room, up the road, now white as chalk beneath +the newly risen moon. At the Round Stone he sat down and, putting his +pipes to his lips, he played resolutely through to the end "The Song of +Angus to the Stars." As the last, high, confident note died, he put his +pipes down hastily, and dropped his face in his hands with a broken murmur +of Gaelic lament. + +When he looked abroad again, the valley was like a great opal, where the +moon shot its rays into the transparent fog far below him. The road was +white and the shadows black and one was no more devoid of mystery than the +other. + +The sky for all its stars hung above the valley like an empty bowl above +an empty vessel, and in his heart he felt no swelling possibilities to +fill this void. To the haggard old eyes the face of the world was like a +dead thing, which did not return his gaze even with hostility, but +blankly--a smooth, thin mask which hid behind it nothing at all. + +He was startled by the sudden appearance of a dog from out of the shadows, +a shaggy collie who trotted briskly down the road, stopping to roll a +friendly, inquiring eye on his bent figure. His eyes followed the animal +until it vanished in the shadows on the other side. After the sound of its +padding footsteps was still, the old man's heart died within him at the +silence. + +He tried vainly to exorcise this anguish by naming it What was it? Why did +he droop dully now that he was where he had so longed to be? Everything +was as it had been, the valley, the clean white fog, tossing its waves up +to him as he had dreamed of it in the arid days of Nebraska; the mountains +closing in on him with the line of drooping peace he had never lost from +before his eyes during the long, dreary years of exile. Only he was +changed. His eye fell on his mud-caked boots, and his face contracted. +"Oh, my! Oh, my!" he said aloud, like an anxious old child. "She couldn't +ha' liked my tracking bog durt on to her clane kitchen floor!" + +But as he sat brooding, his hand dropped heavily to the Round Stone and +encountered a small object which he held up to view. It was a willow +whistle of curious construction, with white lines criss-cross on it; and +beside it lay a jackknife with a broken blade. The old man looked at it, +absently at first, then with a start, and finally with a rush of joyful +and exultant exclamations. + +And afterward, quite tranquilly, with a shining face of peace, he played +softly on his pipes, "The Call of the Sidhe to the Children." + + + + +ADESTE FIDELES! + +I. + + +The persuasive agent sought old Miss Abigail out among her flower-beds and +held up to her a tiny chair with roses painted on the back. "I was told to +see you about these. They're only four dollars a dozen, and the smallest +school children love 'em." Miss Abigail straightened herself with +difficulty. She had been weeding the gladiolus bed. "Four dollars," she +mused, "I was going to put four dollars into rose-bushes this fall." She +put out a strong, earth-stained old hand and took the chair. Her affection +for her native Greenford began to rise through her life-long thrift, a +mental ferment not unusual with her. Finally, "All right," she said; "send +'em to the schoolhouse, and say they're in memory of all my grandfathers +and grandmothers that learned their letters in that schoolhouse." + +She went back to her digging and the agent clicked the gate back of his +retreat. Suddenly she stood up without remembering to ease her back. She +heard the first shot from the enemy who was to advance so rapidly upon her +thereafter. "Wait a minute," she called to the agent. As he paused, she +made a swift calculation. "I don't believe I want a dozen," she said, much +surprised. "I can't think of that many little ones." The agent took his +notebook. "How many?" he asked. + +The ponderous old woman stared at him absently, while she made a mental +canvass of the town. She spoke with a gasp. "We don't need any!" she +cried. "There ain't a child in school under eleven." + +"Take some now and have them handy," urged the agent. + +Miss Abigail's gaze again narrowed in silent calculation. When she spoke +her exclamation was not for her listener. She had forgotten him. "Good +Lord of Love!" she cried. "There ain't a single one comin' up to sit on +those chairs if I should buy 'em!" + +The agent was utterly blotted from her mind. She did not know when he left +her garden. She only knew that there were no children in Greenford. There +were no children in her town! "Why, what's comin' to Greenford!" she +cried. + +And yet, even as she cried out, she was aware that she had had a warning, +definite, ominous, a few days before, from the lips of Molly Leonard. At +that time she had put away her startled uneasiness with a masterful hand, +burying it resolutely where she had laid away all the other emotions of +her life, under the brown loam of her garden. But it all came back to her +now. + +Her thin, fluttering, little old friend had begun with tragic emphasis, +"The roof to the library leaks!" + +Miss Abigail had laughed as usual at Molly's habit of taking small events +with bated breath. "What of it?" she asked. "That roof never was good, +even back in the days when 'twas a private house and my great-uncle lived +in it." + +Miss Molly fluttered still more before the awfulness of her next +announcement. + +"Well, the talk is that the town won't vote a cent toward repairs." + +"They'll have to! You can't get along without a library!" + +"No, they won't. The talk is that the men won't vote to have the town give +a bit of money for shingles. No, nor to pay somebody to take the place of +Ellen Monroe as librarian. She's got work in the print mill at +Johnsonville and is going to move down there to be near her mother's +family." + +"Oh, _talk_!" said Miss Abigail with the easy contempt she had for things +outside her garden hedge. "Haven't you heard men talk before?" + +"But they say really they _won't!_ They say nobody ever goes into it any +more when the summer folks go away in the autumn." + +Miss Abigail's gesture indicated that the thing was unthinkable. "What's +the matter with young folks nowadays, anyhow? They always used to run +there and chatter till you couldn't hear yourself think." + +Miss Molly lowered her voice like a person coming to the frightening +climax of a ghost story. "Miss Abigail, they _ain't_ any young folks here +any more!" + +"What do you call the Pitkin girls!" demanded the other. + +"They were the very last ones and they and their mother have decided +they'll move to Johnsonville this fall." + +Miss Abigail cried out in energetic disapproval, "What in the Lord's world +are the Pitkinses going to move away from Greenford for! They belong +here!" + +Miss Molly marshaled the reasons with a sad swiftness, "There aren't any +music pupils left for the oldest one, the two next have got positions in +the print mill and little Sarah is too old for the school here any more." + +Miss Abigail shook her head impatiently as though to brush away a +troublesome gnat. "How about the Leavitts? There ought to be enough young +ones in that or family to--" + +"They moved to Johnsonville last week, going to rent their house to city +folks in the summer, the way all the rest here in the street do. They +didn't want to go a bit. Eliza felt dreadful about it, but what can they +do? Ezra hasn't had enough carpentering to do in the last six months to +pay their grocery bill, and down in Johnsonville they can't get carpenters +enough. Besides, all the children's friends are there, and they got so +lonesome here winters." + +Miss Abigail quailed a little, but rallying, she brought out, "What's the +matter with the Bennetts? The whole kit and b'iling of them came in here +the other day to pester me asking about how I grew my lilies." + +"Why, Miss Abigail! You don't pay any more attention to village news! +They've been working in the mills for two years now, and only come home +for two weeks in the summer like everybody else." + +The old woman stirred her weighty person wrathfully. "Like everybody else! +Molly, you talk like a fool! As if there was nobody lived here all the +year around!" + +"But it's _so!_ I don't know what's coming to Greenford!" + +An imperative gesture from the older woman cut her short. "Don't chatter +so, Molly! If it's true, that about the library, we've got to do +something!" + +The interview had ended in an agreement from her, after a struggle with +the two passions of her life, to give up the tulip bulbs for which she had +been saving so long, and spend the money for repairing the roof. Miss +Molly, having no money to give, since she was already much poorer than she +could possibly be and live, agreed, according to Miss Abigail's peremptory +suggestion, to give her time, and keep the library open at least during +the afternoons. + +"You can do it, Molly, as well as not, for you don't seem to have half the +sewing you used to." + +"There's nobody here any more to sew _for_--" began the seamstress +despairingly, but Miss Abigail would not listen, bundling her out of the +garden gate and sending her trotting home, cheered unreasonably by the old +woman's jovial blustering, "No such kind of talk allowed in _my_ garden!" + +But now, after the second warning, Miss Abigail felt the need of some +cheer for herself as she toiled among the hollyhocks and larkspurs. She +would not let herself think of the significance of the visit of the agent +for the chairs, and she could not force herself to think of anything else. +For several wretched weeks she hung in this limbo. Then, one morning as +she stood gazing at her Speciosums Rubrums without seeing them, she +received her summons to the front. She had a call from her neighbor, Mr. +Edward Horton, whom the rest of the world knows as a sculptor, but whom +Miss Abigail esteemed only because of his orthodox ideas on rose culture. +He came in to ask some information about a blight on his Red Ramblers, +although after Miss Abigail had finished her strong recommendation to use +whale oil soap sprayed, and not hellebore, he still lingered, crushing a +leaf of lemon verbena between his fingers and sniffing the resultant +perfume with thoughtful appreciation. He was almost as enthusiastic a +horticulturist as Miss Abigail, and stood high in her good graces as one +of the few individuals of sense among the summer colony. She faced him +therefore in a peaceable, friendly mood, glad of the diversion from her +thoughts, and quite unprepared for the shock he was about to give her. + +"I'm on my way to interview the trustees of the church," he remarked. "It +is curious that all but one of them now really live in Johnsonville, +although they still keep their nominal residence here." + +"What do you want to see _them_ for?" asked Miss Abigail, with a bluntness +caused in part by her wincing at his casual statement of an unwelcome fact. + +"Why, I've had what I flatter myself is an inspiration for everyone +concerned. I've got a big commission for part of the decorations of the +new State House in Montana, and I need a very large studio. It occurred to +me the other day that instead of building I'd save time by buying the old +church here and using that." + +Miss Abigail leaned against the palings. "_Buy our church!_" she said, and +every letter was a capital. + +"I didn't know you were a member," said the sculptor, a little surprised. +"You don't often go." + +Miss Abigail shouted out, "Why, my grandfather was minister in that +church!" Mr. Horton received this as a statement of fact. "Indeed? I +didn't realize the building was so old. I wonder if the foundations are +still in good shape." He went on, explanatorily, "I really don't know why +I hadn't thought of the plan before. The number who attend church in that +great barn of a place could easily be put into someone's parlor, and save +the trustees the expense of heating. One of them whom I saw the other day +seemed quite pleased with the notion--said they'd been at a loss to know +what to do about conditions here." He glanced at his watch. "Well, I must +be going or I shall miss the train to Johnsonville. Thank you very much +for the hint about the blight." + +He went down the street, humming a cheerful little tune. + +To Miss Abigail it was the bugle call of "Forward, charge!" She had been, +for the last few weeks, a little paler than usual. Now her powerful old +face flushed to an angry red. She dashed her trowel to the garden path and +clenched her fists. "What's coming to Greenford!" she shouted. It was no +longer a wail of despair. It was a battle-cry of defiance. + + + + +II + + +She had no time to organize a campaign, forced as she was to begin +fighting at once. Reaching wildly for any weapon at hand, she rushed to +the front, as grim-visaged a warrior as ever frightened a peaceable, +shiftless non-combatant "Joel Barney!" she cried, storming up his front +steps. "You're a trustee of the church, aren't you? Well, if you don't +vote against selling the church, I'll foreclose the mortgage on your house +so quick you can't wink. And you tell 'Lias Bennett that if he doesn't do +the same, I'll pile manure all over that field of mine near his place, and +stink out his summer renters so they'll never set foot here again." + +She shifted tactics as she encountered different adversaries and tried no +blackmail on stubborn Miles Benton, whom she took pains to see the next +time he came back to Greenford for a visit. Him she hailed as the +Native-Born. "How would you like to have brazen models and nasty statues +made in the building where your own folks have always gone to church?" + +But when the skirmish was over, she realized ruefully that the argument +which had brought her her hard-won victory had been the one which, for a +person of such very moderate means as hers, reflected the least hope for +future battles. At the last, in desperation, she had guaranteed in the +name of the Ladies' Aid Society that the church, except for the minister's +salary, should thereafter be no expense to the trustees. She had invented +that source of authority, remembering that Molly Leonard had said she +belonged to the Ladies' Aid Society, "and I can make Molly do anything," +she thought, trusting Providence for the management of the others. + +As a matter of fact, when she came to investigate the matter, she found +that Molly was now the sole remaining member. Her dismay was acute, +Molly's finances being only too well known to her, but she rallied +bravely. "They don't do much to a church that costs money," she thought, +and, when Molly went away, she made out her budget unflinchingly. Wood for +the furnace, kerosene for the lamps, wages to the janitor, repairs when +needed--"Well, Abigail Warner," she told herself, "it means nothing new +bought for the garden, and no new microscope--the roof to the library +costing more than they said 'twould and all." + +But the joy of triumphant battle was still swelling her doughty old heart, +so that even these considerations did not damp her exultation over her +artist neighbor the next time he came to see her. He listened to her +boasting with his pleasant, philosophic smile, and, when she finished, +delivered himself of a quiet little disquisition or the nature of things +which was like ice-water in the face of the hot-blooded old fighter. + +"My dear Miss Abigail, your zeal does your heart credit, and your +management of the trustees proves you an unsuspected diplomat; but as a +friend, and, believe me, a disinterested friend, let me warn you that you +are contending against irresistible forces. You can no more resuscitate +your old Greenford than you can any other dead body. You have kept the +church from my clutches, it is true, though for that matter I wouldn't +have offered to buy it if I hadn't thought no one cared about it--but what +do you mean to do with it now you have it? You cannot bring back the old +Greenford families from their well-paid work in Johnsonville to sit in +those rescued pews, or read in your deserted library, or send their +children to your empty schoolhouse. You tell me they are loyal to their +old home, and love to come back here for visits. Is that strange? +Greenford is a charming village set in the midst of beautiful mountains, +and Johnsonville is a raw factory town in a plain. But they cannot live on +picturesque scenery or old associations. The laws of economics are like +all other laws of nature, inevitable in their action and irresistible in--" + +Miss Abigail gave the grampus snort which had been her great-grandfather's +war-cry. "Hoo! You're like all other book folks! You give things such long +names you scare yourselves! I haven't got anything to do with economics, +nor it with me. It's a plain question as to whether the church my +ancestors built and worshipped in is to be sold. There's nothing so +inevitable in _that_, let me tell you. Laws of nature--fiddlesticks! How +about the law of gravity? Don't I break that every time I get up gumption +enough to raise my hand to my head!" + +Mr. Horton looked at the belligerent old woman with the kindest smile of +comprehension. "Ah, I know how hard it is for you. In another way I have +been through the same bitter experience. My home, my real home, where my +own people are, is out in a wind-swept little town on the Nebraska +prairies. But I cannot live there because it is too far from my world of +artists and art patrons. I tried it once, but the laws of supply and +demand work for all alike. I gave it up. Here I am, you see. You can't +help such things. You'd better follow on to Johnsonville now and not +embitter the last of your life with a hopeless struggle." + +Miss Abigail fairly shouted at him her repudiation of his ideas. "Not +while there is a breath in me! My folks were all soldiers." + +"But even soldiers surrender to overpowering forces." + +"Hoo! Hoo! How do they know they're overpowering till they're overpowered! +How do they dare surrender till they're dead! How do they know that if +they hold out just a little longer they won't get reënforcements!" + +Mr. Horton was a little impatient of his old friend's unreason. "My dear +Miss Abigail, you have brains. _Use_ them! What possible reinforcements +can you expect?" + +The old woman opposed to his arguments nothing but a passionately bare +denial. "No! No! No! We're different! It's in your blood to give up +because you can reason it all out that you're beaten," She stood up, +shaking with her vehemence. "It's in my blood to fight and fight and +fight--" + +"And then what?" asked the sculptor, as she hesitated. + +"Go on fighting!" she cried. + + + + +III + + +She was seventy-one years old when she first flew this flag, and for the +next four years she battled unceasingly under its bold motto against odds +that rapidly grew more overwhelming as the process that had been +imperceptibly draining Greenford of its population gained impetus with it +own action. In the beginning people moved to Johnsonville because they +could get work in the print mill, but after a time they went because the +others had gone. Before long there was no cobbler in Greenford because +there was so little cobbling to do. After that the butcher went away, then +the carpenter, and finally the grocery-store was shut up and deserted by +the man whose father and grandfather had kept store in the same building +for sixty years. It was the old story. He had a large family of children +who needed education and "a chance." + +The well-kept old village still preserved its outer shell of quaintness +and had a constantly increasing charm for summering strangers who rejoiced +with a shameless egoism in the death-like quiet of the moribund place, and +pointed out to visiting friends from the city the tufts of grass beginning +to grow in the main street as delightful proofs of the tranquillity of +their summer retreat. + +Miss Abigail overheard a conversation to this effect one day between some +self-invited visitors to her wonderful garden. Her heart burned and her +face blackened. "You might as well," she told them, "laugh at the funny +faces of a person who's choking to death!" + +The urbane city people turned amused and inquiring faces upon her. "How +so?" + +"Roads aren't for grass to grow in!" she fulminated. +"They're for folks to use, for men and women and little children to go over +to and from their homes." + +"Ah, economic conditions," they began to murmur. "The inevitable laws of +supply and--" + +"Get out of my garden!" Miss Abigail raged at them. "Get out!" + + +They had scuttled before her, laughing at her quaint verocity, and she had +sworn wrath fully never to let another city dweller inside her gate--a +resolution which she was forced to forego as time passed on and she became +more and more hard pressed for ammunition. + +Up to this time she had lived in perfect satisfaction on seven hundred +dollars a year, but now she began to feel straitened. She no longer dared +afford even the tiniest expenditure for her garden. She spaded the beds +herself, drew leaf mold from the woods in repeated trips with a child's +express wagon, and cut the poles for her sweet-peas with her own hands. +When Miss Molly Leonard declared herself on the verge of starvation from +lack of sewing to do, and threatened to move to Johnsonville to be near +her sister Annie, Miss Abigail gave up her "help" and paid Miss Molly for +the time spent in the empty reading-room of the library. But the campaign +soon called for more than economy, even the most rigid. When the minister +had a call elsewhere, and the trustees of the church seized the +opportunity to declare it impossible to appoint his successor, Miss +Abigail sold her woodlot and arranged through the Home Missionary Board +for someone to hold services at least once a fortnight. Later the "big +meadow" so long coveted by a New York family as a building site was +sacrificed to fill the empty war chest, and, temporarily in funds, she +hired a boy to drive her about the country drumming up a congregation. + +Christmas time was the hardest for her. The traditions of old Greenford +were for much decorating of the church with ropes of hemlock, and a huge +Christmas tree in the Town Hall with presents for the best of the +Sunday-school scholars. Winding the ropes had been, of old, work for the +young unmarried people, laughing and flirting cheerfully. By the promise +of a hot supper, which she furnished herself, Miss Abigail succeeded in +getting a few stragglers from the back hills, but the number grew steadily +smaller year by year. She and Miss Molly always trimmed the Christmas tree +themselves. Indeed, it soon became a struggle to pick out any child a +regular enough attendant at Sunday-school to be eligible for a present. +The time came when Miss Abigail found it difficult to secure any children +at all for the annual Christmas party. + +The school authorities began to murmur at keeping up the large old +schoolhouse for a handful of pupils. Miss Abigail, at her wit's end, +guaranteed the fuel for warming the house, and half the pay of a teacher. +Examining, after this, her shrunk and meager resources, she discovered +she had promised far beyond her means. She was then seventy-three years +old, but an ageless valor sprang up in her to meet the new emergency. She +focused her acumen to the burning point and saw that the only way out of +her situation was to earn some money--an impossible thing at her age. +Without an instant's pause, "How shall I do it?" she asked herself, and +sat frowning into space for a long time. + +When she rose up, the next development in her campaign was planned. Not in +vain had she listened scornfully to the silly talk of city folks about the +picturesqueness of her old house and garden. It was all grist to her mill, +she perceived, and during the next summer it was a grimly amused old +miller who watched the antics of Abigail Warner, arrayed in a +pseudo-oldfashioned gown of green-flowered muslin, with a quaintly ruffled +cap confining her rebellious white hair, talking the most correct +book-brand of down-east jargon, and selling flowers at twenty times their +value to automobile and carriage folk. She did not mind sacrificing her +personal dignity, but she did blush for her garden, reduced to the most +obvious commonplaces of flowers that any child could grow. But by +September she had saved the school-teacher's pay, and the Martins and the +Allens, who had been wavering on account of their children, decided to +stay another winter at least. + +That was _something_, Miss Abigail thought, that Christmas, as she and +Miss Molly tortured their rheumatic limbs to play games with the six +children around the tree. She had held rigorously to the old tradition of +having the Christmas tree party in the Town Hall, and she had heartened +Miss Molly through the long lonely hours they had spent in trimming it; +but as the tiny handful of forlorn celebrants gathered about the tall +tree, glittering in all the tinsel finery which was left over from the +days when the big hall had rung to the laughter of a hundred children and +as many more young people, even Miss Abigail felt a catch in her throat as +she quavered through "King _Will_yum was King _James's_ son!" + +When the games were over and the children sat about soberly, eating their +ice-cream and cake, she looked over her shoulder into the big empty room +and shivered. The children went away and she and Miss Molly put out the +lights in silence. When they came out into the moonlight and looked up and +down the deserted street, lined with darkened houses, the face of the +younger woman was frankly tear-stained. "Oh, Miss Abigail," she said; +"let's give it up!" + +Miss Abigail waited an instant, perceptible instant before answering, but, +when she did, her voice was full and harsh with its usual vigor. +"Fiddlesticks! You must ha' been losing your sleep. Go tuck yourself up +and get a good night's rest and you won't talk such kind of talk!" + +But she herself sat up late into the night with a pencil and paper, +figuring out sums that had impossible answers. + +That March she had a slight stroke of paralysis, and was in an agony of +apprehension lest she should not recover enough to plant the flowers for +the summer's market. By May, flatly against the doctor's orders, she was +dragging herself around the garden on crutches, and she stuck to her post, +smiling and making prearranged rustic speeches all the summer. She earned +enough to pay the school-teacher another winter and to buy the fuel for +the schoolhouse, and again the Martins and the Allens stayed over; though +they announced with a callous indifference to Miss Abigail's ideas that +they were going down to Johnsonville at Christmas to visit their relatives +there, and have the children go to the tree the ex-Greenfordites always +trimmed. + +When she heard this Miss Abigail set off to the Allen farm on the lower +slope of Hemlock Mountain. "Wa'n't our tree good enough?" she demanded +hotly. + +"The _tree_ was all right," they answered, "but the children were so +mortal lonesome. Little Katie Ann came home crying." + +Miss Abigail turned away without answering and hobbled off up the road +toward the mountain. Things were black before her eyes and in her heart as +she went blindly forward where the road led her. She still fought off any +acknowledgment of the bitterness that filled her, but when the road, after +dwindling to a wood trail and then to a path, finally stopped, she sat +down with a great swelling breath. "Well, I guess this is the end," she +said aloud, instantly thereafter making a pretense to herself that she +meant the road. She looked about her with a brave show of interest in the +bare November woods, unroofed and open to the sunlight, and was rewarded +by a throb of real interest to observe that she was where she had not been +for forty years, when she used to clamber over the spur of Hemlock +Mountain to hunt for lady's-slippers in the marshy ground at the head of +the gorge. A few steps more and she would be on her own property, a steep, +rocky tract of brushland left her by her great-uncle. She had a throb as +she realized that, besides her house and garden, this unsalable bit of the +mountainside was her only remaining possession. She had indeed come to the +end. + +With the thought came her old dogged defiance to despair. She shut her +hands on her crutches, pulled herself heavily up to her feet, and toiled +forward through some brush. She would not allow herself to think if +thoughts were like that. Soon she came out into a little clearing beside +the Winthrop Branch, swirling and fumbling in its headlong descent. The +remains of a stone wall and a blackened beam or two showed her that she +had hit upon the ruins of the old sawmill her great-grandfather had owned. +This forgotten and abandoned decay, a symbol of the future of the whole +region, struck a last blow at the remnants of her courage. She sank down +on the wall and set herself to a losing struggle with the blackness that +was closing in about her. All her effort had been in vain. The fight was +over. She had not a weapon left. + +A last spark of valor flickered into flame within her. She stood up, +lifting her head high, and summoning with a loudly beating heart every +scattered energy. She was alive; her fight could not be over while she +still breathed. + +For an instant she stood, self-hypnotized by the intensity of her +resolution. Then there burst upon her ear, as though she had not heard it +before, the roar of the water rushing past her. It sounded like a loud +voice calling to her. She shivered and turned a little giddy as though +passing into a trance, and then, with one bound, the gigantic forces of +subconscious self, wrought by her long struggle to a white heat of +concentration on one aim, arose and mastered her. For a time--hours +perhaps--she never knew how long, old Miss Abigail was a genius, with the +brain of an engineer and the prophetic vision of a seer. + + + + +IV + + +The next months were the hardest of her life. The long dreary battle +against insurmountable obstacles she had been able to bear with a stoical +front, but the sickening alternations of emotions which now filled her +days wore upon her until she was fairly suffocated. About mail time each +day she became of an unendurable irritability, so that poor Miss Molly was +quite afraid to go near her. For the first time in her life there was no +living thing growing in her house. + +"Don't you mean to have any service this Christmas?" asked Miss Molly one +day. + +Miss Abigail shouted at her so fiercely that she retreated in a panic. +"Why not? Why shouldn't we? What makes you think such a thing?" + +"Why, I didn't know of anybody to go but just you and me, and I noticed +that you hadn't any flowers started for decorations the way you always do." + +Miss Abigail flamed and fulminated as though her timid little friend had +offered her an insult. "I've been to service in that church every +Christmas since I was born and I shall till I die. And as for my not +growing any flowers, that's _my_ business, ain't it!" Her voice cracked +under the outraged emphasis she put on it. + +Her companion fled away without a word, and Miss Abigail sank into a chair +trembling. It came over her with a shock that her preoccupation had been +so great that she had _forgotten_ about her winter flowers. + +The fortnight before Christmas was interminable to her. Every morning she +broke a hobbling path through the snow to the post-office, where she +waited with a haggard face for the postmaster's verdict of "nothing." The +rest of the day she wandered desolately about her house, from one window +to another, always staring, staring up at Hemlock Mountain. + +She disposed of the problem of the Christmas service with the absent +competence of a person engrossed in greater matters. Miss Molly had +declared it impossible--there was no money for a minister, there was no +congregation, there was no fuel for the furnace. Miss Abigail wrote so +urgently to the Theological Seminary of the next State that they promised +one of their seniors for the service; and she loaded a hand sled with wood +from her own woodshed and, harnessing herself and Miss Molly to it, drew +it with painful difficulty through the empty village street. There was not +enough of this fuel to fill even once the great furnace in the cellar, so +she decreed that the service should be in the vestibule where a stove +stood. The last few days before Christmas she spent in sending out +desperate appeals to remote families to come. But when the morning +arrived, she and Miss Molly were the only ones there. + +The young theologian appeared a little before the appointed time, brought +in the motor car of a wealthy friend of his own age. They were trying to +make a record winter trip, and were impatient at the delay occasioned by +the service. When they saw that two shabby old women constituted the +congregation, they laughed as they stood warming their hands by the stove +and waiting for the hour. They ignored the two women, chatting lightly of +their own affairs. It seemed that they were on their way to a winter house +party to which the young clergyman-to-be was invited on account of his +fine voice--an operetta by amateurs being one of the gayeties to which +they looked forward. + +Miss Abigail and Miss Molly were silent in their rusty black, Miss Molly's +soft eyes red with restrained tears, Miss Abigail's face like a flint. + +"A pretty place, this village is," said the motorist to the minister. "I +have visited the Ellerys here. Really charming in summer time--so utterly +deserted and peaceful." He looked out of the window speculatively. "Rather +odd we should be passing through it to-day. There's been a lot of talk +about it in our family lately." + +"How so?" asked the minister, beginning cautiously to unwind the wrapping +from around his throat. + +"Why, my brother-in-law--Peg's husband--don't you remember, the one who +sang so fearfully flat in----" He was off on a reminiscence over which +both men laughed loudly. + +Finally, "But what did you start to tell me about him?" asked the minister. + +"I forget, I'm sure. What was it? Oh, yes; he owns those print mills in +Johnsonville--hideous place for Peg to live, that town!--and of late he's +been awfully put out by the failure of his water-power. There's not much +fall there at the best, and when the river's low--and it's low most all +the time nowadays--he doesn't get power enough, so he says, to run a +churn! He's been wondering what he could do about it, when doesn't he get +a tip from some old Rube up here that, above this village, there's a +whopping water-power--the Winthrop Branch. I know it--fished it lots of +times. He didn't take any stock in it of course at first, but, just on the +chance, he sent his engineer up here to look it over, and, by Jove, it's +true. It'll furnish twice the power he's had in Johnsonville lately." + +"Seems queer," said the minister a little skeptically, "that nobody's ever +thought of it before." + +"Well, _I_ said that, but Pete says that his engineer tells him that there +are lots of such unknown water-powers in the East. Nobody but farmers live +near 'em, you see." + +The minister was but mildly interested. "I thought the cost of +transmitting power was so great it didn't pay for any water-force but +Niagara." + +"He isn't going to carry the power to Johnsonville. He's going to bring +his mill here. A lot of his operators come from around here and most of +'em have kept their old homes, so there won't be any trouble about keeping +his help. Besides, it seems the old hayseed who wrote him about it owned +the land, and offered him land, water-power, right of way--anything!--free, +just to 'help the town' by getting the mill up here. That bespeaks the +materialistic Yankee, doesn't it?--to want to spoil a quiet little +Paradise like this village with a lot of greasy mill-hands." + +The minister looked at his watch. "I think I'll begin the service now. +There's no use waiting for a congregation to turn up." He felt in one +pocket after the other with increasing irritation. "Pshaw! I've left my +eyeglasses out in the car." The two disappeared, leaving the vestibule +echoing and empty. + +For a moment the two women did not speak. Then Miss Molly cast herself +upon her old friend's bosom. "They're coming back!" she cried. "Annie and +her children!" + +Miss Abigail stared over her head. "They are _all_ coming back," she said, +"and--we are ready for them. The library's ready--the school is ready--" +she got up and opened the door into the great, cold, lofty church, "and--" +They looked in silence at the empty pews. + +"Next Christmas!" said Miss Molly. "Next Christmas--" + +The young minister bustled in, announcing as he came, "We will open the +service by singing hymn number forty-nine." + +He sat down before the little old organ and struck a resonant chord. + + "Oh, come, all ye faithful!" + +his full rich voice proclaimed, and then he stopped short, startled by a +great cry from Miss Abigail. Looking over his shoulder, he saw that the +tears were streaming down her face. He smiled to himself at the +sentimentality of old women and turned again to the organ, relieved that +his performance of a favorite hymn was not to be marred by cracked +trebles. He sang with much taste and expression. + + "Oh, come, all ye faithful!" + +he chanted lustily, + + "Joyful and triumphant!" + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Hillsboro People, by Dorothy Canfield + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HILLSBORO PEOPLE *** + +***** This file should be named 13091-8.txt or 13091-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/3/0/9/13091/ + +Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Valerine Blas and PG Distributed +Proofreaders + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + https://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. diff --git a/old/13091-8.zip b/old/13091-8.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..dd720da --- /dev/null +++ b/old/13091-8.zip diff --git a/old/13091.txt b/old/13091.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..8d0183b --- /dev/null +++ b/old/13091.txt @@ -0,0 +1,10233 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Hillsboro People, by Dorothy Canfield + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Hillsboro People + +Author: Dorothy Canfield + +Release Date: August 2, 2004 [EBook #13091] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HILLSBORO PEOPLE *** + + + + +Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Valerine Blas and PG Distributed +Proofreaders + + + + + + +HILLSBORO +PEOPLE + +BY +DOROTHY CANFIELD + +AUTHOR OF +THE BENT TWIG, THE SQUIRREL CAGE, ETC. + +WITH OCCASIONAL VERMONT VERSES +BY +SARAH N. CLEGHORN + +1915 + + + +CONTENTS + +VERMONT (Poem) +HEMLOCK MOUNTAIN (Poem) +AT THE FOOT OF HEMLOCK MOUNTAIN +PETUNIAS--THAT'S FOR REMEMBRANCE +THE HEYDAY OF THE BLOOD +AS A BIRD OUT OF THE SNARE +THE BEDQUILT +PORTRAIT OF A PHILOSOPHER +FLINT AND FIRE +A SAINT'S HOURS (Poem) +IN MEMORY OF L.H.W. +IN NEW NEW ENGLAND +THE DELIVERER +NOCTES AMBROSIANAE (Poem) +HILLSBORO'S GOOD LUCK +SALEM HILLS TO ELLIS ISLAND (Poem) +AVUNCULUS +BY ABANA AND PHARPAR (Poem) +FINIS +A VILLAGE MUNCHAUSEN +THE ARTIST +WHO ELSE HEARD IT? (Poem) +A DROP IN THE BUCKET +THE GOLDEN TONGUE OF IRELAND (Poem) +PIPER TIM +ADESTE FIDELES! +VERMONT + + Wide and shallow in the cowslip marshes + Floods the freshet of the April snow. + Late drifts linger in the hemlock gorges, + Through the brakes and mosses trickling slow + Where the Mayflower, + Where the painted trillium, leaf and blow. + + Foliaged deep, the cool midsummer maples + Shade the porches of the long white street; + Trailing wide, Olympian elms lean over + Tiny churches where the highroads meet. + Fields of fireflies + Wheel all night like stars among the wheat. + + Blaze the mountains in the windless autumn + Frost-clear, blue-nooned, apple-ripening days; + Faintly fragrant in the farther valleys + Smoke of many bonfires swells the haze; + Fair-bound cattle + Plod with lowing up the meadowy ways. + + Roaring snows down-sweeping from the uplands + Bury the still valleys, drift them deep. + Low along the mountain, lake-blue shadows, + Sea-blue shadows in the hollows sleep. + High above them + Blinding crystal is the sunlit steep. + + + + +HEMLOCK MOUNTAIN + + + By orange grove and palm-tree, we walked the southern shore, + Each day more still and golden than was the day before. + That calm and languid sunshine! How faint it made us grow + To look on Hemlock Mountain when the storm hangs low! + + To see its rocky pastures, its sparse but hardy corn, + The mist roll off its forehead before a harvest morn; + To hear the pine-trees crashing across its gulfs of snow + Upon a roaring midnight when the whirlwinds blow. + + Tell not of lost Atlantis, or fabled Avalon; + The olive, or the vineyard, no winter breathes upon; + Away from Hemlock Mountain we could not well forego, + For all the summer islands where the gulf tides flow. + + + + +AT THE FOOT OF HEMLOCK MOUNTAIN + + +"In connection with this phase of the problem of transportation it must be +remembered that the rush of population to the great cities was no temporary +movement. It is caused by a final revolt against that malignant relic of +the dark ages, the country village and by a healthy craving for the deep, +full life of the metropolis, for contact with the vitalizing stream of +humanity."--Pritchell's "Handbook of Economics," page 247. + +Sometimes people from Hillsboro leave our forgotten valley, high among the +Green Mountains, and "go down to the city," as the phrase runs, They always +come back exclaiming that they should think New Yorkers would just die of +lonesomeness, and crying out in an ecstasy of relief that it does seem so +good to get back where there are some folks. After the desolate isolation +of city streets, empty of humanity, filled only with hurrying ghosts, the +vestibule of our church after morning service fills one with an exalted +realization of the great numbers of the human race. It is like coming into +a warmed and lighted room, full of friendly faces, after wandering long +by night in a forest peopled only with flitting shadows. In the +phantasmagoric pantomime of the city, we forget that there are so many real +people in all the world, so diverse, so unfathomably human as those who +meet us in the little post-office on the night of our return to Hillsboro. + +Like any other of those gifts of life which gratify insatiable cravings of +humanity, living in a country village conveys a satisfaction which is +incommunicable. A great many authors have written about it, just as a great +many authors have written about the satisfaction of being in love, but in +the one, as in the other case, the essence of the thing escapes. People +rejoice in sweethearts because all humanity craves love, and they thrive in +country villages because they crave human life. Now the living spirit of +neither of these things can be caught in a net of words. All the foolish, +fond doings of lovers may be set down on paper by whatever eavesdropper +cares to take the trouble, but no one can realize from that record +anything of the glory in the hearts of the unconscious two. All the queer +grammar and insignificant surface eccentricities of village character may +be ruthlessly reproduced in every variety of dialect, but no one can guess +from that record the abounding flood of richly human life which pours along +the village street. + +This tormenting inequality between the thing felt and the impression +conveyed had vexed us unceasingly until one day Simple Martin, the town +fool, who always says our wise things, said one of his wisest. He was +lounging by the watering-trough one sunny day in June, when a carriage-load +of "summer folk" from Windfield over the mountain stopped to water their +horses. They asked him, as they always, always ask all of us, "For mercy's +sake, what do you people _do_ all the time, away off here, so far from +everything." + +Simple Martin was not irritated, or perplexed, or rendered helplessly +inarticulate by this question, as the rest of us had always been. He +looked around him at the lovely, sloping lines of Hemlock Mountain, at the +Necronett River singing in the sunlight, at the familiar, friendly faces +of the people in the street, and he answered in astonishment at the +ignorance of his questioners, "_Do_? Why, we jes' _live_!" + +We felt that he had explained us once and for all. We had known that, of +course, but we hadn't before, in our own phrase, "sensed it." We just +live. And sometimes it seems to us that we are the only people in America +engaged in that most wonderful occupation. We know, of course, that we +must be wrong in thinking this, and that there must be countless other +Hillsboros scattered everywhere, rejoicing as we do in an existence which +does not necessarily make us care-free or happy, which does not in the +least absolve us from the necessity of working hard (for Hillsboro is +unbelievably poor in money), but which does keep us alive in every fiber +of our sympathy and thrilling with the consciousness of the life of others. + +A common and picturesque expression for a common experience runs, "It's so +noisy I can't hear myself think." After a visit to New York we feel that +its inhabitants are so deafened by the constant blare of confusion that +they can't feel themselves live. The steady sufferers from this complaint +do not realize their condition. They find it on the whole less trouble +_not_ to feel themselves live, and they are most uneasy when chance forces +them to spend a few days (on shipboard, for instance) where they are not +protected by ceaseless and aimless activity from the consciousness that +they are themselves. They cannot even conceive the bitter-sweet, vital +taste of that consciousness as we villagers have it, and they cannot +understand how arid their existence seems to us without this unhurried, +penetrating realization of their own existence and of the meaning of their +acts. We do not blame city dwellers for not having it; we ourselves lose +it when we venture into their maelstrom. Like them, we become dwarfed by +overwhelming numbers, and shriveled by the incapacity to "sense" the +humanity of the countless human simulacra about us. But we do not stay +where we cannot feel ourselves live. We hurry back to the shadow of +Hemlock Mountain, feeling that to love life one does not need to be what +Is usually called happy, one needs only to live. + +It cannot be, of course, that we are the only community to discover this +patent fact; but we know no more of the others than they of us. All that +we hear from that part of America which is not Hillsboro is the wild yell +of excitement going up from the great cities, where people seem to be +doing everything that was ever done or thought of except just living. City +dwellers make money, make reputations (good and bad), make museums and +subways, make charitable institutions, make with a hysteric rapidity, like +excited spiders, more and yet more complications in the mazy labyrinths of +their lives, but they never make each others' acquaintances ... and that +is all that is worth doing in the world. + +We who live in Hillsboro know that they are to be pitied, not blamed, for +this fatal omission. We realize that only in Hillsboro and places like it +can one have "deep, full life and contact with the vitalizing stream of +humanity." We know that in the very nature of humanity the city is a small +and narrow world, the village a great and wide one, and that the utmost +efforts of city dwellers will not avail to break the bars of the prison +where they are shut in, each with his own kind. They may look out from the +windows upon a great and varied throng, as the beggar munching a crust may +look in at a banqueting hall, but the people they are forced to live with +are exactly like themselves; and that way lies not only monomania but an +ennui that makes the blessing of life savorless. + +If this does not seem the plainest possible statement of fact take a +concrete instance. Can a banker in the city by any possibility come to +know what kind of an individual is the remote impersonal creature who +waits on him in a department store? Most bankers recognize with a +misguided joy this natural wall between themselves and people who are not +bankers, and add to it as many stones of their own quarrying as possible; +but they are not shut off from all the quickening diversity of life any +more effectually than the college-settlement, boys' Sunday-school, brand +of banker. The latter may try as hard as he pleases, he simply cannot +achieve real acquaintanceship with a "storekeeper," as we call them, any +more than the clerk can achieve real acquaintanceship with him. + +Lack of any elements of common life form as impassable a barrier as lack +of a common language, whereas with us in Hillsboro all the life we have is +common. Everyone is needed to live it. + +There can be no city dweller of experience who does not know the result of +this herding together of the same kind of people, this intellectual and +moral inbreeding. To the accountant who knows only accounts, the world +comes to seem like one great ledger, and account-keeping the only vital +pursuit in life. To the banker who knows only bankers, the world seems one +great bank filled with money, accompanied by people. The prison doors of +uniformity are closed inexorably upon them. + +And then what happens? Why, when anything goes wrong with their trumpery +account books, or their trashy money, these poor folk are like blind men +who have lost their staves. With all the world before them they dare not +continue to go forward. We in Hillsboro are sorry for the account-keepers +who disappear forever, fleeing from all who know them because their +accounts have come out crooked, we pity the banker who blows out his +brains when something has upset his bank; but we can't help feeling with +this compassion an admixture of the exasperated impatience we have for +those Prussian school boys who jump out of third-story windows because +they did not reach a certain grade in their Latin examinations. Life is +not accounts, or banks, or even Latin examinations, and it is a sign of +inexperience to think it so. The trouble with the despairing banker is +that he has never had a chance to become aware of the comforting vastness +of the force which animates him in common with all the rest of humanity, +to which force a bank failure is no apocalyptic end of Creation, but a +mere incident or trial of strength like a fall in a slippery road. +Absorbed in his solitary progress, the banker has forgotten that his +business in life is not so much to keep from falling as to get up again +and go forward. + +If the man to whom the world was a bank had not been so inexorably shut +away from the bracing, tonic shock of knowing men utterly diverse, to whom +the world was just as certainly only a grocery store, or a cobbler's bench, +he might have come to believe in a world that is none of these things and +is big enough to take them all in; and he might have been alive this +minute, a credit to himself, useful to the world, and doubtless very much +more agreeable to his family than in the days of his blind arrogance. + +The pathetic feature of this universal inexperience among city dwellers of +real life and real people is that it is really entirely enforced and +involuntary. At heart they crave knowledge of real life and sympathy with +their fellow-men as starving men do food. In Hillsboro we explain to +ourselves the enormous amount of novel-reading and play-going in the great +cities as due to a perverted form of this natural hunger for human life. +If people are so situated they can't get it fresh, they will take it +canned, which is undoubtedly good for those in the canning business; but +we feel that we who have better food ought not to be expected to treat +their boughten canned goods very seriously. We can't help smiling at the +life-and-death discussions of literary people about their preferences in +style and plot and treatment ... their favorite brand on the can, so to +speak. + +To tell the truth, all novels seem to us badly written, they are so faint +and faded in comparison to the brilliant colors of the life which +palpitates up and down our village street, called by strangers, "so quaint +and sleepy-looking." What does the author of a novel do for you, after +all, even the best author? He presents to you people not nearly so +interesting as your next-door neighbors, makes them do things not nearly +so exciting as what happened to your grandfather, and doles out to you in +meager paragraphs snatches of that comprehending and consolatory +philosophy of life, which long ago you should have learned to manufacture +for yourself out of every incident in your daily routine. Of course, if +you don't know your next-door neighbors, and have never had time to listen +to what happened to your grandfather and are too busy catching trains to +philosophize on those subjects if you did know them, no more remains to be +said. By all means patronize the next shop you see which displays in its +show windows canned romances, adventures, tragedies, farces, and the like +line of goods. Live vicariously, if you can't at first hand; but don't be +annoyed at our pity for your method of passing blindfold through life. + +And don't expect to find such a shop in our village. To open one there +would be like trying to crowd out the great trees on Hemlock Mountain by +planting a Noah's Ark garden among them. Romances, adventures, tragedies, +and farces ... why, we are the characters of those plots. Every child who +runs past the house starts a new story, every old man whom we leave +sleeping in the burying-ground by the Necronsett River is the ending of +another ... or perhaps the beginning of a sequel. Do you say that in the +city a hundred more children run past the windows of your apartment than +along our solitary street, and that funeral processions cross your every +walk abroad? True, but they are stories written in a tongue +incomprehensible to you. You look at the covers you may even flutter the +leaves and look at the pictures but you cannot tell what they are all +about. You are like people bored and yawning at a performance of a tragedy +by Sophocles, because the actors speak in Greek. So dreadful and moving a +thing as a man's sudden death may happen before your eyes, but you do not +know enough of what it means to be moved by it. For you it is not really a +man who dies. It is the abstract idea of a man, leaving behind him +abstract possibilities of a wife and children. You knew nothing of him, +you know nothing of them, you shudder, look the other way, and hurry +along, your heart a little more blunted to the sorrows of others, a little +more remote from your fellows even than before. + +All Hillsboro is more stirred than that, both to sympathy and active help, +by the news that Mrs. Brownell has broken her leg. It means something +unescapably definite to us, about which we not only can, but must take +action. It means that her sickly oldest daughter will not get the care she +needs if somebody doesn't go to help out; it means that if we do not do +something that bright boy of hers will have to leave school, just when he +is in the way of winning a scholarship in college; it means, in short, a +crisis in several human lives, which by the mere fact of being known calls +forth sympathy as irresistibly as sunshine in May opens the leaf buds. + +Just as it is only one lover in a million who can continue to love his +mistress during a lifetime of absolute separation from her, so it is one +man in a million who can continue his sympathy and interest in his +fellow-men without continual close contact with them. The divine feeling +of responsibility for the well-being of others is diluted and washed away +in great cities by the overwhelming impersonal flood of vast numbers; in +villages it is strengthened by the sight, apparent to the dullest eyes, +of immediate personal and visible application. In other words, we are not +only the characters of our unwritten stories, but also part authors. +Something of the final outcome depends upon us, something of the creative +instinct of the artist is stirred to life within every one of +us ... however unconscious of it in our countrified simplicity we may be. +The sympathy we feel for a distressed neighbor has none of the impotent +sterility of a reader's sympathy for a distressed character in a book. +There is always a chance to try to help, and if that fail, to try again +and yet again. Death writes the only _Finis_ to our stories, and since a +chance to start over again has been so unfailingly granted us here, we +cannot but feel that Death may mean only turning over another page. + +I suppose we do not appreciate the seriousness of fiction-writing, nor its +importance to those who cannot get any nearer to real life. And yet it is +not that we are unprogressive. Our young people, returning from college, +or from visits to the city, freshen and bring up to date our ideas on +literature as rigorously as they do our sleeves and hats; but after a +short stay in Hillsboro even these conscientious young missionaries of +culture turn away from the feeble plots of Ibsen and the tame inventions +of Bernard Shaw to the really exciting, perplexing, and stimulating events +in the life of the village grocer. + +In "Ghosts," Ibsen preaches a terrible sermon on the responsibility of one +generation for the next, but not all his relentless logic can move you to +the sharp throb of horrified sympathy you feel as you see Nelse +Pettingrew's poor mother run down the street, her shawl flung hastily over +her head, framing a face of despairing resolve, such as can never look at +you out of the pages of a book. Somebody has told her that Nelse has been +drinking again and "is beginning to get ugly." For Hillsboro is no model +village, but the world entire, with hateful forces of evil lying in wait +for weakness. Who will not lay down "Ghosts" to watch, with a painfully +beating heart, the progress of this living "Mrs. Alving" past the house, +pleading, persuading, coaxing the burly weakling, who will be saved from a +week's debauch if she can only get him safely home now, and keep him quiet +till "the fit goes by." + +At the sight everybody in Hillsboro realizes that Nelse "got it from his +father," with a penetrating sense of the tragedy of heredity, quite as +stimulating to self-control in the future as Ibsen is able to make us feel +in "Ghosts." But we know something better than Ibsen, for Mrs. Pettingrew +is no "Mrs. Alving." She is a plain, hard-featured woman who takes in +sewing for a living, and she is quite unlettered, but she is a general in +the army of spiritual forces. She does not despair, she does not give up +like the half-hearted mother in "Ghosts," she does not waste her strength +in concealments; she stands up to her enemy and fights. She fought the +wild beast in Nelse's father, hand to hand, all his life, and he died a +better man than when she married him. Undaunted, she fought it in Nelse as +a boy, and now as a man; and in the flowering of his physical forces when +the wind of his youth blows most wildly through the hateful thicket of +inherited weaknesses she generally wins the battle. + +And this she has done with none of the hard, consistent strength and +intelligence of your make-believe heroine in a book, so disheartening an +example to our faltering impulses for good. She has been infinitely human +and pathetically fallible; she has cried out and hesitated and complained +and done the wrong thing and wept and failed and still fought on, till to +think of her is, for the weakest of us, like a bugle call to high +endeavor. Nelse is now a better man than his father, and we shut up +"Ghosts" with impatience that Ibsen should have selected that story to +tell out of all the tales there must have been in the village where _he_ +lived. + +Now imagine if you can ... for I cannot even faintly indicate to +you ... our excitement when Nelse begins to look about him for a wife. In +the first place, we are saved by our enforced closeness to real people +from wasting our energies in the profitless outcry of economists that +people like Nelse should be prohibited from having children. It occurs to +us that perhaps the handsome fellow's immense good-humor and generosity +are as good inheritance as the selfishness and cold avarice of priggish +young Horace Gallatin, who never drinks a drop. Perhaps at some future +date all people who are not perfectly worthy to have children will be kept +from it by law. In Hillsboro, we think, that after such a decree the human +race would last just one generation; but that is not the point now. The +question is, will Nelse find a wife who will carry on his mother's work, +or will he not? + +If you think you are excited over a serial story because you can't guess +if "Lady Eleanor" really stole the diamonds or not, it is only because you +have no idea of what excitement is. You are in a condition of stagnant +lethargy compared to that of Hillsboro over the question whether Nelse +will marry Ellen Brownell, "our Ellen," or Flossie Merton, the ex-factory +girl, who came up from Albany to wait at the tavern, and who is said to +have a taste for drink herself. + +Old Mrs. Perkins, whom everybody had thought sunk in embittered discontent +about the poverty and isolation of her last days, roused herself not long +ago and gave Ellen her cherished tortoise-shell back-comb, and her pretty +white silk shawl to wear to village parties; and racked with rheumatism, +as the old woman is, she says she sits up at night to watch the young +people go back from choir rehearsal so that she can see which girl Nelse +is "beauing home." Could the most artfully contrived piece of fiction more +blessedly sweep the self-centered complainings of old age into generous +and vitalizing interest in the lives of others? + +As for the "pity and terror," the purifying effects of which are so +vaunted in Greek tragedies, could Aeschylus himself have plunged us into a +more awful desolation of pity than the day we saw old Squire Marvin being +taken along the street on his way to the insane asylum? All the self-made +miseries of his long life were in our minds, the wife he had loved and +killed with the harsh violence of a nature he had never learned to +control, the children he had adored unreasonably and spoiled and turned +against, and they on him with a violence like his own, the people he had +tried to benefit with so much egotistic pride mixed in his kindness that +his favors made him hated, his vanity, his generosity, his despairing +outcries against the hostility he had so well earned ... at the sight of +the end of all this there was no heart in Hillsboro that was not wrung +with a pity and terror more penetrating and purifying even than +Shakespeare has made the centuries feel for Lear. + +Ah, at the foot of Hemlock Mountain we do not need books to help us feel +the meaning of life! + +Nor do we need them to help us feel the meaning of death. You, in the +cities, living with a feverish haste in the present only, and clutching at +it as a starving man does at his last crust, you cannot understand the +comforting sense we have of belonging almost as much to the past and +future as to the present. Our own youth is not dead to us as yours is, +from the lack of anything to recall it to you, and people we love do not +slip quickly into that bitter oblivion to which the dead are consigned by +those too hurried to remember. They are not remembered perfunctorily for +their "good qualities" which are carved on their tombstones, but all the +quaint and dear absurdities which make up personality are embalmed in the +leisurely, peaceable talk of the village, still enriched by all that they +brought to it. We are not afraid of the event which men call death, +because we know that, in so far as we have deserved it, the same homely +immortality awaits us. + +Every spring, at the sight of the first cowslip, our old people laugh and +say to each other, "Will you _ever_ forget how Aunt Dorcas used to take us +children out cowslipping, and how she never thought it 'proper' to lift +her skirt to cross the log by the mill, and always fell in the brook?" The +log has moldered away a generation ago, the mill is only a heap of +blackened timbers, but as they speak, they are not only children again, +but Aunt Dorcas lives again for them and for us who never saw +her ... dear, silly, kind old Aunt Dorcas, past-mistress in the lovely art +of spoiling children. Just so the children we have spoiled, the people we +have lived with, will continue to keep us living with them. We shall have +time to grow quite used to whatever awaits us after the tangled rosebushes +of Hillsboro burying-ground bloom over our heads, before we shall have +gradually faded painlessly away from the life of men and women. We +sometimes feel that, almost alone in the harassed and weary modern world, +we love that life, and yet we are the least afraid to leave it. + +It is usually dark when the shabby little narrow-gauge train brings us +home to Hillsboro from wanderings in the great world, and the big pond by +the station is full of stars. Up on the hill the lights of the village +twinkle against the blurred mass of Hemlock Mountain, and above them the +stars again. It is very quiet, the station is black and deserted, the road +winding up to the village glimmers uncertainly in the starlight, and dark +forms hover vaguely about. Strangers say that it is a very depressing +station at which to arrive, but we know better. There is no feeling in the +world like that with which one starts up the white road, stars below him +in the quiet pool, stars above him in the quiet sky, friendly lights +showing the end of his journey is at hand, and the soft twilight full of +voices all familiar, all welcoming. + +Poor old Uncle Abner Rhodes, returning from an attempt to do business in +the city, where he had lost his money, his health, and his hopes, said he +didn't see how going up to Heaven could be so very different from walking +up the hill from the station with Hemlock Mountain in front of you. He +said it didn't seem to him as though even in heaven you could feel more +than then that you had got back where there are some folks, that you had +got back home. + +Sometimes when the stars hang very bright over Hemlock Mountain and the +Necronsett River sings loud in the dusk, we remember the old man's speech, +and, though we smile at his simplicity, we think, too, that the best which +awaits us can only be very much better but not so very different from what +we have known here. + + + + +PETUNIAS--THAT'S FOR REMEMBRANCE + + +It was a place to which, as a dreamy, fanciful child escaping from +nursemaid and governess, Virginia had liked to climb on hot summer +afternoons. She had spent many hours, lying on the grass in the shade of +the dismantled house, looking through the gaunt, uncovered rafters of the +barn at the white clouds, like stepping-stones in the broad blue river of +sky flowing between the mountain walls. + +Older people of the summer colony called it forlorn and desolate--the +deserted farm, lying high on the slope of Hemlock Mountain--but to the +child there was a charm about the unbroken silence which brooded over the +little clearing. The sun shone down warmly on the house's battered shell +and through the stark skeleton of the barn. The white birches, strange +sylvan denizens of door and barnyard, stood shaking their delicate leaves +as if announcing sweetly that the kind forest would cover all the wounds +of human neglect, and soon everything would be as though man had not +lived. And everywhere grew the thick, strong, glistening grass, covering +even the threshold with a cushion on which the child's foot fell as +noiselessly as a shadow. It used to seem to her that nothing could ever +have happened in this breathless spot. + +Now she was a grown woman, she told herself, twenty-three years old and +had had, she often thought, as full a life as any one of her age could +have. Her college course had been varied with vacations in Europe; she had +had one season in society; she was just back from a trip around the world. +Her busy, absorbing life had given her no time to revisit the narrow green +Valley where she had spent so many of her childhood's holidays But now a +whim for self-analysis, a desire to learn if the old glamour about the +lovely enchanted region still existed for her weary, sophisticated +maturity, had made her break exacting social engagements and sent her back +alone, from the city, to see how the old valley looked in the spring. + +Her disappointment was acute. The first impression and the one which +remained with her, coloring painfully all the vistas of dim woodland +aisles and sunlit brooks, was of the meagerness and meanness of the +desolate lives lived in this paradise. This was a fact she had not noticed +as a child, accepting the country people as she did all other +incomprehensible elders. They had not seemed to her to differ noticeably +from her delicate, esthetic mother, lying in lavender silk negligees on +wicker couches, reading the latest book of Mallarme, or from her +competent, rustling aunt, guiding the course of the summer colony's social +life with firm hands. There was as yet no summer colony, this week in May. +Even the big hotel was not open. Virginia was lodged in the house of one +of the farmers. There was no element to distract her mind from the narrow, +unlovely lives of the owners of that valley of beauty. + +They were grinding away at their stupefying monotonous tasks as though the +miracle of spring were not taking place before their eyes. They were +absorbed in their barnyards and kitchen sinks and bad cooking and worse +dressmaking. The very children, grimy little utilitarians like their +parents, only went abroad in the flood of golden sunshine, in order to +rifle the hill pastures of their wild strawberries. Virginia was no longer +a child to ignore all this. It was an embittering, imprisoning thought +from which she could not escape even in the most radiant vision of May +woods. She was a woman now, with a trained mind which took in the +saddening significance of these lives, not so much melancholy or tragic as +utterly neutral, featureless, dun-colored. They weighed on her heart as +she walked and drove about the lovely country they spoiled for her. + +What a heavenly country it was! She compared it to similar valleys in +Switzerland, in Norway, in Japan, and her own shone out pre-eminent with a +thousand beauties of bold skyline, of harmoniously "composed" distances, +of exquisitely fairy-like detail of foreground. But oh! the wooden +packing-boxes of houses and the dreary lives they sheltered! + +The Pritchard family, her temporary hosts, summed up for her the human +life of the valley. There were two children, inarticulate, vacant-faced +country children of eight and ten, out from morning till night in the +sunny, upland pastures, but who could think of nothing but how many quarts +of berries they had picked and what price could be exacted for them. There +was Gran'ther Pritchard, a doddering, toothless man of seventy-odd, and +his wife, a tall, lean, lame old woman with a crutch who sat all through +the mealtimes speechlessly staring at the stranger, with faded gray eyes. +There was Mr. Pritchard and his son Joel, gaunt Yankees, toiling with +fierce concentration to "get the crops in" after a late spring. Finally +there was Mrs. Pritchard, worn and pale, passing those rose-colored spring +days grubbing in her vegetable garden. And all of them silent, silent as +the cattle they resembled. There had been during the first few days of her +week's stay some vague attempts at conversation, but Virginia was soon +aware that they had not the slightest rudiments of a common speech. + +A blight was on even those faint manifestations of the esthetic spirit +which they had not killed out of their bare natures. The pictures in the +house were bad beyond belief, and the only flowers were some petunias, +growing in a pot, carefully tended by Grandma Pritchard. They bore a mass +of blossoms of a terrible magenta, like a blow in the face to anyone +sensitive to color. It usually stood on the dining-table, which was +covered with a red cloth. "Crimson! Magenta! It is no wonder they are lost +souls!" cried the girl to herself. + +On the last day of her week, even as she was trying to force down some +food at the table thus decorated, she bethought herself of her old haunt +of desolate peace on the mountainside. She pushed away from the table with +an eager, murmured excuse, and fairly ran out into the gold and green of +the forest, a paradise lying hard by the pitiable little purgatory of the +farmhouse. As she fled along through the clean-growing maple-groves, +through stretches of sunlit pastures, azure with bluets, through dark +pines, red-carpeted by last year's needles, through the flickering, +shadowy-patterned birches, she cried out to all this beauty to set her +right with the world of her fellows, to ease her heart of its burden of +disdainful pity. + +But there was no answer. + +She reached the deserted clearing breathless, and paused to savor its +slow, penetrating peace. The white birches now almost shut the house from +view; the barn had wholly disappeared. From the finely proportioned old +doorway of the house protruded a long, grayed, weather-beaten tuft of hay. +The last utilitarian dishonor had befallen it. It had not even its old +dignity of vacant desolation. She went closer and peered inside. Yes, hay, +the scant cutting from the adjacent old meadows, had been piled high in +the room which had been the gathering-place of the forgotten family life. +She stepped in and sank down on it, struck by the far-reaching view from +the window. As she lay looking out, the silence was as insistent as a +heavy odor in the air. + +The big white clouds lay like stepping-stones in the sky's blue river, +just as when she was a child. Their silver-gleaming brightness blinded +her ... "_Ueber allen Gipfeln ist Ruh ... warte nur ... balde ... ruhest +... du ..." she began to murmur, and stopped, awed by the immensity of +the hush about her. She closed her eyes, pillowed her head on her +upthrown arms, and sank into a wide, bright reverie, which grew +dimmer and vaguer as the slow changeless hours filed by. + +She did not know if it were from a doze, or but from this dreamy haze that +she was wakened by the sound of voices outside the house, under the window +by which she lay. There were the tones of a stranger and those of old Mrs. +Pritchard, but now flowing on briskly with a volubility unrecognizable. +Virginia sat up, hesitating Were they only passing by, or stopping? Should +She show herself or let them go on? In an instant the question was settled +for her. It was too late. She would only shame them if they knew her +there. She had caught her own name. They were talking of her. + +"Well, you needn't," said the voice of Mrs. Pritchard "You can just save +your breath to cool your porridge You can't get nothin' out'n her." + +"But she's traveled 'round so much, seems's though ..." began the other +woman's voice. + +"_Don't_ it?" struck in old Mrs. Pritchard assentingly, "But 'tain't so!" + +The other was at a loss. "Do you mean she's stuck-up and won't answer +you?" Mrs. Pritchard burst into a laugh, the great, resonant good-nature +of which amazed Virginia. She had not dreamed that one of these sour, +silent people could laugh like that. "No, _land_ no, Abby! She's as +soft-spoken as anybody could be, poor thing! She ain't got nothin' to say. +That's all. Why, I can git more out'n any pack-peddler that's only been +from here to Rutland and back than out'n her ... and she's traveled all +summer long for five years, she was tellin' us, and last year went around +the world." + +"Good land! Think of it!" cried the other, awestruck. "China! An' Afriky! +An' London!" + +"That's the way we felt! That's the reason we let her come. There ain't no +profit in one boarder, and we never take boarders, anyhow. But I thought +'twould be a chance for the young ones to learn something about how +foreign folks lived." She broke again into her epic laugh. "Why, Abby, +'twould ha' made you die to see us the first few days she was there, +tryin' to get somethin' out'n her. Italy, now ... had she been there? 'Oh, +yes, she _adored_ Italy!'" Virginia flushed at the echo of her own +exaggerated accent. "Well, we'd like to know somethin' about Italy. What +did they raise there? Honest, Abby, you'd ha' thought we'd hit her side +th' head. She thought and she _thought_, and all she could say was +'olives,' Nothing else? 'Well, she'd never noticed anything else ... oh, +yes, lemons.' Well, that seemed kind o' queer vittles, but you can't never +tell how foreigners git along, so we thought maybe they just lived off'n +olives and lemons; and Joel he asked her how they raised 'em, and if they +manured heavy or trusted to phosphate, and how long the trees took before +they began to bear, and if they pruned much, and if they had the same +trouble we do, come harvest time, to hire hands enough to git in th' +crop." + +She paused. The other woman asked, "Well, what did she say?" + +The echoes rang again to the old woman's great laugh. "We might as well +ha' asked her 'bout the back side of th' moon! So we gave up on olives and +lemons! Then Eben he asked her 'bout taxes there. Were they on land mostly +and were they high and who 'sessed 'em and how 'bout school tax. Did the +state pay part o' that? You see town meetin' being so all tore up every +year 'bout taxes, Eben he thought 'twould be a chance to hear how other +folks did, and maybe learn somethin'. Good land, Abby, I've set there and +'most died, trying to keep from yellin' right out with laugh to see our +folks tryin' to learn somethin' 'bout foreign parts from that woman that's +traveled in 'em steady for five years. I bet she was blind-folded and +gagged and had cotton in her ears the hull time she was there!" + +"Didn't she tell you anythin' 'bout taxes?" + +"Taxes? You'd ha' thought 'twas bumble-bees' hind legs we was askin' +'bout! She ackshilly seemed s'prised to be asked. Land! What had she ever +thought 'bout such triflin' things as taxes. She didn't know how they was +taxed in Italy, or _if_ they was ... nor anywhere else. That what it come +down to, every time. She didn't know! She didn't know what kind of schools +they had, nor what the roads was made of, nor who made 'em. She couldn't +tell you what hired men got, nor _any_ wages, nor what girls that didn't +get married did for a living, nor what rent they paid, nor how they 'mused +themselves, nor how much land was worth, nor if they had factories, nor if +there was any lumberin' done, nor how they managed to keep milk in such +awful hot weather without ice. Honest, Abby, she couldn't even say if the +houses had cellars or not. Why, it come out she never was _in_ a real +house that anybody lived in ... only hotels. She hadn't got to know a +single real person that b'longed there. Of course she never found out +anything 'bout how they lived. Her mother was there, she said, and her +aunt, and that Bilson family that comes to th' village summers, an' the +Goodriches an' the Phippses an' the ... oh, sakes alive, you know that +same old crowd that rides 'roun' here summers and thinks to be sociable by +sayin' how nice an' yellow your oats is blossomin'! You could go ten times +'roun' the world with them and know less 'bout what folks is like than +when you started. When I heard 'bout them being there, I called Eben and +Joel and Em'ly off and I says, 'Now, don't pester that poor do-less +critter with questions any more. How much do the summer folks down to th' +village know 'bout the way we live?' Well, they burst out laughin', of +course. Well, then,' I says, ''tis plain to be seen that all they do in +winter is to go off to some foreign part and do the same as here,' so I +says to them, same's I said to you, Abby, a while back, that they'd better +save their breath to cool their porridge. But it's awful solemn eatin' +now, without a word spoke." + +The other woman laughed. "Why, you don't have to talk 'bout foreign parts +or else keep still, do ye?" + +"Oh, it's just so 'bout everythin'. We heard she'd been in Washington last +winter, so Eben he brisked up and tried her on politics. Well, she'd never +heard of direct primaries, they're raisin' such a holler 'bout in York +State; she didn't know what th' 'nsurgent senators are up to near as much +as we did, and to judge by the way she looked, she'd only just barely +heard of th' tariff." The word was pronounced with true New England +reverence. "Then we tried bringin' up children, and lumberin' an' roads, +an' cookin', an' crops, an' stock, an' wages, an' schools, an' gardenin', +but we couldn't touch bottom nowhere. Never a word to be had out'n her. So +we give up and now we just sit like stotin' bottles, an' eat--an' do our +visitin' with each other odd minutes afterward." + +"Why, she don't look to be half-witted," said the other. + +"She ain't!" cried Mrs. Pritchard with emphasis. "She's got as good a +headpiece, natchilly, as anybody. I remember her when she was a young one. +It's the fool way they're brung up! Everythin' that's any fun or intrust, +they hire somebody else to do it for 'em. Here she is a great strappin' +woman of twenty-two or three, with nothing in the world to do but to +traipse off 'cross the fields from mornin' to night--an' nobody to need +her there nor here, nor anywhere. No wonder she looks peaked. Sometimes +when I see her set and stare off, so sort o' dull and hopeless, I'm so +sorry for her I could cry! Good land! I'd as lief hire somebody to chew my +vittles for me and give me the dry cud to live off of, as do the way those +kind of folks do." + +The distant call of a steam-whistle, silvered by the great distance into a +flute-like note, interrupted her. "That's the milk-train, whistling for +the Millbrook cross in'," she said. "We must be thinkin' of goin' home +before long. Where be those young ones?" She raised her voice in a call as +unexpectedly strong and vibrant as her laugh. "_Susie! Eddie_! Did they +answer? I'm gittin' that hard o' hearin' 'tis hard for me to make out." + +"Yes, they hollered back," said the other. "An' I see 'em comin' through +the pasture yonder. I guess they got their pails full by the way they +carry 'em." + +"That's good," said Mrs. Pritchard with satisfaction. "They can get +twenty-five cents a quart hulled, off'n summer folks. They're savin' up to +help Joel go to Middletown College in the fall." + +"They think a lot o' Joel, don't they?" commented the other. + +"Oh, the Pritchards has always been a family that knew how to set store by +their own folks," said the old woman proudly, "and Joel he'll pay 'em back +as soon as he gets ahead a little." + +The children had evidently now come up, for Virginia heard congratulations +over the berries and exclamations over their sun-flushed cheeks. "Why, +Susie, you look like a pickled beet in your face. Set down, child, an' +cool off. Grandma called you an' Eddie down to tell you an old-timey +story." + +There was an outbreak of delighted cries from the children and Mrs. +Pritchard said deprecatingly, "You know, Abby, there never was children +yet that wasn't crazy 'bout old-timey stories. I remember how I used to +hang onto Aunt Debby's skirts and beg her to tell me some more. + +"The story I'm goin' to tell you is about this Great-aunt Debby," she +announced formally to her auditors, "when she was 'bout fourteen years old +and lived up here in this very house, pretty soon after th' Rev'lution. +There was only just a field or two cleared off 'round it then, and all +over th' mounting the woods were as black as any cellar with pines and +spruce. Great-aunt Debby was the oldest one of five children and my +grandfather--your great-great-grandfather--was the youngest. In them days +there wa'n't but a few families in the valley and they lived far apart, so +when Great-aunt Debby's father got awful sick a few days after he'd been +away to get some grist ground, Aunt Debby's mother had to send her 'bout +six miles through th' woods to the nearest house--it stood where the old +Perkins barn is now. The man come back with Debby, but as soon as he saw +great-grandfather he give one yell--'smallpox!'--and lit out for home. +Folks was tur'ble afraid of it then an' he had seven children of his own +an' nobody for 'em to look to if he died, so you couldn't blame him none. +They was all like that then, every fam'ly just barely holdin' on, an' +scratchin' for dear life. + +"Well, he spread the news, and the next day, while Debby was helpin' her +mother nurse her father the best she could, somebody called her over +toward th' woods. They made her stand still 'bout three rods from 'em and +shouted to her that the best they could do was to see that the fam'ly had +vittles enough. The neighbors would cook up a lot and leave it every day +in the fence corner and Debbie could come and git it. + +"That was the way they fixed it. Aunt Debby said they was awful faithful +and good 'bout it and never failed, rain or shine, to leave a lot of the +best stuff they could git in them days. But before long she left some of +it there, to show they didn't need so much, because they wasn't so many to +eat. + +"First, Aunt Debby's father died. Her mother an she dug the grave in +th' corner of th' clearin', down there where I'm pointin'. Aunt Debby said +she couldn't never forget how her mother looked as she said a prayer +before they shoveled the dirt back in. Then the two of 'em took care of +the cow and tried to get in a few garden seeds while they nursed one of +the children--the boy that was next to Debby. That turned out to be +smallpox, of course, and he died and they buried him alongside his father. +Then the two youngest girls, twins they was, took sick, and before they +died Aunt Debby's mother fell over in a faint while she was tryin' to +spade up the garden. Aunt Debby got her into the house and put her to bed. +She never said another thing, but just died without so much as knowin' +Debby. She and the twins went the same day, and Debby buried 'em in one +grave. + +"It took her all day to dig it, she said. They was afraid of wolves in +them days and had to have their graves deep. The baby, the one that was to +be my grandfather, played 'round while she was diggin', and she had to +stop to milk the cow and git his meals for him. She got the bodies over to +the grave, one at a time, draggin' 'em on the wood-sled. When she was +ready to shovel the dirt back in, 'twas gettin' to be twilight, and she +said the thrushes were beginnin' to sing--she made the baby kneel down and +she got on her knees beside him and took hold of his hand to say a prayer. +She was just about wore out, as you can think, and scared to death, and +she'd never known any prayer, anyhow. All she could think to say was +'Lord--Lord--Lord!' And she made the baby say it, over and over. I guess +'twas a good enough prayer too. When I married and come up here to live, +seems as though I never heard the thrushes begin to sing in the evening +without I looked down there and could almost see them two on their knees. + +"Well, there she was, fourteen years old, with a two-year-old baby to look +out for, and all the rest of the family gone as though she'd dreamed 'em. +She was sure she and little Eddie--you're named for him, Eddie, and don't +you never forget it--would die, of course, like the others, but she wa'n't +any hand to give up till she had to, and she wanted to die last, so to +look out for the baby. So when she took sick she fought the smallpox just +like a wolf, she used to tell us. She had to live, to take care of Eddie. +She gritted her teeth and _wouldn't_ die, though, as she always said, +'twould ha' been enough sight more comfortable than to live through what +she did. + +"Some folks nowadays say it couldn't ha' been smallpox she had, or she +couldn't ha' managed. I don't know 'bout that. I guess 'twas plenty bad +enough, anyhow. She was out of her head a good share of th' time, but she +never forgot to milk the cow and give Eddie his meals. She used to fight +up on her knees (there was a week when she couldn't stand without fallin' +over in faint) and then crawl out to the cow-shed and sit down flat on +the ground and reach up to milk. One day the fever was so bad she was +clear crazy and she thought angels in silver shoes come right out there, +in the manure an' all, and milked for her and held the cup to +Eddie's mouth. + +"An' one night she thought somebody, with a big black cape on, come and +stood over her with a knife. She riz up in bed and told him to '_git out_! +She'd _have_ to stay to take care of the baby!' And she hit at the knife +so fierce she knocked it right out'n his hand. Then she fainted away agin. +She didn't come to till mornin', and when she woke up she knew she was +goin' to live. She always said her hand was all bloody that morning from a +big cut in it, and she used to show us the scar--a big one 'twas, too. But +I guess most likely that come from something else. Folks was awful +superstitious in them days, and Aunt Debby was always kind o' queer. + +"Well, an' so she did live and got well, though she never grew a mite from +that time. A little wizened-up thing she was, always; but I tell you folks +'round here thought a nawful lot of Aunt Debby! And Eddie, if you'll +believe it, never took the sickness at all. They say, sometimes, babies +don't. + +"They got a fam'ly to come and work the farm for 'em, and Debby she took +care of her little brother, same as she always had. And he grew up and got +married and come to live in this house and Aunt Debby lived with him. +They did set great store by each other! Grandmother used to laugh and say +grandfather and Aunt Debby didn't need no words to talk together. I was +eight, goin' on nine--why, Susie, just your age--when Aunt Debby died. I +remember as well the last thing she said. Somebody asked her if she was +afraid. She looked down over the covers--I can see her now, like a old +baby she looked, so little and so light on the big feather-bed, and she +said, 'Is a grain o' wheat scared when you drop it in the ground?' I +always thought that wa'n't such a bad thing for a child to hear said. + +"She'd wanted to be buried there beside the others and grandfather did it +so. While he was alive he took care of the graves and kept 'em in good +order; and after I married and come here to live I did. But I'm gettin' on +now, and I want you young folks should know 'bout it and do it after I'm +gone. + +"Now, here, Susie, take this pot of petunias and set it out on the head of +the grave that's got a stone over it. And if you're ever inclined to think +you have a hard time, just you remember Aunt Debby and shut your teeth and +_hang on_! If you tip the pot bottom-side up, and knock on it with a +stone, it'll all slip out easy. Now go along with you. We've got to be +starting for home soon." + +There was a brief pause and then the cheerful voice went on: "If there's +any flower I do despise, it's petunias! But 'twas Aunt Debby's 'special +favorite, so I always start a pot real early and have it in blossom when +her birthday comes 'round." + +By the sound she was struggling heavily to her feet. "Yes, do, for +goodness' sakes, haul me up, will ye? I'm as stiff as an old horse. +I don't know what makes me so rheumaticky. My folks ain't, as a +general thing." + +There was so long a silence that the girl inside the house wondered if +they were gone, when Mrs. Pritchard's voice began again: "I do like to +come up here! It 'minds me of him an' me livin' here when we was young. We +had a good time of it!" + +"I never could see," commented the other, "how you managed when he went +away t' th' war." + +"Oh, I did the way you do when you _have_ to! I'd felt he ought to go, you +know, as much as he did, so I was willin' to put in my best licks. An' I +was young too--twenty-three--and only two of the children born then--and I +was as strong as a ox. I never minded the work any. 'Twas the days after +battles, when we couldn't get no news, that was the bad part. Why, I could +go to the very spot, over there where the butternut tree stands--'twas +our garden then--where I heard he was killed at Gettysburg." + +"What did you do?" asked the other. + +"I went on hoein' my beans. There was the two children to be looked out +for, you know. But I ain't mindin' tellin' you that I can't look at a +bean-row since without gettin' sick to my stomach and feelin' the +goose-pimples start all over me." + +"How did you hear 'twan't so?" + +"Why, I was gettin' in the hay--up there where the oaks stand was our +hay-field. I remember how sick the smell of the hay made me, and when the +sweat run down into my eyes I was glad to feel 'em smart and sting--well, +Abby, you just wait till you hear your Nathan'l is shot through the head +and you'll know how it was--well, all of a sudden--somebody took the fork +out'n my hand an'--an' said--'here, you drive an' I'll pitch '--and +there--'twas--'twas----" + +"Why, Grandma Pritchard! You're----" + +"No, I ain't, either; I ain't such a fool, I hope! Why, see me cry like a +old numskull! Ain't it ridic'lous how you can talk 'bout deaths and +buryin's all right, and can't tell of how somebody come back from the +grave without--where in th' nation is my handkerchief! Why, Abby, things +ain't never looked the same to me from that minute on. I tell you--I tell +you--_I was real glad to see him_! + +"Good land, what time o' day do you suppose it can be? Susie! Eddie! Come, +git your berries and start home!" + +The two voices began to sound more faintly as the old woman's crutch rang +on the stones. "Well, Abby, when I come up here and remember how I farmed +it alone for four years, I say to myself that 'twan't only th' men that +set the slaves free. Them that stayed to home was allowed to have their +share in the good----" The syllables blurred into an indistinguishable hum +and there fell again upon the house its old mantle of silence. + +As if aroused by this from an hypnotic spell, the girl on the hay sat up +suddenly, pressing her hands over her eyes; but she did not shut out a +thousand thronging visions. There was not a sound but the loud throbbing +of the pulses at her temples; but never again could there be silence for +her in that spot. The air was thick with murmurs which beat against her +ears. She was trembling as she slipped down from the hay and, walking +unsteadily to the door, stood looking half-wildly out into the haunted +twilight. + +The faint sound of the brook rose liquid in the quiet evening air. + +There, where the butternut tree stood, had been the garden! + +The white birches answered with a rustling stir in all their lightly +poised leaves. + +Up there, where the oaks were, had been the hay-field! + +The twilight darkened. Through the forest, black on the crest of the +overhanging mountain, shone suddenly the evening star. + +There, before the door, had stood the waiting wood-sled! + +The girl caught through the gathering dusk a gleam of magenta from the +corner of the clearing. + + + +Two hermit thrushes, distant in the forest, began to send up their +poignant antiphonal evening chant. + + + + +THE HEYDAY OF THE BLOOD + + +The older professor looked up at the assistant, fumbling fretfully with a +pile of papers. "Farrar, what's the _matter_ with you lately?" he said +sharply. + +The younger man started, "Why...why..." the brusqueness of the other's +manner shocked him suddenly into confession. "I've lost my nerve, +Professor Mallory, that's what the matter with me. I'm frightened to +death," he said melodramatically. + +"What _of_?" asked Mallory, with a little challenge in his tone. + +The flood-gates were open. The younger man burst out in exclamations, +waving his thin, nervous, knotted fingers, his face twitching as he spoke. +"Of myself...no, not myself, but my body! I'm not well...I'm getting worse +all the time. The doctors don't make out what is the matter...I don't +sleep ... I worry...I forget things, I take no interest in life...the +doctors intimate a nervous breakdown ahead of me...and yet I rest ... I +rest...more than I can afford to! I never go out. Every evening I'm in bed +by nine o'clock. I take no part in college life beyond my work, for fear +of the nervous strain. I've refused to take charge of that summer-school +in New York, you know, that would be such an opportunity for me ... if I +could only sleep! But though I never do anything exciting in the +evening ... heavens! what nights I have. Black hours of seeing myself in a +sanitarium, dependent on my brother! I never ... why, I'm in +hell ... that's what the matter with me, a perfect hell of ignoble +terror!" + +He sat silent, his drawn face turned to the window. The older man looked +at him speculatively. When he spoke it was with a cheerful, casual quality +in his voice which made the other look up at him surprised. + +"You don't suppose those great friends of yours, the nerve specialists, +would object to my telling you a story, do you? It's very quiet and +unexciting. You're not too busy?" + +"Busy! I've forgotten the meaning of the word! I don't dare to be!" + +"Very well, then; I mean to carry you back to the stony little farm in the +Green Mountains, where I had the extreme good luck to be born and raised. +You've heard me speak of Hillsboro; and the story is all about my +great-grandfather, who came to live with us when I was a little boy." + +"Your great-grandfather?" said the other incredulously. "People don't +remember their great-grandfathers!" + +"Oh, yes, they do, in Vermont. There was my father on one farm, and my +grandfather on another, without a thought that he was no longer young, and +there was 'gran'ther' as we called him, eighty-eight years old and just +persuaded to settle back, let his descendants take care of him, and +consent to be an old man. He had been in the War of 1812--think of that, +you mushroom!--and had lost an arm and a good deal of his health there. He +had lately begun to get a pension of twelve dollars a month, so that for +an old man he was quite independent financially, as poor Vermont farmers +look at things; and he was a most extraordinary character, so that his +arrival in our family was quite an event. + +"He took precedence at once of the oldest man in the township, who was +only eighty-four and not very bright. I can remember bragging at school +about Gran'ther Pendleton, who'd be eighty-nine come next Woodchuck day, +and could see to read without glasses. He had been ailing all his life, +ever since the fever he took in the war. He used to remark triumphantly +that he had now outlived six doctors who had each given him but a year to +live; 'and the seventh is going downhill fast, so I hear!' This last was +his never-failing answer to the attempts of my conscientious mother and +anxious, dutiful father to check the old man's reckless indifference to +any of the rules of hygiene. + +"They were good disciplinarians with their children, and this naughty old +man, who would give his weak stomach frightful attacks of indigestion by +stealing out to the pantry and devouring a whole mince pie because he had +been refused two pieces at the table--this rebellious, unreasonable, +whimsical old madcap was an electric element in our quiet, orderly life. +He insisted on going to every picnic and church sociable, where he ate +recklessly of all the indigestible dainties he could lay his hands on, +stood in drafts, tired himself to the verge of fainting away by playing +games with the children, and returned home, exhausted, animated, and quite +ready to pay the price of a day in bed, groaning and screaming out with +pain as heartily and unaffectedly as he had laughed with the pretty girls +the evening before. + +"The climax came, however, in the middle of August, when he announced his +desire to go to the county fair, held some fourteen miles down the valley +from our farm. Father never dared let gran'ther go anywhere without +himself accompanying the old man, but he was perfectly sincere in saying +that it was not because he could not spare a day from the haying that he +refused pointblank to consider it. The doctor who had been taking care of +gran'ther since he came to live with us said that it would be crazy to +think of such a thing. He added that the wonder was that gran'ther lived +at all, for his heart was all wrong, his asthma was enough to kill a +young man, and he had no digestion; in short, if father wished to kill his +old grandfather, there was no surer way than to drive fourteen miles in +the heat of August to the noisy excitement of a county fair. + +"So father for once said 'No,' in the tone that we children had come to +recognize as final. Gran'ther grimly tied a knot in his empty sleeve--a +curious, enigmatic mode of his to express strong emotion--put his one hand +on his cane, and his chin on his hand, and withdrew himself into that +incalculable distance from the life about him where very old people spend +so many hours. + +"He did not emerge from this until one morning toward the middle of +fair-week, when all the rest of the family were away--father and the +bigger boys on the far-off upland meadows haying, and mother and the girls +off blackberrying. I was too little to be of any help, so I had been left +to wait on gran'ther, and to set out our lunch of bread and milk and +huckleberries. We had not been alone half an hour when gran'ther sent me +to extract, from under the mattress of his bed, the wallet in which he +kept his pension money. There was six dollars and forty-three cents--he +counted it over carefully, sticking out his tongue like a schoolboy doing +a sum, and when he had finished he began to laugh and snap his fingers and +sing out in his high, cracked old voice: + +"'We're goin' to go a skylarkin'! Little Jo Mallory is going to the county +fair with his Granther Pendleton, an' he's goin' to have more fun than +ever was in the world, and he--' + +"'But, gran'ther, father said we mustn't!' I protested, horrified. + +"'But I say we _shall_! I was your gre't-gran'ther long before he was your +feyther, and anyway I'm here and he's not--so, _march_! Out to the barn!' + +"He took me by the collar, and, executing a shuffling fandango of triumph, +he pushed me ahead of him to the stable, where old white Peggy, the only +horse left at home, looked at us amazed. + +"'But it'll be twenty-eight miles, and Peg's never driven over eight!' I +cried, my old-established world of rules and orders reeling before my +eyes. + +"'Eight--and--twenty-eight! But I--am--_eighty-eight_!' + +"Gran'ther improvised a sort of whooping chant of scorn as he pulled the +harness from the peg. 'It'll do her good to drink some pink lemonade--old +Peggy! An' if she gits tired comin' home, I'll git out and carry her part +way myself!' + +"His adventurous spirit was irresistible. I made no further objection, and +we hitched up together, I standing on a chair to fix the check-rein, and +gran'ther doing wonders with his one hand. Then, just as we +were--gran'ther in a hickory shirt, and with an old hat flapping over his +wizened face, I bare-legged, in ragged old clothes--so we drove out of the +grassy yard, down the steep, stony hill that led to the main valley road, +and along the hot, white turnpike, deep with the dust which had been +stirred up by the teams on their way to the fair. Gran'ther sniffed the +air jubilantly, and exchanged hilarious greetings with the people who +constantly overtook old Peg's jogging trot. Between times he regaled me +with spicy stories of the hundreds of thousands--they seemed no less +numerous to me then--of county fairs he had attended in his youth. He was +horrified to find that I had never been even to one. + +"'Why, Joey, how old be ye? 'Most eight, ain't it? When I was your age I +had run away and been to two fairs an' a hangin'.' "'But didn't they lick +you when you got home?' I asked shudderingly. + +"'You _bet_ they did!' cried gran'ther with gusto. + +"I felt the world changing into an infinitely larger place with every word +he said. + +"'Now, this is somethin' _like_!' he exclaimed, as we drew near to +Granville and fell into a procession of wagons all filled with country +people in their best clothes, who looked with friendly curiosity at the +little, shriveled cripple, his face shining with perspiring animation, and +at the little boy beside him, his bare feet dangling high above the floor +of the battered buckboard, overcome with the responsibility of driving a +horse for the first time in his life, and filled with such a flood of new +emotions and ideas that he must have been quite pale." + +Professor Mallory leaned back and laughed aloud at the vision he had been +evoking--laughed with so joyous a relish in his reminiscences that the +drawn, impatient face of his listener relaxed a little. He drew a long +breath, he even smiled a little absently. + +"Oh, that was a day!" went on the professor, still laughing and wiping his +eyes. "Never will I have such another! At the entrance to the grounds +gran'ther stopped me while he solemnly untied the knot in his empty +sleeve. I don't know what kind of hairbrained vow he had tied up in it, +but with the little ceremony disappeared every trace of restraint, and we +plunged head over ears into the saturnalia of delights that was an +old-time county fair. + +"People had little cash in those days, and gran'ther's six dollars and +forty-three cents lasted like the widow's cruse of oil. We went to see the +fat lady, who, if she was really as big as she looked to me then, must +have weighed at least a ton. My admiration for gran'ther's daredevil +qualities rose to infinity when he entered into free-and-easy talk with +her, about how much she ate, and could she raise her arms enough to do up +her own hair, and how many yards of velvet it took to make her gorgeous, +gold-trimmed robe. She laughed a great deal at us, but she was evidently +touched by his human interest, for she confided to him that it was not +velvet at all, but furniture covering; and when we went away she pressed +on us a bag of peanuts. She said she had more peanuts than she could +eat--a state of unbridled opulence which fitted in for me with all the +other superlatives of that day. + +"We saw the dog-faced boy, whom we did not like at all; gran'ther +expressing, with a candidly outspoken cynicism, his belief that 'them +whiskers was glued to him.' We wandered about the stock exhibit, gazing at +the monstrous oxen, and hanging over the railings where the prize pigs +lived to scratch their backs. In order to miss nothing, we even +conscientiously passed through the Woman's Building, where we were very +much bored by the serried ranks of preserve jars. + +"'Sufferin' Hezekiah!' cried gran'ther irritably 'Who cares how gooseberry +jel _looks_. If they'd give a felly a taste, now--' + +"This reminded him that we were hungry, and we went to a restaurant under +a tent, where, after taking stock of the wealth that yet remained of +gran'ther's hoard, he ordered the most expensive things on the bill of +fare." + +Professor Mallory suddenly laughed out again. "Perhaps in heaven, but +certainly not until then, shall I ever taste anything so ambrosial as that +fried chicken and coffee ice-cream! I have not lived in vain that I have +such a memory back of me!" + +This time the younger man laughed with the narrator, settling back in his +chair as the professor went on: + +"After lunch we rode on the merry-go-round, both of us, gran'ther clinging +desperately with his one hand to his red camel's wooden hump, and crying +out shrilly to me to be sure and not lose his cane. The merry-go-round had +just come in at that time, and gran'ther had never experienced it before. +After the first giddy flight we retired to a lemonade-stand to exchange +impressions, and finding that we both alike had fallen completely under +the spell of the new sensation, gran'ther said that we 'sh'd keep on +a-ridin' till we'd had enough! King Solomon couldn't tell when we'd ever +git a chance again!' So we returned to the charge, and rode and rode and +rode, through blinding clouds of happy excitement, so it seems to me now, +such as I was never to know again. The sweat was pouring off from us, and +we had tried all the different animals on the machine before we could tear +ourselves away to follow the crowd to the race-track. + +"We took reserved seats, which cost a quarter apiece, instead of the +unshaded ten-cent benches, and gran'ther began at once to pour out to me a +flood of horse-talk and knowing race-track aphorisms, which finally made a +young fellow sitting next to us laugh superciliously. Gran'ther turned on +him heatedly. + +"'I bet-che fifty cents I pick the winner in the next race!' he said +sportily, "'Done!' said the other, still laughing. + +"Gran'ther picked a big black mare, who came in almost last, but he did +not flinch. As he paid over the half-dollar he said: 'Everybody's likely +to make mistakes about _some_ things; King Solomon was a fool in the head +about women-folks! I bet-che a dollar I pick the winner in _this_ race!' +and 'Done!' said the disagreeable young man, still laughing. I gasped, for +I knew we had only eighty-seven cents left, but gran'ther shot me a +command to silence out of the corner of his eyes, and announced that he +bet on the sorrel gelding. + +"If I live to be a hundred and break the bank at Monte Carlo three times a +week," said Mallory, shaking his head reminiscently, "I could not know a +tenth part of the frantic excitement of that race or of the mad triumph +when our horse won. Gran'ther cast his hat upon the ground, screaming like +a steam-calliope with exultation as the sorrel swept past the judges' +stand ahead of all the others, and I jumped up and down in an agony of +delight which was almost more than my little body could hold. + +"After that we went away, feeling that the world could hold nothing more +glorious. It was five o'clock and we decided to start back. We paid for +Peggy's dinner out of the dollar we had won on the race--I say 'we,' for +by that time we were welded into one organism--and we still had a dollar +and a quarter left. 'While ye're about it, always go the whole hog!' said +gran'ther and we spent twenty minutes in laying out that money in trinkets +for all the folks at home. Then, dusty, penniless, laden with bundles, we +bestowed our exhausted bodies and our uplifted hearts in the old +buckboard, and turned Peg's head toward the mountains. We did not talk +much during that drive, and though I thought at the time only of the +carnival of joy we had left, I can now recall every detail of the +trip--how the sun sank behind Indian Mountain, a peak I had known before +only through distant views; then, as we journeyed on, how the stars came +out above Hemlock Mountain--our own home mountain behind our house, and +later, how the fireflies filled the darkening meadows along the river +below us, so that we seemed to be floating between the steady stars of +heaven and their dancing, twinkling reflection in the valley. + +"Gran'ther's dauntless spirit still surrounded me. I put out of mind +doubts of our reception at home, and lost myself in delightful ruminatings +on the splendors of the day. At first, every once in a while, gran'ther +made a brief remark, such as, ''Twas the hind-quarters of the sorrel I bet +on. He was the only one in the hull kit and bilin' of 'em that his +quarters didn't fall away'; or, 'You needn't tell _me_ that them Siamese +twins ain't unpinned every night as separate as you and me!' But later on, +as the damp evening air began to bring on his asthma, he subsided into +silence, only broken by great gasping coughs. + +"These were heard by the anxious, heart-sick watchers at home, and, as old +Peg stumbled wearily up the hill, father came running down to meet us. +'Where you be'n?' he demanded, his face pale and stern in the light of his +lantern. 'We be'n to the county fair!' croaked gran'ther with a last flare +of triumph, and fell over sideways against me. Old Peg stopped short, +hanging her head as if she, too, were at the limit of her strength. I was +frightfully tired myself, and frozen with terror of what father would say. +Gran'ther's collapse was the last straw. I began to cry loudly, but father +ignored my distress with an indifference which cut me to the heart. He +lifted gran'ther out of the buckboard, carrying the unconscious little old +body into the house without a glance backward at me. But when I crawled +down to the ground, sobbing and digging my fists into my eyes, I felt +mother's arms close around me. + +"'Oh, poor, naughty little Joey!' she said. 'Mother's bad, dear little +boy!'" + +Professor Mallory stopped short. + +"Perhaps that's something else I'll know again in heaven," he said +soberly, and waited a moment before he went on: "Well, that was the end of +our day. I was so worn out that I fell asleep over my supper, in spite of +the excitement in the house about sending for a doctor for gran'ther, who +was, so one of my awe-struck sisters told me, having some kind of 'fits,' +Mother must have put me to bed, for the next thing I remember, she was +shaking me by the shoulder and saying, 'Wake up, Joey Your +great-grandfather wants to speak to you. He's been suffering terribly all +night, and the doctor think's he's dying.' + +"I followed her into gran'ther's room, where the family was assembled +about the bed. Gran'ther lay drawn up in a ball, groaning so dreadfully +that I felt a chill like cold water at the roots of my hair; but a moment +or two after I came in, all at once he gave a great sigh and relaxed, +stretching out his legs and laying his arms down on the coverlid. He +looked at me and attempted a smile. + +"Well, it was wuth it, warn't it, Joey?" he said gallantly, and closed his +eyes peacefully to sleep. + +"Did he die?" asked the younger professor, leaning forward eagerly. + +"Die? Gran'ther Pendleton? Not much! He came tottering down to breakfast +the next morning, as white as an old ghost, with no voice left, his legs +trembling under him, but he kept the whole family an hour and a half at +the table, telling them in a loud whisper all about the fair, until father +said really he would have to take us to the one next year. Afterward he +sat out on the porch watching old Peg graze around the yard. I thought he +was in one of his absent-minded fits, but when I came out, he called me to +him, and, setting his lips to my ear, he whispered: + +"'An' the seventh is a-goin' down-hill fast, so I hear!' He chuckled to +himself over this for some time, wagging his head feebly, and then he +said: 'I tell ye, Joey, I've lived a long time, and I've larned a lot +about the way folks is made. The trouble with most of 'em is, they're +fraid-cats! As Jeroboam Warner used to say--he was in the same rigiment +with me in 1812--the only way to manage this business of livin' is to give +a whoop and let her rip! If ye just about half-live, ye just the same as +half-die; and if ye spend yer time half-dyin', some day ye turn in and die +all over, without rightly meanin' to at all--just a kind o' bad habit +ye've got yerself inter.' Gran'ther fell into a meditative silence for a +moment. 'Jeroboam, he said that the evenin' before the battle of Lundy's +Lane, and he got killed the next day. Some live, and some die; but folks +that live all over die happy, anyhow! Now I tell you what's my motto, an' +what I've lived to be eighty-eight on--'" + +Professor Mallory stood up and, towering over the younger man, struck one +hand into the other as he cried: "This was the motto he told me: 'Live +while you live, and then die and be done with it!'" + + + + +AS A BIRD OUT OF THE SNARE + + +After the bargain was completed and the timber merchant had gone away, +Jehiel Hawthorn walked stiffly to the pine-tree and put his horny old fist +against it, looking up to its spreading top with an expression of hostile +exultation in his face. The neighbor who had been called to witness the +transfer of Jehiel's woodland looked at him curiously. + +"That was quite a sight of money to come in without your expectin', wa'n't +it?" he said, fumbling awkwardly for an opening to the question he burned +to ask. + +Jehiel did not answer. The two old men stood silent, looking down the +valley, lying like a crevasse in a glacier between the towering white +mountains. The sinuous course of the frozen river was almost black under +the slaty sky of March. + +"Seems kind o' providential, havin' so much money come to you just now, +when your sister-in-law's jest died, and left you the first time in your +life without anybody you got to stay and see to, don't it?" commented the +neighbor persistently. + +Jehiel made a vague sign with his head. + +"I s'pose likely you'll be startin' aout to travel and see foreign parts, +same's you've always planned, won't you--or maybe you cal'late you be too +old now?" + +Jehiel gave no indication that he had heard. His faded old blue eyes were +fixed steadily on the single crack in the rampart of mountains, through +which the afternoon train was just now leaving the valley. Its whistle +echoed back hollowly, as it fled away from the prison walls into the great +world. + +The neighbor stiffened in offended pride. "I bid you good-night, Mr. +Hawthorn," he said severely, and stumped down the steep, narrow road +leading to the highway in the valley. + +After he had disappeared Jehiel turned to the tree and leaned his forehead +against it. He was so still he seemed a part of the great pine. He stood +so till the piercing chill of evening chilled him through, and when he +looked again about him it was after he had lived his life all through in a +brief and bitter review. + +It began with the tree and it ended with the tree, and in spite of the +fever of unrest in his heart it was as stationary as any rooted creature +of the woods. When he was eleven and his father went away to the Civil +War, he had watched him out of sight with no sorrow, only a burning envy +of the wanderings that lay before the soldier. A little later, when it was +decided that he should go to stay with his married sister, since she was +left alone by her husband's departure to the war, he turned his back on +his home with none of a child's usual reluctance, but with an eager +delight in the day-long drive to the other end of the valley. That was the +longest journey he had ever taken, the man of almost three-score thought, +with an aching resentment against Fate. + +Still, those years with his sister, filled with labor beyond his age as +they were, had been the happiest of his life. In an almost complete +isolation the two had toiled together five years, the most impressionable +of his life; and all his affection centered on the silent, loving, always +comprehending sister. His own father and mother grew to seem far away and +alien, and his sister came to be like a part of himself. To her alone of +all living souls had he spoken freely of his passion for adventuring far +from home, which devoured, his boy-soul. He was six-teen when her husband +finally came back from the war, and he had no secrets from the young +matron of twenty-six, who listened with such wide tender eyes of sympathy +to his half-frantic outpourings of longing to escape from the dark, narrow +valley where his fathers had lived their dark, narrow lives. + +The day before he went back to his own home, now so strange to him, he was +out with her, searching for some lost turkey-chicks, and found one with +its foot caught in a tangle of rusty wire. The little creature had beaten +itself almost to death in its struggle to get away. Kneeling in the grass, +and feeling the wild palpitations of its heart under his rescuing hand, he +had called to his sister, "Oh, look! Poor thing! It's 'most dead, and yet +it ain't really hurt a mite, only desperate, over bein' held fast." His +voice broke in a sudden wave of sympathy: "Oh, ain't it _terrible_ to feel +so!" + +For a moment the young mother put her little son aside and looked at her +brother with brooding eyes. A little later she said with apparent +irrelevance, "Jehiel, as soon as you're a man grown, I'll help you to get +off. You shall be a sailor, if you like, and go around the world, and +bring back coral to baby and me." + +A chilling premonition fell on the lad. "I don't believe it!" he said, +with tears in his eyes. "I just believe I've got to stay here in this hole +all my life." + +His sister looked off at the tops of the trees. Finally, "Surely He shall +deliver thee from the snare of the fowler," she quoted dreamily. + +When she came to see him and their parents a few months later, she brought +him a little square of crimson silk, on which she had worked in tiny +stitches, "Surely He shall deliver thee from the snare of the fowler." She +explained to her father and mother that it was a "text-ornament" for +Jehiel to hang up over his desk; but she drew the boy aside and showed him +that the silk was only lightly caught down to the foundation. + +"Underneath is another text," she said, "and when your day of freedom +comes I want you should promise me to cut the stitches, turn back the +silk, and take the second text for your motto, so you'll remember to be +properly grateful. This is the second text." She put her hands on his +shoulders and said in a loud, exultant voice, "My soul is escaped as a +bird out of the snare of the fowler. The snare is broken and I am +escaped." + +For answer the boy pulled her eagerly to the window and pointed to a young +pine-tree that stood near the house. + +"Sister, that tree's just as old as I be. I've prayed to God, and I've +promised myself that before it's as tall, as the ridge-pole of the house, +I'll be on my way." + +As this scene came before his eyes, the white-haired man, leaning against +the great pine, looked up at the lofty crown of green wreathing the +giant's head and shook his fist at it. He hated every inch of its height, +for every inch meant an enforced renunciation that had brought him +bitterness and a sense of failure. + +His sister had died the year after she had given him the double text, and +his father the year after that. He was left thus, the sole support of his +ailing mother, who transferred to the silent, sullen boy the irresistible +rule of complaining weakness with which she had governed his father. It +was thought she could not live long, and the boy stood in terror of a +sudden death brought on by displeasure at some act of his. In the end, +however, she died quietly in her bed, an old woman of seventy-three, +nursed by her daughter-in-law, the widow of Jehiel's only brother. Her +place in the house was taken by Jehiel's sister-in-law, a sickly, helpless +woman, alone in the would except for Jehiel, and all the neighbors +congratulated him on having a housekeeper ready to his hand. He said +nothing. + +By that time, indeed, he had sunk into a harsh silence on all topics. He +went through the exhausting routine of farming with an iron-like +endurance, watched with set lips the morning and afternoon trains leave +the valley, and noted the growth of the pine-tree with a burning heart. +His only recreation was collecting time-tables, prospectuses of steamship +companies, and what few books of travel he could afford. The only society +he did not shun was that of itinerant peddlers or tramps, and occasionally +a returned missionary on a lecture tour. + +And always the pine-tree had grown, insolent in the pride of a creature +set in the right surroundings. The imprisoned man had felt himself dwarfed +by its height. But now, he looked up at it again, and laughed aloud. It +had come late, but it had come. He was fifty-seven years old, almost +three-score, but all his life was still to be lived. He said to himself +that some folks lived their lives while they did their work, but he had +done all his tasks first, and now he could live. The unexpected arrival of +the timber merchant and the sale of that piece of land he'd never thought +would bring him a cent--was not that an evident sign that Providence was +with him. He was too old and broken now to work his way about as he had +planned at first, but here had come this six hundred dollars like rain +from the sky. He would start as soon as he could sell his stock. + +The thought reminded him of his evening chores, and he set off for the +barn with a fierce jubilation that it was almost the last time he would +need to milk. How far he wondered, could he go on that money? He hurried +through his work and into the house to his old desk. The faded +text-ornament stood on the top shelf, but he did not see it, as he hastily +tumbled out all the time tables and sailing-lists. The habit of looking at +them with the yearning bitterness of unreconciled deprivation was still so +strong on him that even as he handled them eagerly, he hated them for the +associations of years of misery they brought back to him. + +Where should he go? He was dazed by the unlimited possibilities before +him. To Boston first, as the nearest seaport. He had taken the trip in his +mind so many times that he knew the exact minute when the train would +cross the State line and he would be really escaped from the net which had +bound him all his life. From Boston to Jamaica as the nearest place that +was quite quite different from Vermont. He had no desire to see Europe or +England. Life there was too much like what he had known. He wanted to be +in a country where nothing should remind him of his past. From Jamaica +where? His stiff old fingers painfully traced out a steamship line to the +Isthmus and thence to Colombia. He knew nothing about that country. All +the better. It would be the more foreign. Only this he knew, that nobody +in that tropical country "farmed it," and that was where he wanted to go. +From Colombia around the Cape to Argentina. He was aghast at the cost, but +instantly decided that he would go steerage. There would be more real +foreigners to be seen that way, and his money would go twice as far. + +To Buenos Ayres, then. He did not even attempt to pronounce this name, +though its strange, inexplicable look on the page was a joy to him. From +there by muleback and afoot over the Andes to Chile. He knew something +about that trip. A woman who had taught in the Methodist missionary school +in Santiago de Chile had taken that journey, and he had heard her give a +lecture on it. He was the sexton of the church and heard all the lectures +free. At Santiago de Chile (he pronounced it with a strange distortion of +the school-teacher's bad accent) he would stay for a while and just live +and decide what to do next. His head swam with dreams and visions, and his +heart thumped heavily against his old ribs. The clock striking ten brought +him back to reality. He stood up with a gesture of exultation almost +fierce. "That's just the time when the train crosses the State line!" he +said. + +He slept hardly at all that night, waking with great starts, and imagining +himself in strange foreign places, and then recognizing with a scornful +familiarity the worn old pieces of furniture in his room. He noticed at +these times that it was very cold, and lifelong habit made him reflect +that he would better go early to the church because it would be hard to +get up steam enough to warm the building before time for service. After he +had finished his morning chores and was about to start he noticed that the +thermometer stood at four above zero. + +That was certainly winter temperature; the snow lay like a heavy shroud on +all the dead valley, but the strange blind instinct of a man who has lived +close to the earth stirred within him. He looked at the sky and the +mountains and held up his bare palm. "I shouldn't be surprised if the +spring break-up was near," he said. "I guess this is about the last winter +day we'll get." + +The church was icy cold, and he toiled in the cellar, stuffing wood into +the flaming maw of the steam-heater, till it was time to ring the bell. As +he gave the last stroke, Deacon Bradley approached him. "Jehiel, I've got +a little job of repairing I want you should do at my store," he said in +the loud, slow speech of a man important in the community. "Come to the +store to-morrow morning and see about it." He passed on into his pew, +which was at the back of the church near a steam radiator, so that he was +warm, no matter what the weather was. + +Jehiel Hawthorn went out and stood on the front steps in the winter +sunshine and his heart swelled exultingly as he looked across at the +deacon's store. "I wish I'd had time to tell him I'd do no repairs for him +to-morrow, nor any time---that I'm going to travel and see the world." + +The last comers disappeared in the church and the sound of singing came +faintly to Jehiel's ears. Although he was the sexton he rarely was in +church for the service, using his duties as an excuse for absence. He felt +that it was not for him to take part in prayer and thanksgiving. As a boy +he had prayed for the one thing he wanted, and what had it come to? + +A penetrating cold wind swept around the corner and he turned to go inside +to see about the steam-pipes. In the outer hall he noticed that the +service had progressed to the responsive readings. As he opened the door +of the church the minister read rapidly, "Praised be the Lord who hath not +given us over for a prey unto their teeth." + +The congregation responded in a timid inarticulate gabble, above which +rose Deacon Bradley's loud voice,--"Our soul is escaped even as a bird out +of the snare of the fowler. The snare is broken and we are escaped." He +read the responses in a slow, booming roar, at least half a sentence +behind the rest, but the minister always waited for him. As he finished, +he saw the sexton standing in the open door. "A little more steam, +Jehiel," he added commandingly, running the words on to the end of the +text. + +Jehiel turned away silently, but as he stumbled through the dark, +unfinished part of the cellar he thought to himself, "Well, that's the +last time he'll give me an order for _one_ while!" + +Then the words of the text he had heard came back to his mind with a +half-superstitious shock at the coincidence. He had forgotten all about +that hidden part of the text-ornament. Why, now that had come true! He +ought to have cut the stitches and torn off the old text last night. He +would, as soon as he went home. He wished his sister were alive to know, +and suddenly, there in the dark, he wondered if perhaps she did know. + +As he passed the door to the rooms of the Ladies' Auxiliary Society he +noticed that it was ajar, and saw through the crack that there was a +sleeping figure on the floor near the stove--a boy about sixteen. When +Jehiel stepped softly in and looked at him, the likeness to his own sister +struck him even before he recognized the lad as his great-nephew, the son +of the child he had helped his sister to care for all those years ago. + +"Why, what's Nathaniel doin' here?" he asked himself, in surprise. He had +not known that the boy was even in town, for he had been on the point of +leaving to enlist in the navy. Family matters could not have detained him, +for he was quite alone in the world since both his father and his mother +were dead and his stepmother had married again. Under his great-uncle's +gaze the lad opened his eyes with a start and sat up confused. + +"What's the matter with you, Nat?" asked the older man not ungently. He +was thinking that probably he had looked like that at sixteen. The boy +stared at him a moment, and then, leaning his head on a chair, he began to +cry. Sitting thus, crouched together, he looked like a child. + +"Why, Natty, what's the trouble?" asked his uncle alarmed. + +"I came off here because I couldn't hold in at home any longer," answered +the other between sobs. "You see I can't go away. Her husband treats her +so bad she can't stay with him. I don't blame her, she says she just +_can't!_ So she's come back and she ain't well, and she's goin' to have a +baby, and I've got to stay and support her. Mr. Bradley's offered me a +place in his store and I've got to give up goin' to the navy." He suddenly +realized the unmanliness of his attitude, rose to his feet, closing his +lips tightly, and faced the older man with a resolute expression of +despair in his young eyes. + +"Uncle Jehiel, it does seem to me I _can't_ have it so! All my life I've +looked forward to bein' a sailor and goin' around the world, and all. I +just hate the valley and the mountains! But I guess I got to stay. She's +only my stepmother, I know, but she was always awful good to me, and she +hasn't got anybody else to look after her." + +His voice broke, and he put his arm up in a crook over his face. "But it's +awful hard! I feel like a bird that's got caught in a snare." + +His uncle had grown very pale during this speech, and at the last words he +recoiled with an exclamation of horror. There was a silence in which he +looked at his nephew with the wide eyes of a man who sees a specter. Then +he turned away into the furnace-room, and picking up his lunch-box brought +it back. "Here, you," he said roughly, "part of what's troublin' you is +that you ain't had any breakfast. You eat this and you'll feel better. +I'll be back in a minute." + +He went away blindly into the darkest part of the cellar. It was very +black there, but his eyes stared wide before him. It was very cold, but +drops of sweat stood on his forehead as if he were in the hay-field. He +was alone, but his lips moved from time to time, and once he called out in +some loud, stifled exclamation which resounded hollowly in the vault-like +place. He was there a long time. + +When he went back into the furnace cellar, he found Nathaniel sitting +before the fire. The food and warmth had brought a little color into his +pale face, but it was still set in a mask of tragic desolation. + +As his uncle came in, he exclaimed, "Why, Uncle Jehiel, you look awful +bad. Are you sick?" + +"Yes, I be," said the other harshly, "but 'tain't nothin'. It'll pass +after a while. Nathaniel, I've thought of a way you can manage. You know +your uncle's wife died this last week and that leaves me without any house +keeper. What if your stepmother sh'd come and take care of me and I'll +take care of her. I've just sold a piece of timber land I never thought to +get a cent out of and that'll ease things up so we can hire help if she +ain't strong enough to do the work." + +Nathaniel's face flushed in a relief which died quickly down to a somber +hopelessness. He faced his uncle doggedly. "Not _much_, Uncle Jehiel!" he +said heavily, "I ain't a-goin' to hear to such a thing. I know all about +your wantin' to get away from the valley--you take that money and go +yourself and I'll---" + +Hopelessness and resolution were alike struck out of his face by the fury +of benevolence with which the old man cut him short. "Don't you dare to +speak a word against it, boy!" cried Jehiel in a labored anguish. "Good +Lord! I'm only doin' it for you because I _have_ to! I've been through +what you're layin' out for yourself an' stood it, somehow, an' now I'm +'most done with it all. But 'twould be like beginnin' it all again to see +you startin' in." + +The boy tried to speak, but he raised his voice. "No, I couldn't stand it +all over again. 'Twould cut in to the places where I've got calloused." +Seeing through the other's stupor the beginnings of an irresolute +opposition, he flung himself upon him in a strange and incredible appeal, +crying out, "Oh, you must! You _got_ to go!" commanding and imploring in +the same incoherent sentence, struggling for speech, and then hanging on +Nathaniel's answer in a sudden wild silence. It was as though his next +breath depended on the boy's decision. + +It was very still in the twilight where they stood. The faint murmur of a +prayer came down from above, and while it lasted both were as though held +motionless by its mesmeric monotony. Then, at the boom of the organ, the +lad's last shred of self-control vanished. He burst again into muffled +weary sobs, the light from the furnace glistening redly on his streaming +cheeks. "It ain't right, Uncle Jehiel. I feel as though I was murderin' +somethin'! But I can't help it. I'll go, I'll do as you say, but----" + +His uncle's agitation went out like a wind-blown flame. He, too, drooped +in an utter fatigue. "Never mind, Natty," he said tremulously, "it'll all +come out right somehow. Just you do as Uncle Jehiel says." + +A trampling upstairs told him that the service was over. "You run home now +and tell her I'll be over this afternoon to fix things up." + +He hurried up the stairs to open the front doors, but Deacon Bradley was +before him. "You're late, Jehiel," he said severely, "and the church was +cold." + +"I know, Deacon," said the sexton humbly, "but it won't happen again. And +I'll be around the first thing in the morning to do that job for you." His +voice sounded dull and lifeless. + +"What's the matter?" asked the deacon. "Be you sick?" + +"Yes, I be, but 'tain't nothin'. 'Twill pass after a while." + +That evening, as he walked home after service, he told himself that he had +never known so long a day. It seemed longer than all the rest of his life. +Indeed he felt that some strange and racking change had come upon him +since the morning, as though he were not the same person, as though he had +been away on a long journey, and saw all things with changed eyes. "I feel +as though I'd died," he thought with surprise, "and was dead and buried." + +This brought back to his mind the only bitter word he had spoken +throughout the endless day. Nathaniel had said, as an excuse for his haste +(Jehiel insisted on his leaving that night), "You see, mother, it's really +a service to Uncle Jehiel, since he's got nobody to keep house for him." +He had added, in the transparent self-justification of selfish youth, "And +I'll pay it back to him every cent." At this Jehiel had said shortly, "By +the time you can pay it back what I'll need most will be a tombstone. Git +a big one so's to keep me down there quiet." + +But now, walking home under the frosty stars, he felt very quiet already, +as though he needed no weight to lie heavy on his restless heart. It did +not seem restless now, but very still, as though it too were dead. He +noticed that the air was milder, and as he crossed the bridge below his +house he stopped and listened. Yes, the fine ear of his experience caught +a faint grinding sound. By tomorrow the river would begin to break up. It +was the end of winter. He surprised himself by his pleasure in thinking of +the spring. + +Before he went into the house after his evening chores were done, he +stopped for a moment and looked back at the cleft in the mountain wall +through which the railroad left the valley. He had been looking longingly +toward that door of escape all his life, and now he said goodby to it. +"Ah, well, 'twan't to be," he said, with an accent of weary finality; but +then, suddenly out of the chill which oppressed his heart there sprang a +last searing blast of astonished anguish. It was as if he realized for the +first time all that had befallen him since the morning. He was racked by a +horrified desolation that made his sturdy old body stagger as if under an +unexpected blow. As he reeled he flung his arm about the pine-tree and so +stood for a time, shaking in a paroxysm which left him breathless when it +passed. For it passed as suddenly as it came. He lifted his head and +looked again at the great cleft in the mountains, with new eyes. Somehow, +insensibly, his heart had been emptied of its fiery draught by more than +mere exhaustion. The old bitter pain was gone, but there was no mere void +in its place. He felt the sweet, weak light-headedness of a man in his +first lucid period after a fever, tears stinging his eyelids in confused +thanksgiving for an unrecognized respite from pain. + +He looked up at the lofty crown of the pine-tree, through which shone one +or two of the brightest stars, and felt a new comradeship with it. It was +a great tree, he thought, and they had grown up together. He laid his +hardened palm on it, and fancied that he caught a throb of the silent +vitality under the bark. How many kinds of life there were! Under its +white shroud, how all the valley lived. The tree stretching up its head to +the stars, the river preparing to throw off the icy armor which compressed +its heart--they were all awakening in their own way. The river had been +restless, like himself, the tree had been tranquil, but they passed +together through the resurrection into quiet life. + +When he went into the house, he found that he was almost fainting with +fatigue. He sat down by the desk, and his head fell forward on the pile of +pamphlets he had left there. For the first time in his life he thought of +them without a sore heart. "I suppose Natty'll go to every one of them +places," he murmured as he dropped to sleep. + +He dreamed strange, troubled dreams that melted away before he could seize +on them, and finally he thought his sister stood before him and called. +The impression was so vivid that he started up, staring at the empty room. +For an instant he still thought he heard a voice, and then he knew it was +the old clock striking the hour. It was ten o'clock. + +"Natty's just a-crossin' the State line," he said aloud The text-ornament +caught his eye. Still half asleep, with his sister's long-forgotten voice +ringing in his ears, he remembered vaguely that he had meant to bring the +second text to light. For a moment he hesitated, and then, "Well, it's +come true for Natty, anyhow," he thought. + +And clumsily using his heavy jackknife, he began to cut the tiny stitches +which had so long hidden from his eyes the joyous exultation of the +escaped prisoner. + + + + +THE BEDQUILT + + +Of all the Elwell family Aunt Mehetabel was certainly the most unimportant +member. It was in the New England days, when an unmarried woman was an old +maid at twenty, at forty was everyone's servant, and at sixty had gone +through so much discipline that she could need no more in the next world. +Aunt Mehetabel was sixty-eight. + +She had never for a moment known the pleasure of being important to +anyone. Not that she was useless in her Brother's family; she was +expected, as a matter of course, to take upon herself the most tedious and +uninteresting part of the household labors. On Mondays she accepted as her +share the washing of the men's shirts, heavy with sweat and stiff with +dirt from the fields and from their own hard-working bodies. Tuesdays she +never dreamed of being allowed to iron anything pretty or even +interesting, like the baby's white dresses or the fancy aprons of her +young lady nieces. She stood all day pressing out a tiresome monotonous +succession of dish-cloths and towels and sheets. + +In preserving-time she was allowed to have none of the pleasant +responsibility of deciding when the fruit had cooked long enough, nor did +she share in the little excitement of pouring the sweet-smelling stuff +into the stone jars. She sat in a corner with the children and stoned +cherries incessantly, or hulled strawberries until her fingers were dyed +red to the bone. + +The Elwells were not consciously unkind to their aunt, they were even in a +vague way fond of her; but she was so utterly insignificant a figure in +their lives that they bestowed no thought whatever on her. Aunt Mehetabel +did not resent this treatment; she took it quite as unconsciously as they +gave it. It was to be expected when one was an old-maid dependent in a +busy family. She gathered what crumbs of comfort she could from their +occasional careless kindnesses and tried to hide the hurt which even yet +pierced her at her brother's rough joking. In the winter when they all sat +before the big hearth, roasted apples, drank mulled cider, and teased the +girls about their beaux and the boys about their sweethearts, she shrank +into a dusky corner with her knitting, happy if the evening passed without +her brother saying, with a crude sarcasm, "Ask your Aunt Mehetabel about +the beaux that used to come a-sparkin' her!" or, "Mehetabel, how was't +when you was in love with Abel Cummings." As a matter of fact, she had +been the same at twenty as at sixty, a quiet, mouse-like little creature, +too timid and shy for anyone to notice, or to raise her eyes for a moment +and wish for a life of her own. + +Her sister-in-law, a big hearty housewife, who ruled indoors with as +autocratic a sway as did her husband on the farm, was rather kind in an +absent, offhand way to the shrunken little old woman, and it was through +her that Mehetabel was able to enjoy the one pleasure of her life. Even as +a girl she had been clever with her needle in the way of patching +bedquilts. More than that she could never learn to do. The garments which +she made for herself were the most lamentable affairs, and she was humbly +grateful for any help in the bewildering business of putting them +together. But in patchwork she enjoyed a tepid importance. She could +really do that as well as anyone else. During years of devotion to this +one art she had accumulated a considerable store of quilting patterns. +Sometimes the neighbors would send over and ask "Miss Mehetabel" for such +and such a design. It was with an agreeable flutter at being able to help +someone that she went to the dresser, in her bare little room under the +eaves, and extracted from her crowded portfolio the pattern desired. + +She never knew how her great idea came to her. Sometimes she thought she +must have dreamed it, sometimes she even wondered reverently, in the +phraseology of the weekly prayer-meeting, if it had not been "sent" to +her. She never admitted to herself that she could have thought of it +without other help; it was too great, too ambitious, too lofty a project +for her humble mind to have conceived. Even when she finished drawing the +design with her own fingers, she gazed at it incredulously, not daring to +believe that it could indeed be her handiwork. At first it seemed to her +only like a lovely but quite unreal dream. She did not think of putting it +into execution--so elaborate, so complicated, so beautifully difficult a +pattern could be only for the angels in heaven to quilt. But so curiously +does familiarity accustom us even to very wonderful things, that as she +lived with this astonishing creation of her mind, the longing grew +stronger and stronger to give it material life with her nimble old +fingers. + +She gasped at her daring when this idea first swept over her and put it +away as one does a sinfully selfish notion, but she kept coming back to it +again and again. Finally she said compromisingly to herself that she would +make one "square," just one part of her design, to see how it would look. +Accustomed to the most complete dependence on her brother and his wife, +she dared not do even this without asking Sophia's permission. With a +heart full of hope and fear thumping furiously against her old ribs, she +approached the mistress of the house on churning-day, knowing with the +innocent guile of a child that the country woman was apt to be in a good +temper while working over the fragrant butter in the cool cellar. + +Sophia listened absently to her sister-in-law's halting, hesitating +petition. "Why, yes, Mehetabel," she said, leaning far down into the huge +churn for the last golden morsels--"why, yes, start another quilt if you +want to. I've got a lot of pieces from the spring sewing that will work in +real good." Mehetabel tried honestly to make her see that this would be no +common quilt, but her limited vocabulary and her emotion stood between her +and expression. At last Sophia said, with a kindly impatience: "Oh, there! +Don't bother me. I never could keep track of your quiltin' patterns, +anyhow. I don't care what pattern you go by." + +With this overwhelmingly, although unconsciously, generous permission +Mehetabel rushed back up the steep attic stairs to her room, and in a +joyful agitation began preparations for the work of her life. It was even +better than she hoped. By some heaven-sent inspiration she had invented a +pattern beyond which no patchwork quilt could go. + +She had but little time from her incessant round of household drudgery for +this new and absorbing occupation, and she did not dare sit up late at +night lest she burn too much candle. It was weeks before the little square +began to take on a finished look, to show the pattern. Then Mehetabel was +in a fever of impatience to bring it to completion. She was too +conscientious to shirk even the smallest part of her share of the work of +the house, but she rushed through it with a speed which left her panting +as she climbed to the little room. This seemed like a radiant spot to her +as she bent over the innumerable scraps of cloth which already in her +imagination ranged themselves in the infinitely diverse pattern of her +masterpiece. Finally she could wait no longer, and one evening ventured to +bring her work down beside the fire where the family sat, hoping that some +good fortune would give her a place near the tallow candles on the +mantelpiece. She was on the last corner of the square, and her needle flew +in and out with inconceivable rapidity. No one noticed her, a fact which +filled her with relief, and by bedtime she had but a few more stitches to +add. + +As she stood up with the others, the square fluttered out of her trembling +old hands and fell on the table. Sophia glanced at it carelessly. "Is that +the new quilt you're beginning on?" she asked with a yawn. "It looks like +a real pretty pattern. Let's see it." Up to that moment Mehetabel had +labored in the purest spirit of disinterested devotion to an ideal, but as +Sophia held her work toward the candle to examine it, and exclaimed in +amazement and admiration, she felt an astonished joy to know that her +creation would stand the test of publicity. + +"Land sakes!" ejaculated her sister-in-law, looking at the many-colored +square. "Why, Mehetabel Elwell, where'd you git that pattern?" + +"I made it up," said Mehetabel quietly, but with unutterable pride. + +"No!" exclaimed Sophia incredulously. "_Did_ you! Why, I never see such a +pattern in my life. Girls, come here and see what your Aunt Mehetabel is +doing." + +The three tall daughters turned back reluctantly from the stairs. "I don't +seem to take much interest in patchwork," said one listlessly. + +"No, nor I neither!" answered Sophia; "but a stone image would take an +interest in this pattern. Honest, Mehetabel, did you think of it yourself? +And how under the sun and stars did you ever git your courage up to start +in a-making it? Land! Look at all those tiny squinchy little seams! Why +the wrong side ain't a thing _but_ seams!" + +The girls echoed their mother's exclamations, and Mr. Elwell himself came +over to see what they were discussing. "Well, I declare!" he said, looking +at his sister with eyes more approving than she could ever remember. "That +beats old Mis' Wightman's quilt that got the blue ribbon so many times at +the county fair." + +Mehetabel's heart swelled within her, and tears of joy moistened her old +eyes as she lay that night in her narrow, hard bed, too proud and excited +to sleep. The next day her sister-in-law amazed her by taking the huge pan +of potatoes out of her lap and setting one of the younger children to +peeling them. "Don't you want to go on with that quiltin' pattern?" she +said; "I'd kind o' like to see how you're goin' to make the grape-vine +design come out on the corner." + +By the end of the summer the family interest had risen so high that +Mehetabel was given a little stand in the sitting-room where she could +keep her pieces, and work in odd minutes. She almost wept over such +kindness, and resolved firmly not to take advantage of it by neglecting +her work, which she performed with a fierce thoroughness. But the whole +atmosphere of her world was changed. Things had a meaning now. Through the +longest task of washing milk-pans there rose the rainbow of promise of her +variegated work. She took her place by the little table and put the +thimble on her knotted, hard finger with the solemnity of a priestess +performing a sacred rite. + +She was even able to bear with some degree of dignity the extreme honor of +having the minister and the minister's wife comment admiringly on her +great project. The family felt quite proud of Aunt Mehetabel as Minister +Bowman had said it was work as fine as any he had ever seen, "and he +didn't know but finer!" The remark was repeated verbatim to the neighbors +in the following weeks when they dropped in and examined in a perverse +silence some astonishingly difficult _tour de force_ which Mehetabel had +just finished. + +The family especially plumed themselves on the slow progress of the quilt. +"Mehetabel has been to work on that corner for six weeks, come Tuesday, +and she ain't half done yet," they explained to visitors. They fell out of +the way of always expecting her to be the one to run on errands, even for +the children. "Don't bother your Aunt Mehetabel," Sophia would call. +"Can't you see she's got to a ticklish place on the quilt?" + +The old woman sat up straighter and looked the world in the face. She was +a part of it at last. She joined in the conversation and her remarks were +listened to. The children were even told to mind her when she asked them +to do some service for her, although this she did but seldom, the habit of +self-effacement being too strong. + +One day some strangers from the next town drove up and asked if they could +inspect the wonderful quilt which they had heard of, even down in their end +of the valley. After that such visitations were not uncommon, making the +Elwells' house a notable object. Mehetabel's quilt came to be one of the +town sights, and no one was allowed to leave the town without having paid +tribute to its worth. The Elwells saw to it that their aunt was better +dressed than she had ever been before, and one of the girls made her a +pretty little cap to wear on her thin white hair. + + +A year went by and a quarter of the quilt was finished, a second year +passed and half was done. The third year Mehetabel had pneumonia and lay +ill for weeks and weeks, overcome with terror lest she die before her work +was completed. A fourth year and one could really see the grandeur of the +whole design; and in September of the fifth year, the entire family +watching her with eager and admiring eyes, Mehetabel quilted the last +stitches in her creation. The girls held it up by the four corners, and +they all looked at it in a solemn silence. Then Mr. Elwell smote one horny +hand within the other and exclaimed: "By ginger! That's goin' to the +county fair!" + +Mehetabel blushed a deep red at this. It was a thought which had occurred +to her in a bold moment, but she had not dared to entertain it. The family +acclaimed the idea, and one of the boys was forthwith dispatched to the +house of the neighbor who was chairman of the committee for their village. +He returned with radiant face, "Of course he'll take it. Like's not it may +git a prize, so he says; but he's got to have it right off, because all +the things are goin' to-morrow morning." + +Even in her swelling pride Mehetabel felt a pang of separation as the +bulky package was carried out of the house. As the days went on she felt +absolutely lost without her work. For years it had been her one +preoccupation, and she could not bear even to look at the little stand, +now quite bare of the litter of scraps which had lain on it so long. One +of the neighbors, who took the long journey to the fair, reported that the +quilt was hung in a place of honor in a glass case in "Agricultural Hall." +But that meant little to Mehetabel's utter ignorance of all that lay +outside of her brother's home. The family noticed the old woman's +depression, and one day Sophia said kindly, "You feel sort o' lost without +the quilt, don't you, Mehetabel?" + +"They took it away so quick!" she said wistfully; "I hadn't hardly had one +real good look at it myself." + +Mr. Elwell made no comment, but a day or two later he asked his sister how +early she could get up in the morning. + +"I dun'no'. Why?" she asked. + +"Well, Thomas Ralston has got to drive clear to West Oldton to see a +lawyer there, and that is four miles beyond the fair. He says if you can +git up so's to leave here at four in the morning he'll drive you over to +the fair, leave you there for the day, and bring you back again at night." + +Mehetabel looked at him with incredulity. It was as though someone had +offered her a ride in a golden chariot up to the gates of heaven. "Why, +you can't _mean_ it!" she cried, paling with the intensity of her emotion. +Her brother laughed a little uneasily. Even to his careless indifference +this joy was a revelation of the narrowness of her life in his home. "Oh, +'tain't so much to go to the fair. Yes, I mean it. Go git your things +ready, for he wants to start to-morrow morning." + +All that night a trembling, excited old woman lay and stared at the +rafters. She, who had never been more than six miles from home in her +life, was going to drive thirty miles away--it was like going to another +world. She who had never seen anything more exciting than church supper +was to see the county fair. To Mehetabel it was like making the tour of +the world. She had never dreamed of doing it. She could not at all imagine +what would be like. + +Nor did the exhortations of the family, as they bade good-by to her, throw +any light on her confusion. They had all been at least once to the scene +of gayety she was to visit, and as she tried to eat her breakfast they +called out conflicting advice to her till her head whirled. Sophie told +her to be sure and see the display of preserves. Her brother said not to +miss inspecting the stock, her niece said the fancywork was the only thing +worth looking at and her nephews said she must bring them home an account +of the races. The buggy drove up to the door, she was helped in, and her +wraps tucked about her. They all stood together and waved good-by to her +as she drove out of the yard. She waved back, but she scarcely saw them. +On her return home that evening she was very pale, and so tired and stiff +that her brother had to lift her out bodily, but her lips were set in a +blissful smile. They crowded around her with thronging questions, until +Sophia pushed them all aside, telling them Aunt Mehetabel was too tired to +speak until she had had her supper. This was eaten in an enforced silence +on the part of the children, and then the old woman was helped into an +easy-chair before the fire. They gathered about her, eager for news of the +great world, and Sophia said, "Now, come, Mehetabel, tell us all about +it!" + +Mehetabel drew a long breath. "It was just perfect!" she said; "finer even +than I thought. They've got it hanging up in the very middle of a sort o' +closet made of glass, and one of the lower corners is ripped and turned +back so's to show the seams on the wrong side." + +"What?" asked Sophia, a little blankly. + +"Why, the quilt!" said Mehetabel in surprise. "There are a whole lot of +other ones in that room, but not one that can hold a candle to it, if I do +say it who shouldn't. I heard lots of people say the same thing. You ought +to have heard what the women said about that corner, Sophia. They +said--well, I'd be ashamed to _tell_ you what they said. I declare if I +wouldn't!" + +Mr. Elwell asked, "What did you think of that big ox we've heard so much +about?" + +"I didn't look at the stock," returned his sister indifferently. "That set +of pieces you gave me, Maria, from your red waist, come out just lovely!" +she assured one of her nieces. "I heard one woman say you could 'most +smell the red silk roses." + +"Did any of the horses in our town race?" asked young Thomas. + +"I didn't see the races." + +"How about the preserves?" asked Sophia. + +"I didn't see the preserves," said Mehetabel calmly. + +"You see, I went right to the room where the quilt was and then I didn't +want to leave it. It had been so long since I'd seen it. I had to look at +it first real good myself and then I looked at the others to see if there +was any that could come up to it. And then the people begin comin' in and +I got so interested in hearin' what they had to say I couldn't think of +goin' anywheres else. I ate my lunch right there too, and I'm as glad as +can be I did, too; for what do you think?"--she gazed about her with +kindling eyes--"while I stood there with a sandwich in one hand didn't +the head of the hull concern come in and open the glass door and pin +'First Prize' right in the middle of the quilt!" + +There was a stir of congratulation and proud exclamation. Then Sophia +returned again to the attack, "Didn't you go to see anything else?" she +queried. + +"Why, no," said Mehetabel. "Only the quilt. Why should I?" + +She fell into a reverie where she saw again the glorious creation of her +hand and brain hanging before all the world with the mark of highest +approval on it. She longed to make her listeners see the splendid vision +with her. She struggled for words; she reached blindly after unknown +superlatives. "I tell you it looked like----" she said, and paused, +hesitating. Vague recollections of hymn-book phraseology came into her +mind, the only form of literary expression she knew; but they were +dismissed as being sacrilegious, and also not sufficiently forcible. +Finally, "I tell you it looked real _well!_" she assured them, and sat +staring into the fire, on her tired old face the supreme content of an +artist who has realized his ideal. + + + + +PORTRAIT OF A PHILOSOPHER + +I + + +The news of Professor Gridley's death filled Middletown College with +consternation. Its one claim to distinction was gone, for in spite of the +excessive quiet of his private life, he had always cast about the obscure +little college the shimmering aura of greatness. There had been no +fondness possible for the austere old thinker, but Middletown village, as +well as the college, had been touched by his fidelity to the very moderate +attractions of his birthplace. When, as often happened, some famous figure +was seen on the streets, people used to say first, "Here to see old Grid, +I suppose," and then, "Funny how he sticks here. They say he was offered +seven thousand at the University of California." In the absence of any +known motive for this steadfastness, the village legend-making instinct +had evolved a theory that he did not wish to move away from a State of +which his father had been Governor, and where the name of Gridley was like +a patent of nobility. + +And now he was gone, the last of the race. His disappearance caused the +usual amount of reminiscent talk among his neighbors. The older people +recalled the bygone scandals connected with his notorious and popular +father and intimated with knowing nods that there were plenty of other +descendants of the old Governor who were not entitled legally to bear the +name; but the younger ones, who had known only the severely ascetic life +and cold personality of the celebrated scholar, found it difficult to +connect him with such a father. In their talk they brought to mind the man +himself, his quiet shabby clothes, his big stooping frame, his sad black +eyes absent almost to vacancy as though always fixed on high and distant +thoughts; and those who had lived near him told laughing stories about the +crude and countrified simplicity of his old aunt's housekeeping--it was +said that the president of Harvard had been invited to join them once in a +Sunday evening meal of crackers and milk--but the general tenor of feeling +was, as it had been during his life, of pride in his great fame and in the +celebrated people who had come to see him. + +This pride warmed into something like affection when the day after his +death, came the tidings that he had bequeathed to his college the Gino +Sprague Falleres portrait of himself. Of course, at that time, no one in +Middletown had seen the picture, for the philosopher's sudden death had +occurred, very dramatically, actually during the last sitting. He had, in +fact, had barely one glimpse of it himself, as, according to Falleres's +invariable rule no one, not even the subject of the portrait, had been +allowed to examine an unfinished piece of work. But though Middletown had +no first-hand knowledge of the picture, there could be no doubt about the +value of the canvas. As soon as it was put on exhibition in London, from +every art-critic in the three nations who claimed Falleres for their own +there rose a wail that this masterpiece was to be buried in an unknown +college in an obscure village in barbarous America. It was confidently +stated that it would be saved from such an unfitting resting-place by +strong action on the part of an International Committee of Artists; but +Middletown, though startled by its own good fortune, clung with Yankee +tenacity to its rights. Raphael Collin, of Paris, commenting on this in +the _Revue des Deux Mondes_, cried out whimsically upon the woes of an +art-critic's life, "as if there were not already enough wearisome +pilgrimages necessary to remote and uncomfortable places with jaw-breaking +names, which must nevertheless be visited for the sake of a single +picture!" And a burlesque resolution to carry off the picture by force was +adopted at the dinner in London given in honor of Falleres the evening +before he set off for America to attend the dedicatory exercises with +which Middletown planned to install its new treasure. + +For the little rustic college rose to its one great occasion. Bold in +their confidence in their dead colleague's name, the college authorities +sent out invitations to all the great ones of the country. Those to whom +Gridley was no more than a name on volumes one never read came because +the portrait was by Falleres, and those who had no interest in the world +of art came to honor the moralist whose noble clear-thinking had +simplified the intimate problems of modern life. There was the usual +residuum of those who came because the others did, and, also as usual, +they were among the most brilliant figures in the procession which filed +along, one October morning, under the old maples of Middletown campus. + +It was a notable celebration. A bishop opened the exercises with prayer, a +United States senator delivered the eulogy of the dead philosopher, the +veil uncovering the portrait was drawn away by the mayor of one of +America's largest cities, himself an ardent Gridleyite, and among those +who spoke afterward were the presidents of three great universities. The +professor's family was represented but scantily. He had had one brother, +who had disappeared many years ago under a black cloud of ill report, and +one sister who had married and gone West to live. Her two sons, +middle-aged merchants from Ohio, gave the only personal note to the +occasion by their somewhat tongue-tied and embarrassed presence, for +Gridley's aunt was too aged and infirm to walk with the procession from +the Gymnasium, where it formed, to the Library building, where the +portrait was installed. + +After the inevitable photographers had made their records of the memorable +gathering, the procession began to wind its many-colored way back to the +Assembly Hall, where it was to lunch. Everyone was feeling relieved that +the unveiling had gone off so smoothly, and cheerful at the prospect of +food. The undergraduates began lustily to shout their college song, which +was caught up by the holiday mood of the older ones. This cheerful +tumult gradually died away in the distance, leaving the room of the +portrait deserted in an echoing silence. A janitor began to remove the +rows of folding chairs. The celebration was over. + +Into the empty room there now limped forward a small, shabby old woman +with a crutch. "I'm his aunt, that lived with him," she explained +apologetically, "and I want to see the picture." + +She advanced, peering nearsightedly at the canvas. The janitor continued +stacking up chairs until he was stopped by a cry from the newcomer. She +was a great deal paler than when she came in. She was staring hard at the +portrait and now beckoned him wildly to do the same. "Look at it! Look at +it!" + +Surprised, he followed the direction of her shaking hand. "Sure, it's +Professor Grid to the life!" he said admiringly. + +"Look at it! Look at it!" She seemed not to be able to find any other +words. + +After a prolonged scrutiny he turned to her with a puzzled line between +his eyebrows. "Since you've spoken of it, ma'am, I will say that there's a +something about the expression of the eyes ... and mouth, maybe ... that +ain't just the professor. He was more absent-like. It reminds me of +somebody else ... of some face I've seen ..." + +She hung on his answer, her mild, timid old face drawn like a mask of +tragedy. "Who? Who?" she prompted him. + +For a time he could not remember, staring at the new portrait and +scratching his head. Then it came to him suddenly: "Why, sure, I ought to +ha' known without thinkin', seeing the other picture as often as every +time I've swep' out the president's office. And Professor Grid always +looked like him some, anyhow." + +The old woman leaned against the wall, her crutch trembling in her hand. +Her eyes questioned him mutely. + +"Why, ma'am, who but his own father, to be sure ... the old Governor." + + + + +II + + +While they had been duly sensible of the luster reflected upon them by the +celebration in honor of their distinguished uncle, Professor Gridley's two +nephews could scarcely have said truthfully that they enjoyed the +occasion. As one of them did say to the other, the whole show was rather +out of their line. Their line was wholesale hardware and, being eager to +return to it, it was with a distinct feeling of relief that they waited +for the train at the station. They were therefore as much displeased as +surprised by the sudden appearance to them of their great-aunt, very +haggard, her usual extreme timidity swept away by overmastering emotion. +She clutched at the two merchants with a great sob of relief: "Stephen! +Eli! Come back to the house," she cried, and before they could stop her +was hobbling away. They hurried after her, divided between the fear of +losing their train and the hope that some inheritance from their uncle had +been found. They were not mercenary men, but they felt a not unnatural +disappointment that Professor Gridley had left not a penny, not even to +his aunt, his one intimate. + +They overtook her, scuttling along like some frightened and wounded little +animal. "What's the matter, Aunt Amelia?" they asked shortly. "We've got +to catch this train." + +She faced them. "You can't go now. You've got to make them take that +picture away." + +"Away!" Their blankness was stupefaction. + +She raged at them, the timid, harmless little thing, like a creature +distraught. "Didn't you see it? Didn't you _see_ it?" + +Stephen answered: "Well, no, not to have a good square look at it. The man +in front of me kept getting in the way." + +Eli admitted: "If you mean you don't see anything in it to make all this +hurrah about, I'm with you. It don't look half finished. I don't like that +slap-dash style." + +She was in a frenzy at their denseness. "Who did it look like?" she +challenged them. + +"Why, like Uncle Grid, of course. Who else?" + +"Yes, yes," she cried; "who else? Who else?" + +They looked at each other, afraid that she was crazed, and spoke more +gently: "Why, I don't know, I'm sure, who else. Like Grandfather Gridley, +of course; but then Uncle Grid always did look like his father." + +At this she quite definitely put it out of their power to leave her by +fainting away. + +They carried her home and laid her on her own bed, where one of them +stayed to attend her while the other went back to rescue their deserted +baggage. As the door closed behind him the old woman came to herself. "Oh, +Stephen," she moaned, "I wish it had killed me, the way it did your +uncle." + +"What _is_ the matter?" asked her great-nephew wonderingly. "What do you +think killed him?" + +"That awful, awful picture! I know it now as plain as if I'd been there. +He hadn't seen it all the time he was sitting for it, though he'd already +put in his will that he wanted the college to have it, and when he did see +it--" she turned on the merchant with a sudden fury: "How _dare_ you say +those are your uncle's eyes!" + +He put his hand soothingly on hers. "Now, now, Aunt 'Melia, maybe the +expression isn't just right, but the color is _fine_... just that +jet-black his were ... and the artist has got in exact that funny stiff +way uncle's hair stood up over his forehead." + +The old woman fixed outraged eyes upon him. "Color!" she said. "And hair! +Oh, Lord, help me!" + +She sat up on the bed, clutching her nephew's hand, and began to talk +rapidly. When, a half-hour later, the other brother returned, neither of +them heard him enter the house. It was only when he called at the foot of +the stairs that they both started and Stephen ran down to join him. + +"You'll see the president ... you'll fix it?" the old woman cried after +him. + +"I'll see, Aunt 'Melia," he answered pacifyingly, as he drew his brother +out of doors. He looked quite pale and moved, and drew a long breath +before he could begin. + + + +"Aunt Amelia's been telling me a lot of things I never knew, Eli. It seems +that ... say, did you ever hear that Grandfather Gridley, the Governor, +was such a bad lot?" + +"Why, mother never said much about her father one way or the other, but I +always sort of guessed he wasn't all he might have been from her never +bringing us on to visit here until after he died. She used to look queer, +too, when folks congratulated her on having such a famous man for father. +All the big politicians of his day thought a lot of him. He _was_ as smart +as chain-lightning!" + +"He was a disreputable old scalawag!" cried his other grandson. "Some of +the things Aunt Amelia has been telling me make me never want to come back +to this part of the country again. Do you know why Uncle Grid lived so +poor and scrimped and yet left no money? He'd been taking care of a whole +family grandfather had beside ours; and paying back some people +grandfather did out of a lot of money on a timber deal fifty years ago; +and making it up to a little village in the backwoods that grandfather +persuaded to bond itself for a railroad that he knew wouldn't go near it." + +The two men stared at each other an instant, reviewing in a new light the +life that had just closed. "That's why he never married," said Eli +finally. + +"No, that's what I said, but Aunt Amelia just went wild when I did. She +said ... gee!" he passed his hand over his eyes with a gesture of mental +confusion. "Ain't it strange what can go on under your eyes and you never +know it? Why, she says Uncle Grid was just like his father." + +The words were not out of his mouth before the other's face of horror made +him aware of his mistake. "No! No! Not that! Heavens, no! I mean ... made +like him ... _wanted_ to be that kind, 'specially drink ..." His tongue, +unused to phrasing abstractions, stumbled and tripped in his haste to +correct the other's impression. "You know how much Uncle Grid used to look +like grandfather ... the same black hair and broad face and thick red lips +and a kind of knob on the end of his nose? Well, it seems he had his +father's insides, too ... _but his mother's conscience!_ I guess, from +what Aunt Amelia says, that the combination made life about as near Tophet +for him ...! She's the only one to know anything about it, because she's +lived with him always, you know, took him when grandmother died and he was +a child. She says when he was younger he was like a man fighting a wild +beast ... he didn't dare let up or rest. Some days he wouldn't stop +working at his desk all day long, not even to eat, and then he'd grab up a +piece of bread and go off for a long tearing tramp that'd last 'most all +night. You know what a tremendous physique all the Gridley men have had. +Well, Uncle Grid turned into work all the energy the rest of them spent in +deviltry. Aunt Amelia said he'd go on like that day after day for a month, +and then he'd bring out one of those essays folks are so crazy about. She +said she never could bear to _look_ at his books ... seemed to her they +were written in his blood. She told him so once and he said it was the +only thing to do with blood like his." + +He was silent, while his listener made a clucking noise of astonishment. +"My! My! I'd have said that there never was anybody more different from +grandfather than uncle. Why, as he got on in years he didn't even look +like him any more." + +This reference gave Stephen a start. "Oh, yes, that's what all this came +out for. Aunt Amelia is just wild about this portrait. It's just a notion +of hers, of course, but after what she told me I could see, easy, how the +idea would come to her. It looks this way, she says, as though Uncle Grid +inherited his father's physical make-up complete, and spent all his life +fighting it ... and won out! And here's this picture making him look the +way he would if he'd been the worst old ... as if he'd been like the +Governor. She says she feels as though she was the only one to defend +uncle ... as if it could make any difference to him! I guess the poor old +lady is a little touched. Likely it's harder for her, losing uncle, than +we realized. She just about worshiped him. Queer business, anyhow, wasn't +it? Who'd ha' thought he was like that?" + +He had talked his unwonted emotion quite out, and now looked at his +brother with his usual matter-of-fact eye. "Did you tell the station agent +to hold the trunk?" + +The other, who was the younger, looked a little abashed. "Well, no; I +found the train was so late I thought maybe we could ... you know there's +that business to-morrow ...!" + +His senior relieved him of embarrassment. "That's a good idea. Sure we +can. There's nothing we could do if we stayed. It's just a notion of Aunt +'Melia's, anyhow. I agree with her that it don't look so awfully like +Uncle Grid, but, then, oil-portraits are never any good. Give me a +photograph!" + +"It's out of our line, anyhow," agreed the younger, looking at his watch. + + + + +III + + +The president of Middletown College had been as much relieved as pleased +by the success of the rather pretentious celebration he had planned. His +annoyance was correspondingly keen at the disturbing appearance, in the +afternoon reception before the new portrait, of the late professor's aunt, +"an entirely insignificant old country woman," he hastily assured M. +Falleres after she had been half forced, half persuaded to retire, "whose +criticisms were as negligible as her personality." + +The tall, Jove-like artist concealed a smile by stroking his great brown +beard. When it came to insignificant country people, he told himself, it +was hard to draw lines in his present company. He was wondering whether he +might not escape by an earlier train. + +To the president's remark he answered that no portrait-painter escaped +unreasonable relatives of his sitters. "It is an axiom with our guild," he +went on, not, perhaps, averse to giving his provincial hosts a new +sensation, "that the family is never satisfied, and also that the family +has no rights. A sitter is a subject only, like a slice of fish. The only +question is how it's done. What difference does it make a century from +now, if the likeness is good? It's a work of art or it's nothing." He +announced this principle with a regal absence of explanation and turned +away; but his thesis was taken up by another guest, a New York art-critic. + +"By Jove, it's inconceivable, the ignorance of art in America!" he told +the little group before the portrait. "You find everyone so incurably +personal in his point of view ... always objecting to a masterpiece +because the watch-chain isn't the kind usually worn by the dear departed." + +Someone else chimed in. "Yes, it's incredible that anyone, even an old +village granny, should be able to look at that canvas and not be struck +speechless by its quality." + +The critic was in Middletown to report on the portrait and he now began +marshaling his adjectives for that purpose. "I never saw such use of +pigment in my life ... it makes the Whistler 'Carlyle' look like burnt-out +ashes ... the luminous richness of the blacks in the academic gown, the +masterly generalization in the treatment of the hair, the placing of those +great talons of hands on the canvas carrying out the vigorous lines of the +composition, and the unforgettable felicity of those brutally red lips as +the one ringing note of color. As for life-likeness, what's the old dame +talking about! I never saw such eyes! Not a hint of meretricious emphasis +on their luster and yet they fairly flame." + +The conversation spread to a less technical discussion as the group was +joined by the professor of rhetoric, an ambitious young man with an +insatiable craving for sophistication, who felt himself for once entirely +in his element in the crowd of celebrities. "It's incredibly good luck +that our little two-for-a-cent college should have so fine a thing," he +said knowingly. "I've been wondering how such an old skinflint as Gridley +ever got the money loose to have his portrait done by--" + +A laugh went around the group at the idea. "It was Mackintosh, the sugar +king, who put up for it. He's a great Gridleyite, and persuaded him to +sit." + +"_Persuade_ a man to sit to Falleres!" The rhetoric professor was outraged +at the idea. + +"Yes, so they say. The professor was dead against it from the first. +Falleres himself had to beg him to sit. Falleres said he felt a real +inspiration at the sight of the old fellow ... knew he could make a good +thing out of him. He _was_ a good subject!" + +The little group turned and stared appraisingly at the portrait hanging so +close to them that it seemed another living being in their midst. The +rhetoric professor was asked what kind of a man the philosopher had been +personally, and answered briskly: "Oh, nobody knew him personally ... the +silent old codger. He was a dry-as-dust, bloodless, secular monk--" + +He was interrupted by a laugh from the art-critic, whose eyes were still +on the portrait. + +"Excuse me for my cynical mirth," he said, "but I must say he doesn't look +it. I was prepared for any characterization but that. He looks like a +powerful son of the Renaissance, who might have lived in that one little +vacation of the soul after medievalism stopped hag-riding us, and before +the modern conscience got its claws on us. And you say he was a blue-nosed +Puritan!" + +The professor of rhetoric looked an uneasy fear that he was being +ridiculed. "I only repeated the village notion of him," he said airily. +"He may have been anything. All I know is that he was as secretive as a +clam, and about as interesting personally." + +"Look at the picture," said the critic, still laughing; "you'll know all +about him!" + +The professor of rhetoric nodded. "You're right, he doesn't look much like +my character of him. I never seem to have had a good, square look at him +before. I've heard several people say the same thing, that they seemed to +understand him better from the portrait than from his living face. There +was something about his eyes that kept you from thinking of anything but +what he was saying." + +The critic agreed. "The eyes are wonderful ... ruthless in their +power ... fires of hell." He laughed a deprecating apology for his +overemphatic metaphor and suggested: "It's possible that there was more to +the professorial life than met the eye. Had he a wife?" + +"No; it was always a joke in the village that he would never look at a +woman." + +The critic glanced up at the smoldering eyes of the portrait and smiled. +"I've heard of that kind of a man before," he said. "Never known to drink, +either, I suppose?" + +"Cold-water teetotaler," laughed the professor, catching the spirit of the +occasion. + +"Look at the color in that nose!" said the critic. "I fancy that the +ascetic moralist--" + +A very young man, an undergraduate who had been introduced as the junior +usher, nodded his head. "Yep, a lot of us fellows always thought old Grid +a little too good to be true." + +An older man with the flexible mouth of a politician now ventured a +contribution to a conversation no longer bafflingly esthetic: "His father, +old Governor Gridley, wasn't he ... Well, I guess you're right about the +son. No halos were handed down in _that_ family!" + +The laugh which followed this speech was stopped by the approach of +Falleres, his commanding presence dwarfing the president beside him. He +was listening with a good-natured contempt to the apparently rather +anxious murmurs of the latter. + +"Of course I know, Mr. Falleres, it is a great deal to ask, but she is so +insistent ... she won't go away and continues to make the most distressing +spectacle of herself ... and several people, since she has said so much +about it, are saying that the expression is not that of the late +professor. Much against my will I promised to speak to you--" + +His mortified uneasiness was so great that the artist gave him a rescuing +hand. "Well, Mr. President, what can I do in the matter? The man is dead. +I cannot paint him over again, and if I could I would only do again as I +did this time, choose that aspect which my judgment told me would make the +best portrait. If his habitual vacant expression was not so interesting as +another not so permanent a habit of his face ... why, the poor artist must +be allowed some choice. I did not know I was to please his grandmother, +and not posterity." + +"His aunt," corrected the president automatically. + +The portrait-painter accepted the correction with his tolerant smile. "His +aunt," he repeated. "The difference is considerable. May I ask what it was +you promised her?" + +The president summoned his courage. It was easy to gather from his +infinitely reluctant insistence how painful and compelling had been the +scene which forced him to action. "She wants you to change it ... to make +the expression of the--" + +For the first time the artist's equanimity was shaken. He took a step +backward. "Change it!" he said, and although his voice was low the casual +chat all over the room stopped short as though a pistol had been fired. + +"It's not _my_ idea!" The president confounded himself in +self-exoneration. "I merely promised, to pacify her, to ask you if you +could not do some little thing that would--" + +The critic assumed the role of conciliator. "My dear sir, I don't believe +you quite understand what you are asking. It's as though you asked a +priest to make just a little change in the church service and leave out +the 'not' in the Commandments." + +"I only wish to know Mr. Falleres's attitude," said the president stiffly, +a little nettled by the other's note of condescension. "I presume he will +be willing to take the responsibility of it himself and explain to the +professor's aunt that _I_ have done--" + +The artist had recovered from his lapse from Olympian to calm and now +nodded, smiling: "Dear me, yes, Mr. President, I'm used to irate +relatives." + +The president hastened away and the knots of talkers in other parts of the +room, who had been looking with expectant curiosity at the group before +the portrait, resumed their loud-toned chatter. When their attention was +next drawn in the same direction, it was by a shaky old treble, breaking, +quavering with weakness. A small, shabby old woman, leaning on a crutch, +stood looking up imploringly at the tall painter. + +"My dear madam," he broke in on her with a kindly impatience, "all that +you say about Professor Gridley is much to his credit, but what has it to +do with me?" + +"You painted his portrait," she said with a simplicity that was like +stupidity. "And I am his aunt. You made a picture of a bad man. I know he +was a good man." + +"I painted what I saw," sighed the artist wearily. He looked furtively at +his watch. + +The old woman seemed dazed by the extremity of her emotion. She looked +about her silently, keeping her eyes averted from the portrait that stood +so vividly like a living man beside her. "I don't know what to do!" she +murmured with a little moan. "I can't _bear_ it to have it stay +here--people forget so. Everybody'll think that Gridley looked like +_that_! And there isn't anybody but me. He never had anybody but me." + +The critic tried to clear the air by a roundly declaratory statement of +principles. "You'll pardon my bluntness, madam; but you must remember that +none but the members of Professor Gridley's family are concerned in the +exact details of his appearance. Fifty years from now nobody will remember +how he looked, one way or the other. The world is only concerned with +portraits as works of art." + +She followed his reasoning with a strained and docile attention and now +spoke eagerly as though struck by an unexpected hope: "If that's all, why +put his name to it? Just hang it up, and call it anything." + +She shrank together timidly and her eyes reddened at the laughter which +greeted this naive suggestion. + +Falleres looked annoyed and called his +defender off. "Oh, never mind explaining me," he said, snapping his watch +shut. "You'll never get the rights of it through anybody's head who hasn't +himself sweat blood over a composition only to be told that the other side +of the sitter's profile is usually considered the prettier. After all, we +have the last word, since the sitter dies and the portrait lives." + +The old woman started and looked at him attentively. + +"Yes," said the critic, laughing, "immortality's not a bad balm for +pin-pricks." + +The old woman turned very pale and for the first time looked again at the +portrait. An electric thrill seemed to pass through her as her eyes +encountered the bold, evil ones fixed on her. She stood erect with a rigid +face, and "Immortality!" she said, under her breath. + +Falleres moved away to make his adieux to the president, and the little +group of his satellites straggled after him to the other end of the room. +For a moment there no one near the old woman to see the crutch furiously +upraised, hammer-like, or to stop her sudden passionate rush upon the +picture. + +At the sound of cracking cloth, they turned back, horrified. They saw her, +with an insane violence, thrust her hands into the gaping hole that had +been the portrait's face and, tearing the canvas from end to end, fall +upon the shreds with teeth and talon. + +All but Falleres flung themselves toward her, dragging her away. With a +movement as instinctive he rushed for the picture, and it was to him, as +he stood aghast before the ruined canvas, that the old woman's shrill +treble was directed, above the loud shocked voices of those about her: +"There ain't anything immortal but souls!" she cried. + + + + +FLINT AND FIRE + + +My husband's cousin had come up from the city, slightly more fagged and +sardonic than usual, and as he stretched himself out in the big +porch-chair he was even more caustic than was his wont about the bareness +and emotional sterility of the lives of our country people. + +"Perhaps they had, a couple of centuries ago, when the Puritan +hallucination was still strong, a certain fierce savor of religious +intolerance; but now that that has died out, and no material prosperity +has come to let them share in the larger life of their century, there is a +flatness, a mean absence of warmth or color, a deadness to all emotions +but the pettiest sorts--" + +I pushed the pitcher nearer him, clinking the ice invitingly, and directed +his attention to our iris-bed as a more cheerful object of contemplation +than the degeneracy of the inhabitants of Vermont. The flowers burned on +their tall stalks like yellow tongues of flame. The strong, sword-like +green leaves thrust themselves boldly up into the spring air like a +challenge. The plants vibrated with vigorous life. + +In the field beyond them, as vigorous as they, strode Adoniram Purdon +behind his team, the reins tied together behind his muscular neck, his +hands grasping the plow with the masterful sureness of the successful +practitioner of an art. The hot, sweet spring sunshine shone down on +'Niram's head with its thick crest of brown hair, the ineffable odor of +newly turned earth steamed up about him like incense, the mountain stream +beyond him leaped and shouted. His powerful body answered every call made +on it with the precision of a splendid machine. But there was no elation +in the grimly set face as 'Niram wrenched the plow around a big stone, or +as, in a more favorable furrow, the gleaming share sped steadily along +before the plowman, turning over a long, unbroken brown ribbon of earth. + +My cousin-in-law waved a nervous hand toward the sternly silent figure as +it stepped doggedly behind the straining team, the head bent forward, the +eyes fixed on the horses' heels. + +"There!" he said. "There is an example of what I mean. Is there another +race on earth which could produce a man in such a situation who would not +on such a day sing, or whistle, or at least hold up his head and look at +all the earthly glories about him?" + +I was silent, but not for lack of material for speech. 'Niram's reasons +for austere self-control were not such as I cared to discuss with a man of +my cousin's mental attitude. As we sat looking at him the noon whistle +from the village blew and the wise old horses stopped in the middle of a +furrow. 'Niram unharnessed them, led them to the shade of a tree, and put +on their nose-bags. Then he turned and came toward the house. + +"Don't I seem to remember," murmured my cousin under his breath, "that, +even though he is a New-Eng-lander, he has been known to make up errands +to your kitchen to see your pretty Ev'leen Ann?" + +I looked at him hard; but he was only gazing down, rather cross-eyed, on +his grizzled mustache, with an obvious petulant interest in the increase +of white hairs in it. Evidently his had been but a chance shot. 'Niram +stepped up on the grass at the edge of the porch. He was so tall that he +overtopped the railing easily, and, reaching a long arm over to where I +sat, he handed me a small package done up in yellowish tissue-paper. +Without hat-raisings, or good-mornings, or any other of the greetings +usual in a more effusive civilization, he explained briefly: + +"My stepmother wanted I should give you this. She said to thank you for +the grape-juice." As he spoke he looked at me gravely out of deep-set blue +eyes, and when he had delivered his message he held his peace. + +I expressed myself with the babbling volubility of one whose manners have +been corrupted by occasional sojourns in the city. "Oh, 'Niram!" I cried +protestingly, as I opened the package and took out an exquisitely +wrought old-fashioned collar. "Oh, 'Niram! How _could_ your stepmother +give such a thing away? Why, it must be one of her precious old relics. I +don't _want_ her to give me something every time I do some little thing +for her. Can't a neighbor send her in a few bottles of grape-juice without +her thinking she must pay it back somehow? It's not kind of her. She has +never yet let me do the least thing for her without repaying me with +something that is worth ever so much more than my trifling services." + +When I had finished my prattling, 'Niram repeated, with an accent of +finality, "She wanted I should give it to you." + +The older man stirred in his chair. Without looking at him I knew that his +gaze on the young rustic was quizzical and that he was recording on the +tablets of his merciless memory the ungraceful abruptness of the other's +action and manner. + +"How is your stepmother feeling to-day, 'Niram?" I asked. + +"Worse." + +'Niram came to a full stop with the word. My cousin covered his satirical +mouth with his hand. + +"Can't the doctor do anything to relieve her?" I asked. + +'Niram moved at last from his Indian-like immobility. He looked up under +the brim of his felt hat at the skyline of the mountain, shimmering +iridescent above us. "He says maybe 'lectricity would help her some. I'm +goin' to git her the batteries and things soon's I git the rubber bandages +paid for." + +There was a long silence. My cousin stood up, yawning, and sauntered away +toward the door. "Shall I send Ev'leen Ann out to get the pitcher and +glasses?" he asked in an accent which he evidently thought very humorously +significant. + +The strong face under the felt hat turned white, the jaw muscles set hard, +but for all this show of strength there was an instant when the man's eyes +looked out with the sick, helpless revelation of pain they might have had +when 'Niram was a little boy of ten, a third of his present age, and less +than half his present stature. Occasionally it is horrifying to see how a +chance shot rings the bell. + +"No, no! Never mind!" I said hastily. "I'll take the tray in when I go." + +Without salutation or farewell 'Niram Purdon turned and went back to his +work. + +The porch was an enchanted place, walled around with starlit darkness, +visited by wisps of breezes shaking down from their wings the breath of +lilac and syringa, flowering wild grapes, and plowed fields. Down at the +foot of our sloping lawn the little river, still swollen by the melted +snow from the mountains, plunged between its stony banks and shouted its +brave song to the stars. + +We three middle-aged people--Paul, his cousin, and I--had disposed our +uncomely, useful, middle-aged bodies in the big wicker chairs and left +them there while our young souls wandered abroad in the sweet, dark glory +of the night. At least Paul and I were doing this, as we sat, hand in +hand, thinking of a May night twenty years before. One never knows what +Horace is thinking of, but apparently he was not in his usual captious +vein, for after a long pause he remarked, "It is a night almost +indecorously inviting to the making of love." + +My answer seemed grotesquely out of key with this, but its sequence was +clear in my mind. I got up, saying: "Oh, that reminds me--I must go and +see Ev'leen Ann. I'd forgotten to plan to-morrow's dinner." + +"Oh, everlastingly Ev'leen Ann!" mocked Horace from his corner. "Can't you +think of anything but Ev'leen Ann and her affairs?" + +I felt my way through the darkness of the house, toward the kitchen, both +doors of which were tightly closed. When I stepped into the hot, close +room, smelling of food and fire, I saw Ev'leen Ann sitting on the straight +kitchen chair, the yellow light of the bracket-lamp beating down on her +heavy braids and bringing out the exquisitely subtle modeling of her +smooth young face. Her hands were folded in her lap. She was staring at +the blank wall, and the expression of her eyes so startle and shocked me +that I stopped short and would have retreated if it had not been too late. +She had seen me, roused herself, and said quietly, as though continuing +conversation interrupted the moment before: + +"I had been thinking that there was enough left of the roast to make +hash-balls for dinner"--"hash-balls" is Ev'leen Ann's decent Anglo-Saxon +name for croquette--"and maybe you'd like a rhubarb pie." + +I knew well enough she had been thinking of no such thing, but I could as +easily have slapped a reigning sovereign on the back as broken in on the +regal reserve of Ev'leen Ann in her clean gingham. + +"Well, yes, Ev'leen Ann," I answered in her own tone of reasonable +consideration of the matter; "that would be nice, and your pie-crust is so +flaky that even Mr. Horace will have to be pleased." + +"Mr. Horace" is our title for the sardonic cousin whose carping ways are +half a joke, and half a menace in our family. + +Ev'leen Ann could not manage the smile which should have greeted this +sally. She looked down soberly at the white-pine top of the kitchen table +and said, "I guess there is enough sparrow-grass up in the garden for a +mess, too, if you'd like that." + +"That would taste very good," I agreed, my heart aching for her. + +"And creamed potatoes," she finished bravely, thrusting my unspoken pity +from her. + +"You know I like creamed potatoes better than any other kind," I +concurred. + +There was a silence. It seemed inhuman to go and leave the stricken young +thing to fight her trouble alone in the ugly prison, her work-place, +though I thought I could guess why Ev'leen Ann had shut the doors so +tightly. I hung near her, searching my head for something to say, but she +helped me by no casual remark. Niram is not the only one of our people who +possesses so the full the supreme gift of silence. Finally I mentioned the +report of a case of measles in the village, and Ev'leen Ann responded in +kind with the news that her Aunt Emma had bought a potato-planter. Ev'leen +Ann is an orphan, brought up by a well-to-do spinster aunt, who is +strong-minded and runs her own farm. After a time we glided by way of +similar transitions to the mention of his name. + +"'Niram Purdon tells me his stepmother is no better," I said. "Isn't it +too bad?" I thought it well for Ev'leen Ann to be dragged out of her black +cave of silence once in a while, even if it could be done only by force. +As she made no answer, I went on. "Everybody who knows Niram thinks it +splendid of him to do so much for his stepmother." + +Ev'leen Ann responded with a detached air, as though speaking of a matter +in China: "Well, it ain't any more than what he should. She was awful good +to him when he was little and his father got so sick. I guess 'Niram +wouldn't ha' had much to eat if she hadn't ha' gone out sewing to earn it +for him and Mr. Purdon." She added firmly, after a moment's pause, "No, +ma'am, I don't guess it's any more than what 'Niram had ought to do." + +"But it's very hard on a young man to feel that he's not able to marry," I +continued. Once in a great while we came so near the matter as this. +Ev'leen Ann made no answer. Her face took on a pinched look of sickness. +She set her lips as though she would never speak again. But I knew that a +criticism of 'Niram would always rouse her, and said: "And really, I think +'Niram makes a great mistake to act as he does. A wife would be a help to +him. She could take care of Mrs. Purdon and keep the house." + +Ev'leen Ann rose to the bait, speaking quickly with some heat: "I guess +'Niram knows what's right for him to do! He can't afford to marry when he +can't even keep up with the doctor's bills and all. He keeps the house +himself, nights and mornings, and Mrs. Purdon is awful handy about taking +care of herself, for all she's bedridden. That's her way, you know. She +can't bear to have folks do for her. She'd die before she'd let anybody do +anything for her that she could anyways do for herself!" + +I sighed acquiescingly. Mrs. Purdon's fierce independence was a rock on +which every attempt at sympathy or help shattered itself to atoms. There +seemed to be no other emotion left in her poor old work-worn shell of a +body. As I looked at Ev'leen Ann it seemed rather a hateful +characteristic, and I remarked, "It seems to me it's asking a good deal of +'Niram to spoil his life in order that his stepmother can go on pretending +she's independent." + +Ev'leen Ann explained hastily: "Oh, 'Niram doesn't tell her anything +about--She doesn't know he would like to--he don't want she should be +worried--and, anyhow, as 'tis, he can't earn enough to keep ahead of all +the: doctors cost." + +"But the right kind of a wife--a good, competent girl--could help out by +earning something, too." + +Ev'leen Ann looked at me forlornly, with no surprise. The idea was +evidently not new to her. "Yes, ma'am, he could. But 'Niram says he ain't +the kind of man to let his wife go out working." Even while she drooped +under the killing verdict of his pride she was loyal to his standards +and uttered no complaint. She went on, 'Niram wants Aunt Em'line to have +things the way she wants 'em, as near as he can give 'em to her--and it's +right she should." + +"Aunt Emeline?" I repeated, surprised at her absence of mind. "You mean +Mrs. Purdon, don't you?" + +Ev'leen Ann looked vexed at her slip, but she scorned to attempt any +concealment. She explained dryly, with the shy, stiff embarrassment our +country people have in speaking of private affairs: "Well, she _is_ my +Aunt Em'line, Mrs. Purdon is, though I don't hardly ever call her that. +You see, Aunt Emma brought me up, and she and Aunt Em'line don't have +anything to do with each other. They were twins, and when they were girls +they got edgeways over 'Niram's father, when 'Niram was a baby and his +father was a young widower and come courting. Then Aunt Em'line married +him, and Aunt Emma never spoke to her afterward." + +Occasionally, in walking unsuspectingly along one of our leafy lanes, some +such fiery geyser of ancient heat uprears itself in a boiling column. I +never get used to it, and started back now. + +"Why, I never heard of that before, and I've known your Aunt Emma and Mrs. +Purdon for years!" + +"Well, they're pretty old now," said Ev'leen Ann listlessly, with the +natural indifference of self-centered youth to the bygone tragedies of the +preceding generation. + +"It happened quite some time ago. And both of them were so touchy, if +anybody seemed to speak about it, that folks got in the way of letting it +alone. First Aunt Emma wouldn't speak to her sister because she'd married +the man she'd wanted, and then when Aunt Emma made out so well farmin' and +got so well off, why, then Mrs. Purdon wouldn't try to make it up because +she was so poor. That was after Mr. Purdon had had his stroke of paralysis +and they'd lost their farm and she'd taken to goin' out sewin'--not but +what she was always perfectly satisfied with her bargain. She always acted +as though she'd rather have her husband's old shirt stuffed with straw +than any other man's whole body. He was a real nice man, I guess, Mr. +Purdon was." + +There I had it--the curt, unexpanded chronicle of two passionate lives. +And there I had also the key to Mrs. Purdon's fury of independence. It was +the only way in which she could defend her husband against the charge, so +damning in her world, of not having provided for his wife. It was the only +monument she could rear to her husband's memory. And her husband had been +all there was in life for her! + +I stood looking at her young kinswoman's face, noting the granite under +the velvet softness of its youth, and divining the flame underlying the +granite. I longed to break through her wall and to put my arms about her, +and on the impulse of the moment I cast aside the pretense of casualness +in our talk. + +"Oh, my dear!" I said. "Are you and 'Niram always to go on like this? +Can't anybody help you?" + +Ev'leen Ann looked at me, her face suddenly old and gray. "No, ma'am; we +ain't going to go on this way. We've decided, 'Niram and I have, that it +ain't no use. We've decided that we'd better not go places together any +more or see each other. It's too--If 'Niram thinks we can't"--she flamed +so that I knew she was burning from head to foot--"it's better for us +not--" She ended in a muffled voice, hiding her face in the crook of +her arm. + +Ah, yes; now I knew why Ev'leen Ann had shut out the passionate breath of +the spring night! + +I stood near her, a lump in my throat, but I divined the anguish of her +shame at her involuntary self-revelation, and respected it. I dared do no +more than to touch her shoulder gently. + +The door behind us rattled. Ev'leen Ann sprang up and turned her face +toward the wall. Paul's cousin came in, shuffling a little, blinking his +eyes in the light of the unshaded lamp, and looking very cross and tired. +He glanced at us without comment as he went over to the sink. "Nobody +offered me anything good to drink," he complained, "so I came in to get +some water from the faucet for my nightcap." + +When he had drunk with ostentation from the tin dipper he went to the +outside door and flung it open. + +"Don't you people know how hot and smelly it is in here?" he said, with +his usual unceremonious abruptness. + +The night wind burst in, eddying, and puffed out the lamp with a breath. +In an instant the room was filled with coolness and perfumes and the +rushing sound of the river. Out of the darkness came Ev'leen Ann's young +voice. "It seems to me," she said, as though speaking to herself, "that I +never heard the Mill Brook sound loud as it has this spring." + +I woke up that night with the start one has at a sudden call. But there +had been no call. A profound silence spread itself through the sleeping +house. Outdoors the wind had died down. Only the loud brawl of the river +broke the stillness under the stars. But all through the silence and this +vibrant song there rang a soundless menace which brought me out of bed and +to my feet before I was awake. I heard Paul say, "What's the matter?" in a +sleepy voice, and "Nothing," I answered, reaching for my dressing-gown and +slippers. I listened for a moment, my head ringing with all the +frightening tales of the morbid vein of violence which runs through the +character of our reticent people. There was still no sound. I went along +the hall and up the stairs to Ev'leen Ann room, and I opened the door +without knocking. The room was empty. + +Then how I ran! Calling loudly for Paul to join me, I ran down the two +flights of stairs, out of the open door and along the hedged path which +leads down to the little river. The starlight was clear. I could see +everything as plainly as though in early dawn. I saw the river, and +saw--Ev'leen Ann! + +There was a dreadful moment of horror, which I shall never remember very +clearly, and then Ev'leen Ann and I--both very wet--stood on the bank, +shuddering in each other's arms. + +Into our hysteria there dropped, like a pungent caustic the arid voice of +Horace, remarking, "Well, are you two people crazy, or are you walking in +your sleep?" I could feel Ev'leen Ann stiffen in my arms, and I nearly +stepped back from her in astonished admiration as I heard her snatch at +the straw thus offered, and still shuddering horribly from head to foot, +force herself to say quite connectedly: "Why--yes--of course--I've always +heard about my grandfather Parkman's walking in his sleep. Folks _said_ +'twould come out in the family some time." + +Paul was close behind Horace--I wondered a little at his not being +first--and with many astonished and inane ejaculations, such as people +always make on startling occasions, we made our way back into the house to +hot blankets and toddies. But I slept no more that night. Some time after +dawn, however, I did fall into a troubled unconsciousness full of bad +dreams, and only awoke when the sun was quite high. I opened my eyes +to see Ev'leen Ann about to close the door. "Oh, did I wake you up?" she +said. "I didn't mean to. That little Harris boy is here with a letter for +you." + +She spoke with a slightly defiant tone of self-possession. I tried to play +up to her interpretation of her role. "The little Harris boy?" I said, +sitting up in bed. "What in the world is he bringing me a letter for?" +Ev'leen Ann, with her usual clear perception of the superfluous in +conversation, vouchsafed no opinion on a matter where she had no +information, but went downstairs and brought back the note. It was of four +lines, and--surprisingly enough--from old Mrs. Purdon, who asked me +abruptly if I would have my husband take me to see her. She specified, and +underlined the specification, that I was to come "right off, and in the +automobile." Wondering extremely at this mysterious bidding I sought out +Paul, who obediently cranked up our small car and carried me off. There +was no sign of Horace about the house, but some distance on the other side +of the village we saw his tall, stooping figure swinging along the road. +He carried a cane and was characteristically occupied in violently +switching off the heads from the wayside weeds as he walked. He refused +our offer to take him in, alleging that he was out for exercise and to +reduce his flesh--an ancient jibe at his bony frame which made him for an +instant show a leathery smile. + +There was, of course, no one at Mrs. Purdon's to let us into the tiny, +three-roomed house, since the bedridden invalid spent her days there alone +while 'Niram worked his team on other people's fields. Not knowing what we +might find, Paul stayed outside in the car, while I stepped inside in +answer to Mrs. Purdon's "Come _in_, why don't you!" which sounded quite as +dry as usual. But when I saw her I knew that things were not as usual. + +She lay flat on her back, the little emaciated wisp of humanity, hardly +raising the piecework quilt enough to make the bed seem occupied, and to +account for the thin, worn old face on the pillow. But as I entered the +room her eyes seized on mine, and I was aware of nothing but them and some +fury of determination behind them. With a fierce heat of impatience at my +first natural but quickly repressed exclamation of surprise she explained +briefly that she wanted Paul to lift her into the automobile and take her +into the next township to the Hulett farm. "I'm so shrunk away to nothin', +I know I can lay on the back seat if I crook myself up," she said, with a +cool accent but a rather shaky voice. Seeming to realize that even her +intense desire to strike the matter-of-fact note could not take the place +of any and all explanation of her extraordinary request, she added, +holding my eyes steady with her own: "Emma Hulett's my twin sister. I +guess it ain't so queer, my wanting to see her." + +I thought, of course, we +were to be used as the medium for some strange, sudden family +reconciliation, and went out to ask Paul if he thought he could carry the +old invalid to the car. He replied that, so far as that went, he could +carry so thin an old body ten times around the town, but that he refused +absolutely to take such a risk without authorization from her doctor. I +remembered the burning eyes of resolution I had left inside, and sent him +to present his objections to Mrs. Purdon herself. + +In a few moments I saw +him emerge from the house with the old woman in his arms. He had evidently +taken her up just as she lay. The piecework quilt hung down in long folds, +flashing its brilliant reds and greens in the sunshine, which shone so +strangely upon the pallid old countenance, facing the open sky for the +first time in years. + +We drove in silence through the green and gold lyric of the spring day, +an elderly company sadly out of key with the triumphant note of eternal +youth which rang through all the visible world. Mrs. Purdon looked at +nothing, said nothing, seemed to be aware of nothing but the purpose in +her heart, whatever that might be. Paul and I, taking a leaf from our +neighbors' book, held, with a courage like theirs, to their excellent +habit of saying nothing when there is nothing to say. We arrived at the +fine old Hulett place without the exchange of a single word. + +"Now carry me in," said Mrs. Purdon briefly, evidently hoarding her +strength. + +"Wouldn't I better go and see if Miss Hulett is at home?" I asked. + +Mrs. Purdon shook her head impatiently and turned her compelling eyes on +my husband, I went up the path before them to knock at the door, wondering +what the people in the house would possibly be thinking of us There was no +answer to my knock. "Open the door and go in," commanded Mrs. Purdon from +out her quilt. + +There was no one in the spacious, white-paneled hall and no sound in all +the big, many-roomed house. + +"Emma's out feeding the hens," conjectured Mrs. Purdon, not, I fancied, +without a faint hint of relief in her voice. "Now carry me up-stairs to +the first room on the right." + +Half hidden by his burden, Paul rolled wildly inquiring eyes at me; but he +obediently staggered up the broad old staircase, and, waiting till I had +opened the first door to the right, stepped into the big bedroom. + +"Put me down on the bed, and open them shutters," Mrs. Purdon commanded. + +She still marshaled her forces with no lack of decision, but with a +fainting voice which made me run over to her quickly as Paul laid her down +on the four-poster. Her eyes were still indomitable, but her mouth hung +open slackly and her color was startling. "Oh, Paul, quick! quick! Haven't +you your flask with you?" + +Mrs. Purdon informed me in a barely audible whisper, "In the corner +cupboard at the head of the stairs," and I flew down the hallway. I +returned with a bottle, evidently of great age. There was only a little +brandy in the bottom, but it whipped up a faint color into the sick +woman's lips. + +As I was bending over her and Paul was thrusting open the shutters, +letting in a flood of sunshine and flecky leaf-shadows, a firm, rapid step +came down the hall, and a vigorous woman, with a tanned face and a clean, +faded gingham dress, stopped short in the doorway with an expression of +stupefaction. + +Mrs. Purdon put me on one side, and although she was physically incapable +of moving her body by a hair's breadth, she gave the effect of having +risen to meet the newcomer. "Well, Emma, here I am," she said in a queer +voice, with involuntary quavers in it. As she went on she had it more +under control, although in the course of her extraordinarily succinct +speech it broke and failed her occasionally. When it did, she drew in her +breath with an audible, painful effort, struggling forward steadily in +what she had to say. "You see, Emma, it's this way: My 'Niram and your +Ev'leen Ann have been keeping company--ever since they went to school +together--you know that's well as I do, for all we let on we didn't, only +I didn't know till just now how hard they took it. They can't get married +because 'Niram can't keep even, let alone get ahead any, because I cost so +much bein' sick, and the doctor says I may live for years this way, same's +Aunt Hettie did. An' 'Niram is thirty-one, an' Ev'leen Ann is +twenty-eight, an' they've had 'bout's much waitin' as is good for folks +that set such store by each other. I've thought of every way out of +it--and there ain't any. The Lord knows I don't enjoy livin' any, not so's +to notice the enjoyment, and I'd thought of cutting my throat like Uncle +Lish, but that'd make 'Niram and Ev'leen Ann feel so--to think why I'd +done it; they'd never take the comfort they'd ought in bein' married; so +that won't do. There's only one thing to do. I guess you'll have to take +care of me till the Lord calls me. Maybe I won't last so long as the +doctor thinks." + +When she finished, I felt my ears ringing in the silence. She had walked +to the sacrificial altar with so steady a step, and laid upon it her +precious all with so gallant a front of quiet resolution, that for an +instant I failed to take in the sublimity of her self-immolation. Mrs. +Purdon asking for charity! And asking the one woman who had most reason to +refuse it to her. + +Paul looked at me miserably, the craven desire to escape a scene written +all over him. "Wouldn't we better be going, Mrs. Purdon?" I said uneasily. +I had not ventured to look at the woman in the doorway. + +Mrs. Purdon motioned me to remain, with an imperious gesture whose +fierceness showed the tumult underlying her brave front. "No; I want you +should stay. I want you should hear what I say, so's you can tell folks, +if you have to. Now, look here, Emma," she went on to the other, still +obstinately silent; "you must look at it the way 'tis. We're neither of us +any good to anybody, the way we are--and I'm dreadfully in the way of the +only two folks we care a pin about--either of us. You've got plenty to do +with, and nothing to spend it on. I can't get myself out of their way by +dying without going against what's Scripture and proper, but--" Her steely +calm broke. She burst out in a screaming, hysterical voice: "You've just +_got_ to, Emma Hulett! You've just _got_ to! If you don't, I won't never +go back to 'Niram's house! I'll lie in the ditch by the roadside till the +poor-master comes to git me--and I'll tell everybody that it's because my +own twin sister, with a house and a farm and money in the bank, turned me +out to starve--" A fearful spasm cut her short. She lay twisted and limp, +the whites of her eyes showing between the lids. + +"Good God, she's gone!" cried Paul, running to the bed. + +I was aware that the woman in the doorway had relaxed her frozen +immobility and was between Paul and me as we rubbed the thin, icy hands +and forced brandy between the flaccid lips. We all three thought her dead +or dying, and labored over her with the frightened thankfulness for one +another's living presence which always marks that dreadful moment. But +even as we fanned and rubbed, and cried out to one another to open the +windows and to bring water, the blue lips moved to a ghostly whisper: "Em, +listen--" The old woman went back to the nickname of their common youth. +"Em--your Ev'leen Ann--tried to drown herself--in the Mill Brook last +night ... That's what decided me--to--" And then we were plunged into +another desperate struggle with Death for the possession of the battered +old habitation of the dauntless soul before us. + +"Isn't there any hot water in the house?" cried Paul, and "Yes, yes; a +tea-kettle on the stove!" answered the woman who labored with us. Paul, +divining that she meant the kitchen, fled down-stairs. I stole a look at +Emma Hulett's face as she bent over the sister she had not seen in thirty +years, and I knew that Mrs. Purdon's battle was won. It even seemed that +she had won another skirmish in her never-ending war with death, for a +little warmth began to come back into her hands. + +When Paul returned with the tea-kettle, and a hot-water bottle had been +filled, the owner of the house straightened herself, assumed her rightful +position as mistress of the situation, and began to issue commands. "You +git right in the automobile, and go git the doctor," she told Paul. +"That'll be the quickest. She's better now, and your wife and I can keep +her goin' till the doctor gits here." + +As Paul left the room she snatched something white from a bureau-drawer, +stripped the worn, patched old cotton nightgown from the skeleton-like +body, and, handling the invalid with a strong, sure touch, slipped on a +soft, woolly outing-flannel wrapper with a curious trimming of zigzag +braid down the front. Mrs. Purdon opened her eyes very slightly, but shut +them again at her sister's quick command, "You lay still, Em'line, and +drink some of this brandy." She obeyed without comment, but after a pause +she opened her eyes again and looked down at the new garment which clad +her. She had that moment turned back from the door of death, but her first +breath was used to set the scene for a return to a decent decorum. + +"You're still a great hand for rick-rack work, Em, I see," she murmured in +a faint whisper. "Do you remember how surprised Aunt Su was when you made +up a pattern?" + +"Well, I hadn't thought of it for quite some time," returned Miss Hulett, +in exactly the same tone of everyday remark. As she spoke she slipped her +arm under the other's head and poked the pillow up to a more comfortable +shape. "Now you lay perfectly still," she commanded in the hectoring tone +of the born nurse; "I'm goin' to run down and make you up a good hot cup +of sassafras tea." + +I followed her down into the kitchen and was met by the same refusal to +be melodramatic which I had encountered in Ev'leen Ann. I was most anxious +to know what version of my extraordinary morning I was to give out to the +world, but hung silent, positively abashed by the cool casualness of the +other woman as she mixed her brew. Finally, "Shall I tell 'Niram--What +shall I say to Ev'leen Ann? If anybody asks me--" I brought out with +clumsy hesitation. + +At the realization that her reserve and family pride were wholly at the +mercy of any report I might choose to give, even my iron hostess faltered. +She stopped short in the middle of the floor, looked at me silently, +piteously, and found no word. + +I hastened to assure her that I would attempt no hateful picturesqueness +of narration. "Suppose I just say that you were rather lonely here, now +that Ev'leen Ann has left you, and that you thought it would be nice to +have your sister come to stay with you, so that 'Niram and Ev'leen Ann can +be married?" + +Emma Hulett breathed again. She walked toward the stairs with the steaming +cup in her hand. Over her shoulder she remarked, "Well, yes, ma'am; that +would be as good a way to put it as any, I guess." + +'Niram and Ev'leen Ann were standing up to be married. They looked very +stiff and self-conscious, and Ev'leen Ann was very pale. 'Niram's big +hands, bent in the crook of a man who handles tools, hung down by his new +black trousers. Ev'leen Ann's strong fingers stood out stiffly from one +another. They looked hard at the minister and repeated after him in low +and meaningless tones the solemn and touching words of the marriage +service. Back of them stood the wedding company, in freshly washed and +ironed white dresses, new straw hats, and black suits smelling of camphor. +In the background, among the other elders, stood Paul and Horace and I--my +husband and I hand in hand; Horace twiddling the black ribbon which holds +his watch, and looking bored. Through the open windows into the stuffiness +of the best room came an echo of the deep organ note of midsummer. + +"Whom God hath joined together--" said the minister, and the epitome of +humanity which filled the room held its breath--the old with a wonder upon +their life-scarred faces, the young half frightened to feel the stir of +the great wings soaring so near them. + +Then it was all over. 'Niram and Ev'leen Ann were married, and the rest of +us were bustling about to serve the hot biscuit and coffee and chicken +salad, and to dish up the ice-cream. Afterward there were no citified +refinements of cramming rice down the necks of the departing pair or tying +placards to the carriage in which they went away. Some of the men went out +to the barn and hitched up for 'Niram, and we all went down to the gate to +see them drive off. They might have been going for one of their Sunday +afternoon "buggy-rides" except for the wet eyes of the foolish women and +girls who stood waving their hands in answer to the flutter of Ev'leen +Ann's handkerchief as the carriage went down the hill. + +We had nothing to say to one another after they left, and began soberly to +disperse to our respective vehicles. But as I was getting into our car a +new thought suddenly struck me. + +"Why," I cried, "I never thought of it before! However in the world did +old Mrs. Purdon know about Ev'leen Ann--that night?" + +Horace was pulling at the door, which was badly adjusted and shut hard. He +closed it with a vicious slam. "_I_ told her," he said crossly. + + + + +A SAINT'S HOURS + + + In the still cold before the sun + HER LAUDS Her brothers and her sisters small + She woke, and washed and dressed each one. + + And through the morning hours all, + PRIME Singing above her broom, she stood + And swept the house from hall to hall. + + At noon she ran with tidings good + TERCE Across the field and down the lane + To share them with the neighborhood. + + Four miles she walked and home again, + SEXT To sit through half the afternoon + And hear a feeble crone complain; + + But when she saw the frosty moon + NONES And lakes of shadow on the hill + Her maiden dreams grew bright as noon. + + She threw her pitying apron frill + VESPERS Over a little trembling mouse + When the sleek cat yawned on the sill, + + In the late hours and drowsy house. + COMPLINE At last, too tired, beside her bed + She fell asleep ... her prayers half said. + + + + +IN MEMORY OF L.H.W. + + +He began life characteristically, depreciated and disparaged. When he was +a white, thin, big-headed baby, his mother, stripping the suds from her +lean arms, used to inveigh to her neighbors against his existence. "Wa'n't +it just like that _do_-less Lem Warren, not even to leave me foot-free +when he died, but a baby coming!" + +"_Do_-less," in the language of our valley, means a combination of +shiftless and impractical, particularly to be scorned. + +Later, as he began to have some resemblance to the appearance he was to +wear throughout life, her resentment at her marriage, which she considered +the one mistake of her life, kept pace with his growth. "Look at him!" she +cried to anyone who would listen. "Ain't that Warren, all over? Did any of +_my_ folks ever look so like a born fool? Shut your mouth, for the Lord's +sake, Lem, and maybe you won't scare folks quite so much." + +Lem had a foolish, apologetic grin with which he always used to respond to +these personalities, hanging his head to one side and opening and shutting +his big hands nervously. + +The tumble-down, two-roomed house in which the Warrens lived was across +the road from the schoolhouse, and Mrs. Warren's voice was penetrating. +Lem was accepted throughout his school-life at the home estimate. The +ugly, overgrown boy, clad in cast-off, misfit clothing was allowed to play +with the other children only on condition that he perform all the hard, +uninteresting parts of any game. Inside the schoolroom it was the same. + +He never learned to shut his mouth, and his speech was always halting and +indistinct, so that he not only did not recite well in class, but was +never in one of the school entertainments. He chopped the wood and brought +it in, swept the floor and made the fires, and then listened in grinning, +silent admiration while the others, arrayed in their best, spoke pieces +and sang songs. + +He was not "smart at his books" and indeed did not learn even to read very +fluently. This may have been partly because the only books he ever saw +were old school books, the use of which was given him free on account of +his mother's poverty. He was not allowed, of course to take them from the +schoolroom. But if he was not good at book-learning he was not without +accomplishments. He early grew large for his age, and strong from much +chopping of wood and drawing of water for his mother's washings, and he +was the best swimmer of all those who bathed in the cold, swift mountain +stream which rushes near the schoolhouse. The chief consequence of this +expertness was that in the summer he was forced to teach each succeeding +generation of little boys to swim and dive. They tyrannized over him +unmercifully--as, in fact, everyone did. + +Nothing made his mother more furious than such an exhibition of what she +called "Lem's meachin'ness." "Ain't you got no stand-up _in_ ye?" she was +wont to exhort him angrily. "If you don't look out for yourself in this +world, you needn't think anybody else is gunto!" + +The instructions in ethics he received at her hands were the only ones he +ever knew, for, up to his fourteenth year, he never had clothes +respectable enough to wear to church, and after that he had other things +to think of. Fourteen years is what we call in our State "over school +age." It was a date to which Mrs. Warren had looked forward with +eagerness. After that, the long, unprofitable months of enforced schooling +would be over, Lem would be earning steady wages, and she could sit back +and "live decent." + +It seemed to her more than she could bear, that, almost upon her son's +birthday, she was stricken down with paralysis. It was the first calamity +for which she could not hold her marriage responsible, and her bitterness +thereupon extended itself to fate in general. She cannot have been a +cheerful house-mate during the next ten years, when Lem was growing +silently to manhood. + +He was in demand as "help" on the farms about him, on account of his great +strength and faithfulness, although the farmers found him exasperatingly +slow and, when it was a question of animals, not always sure to obey +orders. He could be trusted to be kind to horses, unlike most hired men we +get nowadays, but he never learned "how to get the work out of their +hide." It was his way, on a steep hill with a heavy load, to lay down the +whip, get out, and put his own powerful shoulder to the wheel. If this +failed, he unloaded part of the logs and made two trips of it. The +uncertainty of his progress can be imagined. The busy and impatient farmer +and sawyer at the opposite ends of his route were driven to exhaust their +entire vocabulary of objurgation on him. He was, they used to inform him +in conclusion, "the most _do_-less critter the Lord ever made!" + +He was better with cows and sheep--"feller-feelin," his mother said +scornfully, watching him feed a sick ewe--and he had here, even in +comparison with his fellow-men, a fair degree of success. It was indeed +the foundation of what material prosperity he ever enjoyed. A farmer, +short of cash, paid him one year with three or four ewes and a ram. He +worked for another farmer to pay for the rent of a pasture and had, that +first year, as everybody admitted, almighty good luck with them. There +were several twin lambs born that spring and everyone lived. Lem used to +make frequent night visits during lambing-time to the pasture to make sure +that all was well. + +I remember as a little girl starting back from some village festivity late +one spring night and seeing a lantern twinkle far up on the mountainside. +"Lem Warren out fussin' with his sheep," some one of my elders remarked. +Later, as we were almost home, we saw the lantern on the road ahead of us +and stopped the horses, country-fashion, for an interchange of salutation. +Looking out from under the shawl in which I was wrapped, I saw his tall +figure stooping over something held under his coat. The lantern lighted +his weather-beaten face and the expression of his eyes as he looked down +at the little white head against his breast. + + "You're foolish, Lem," said +my uncle. "The ewe won't own it if you take it away so long the first +night." + +"I--I--know," stuttered Lem, bringing out the words with his usual +difficulty; "but it's mortal cold up on the mounting for little fellers! +I'll bring him up as a cosset." + +The incident reminded me vaguely of something I had read about, and it has +remained in my memory. + +After we drove on I remember that there were laughing speculations about +what language old Ma'am Warren would use at having another cosset brought +to the house. Not that it could make any more work for her, since Lem did +all that was done about the housekeeping. Chained to her chair by her +paralyzed legs, as she was, she could accomplish nothing more than to sit +and cavil at the management of the universe all day, until Lem came home, +gave her her supper, and put her to bed. + +Badly run as she thought the world, for a time it was more favorable to +her material prosperity than she had ever known it. Lem's flock of sheep +grew and thrived. For years nobody in our valley has tried to do much with +sheep because of dogs, and all Lem's neighbors told him that some fine +morning he would find his flock torn and dismembered. They even pointed +out the particular big collie dog who would most likely go "sheep-mad." +Lena's heavy face drew into anxious, grotesque wrinkles at this kind of +talk, and he visited the uplying pasture more and more frequently. + +One morning, just before dawn, he came, pale and shamefaced, to the house +of the owner of the collie. The family, roused from bed by his knocking, +made out from his speech, more incoherent than usual, that he was begging +their pardon for having killed their dog. "I saw wh-where he'd bit th-the +throats out of two ewes that w-was due to lamb in a few days and I guess +I--I--I must ha' gone kind o' crazy. They was ones I liked special. I'd +brought 'em up myself. They--they was all over blood, you know." + +They peered at him in the gray light, half-afraid of the tall apparition. +"How _could_ you kill a great big dog like Jack?" They asked wonderingly. + +In answer he held out his great hands and his huge corded arms, red with +blood up to the elbow. "I heard him worrying another sheep and I--I +just--killed him." + +One of the children now cried out: "But I shut Jackie up in the woodshed +last night!" + +Someone ran to open the door and the collie bounded out. Lem turned white +in thankfulness, "I'm _mortal_ glad," he stammered. "I felt awful +bad--afterward. I knew your young ones thought a sight of Jack." + +"But what dog did you kill?" they asked. + +Some of the men went back up on the mountain with him and found, torn in +pieces and scattered wide in bloody fragments, as if destroyed by some +great revenging beast of prey, the body of a big gray wolf. Once in a +while one wanders over the line from the Canada forests and comes down +into our woods, following the deer. + +The hard-headed farmers who looked on that savage scene drew back from the +shambling man beside them in the only impulse of respect they ever felt +for him. It was the one act of his life to secure the admiration of his +fellow-men; it was an action of which he himself always spoke in horror +and shame. + +Certainly his marriage aroused no admiration. It was universally regarded +as a most addle-pated, imbecile affair from beginning to end. One of the +girls who worked at the hotel in the village "got into trouble," as our +vernacular runs, and as she came originally from our district and had gone +to school there, everyone knew her and was talking about the scandal. Old +Ma'am Warren was of the opinion, spiritedly expressed, that "Lottie was a +fool not to make that drummer marry her. She could have, if she'd gone the +right way to work." But the drummer remained persistently absent. + +One evening Lem, starting for his sheep-pasture for his last look for the +night, heard someone crying down by the river and then, as he paused to +listen, heard it no more. He jumped from the bridge without stopping to +set down his lantern, knowing well the swiftness of the water, and caught +the poor cowardly thing as she came, struggling and gasping, down with the +current. He took her home and gave her dry clothes of his mother's. Then +leaving the scared and repentant child by his hearth, he set out on foot +for the minister's house and dragged him back over the rough country +roads. + +When Ma'am Warren awoke the next morning, Lem did not instantly answer her +imperious call, as he had done for so many years. Instead, a red-eyed girl +in one of Mrs. Warren's own nightgowns came to the door and said +shrinkingly: "Lem slept in the barn last night. He give his bed to me; but +he'll be in soon. I see him fussin' around with the cow." + +Ma'am Warren stared, transfixed with a premonition of irremediable evil. +"What you doin' here?" she demanded, her voice devoid of expression +through stupefaction. + +The girl held down her head. "Lem and I were married last night," she +said. + +Then Mrs. Warren found her voice. + +When Lem came in it was to a scene of the furious wrangling which was +henceforth to fill his house. + +"... to saddle himself with such trash as you!" his mother was saying +ragingly. + +His wife answered in kind, her vanity stung beyond endurance. "Well, you +can be sure he'd never have got him a wife any other way! Nobody but a +girl hard put to it would take up with a drivel-headed fool like Lem +Warren!" + +And then the bridegroom appeared at the door and both women turned their +attention to him. + +When the baby was born, Lottie was very sick. Lem took care of his mother, +his wife, and the new baby for weeks and weeks. It was at lambing-time, +and his flock suffered from lack of attention, although as much as he +dared he left his sick women and tended his ewes. He ran in debt, too, to +the grocery-stores, for he could work very little and earned almost +nothing. Of course the neighbors helped out, but it was no cheerful +morning's work to care for the vitriolic old woman, and Lottie was too +sick for anyone but Lem to handle. We did pass the baby around from house +to house during the worst of his siege, to keep her off Lem's hands; but +when Lottie began to get better it was haying-time; everybody was more +than busy, and the baby was sent back. + +Lottie lingered in semi-invalidism for about a year and then died, Lem +holding her hand in his. She tried to say something to him that last +night, so the neighbors who were there reported, but her breath failed her +and she could only lie staring at him from eyes that seemed already to +look from the other side of the grave. + +He was heavily in debt when he was thus left with a year-old child not his +own, but he gave Lottie a decent funeral and put up over her grave a stone +stating that she was "Charlotte, loved wife of Lemuel Warren," and that +she died in the eighteenth year of her life. He used to take the little +girl and put flowers on the grave, I remember. + +Then he went to work again. His sandy hair was already streaked with gray, +though he was but thirty. The doctor said the reason for this phenomenon +was the great strain of his year of nursing; and indeed throughout that +period of his life no one knew when he slept, if ever. He was always up +and dressed when anyone else was, and late at night we could look across +and see his light still burning and know that he was rubbing Lottie's back +or feeding little Susie. + +All that was changed now, of course. Susie was a strong, healthy child +who slept all through the night in her little crib by her stepfather's +corded bed, and in the daytime went everywhere he did. Wherever he "worked +out" he used to give her her nap wrapped in a horse blanket on the hay in +the barn; and he carried her in a sling of his own contrivance up to his +sheep-pasture. Old Ma'am Warren disliked the pretty, laughing child so +bitterly that he was loath to leave her at home; but when he was there +with her, for the first time he asserted himself against his mother, +bidding her, when she began to berate the child's parentage, to "be +still!" with so strange and unexpected an accent of authority that she was +quite frightened. + +Susie was very fond of her stepfather at first, but when she came of +school age, mixed more with the other children, and heard laughing, +contemptuous remarks about him, the frank and devouring egotism of +childhood made her ashamed of her affection, ashamed of him with his +uncouth gait, his mouth always sagging open, his stammering, ignorant +speech, which the other children amused themselves by mocking. Though he +was prospering again with his sheep, owned the pasture and his house now, +and had even built on another room as well as repairing the older part, he +spent little on his own adornment. It all went for pretty clothes for +Susie, for better food, for books and pictures, for tickets for Susie to +go to the circus and the county fair. Susie knew this and loved him by +stealth for it, but the intolerably sensitive vanity of her twelve years +made her wretched to be seen in public with him. + +Divining this, he ceased going with her to school-picnics and +Sunday-school parties, where he had been a most useful pack-animal, and, +dressing her in her best with his big calloused hands, watched her from +the window join a group of the other children. His mother predicted +savagely that his "spoilin' on that bad-blooded young one would bring her +to no good end," and when, at fifteen, Susie began to grow very pretty and +saucy and willful and to have beaux come to see her, the old woman exulted +openly over Lem's helpless anxiety. + +He was quite gray now, although not yet forty-five, and so stooped that he +passed for an old man. He owned a little farm, his flock of sheep was the +largest in the township, and Susie was expected to make a good marriage in +spite of her antecedents. + +And then Frank Gridley's oldest son, Ed, came back from business college +with store clothes and city hats and polished tan shoes, and began idling +about, calling on the girls. From the first, he and Susie ran together +like two drops of water. Bronson Perkins, a cousin of mine, a big, silent, +ruminative lad who had long hung about Susie, stood no show at all. One +night in county-fair week, Susie, who had gone to the fair with a crowd of +girl friends, was not at home at ten o'clock. Lem, sitting in his doorway +and watching the clock, heard the approach of the laughing, singing +straw-ride in which she had gone, with a long breath of relief; but the +big hay-wagon did not stop at his gate. + +He called after it in a harsh voice and was told that "Ed Gridley and she +went off to the hotel to get supper. He said he'd bring her home later." + +Lem went out to the barn, hitched up the faster of his two heavy +plow-horses and drove from his house to Woodville, eight miles and +up-hill, in forty-five minutes. When he went into the hotel, the clerk +told him that the two he sought had had supper served in a private room. +Lem ascertained which room and broke the door in with one heave of his +shoulders. Susie sprang up from the disordered supper-table and ran to him +like a frightened child, clinging to him desperately and crying out that +Ed scared her so! + +"It's all right now, Susie," he said gently, not looking at the man. +"Poppa's come to take you home." + +The man felt his dignity wounded. He began to protest boisterously and to +declare that he was ready to marry the girl--"_now_, this instant, if you +choose!" + +Lem put one arm about Susie. "I didn't come to make you marry her. I come +to keep you from doin' it," he said, speaking clearly for once in his +life. "Susie shan't marry a hound that'd do this." And as the other +advanced threateningly on him, he struck him a great blow across the mouth +that sent him unconscious to the ground. + +Then Lem went out, paid for the broken lock, and drove home with Susie +behind the foundered plow-horse. + +The next spring her engagement to Bronson Perkins was announced, though +everybody said they didn't see what use it was for folks to get engaged +that couldn't ever get married. Mr. Perkins, Bronson's father, was daft, +not enough to send him to the asylum, but so that he had to be watched all +the time to keep him from doing himself a hurt. He had a horrid way, I +remember, of lighting matches and holding them up to his bared arm until +the smell of burning flesh went sickeningly through the house and sent +someone in a rush to him. Of course it was out of the question to bring a +young bride to such a home. Apparently there were years of waiting before +them, and Susie was made of no stuff to endure a long engagement. + +As a matter of fact, they were married that fall, as soon as Susie could +get her things ready. Lem took old Mr. Perkins into the room Susie left +vacant. "'Twon't be much more trouble taking care of two old people than +one," he explained briefly. + +Ma'am Warren's comments on this action have been embalmed forever in the +delighted memories of our people. We have a taste for picturesque and +forceful speech. + +From that time we always saw the lunatic and the bent +shepherd together. The older man grew quieter under Lem's care than he had +been for years, and if he felt one of his insane impulses overtaking him, +ran totteringly to grasp his protector's arm until, quaking and shivering, +he was himself again. Lem used to take him up to the sheep-pasture for the +day sometimes. He liked it up there himself, he said, and maybe 'twould be +good for Uncle Hi. He often reported with pride that the old man talked as +sensible as anybody, "get him off where it's quiet." Indeed, when Mr. +Perkins died, six years later, we had forgotten that he was anything but +a little queer, and he had known many happy, lucid hours with his +grandchildren. + +Susie and Bronson had two boys--sturdy, hearty children, in whom Lem took +the deepest, shyest pride. He loved to take them off into the woods with +him and exulted in their quick intelligence and strong little bodies. +Susie got into the way of letting him take a good deal of the care of +them. + +It was Lem who first took alarm about the fall that little Frank had, down +the cellar stairs. He hurt his spine somehow--our local doctor could not +tell exactly how--and as the injury only made him limp a little, nobody +thought much about it, until he began to have difficulty in walking. Then +Lem sent for a doctor from Rutland who, as soon as he examined the child, +stuck out his lower lip and rubbed his chin ominously. He pronounced the +trouble something with a long name which none of us had ever heard, and +said that Frank would be a hopeless cripple if it, were not cured soon. +There was, he said, a celebrated doctor from Europe now traveling in this +country who had a wonderful new treatment for this condition. But under +the circumstances--he looked about the plain farm sitting-room--he +supposed that was out of the question. + +"What did the doctor from foreign parts ask?" queried Bronson, and, being +informed of some of the customary prices for major operations, fell back +hopeless. Susie, her pretty, childish face drawn and blanched into a wan +beauty, put her arms about her sick little son and looked at her +stepfather. He had never failed her. + +He did not fail her now. He sold the land he had accumulated field by +field; he sold the great flock of sheep, every one of which he could call +by name; he mortgaged the house over the protesting head of his now +bedridden mother; he sold the horse and cow, and the very sticks of +furniture from the room where Susie had grown up and where the crazy +grandfather of Susie's children had known a peaceful old age and death. +Little Frank was taken to New York to the hospital to have the great +surgeon operate on him--he is there yet, almost completely recovered and +nearly ready to come home. + +Back in Hillsboro, Lem now began life all over again, hiring out humbly to +his neighbors and only stipulating that he should have enough free time to +take care of his mother. Three weeks ago she had her last stroke of +paralysis and, after lying speechless for a few days, passed away, grim to +the last, by the expression in her fierce old eyes. + +The day after her funeral Lem did not come to work as he was expected. We +went over to his house and found, to our consternation, that he was not +out of bed. + +"Be ye sick, Lem?" asked my uncle. + +He looked at us over the bedclothes with his old foolish, apologetic +smile. "Kind o' lazy, I guess," he whispered, closing his eyes. + +The doctor was put out by the irregularity of the case. + +"I can't make out anything _really_ the trouble!" he said. "Only the +wheels don't go round as fast as they ought. Call it failing heart action +if you want a label." + +The wheels ran more and more slowly until it was apparent to all of us +that before long they would stop altogether. Susie and Bronson were in New +York with little Frank, so that Lem's care during his last days devolved +on the haphazard services of the neighbors. He was out of his head most of +the time, though never violent, and all through the long nights lay flat +on his back, looking at the ceiling with bright, blank eyes, driving his +ox-team, skidding logs, plowing in stony ground and remembering to favor +the off-horse whose wind wasn't good, planting, hoeing, tending his sheep, +and teaching obstinate lambs to drink. He used quaint, coaxing names for +these, such as a mother uses for her baby. He was up in the +mountain-pasture a good deal, we gathered, and at night, from his constant +mention of how bright the stars shone. And sometimes, when he was in +evident pain, his delusion took the form that Susie, or the little boys, +had gone up with him, and got lost in the woods. + +I was on duty the night he died. We thought a change was near, because he +had lain silent all day, and we hoped he would come to himself when he +awoke from this stupor. Near midnight he began to talk again, and I could +not make out at first whether he was still wandering or not. "Hold on +hard, Uncle Hi," I heard him whisper. + +A spoon fell out of my hand and clattered against a plate. He gave a great +start and tried to sit up. "Yes, mother--coming!" he called hoarsely, and +then looked at me with his own eyes. "I must ha' forgot about mother's +bein' gone," he apologized sheepishly. + +I took advantage of this lucid interval to try to give him some medicine +the doctor had left. "Take a swallow of this," I said, holding the glass +to his lips. + +"What's it for?" he asked. + +"It's a heart stimulant," I explained. "The doctor +said if we could get you through to-night you have a +good chance." + +His face drew together in grotesque lines of anxiety. "Little Frank +worse?" + +"Oh, no, he's doing finely." + +"Susie all right?" + +"Why, yes," I said wonderingly. + +"Nothing the matter with her other boy?" + +"Why, no, no," I told him. "Everybody's all right Here, just take this +down." + +He turned away his head on the pillow and murmured something I did not +catch. When I asked him what he said, he smiled feebly as in deprecation +of his well-known ridiculous ways. "I'm just as much obliged to you," he +said, "but if everybody's all right, I guess I won't have any medicine." +He looked at me earnestly. "I'm--I'm real tired," he said. + +It came out in one great breath--apparently his last, for he did not move +after that, and his ugly, slack-mouthed face was at once quite still. Its +expression made me think of the time I had seen it as a child, by +lantern-light, as he looked down at the new-born lamb on his breast. + + + + +IN NEW NEW ENGLAND + +I. + + +This is a true story, for I have heard it ever so many times from my +grandmother. She heard it from her grandmother, who told it about her own +mother; and it began and ended right here in our village of Hillsboro, +Vermont, in 1762. + +Probably you think at once of the particular New England old town you +know, and imagine Hillsboro of that date as an elm-shaded, well-kept +street, with big, white, green-shuttered houses, full of shining mahogany +furniture and quaint old silver. But my grandmother gives an entirely +different picture of old times in this corner of Vermont. Conditions here, +at that time, were more as they had been in Connecticut and Massachusetts +a hundred and forty years before. Indeed, the Pilgrim Fathers endured no +more hardships as pioneers in a wild, new country than did the first +Vermonters. + +Hillsboro had been settled only about fifteen years before this story +begins, and the people had had to make for themselves whatever they +possessed, since there was no way to reach our dark, narrow valley except +by horseback over the ridge of the Green Mountains. There were no fine +houses, because there was no sawmill. There were little, low log cabins of +two rooms each, and the furniture, such as it was, was rough-hewn out of +native woods. Our great-grandfathers were too busy clearing the forest and +planting their crops to spend much time designing or polishing table-legs. + +And the number of things they did not have! No stoves, no matches, no + books, no lamps, and very few candles; no doctors, no schools, no clocks, +and so nearly no money that what they had is not worth mentioning But the +fact that there were no schools did not mean that life was one long +vacation for the children. + +"No, indeedy!" as grandmother always says emphatically. + +In the urgent bustle of pioneer life, the children could not be spared +from work for long school-hours. They picked up what they could from the +elders of their families, and worked, as grandmother puts it, "as tight as +they could leg it" from morning to night. Everybody else worked that same +way, so the children did not know that they were being abused. Indeed, +grandmother seemed to doubt if they were. + +At any rate, they all ran about as fast as ants in an ant-hill, and the +busiest of all was sixteen-year-old Hannah Sherwin. Since she was my +grandmother's grand mother's mother, at last the story is really begun. + +Hannah had been a baby of eighteen months when the Sherwins came over the +mountains from the old home in Connecticut, so she knew nothing about any +other way of living than what she saw in rough little Hillsboro. But her +elder sister, Ann Mary, who was a tall girl of nineteen, remembered--or +thought she remembered--big houses that were made all over of sawn planks, +and chairs that were so shiny you could see your face in them or else +stuffed and cushioned in brocade as soft--"as soft as a feather tick!" +she told Hannah. + +Her listener, having no idea of what brocade might be, and taking the +feather-tick simile literally, must have imagined a very queer kind of +chair. + +Hannah was a short, fair, rosy-cheeked child, who passed for good-looking +enough; but Ann Mary was slender and dark and a real beauty, although +Hillsboro people did not realize it. She looked fragile, as if she could +not do much hard work and that is always a serious blemish in feminine +beauty to the eyes of pioneers. + +So far in her life she had not been forced to do any hard work, because +Hannah had done it all for her. Their mother had died when they were both +little girls, and their father was so busy outdoors, every minute he was +awake, that, for all his affection for them, he did not know or care which +of his daughters cooked and washed, and swept and spun, so long as these +things were done. And Hannah delighted to do them, because she adored Ann +Mary, and could not bear to have her sister troubled with any of the +coarse tasks which made up her own happy, busy day. + +Now, all that grandmother ever tells me about the beginning of this story +is that when the lovely Ann Mary was nineteen years old she "fell into a +decline," as they called it. She grew pale and thin, never smiled, could +not eat or sleep, and lay listlessly on the bed all day, looking sadly at +Hannah as she bustled about. + +A great many girls in those days fell into declines and died. Of course, +nobody knows the reason for most of the cases, but it seems as plain as +the nose on my face that Ann Mary's sickness was entirely Hannah's fault +for not letting her sister do her share of the household work. There she +was--pretty and ignorant and idle--with nothing to interest her, and +nothing to look forward to, for in those days marriage was the only thing +a girl could look forward to, and in the workaday little world of pioneer +Hillsboro nobody would dare to think of marrying a girl who looked like a +tea-rose and did not know how to make soft soap. No wonder she lost her +appetite! + +It might not have gone any further, however, if Hannah, distracted with +anxiety, had not run to all the old women in town about her sick sister. +Every one of them had had a niece, or a daughter--or at least a +granddaughter--who had died in a decline; so, of course, they knew just +what to do for Ann Mary, and they came and did it. + +Then poor Ann Mary was sick, indeed, I promise you! They shut her up in +the inner room of the little log house, although it was the end of May, +and the weather was fit for the angels. They darkened the one window, and +kept the door closed, and put the sick girl to bed between two mountains +of feathers. They gave her "sut" (soot) tea and "herb-drink" and steeped +butternut bark, and goodness knows what else; and they tiptoed in and out, +and stared at her mournfully, and shook their heads and pursed up their +lips, until it is a wonder to me that Ann Mary did not die at once. + + + + +II. + + +Very likely she would have died, if one day in June there had not come +through Hillsboro a trader on his way from "over the mountain" up to +Canada, looking for furs. That morning, when Hannah got up, she found the +fire in their big fireplace completely extinguished. She snatched up the +warming-pan--not a polished brass one with a smooth, turned handle, like +those you see in Colonial museums, but a common iron pan, fastened to a +hickory sapling; and she went as fast as she could, without running--for +girls never ran "before folks" in those days--over to the nearest +neighbor, to "borrow a handful of fire." + +The neighbors were just getting up, and their fire was too low to spare +any, so Hannah had to wait until some hardwood sticks got well to burning. +While she waited, the trader, who was staying overnight in that house, +went on with a long story about an Indian herb-doctor, of whose cures he +had heard marvelous tales, three days' journey back. It seemed that the +Indian's specialty was curing girls who had gone into a decline, and that +he had never failed in a single case he had undertaken. + +You can imagine how Hannah's loving, anxious heart leaped up, and how +eagerly she questioned the trader about the road to the settlement where +the Indian lived. It was in a place called Heath Falls, on the Connecticut +River, the trader told her; but he could not find words strong enough to +advise her against trying the trip. + +The trail lay through thick woods, filled with all the terrors of early +New Englanders--bears and wolves and catamounts. And when she got to Heath +Falls, she would find it a very different place from Hillsboro, where +people took you in gladly for the sake of the news you brought from the +outside world. No, the folks in Heath Falls were very grand. They traveled +themselves, and saw more strangers than a little. You had to pay good +money for shelter and food, and, of course, the doctor did not cure for +nothing. He was a kind man, the trader, and he did his best to keep Hannah +from a wildly foolish enterprise. + +But his best was not good enough. She went home and looked at her poor Ann +Mary, as white as a snowdrift, her big dark eyes ringed with black +circles, and Hannah knew only two things in the world--that there was a +doctor who could cure her sister, and that she must get her to him. She +was only a child herself; she had no money, no horses, no experience; but +nothing made any difference to her. Ann Mary should go to the doctor, if +Hannah had to carry her every step! + +A spirit like that knows no obstacles. Although Hillsboro held up hands +of horror, and implored John Sherwin to assert his parental authority and +forbid his girl such a rash, unmaidenly, bold undertaking, the end of it +was that Hannah got her father's permission. He loved his daughters +dearly, did John Sherwin, and, although he could not see how the thing was +to be managed, he told Hannah she might go if she could. + +Now it happened that the wife of one of their neighbors had long coveted +the two great feather-beds between which Ann Mary lay sweltering. Hannah +went to her, and said that she could have them if she would loan her son, +a sturdy boy of fourteen, and two horses, for the trip to Heath Falls. The +neighbor-woman hesitated; but when Hannah threw in the two pewter +candlesticks, which came from her mother's family, she could resist no +longer. In her own family they had only spike-iron candlesticks, and it +was her one chance of acquiring a pair of fine ones. So she wheedled her +husband into agreeing to the bargain; and there was Hannah with her +transportation provided. + +As soon as it was definitely settled that she was to make the long +journey, people began to; take rather a proud interest in her grit. As +everybody liked her, they gave what they could toward helping her get +ready--all but the old women, who were furious that Ann Mary was to be +taken away from their care. + +There was in town a saddle with a pillion back of it, and this was loaned +for Remember Williams, the neighbor's boy, to ride and carry Ann Mary +behind him. Hannah folded a blanket across her horse's back, and sat on +sideways as best she could. Behind her was a big bundle of extra clothing, +and food, and an iron pot--or, as she called it, a "kittle"--for cooking +their noonday meals. Her father brought out all the money he had--one +large four-shilling piece--and Hannah was sure that so much wealth as that +would buy anything in the world. The old women had prophesied that Ann +Mary would not be strong enough to sit upon a horse, even clinging to +Remember Williams's thick waist; but, judging from what grandmother says, +I surmise that Ann Mary, without being really aware of it, was a little +sick of being sick. At any rate, she took a great interest in the +preparations. She asked over and over again about the girls the +herb-doctor had cured; and when the day for their departure came she was +quite pleased and excited, and walked out through the crowd of sympathetic +neighbors. To be sure, she leaned weakly on her father, but there was a +little faint color in her cheeks. + +"A very bad sign!" the old women whispered. "She'll never live the journey +out. If only Hannah were not so headstrong and obstinate! But then you +can't blame the child for it--all the Sherwins are that way!" + +As for Ann Mary, she sat up quite straight and looked as pretty as +possible when the little company rode off. After all, she had been +"declining" only about a month, and people had vigorous constitutions in +those days. + +You may think it odd that she was not afraid to make the long journey, but +there are advantages in being of a dependent nature. Hannah had always +done everything for her, and had kept her safe from harm. Hannah was with +her now, so there was nothing to fear. She left all that to Hannah, who +did it, poor child, with the greatest thoroughness! + +Now that the excitement of overcoming Hillsboro opposition was passed; now +that they were really started, with herself as sole leader and guide, +responsibility fell like a black cloud upon her young heart. There was +nothing she did _not_ fear--for Ann Mary, of course--from wolves and +Indians to fatigue or thunderstorms. + +A dozen times that day, as they paced slowly over the rough trail, she +asked her sister anxiously if she were not too hot or too cold, or too +tired or too faint, imitating as best she could the matter and manner of +the doctoring old women. However, Ann Mary surprised herself, as well as +Hannah, by being none of the uncomfortable things that her sister kept +suggesting to her she might very well be. It was perfect June weather, +they were going over some of the loveliest country in the world, and Ann +Mary was out of doors for the first time in four weeks or more. + +She "kept up" wonderfully well, and they made good time, reaching by dusk, +as they had hoped to do, a farmer's house on the downward dip of the +mountain to the east. Here, their story being told, they were hospitably +received, and Ann Mary was clapped into the airless inner room and fed +with gruel and dipped toast. But she had had fresh air and exercise all +day, and a hearty meal of cold venison and corn bread at their noonday +rest, so she slept soundly. + +The next day they went across a wide, hilly valley, up another range of +low mountains, and down on the other side. The country was quite strange +to them, and somehow, before they knew it, they were not on the road +recommended to them by their hosts of the night before. Night overtook +them when they were still, as the phrase has come down in our family, "in +a miserable, dismal place of wood." + +Hannah's teeth chattered for very terror as she saw their plight; but she +spoke cheerfully to Ann Mary and the boy, who looked to her for courage, +and told them that they were to have the fun of sleeping under the stars. + +Boys were the same then as now, and Remember Williams was partly shivering +with dread of bears and Indians and things, and partly glowing with +anticipatory glory of telling the Hillsboro boys all about the adventure. +Hannah soothed the first and inflamed the second emotion until she had +Remember strutting about gathering firewood, as brave as a lion. + +Very probably Ann Mary would have been frightened to death, if she had not +been so sleepy from her long day out of doors that she could not keep her +eyes open. And then, of course, everything must be all right, because +there was Hannah! + +This forlorn terrified little captain wrapped the invalid in all the extra +clothing, managed to get a fire started, and cooked a supper of hot +cornmeal mush in her big iron "kittle." Ann Mary ate a great deal of this, +sweetened as it was with maple sugar crumbled from the big lump Hannah Had +brought along and immediately afterward she fell sound asleep. + +Soon the soft night air of June was too strong a soporific for Remember's +desire to keep awake and hear the catamounts scream, as he had heard they +did in those woods. Hannah was left quite alone to keep watch and to tend +the fire, her heart in her mouth, jumping and starting at every shadow +cast by the flames. + +She knew that wild beasts would not come near them if a big fire burned +briskly; and all that night she piled on the wood, scraped away the ashes, +and watched Ann Mary to see that she did not grow chilly. Hannah does not +seem to have been much inclined to talk about her own feelings, and there +is no record of what she suffered that night; but I think we may be sure +that it seemed a long time to her before the sky began to whiten in the +east. + +As soon as she could see plainly, she cooked a hearty breakfast of broiled +bacon and fried mush, and wakened her two charges to eat it. They made a +very early start, and there is nothing more to tell about their journey +except that at about seven o'clock that evening the two tired +horses crept into the main street of Heath Falls, and a very much excited +girl asked the first passer-by where the Indian herb-doctor lived. + +They found him in a little old house of logs--the only one that looked +natural to them in the prosperous settlement. When Hannah knocked at the +door, he opened it himself. He was a small, very old, dark-brown, and +prodigiously wrinkled individual, who held up a candle and looked at +Hannah with the most impassive eyes she had ever seen--like little pools +of black water unstirred by any wind. + +Hannah's breath came fast. + + +"Is this the Indian herb-doctor?" she asked. + +"Aye," he answered. + +When you remember that Hannah was only a little girl, and that she thought +she had come to the end of a nightmare of responsibility, it will not +surprise you to learn that she now began to cry a little, out of +agitation. + +"I have brought Ann Mary," she said, "my sister, to be cured. She is in a +decline. Will you cure her?" + +The herb-doctor showed no surprise. He set the candle down on the shelf, +and went out in the bright starlight to where Ann Mary clung to Remember +Williams's waist. When he put up his brown old hands to her, she slid down +into them and upon the ground. He still held one wrist, and this he +continued to do for some moments, looking at the white, drooping girl +without moving a muscle of his solemn old face. Then he turned to Hannah, +who had stopped crying and was holding her breath in suspense. + +"Aye," he said. + +At this Hannah caught her sister around the neck, sobbing joyfully: + +"He will cure you, Ann Mary; he will cure you!" Then she asked the doctor: +"And how long will it take? We can stay but a few days, for the boy and +the horses must get back soon." + +The herb-doctor considered for a moment. + +"It is now the end of June month. By the end of September month she will +be cured--not before." + +I think I know that that was a black moment for Hannah. She said nothing +at all, but the sick girl fell to weeping. + +"But, Master Doctor, we cannot stay--we cannot! And now, after all, I +shall not be cured!" + +Hannah could not bear to see her sweet Ann Mary in tears, and she cried +out stoutly: + +"Yes, you shall, too! Remember can take the horses back without us, and +tell our father. Somehow--I can earn--oh, we _must_!" Then a new fear +sprang into her heart. "Oh, sir," she cried to the doctor, "is it dear, +your cure? Must one have much silver for it?" + +The stolid little old gnome did not look toward her or change his position +as he said: + +"It costs time--no silver," He moved toward the house. "Go to the +minister's to-night," he called from his doorstep. "It is the house of +brick." Just before he closed his door he added: "Come here to-morrow +morning." + +When they reached the great brick house, the other two hung back, afraid +of so much grandeur; but three days of travel through the dangers of a +primitive forest had hardened Hannah to the lesser fear of strange people. +To the old minister and his wife she told their story very briefly, with a +desperate kind of self-possession, so concerned about poor Ann Mary, tired +and hungry, waiting out in the night air, that she did not remember to be +afraid of the minister's fine linen and smooth, white hands, or of the +laces and dark silk of his handsome, white-haired wife, or of the gold +braid and red coat of a dark young man with a quick eye who sat in the +corner. + +The young man said nothing until after the old people had gone out to +bring in the wanderers. Then: + +"You must be fond, indeed, of your sister, my little lass," he said +kindly. + +"Sir," said Hannah, "you should _see_ my sister!" + +And just then he did see her. Ann Mary came into the brightly lighted +room, her eyes wide and dark from the dusk outside, her long black hair, +shaken loose from its fastenings, curling up beautifully with the dew, and +making a frame for the pearl-like oval of her face. I have seen a +miniature of Ann Mary in her youth, and I can guess how she must have +looked to the young officer that evening. + +The minister's wife gave them all a hot supper, and hurried them off to +bed with motherly authority. For the first time in her life, Hannah found +herself between linen sheets. She tried to call her sister's attention to +this astonishing magnificence, but fell asleep in the middle of the +sentence, and did not wake until late the next morning. Ann Mary had been +awake for some time, but did not dare get up, so overcome was she by +shyness and reverence for the grandeur of the room and of her hosts. + +"Oh, Hannah! Would it not be like heaven to live always in such a place?" +she said. + +Hannah could not stop to be shy, or to think about how she would like +mahogany beds all the time. She had too much on her mind. They must go at +once to the herb-doctor's--they should have been there before--and they +must hurry through their breakfast. It is, perhaps, worthy of note that +both girls came down the stairs backward, ladders having been, up to that +time, their only means of reaching elevations. + +During their breakfast, the dark young man, who turned out to be a cousin +of the minister's, sat in a corner, playing with his dog's ears, and +looking at Ann Mary until she was quite abashed, although the younger +girl, at whom he glanced smilingly from time to time, thought he looked +very good-natured. After this, Hannah sent Remember Williams home with the +horses, giving him fresh and elaborate directions about the right road to +take. Then she marched Ann Mary to the herb-doctor's. + +"Here, Master Necronsett," she said, "here is Ann Mary to be cured!" + + + + +III. + + +When the doctor told them about his system, Hannah did not like the sound +of it at all. Not a drop of "sut tea" or herb-drink was mentioned, but the +invalid was to eat all the hearty food Hannah could earn for her. Then, so +far from sleeping in a decently tight room, their bed was to stand in a +little old shed, set up against Master Necronsett's house. One side of the +shed was gone entirely, so that the wind and the sun would come right in +on poor, delicate Ann Mary, and there was only an awning of woven +bark-withes to let down when it rained. + +But even that was not the worst. Hannah listened with growing suspicion +while Master Necronsett explained the rest of it. All his magic consisted +in the use of a "witch plant," the whole virtue of which depended on one +thing. The sick person must be the only one to handle or care for it, from +the seed up to the mature plant. + +He took them up to his garret, where row after row of dried plants hung, +heavy with seed-pods, and with the most careful precautions to avoid +touching them himself, or having Hannah do so, he directed Ann Mary to fill +a two-quart basin with the seed. + +"That will plant a piece of ground about six paces square," he said. "That +will raise enough seed for you." + +"But who is to dig the ground, and plant, and weed, and water, and all?" +asked Hannah. "If I am to be earning all day, when--" + +"The sick person must do all," said the herb-doctor. + +Hannah could not believe her senses. Her Ann Mary, who could not even +brush her own hair without fatigue, she to take a spade in her-- + +"Oh, Master Doctor," she cried, "can I not do it for her?" + +The old Indian turned his opaque black eyes upon her. + +"Nay," he said dryly, "you cannot." + +And with that he showed them where the witch garden was to be, close +before their little sleeping-hut. That was why, he explained, the patient +must spend all her time there, so that by night, as well as by day, she +could absorb the magical virtues of the growing plant Hannah thought those +were the first sensible words she had heard him say. + +She had promised the minister's wife to be back at a certain hour to see +about employment, so she dared not stay longer, though it was with a +sinking heart that she left her sister to that grim old savage, with his +brusque lack of sympathy. However, the minister's wife reassured her with +stories of all the other girls from far and near whom he had cured by that +same foolish, silly method; so Hannah turned all her energies upon the +spinning which a neighbor-woman had set her to do. + +Hired workers have been the same from the days of the Psalmist down to our +own, and Hannah, putting her whole heart into her work, accomplished, so +her surprised employer told her, twice as much spinning as any +serving-girl she had ever hired. + +"And excellent good thread, too!" she said, examining it. + +If Hannah kept up to _that_, she added, she could have all the work she +had time for. She gave the little girl two pennies--two real pennies, the +first money Hannah had ever earned. With a head spinning with triumph, she +calculated that at that rate she could earn fourpence a day! + +She spent a farthing for some fish a little boy brought up from the river, +and a halfpenny for some fresh-baked bread, and a part of her precious +four-shilling piece for an iron fry-pan, or "spider." Laden with these, +she hurried back to see how Ann Mary had endured the old doctor's +roughness. She found her sister very tired, but, proudly anxious to show a +little spot, perhaps six feet; square, which she had spaded up with +intervals of rest. + +"The herb-doctor says that I have done well, and that I will finish the +spading in a week, or perhaps even less," she said: "and I _like_ Master +Necronsett! He is a good old man, and I know that he will cure me. He +makes me feel very rested when he comes near." + +Hannah felt a little pang to think that her sister should not miss her own +brooding care, but when Ann Mary cried out joyfully at the sight of the +food, "Oh, how hungry I am!" everything but pleasure was immediately +swept away from the little sister's loyal heart. + +They cooked their supper--Hannah still had some of the cornmeal and the +flitch of bacon their Hillsboro friends had given them--and went to bed +directly on the queer, hard bed, with a straw tick and no feathers, which +Dr. Necronsett had prescribed, warmly wrapped up in the pair of heavy +Indian blankets he had loaned them. They were so close to the house that +they heard the old doctor moving around inside, and they could see the +light of his candle, so they were not afraid. + +Indeed, the two sisters were so sleepy that even if they had been timorous +it could scarcely have kept them from the deep slumber into which they +fell at once, and which lasted until the sun shone in on them the next +morning. + + + + +IV. + + +That was the first day of that wonderful summer, and most of the days +which followed were like it. Every morning Hannah rose early, made a +little open fire, cooked their breakfast, and was off to her spinning. +Just as her first employer had said, there was no lack of work for a +spinner who worked as fast and yet as carefully as if it were for herself. +In Hannah's thread there were never any thin places which broke as soon as +the weaver stretched it on the loom, nor yet any thick lumps where the +wool had insisted, in grandmother's phrase, "on going all kim-kam." + +At first, she went about to people's houses; but, seeing her so neat and +careful, the minister's wife loaned her one of her own wheels, and the +minister had an old granary cleared out for her workroom. Here, day after +day, the wheel whirred unceasingly, like a great bee, and Hannah stepped +back and forth, back and forth, on her tireless young feet, only glancing +out through the big door at the bright glories of the summer weather, and +never once regretting her imprisonment. + +Indeed, she said, all her life afterward, that she was so happy, that +summer, it seemed heaven itself could hold no greater joy for her. Of +course, first always in her thoughts was Ann Mary, pulling weeds and +tending her witch garden, and growing plump and rosy, and so strong that +she laughed and ran about and sang as never in her life before. + +Hannah put very little faith in the agricultural part of the cure. She +thought that very probably it was nothing more than a blind, and that +Master Necronsett came out at night and said charms and things over Ann +Mary as she slept. However that might be, she could have kissed his funny, +splay feet every time she looked at her sister's bright eyes and red lips; +and when she thought of the joy it would be to her father, she could have +kissed his ugly, wrinkled old face. + +But, besides her joy over her sister's health, the summer was for Hannah +herself a continual feast of delight Captain Winthrop, the minister's +young cousin, was staying in Heath Falls to recover from an arrow-wound +got in a skirmish with the Indians in Canada. He was very idle, and very +much bored by the dullness of the little town, which seemed such a +metropolis to the two girls from Hillsboro. One day, attracted by Hannah's +shining face of content, he lounged over to the step of her granary, and +began to talk to her through the open doorway. + +It happened to come out that the little spinner, while she knew her +letters from having worked them into a sampler, and could make shift to +write her name, could not read or write, and had never had the slightest +instruction in any sort of book-learning. Thereupon the young officer +good-naturedly proposed to be her teacher, if Hannah would like. + +Would she _like_! She turned to him a look of such utter ecstasy that he +was quite touched, and went off at: once to get an old "A-B, ab" book. + +That was the beginning of a new world to Hannah. She took her young +instructor's breath away by the avidity with which she devoured the +lessons he set her. By the rapt air of exultation with which Hannah +recited them, stepping back and forth by her wheel, you would have +thought that "c-a-t, cat; r-a-t, rat," was the finest poetry ever written. +And in no time at all it was no longer "c-a-t, cat," but "parallel," +and "phthisis," and such orthographical atrocities, on which the eager +scholar was feeding; for, Hannah's mind was as fresh as her round, rosy +face, and as vigorous as her stout little body. + +Captain Winthrop had several reasons for being interested in Hannah; and +when he found her so quick at her spelling, he said he was willing to +occupy some of his enforced leisure in giving her instruction in other +branches. Hannah fell to at this feast of knowledge like a young bear in a +bee-tree. + +But there were some difficulties. Like the spelling, arithmetic was all +very well, since she could do that in her head while she spun; but reading +and writing were different. She would not stop her work for them, and so +Captain Winthrop fell into the habit of going over to Master Necronsett's +house in the afternoon with his books, and being there, all ready for a +lesson, when Hannah came hurrying back after she had finished her day's +"stint." As long as there was light to see, she pored over her writing and +reading, while the young officer sat by, ready to help, and talking in a +low tone to Ann Mary. + +After a time there grew up a regular routine for Captain Winthrop. In the +mornings he went out to the granary and read aloud to Hannah from a book +called "The Universal Preceptor; being a General Grammar of Art, Science, +and Useful Knowledge." Out of this he taught her about "mechanical powers" +and "animated nature" and astronomy and history and geography--almost +anything that came to his hand. + +Up in our garret we have the very book he used, and modern research and +science have proved that there is scarcely a true word in it. But don't +waste any pity on Hannah for having such a mistaken teacher, for it is +likely enough, don't you think, that research and science a hundred years +from now will have proved that there is scarcely a word of truth in our +school-books of to-day? It really doesn't seem to matter much. + +At any rate, those were the things of which Captain Winthrop talked to +Hannah in the mornings. In the afternoon, he went over to an apple-tree by +the edge of the witch garden, and there he found Ann Mary; and what he +talked to her about nobody knew but herself, although Master Necronsett +passed back and forth so often in his herb-gathering that it is likely he +may have caught something. It seems not improbable, from what happened +afterward, that the young man was telling the young girl things which did +not come out of a book, and which are consequently safe from science and +research, for they are certainly as true to-day as they were then. + +Once, in her anxiety to have everything exactly right for her sister, +Hannah asked Master Necronsett about Captain Winthrop's being there so +much. + +"Master Doctor, will not Captain Winthrop absorb, perchance, some of the +great virtue of the plant away from Ann Mary? Will he not hurt her cure?" + +Grandmother never says so, but I have always imagined that even that +carven image of an old aborigine must, have smiled a little as he told +her: + +"Nay, the young man will not hurt your sister's cure." + +At the end of September, something tremendously exciting happened to +Hannah. She had been so busy learning the contents of that old calf-bound +book that she had never noticed how a light seemed to shine right through +Ann Mary's lovely face every time Captain Winthrop looked at her. The +little student was the most surprised girl in the world when the young +soldier told her, one morning in the granary, that he wanted her sister +to marry him, and that Ann Mary wanted it, too, if Hannah would allow it. + +He laughed a little as he said this last, but he looked anxiously at her, +for Ann Mary, who was as sweet as she was pretty and useless, had felt it +to be a poor return for Hannah's devotion, now after all, just to go off +and desert her. She had said that, if Hannah thought she ought to, she +would go back to Hillsboro, and they would have to wait ever so long. So +now Captain Winthrop looked very nervously at Ann Mary's little sister. + +But he did not know Hannah. She gave a little cry, as if someone had +stabbed her, turned very pale, and, leaving her wheel still whirling, she +ran like the wind toward Dr. Necronsett's. She wanted to see her sister; +she wanted to _see_ if this---- + +Close to the minister's house she met Ann Mary, who could not wait any +longer, and was coming to meet her. After one glimpse of that beautiful, +radiant face, Hannah fell a weeping for very joy that her dear Ann Mary +was so happy, and was to marry the grand and learned and goodly Captain +Winthrop. + +There was not a thought in Hannah's mind, then or later, that she must +lose Ann Mary herself. Grandmother explains here that the truth is that a +heart like Hannah's cannot lose anything good; and perhaps that is so. + +Thus, hand in hand, laughing and crying together, the two girls came back +to the granary, where Ann Mary's lover took her in his arms and kissed her +many times out of light-heartedness that Hannah would put no obstacle in +the way. This made little Hannah blush and feel very queer. She looked +away, and there was her wheel still languidly stirring a little. Dear me! +How many, many times have I heard the next detail in the story told! + +"And, without really, so to speak, sensing what she was doing, didn't she +put her hand to the rim and start it up again? And when the other two +looked around at her, there she was, spinning and smiling, with the tears +in her eyes. It had all happened in less time than it takes a spin-wheel +to run down." + +After that day things happened fast. Captain Winthrop rode off over the +mountains to Hillsboro, to ask John Sherwin if he might marry his +daughter; and when he came back, there was John Sherwin himself riding +along beside him, like an old friend. And when he saw his two dear +daughters--Ann Mary, who had gone away like a lily, now blooming like a +rose, and Hannah, stout little Hannah, with her honest blue eyes +shining--when he saw his two daughters, I say--well, I'm sure I have no +idea what happened, for at this point grandmother always takes off her +glasses, and sniffs hard, and wipes her eyes before she can go on. + +So there was a wedding at the minister's house, and everybody in Heath +Falls was invited, because Hannah said they had been so good to her. +Everybody came, too, except old Master Necronsett, and that was nothing, +because he never went anywhere except to the woods. + +I know just what the bride and Hannah wore, for we have pieces of the +material in our oldest cedar chest; but, of course, as they weren't your +own great-great-great-grandmother and aunt, perhaps you wouldn't care to +have me tell you all about their costumes. It was a grand occasion, +however--that you can take from me; and the family tradition is that Ann +Mary looked like a wonderful combination of an angel and a star. + +And then Captain and Mrs. Winthrop rode off in one direction, and Hannah +and her father in another, and there were a great many tears shed, for all +everybody; was so happy. + + + + +VI. + + +Hannah went home with her head full of new ideas, and with four books in +her saddle-bags--which, for those days, was a large library. These were +the Bible, the "Universal Preceptor," a volume of the Shakespeare +comedies, and Plutarch's "Lives." Armed with these weapons, how she did +stir things up in Hillsboro! She got the children together into a school, +and taught them everything she had learned in Heath Falls; and that was +so much--what with the studying which she always kept up by herself--that +from our little scrap of a village three students went down to the college +at William's Town, in Massachusetts, the first year it was started, and +there has been a regular procession of them ever since. + +After a time she married Giles Wheeler, and began to teach her own +children--she had nine--and very well instructed they were. She was too +busy, then, to go into the schoolroom to teach; but never, then or later, +even when she was an old, old woman, did she take her vigilant eyes and +her managing hand off the schools of our county. + +It was due to her that Hillsboro could boast for so long that its +percentage of illiterates was zero. If, by chance, anyone grew up without +knowing how to read, Aunt Hannah pounced on him and made him learn, +whether he would or not. She loaned about, to anyone who would read them, +the books she brought from Heath Falls; and in time she started a little +library. Remembering the days when Captain Winthrop had read aloud to her +in the granary, she had her children go about to read aloud to sick +people, and to busy seamstresses or spinners who had no time for books. + +And the number of girls in declines she cured by Master Necronsett's +system! You would not believe it, if I told you. And she had our river +named after that wise old heathen, and we think it the prettiest name +possible for a river. + +All this time, Ann Mary's position was getting grander and grander, for +Captain Winthrop was on the American side when the Revolution came, and +grew to be a very important man. Ann Mary dressed in brocade every day and +all day, and went to Philadelphia, where she met General and Mrs. +Washington, and ever so many more famous people. + +Wherever she went, she was admired and loved for her beauty and +gentleness; but she did not forget Hannah. Nearly every traveler from the +South brought a message or a present from Madam Winthrop to Mistress +Wheeler, and once she and General Winthrop came and made a long visit in +Hillsboro. + +Grandmother's grandmother was old enough, by that time, to remember the +visit very clearly; and it was from talk between the two sisters that she +learned all about this story. She said she never saw a more beautiful +woman than Madam Winthrop, nor heard a sweeter voice. But how Hannah had +to hush the unmannerly surprise of her brood of quick-witted youngsters +when they found out that elegant Aunt Ann Mary did not know her letters, +and had never heard of Julius Caesar or Oliver Cromwell! For marriage did +not change Ann Mary very much; but as her husband was perfectly satisfied +with her, I dare say it was just as well. + +However, when the Winthrop cousins begin to put on airs, and to talk about +autograph letters from Benjamin Franklin and Jefferson addressed to their +great-great-great-grandmother, and to show beautiful carved fans and +lace handkerchiefs which she carried at State balls in Philadelphia and +New York, I have to bite my tongue to keep from reminding them that they +have no autograph letters of _hers_! + +Then I go up into our garret, and look at Hannah's shabby old books, and I +ride over to the place on the road where she tended the fire that night, +and I think of the number of Hillsboro boys and girls to whom she opened +the great world of books, and--somehow, I am just as well pleased that it +was not the lovely Ann Mary who came back to our town and became my +great-great-great-grandmother. + + + + +THE DELIVERER + + +"I shall not die, but live; and declare the works of the Lord." + +The great lady pointed with a sigh of pleasure to the canvas hung between +a Greuze and a Watteau! "Ah, is there anyone like LeMaury! Alone in the +eighteenth century he had eyes for the world of wood and stream. +You poets and critics, why do you never write of him? Is it true that no +one knows anything of his life?" + +The young writer hesitated. "I do not think I exaggerate, madame, when I +say that I alone in Paris know his history. He was a compatriot of mine." + +"Oh, come, Mr. Everett, LeMaury an American! With that name!" + +"He called himself LeMaury after his protector, the man who brought him +to France. His real name was Everett, like my own. He was cousin to one of +my great-grandfathers." + +"Ah, an old family story. That is the best kind. You must tell it to me." + +"I will write it for you, madame." + + + + +I + + +At the foot of Hemlock Mountain spring came late that year, now a century +and a half gone by, as it comes late still to the remote back valley, +lying high among the Green Mountains; but when it came it had a savor of +enchantment unknown to milder regions. The first day of spring was no +uncertain date in Hillsboro, then as now. One morning generally about the +middle of May, people woke up with the sun shining in their eyes, and the +feeling in their hearts that something had happened in the night. The +first one of the family dressed, who threw open the house-door, felt the +odor of stirring life go to his head, was the Reverend Mr. Everett +himself. In the little community of Puritans, whose isolation had +preserved intact the rigidity of faith which had begun to soften somewhat +in other parts of New England, there was no one who openly saluted the +miracle of resurrection by more than the brief remark, "Warm weather's +come"; but sometimes the younger men went back and kissed their wives. It +was an event, the first day of spring, in old-time Hillsboro. + +In the year of our Lord 1756 this event fell upon a Sabbath, a fact which +the Reverend Mr. Everett commemorated by a grim look out at the budding +trees, and by taking from his store of sermons a different one from that +he had intended to preach. It was his duty to scourge natural man out of +the flock committed to his charge by an angry and a jealous God, and he +had felt deep within him a damnable stirring of sensual pleasure as the +perfumed breath of the new season had blown across his face. If the +anointed of the Lord had thus yielded to the insidious wiles of +unregenerate nature what greater dangers lay in wait for the weaklings +under his care! The face of his son Nathaniel, as he came back from the +brook, his slender body leaning sideways from the weight of the dripping +bucket, told the shepherd of souls that he must be on his guard against +the snares of the flesh. + +The boy's thin, dark face, so astonishingly like his father's, was lifted +toward the sky as he came stumbling up the path, but his eyes were +everywhere at once. Just before he reached the door, he set the bucket +down with a cry of ecstasy and darted to the edge of the garden, where the +peas were just thrusting green bowed heads through the crumbling earth. He +knelt above them breathless, he looked up to the maple-twigs, over which a +faint reddish bloom had been cast in the night, beyond to the lower slopes +of the mountain, delicately patterned with innumerable white stems of +young birch-trees, and clasped his hands to see that a shimmer of green +hung in their tops like a mist. His lips quivered, he laid his hand upon a +tuft of grass with glossy, lance-like blades, and stroked it. + +His father came to the door and called him. "Nathaniel!" + +He sprang up with guilty haste and went toward the house. A shriveling +change of expression came over him. + +The minister began, "A wise son heareth his father's instructions; but a +scorner heareth not rebuke." + +"I hear you, father." + +"Why did you linger in the garden and forget your duty?" + +"I--I cannot tell you, father." + +"Do you mean you do not know why?" + +"I cannot say I do not know." + +"Then answer me." + +Nathaniel broke out desperately, "I _cannot_, father--I know no words--I +was--it is so warm--the sun shines--the birches are out--I was glad----" + +The minister bowed his head sadly. "Aye, even as I thought. Sinful lust of +the eye draggeth you down to destruction. You whose salvation even now +hangs in the balance, for whose soul I wrestle every night in prayer that +you may be brought to the conviction of sin, 'you were glad.' Remember the +words, 'If I prefer not Jerusalem above my chief joy, may my tongue cleave +to the roof of my mouth.'" + +Nathaniel made no reply. He caught at the door, looking up wretchedly at +his father. When the minister turned away without speaking again, he drew +a long breath of relief. + +Breakfast was always a silent meal in the Everett house, but on Sabbath +mornings the silence had a heavy significance. The preacher was beginning +then to work himself up to the pitch of storming fervor which made his +sermons so notable, and his wife and son cowered under the unspoken +emanations of the passion which later poured so terribly from the pulpit. +The Reverend Mr. Everett always ate very heartily on Sabbath mornings, but +Nathaniel usually pushed his plate away. + +As a rule he walked to church between his father and his mother, like a +little child, although he was now a tall lad of sixteen, but to-day he was +sent back for a psalm-book, forgotten in the hurry of their early start. +When he set out again the rest of the village folk were all in the +meeting-house. The sight of the deserted street, walled in by the forest, +lying drowsily in the spring sunshine, was like balm to him. He loitered +along, free from observation, his eyes shining. A fat, old negro woman +sat on a doorstep in the sun, the only other person not in meeting. She +was a worn-out slave, from a Connecticut seaport, who had been thrown in +for good measure in a sharp bargain driven by the leading man of +Hillsboro. A red turban-like cloth was bound above her black face, she +rested her puffy black arms across her knees and crooned a monotonous +refrain. Although the villagers regarded her as imbecile, they thought her +harmless, and Nathaniel nodded to her as he passed. She gave him a rich +laugh and a "Good morrow, Marse Natty, _good_ morrow!" + +A hen clucking to her chicks went across the road before him. The little +yellow balls ran briskly forward on their wiry legs, darting at invisible +insects, turning their shiny black eyes about alertly and filling the air +with their sweet, thin pipings. Nathaniel stopped to watch them, and as he +noticed the pompously important air with which one of the tiny creatures +scratched the ground with his ineffectual little feet, cocking his eye +upon the spot afterward as if to estimate the amount of progress made, the +boy laughed out loud. He started at the sound and glanced around him +hurriedly, moving on to the meeting-house from which there now burst forth +a harshly intoned psalm. He lingered for a moment at the door, gazing back +at the translucent greens of the distant birches gleaming against the +black pines. A gust of air perfumed with shad-blossom blew past him, and +with this in his nostrils he entered the whitewashed interior and made his +way on tiptoe up the bare boards of the aisle. + + + + +II + + +After meeting the women and children walked home to set out the cold +viands for the Sabbath dinner, while the men stood in a group on the green +before the door for a few minutes' conversation. + +"Verily, Master Everett, the breath of the Almighty was in your words this +day as never before," said one of them. "One more such visitation of the +anger of God and your son will be saved." + +"How looked he when they bore him out?" asked the minister faintly. His +face was very white. + +The other continued, "Truly, reverend sir, your setting forth of the devil +lying in wait for the thoughtless, and the lake burning with brimstone, +did almost affright me who for many years now have known myself to be of +the elect. I could not wonder that terrors melted the soul of your son." + +"How looked he when they bore him out?" repeated the minister impatiently. + +The other answered encouragingly, "More like death than life, so the women +say." The minister waved the men aside and went swiftly down the street. +The hen and chickens fled with shrill cries at his approach, and the old +negress stopped her song. After he had passed she chuckled slowly to +herself, thrust her head up sideways to get the sun in a new place, and +began her crooning chant afresh. + +"How is the boy?" asked the minister of his wife as he stepped inside the +door. "Not still screaming out and----" + +Mistress Everett shook her head reassuringly. "Nay, he is quiet now, up in +his room." + +Nathaniel lay on his trundle bed, his eyes fixed on the rafters, his pale +lips drawn back. At the sight his father sat down heavily on the edge of +the bed. The boy sprang upon him with a cry, "Oh, father, I see fire +always there--last winter when I burned my finger--oh, always such pain!" + +The minister's voice broke as he said, "Oh, Nathaniel, the blessed ease +when all this travail is gone by and thou knowest thyself to be of the +elect." + +Nathaniel screamed out at this, a fleck of froth showing on his lips. +"That is the horrible thing--I know I am not one of the saved. My heart is +all full of carnal pleasures and desires. To look at the sun on the +hillside--why I love it so that I forget my soul--hell--God--" + +His father gave a deep shocked groan and put his hand over the quivering +lips. "Be not a bitterness to him that begot you. Hush!" + +The fever of excitement left the boy and he fell down with his face in the +pillow to lie there motionless until his parents went out for second +meeting, leaving him alone in the house. "Confidence must be rooted out of +his tabernacle," said his father sternly. "The spirit of God is surely +working in his heart in which I see many of my own besetting sins." + +Nathaniel sprang up, when he heard the door shut, with a distracted idea +of escape, now that his jailers were away, and felt an icy stirring in the +roots of his hair at the realization that his misery lay within, that the +walls of his own flesh and blood shut it inexorably into his heart +forever. He threw open the window and leaned out. + +The old negress came out of the woods at the other end of the street, her +turban gleaming red. She moved in a cautious silence past the +meeting-house, but when she came opposite the minister's house, thinking +herself alone, she burst into a gay, rapid song, the words of which she so +mutilated in her barbarous accent that only a final "Oh, Molly-oh!" could +be distinguished. She carried an herb-basket on her arm now, into which, +from time to time, she looked with great satisfaction. + +Nathaniel ran down the stairs and out of the door calling. She paused, +startled. "How can you sing and laugh and walk so lightly?" he cried out. + +She cocked her head on one side with her turtle-like motion. "Why should +she not sing?" she asked in her thick, sweet voice. She had never learned +the difference between the pronouns. "She's be'n gatherin' yarbs in the +wood, an' th' sun is warm," she blinked at it rapidly, "an' the winter it +is pas', Marse Natty, no mo' winter!" + +Nathaniel came close up to her, laying his thin fingers on her fat, black +arm. His voice quivered. "But they say if you love those things and if +they make you glad you are damned to everlasting brimstone fire. Tell me +how you dare to laugh, so that I will dare too." + +The old woman laughed, opening her mouth so widely that the red lining to +her throat showed moistly, and all her fat shook on her bones. "Lord love +ye, chile, dat's white folks' talk. Dat don't scare a old black woman!" +She shifted her basket to the other arm and prepared to go on. "You're +bleeged to be keerful 'bout losin' yo' soul. Black folks ain't got no +souls, bless de Lord! When _dey_ dies dey _dies_!" + +She shuffled along, laughing, and began to sing again. Nathaniel looked +after her with burning eyes. After she had disappeared between the tree +trunks of the forest, the breeze bore back to him a last joyous whoop of +"_Oh_, Molly-oh!" He burst into sobs, and shivering, made his way back +into his father's darkening, empty house. + + + + +III + + +At the breakfast table the next morning his father looked at him +neutrally. "This day you shall go to salt the sheep in the Miller lot," he +announced, "and you may have until the hour before sundown to walk in the +wood." + +"Oh, _father_, really!" + +"That is what I said," repeated the minister dryly, pushing away from the +table. + +After the boy had gone, carrying the bag of salt and the little package of +his noonday meal, the minister sighed heavily. "I fear my weak heart +inclines me to too great softness to our son." To his wife he cried out a +moment later, "Oh, that some instance of the wrath of Jehovah could come +before us now, while our son's spirit is softened. Deacon Truitt said +yesterday that one more visitation would save him." + +Nathaniel walked along soberly, his eyes on the road at his feet, his face +quite pale, a sleepless night evidently behind him. He came into the +birches without noticing them at first, and when he looked up he was for a +moment so taken by surprise that he was transfigured. The valley at his +feet shimmered like an opal through the slender white pillars of the +trees. The wood was like a many-columned chapel, unroofed and open to the +sunlight. Nathaniel gave a cry of rapture, and dropped the bag of salt. +"Oh!" he cried, stretching out his arms, and then again, "Oh!" + +For a moment he stood so, caught into a joy that was almost anguish, and +then at a sudden thought he shrank together, his arm crooked over his +eyes. He sank forward, still covering his eyes, into a great bed of fern, +just beginning to unroll their whitey-green balls into long, pale plumes. +There he lay as still as if he were dead. + +Two men came riding through the lane, their horses treading noiselessly +over the leaf-mold. They had almost passed the motionless, prostrate +figure when the older reined in and pointed with his whip. "What is that, +LeMaury?" + +At the unexpected sound the boy half rose, showing a face so convulsed +that the other horseman cried out alarmed, "It ees a man crazed! Ride on, +_mon colonel_!" He put spurs to his horse and sprang forward as he spoke. + +The old soldier laughed a little, and turned to Nathaniel. "Why, 'tis the +minister his son. I know you by the look of your father in you. What bad +dream have we waked you from, you pretty boy?" + +"You have not waked me from it," cried Nathaniel. "I will never wake as +long as I live, and when I die--!" + +"Why, LeMaury is right. The poor lad is crazed. We must see to this." + +He swung himself stiffly from the saddle and came limping up to Nathaniel. +Kneeling by the boy he brought him up to a sitting position, and at the +sight of the ashen face and white, turned-back eyeballs he sat down +hastily, drawing the young head upon his shoulder with a rough tenderness. +"Why, so lads look under their first fire, when they die of fear. What +frights you so?" + +Nathaniel opened great solemn eyes upon him. "I suppose it is the +conviction of sin. That is what they call it." + +For an instant the old man's face was blank with astonishment, and then it +wrinkled into a thousand lines of mirth. He began to laugh as though he +would never stop. Nathaniel had never heard anyone laugh like that. He +clutched at the old man. + +"How dare you laugh!" + +The other wiped his eyes and rocked to and fro, "I laugh--who would +not--that such a witless baby should talk of his sin. You know not what +sin is, you silly innocent!" + +At the kindliness of the tone an aching knot in the boy's throat relaxed. +He began to talk hurriedly, in a desperate whisper, his hands like little +birds' claws gripping the other's great gauntleted fist. "You do not know +how wicked I am--I am so wholly forward the wonder is the devil does not +take me at once. I live only in what my father calls the lust of the eye. +I--I would rather look at a haw-tree in bloom than meditate on the +Almighty!" He brought out this awful confession with a gasp at its +enormity, but hurried on to a yet more terrible climax. "I cannot be +righteous, but many times there are those who cannot--but oh, worse than +that, I cannot even _wish_ to be! I can only wish to be a painter." + +At this unexpected ending the old man gave an exclamation of extreme +amazement. + +"But, boy, lad, what's your name? However did you learn that there are +painters in the world, here in this prison-house of sanctity?" + +Nathaniel had burrowed into his protector's coat as though hiding from the +imminent wrath of God. He now spoke in muffled tones. "Two years ago, when +I was but a little child, there came a man to our town, a Frenchman, they +said, and his horse fell lame, and he stopped two days at my Uncle +Elzaphan's. My Uncle Elzaphan asked him what business did he in the world, +and he said he put down on cloth or paper with brushes and colors all the +fair and comely things he saw. And he showed a piece of paper with on it +painted the row of willows along our brook. I sat in the chimney-corner +and no one heeded me. I saw--oh, then I _knew_! I have no paint, but ever +since I have made pictures with burnt sticks on birchbark--though my +father says that of all the evil ways of evil men none lead down more +swift to the chambers of death and the gates of hell than that. Every +night I make a vow unto the Lord that I will sin no more; but in the +morning the devil whispers in my ear and I rise up and sin again--no man +knows this--and I am never glad unless I think I have done well with my +pictures, and I hate the meeting-house and--" His voice died away +miserably. + +"Two years ago, was't?" asked the old man. "And the man was French?" + +"Aye." + +The old soldier shifted his position, stretched out a stiff knee with a +grimace of pain, and pulled the tall lad bodily into his lap like a child. +For some time the two were silent, the sun shining down warmly on them +through the faint, vaporous green of the tiny leaves. The old horse +cropped the young shoots with a contented, ruminative air, once in a while +pausing to hang his head drowsily, and bask motionless in the warmth. + +Then the old man began to speak in a serious tone, quite different from +his gentle laughter. "Young Everett, of all the people you have seen, is +there one whom you would wish to have even a moment of the tortures of +hell?" + +Nathaniel looked at him horrified. "Why, no!" he cried indignantly. + +"Then do you think your God less merciful than you?" + +Nathaniel stared long into the steady eyes. "Oh, do you mean it is not +_true_?" He leaned close in an agony of hope. "Sometimes I have thought it +_could_ not be true!" + +The old soldier struck him on the shoulder inspiritingly, his +weather-beaten face very grave. "Aye, lad, I mean it is not true. I am an +old man and I have learned that they lie who say it is true. There is no +hell but in our own hearts when we do evil; and we can escape a way out of +that by repenting and doing good. There is no devil but our evil desires, +and God gives to every man strength to fight with those. There is only +good in your love for the fair things God made and put into the world for +us to love. No man but only your own heart can tell you what is wrong and +what is right. Only _do not fear_, for all is well." + +The scene was never to fade from Nathaniel Everett's eyes. In all the +after crises of his life the solemn words rang in his ears. + +The old man suddenly smiled at him, all quaint drollery again. "And now +wait." He put hand to mouth and hallooed down the lane. "Ho there! +LeMaury!" + +As the Frenchman came into sight, the old man turned to Nathaniel, "Is +this the gentleman who painted your willows?" + +"Oh, aye!" cried Nathaniel. + +The Frenchman dismounted near them with sparkling glances of inquiry. +"See, LeMaury, this is young Master Everett, whom you have bewitched with +your paint-pots. He would fain be an artist--_de gustibus_--! Perhaps you +have in him an apprentice for your return to France." + +The artist looked sharply at Nathaniel. "Eh, so? Can young master draw? +Doth he know aught of _chiaroscuro_?" + +Nathaniel blushed at his ignorance and looked timidly at his protector. + +"Nay, he knows naught of your painter's gibberish. Give him a crayon and a +bit of white bark and see can he make my picture. I'll lean my head back +and fold my hands to sleep." + +In the long sunny quiet that followed, the old man really slipped away +into a light doze, from which he was awakened by a loud shout from +LeMaury. The Frenchman had sprung upon Nathaniel and was kissing his +cheeks, which were now crimson with excitement. "Oh, it is Giotto come +back again. He shall be anything--Watteau." + +Nathaniel broke away and ran toward the old man, his eyes blazing with +hope. + +"What does he mean?" he demanded. + +"He means that you're to be a painter and naught else, though how a man +can choose to daub paint when there are swords to be carried--well, well," +he pulled himself painfully to his feet, wincing at gouty twinges, "I will +go and see your father about--" + +"_Mais, Colonel Hall, dites_! How can I arrange not to lose this pearl +among artists?" + +At the name, for he had not understood the title before, pronounced as it +was in French, the boy fell back in horrified recognition. "Oh! you are +Colonel Gideon Hall!" + +"Aye, lad, who else?" The old soldier swung himself up to the saddle, +groaning, "Oh, damn that wet ground! I fear I cannot sit the nag home." + +"But then you are the enemy of God--the chosen one of Beelzebub----" + +"Do they call me _that_ in polite and pious Hillsboro?" + +The Frenchman broke in, impatient of this incomprehensible talk. "See, +boy, you--Everett--I go back to France now soon. I lie next Friday night +at Woodburn. If you come to me there we will go together to France--to +Paris--you will be the great artist----" + +He was silenced by a gesture from the colonel, who now sat very straight +on his horse and beckoned to Nathaniel. The boy came timorously. "You have +heard lies about me, Everett. Be man enough to trust your own heart." He +broke into a half-sad little laugh at Nathaniel's face of fascinated +repulsion. + +"You can laugh now," whispered the boy, close at his knee, "but when you +come to die? Why, even my father trembles at the thought of death. Oh, if +I could but believe you!" + +"Faugh! To fear death when one has done his best!" + +He had turned his horse's head, but Nathaniel called after him, bringing +out the awful words with an effort. "But they say--that you do not believe +in God." + +The colonel laughed again. "Why, lad, I'm the only man in this damn town +who does." He put his horse into a trot and left Nathaniel under the +birch-trees, the sun high over his head, the bag of salt forgotten at his +feet. + + + + +IV + + +A little before sundown the next day the minister strode into his house, +caught up his Bible, and called to his wife, "Deborah, the Lord hath +answered me in my trouble. Call Nathaniel and bring him after me to the +house of Gideon Hall." + +Mistress Everett fell back, her hand at her heart, "To _that_ house?" + +"Aye, even there. He lieth at the point of death. So are the wicked +brought into desolation. Yesterday, as he rode in the wood, his horse cast +him down so that it is thought he may not live till dark. I am sent for by +his pious sisters to wrestle with him in prayer. Oh, Deborah, now is the +time to strike the last blow for the salvation of our son. Let him see how +the devil carries off the transgressor into the fires of hell, or let him +see how, at the last, the proudest must make confession of his wicked +unbelief----" + +He hurled himself through the door like a javelin, while his wife turned +to explain to Nathaniel the reason for the minister's putting on his +Sabbath voice of a week-day morning. He cried out miserably, "Oh, mother, +_don't_ make me go there!" + +"Nay, Nathaniel, there is naught new. You have been with us before to many +a sickbed and seen many a righteous death. This is an ill man, whose +terrors at the reward of his unbelief will be like goodly medicine to your +sick soul, and teach you to lay hold on righteousness while there is yet +time." + +"But, mother, my Uncle Elzaphan said--I asked him this morning about +Colonel Hall--that he had done naught but good to all men, that he had +fought bravely with French and Indians, that the poor had half of his +goods, that--" + +She took him by the hand and dragged him relentlessly out upon the street. +"Your Uncle Elzaphan is a man of no understanding, and does not know that +the devil has no more subtile lure than a man who does good works but who +is not of the true faith. Aye, he maketh a worse confusion to the simple +than he who worketh iniquity by noonday." + +She led him through the village street, through a long curving lane where +he had never been before, and down an avenue of maple-trees to a house at +which he had always been forbidden even to look. Various of the neighbor +women were hurrying along in the same direction. As they filed up the +stairs he trembled to hear his father's voice already raised in the +terrible tones of one of his inspired hours. At the entrance to the sick +chamber he clung for a moment to the door, gazing at the wild-eyed women +who knelt about the room, their frightened eyes fixed on his father. His +knees shook under him. He had a qualm of nausea at the slimy images of +corruption and decay which the minister was trumpeting forth as the end to +all earthly pride. + +His mother pushed him inexorably forward into the room, and then, across +the nightmare of frenzy, he met the calm gaze of the dying man. It was the +turning-point of his life. + +He ran to the bed, falling on his knees, clasping the great knotty hand +and searching the eyes which were turned upon him, gently smiling. The +minister, well pleased with this evidence of his son's emotion, caught his +breath for another flight of eloquence which should sear and blast the +pretensions of good works as opposed to the true faith. "See how low the +Lord layeth the man who thinks to bargain with the Almighty, and to ransom +his soul from hell by deeds which are like dust and ashes to Jehovah." + +Nathaniel crept closer and whispered under cover of his father's +thunderings, "Oh, you are truly not afraid?" + +The dying man looked at him, his eyes as steady as when they were in the +woods. "Nay, little comrade, it is all a part of life." + +After that he seemed to sink into partial unconsciousness. Nathaniel felt +his hand grow colder, but he still held it, grasping it more tightly when +he felt the fumes of his father's reeking eloquence mount to his brain. +The women were all sobbing aloud. A young girl was writhing on the floor, +her groans stifled by her mother's hand. The air of the room was stifling +with hysteria. The old sister of the dying man called out, "Oh, quick, +Master Everett. He is going. Exhort him now to give us some token that at +the last he repents of his unbelief." + +The minister whirled about, shaking with his own violence. The sweat was +running down his face. "Gideon Hall, I charge you to say if you repent of +your sins." + +There was a pause. The silence was suffocating. + +The old man gradually aroused himself from his torpor, although he did not +open his eyes. "Aye, truly I repent me of my sins," he whispered mildly, +"for any unkindness done to any man, or----" + +The minister broke in, his voice mounting shrilly, "Nay, not so, thou +subtle mocker. Dost thou repent thee of thy unbelief in the true faith?" + +Colonel Gideon Hall opened his eyes. He turned his head slowly on the +pillow until he faced the preacher, and at the sight of his terrible eyes +and ecstatic pallor he began to laugh whimsically, as he had laughed in +the wood with Nathaniel. "Why, man, I thought you did but frighten women +with it--not yourself too. Nay, do not trouble about me. _I_ don't believe +in your damned little hell." + +The smile on his face gradually died away into a still serenity, which was +there later, when the minister lifted his son away from the dead man's +bed. + + + + +V + + +The four old men walked sturdily forward with their burden, although at +intervals they slipped their tall staves under the corners and rested, +wiping their foreheads and breathing hard. As they stood thus silent, +where the road passed through a thicket of sumac, a boy came rapidly +around the curve and was upon them before he saw that he was not alone. +He stopped short and made a guilty motion to hide a bundle that he +carried. The old men stared at him, and reassured by this absence of +recognition he advanced slowly, looking curiously at the great scarlet +flag which hung in heavy folds from their burden. + +"Is this the road to Woodburn?" he asked them. + +"Aye," they answered briefly. + +He had almost passed them when he stopped again, drawing in his breath. + +"Oh, are you--is this Colonel--" + +"Aye, lad," said the oldest of the bearers, "this is the funeral +procession of the best commander and truest man who ever lived." + +"But why--" began the boy, looking at the flag. + +"He's wrapped in the flag of the king that he was a loyal servant to, +because the damned psalm-singing hypocrites in the town where he lived of +late would not make a coffin for him--no, nor allow ground to bury +him--no, nor men to bear him out to his grave! We be men who have served +under him in three wars, and we come from over the mountain to do the last +service for him. He saved our lives for us more than once--brave Colonel +Gid!" + +They all uncovered at the name, and the boy shyly and awkwardly took his +cap off. + +"May I--may I see him once again?" he asked, dropping his bundle. "He +saved my life too." + +Two men put their gnarled old hands to the flag and drew it down from the +head of the bier. The boy did not speak, but he went nearer and nearer +with an expression on his face which one of the old men answered aloud. +"Aye, is he not at peace! God grant we may all look so when the time +comes." + +They let the flag fall over the dead face again, set their shoulders to +the bier, and moved forward, bringing down their great staves rhythmically +as they walked. The boy stood still looking after them. When they passed +out into the sunshine of the open hillside he ran to the edge of the +thicket so that he could still follow them with his eyes. They plodded on, +growing smaller and smaller in the distance, until as they paused on the +crest of the hill only a spot of red could be seen, brilliant against the +brilliant sky. + +The boy went back and picked up his bundle. When he returned to the edge +of the thicket the spot of red was disappearing over the hill. He took off +his cap and stood there until there was nothing before him but the sun +shining on the hillside. + +Then he turned about, and walking steadily, Nathaniel Everett entered into +his own world. + + + + +NOCTES AMBROSIANAE + + + From Hemlock Mountain's barren crest + The roaring gale flies down the west + And drifts the snow on Redmount's breast + In hollows dark with pine. + + Full in its path from hill to hill + There stands, beside a ruined mill, + A lonely house, above whose sill + A brace of candles shine. + + And there an ancient bachelor + And maiden sister, full three-score, + Sit all forgetful of the roar + Of wind and mountain stream; + + Forgot the wind, forgot the snow, + What magic airs about them blow? + They read, in wondering voices low, + The Midsummer Night's Dream! + + And, reading, past their frozen hill + In charmed woods they range at will + And hear the horns of Oberon shrill + Above the plunging Tam;-- + + Yea, long beyond the cock's first crow + In dreams they walk where windflowers blow; + Late do they dream, and liker grow + To Charles and Mary Lamb. + + + + +HILLSBORO'S GOOD LUCK + + +When the news of Hillsboro's good fortune swept along the highroad there +was not a person in the other three villages of the valley who did not +admit that Hillsboro deserved it. Everyone said that in this case +Providence had rewarded true merit, Providence being represented by Mr. +Josiah Camden, king of the Chicago wheat pit, whose carelessly bestowed +bounty meant the happy termination of Hillsboro's long and arduous +struggles. + +The memory of man could not go back to the time when that town had not +had a public library. It was the pride of the remote village, lost among +the Green Mountains, that long before Carnegie ever left Scotland there +had been a collection of books free to all in the wing of Deacon +Bradlaugh's house. Then as now the feat was achieved by the united efforts +of all inhabitants. They boasted that the town had never been taxed a cent +to keep up the library, that not a person had contributed a single penny +except of his own free will; and it was true that the public spirit of the +village concentrated itself most harmoniously upon this favorite feature +of their common life. Political strife might rage in the grocery-stores, +religious differences flame high in the vestibule of the church, and +social distinctions embitter the Ladies' Club, but the library was a +neutral ground where all parties met, united by a common and disinterested +effort. + +Like all disinterested and generous actions it brought its own reward. The +great social event of the year, not only for Hillsboro, but for all the +outlying towns of Woodville, Greenford, and Windfield, was the annual +"Entertainment for buying new books," as it was named on the handbills +which were welcomed so eagerly by the snow-bound, monotony-ridden +inhabitants of the Necronsett Valley. It usually "ran" three nights so +that every one could get there, the people from over Hemlock Mountain +driving twenty miles. There was no theater for forty miles, and many a +dweller on the Hemlock slopes had never seen a nearer approach to one than +the town hall of Hillsboro on the great nights of the "Library Show." + +As for Hillsboro itself, the excitement of one effort was scarcely over +before plans for the next year's were begun. Although the date was fixed +by tradition on the three days after Candlemas (known as "Woodchuck Day" +in the valley), they had often decided what the affair should be and had +begun rehearsals before the leaves had turned in the autumn. There was no +corner of the great world of dramatic art they had not explored, borne up +to the loftiest regions of endeavor by their touchingly unworldly +ignorance of their limitations. As often happens in such cases they +believed so ingenuously in their own capacities that their faith wrought +miracles. + +Sometimes they gave a cantata, sometimes a nigger-minstrel show. The year +the interior of the town hall was changed, they took advantage of the time +before either the first or second floor was laid, and attempted and +achieved an indoor circus. And the year that an orchestra conductor from +Albany had to spend the winter in the mountains for his lungs, they +presented _Il Trovatore_. Everybody sang, as a matter of course, and those +whose best efforts in this direction brought them no glory had their +innings the year it was decided to give a play. + +They had done _East Lynne_ and _Hamlet, Uncle Tom's Cabin_ and _Macbeth_, +and every once in a while the local literary man, who was also the +undertaker, wrote a play based on local traditions. Of course they gave +_The Village School_ and _Memory's Garland_, and if you don't remember +those delectable home-made entertainments, so much the worse for you. It +is true that in the allegorical tableau at the end of _Memory's Garland_ +the wreath, which was of large artificial roses, had been made of such +generous proportions that when the Muses placed it on the head of slender +Elnathan Pritchett, representing "The Poet," it slipped over his ears, +down over his narrow shoulders, and sliding rapidly toward the floor was +only caught by him in time to hold it in place upon his stomach. That +happened only on the first night, of course. The other performances it was +perfect, lodging on his ears with the greatest precision. + +It must not be supposed, however, that the responsibilities of Hillsboro +for the library ended with the triumphant counting out of the money after +the entertainment. This sum, the only actual cash ever handled by the +committee, was exclusively devoted to the purchase of new books. It was +the pride of the village that everything else was cared for without price, +by their own enterprise, public spirit, and ingenuity. When the books, had +overflowed the wing of Deacon Bradlaugh's house, back in 1869, they were +given free lodging in the rooms of the then newly established and +flourishing Post of the G.A.R. In 1896 they burst from this chrysalis into +the whole lower floor of the town hall, newly done over for the purpose. +From their shelves here the books looked down benignly on church suppers +and sociables, and even an occasional dance. It was the center of village +life, the big, low-ceilinged room, its windows curtained with white +muslin, its walls bright with fresh paper and colored pictures, like any +sitting-room in a village home. The firewood was contributed, a load +apiece, by the farmers of the country about, and the oil for the lamps was +the common gift of the three grocery-stores. There was no carpet, but +bright-colored rag rugs lay about on the bare floor, and it was a point of +honor with the Ladies' Aid Society of the church to keep these renewed. + +The expense of a librarian's salary was obviated by the expedient of +having no librarian. The ladies of Hillsboro took turns in presiding over +the librarian's table, each one's day coming about once in three weeks. +"Library Day" was as fixed an institution in Hillsboro as "wash day," and +there was not a busy housewife who did not look forward to the long quiet +morning spent in dusting and caring for the worn old books, which were +like the faces of friends to her, familiar from childhood. The afternoon +and evening were more animated, since the library had become a sort of +common meeting-ground. The big, cheerful, sunlighted room full of +grown-ups and children, talking together, even laughing out loud at times, +did not look like any sophisticated idea of a library, for Hillsboro was +as benighted on the subject of the need for silence in a reading-room as +on all other up-to-date library theories. If you were so weak-nerved and +sickly that the noise kept you from reading, you could take your book, go +into Elzaphan Hall's room and shut the door, or you could take your book +and go home, but you could not object to people being sociable. + +Elzaphan Hall was the janitor, and the town's only pauper. He was an old +G.A.R. man who had come back from the war minus an arm and a foot, and +otherwise so shattered that steady work was impossible. In order not to +wound him by making him feel that he was dependent on public charity, it +had been at once settled that he should keep the fire going in the +library, scrub the floor, and keep the room clean in return for his food +and lodging. He "boarded round" like the school-teacher, and slept in a +little room off the library. In the course of years he had grown +pathetically and exasperatingly convinced of his own importance, but he +had been there so long that his dictatorial airs and humors were regarded +with the unsurprised tolerance granted to things of long standing, and +were forgiven in view of his devotion to the best interests of the +library, which took the place of a family to him. + +As for the expenses of cataloguing, no one ever thought of such a thing. +Catalogue the books? Why, as soon hang up a list of the family so that you +wouldn't forget how many children you had; as soon draw a plan of the +village so that people should not lose their way about. Everybody knew +what and where the books were, as well as they knew what and where the +fields on their farms were, or where the dishes were on the pantry +shelves. The money from the entertainment was in hand by the middle of +February; by April the new books, usually about a hundred in number, had +arrived; and by June any wide-awake, intelligent resident of Hillsboro +would have been ashamed to confess that he did not know the location of +every one. + +The system of placing on the shelves was simplicity itself. Each year's +new acquisitions were kept together, regardless of subject, and located by +the name of the entertainment which had bought them. Thus, if you wished +to consult a certain book on geology, in which subject the library was +rich, owing to the scientific tastes of Squire Pritchett, you were told by +the librarian for the day, as she looked up from her darning with a +friendly smile, that it was in the "Uncle Tom's Cabin section." The +Shakespeare set, honorably worn and dog's-eared, dated back to the unnamed +mass coming from early days before things were so well systematized, and +was said to be in the "Old Times section"; whereas Ibsen (for some of +Hillsboro young people go away to college) was bright and fresh in the +"East Lynne section." + +The books were a visible and sincere symbol of Hillsboro's past and +present. The honest, unpretending people had bought the books they wished +to read, and everyone's taste was represented, even a few French legends +and pious tales being present as a concession to the Roman Catholic +element among the French Canadians. There was a great deal of E.P. Roe, +there was all of Mrs. Southworth--is it possible that anywhere else in the +world there is a complete collection of that lady's voluminous +productions?--but beside them stood the Elizabethan dramatists and a +translation of Dante. The men of the town, who after they were grown up +did not care much for fiction, cast their votes for scientific treatises +on agriculture, forestry, and the like; and there was an informal history +club, consisting of the postmaster, the doctor, and the druggist, who bore +down heavily on history books. The school-teacher, the minister, and the +priest had each, ex officio, the choice of ten books with nobody to +object, and the children in school were allowed another ten with no advice +from elders. + +It would have made a scientific librarian faint, the Hillsboro system, but +the result was that not a book was bought which did not find readers eager +to welcome it. A stranger would have turned dizzy trying to find his way +about, but there are no strangers in Hillsboro. The arrival even of a new +French-Canadian lumberman is a subject of endless discussion. + +It can be imagined, therefore, how electrified was the village by the +apparition, on a bright June day, of an automobile creaking and wheezing +its slow way to the old tavern. The irritated elderly gentleman who +stepped out and began blaming the chauffeur for the delay announced +himself to Zadok Foster, the tavern-keeper, as Josiah Camden, of Chicago, +and was electrified in his turn by the calmness with which that mighty +name was received. + +During the two days he waited in Hillsboro for the repair of his machine +he amused himself first by making sure of the incredible fact that nobody +in the village had ever heard of him, and second by learning with an +astounded and insatiable curiosity all the details of life in this +forgotten corner of the mountains. It was newer and stranger to him than +anything he had seen during his celebrated motor-car trip through the +Soudan. He was stricken speechless by hearing that you could rent a whole +house (of only five rooms, to be sure) and a garden for thirty-six dollars +a year, and that the wealthiest man in the place was supposed to have +inherited and accumulated the vast sum of ten thousand dollars. When he +heard of the public library he inquired quickly how much it cost to run +_that_? Mr. Camden knew from experience something about the cost of public +libraries. + +"Not a cent," said Zadok Foster proudly. + +Mr. Camden came from Chicago and not from Missouri, but the involuntary +exclamation of amazed incredulity which burst from his lips was, "Show +_me_!" + +So they showed him. The denizen of the great world entered the poor, +low-ceilinged room, looked around at the dreadful chromos on the walls, at +the cheap, darned muslin curtains, at the gaudy rag rugs, at the shabby, +worn books in inextricable confusion on the shelves, and listened with +gleaming eyes to the account given by the librarian for the day of the +years of patient and uncomplaining struggles by which these +poverty-stricken mountaineers had secured this meager result. He struck +one hand into the other with a clap. "It's a chance in a million!" he +cried aloud. + +When his momentous letter came back from Chicago, this was still the +recurrent note, that nowadays it is so hard for a poor millionaire to find +a deserving object for his gifts, that it is the rarest opportunity +possible when he really with his own eyes can make sure of placing his +money where it will carry on a work already begun in the right spirit. He +spoke in such glowing terms of Hillsboro's pathetic endeavors to keep +their poor little enterprise going, that Hillsboro, very unconscious +indeed of being pathetic, was bewildered. He said that owing to the +unusual conditions he would break the usual rules governing his +benefactions and ask no guarantee from the town. He begged, therefore, to +have the honor to announce that he had already dispatched an architect and +a contractor to Hillsboro, who would look the ground over, and put up a +thoroughly modern library building with no expense spared to make it +complete in equipment; that he had already placed to the credit of the +"Hillsboro Camden Public Library" a sufficient sum to maintain in +perpetuity a well-paid librarian, and to cover all expenses of fuel, +lights, purchase of books, cataloguing, etc.; and that the Library School +in Albany had already an order to select a perfectly well-balanced library +of thirty thousand books to begin with. + +Reason recoils from any attempt to portray the excitement of Hillsboro +after this letter arrived. To say that it was as if a gold mine had been +discovered under the village green is the feeblest of metaphors. For an +entire week the town went to bed at night tired out with exclaiming, woke +in the morning sure it had dreamed it all, rushed with a common impulse to +the post-office where the letter was posted on the wall, and fell to +exclaiming again. + +Then the architect and contractor arrived, and Hillsboro drew back into +its shell of somber taciturnity, and acted, the contractor told the +architect, as though they were in the habit of having libraries given them +three times a week regularly. + +The architect replied that these mountaineers were like Indians. You +_couldn't_ throw a shock into them that would make them loosen up any. + +Indeed, this characterization seemed just enough, in view of the passive +way in which Hillsboro received what was done for it during the months +which followed. + +It was the passivity of stupefaction, however, as one marvel after another +was revealed to them. The first evening the architect sketched the plans +of a picturesque building in the old Norse style, to match the romantic +scenery of the lovely valley. The next morning he located it upon a knoll +cooled by a steady breeze. The contractor made hasty inquiries about +lumber, labor, and houses for his men, found that none of these essentials +were at hand, decided to import everything from Albany; and by noon of the +day after they arrived these two brisk young gentlemen had departed, +leaving Hillsboro still incredulous of its good fortune. + +When they returned, ten days later, however, they brought solid and +visible proof in the shape of a trainload of building materials and a +crowd of Italian laborers, who established themselves in a boarding-car on +a sidetrack near the station. + +"We are going," remarked the contractor to the architect, "to make the +dirt fly." + +"We will make things hum," answered the architect, "as they've never +hummed before in this benighted spot." + +And indeed, as up to this time they had never hummed at all, it is not +surprising that Hillsboro caught its breath as the work went forward like +Aladdin's palace. The corner-stone was laid on the third of July and on +the first of October the building stood complete. By the first of November +the books had come already catalogued by the Library School and arranged +in boxes so that they could be put at once upon the shelves; and the last +details of the interior decoration were complete. The architect was in the +most naive ecstasy of admiration for his own taste. The outside was +deliciously unhackneyed in design, the only reproduction of a Norwegian +_Stave-Kirke_ in America, he reported to Mr. Camden; and while that made +the interior a little dark, the quaint wooden building was exquisitely in +harmony with the landscape. As for the interior it was a dream! The +reading-room was like the most beautiful drawing-room, an education in +itself, done in dark oak, with oriental rugs, mission furniture, and +reproductions of old masters on the walls. Lace sash-curtains hung at the +windows, covered by rich draperies in oriental design, which subdued the +light to a delightful soberness. The lamps came from Tiffany's. + +When the young-lady librarian arrived from Albany and approved +enthusiastically of the stack-room and cataloguing, the architect's cup of +satisfaction fairly ran over; and when he went away, leaving her installed +in her handsome oak-finished office, he could hardly refrain from +embracing her, so exactly the right touch did she add to the whole thing +with her fresh white shirt-waist and pretty, business-like airs. There had +been no ceremony of opening, because Mr. Camden was so absorbed in an +exciting wheat deal that he could not think of coming East, and indeed the +whole transaction had been almost blotted from his mind by a month's +flurried, unsteady market. So one day in November the pretty librarian +walked into her office, and the Hillsboro Camden Public Library was open. + +She was a very pretty librarian indeed, and she wore her tailor suits with +an air which made the village girls look uneasily into their mirrors and +made the village boys look after her as she passed. She was moreover as +permeated with the missionary fervor instilled into her at the Library +School as she was pretty, and she began at once to practice all the latest +devices for automatically turning a benighted community into the latest +thing in culture. When Mrs. Bradlaugh, wife of the deacon, and president +of the Ladies' Aid Society, was confined to the house with a cold, she +sent over to the library, as was her wont in such cases, for some +entertaining story to while away her tedious convalescence. Miss Martin +sent back one of Henry James's novels, and was surprised that Mrs. +Bradlaugh made no second attempt to use the library. When the little girls +in school asked for the Elsie books, she answered with a glow of pride +that the library did not possess one of those silly stories, and offered +as substitute, "Greek Myths for Children." + +Squire Pritchett came, in a great hurry, one morning, and asked for his +favorite condensed handbook of geology, in order to identify a stone. He +was told that it was entirely out of date and very incomplete, and the +library did not own it, and he was referred to the drawer in the card +catalogue relating to geology. For a time his stubbed old fingers rambled +among the cards, with an ever-rising flood of baffled exasperation. How +could he tell by looking at a strange name on a little piece of paper +whether the book it represented would tell him about a stone out of his +gravel-pit! Finally he appealed to the librarian, who proclaimed on all +occasions her eagerness to help inquirers, and she referred him to a +handsome great Encyclopedia of Geology in forty-seven volumes. He wandered +around hopelessly in this for about an hour, and in the end retreated +unenlightened. Miss Martin tried to help him in his search, but, half +amused by his rustic ignorance, she asked him finally, with an air of +gentle patience, "how, if he didn't know _any_ of the scientific names, +he expected to be able to look up a subject in an alphabetically arranged +book?" Squire Pritchett never entered the library again. His son Elnathan +might be caught by her airs and graces, he said rudely enough in the +post-office, but he was "too old to be talked down to by a chit who didn't +know granite from marble." + +When the schoolboys asked for "Nick Carter" she gave them those classics, +"The Rollo Books"; and to the French-Canadians she gave, reasonably +enough, the acknowledged masters of their language, Voltaire, Balzac, and +Flaubert, till the horrified priest forbade from the pulpit any of his +simple-minded flock to enter "that temple of sin, the public library." She +had little classes in art-criticism for the young ladies in town, +explaining to them with sweet lucidity why the Botticellis and Rembrandts +and Duerers were better than the chromos which still hung on the walls of +the old library, now cold and deserted except for church suppers and +sociables. These were never held in the new reading-room, the oriental +rugs being much too fine to have doughnut crumbs and coffee spilled on +them. After a time, however, the young ladies told her that they found +themselves too busy getting the missionary barrels ready to continue +absorbing information about Botticelli's rhythm and Duerer's line. + +Miss Martin was not only pretty and competent, but she was firm of +purpose, as was shown by her encounter with Elzaphan Hall, who had +domineered over two generations of amateur librarians. The old man had +received strict orders to preserve silence in the reading-room when the +librarian could not be there, and yet one day she returned from the +stack-room to find the place in a most shocking state of confusion. +Everybody was laughing, Elzaphan himself most of all, and they did not +stop when she brought her severe young face among them. Elzaphan +explained, waving his hand at a dark Rembrandt looking gloomily down upon +them, that Elnathan Pritchett had said that if _he_ had such a dirty face +as that he'd _wash_ it, if he had to go as far as from here to the Eagle +Rock Spring to get the water! This seemed the dullest of bucolic wit to +Miss Martin, and she chilled Elnathan to the marrow by her sad gaze of +disappointment in him. Jennie Foster was very jealous of Miss Martin (as +were all the girls in town), and she rejoiced openly in Elnathan's +witticism, continuing to laugh at intervals after the rest of the room had +cowered into silence under the librarian's eye. + +Miss Martin took the old janitor aside and told him sternly that if such +a thing happened again she would dismiss him; and when the old man, +crazily trying to show his spirit, allowed a spelling-match to go on, full +blast, right in library hours, she did dismiss him, drawing on the endless +funds at her disposal to import a young Irishman from Albany, who was soon +playing havoc with the pretty French-Canadian girls. Elzaphan Hall, +stunned by the blow, fell into bad company and began to drink heavily, +paying for his liquor by exceedingly comic and disrespectful imitations of +Miss Martin's talks on art. + +It was now about the middle of the winter, and the knoll which in June had +been the center of gratefully cool breezes was raked by piercing north +winds which penetrated the picturesquely unplastered, wood-finished walls +as though they had been paper. The steam-heating plant did not work very +well, and the new janitor, seeing fewer and fewer people come to the +reading-room, spent less and less time in struggling with the boilers, or +in keeping the long path up the hill shoveled clear of snow. Miss Martin, +positively frightened by the ferocity with which winter flings itself upon +the high narrow valley, was helpless before the problem of the new +conditions, and could think of nothing to do except to buy more fuel and +yet more, and to beseech the elusive Celt, city-trained in plausible +excuses for not doing his duty, to burn more wood. Once she remarked +plaintively to Elnathan Pritchett, as she sat beside him at a church +supper (for she made a great point of "mingling with the people"), that it +seemed to her there must be something the _matter_ with the wood in +Hillsboro. + +Everybody within earshot laughed, and the saying was repeated the next day +with shameless mirth as the best joke of the season. For the wood for the +library had had a history distinctly discreditable and as distinctly +ludicrous, at which Hillsboro people laughed with a conscious lowering of +their standards of honesty. The beginning had been an accident, but the +long sequence was not. For the first time in the history of the library, +the farmer who brought the first load of wood presented a bill for this +service. He charged two dollars a cord on the scrawled memorandum, but +Miss Martin mistook this figure for a seven, corrected his total with the +kindest tolerance for his faulty arithmetic, and gave the countryman a +check which reduced him for a time to a paralyzed silence. It was only on +telling the first person he met outside the library that the richness of a +grown person knowing no more than that about the price of wood came over +him, and the two screamed with laughter over the lady's beautifully formed +figures on the dirty sheet of paper. + +Miss Martin took the hesitating awkwardness of the next man presenting +himself before her, not daring to ask the higher price and not willing to +take the lower, for rustic bashfulness, and put him at his ease by saying +airily, "Five cords? That makes thirty-five dollars. I always pay seven +dollars a cord." After that, the procession of grinning men driving +lumber-sleds toward the library became incessant. The minister attempted +to remonstrate with the respectable men of his church for cheating a poor +young lady, but they answered roughly that it wasn't her money but +Camden's, who had tossed them the library as a man would toss a penny to a +beggar, who had now quite forgotten about them, and, finally, who had made +his money none too honestly. + +Since he had become of so much importance to them they had looked up his +successful career in the Chicago wheat pit, and, undazzled by the millions +involved, had penetrated shrewdly to the significance of his operations. +The record of his colossal and unpunished frauds had put to sleep, so far +as he was concerned, their old minute honesty. It was considered the best +of satires that the man who had fooled all the West should be fooled in +his turn by a handful of forgotten mountaineers, that they should be +fleecing him in little things as he had fleeced Chicago in great. There +was, however, an element which frowned on this shifting of standards, and, +before long, neighbors and old friends were divided into cliques, calling +each other, respectively, cheats and hypocrites. Hillsboro was intolerably +dull that winter because of the absence of the usual excitement over the +entertainment, and in that stagnation all attention was directed to the +new joke on the wheat king. It was turned over and over, forward and back, +and refurbished and made to do duty again and again, after the fashion of +rustic jokes. This one had the additional advantage of lining the pockets +of the perpetrators. They egged one another on to fresh inventions and +variations, until even the children, not to be left out, began to have +exploits of their own to tell. The grocers raised the price of kerosene, +groaning all the time at the extortions of the oil trust, till the +guileless guardian of Mr. Camden's funds was paying fifty cents a gallon +for it. The boys charged a quarter for every bouquet of pine-boughs they +brought to decorate the cold, empty reading-room. The washer-woman charged +five dollars for "doing-up" the lace sash-curtains. As spring came on, and +the damages wrought by the winter winds must be repaired, the carpenters +asked wages which made the sellers of firewood tear their hair at wasted +opportunities. They might have raised the price per cord! The new janitor, +hearing the talk about town, demanded a raise in salary and threatened to +leave without warning if it were not granted. + +It was on the fifth of June, a year to a day after the arrival of Mr. +Camden in his automobile, that Miss Martin yielded to this last extortion, +and her action made the day as memorable as that of the year before. The +janitor, carried away by his victory, celebrated his good fortune in so +many glasses of hard cider that he was finally carried home and deposited +limply on the veranda of his boarding-house. Here he slept till the cold +of dawn awoke him to a knowledge of his whereabouts, so inverted and tipsy +that he rose, staggered to the library, cursing the intolerable length of +these damn Vermont winters, and proceeded to build a roaring fire on the +floor of the reading-room. As the varnished wood of the beautiful fittings +took light like a well-constructed bonfire, realization of his act came to +him, and he ran down the valley road, screaming and giving the alarm at +the top of his lungs, and so passed out of Hillsboro forever. + +The village looked out of its windows, saw the wooden building blazing +like a great torch, hurried on its clothes and collected around the fire. +No effort was made to save the library. People stood around in the chilly +morning air, looking silently at the mountain of flame which burned as +though it would never stop. They thought of a great many things in that +silent hour as the sun rose over Hemlock Mountain, and there were no +smiles or their faces. They are ignorant and narrow people in Hillsboro, +but they have an inborn capacity unsparingly to look facts in the face. + +When the last beam had fallen in with a crash to the blackened cellar-hole +Miss Martin, very pale and shaken, stepped bravely forward. "I know how +terribly you must be feeling about this," she began in her carefully +modulated voice, "but I want to assure you that I _know_ Mr. Camden will +rebuild the library for you if--" + +She was interrupted by the chief man of the town, Squire Pritchett, who +began speaking with a sort of bellow only heard before in exciting moments +in town-meeting. "May I never live to see the day!" he shouted; and from +all the tongue-tied villagers there rose a murmur of relief at having +found a voice. They pressed about him closely and drank in his dry, curt +announcement: "As selectman I shall write Mr. Camden, tell him of the +fire, thank him for his kindness, and inform him that we don't want any +more of it" Everybody nodded. "I don't know whether his money is what they +call tainted or not, but there's one thing sure, it ain't done us any +good." He passed his hand over his unshaven jaw with a rasping wipe and +smiled grimly as he concluded, "I'm no hand to stir up lawbreakin' and +disorder, but I want to say right here that I'll never inform against any +Hillsboro man who keeps the next automobile out of town, if he has to take +a ax to it!" + +People laughed, and neighbors who had not spoken to one another since the +quarrel over the price of wood fell into murmured, approving talk. + +Elnathan Pritchett, blushing and hesitating, twitched at his father's +sleeve. "But, father--Miss Martin--We're keeping her out of a position." + +That young lady made one more effort to reach these impenetrable people. +"I was about to resign," she said with dignity. "I am going to marry the +assistant to the head of the Department of Bibliography at Albany." + +The only answer to this imposing announcement was a giggle from Jennie +Foster, to whose side Elnathan now fell back, silenced. + +People began to move away in little knots, talking as they went. Elzaphan +Hall stumped hastily down the street to the town hall and was standing in +the open door as the first group passed him. + +"Here, Mis' Foster, you're forgittin' somethin'," he said roughly, with +his old surly, dictatorial air. "This is your day to the library." + +Mrs. Foster hesitated, laughing at the old man's manner. + +"It seems foolish, but I don't know why _not_!" she said. "Jennie, you run +on over home and bring a broom for Elzaphan. The book must be in an +_awful_ state!" + +When Jennie came back, a knot of women stood before the door, talking to +her mother and looking back at the smoldering ruins. The girl followed the +direction of their eyes and of their thoughts. "I don't believe but what +we can plant woodbine and things around it so that in a month's time you +won't know there's been anything there!" she said hopefully. + + + + +SALEM HILLS TO ELLIS ISLAND + + + A single sleighbell, tinkling down + The virgin road that skirts the wood, + Makes poignant to the lonely town + Its silence and its solitude. + + A single taper's feeble flare + Makes darker by its lonely light + The cold and empty farmsteads square + That blackly loom to left and tight; + + And she who sews, by that dim flame, + The patient quilt spread on her knees, + Hears from her heirloom quilting-frame + The frolic of forgotten bees. + + Yea, all the dying village thrills + With echoes of its cheerful past, + The golden days of Salem Hills; + Its only golden days? Its last? + + + + +II + + + From Salem Hills a voiceless cry + Along the darkened valley rolls. + Hear it, great ship, and forward ply + With thy rich freight of venturous souls. + + Hear it, O thronging lower deck, + Brave homestead-seekers come from far; + And crowd the rail, and crane the neck; + In Salem Hills your homesteads are! + + Where flourish now the brier and thorn, + The barley and the wheat shall spring, + And valleys standing thick with corn + (Praise God, my heart!), shall laugh and sing. + + + + +AVUNCULUS + +I + + +The library of Middletown College had been founded, like the college +itself, in 1818, and it was a firm article of undergraduate belief that +the librarian, Mr. J.M. Atterworthy, had sat behind his battered desk +from that date on to the present time. As a matter of fact, he was but +just gliding down-hill from middle age, having behind him the same number +of years as the active and high-spirited president of the college. And yet +there was ground for the undergraduate conviction that "Old J.M." as he +was always called, was an institution whose beginnings dated back into the +mists of antiquity, for of his sixty years he had spent forty-four in +Middletown, and forty as librarian of the college. + +He had come down, a shy, lanky freshman of sixteen, from a little village +in the Green Mountains, and had found the only consolation for his +homesick soul in the reading-room of the library. During his sophomore and +junior years, there had sprung up in the bookish lad, shrinking from the +rough fun of his fellows, the first shoots of that passionate attachment +to the library which was later to bind him so irrevocably to the old +building. In those early days there was no regular librarian, the +professors taking turn and turn about in keeping the reading-room open for +a few hours, three or four days a week. In his senior year, "J.M." (even +at that time his real name was sunk in the initials, the significance of +which he jealously concealed) petitioned the faculty to be allowed to take +charge of the reading-room. They gave a shrug of surprise at his +eccentricity, investigated briefly his eminently sober-minded college +career, and heaved a sigh of relief as they granted his extraordinary +request. + +On the evening of Commencement day, J.M. went to the president and made +the following statement: He said that his father and his mother had both +died during his senior year, leaving him entirely alone in the world, with +a small inheritance yielding about fifty dollars a month. He had no +leaning to any profession, he shrank with all his being from the savage +struggles of the business world, and he could not bear to return to +Woodville, to find himself lonely and bereaved in the spot where he had +had such a cloudlessly happy childhood. In short, Middletown was the only +place he knew and liked, except Woodville, which he loved too poignantly +to live there with the soul gone out of things; and the library was the +only home he now had. If the president could get the trustees, at their +next meeting, to allow him the use of the three rooms in the library +tower, and if they would vote him a small nominal salary, say thirty +dollars a month, enough to make him a regular member of the college corps, +he would like nothing better than to settle down and be the librarian of +his _alma mater_ for the rest of his life. + +The president of that date was, like all the other presidents of +Middletown College, a florid, hearty old gentleman with more red blood +than he knew what to do with, in spite of his seventy years. He was vastly +amused at the inexperienced young fellow's simple-minded notion, and, +clapping him on the shoulder, said with his cheerfully Johnsonian +rotundity: "Why, my dear young sir, your recent sad bereavement must have +temporarily deranged your mental faculties, that at your age you can +contemplate adopting such a desiccated mode of existence. Your +proposition is, however, a highly advantageous one to your college, and I +shall see that it is accepted. However, I am willing to lay a wager with +you that a year will not be out before you are asking to be freed from +your contract." + + +J.M., trembling in suspense, took in nothing of the president's speech +beyond the acceptance of his offer, and, pale with relief, he tried to +stammer his thanks and his devotion to his chosen cause. He made no +attempt to contradict the president's confident prophecies; he only made +the greatest possible haste to the tower-rooms which were to be his home. +His eyes filled with thankfulness at his lot as he paced about them, and, +looking out of the windows upon the campus, he had a prophetic vision of +his future, of the simple, harmless, innocent life which was to be his. + +Of the two prophets he proved himself the truer. The head of his college +and one generation after another of similar presidents laughed and joked +him about the _Wanderlust_ which would some day sweep him away from his +old moorings, or the sensible girl who would some day get hold of him and +make a man of him. He outlasted all these wiseacres, however, watching +through mild, spectacled eyes the shifting changes of the college world, +which always left him as immovable as the old elms before the library +door. He never went away from Middletown, except on the most necessary +trips to New York or Boston on business connected with book-buying for the +library. + +He explained this unheard-of stagnation by saying that the utter +metamorphosis of the village after the college life stopped gave him +change enough. Only once had he gone farther and, to one of the younger +professors who had acquired an odd taste for old J.M.'s society, +confessed hesitatingly that he did not go away because he had no place to +which he could go, except to his childhood home. He said he couldn't bear +to go there lest he find it so changed that the sight of it would rob him +of his old memories, the dearest--in fact the only possessions of his +heart. After a pause he had added to his young listener, who found the +little old secular monk a tremendously pathetic figure: "Do you know, +Layton, I sometimes feel that I have missed a great deal in life--and yet +not at all what everybody thought I would miss, the stir of active life or +the vulgar excitement of being in love. All that kind of thing seems as +distasteful to me now as ever." + +There he stopped and poked the fire until the young professor, overcome +with sympathetic curiosity, urged him to go on. He sighed at this, and +said: "Why, fortune ought not to have made me an only child, although I +can't say that I've ever longed for brothers or sisters.... But now I feel +that I should like very much to have some nephews and nieces. I never +could have stood having children of my own--I should have been crushed +under the responsibility; but a nephew, now--a young creature with a brain +and soul developing--to whom I could be a help ... I find as I get older +that I have an empty feeling as the college year draws to a close. I have +kept myself so remote from human life, for fear of being dragged into that +feverish center of it which has always so repelled me, that now I do not +touch it at all." He ended with a gentle resignation, taking off his +glasses and rubbing them sadly: "I suppose I do not deserve anything more, +because I was not willing to bear the burdens of common life ... and yet +it almost seems that there should be some place for such as I--?" + +The heart of his young friend had melted within him at this revelation of +the submissive isolation of the sweet-tempered, cool-blooded old scholar. +Carelessly confident, like all the young, that any amount or variety of +human affection could be his for the asking, he promised himself to make +the dear old recluse a sharer in his own wealth; but the next year he +married a handsome, ambitious girl who made him accept an advantageous +offer in the commercial world. With his disappearance, the solitary door +in the prison walls which kept J.M. remote from his fellows swung shut. + +He looked so hopelessly dull and becalmed after this that the president +was moved to force on him a little outing. Stopping one day with his +touring-car at the door of the library, he fairly swept the sedentary +little man off his feet and out to the machine. J.M. did not catch his +breath during the swift flight to the president's summer home in a trim, +green, elm-shaded village in the Berkshires. When he recovered a little he +was startled by the resemblance of the place to his old recollections of +Woodville. There were the same white houses with green shutters, and big +white pillars to the porches, the same green lawns and clumps of peonies +and carefully tended rose-gardens, and the same old-New-England air of +distance from the hurry and smoky energy of modern commercial life. + +He spoke of this to the president's wife and she explained that it was no +wonder. The village was virtually owned by a summer colony of oldish +people who had lived there in their youth and who devoted themselves to +keeping the old place just as it had been. "We haven't any children to +bother about any more," she said, laughing, "so we take it out in putting +knockers on the doors instead of bells and in keeping the grocery-stores +out of sight so that the looks of the village green shan't be spoiled." + +After J.M. returned to deserted Middletown, he could not keep out of his +mind the vision of the village he had just left, and the thought of the +village like it which he had loved so well in his boyhood. It seemed to +him that if Woodville kept its old aspect at all, he would find it a +comfort to try to inspire the people now living there to preserve the +old-timey look of it, as the president was doing for his old home. There +was positively a thrill for J.M. in the thought of his possibly +influencing other people, and before he knew it the plan had made itself +the main interest of the interminably long, empty days of the summer +vacation. His vague feeling of a lack in his life crystallized about a +definite attempt at filling it. He was stirred from his inertia and, +leaving word with the registrar of the college, a newcomer who was not at +all surprised that the librarian should follow the example of all the rest +of the faculty, J.M. made the three hours' journey which had separated +him for so many years from the home of his youth. + +As the train wound along the valley beside the river, and as the familiar +outlines of the mountains rose up like the faces of dear, unforgotten +friends, J.M. expanded and bloomed with delight in his new idea; but it +was a very shriveled and dusty little old scholar who finally arrived at +the farther end of the Main Street of Woodville and stood, in the hush of +the noon hour, gazing back with a stricken face at the row of slovenly +unlovely front yards separating the wretched old houses from the street. + +He stood before the house that had been his home, and when he looked at it +he turned very pale and sat down quickly as though his knees had failed +him. Apparently the house had not been painted since his childhood, and +certainly it had not been repaired. Broken, dangling shutters gave it a +blear-eyed look which it made him sick to see, and swarms of untidily +pin-feathered chickens wandered about over the hard-beaten earth of the +yard, which was without a spear of grass, littered with old boxes and +crates and unsightly rags, and hung with a flapping, many-legged wash. +From the three rural mail-delivery boxes at the gate, he gathered that +three families were crowded into the house which had seemed none too large +for his father, his mother, and himself. He put on his glasses and read +the names shudderingly--Jean-Baptiste Loyette, Patrick McCartey, and S. +Petrofsky. + +"Good heavens!" he observed feebly to the vacant, dusty road beside him, +and in answer a whistle from the big, barrack-like building at the other +end of the street screamed so stridently that the heavy August air seemed +to vibrate about him in hot waves. + +At once, as if all the houses on the street were toy barometers, every +door swung open and a stream of men and boys in dirty shirts and overalls +flowed out through the squalid yards along the sidewalks toward the +factory. From the house before which the librarian of Middletown College +sat in a crushed heap of resentment came three men to correspond to the +three mail-boxes: one short and red-haired; one dark, thick-set, and +grizzle-bearded; and the third tall, clumsily built, with an impassive +face and dark, smoldering eyes. They stared at the woebegone old stranger +before their gate, but evidently had no time to lose, as their house was +the last on the street, and hurried away toward the hideous, many-windowed +factory. + +J.M. gazed after them, shaking his head droopingly, until a second +eruption from the house made him look back. The cause of the hard-beaten +bare ground of the yard was apparent at once, even to his inexperienced +eyes. The old house seemed to be exuding children from a thousand +pores--children red-haired and black-haired, and tow-headed, boys and +girls, little and big, and apparently yelling on a wager about who owned +the loudest voice, all dirty-faced, barelegged, and scantily clothed. +J.M. mechanically set himself to counting them, but when he got as high +as seventeen, he thought he must have counted some of them twice, and left +off. + +A draggle-tailed woman stepped to a door and threw out a pan of +dish-water. J.M. resolved to overcome his squeamish disgust and make a +few inquiries before he fled back to the blessed cleanliness and quiet of +Middletown Library. Picking his way gingerly through the chickens and +puppies and cats and children, the last now smitten into astonished +silence by his appearance, he knocked on the door. The woman who came to +answer him was dressed in what had been a black and purple percale, +wrapper, she had a baby on her arm, and was making vain attempts to fasten +up a great coil of hair at the back of her head. No, she told him volubly, +she couldn't remember the town when it was any different, though she and +Pat had lived there ever since they were married and came over from +Ireland, and that was the whole of sixteen years ago. + +"Oh!" with a sudden gush of sympathy, "and so it was your old home! Isn't +that interring now! You must come in and sit awhile. Pat, git a chair for +the gentleman, and Molly, take the baby so I can talk better. Oh, _won't_ +you come in? You'd _better_, now, and have a bite to eat and a sup of tea. +I've some ready made." Of course, she went on, she knew the house didn't +look so nice as in his day.... "It's all along of the children! Irish +people can't kape so tidy, now, _can_ they, with siven or eight, as +Yankees can with one--" But it certainly was a grand house, she didn't +wonder he came back to look at it. Wasn't it fairly like a palace, now, +compared with anything her kin back in Ireland had, and such a fine big +place for the children to play an' all. + +J.M. broke in to ask a final question, which she answered, making vain +attempts to button her buttonless collar about a fat white neck, and +following him as he retreated toward the street, through a lively game of +baseball among the older boys. No, so far as she knew there wasn't one of +the Yankees left that had lived here in old times. They had gone away when +the factory had come in, she'd heard said. J.M. had expected this answer, +but when it came, he turned a little sick for an instant, and felt giddy +with the heat of the sun and lack of food and a desolation in his heart +sharper and more searching than any emotion he had known since his +boyhood. Through a mist before his eyes, he saw his hostess make a wild +warning gesture, and heard a yell of dismay from the crowd of boys, but +before he could turn his head, something cruelly hard struck him in the +side. In the instant before he fell, his clearest impression was utter +amazement that anything in the world could cause him such incredible pain, +but then his head struck heavily against a stone, and he lay quite still +in a little crumpled heap under the old elm which had sheltered his +boyhood. + + + + +II + + +For an instant after he opened his eyes again, all his life after leaving +Woodville seemed to have melted away, for there at the foot of his bed was +the little, many-paned window out of which he had watched the seasons +change all through his boyhood, and close above him hung the familiar +slanting roof of his own little, old room. However, when he stirred, it +was not his mother but a rosy-faced Irish woman who stopped her sewing and +asked him in a thick, sweet brogue if he needed anything. As he stared at +her, recollecting but dimly having seen her glossy brown hair and fair, +matronly face before, she exclaimed: "Ah, I'm Bridget McCartey, you know, +an' you were hurted by the lads throwin' a baseball into your ribs. It's +lyin' here a week sick you've been, and, savin' your pardon, the sooner +you tell me where your folks live the better. They'll be fair wild about +you." + +The sick man closed his eyes again. "I have no family at all," he said. It +was the first time in years that the thoroughgoing extent of that fact had +been brought home to him. + +His nurse was moved to sympathy over so awful a fate. "Sure an' don't I +know how 'tis. Pat an' I left every one of our kith behind us, mostly, +when we come away, and it's that hungry for thim that I get. I dare say it +ill becomes me to say it, but the first thing I says to myself when I see +you was how like you are to one of my father's brothers in County Kerry. +It's been a real comfort to have you here sick, as though I had some of my +own kin near. _His_ name was Jerry. It's not possible, is't, that the J. +on your handkerchief stands for Jerry, too?" + +For the first time since he had left Woodville J.M. disclosed the +grotesque secret of his initials. In the flaccid indifference of +convalescence it flowed from him painlessly. "My name is Jeroboam +Mordecai." + +"Exactly to a hair like Uncle Jerry's!" cried Mrs. McCartey, overjoyed by +the coincidence. "Except that his J. stood for Jeremiah and his M. for +Michael. If you will tell me your last name, too, I'll try and lambaste +the children into callin' you proper. Not havin' sorra name to speak of +you by, and hearin' me say to Pat how you favored my father's brother, +haven't they taken to callin' _you_ Uncle Jerry--more shame to them!" + +The mention of the children awoke to life J.M.'s old punctilious habits. +He tried to sit up. "But you have so little space for all your family--you +should not have taken me in; where can the children sleep?" + +Mrs. McCartey pushed him back on the pillow with an affectionate firmness +born of "the bringin' up of sivin." "Now lay still, Uncle Jerry, and kape +yourself cool." The name slipped out unnoticed in her hospitable fervor +"Wasn't it the least we could do when 'twas our own Mike's ball that came +near killin' you? An' the children--the boys, that is, that this is their +room--isn't it out in the barn they're sleepin' on the hay? An' that +pleased with it. Pat and I were thinkin' that now was a good chance to +teach them to give up things--when you've no old folks about you, the +children are so apt to grow up selfish-like--but they think the barn's +better nor the house, bless them, so don't _you_ worry." + +She pulled the bedclothes straight (J.M. noticed that they were quite +clean), settled the pillow, and drew down the shade. "Now thin, you've +talked enough," she said. "Take a sup of sleep for a while." And to +J.M.'s feeble surprise he found himself doing exactly as he was told, +dozing off with a curious weak-headed feeling of comfort. + +He came to his strength slowly, the doctor forbidding him to think of +taking a journey for a month at least. Indeed, J.M., thinking of his +isolated tower-rooms in the deserted college town, was in no haste to +leave Mrs. McCartey's kindly, dictatorial care. He had been very sick +indeed, the doctor told him seriously, and he felt it in the trembling +weakness of his first attempts at sitting up, and in the blank vacancy of +his mind. + +At first he could not seem to remember for more than an instant at a time +how he came to be there, and later, as his capacity for thought came back, +he found his surroundings grown insensibly familiar to him. He felt +himself somehow to have slipped so completely into the inside of things +that it was impossible to recover the remote, hostile point of view which +had been his as he had looked over the gate a fortnight ago. For instance, +knowing now, not only that the children's faces were scrubbed to a +polished redness every morning, but being: cognizant through his window of +most of the palpably unavoidable accidents of play which made them dirty +half an hour later, he would have resented as unreasonable intolerance any +undue emphasis on this phase of their appearance. + +The first day that he was well enough to sit out on the porch was a great +event. The children, who before had made only shy, fleeting visits to his +room with "little handfuls of bokays," as their mother said, were as +excited and elated over his appearance as though it reflected some credit +on themselves. Indeed, J.M. found that he was the subject of +unaccountable pride to all the family, and one of the first of those +decisions of his between McCartey and Loyette occurred that very morning. +The Loyette children insisted on being included in the rejoicing over the +convalescent's step forward, and soon Pierre, the oldest boy, was haled +before J.M. himself to account for his having dared to use the McCartey +name for the sick man. + +"You're _not_ his Uncle Jerry, _are_ you?" demanded Mike McCartey. + +J.M. thought that now was the time to repress the too exuberant McCartey +familiarity. "I'm his Uncle Jerry just as much as I am yours!" he said +severely. + +It took him a whole day to understand the jubilant triumph of the +French-Canadians and to realize that he had apparently not only upheld the +McCarteys in their preposterous nickname, but that he had added all the +black-eyed Loyettes to his new family. Mrs. McCartey said to him that +evening, with an innocent misconception of the situation, "Sure an' +mustn't it sound fine to you, that name, when you've no kith of your own." +J.M. realized that that speech broke down the last bridge of retreat into +his forsaken dignity. It is worthy of note that as he lay in bed that +evening, meditating upon it, he suddenly broke into a little laugh of +utter amusement, such as the assistants at Middletown Library had never +heard from his lips. + +The rapidity with which he was fitted into the routine of the place took +his breath away. At first when he sat on the porch, which was the common +ground of all the families, either Mrs. McCartey or Mrs. Loyette sewed +near him to keep an eye on the children, but, as his strength came back, +they made him, with a sigh of relief, their substitute, and disappeared +into the house about neglected housework. "Oh, ain't it lovely now!" cried +Mrs. McCartey to Mrs. Loyette, "to have an old person of your own about +the place that you can leave the children with a half-minute, while you +snatch the wash-boiler off the fire or keep the baby from cuttin' her +throat with the butcher-knife." + +Mrs. Loyette agreed, shaking her sleek black head a great many times in +emphasis. "Zose pipple," she added, "zose lucky pipple who have all zere +old pipple wiz zem, they can _not_ know how hard is eet to be a mozzer, +wizout a one grand'mere, or oncle." + +So J.M. at the end of his first fortnight in Woodville found himself +undisputed umpire in all the games, discussions, quarrels, +and undertakings of seven young, Irish-Americans and more +French-Canadian-Americans than he could count. He never did find out +exactly how many Loyettes there were. The untidy front yard, littered with +boxes and barrels, assumed a strangely different aspect to him as he +learned its infinite possibilities, for games and buildings and +imaginations generally. Sometimes it was a village with a box as house for +each child, ranged in streets and lanes, and then Uncle Jerry was the +mayor and had to make the laws. Sometimes the yard foamed and heaved in +salt waves as, embarked in caravels, the expedition for the discovery of +America (out of the older children's history-books) dashed over the +Atlantic. It is needless to state that Uncle Jerry was Christopher +Columbus. + +Both the grateful mothers whom he was relieving cried out that never had +there been such peace as since he came, not only because the children +could appeal to him for decisions instead of running to their mothers, but +because, the spectacular character in every game belonging to him as +"company," there were no more quarrels between Mike and Pierre about the +leadership. J.M. could not seem to find his old formal personality for +weeks after Mike's baseball had knocked it out of him, and in the meantime +he submitted, meekly at first and later with an absurd readiness, to being +an Indian chieftain, and the head of the fire department, and the +principal of a big public school, and the colonel of a regiment, and the +owner of a cotton factory, and the leader of Arctic expeditions, and all +the other characters which the fertile minds inhabiting the front yard +forced upon him. He realized that he was a changed soul when he found +himself rejoicing as the boys came tugging yet another big crate, obtained +from the factory, to add to the collection before him. They needed it for +the car for the elephant as the circus they were then performing moved +from one end of the yard to the other. + +He was often very, very tired when night came, but he surprised himself by +never having a touch of his old enemy, insomnia. At first he went to bed +when the children did, but as he progressed out of convalescence, he sat +out on the porch with Pat and Bridget, as they insisted he should call +them. It was very quiet then, when the cool summer dusk had hushed all the +young life which made each day such an absorbing series of unexpected +events. The puppies and kittens slept in their boxes, the hens had +gathered the chickens under their wings, the children were sound asleep, +and the great elms cast kindly shadows on the porch where the older people +sat. The Loyettes often came out and joined them, and J.M. listened with +an interest which surprised him as they told stories about hard times in +their old homes, rejoiced in their present prosperity, and made humbly +aspiring plans for their children. + +For the first time in his life J.M. felt himself to be a person of almost +unlimited resources, both of knowledge and wealth, as the pitiful +meagerness of his hosts supply of these commodities was revealed to him in +these talks, more intimate than any he had known, more vitally human than +any he had ever heard. The acquisition of rare first edition, perhaps the +most stirring event in his life in Middletown, had never aroused him to +anything like the eagerness with which he heard the Loyettes helplessly +bemoaning their inability to do anything for their oldest child, Rosalie, +a slim girl of seventeen. Her drawing-teacher at school had said that the +child had an unusual gift for designing, and a manufacturer of wallpaper, +who had seen some of her work on a visit to the Woodville factory, had +confirmed this judgment and said that "something ought to be done for +her." + +"But _what?_" her parents wondered with an utter ignorance of the world +outside of Woodville which astonished J.M. + +"Why don't you send her to a school of design?" he asked. + +"Vat is _zat_?" asked Papa Loyette blankly, and "We have no money," sighed +Maman. + +J.M. stirred himself, wrote to the director of a school of design in +Albany, consulted the priest of the parish, sent some of Rosalie's work, +and asked about scholarships. When a favorable answer came, he hurried to +explain the matter to the Loyettes and offered to provide the four dollars +a week necessary for her board at the Catholic Home for Working Girls, of +which the priest had told him. He went to bed that night with his heart +beating faster from the reflection of their agitated joy than it had done +for years. He could not get to sleep for a long time, such a thrill of +emotion did he get from each recollection of Maman Loyette's broad face +bathed in tears of gratitude. + +After this they fell into the way of asking him about all their problems, +from the management of difficult children to what to do about an unjust +foreman and whether to join the union. The childless, unpractical, +academic old bachelor, forced to meditate on these new subjects, gave +utterance to advice whose sagacity amazed himself. He had not known it was +in him to have such sensible ideas about how to interest a growing boy in +athletics to keep him from drinking; and as for the question of unions, he +boiled at the memory of some of the half-baked, pedantic theories he had +heard promulgated by the professor of political economy in Middletown. + +On the other hand, he stood in wonder at the unconscious but profound +wisdom which these ignorant people showed as to the fundamentals of life. + +"No, we're not much for _clothes!_" said Mrs. McCartey, comfortably +tucking up her worn and faded sleeves. "Haven't we all of us enough good +clothes to go to Mass in, and that's a'plenty! The rest of Pat's money +goes to gettin' lots of good food for the children, bless their red faces +and fat little bellies! and laying by a dollar or so a week against the +rainy day. Children can play better, anyhow, with only overalls and +shirts. The best times for kids is the cheapest!" + +J.M. thought of the heavy-eyed, harassed professors of his acquaintance, +working nights and Sundays at hack work to satisfy the nervous ambitions +of their wives to keep up appearances, and gave a sudden swift embrace to +the ragged child on his lap, little Molly, who had developed an especial +cult for him, following him everywhere with great pansy eyes of adoring +admiration. + +On his first expedition out of the yard since his illness, he was touched +by the enthusiastic interest which all Main Street took in his progress. +Women with babies came down to nearly every gate to pass the time of day +with Rosalie, on whose arm he leaned, and to say in their varying foreign +accents that they were glad to see the sick gentleman able to be out. +Since J.M. had had a chance at first-hand observation of the variety of +occupation forced upon the mother of seven, he was not surprised that they +wore more or less dilapidated wrappers and did not Marcel-wave their hair. +Now he noticed the motherly look in their eyes, and the exuberant health +of the children laughing and swarming about them. When he returned to the +house he sat down on the porch to consider a number of new ideas which +were springing up in his mind, beginning to return to its old vigor. Mrs. +McCartey came out to see how he had stood the fatigue and said: "Sure you +look smarter than before you went! It inter_est_ed you now, didn't it, to +have a chance really to see the old place?" + +"Yes," said J.M., "it did, very much." + +Mrs. McCartey went on: "I've been thinkin' so many times since you come +how much luckier you are than most Yankees that come back to their old +homes. It must seem so good to you to see the houses just swarmin' with +young life and to know that the trees and yards and rocks and brooks that +give you such a good time when you was a boy, are goin' on givin' good +times to a string of other boys." + +J.M. looked at her with attentive, surprised eyes. "Why, do you know," he +cried, "it _does_ seem good, to be sure!" + +The other did not notice the oddness of his accent as she ended +meditatively: "You can never get me to believe that it don't make old +Yankees feel low in their minds to go back to their old homes and find +just a few white-headed rheumatickers potterin' around, an' the grass +growing over everything as though it was a molderin' graveyard that nobody +iver walked in, and sorra sign of life anyway you look up and down the +street." + +J.M.'s mind flew back to the summer home of the president of Middletown. +"Good gracious," he exclaimed, "you're right!" + +Mrs. McCartey did not take in to the full this compliment, her mind being +suddenly diverted by the appearance of a tall figure at the door of the +farther wing of the house. "Say, Uncle Jerry," she said, lowering her +voice, "Stefan Petrofsky asked me the other day if I thought you would let +him talk to you about Ivan some evening?" + +"Why, who are they, anyhow?" asked J.M. "I've often wondered why they +kept themselves so separate from the rest of us." As he spoke he noticed +the turn of his phrase and almost laughed aloud. + +"Petrofsky's wife, poor thing, died since they come here, and now there's +only Stefan, he's the father, and Ivan, he's the boy. He's awful smart +they say, and Stefan, he's about kilt himself to get the boy through the +high school. He graduated this spring and now Stefan he says he wants him +to get some _more_ education. He says their family, back in Russia, was +real gentry and he wants Ivan to learn a lot so that he can help the poor +Roosians who come here to do the right thing by the government--" + +"_ What_?" asked J.M. "I don't seem to catch his idea." + +"Well, no more do I, sorra bit," confessed Mrs. McCartey serenely. "Not a +breath of what he meant got to me, but what he _said_ was that Ivan's +schoolin' had put queer ideas in his head to be an anarchist or somethin' +and he thought that maybe more schoolin' would drive out _thim_ ideas and +put in other ones yet. Hasn't it a foolish sound, now?" She appealed to +J .M. for a sympathy she did not get. + +"It sounds like the most interesting case I ever heard of," he cried, with +a generous looseness of superlative new to him. "Is Ivan that tall, shy, +sad-looking boy who goes with his father to work?" + +"That's _him_. An' plays the fiddle fit to tear the heart out of your +body, and reads big books till God knows what hour in the mornin'. His +father, he says _he_ don't know what to do with him ... There's a big, bad +devil of a Polack down to the works that wants him to join the anarchists +in the fall and go to----" + +J.M. rose to his feet and hurried down the porch toward the Petrofsky +wing of the house, addressing himself to the tall, grave-faced figure in +the doorway. "Oh, Mr. Petrofsky, may I have a few minutes' talk with you +about your son?" he said. + + + + +III + + +The registrar of Middletown College, being a newcomer, saw nothing unusual +in the fact that the librarian came to his office on matriculation day to +enroll as a freshman a shy, dark-eyed lad with a foreign name; but the +president and older professors were petrified into speechlessness by the +news that old J.M. had returned from parts unknown with a queer-looking +boy, who called the old man uncle. Their amazement rose to positive +incredulity when they heard that the fastidious, finical old bachelor had +actually installed a raw freshman in one of his precious tower-rooms, +always before inexorably guarded from the mildest and most passing +intrusion on their hallowed quiet. + +The president made all haste to call on J.M. and see the phenomenon with +his own eyes. As discreetly as his raging curiosity would allow him, he +fell to questioning the former recluse. When he learned that J.M. had +spent six weeks in Woodville, no more explanation seemed needed. "Oh, of +course, your old home?" + +"Yes," said J.M., "my old home." + +"And you had a warm welcome there, I dare say?" + +"Yes, indeed," said J.M. + +"Found the old town in good condition?" + +"Excellent!" this with emphasis. + +The president saw it all, explaining it competently to himself. "Yes, yes, +I see it from here--vacation spent in renewing your youth playing with the +children--promised to go back at Christmas, I suppose." + +"Oh, yes, of course," said J.M. + +"Children cried when you came away, and gave you dotty little things +they'd made themselves?" + +"Just like that," with a reminiscent smile. + +"Well, well," the president got to his feet. "Of course, most natural +thing in the world to take an interest in your brothers' and sisters' +children." + +J.M. did not contradict the president. He never contradicted the +presidents. He outlasted them so consistently that it was not necessary. +This time he took off his glasses and rubbed them on an awkwardly +fashioned chamois spectacle-wiper made for him by little Molly McCartey. +He noticed the pattern of the silk in his visitor's necktie and it made +him think of one of Rosalie Loyette's designs. He smiled a little. + +The president regarded this smiling silence with suspicion. He cocked his +eye penetratingly upon his librarian. "But it is very queer, J.M., that as +long as I have known you, I never heard that you _had_ any family at all." + +J.M. put his clean and polished spectacles back on his nose and looked +through them into the next room, where Ivan Petrofsky sat devouring his +first lesson in political economy. Then he turned, beaming like an amiable +sphinx upon his interrogator. "Do you know--I never realized it myself +until just lately," he said. + + + + +BY ABANA AND PHARPAR + + + Fields, green fields of Shining River, + Lightly left too soon + In the stormy equinoctial, + In the hunter's moon,-- + + Snow-blown fields of Shining River + I shall once more tread; + I shall walk their crested hollows, + Living or dead. + + + + +FINIS + + +To old Mrs. Prentiss, watching apprehensively each low mountain dawn, the +long, golden days of the warm autumn formed a series of blessed reprieves +from the loom which hung over her. With her inherited and trained sense of +reality, she could not cheat herself into forgetting, even for a moment, +that her fate was certain, but, nevertheless, she took a breathless +enjoyment in each day, as it passed and did not bring the dreaded change +in her life. She spoke to her husband about this feeling as they sat on +the front step one October evening, when the air was as mild as in late +May, breaking the calm silence, in which they usually sat, by saying, +"Seems as though this weather was just made for us, don't it, father?" + +The old man stirred uneasily in his chair. "I dun'no'--seems sometimes to +me as though I'd ruther have winter come and be done with it. If we've got +to go as soon as cold weather sets in, we might as well go and have it +over with. As 'tis, I keep on saying good-by in my mind to things and +folks every minute, and then get up in the morning to begin it all again. +This afternoon I was down the river where I saved Hiram's life when he was +a little fellow--the old black whirl-hole. I got to thinking about that +time, I never was real sure till then I wouldn't be a coward if it come +right down _to_ it. Seems as though I'd been more of a man ever since. +It's been a real comfort to me to look at that whirl-hole, and that +afternoon it come over me that after this there wouldn't be a single thing +any more to remind us of anything _good_ or bad, we've ever done. It'll be +most as if we hadn't lived at all. I just felt as though I _couldn't_ go +away from everything and everybody I've ever known down to Hiram's stuffy +little flat. And yet I suppose we are real lucky to have such a good son +as Hiram now the others are all gone. I dun'no' what we'd do if 'tweren't +for him." + +"Do!" cried his wife bitterly. "We could go on living right in this valley +where we belong, if 'twas only in the poor-house!" + +The old man answered reasonably, as though trying to convince himself, +"Well, I suppose it's really flying in the face of Providence to feel so. +The doctor says your lungs ain't strong enough to stand another of our +winters in the mountains, fussing over stove fires, and zero weather and +all, and I'm so ailing I probably wouldn't last through, either. He says +it's a special dispensation that we've got such a nice place to go where +there's steam heat, and warm as summer, day and night." + +"Nathaniel!" exclaimed his wife, attempting to turn her bulky body toward +him in the energy of her protest, "how can you talk so! We've visited +Hiram and we know what an awful place he lives in. I keep a-seeing that +little narrow room that's to be all the place you and I'll have, with the +one window that gets flapped by the wash of the Lord knows who, and that +kitchen as big as the closet to my bedroom here, and that long narrow +hall--why, it's as much as ever I can walk down that all without sticking +fast--and Hiram's queer Dutch wife--" + +She stopped, silenced by the scantiness of her vocabulary, but through her +mind still whirled wordless outcries of rebellion. Her one brief visit to +the city rose before her with all the horror of the inexplicable, strange, +and repellent life which it had revealed to her. The very conveniences of +the compact city apartment were included in her revulsion from all that it +meant. The very kindnesses of the pretty, plump German woman who was her +daughter-in-law startled and repelled her, as did the familiar, easy, +loud-voiced affection of the blond young German-Americans who were her +grandchildren. Even her own son, Hiram, become half Teutonic through the +influence of his business and social relations among the Germans, seemed +alien and remote to her. The stout, beer-drinking, good-natured and +easygoing man seemed another person from the shy, stiff lad who had gone +away from them many years ago, looking so like his father at nineteen that +his mother choked to see him. + +She passed in review all the small rooms of her son's home, "strung along +the hall like buttons on a string," and thought of the three flights of +stairs which were the only escape from them--three long, steep flights, +which left her breathless, her knees trembling under her great weight, and +which led out on the narrow side street, full of noisy, impertinent +children and clattering traffic. Beyond that, nothing--a city full of +strangers whose every thought and way of life were foreign to her, whose +very breath came in hurried, feverish gasps, who exhaled, as they passed +her, an almost palpable emanation of hostile indifference to her and her +existence. It was no new vision to her. Ever since the doctor's verdict +had made it impossible longer to resist her son's dutiful urging of his +parents to make his home theirs she had spent scarcely an hour without a +sudden sick wave of dread of what lay before her; but the picture was the +none the less horrifying because of familiarity, and she struck her hands +together with a sharp indrawn breath. + +The gaunt old man turned toward her, a helpless sympathy twisting his +seamed and weather-marked face. "It's too _bad_, mother," he said. "I know +just how you feel about it. But Hiram's a good son, and"--he hesitated, +casting about for a redeeming feature--"there's always the Natural +History Museum and the birds." + +"That's just it, Nathaniel," returned the old rebel against fate. "You +have something there that's going on with _one_ thing you've done here. +You've always noticed birds and studied 'em in the woods, and you can go +on doing it in a museum. But there ain't a thing for me! All I've ever +done is to live right here in this house ever since I was born, and look +out at the mountains and the big meadows and the river and the churchyard, +and keep house and take care of you and the children. + +"Now the children are all gone, and I haven't the strength to take care of +you the way you need; my life is all done--there ain't no more to it! + +"It's like a book--there's still a chapter _you_ can write, or one you can +finish up; but me--I've come right down to _Finis_, only the Lord won't +write it for me. It's as if somebody wanted to scrawl on the back flyleaf +something that hasn't a thing to do with the rest of the book, some +scratching stuff in a furrin' language that I can't even understand." + +Her husband did not contradict her. He sighed heavily and they both fell +again into a cheerless silence. The moon rose with a strange, eerie +swiftness over the wall of mountain before them, and its wavering +reflection sprang at once to life in the swirling waters of the black hole +in the Necronsett on the other side of the meadow. The old woman's heart +gave a painful leap in her breast at the sight. It was probably one of the +last times she would see it. Numberless occasions when she had noted it +before hurried through her mind. + +She felt herself again the little girl who had sat in summer evenings, +miles away from the talk of her elders in a happy child's reverie, and who +had grown dizzy with watching the swimming reflection in the whirlpool. +She had a strange fleeting hallucination that she was again sitting in the +moonlight, her cheeks flushed and her strong young pulse beating high to +hear Nathaniel's footfall draw nearer down the road. She felt again the +warm, soft weight of her little son, the first-born, the one who had died +young, as she remembered how proud she and Nathaniel had been when he +first noticed the moon. + +An odd passion of recollection possessed her. As the moon rose higher she +seemed to be living over at one time a thousand hours of her busy, ardent +life. She looked at the high, drooping line of the mountains with her +childhood's delight in its clear outline against the sky; she saw the +white stones of the old graveyard, next door, glimmer through the shadow +cast by the church tower, with the half uneasy, fearful pleasure of her +romantic girlhood; she felt about her the solidity and permanency of the +old house, her father's and her grandfather's home, with the joy in +protected security of her young married life; and through it all there ran +a heavy sick realization that she was, in fact, a helpless old woman, +grown too feeble to conduct her own life, and who was to be forced to die +two deaths, one of the spirit and one of the body. + +"Come, mother," said Nathaniel, rising, "we'd better go to bed. We both of +us get notiony sitting here in the moonlight." + +He helped her raise her weighty body with the deftness of long practice +and they both went dully into the house. + +The knowledge of the sky and of the signs of weather which was almost an +instinct with the descendant of generations of farmers, was put to an +anxious use during the days which followed. + +Not since the days when, as a young girl, she had roamed the mountains, as +much a part of the forest and fields as any wild inhabitant, had she so +scanned the face of the valley which was her world. + +She had stopped hoping for any release from her sentence. She only prayed +now for one more day of grace, and into each day she crowded a fullness of +life which was like a renewal of her vigorous youth. + +Of late years, existence had flowed so uniform a passage through the +channels of habit that it had become but half sentient. The two old people +had lived in almost as harmoniously vacant and vital a silence as the old +trees in the forest back of the house. In the surroundings which +generations of human use had worn to an exquisite fitness for their needs, +and to which a long lifetime had adjusted their every action, they +convicted their life with the unthinking sureness of a process of Nature. +But now the old woman, feeling exile close upon her, drew from every +moment of the familiar life an essential savor. + +She knew there was no hope for her; the repeated visits of the doctor and +his decided judgments left her no illusions as to the possibility of +escape. "The very first cold snap you must certainly go," he said, with +the inflexibility of the young. "Mr. Prentiss is likely to have one of his +bad turns and you simply cannot give him the are he must have. Besides, +when he is sick, you will have to look after the fires, and the slightest +exposure would mean pneumonia. I've just written your son so." He drew on +his overcoat. He was so recently from the hospital that it was still of a +fashionable cut and texture. "_I_ can't see anyway why you object to +going. Your son can't afford to keep you both here, and hire somebody to +look after you into the bargain. Think of the advantages you have there, +theaters and museums and the like." + +Mrs. Prentiss spoke sharply. "I've never been in a theater in my life and +I hope I'll go to my grave without being; and as for museums and things, +look at me! I'm so big I can hardly get into the cars, and my city +grandchildren are ashamed to go out with me and have all the folks looking +at the fat old woman from the country." + +The doctor laughed involuntarily at this picture as he turned away. + +"Do you think you are so big it takes the whole Necronsett valley to hold +you?" he called lightly over his shoulder. + +Mrs. Prentiss looked after him with burning eyes What did _he_ know about +the continuity of human life He had told her himself that he had never +lived more than four years in one place. What did he know of ordering your +life, not only for yourself, but for your parents and grandparents? She +felt often as she looked upon the unchanging line of the mountains +guarding the valley, as in her great-grandfather's time, that she saw with +the eyes of her ancestors as well as her own. The room in which she stood +had been her grandmother's bedroom, and her father had been born there, as +she had been herself, and as her children had been. In her childhood she +had looked up to the top of the tall chest of drawers as to a mountain +peak, and her children had, after her. Every inequality in the floor was +as familiar to her feet as to those of her great-grandmother. The big +chest, where she had always kept her children's clothes, had guarded hers +and her mother's, and as often as she had knelt by it, she had so vivid a +recollection of seeing her mother and her grandmother in the same +attitude, that she seemed to lose for a moment the small and confining +sense of individual personality, and to become merged in a noble +procession of mothers of the race. + +She had been an undisciplined girl, called a tomboy in those days, whose +farmer forbears had given to her a pagan passion for the soil and the open +sky. Although brought up with a rigid training in theology, religion had +never meant more to her than a certainty of hell as a punishment for +misdeeds which neither she nor any of the valley people were likely to +commit--murder, suicide, false swearing, and the like. Of definite +religious feeling, she had none, although the discipline of a hard if +happy life had brought her spiritual life in an unconsciously profound +form. She had shrunk from that discipline with all the force of her +nature, and in her girl's heart had vowed that she would never marry and +lead the slave's life of a New England farmer's wife. But then had arrived +Nathaniel, the big, handsome lad who had taken her wild, shy heart and +lost his own when they first met. + +So, half rebellious, she had begun the life of a wife in the old house +from which her mother had just gone to the churchyard next door, and which +was yet filled with her brave and gentle spirit. The old woman, looking +miserably about her, remembered how at every crisis of her life the old +house had spoken to her of the line of submissive wives and mothers which +lay back of her, and had tamed her to a happy resignation in the common +fate of women. On her mother's bed she had borne the agony of childbirth +without a murmur, she whose strong young body had never known pain of any +kind. She had been a joyful prisoner to her little children, she who had +always roamed so foot-free in her girlhood, and with a patience inspired +by the thought of her place in the pilgrimage of her race, she had turned +the great strength of her love for her husband toward a contented +acceptance of the narrow life which was all he could give her. + +Each smallest detail in the room had a significance running back over +years. The ragged cuts in the window-sill moved her to a sudden +recollection of how naughty little Hiram had cut them with his first +knife. With what a repressed intensity she had loved the child while she +had reproved him! How could she go away and leave every reminder of her +children! With a quick and characteristic turn she caught herself in the +flagrant contradiction involved in her reluctance to leave behind her mere +senseless reminders of her son when she was going to his actual self. And +then, with the despairing clear sight of one in a crisis of life, she knew +that, in very fact, Hiram was no longer the boy who had left them years +ago. Away from all that made up her life, under influences utterly foreign +and alien, he had spent almost twice as many years as he had with her. Not +only had the reaction from his severe training carried him to another +extreme of laxness, but as result of his continued absence he had lost all +contact with her world. He no longer consciously repudiated it, he had +crossed the deeper gulf of forgetting it. He was a stranger to her. + +Always before the memories which clung about every corner of the dark old +house had helped her, but now she was forced to face a crisis which none +of her people had known. It was not one of the hardships of life which +were to be accepted, and the hot rebellion of her girlhood burned in her +aching old heart. She thought resentfully of the doctor's blind and stony +lack of understanding. His last ironic sentence came to her mind and she +flamed at the recollection. Yes, it did take the whole valley to hold her, +the valley which was as much a part of her as her eyes which beheld it. +There were moments when she stood under the hazy autumn sky, so acutely +conscious of every line and color of the great wall of mountains +surrounding her that she grew in very fact to be an indivisible portion of +the whole--felt herself as actually rooted to that soil and as permanent +under that sky as the great elm before the door. + +She made no more outcries against fate to her husband, partly because of +the anguish which came upon his gentle old face at the sight of her +suffering, and partly because she felt herself to have no tangible reason +for rebellion. During the last years they had gone drearily around and +around the circle which they felt closing so inexorably upon them, and +there was no longer any use to wear themselves out in futile discussions +of impossible plans. They had both been trained to regard reasonableness +as one of the cardinal virtues, and to the mild nature of the old man it +was a natural one, so they tried conscientiously to force themselves not +only to act, but to feel, "like sensible folks," as they put it bravely to +themselves. + +"Other folks have gone to live with their children, and not near such good +sons as Hiram either, and they didn't make such a fuss about it," said Mr. +Prentiss one evening, out of a long silence, as they sat in front of the +hearth. He looked at his wife, hoping for a cheerful response, but her +lips were set in a quivering line of pain, and the flickering light showed +her fair broad face glistening with tears. "Oh, _mother_!" he cried, in a +helpless misery of sympathy. "Oh, mother, don't! I can't stand it! If I +could only do it for you! But we _can't_ stay, you know." + +The other nodded dumbly, although after a moment she said, "Every day I +live all my life over again, and my mother's, and all my folks. It has +never seemed as though they really died as long as we lived here same as +they did. It's like killing them all again to go away and sell the house +to strangers." + +There was a silence and then, "Oh, Nathaniel, what was that?" she cried, +her voice rising in a quaver of apprehension. + +"The wind," said her husband, stirring the fire. + +"I know. But _what_ wind? It sounds like the first beginning of the wind +over Eagle Rock, and that means snow!" + +She hastened heavily to the window, and raised the shade. "There's a ring +around the moon as plain as my wedding ring!" And then as she looked there +clung to the window-pane a single flake of snow, showing ghastly white in +the instant before it melted. + +"Nathaniel, the end has come," she said solemnly. "Help me get to bed." + +The next morning there was a foot of snow and the thermometer was going +steadily down. When the doctor arrived, red-nosed and gasping from the +knife-like thrusts of the wind over Eagle Rock, he announced that it was +only eight above zero, and he brought a kindly telegram from Hiram, saying +that he had started for the mountains to accompany his parents back to the +city. "I envy you!" said the doctor, blowing on his stiff fingers. "Think +of the bliss of being where you have only to turn a screw in your +steam-radiator to escape from this beastly cold. Your son will be here on +the evening train, and I'll bring him right over. You'll be ready to start +tomorrow, won't you? You've had all the autumn to get packed up in." + +Mrs. Prentiss did not answer. She was so irrationally angry with him that +she could not trust herself to speak. She stood looking out of the low +window at the Necronsett, running swift and black between the white banks. +She felt a wave of her old obsession that in her still lived the bygone +dwellers in the old house, that through her eyes they still saw the +infinitely dear and familiar scenes, something in her own attitude +reminded her of how her father had looked as he stood every morning at +that same window and speculated on the weather. For a moment she had an +almost dizzy conviction that he did in all reality stand there again. + +Then she heard the doctor saying, "I'm coming over there myself when you +start for the station, to see that you're well wrapped up. The least +exposure----" He looked at Mrs. Prentiss's broad and obstinate back, +turned, to her husband, and tapped his chest significantly. + +After he had gone the room was intensely quiet. Mr. Prentiss sat by the +fire, looking vacantly at his withered old hands on his knees, and his +wife did not stir from the window. Her heavy, wide figure was immovable, +but a veritable whirlwind of despair raged within her. She had supposed +she knew all along how bad it was going to be, but it had been a foolish +child's play, like shutting your eyes to pretend you were blind. Now that +utter darkness was upon her, it was as great a shock as though it came +with the most extreme and cruel surprise. A thousand furious fancies went +through her mind, although she continued to gaze out of the window with +the same blank look of stunned incredulity. The whirlpool in the river +caught her eye and she had a wild impulse to throw herself into it. Even +in her frenzy, however, there came the thought, instantly dissuading, of +the scandal in the village and family which such an action would cause. + +No, there was no escape at all, since that simple and obvious one was +closed. + +The valley lay about her, the mountain walls iridescent with snow in +sunshine, the river gleaming with its curious, rapid, serpentine life, in +all the peaceful death of winter; everything was as it always had been. +Her mind refused to accept the possibility of her living under other +conditions with as irresistible and final a certainty as if she had been +called upon to believe she could live with her head separated from her +body. + +And yet, battering at that instinctive feeling, came the knowledge that +she was to start for New York the next day. She felt suddenly that she +could not. "I can't! I can't!" she cried dumbly. "I can't, even if I +_have_ to!" + +An instant later, like an echo, a fiercer gust than usual swept down off +the ledge of rock above the little house, rattled the loose old window, +and sent a sharp blade of icy air full in the old woman's eyes. She gasped +and started back. And then, all in a breath, her face grew calm and +smooth, and her eyes bright with a sudden resolve. Without a moment's +hesitation, she turned to her husband and said in a tone more like her old +self than he had heard for some time, "Father, I wish you'd go over to +Mrs. Warner's and take back that pattern. If we're going to leave +to-morrow, you know----" + +The old man rose obediently, and began putting on his wraps. His wife +helped him, and hurried him eagerly off. When she was alone, she tore at +the fastening of her gown in a fury of haste, baring her wrinkled old +throat widely. Then without a glance about her, she opened the door to the +woodshed, stepped out, and closed it behind her. The cold clutched at her +throat like a palpable hand of ice, and her first involuntary gasp set her +into a fit of coughing. + +She sat down on the stump where kindlings were always split and opened her +gown wider. She noticed how fair and smooth the skin on her shoulders +still was and remembered that her husband had always been proud of her +pretty neck. She had worn a low-necked dress when he had told her he loved +her. That had been in the garden, into which she could now look as she sat +on the stump. She had been picking currants for tea, and he had gone out +to see her. The scene came up before her so vividly that she heard his +voice, and felt herself turn to him with the light grace of her girlhood +and cry again, in an ecstasy of surprised joy, "Oh, _Nathaniel!_" + +A gust of wind whirled a handful of snow against her and some of it +settled on her bare shoulders. She watched it melt and felt the icy little +trickle with a curious aloofness. Suddenly she began to shiver, gripped by +a dreadful chill, which shook her like a strong hand. After that she was +very still again, the death-like cold penetrating deeper and deeper until +her breath came in constricted gasps. She did not stir until she heard the +front door bang to her husband's return. Then she rose with infinite +effort and struggled back into the kitchen. When he came in, she was +standing by the sink, fumbling idly with the dishes. Already her head was +whirling, and she scarcely knew what she was doing. + +In the nightmare of horror which his wife's sudden sickness brought upon +him, old Mr. Prentiss felt that he could bear everything except the sight +and sound of his wife's struggles for breath. He hardly saw the neighbor +women who filled the house, taking advantage of this opportunity to +inspect the furniture with an eye to the auction which would follow the +removal of the old people to the city. He hardly heeded the doctor's +desperate attempts with all varieties of new-fangled scientific +contrivances to stay the hand of death. He hardly knew that his son had +come, and in his competent, prosperous way was managing everything for +him. He sat in one corner of the sick-room, and agonized over the +unconscious sick woman, fighting for every breath. + +On the third day he was left alone with her, by some chance, and suddenly +the dreadful, heaving gasp was still. He sprang to the bedside, sick with +apprehension, but his wife looked up at him with recognition in her eyes. +"This is the end, Nathaniel," she said in so low a whisper that he laid +his ear to her lips to hear. "Don't let anybody in till I'm gone. I don't +want 'em to see how happy I look." Her face wore, indeed, an unearthly +look of beatitude. + +"Nathaniel," she went on, "I hope there's no life after this--for _me_ +anyway. I don't think I ever had very much soul. It was always enough for +me to live in the valley with you. When I go back into the ground I'll be +where I belong. I ain't fit for heaven, and, anyway, I'm tired. We've +lived hard, you and I, Nathaniel; we loved hard when we were young, and +we've lived all our lives right out to the end. Now I want to rest." + +The old man sat down heavily in a chair by the bed. His lips quivered, but +he said nothing. His wife's brief respite from pain had passed as suddenly +as it came, and her huge frame began again to shake in the agony of +straining breath. She managed to speak between gasps. + +"Don't let a soul in here, Nathaniel. I'll be gone in a few minutes. +I don't want 'em to see----" + +The old man stepped to the door and locked it. As he came back, the sick +woman motioned him to come closer. + +"Natty, I thought I could keep it, but I never did have a secret from you, +and I can't die without telling you, if there _is_ a heaven and +hell----Oh, Natty, I've done a wicked thing and I'm dying without +repenting. I'd do it again. That time you went to Mrs. Warner's with the +pattern--this cold I got that day I went out----" + +Her husband interrupted her. For the first time in years he did not call +her "mother," but used the pet name of their courtship. The long years of +their parenthood had vanished. They had gone back to the days when each +had made up all the world to the other. "I know, Matey," he said. "I met +young Warner out in the road and give the pattern to him, and I come right +back, and see you sitting out there. I knew what 'twas for." + +His wife stared at him, amazement silencing her. + +"I thought it was the only thing left I could do for you, Matey, to let +you stay there. You know I never wished for anything but that you should +have what you wanted." He had spoken in a steady, even tone, which now +broke into an irrepressible wail of selfish, human anguish. "But you leave +me all _alone_, Matey! How can I get on without you! I thought I'd die +myself as I sat inside the house watching you. You're all I ever had, +Matey! All there has ever been in the world for me!" + +The old woman stopped her gasping by a superhuman effort. "Why, Natty, I +never supposed you thought so much of me still. I thought that had gone +when we got old. But, oh, my dear! I'm afraid I've dragged you down with +me to destruction. It wa'n't any matter about me, but I'm afraid you've +lost your soul. That was a wicked thing for us to do!" + +Her husband lifted his tear-stained, old face and laid it on the pillow +beside her. He did not put his arms about her, as a younger lover or one +of another country might have done, but because he was a man who had loved +deeply all his life, his answer came with the solemn significance and +sincerity of a speech before the Judgment Seat. "I ain't afraid of hell if +you're there, Matey," he said. + +His wife turned her head and looked at him, her whole face transfigured. +She was no longer a fat old woman on her deathbed. Before his very eyes +she grew again to be the girl among the currant bushes, and with the same +amazed intonation of incredulous joy she cried his name aloud. "Oh, +Nathaniel!" she said, and with the word the longed for _Finis_ was written +to her life. + + + + +A VILLAGE MUNCHAUSEN + + +I + + +When I was a little girl, and lived in Hillsboro with my grandparents, +there were two Decoration Days in every year. One was when all we +school-children took flowers put to the cemetery and decorated the graves +of the soldiers; and the other was when the peonies and syringas bloomed, +and grandfather and I went alone to put a bouquet on the grave of old +Jedediah Chillingworth. + +Grandfather did this as a sort of penance for a great mistake he had made, +and I think it was with the idea of making an atonement by confession that +he used always to tell me the story of his relations with the old man. At +any rate, he started his narrative when we left the house and began to +walk out to the cemetery, and ended it as he laid the flowers on the +neglected grave. I trotted along beside him, faster and faster as he grew +more and more interested, and then stood breathless on the other side of +the grave as he finished, in his cracked old voice, harsh with emotion. + +The first part of his story happened a very long time ago, even before +grandfather was born, when Jedediah Chillingworth first began to win for +himself the combination title of town-fool and town-liar. By the time +grandfather was a half-grown boy, big enough to join in the rough crowd of +village lads who tormented Jed, the old dizzard had been for years the +local butt. Of course I never saw him, but I have keard so much about him +from all the gossips in the village, and grandfather used to describe him +so vividly, that I feel as if I know all about him. + +For about ten years of his youth Jedediah had been way from our little +Vermont town, wandering in the great world. From his stories, he had been +everywhere on he map. In the evening, around the stove in the village +post-office, when somebody read aloud from the newspaper a remarkable +event, all the loafers turned to Jed with wide, malicious grins, to hear +him cap it with a yet ore marvelous tale of what had happened to him. They +gathered around the simple-minded little old man, their tongues in their +cheeks, and drew from him one silly, impossible, boastful story after +another. They made him amplify circumstantially by clumsily artful +questions, and poked one another in the ribs with delight over his deluded +joy in their sympathetic interest. + +As he grew older, his yarns solidified like folk-lore, into a consecrated +and legendary form, which he repeated endlessly without variation. There +were many of them--"How I drove a team of four horses over a falling +bridge," "How I interviewed the King of Portugal," "How I saved big Sam +Harden's life in the forest fire." But the favorite one was, "How I rode +the moose into Kennettown, Massachusetts." This was the particular +flaunting, sumptuous yarn which everybody made old Jed bring out for +company. If a stranger remarked, "Old man Chillingworth can tell a tale or +two, can't he?" everybody started up eagerly with the cry: "Oh, but have +you heard him tell the story of how he rode the moose into Kennettown, +Massachusetts?" + +If the answer was negative; all business was laid aside until the withered +little old man was found, pottering bout some of the odd jobs by which he +earned his living. He was always as pleased as Punch to be asked to +perform, and laid aside his tools with a foolish, bragging grin on his +face, of which grandfather has told me so many times that it seems as if I +had really seen it. + +This is how he told the story, always word for word the same way: + +"Wa'al, sir, I've had queer things happen to me in my time, hain't I, +boys?"--at which the surrounding crowd always wagged mocking heads--"but +nothin' to beat that. When I was ashore wunst, from one of my long v'y'ges +on the sea, I was to Kennettown, Massachusetts." + +"How'd ye come to go there, Jed?" This was a question never to be omitted. + +"Oh, I had a great sight of money to take to some folks that lived there. +The captain of our ship had died at sea, and he give me nine thousand five +hundred and seventy-two English gold guineas, to take to his brother and +sister." + +Here he always stared around at the company, and accepted credulously the +counterfeit coin of grotesquely exaggerated amazement which was given him. + +"Wa'al, sir, I done it. I give the gold to them as it belonged to, and I +was to leave town on the noon stagecoach. I was stayin' in the captain's +brother's house. It was spang up against the woods, on the edge of town; +and, I tell ye, woods _was_ woods in them days. + +"The mornin' I was to leave I was up early, lookin' out of my window, when +what should I see with these mortial eyes but a gre't bull moose, as big +as two yoke o' oxen, comin' along toward the house. He sort o' staggered +along, and then give a gre't sigh I could hear from my room--I was on the +ground floor--fell down on his knees, and laid his head on the ground 's +if he was too beat out to go another step. Wa'al, sir, I never waited not +long enough even to fetch a holler to wake the folks I just dove out o' +the window, and made for him as fast as I could lick in. As I went by the +wood-pile, I grabbed up a big stick of wood----" + +"What kind of wood?" everybody asked in chorus. + +"'Twas a big stick of birch-wood, with the white bark on it as clean as +writin'-paper. I grabbed that up for a club--'twas the only thing in +sight--and when I got to the moose I hit him a clip on the side of the +head as hard as I could lay on. He didn't so much as open an eye, but I +saw he was still breathing and I climbed up on his back so's to get a good +whack at the top of his head. And then, sir, by Jupiter! he riz right up +like a earthquake under me, and started off at forty miles an hour. He +throwed his head back as he run, and ketched me right between his horns, +like a nut in a nutcracker. I couldn't have got out of them horns--no, +sir, a charge of powder couldn't scarcely have loosened me." + +There was another pause at this place for the outcries of astonishment and +marvel which were never lacking. Then Jed went on, mumbling his toothless +gums in delight over his importance. + +"Wa'al, sir, I dassent tell ye how long we careered around them woods and +pastures, for, after a while, he got so plumb crazy that he run right out +into the open country. I'd hit him a whack over the head with my stick of +wood every chanst I got and he was awful weak anyhow, so he'd kind o' +stagger whenever he made a sharp turn. By an' by we got to goin' toward +town. Somehow he'd landed himself in the road; an', sir, we rid up to the +hotel like a coach and four, and he drapped dead in front of the steps, me +stickin' as fast between his horns as if I'd 'a' growed to him. Yes, sir, +they ackchally had to saw one of them horns off'n his head before they got +me out." + +He came to a full stop here, but this was not the end. + +"What became of the horns, Jed? Why didn't ye bring 'em along?" + +"I did take the one they sawed off, to give to my partner, big Sam Harden. +He was the biggest man I ever see, Sam Harden was. I left th' other horn +in Kennettown for the captain's sister. She was as smart an' handsome a +widow-woman as ever I see, an' I wanted for her to have a keepsake from +me." + +This was really the end. The circle of inquisitors left their unconscious +victim nodding and grinning to himself, and went on down the road. +Grandfather said he still felt mean all over to remember how they laughed +among themselves, and how they pointed out to the stranger the high lights +in the story. + +"Not only ain't there never been seen a moose in the State of +Massachusetts, and not only are a moose's horns set too wide to catch a +little squinch of a man like Jed, but what do you think?--there ain't no +Kennettown in Massachusetts! No, nor in any other State. No, nor never +was. Old Jed just made the town up out of his head, like the moose, an' +the money, and the birch-bark and the handsome widow. Don't he beat +_all_?" + + + + +II + + +My grandfather was one of these boys; in fact, he always used to say he +was the ringleader, but that may have been another form of his penance. As +he grew up he began to work into his father's business of tanning leather, +and by and by, when a man grown, he traveled down to a big tannery at +Newtonville, in Massachusetts, to learn some new processes in +leather-curing. + +When grandfather got along to this part of the story he began stretching +his long legs faster and faster, until I was obliged to trot along, +panting. He always lived the hurried last part over again, and so did I, +although it happened so long before I was born. + +One evening he was asked to tea by the mother of the prettiest girl in the +village--she afterward became my grandmother--and was taken into the "best +room" to see all the family curiosities. There were wax flowers and +silhouettes and relics of every description. Mrs. Hamilton spared him not +one of these wonders. + +"This," she said, "is the chain that was made of my grandfather's hair. It +was finished and brought home on a Wednesday, and Thursday, the next day, +grandfather was burned up in the great tannery fire, and this was all my +grandmother had to remember him by. These are the front teeth of a savage +that my uncle Josiah Abijah killed in the South Sea Islands. Uncle Josiah +Abijah always said it was either him or the black man, but I have always +felt that it was murder, just the same, and this is the stick of +birch-wood that a sailor-man, who came here once to see my mother, killed +a bull moose with." + +My grandmother has told me that never before or since did she see a human +face change as did grandfather's. + +"What?" he shouted, and his voice cracked. + +"Yes, it sounds queer, but it's so. It's the only time a moose was ever +seen here, and folks thought the wolves must have chased it till it was +crazy or tired out. This sailor-man, who happened to be here, saw it, ran +out, snatched up a stick from the wood-pile, and went at that great animal +all alone. Folks say he was the bravest man this town ever saw. He got +right up on its back--" + +Grandmother said grandfather had turned so pale by this time that she +thought he was going to faint and he sat down as if somebody had knocked +him down. On the dusty road to the cemetery, however, he only strode along +the faster, half forgetting the little girl who dragged at his hand, and +turned a sympathetically agitated face up to his narrative. + +Mrs. Hamilton went on through the whole incident, telling every single +thing just the way old Jed did. She showed the dark places on the +birch-bark where the blood had stained it, and she said the skull of the +animal, with its one horn sawed off, was over among the relics in her +aunt's home. + +"My Aunt Maria was accounted a very good-looking woman in her day, and +there were those that thought she might have taken a second husband, if +the sailor had been so disposed. He was so brave and so honest, bringing +all that money from my uncle, the sea-captain, when goodness knows, he +might have run off with every cent of it, and nobody been any the wiser!" + +At this grandfather gave a loud exclamation and stood up, shaking his head +as if he had the ague. He just couldn't believe his ears, he said. + +"No! No! _No_! It can't be the same!" he said over and over. "Why, he said +it happened in Kennettown." + +"Well, _now_!" said Mrs. Hamilton, surprised. "Where did you ever get hold +of _that_ old name? I didn't suppose a soul but some of our old folks +remembered that. Why, Newtonville wasn't named that but six months. Folks +got mad at the Kennetts for being so highfalutin' over having the town +named after them, and so 'twas changed back." + +Grandfather said he'd no notion of another word she said after that. When +he went back to his room, he found a letter from home, telling him all the +news, and mentioning, among other things, that old Jedediah Chillingworth +wasn't expected to live much longer. Age had withered the little old man +until there wasn't enough of him left to go on living. Grandfather usually +reached this part of the story just as we arrived under the big maples +that stand on each side of the cemetery gate, and always stopped short to +say solemnly: + +"Thank the _Lord_! I've two things to my credit. I never waited one minute +to start back to Hillsboro, and from that time on I wanted to do what was +right by the old man, even if it did turn out so different." + + +Then we went on into the cemetery, and paced slowly along the winding +paths as he continued: + +"I got to Hillsboro late one night, and I'd 'most killed my horse to do +it. They said Jedediah was still alive, but wasn't expected to last till +morning. I went right up to his little old shack, without waiting to see +my folks or to get a mouthful to eat. A whole lot of the neighbors had +come in to watch with him, and even then, with the old dizzard actually +dying, they were making a fool of him. + +"He was half propped up in bed--he wasn't bigger than my fist by that +time--with red spots in his cheeks, and his eyes like glass, and he was +just ending up that moose story. The folks were laughing and winking and +nudging one another in the ribs, just the way I used to. I was done up +with my long, hard ride, and some nervous, I guess, for it fair turned my +stomach to see them. + +"I waited till they were all through laughing, and then I broke loose. I +just gave them a piece of my mind! 'Look-a-here, you fellows!' I said. +'You think you're awful smart, don't you, making fun of poor old Jed as he +lies a-dying? Now, listen to me. I've ridden forty miles over the +mountains to get here before he goes, and make every man jack of you beg +the old man's pardon. _That story's true_. I've just found out that every +word of it is absolutely, literally the way it happened. Newtonville, +where I'm staying in Massachusetts, used to be called Kennettown, and +Jedediah _did_ take the money there--yes, that exact sum we've laughed at +all these years. They call him the honestest man in the world over there. +They've got the stick of birch-wood, with the bloodstains on it, and the +moose's skull, with the horn sawed off, and there are lots of old people +who remember all about it. And I'm here to say I believe old Jed's been +telling the truth, not only about that, but about all his adventures. +I don't believe he's ever lied to us!' + +"I felt so grand and magnanimous," grandfather went on, "to think how I +was making it up to the poor old man, and so set up over bringing a piece +of news that just paralyzed everybody with astonishment. They all jumped +up, yelling and carrying on. '_What_? That story _true_! Well, did you +ever! Wouldn't that beat all? To think old Jed's been telling--" + +"And then we all thought of him, and started toward the bed to say how bad +we felt. + +"I'll never forget how he looked. His eyes were fairly coming out of his +head, and his face was as white as paper. But that wasn't the dreadful +thing. What always comes back to me whenever I think of him is the +expression on his face. You could just see his heart breaking. He was so +hurt, so surprised, so ashamed, that it wasn't decent to look at him. But +we couldn't look away. We stood there, hanging our heads--I never felt so +mean in my life--while he tried to get breath enough to say something. And +then he screamed out--'twas dreadful to hear: + +"'Why, didn't you fellers _believe_ me? Did you think I was _lyin_?'" + +Here grandfather stopped and blew his nose, and I choked. + +"Those were his last words. He had some kind of a spasm, and never came to +enough to know anything before he died. Those were the last words he said; +and though they told us that in the coffin he looked just as he always +had, only more quiet, with the foolish look gone, we were all of us +ashamed to look the dead man in the face." + +Here grandfather laid the flowers on the unkempt grave, as if to serve as +an "Amen" to his confession. + +After this I always went around and held his hand tightly, and we stood +very still. It was the solemnest time of the year. + + + + +III + + +All this used to happen, as I said, when I was a little girl; but I, too, +grew up, as grandfather grew bent and feeble. When he was an old, old man +of eighty-five, and when I had been away from Hillsboro several years +teaching school, the last of my grandmother's relatives in Newtonville +died. I was sent for to decide what should be done with the few family +relics, and one Saturday and Sunday I went all through the little old +house, looking over the things. + +In the garret I came across the moose-skull with one horn. It made me feel +queer to think what a part it had played in the development of my +grandfather's honorable and tender old soul. There were a few sticks of +furniture, some daguerrotypes and silhouettes, and a drawerful of yellow +papers. The first I sent home to Hillsboro to grandmother. I took the +papers back to the town where I was teaching, to look over them. + +Among other things was a quaint old diary of my grandmother's great-aunt, +she that was the buxom widow of Jed's story. It was full of homely items +of her rustic occupations; what day she had "sett the broune hen," and how +much butter was made the first month she had the "party-colored cowe from +over the mount'n." I glanced idly at these faded bits of insignificant +news, when I was electrified by seeing the following entry: + +#This day came to my Bro. Amos and Me, a sea-man, bringeing news of my +Bro. Elijah's the capt'n's dethe, and allso mutch monie in gold, sent to +us by our Bro. The sea-man is the greatest in size aver I saw. No man in +towne his bed can reach so mutch as to his sholder. And comely withal#. + +The words fairly whirled on the page before my astonished eyes. Where was +the image of the ill-favored little old Jed, so present to my imagination? +I read on breathlessly, skipping news of the hen-house and barnyard, until +I came upon this, the only other reference, but quite sufficient: + +This day the sea-man, Samuel Harden, left us. + +The self-restrained woman had said nothing of any disappointment she might +have felt. The item stood quite alone, however, in a significant +isolation. At least on that day she had not noticed the number of eggs. + +I doubt if grandfather himself had been more excited when he saw the +birch-wood club than I was to read those few words. I could hardly wait +till the next Saturday to rush back to Hillsboro, and relieve the poor old +man of the burden of remorse he had carried so faithfully and so +mistakenly all these years, and to snatch the specious crown of martyrdom +from that shameless thief of another man's exploits. + +And yet, when I finally arrived at Hillsboro, I found it not so easy to +begin. Some strange spell, exhaled from the unchanging aspect of the old +house and the old people, fell on me, and, though I tried several times, I +could not find a suitable opening. On Sunday morning grandfather asked me +if I would help him to get out to Jed's grave. The peonies and syringas +were in bloom, and grandmother had the bouquet made up ready. Drawing me +aside, she to me that grandfather was really too infirm to try to make the +expedition at all, and certainly could not go alone. Even then I could +find no words to tell her. I thought it might be easier to do so out of +doors. + +It was the middle of a bright spring morning, when we started off, +grandfather leaning on his cane and holding to my arm, while I carried the +great clump of red peonies and white syringas. The sun was warm, but a +cool breeze blew down from the mountains, and grandfather hobbled along +bravely. + +It made me feel like a little girl again to have him begin the story of +the moose, and tell it word for word as he always had. He was forced to +stop often now, and wait for breath to come back to him. At each of these +halts beside the road, which was white in the clear spring sunshine, it +was harder and harder to think of breaking in on him with my discovery. + +As he finally told about Jedediah's wounded virtue on his deathbed--that +outcry which seemed to me the most brazen part of the whole +imposture--suddenly my heart softened, and I, too, believed that by that +time of his life old Jed was--I really don't know just what it was that I +believed, but it was something as comforting as the quiet warmth of the +sunshine. + +We were standing by the sunken old grave when grandfather finished. I +looked at him, the sun shining down on his bent figure and bared white +head, the flowers reflecting their brightness up into his withered old +face, and a lump came into my throat. I could not have told him if I had +wished to. + +"We were ashamed to look the dead man in the face," he said humbly, and +laid the flowers down on the young grass. + +Then I went around and held his dear old hand tightly in mine; and we +stood very still for a long, long time. + + + + +THE ARTIST + + +"After the sickening stench of personality in theatrical life," the great +Madame Orloff told the doctor with her usual free-handed use of language, +"it is like breathing a thin, pure air to be here again with our dear +inhuman old Vieyra. He hypnotizes me into his own belief that nothing +matters--not broken hearts, nor death, nor success, nor first love, nor +old age---nothing but the chiaroscuro of his latest acquisition." + +The picture-dealer looked at her in silence, bringing the point of his +white beard up to his chin with a meditative fist. The big surgeon gazed +about him with appreciative eyes, touched his mustache to his gold-lined +coffee-cup, and sighed contentedly. "You're not the only one, my dear +Olga," he said, "who finds Vieyra's hard heart a blessing. When I am here +in his magnificent old den, listening to one of his frank accounts of his +own artistic acumen and rejoicing in his beautiful possessions, why the +rest of the world--real humanity--seems in retrospect like one great +hospital full of shrieking incurables." + +"Oh, humanity----!" The actress thrust it away with one of her startling, +vivid gestures. + +"You think it very clever, my distinguished friends, to discuss me before +my face," commented the old picture-dealer indifferently. He fingered the +bright-colored decorations on his breast, looking down at them with absent +eyes. After a moment he added, "and to show your in-ti-mate knowledge of +my character." Only its careful correctness betrayed the foreignness of +his speech. + +There was a pause in which the three gazed idly at the fire's reflection +in the brass of the superb old andirons Then, "Haven't you something new +to show us?" asked the woman. "Some genuine Masaccio, picked up in a +hill-town monastery--a real Ribera?" + +The small old Jew drew a long breath. "Yes, I have something new." He +hesitated, opened his lips, closed them again and, looking at the fire, +"Oh yes, very new indeed--new to me." + +"Is it here?" The great surgeon looked about the picture-covered walls. + +"No; I have it in--you know what you call the inner sanctuary--the light +here is not good enough." + +The actress stood up, her glittering dress flashing a thousand eyes at the +fire. "Let me see it," she commanded. "Certainly I would like to see +anything that was new to _you_!" + +"You shall amuse yourself by identifying the artist without my aid," said +old Vieyra. + +He opened a door, held back a portiere, let his guests pass through into a +darkened room, turned on a softly brilliant light, and: "Whom do you make +the artist?" he said. He did not look at the picture. He looked at the +faces of his guests, and after a long silent pause, he smiled faintly into +his beard. "Let us go back to the fire," he said, and clicked them into +darkness again. + +"And what do you say?" he asked as they sat down. + +"By Jove!" cried the doctor. "By Jove!" + +Madame Orloff turned on the collector the somber glow of her deep-set +eyes. "I have dreamed it," she said. + +"It is real," said Vieyra. "You are the first to see it. I wished to +observe how----" + +"It's an unknown Vermeer!" The doctor brought his big white hand down +loudly on this discovery. "Nobody but Vermeer could have done the plaster +wall in the sunlight. And the girl's strange gray head-dress must be +seventeenth-century Dutch of some province I don't----" + +"I am a rich man, for a picture-dealer," said Vieyra, "but only national +governments can afford to buy Vermeers nowadays." + +"But you picked it up from some corner, some attic, some stable----" + +"Yes, I picked it up from a stable," said the collector. + +The actress laid her slender, burning fingers on his cool old hand. "Tell +us--tell us," she urged. "There is something different here." + +"Yes, there is something different," he stirred in his chair and thrust +out his lips. "So different that I don't know if you----" + +"Try me! try me!" she assured him ardently. "You have educated me well to +your own hard standards all these years." + +At this he looked at her, startled, frowning, attentive, and ended by +shaking off her hand. "No, I will not tell you." + +"You shall----" her eyes commanded, adjured him. There was a silence. "I +will understand," she said under her breath. + +"You will not understand," he said in the same tone; but aloud he began: +"I heard of it first from an American picture-dealer over here scraping up +a mock-Barbizon collection for a new millionaire. He wanted to get my +judgment, he said, on a canvas that had been brought to him by a cousin of +his children's governess. I was to be sure to see it when I went to New +York--you knew did you not, that I had been called to New York to testify +in the prosecution of Paullsen for selling a signed copy?" + +"Did you really go?" asked the doctor. "I thought you swore that nothing +could take you to America." + +"I went," said the old man grimly. "Paullsen did me a bad turn once, +thirty years ago. And while I was there I went to see the unknown canvas. +The dealer half apologized for taking my time--said he did not as a rule +pay any attention to freak things brought in from country holes by +amateurs, but--I remember his wording--this thing, some ways he looked at +it, didn't seem bad somehow." + +The collector paused, passed his tongue over his lips, and said briefly: +"Then he showed it to me. It was the young girl and kitten in there." + +"By Jove!" cried the doctor. + +"You have too exciting a profession, my good old dear," said the actress. +"Some day you will die of a heart failure." + +"Not after living through that!" + +"What did you tell him?" + +"I asked for the address of the cousin of his children's governess, of +course. When I had it, I bought a ticket to the place, and when I reached +there, I found myself at the end of all things--an abomination of +desolation, a parched place in the wilderness. Do you know America, either +of you?" + +The doctor shook his head. + +"I have toured there, three times," said the actress. + +"Did you ever hear of a place called Vermont?" + +Madame Orloff looked blank. "It sounds French, not English. Perhaps you do +not pronounce it as they do." + +"Heaven forbid that I should do anything as 'they' do! This place, then, +call it what you will, is inhabited by a lean, tall, sullenly silent race +who live in preposterously ugly little wooden houses of the most naked +cleanliness ... God of my Fathers! the hideousness of the huddle of those +huts where I finally found the cousin! He was a seller of letter-paper and +cheap chromos and he knew nothing of the picture except that it was +brought to him to sell by the countryman who sold him butter. So I found +the address of the butter-maker and drove endless miles over an execrable +road to his house, and encountered at last a person who could tell me +something of what I wanted to know. It was the butter-maker's mother, a +stolid, middle-aged woman, who looked at me out of the most uncanny quiet +eyes ... all the people in that valley have extraordinary piercing and +quiet eyes ... and asked, 'Is it about the picture? For if it is, I don't +want you should let on about it to anybody but me. Nobody but the family +knows he paints 'em!" + +At this the doctor burst out, "Gracious powers! You don't mean to say that +the man who painted that picture is alive now ... in 1915!" + +The actress frowned at the interruption and turned with a lithe petulance +on the big Briton. "If you want to know, let him alone!" she commanded. + +"And soon I had it all," the narrator went on. "Almost more than I could +bear. The old woman could tell me what I wished to know, she said. He was +her uncle, the only brother of her mother, and he had brought up her and +her brothers and sisters. She knew... oh, she knew with good reason, all +of his life. All, that is, but the beginning. She had heard from the older +people in the valley that he had been wild in his youth (he has always +been, she told me gravely, 'queer') and she knew that he had traveled far +in his young days, very, very far." + +"'To New York?' I ventured. + +"'Oh, no, beyond that. Across the water.' + +"'To Paris?' + +"That she didn't know. It was a foreign country at least, and he had stayed +there two, three years, until he was called back by her father's +death--his brother-in-law's--to take care of his mother, and his sister +and the children. Here her mind went back to my question, and she said she +had something perhaps I could tell from, where he had been. She kept it in +her Bible. He had given it to her when she was a child as a reward the day +she had kept her little brother from falling in the fire. She brought it +out. It was a sketch, hasty, vigorous, suggestive, haunting as the +original itself, of the Leonardo da Vinci Ste. Anne. + +"Yes, I told her, now I knew where he had been. And they had called him +back from there--_here_? + +"'When my father died,' she repeated, 'my uncle was all my grandmother and +my mother had. We were five little children, and the oldest not seven, and +we were all very poor,' + +"'How old was your uncle then?' I asked. + +"'A young man--he was younger than my mother. Perhaps he was twenty-five,' + +"I looked at the sketch in my hand. Twenty-five, and called back from +Paris--_here_! + +"'When did he go back to Paris?' + +"'Oh, he never went back,' She told me this quite placidly, as she said +everything else. 'He never went back at all.' + +"He had stayed there the rest of his life, and worked the little farm that +was all his sister had, and made a living for them--not large, the farm +being poor and he not a first-class farmer, but still enough. He had +always been kind to them--if he was quite queer and absent. She had heard +her grandmother say that at first, the first ten years, perhaps, he had +had strange, gloomy savage fits like a person possessed that you read of +in the Bible; but she herself could never remember him as anything but +quiet and smiling. He had a very queer smile unlike anyone else, as I +would notice for myself when I went to see him about the picture. You +could tell him by that, and by his being very lame. + +"That brought me back with a start. I rushed at her with questions. 'How +about the picture? Were there others? Were there many? Had he always +painted? Had he never shown them to anyone? Was he painting now? + +"She could not tell me much. It had been a detail of their common life she +had but absently remarked, as though she had lived with a man who +collected snail-shells, or studied the post-marks on letters. She 'had +never noticed'--that was the answer to most of my questions. No, she did +not think there were very many now, though he must have painted 'most a +million. He was always at it, every minute he could spare from farming. +But they had been so poor he had not felt he could afford many canvases. +The paints cost a good deal too. So he painted them over and over, first +one thing and then another, as he happened to fancy. He painted in the +horse-barn. 'Had a place rigged up,' in her phrase, in one corner of the +room where the hay was stored, and had cut a big window in the roof that +was apt to let in water on the hay if the rain came from the north. + +"'What did he paint?' 'Oh, anything. He was queer about that. He'd paint +_any_thing! He did one picture of nothing but the corner of the barnyard, +with a big white sow and some little pigs in the straw, early in the +morning, when the dew was on everything. He had thought quite a lot of +that, but he had had to paint over it to make the picture of her little +sister with the yellow kittie--the one she'd sent down to the village to +try to sell, the one--' + +"'Yes, yes,' I told her, 'the one I saw. But did he never try to sell any +himself? Did he never even show them to anyone?' + +"She hesitated, tried to remember, and said that once when they were very +poor, and there was a big doctor's bill to pay, he _had_ sent a picture +down to New York. But it was sent back. They had made a good deal of fun +of it, the people down there, because it wasn't finished off enough. She +thought her uncle's feelings had been hurt by their letter. The express +down and back had cost a good deal too, and the only frame he had got +broken. Altogether, she guessed that discouraged him. Anyhow, he'd never +tried again. He seemed to get so after a while that he didn't care whether +anybody liked them or even saw them or not--he just painted them to amuse +himself, she guessed. He seemed to get a good real of comfort out of it. +It made his face very still and smiling to paint. Nobody around there so +much as knew he did it, the farm was so far from neighbors. + +"'Twas a real lonely place, she told me, and she had been glad to marry +and come down in the valley to live closer to folks. Her uncle had given +her her wedding outfit. He had done real well by them all, and they were +grateful; and now he was getting feeble and had trouble with his heart, +they wanted to do something for him. They had thought, perhaps, they could +sell some of his pictures for enough to hire a man to help him with the +farm work. She had heard that pictures were coming into fashion more than +they had been, and she had borrowed that one of her little sister and the +kittie, and without her uncle's knowing anything about it, had sent it +off. She was about discouraged waiting for somebody down in the city to +make up his mind whether he'd buy it or not. + +"I asked her a thousand other questions but she could answer none of them. +The only detail I could get from her being an account of her uncle's habit +of 'staring' for sometimes a half an hour at something, without once +looking away. She'd seen him stop that way, when he'd be husking corn +maybe, and stare at a place where a sunbeam came in on a pile of corn. It +put him back quite considerable in his work, that habit, but they had +nothing to complain of. He'd done well by them, when you considered they +weren't his own children. + +"'Hadn't he ever tried to break away?' I asked her amazed. 'To leave them? +To go back?' + +"She told me: 'Oh, no, he was the only support his mother and his sister +had, and there were all the little children. He _had_ to stay.'" + +The actress broke in fiercely: "Oh, stop! stop! it makes me sick to hear. +I could boil them in oil, that family! Quick! You saw him? You brought him +away? You--" + +"I saw him," said Vieyra, "yes, I saw him." + +Madame Orloff leaned toward him, her eyebrows a line of painful attention. + +"I drove that afternoon up to a still tinier village in the mountains near +where he lived, and there I slept that night--or, at least, I lay in a +bed." + +"Of course, you could not sleep," broke in the listening woman; "I shall +not to-night." + +"When dawn came I dressed and went out to wander until people should be +awake. I walked far, through fields, and then through a wood as red as +red-gold--like nothing I ever saw. It was in October, and the sun was late +to rise. When I came out on an uplying heath, the mists were just +beginning to roll away from the valley below. As I stood there, leaning +against a tree in the edge of the wood, some cows came by, little, +pinched, lean cows and a young dog bounding along, and then, after them, +slowly, an old man in gray--very lame." + +The actress closed her eyes. + +"He did not see me. He whistled to the dog and stroked his head, and then +as the cows went through a gate, he turned and faced the rising sun, the +light full on his face. He looked at the valley coming into sight through +the mists. He was so close to me I could have tossed a stone to him--I +shall never know how long he stood there--how long I had that face before +me." + +The narrator was silent. Madame Orloff opened her eyes and looked at him +piercingly. + +"I cannot tell you--I cannot!" he answered her. 'Who can tell of life and +death and a new birth? It was as though I were thinking with my +finger-nails, or the hair of my head--a part of me I had never before +dreamed had feeling. My eyes were dazzled. I could have bowed myself to +the earth like Moses before the burning bush. How can I tell you--? How +can I tell you?" + +"He was--?" breathed the woman. + +"Hubert van Eyck might have painted God the Father with those eyes--that +mouth--that face of patient power--of selfless, still beatitude.--Once the +dog, nestling by his side, whimpered and licked his hand. He looked down, +he turned his eyes away from his vision, and looked down at the animal and +smiled. Jehovah! What a smile. It seemed to me then that if God loves +humanity, he can have no kinder smile for us. And then he looked back +across the valley--at the sky, at the mountains, at the smoke rising from +the houses below us--he looked at the world--at some vision, some +knowledge--what he saw--what he saw--! + +"I did not know when he went. I was alone in that crimson wood. + +"I went back to the village. I went back to the city. I would not speak to +him till I had some honor worthy to offer him. I tried to think what would +mean most to him. I remembered the drawing of the Ste. Anne. I remembered +his years in Paris, and I knew what would seem most honor to him. I cabled +Drouot of the Luxembourg Gallery. I waited in New York till he came. I +showed him the picture. I told him the story. He was on fire! + +"We were to go back to the mountains together, to tell him that his +picture would hang in the Luxembourg, and then in the Louvre--that in all +probability he would be decorated by the French government, that other +pictures of his would live for all time in Paris, in London, in +Brussels--a letter came from the woman, his niece. He was dead." + +The actress fell back in her chair, her hands over her face. + +The surgeon stirred wrathfully. "Heavens and earth, Vieyra, what beastly, +ghastly, brutally tragic horror are you telling us, anyhow?" + +The old Jew moistened his lips and was silent. After a moment he said: "I +should not have told you. I knew you could not understand." + +Madame Orloff looked up sharply. "Do you mean--is it possible that _you_ +mean that if we had seen him--had seen that look--we would--that he had +had all that an artist--" + +The picture-dealer addressed himself to her, turning his back on the +doctor. "I went back to the funeral, to the mountains. The niece told me +that before he died he smiled suddenly on them all and said: 'I have had a +happy life,' I had taken a palm to lay on his coffin, and after I had +looked long at his dead face, I put aside the palm. I felt that if he had +lived I could never have spoken to him---could never have told him." + +The old Jew looked down at the decorations on his breast, and around at +the picture-covered walls. He made a sweeping gesture. + +"What had I to offer him?" he said. + + + + +WHO ELSE HEARD IT? + + + A lady walking through the square + With steamship tickets in her hand, + To spend her summer in the Alps, + Her winter in the Holy Land, + + Heard (or else dreamed), as she passed by + The Orphan Home across the way, + A small and clear and wondering voice + From out a dormer window say, + + "And would you really rather climb + Mont Blanc alone, than walk with me + Out hunting Mayflowers in the woods + Of Westerburn and Cloverlea? + + "Alas! And would you rather hear + Cathedral choirs in cities far + Than one at bedtime, on your lap, + Say 'Twinkle, twinkle, little star'?" + + "A lonely Christmas would you spend + By Galilee or Jordan's tide + When a child's stocking you might fill + And hang it by your own fireside?" + + + + +A DROP IN THE BUCKET + + +There is no need to describe in detail the heroine of this tale, because +she represents a type familiar to all readers of the conventional +New-England-village dialect story. She was for a long time the sole +inhabitant of Hillsboro, who came up to the expectations of our visiting +friends from the city, on the lookout for Mary Wilkins characters. We +always used to take such people directly to see Cousin Tryphena, as +dwellers in an Italian city always take their foreign friends to see their +one bit of ruined city wall or the heap of stones which was once an +Inquisitorial torture chamber, never to see the new water-works or the +modern, sanitary hospital. + +On the way to the other end of the street, where Cousin Tryphena's tiny, +two-roomed house stood, we always laid bare the secrets of her somnolent, +respectable, unprofitable life; we always informed our visitors that she +lived and kept up a social position on two hundred and fifteen dollars a +year, and that she had never been further from home than to the next +village. We always drew attention to her one treasure, the fine Sheraton +sideboard that had belonged to her great-grandfather, old Priest Perkins; +and, when we walked away from the orderly and empty house, we were sure +that our friends from the city would always exclaim with great insight +into character, "What a charmingly picturesque life! Isn't she perfectly +delicious!" + +Next door to Cousin Tryphena's minute, snow-white house is a forlorn old +building, one of the few places for rent in our village, where nearly +everyone owns his own shelter. It stood desolately idle for some time, +tumbling to pieces almost visibly, until, one day, two years ago, a burly, +white-bearded tramp stopped in front of it, laid down his stick and bundle, +and went to inquire at the neighbor's if the place were for rent, then +moved in with his stick and bundle and sent away for the rest of his +belongings, that is to say, an outfit for cobbling shoes. He cut a big +wooden boot out of the side of an empty box, painted it black with +axle-grease and soot, hung it up over the door, and announced himself as +ready to do all the cobbling and harness-repairing he could get ... and a +fine workman he showed himself to be. + +We were all rather glad to have this odd new member of our community +settle down among us ... all, that is, except Cousin Tryphena, who was +sure, for months afterward, that he would cut her throat some night and +steal away her Sheraton sideboard. It was an open secret that Putnam, the +antique-furniture dealer in Troy, had offered her two hundred and fifty +dollars for it. The other women of the village, however, not living alone +in such dangerous proximity to the formidable stranger, felt reassured by +his long, white beard, and by his great liking for little children. + +Although, from his name, as from his strong accent, it was evident that +old Jombatiste belonged, by birth, to our French-Canadian colony, he never +associated himself with that easy-going, devoutly Catholic, law-abiding, +and rather unlettered group of our citizens. He allied himself with quite +another class, making no secret of the fact that he was an out-and-out +Socialist, Anti-clerical, Syndicalist, Anarchist, Nihilist. ... We in +Hillsboro are not acute in distinguishing between the different shades of +radicalism, and never have been able exactly to place him, except that, +beside his smashing, loudly-voiced theories, young Arthur Robbins' +Progressivism sounds like old Martin Pelham's continued jubilation over +the Hayes campaign. + +The central article of Jombatiste's passionately held creed seemed to be +that everything was exactly wrong, and that, while the Socialist party was +not nearly sweeping enough in its ideas, it was, as yet, the best means +for accomplishing the inevitable, righteous overturning of society. +Accordingly, he worked incessantly, not only at his cobbling, but at any +odd job he could find to do, lived the life of an anchorite, went in rags, +ate mainly crackers and milk, and sent every penny he could save to the +Socialist Headquarters. We knew about this not only through his own +trumpeting of the programme of his life, but because Phil Latimer, the +postmaster, is cousin to us all and often told us about the money-orders, +so large that they must have represented almost all the earnings of the +fanatical old shoemaker. + +And yet he was never willing to join in any of our charitable enterprises, +although his ardent old heart was evidently as tender as it was hot. +Nothing threw him into such bellowing fury as cruelty. He became the +terror of all our boys who trapped rabbits, and, indeed, by the sole +influence of his whirlwind descents upon them, and his highly illegal +destruction of their traps, he practically made that boyish pastime a +thing of the past in Hillsboro. Somehow, though the boys talked mightily +about how they'd have the law of dirty, hot-tempered old Jombatiste, +nobody cared really to face him. He had on tap a stream of red-hot +vituperation astonishingly varied for a man of his evident lack of early +education. Perhaps it came from his incessant reading and absorption of +Socialist and incendiary literature. + +He took two Socialist newspapers, and nobody knows how many queer little +inflammatory magazines from which he read aloud selections to anyone who +did not run away. + +Naturally enough, from his point of view, he began with his neighbor, +fastidious Cousin Tryphena. + +What Cousin Tryphena did not know about the way the world outside of +Hillsboro was run would have made a complete treatise on modern +civilization. She never took a newspaper, only borrowing, once in a while, +the local sheet to read the news items from Greenford, where she had some +distant cousins; and, though she occasionally looked at one of the +illustrated magazines, it was only at the pictures. + +It is therefore plain that old Jombatiste could not have found a worse +listener for his bellowed statements that ninety per cent. of the money of +this country was in the hands of two per cent. of the population; that the +franchise was a farce because the government was controlled by a Wall +Street clique; and that any man who could not earn a good living for his +family had a moral right to shoot a millionaire. For the most part, Cousin +Tryphena counted her tatting stitches and paid not the least attention to +her malcontent neighbor. When she did listen, she did not believe a word +he said. She had lived in Hillsboro for fifty-five years and she knew what +made people poor. It was shiftlessness. There was always plenty of work to +be had at the brush-back factory for any man who had the sense and +backbone to keep at it. If they _would_ stop work in deer-week to go +hunting, or go on a spree Town-meeting day, or run away to fish, she'd +like to know what business they had blaming millionaires because they lost +their jobs. She did not expound her opinions of these points to Jombatiste +because, in the first place, she despised him for a dirty Canuck, and, +secondly, because opinions seemed shadowy and unsubstantial things to her. +The important matters were to make your starch clear and not to be late to +church. + +It is proverbial that people who are mostly silent often keep for some +time a reputation for more wisdom than is theirs. Cousin Tryphena +unconsciously profited in the estimation of her neighbor by this fact of +psychology. Old Jombatiste had thundered his per cents. of the +distribution of capital for many months before he discovered that he was +on the wrong track. + +Then, one winter day, as Cousin Tryphena was hanging out her washing, he +ran over to her, waving his favorite magazine. He read her a paragraph +from it, striking the paper occasionally for emphasis with his horny, +blackened, shoemaker's hand, and following her as she moved along the +clothes-lines---- + +"And it is thus definitely _proved,_" he shouted in conclusion, "that +Senator Burlingame was in the pay of J.D. Darby, when he held up the Rouse +Workingman's Bill in the Senate Committee...." He stopped and glared +triumphantly at his neighbor. A rare impulse of perversity rose in Cousin +Tryphena's unawakened heart. She took a clothes-pin out of her mouth and +asked with some exasperation, "Well, what _of_ it!" a comment on his +information which sent the old man reeling back as though she had struck +him. + +In the conversation which followed, old Jombatiste, exploring at last +Cousin Tryphena's mind, leaned giddily over the abyss of her ignorance of +political economy and sociology, dropping one exploring plummet after +another into its depths, only to find them fathomless. He went shakily +back to his own house, silenced for once. + +But, although for the first time he neglected work to do it, he returned +to the attack the next day with a new weapon. He made no more remarks +about industrial slavery, nor did he begin, as was his wont, with the +solemnly enunciated axiom, "Wealth comes from labor alone!" He laid down, +on the Sheraton sideboard, an armful of his little magazines, and settled +himself in a chair, observing with a new comprehension how instinctively +Cousin Tryphena reached for her tatting as he began to read aloud. He read +the story of a man who was burned to death in molten steel because his +employers did not install a rather expensive safety device, and who left +a young widow and three children. These tried to earn their livings by +making artificial flowers. They could earn, all of them working together, +three cents an hour. When the last dollar of the dead father's savings was +used up, and there was talk of separating the family so that the children +could be put in an asylum, the mother drowned the three little ones and +herself after them. Cousin Tryphena dropped her tatting, her country-bred +mind reeling. "Didn't she have any _folks_ to help her out?" + +Jombatiste explained that she came from East Poland, so that her folks, if +indeed she had any, were too far away to be of use. He struck one fist +inside his palm with a fierce gesture, such as he used when he caught a +boy trapping, and cried, "... and that in a country that produces three +times the food it consumes." For the first time, a statistical statement +awoke an echo in Cousin Tryphena's atrophied brain. + +Old Jombatiste read on, this time about a girl of seventeen, left by her +parents' death in charge of a small brother. She had been paid twenty +cents for making crocheted lace which sold for a dollar and a half. By +working twelve hours a day, she had been able to make forty-seven cents. +Seeing her little brother grow pale from lack of food, she had, in +desperation, taken the first, the awfully decisive first step downward, +and had almost at once thereafter vanished, drawn down by the maelstrom of +vice. The little brother, wild with grief over his sister's disappearance, +had been taken to an orphan asylum where he had since twice tried to +commit suicide. + +Cousin Tryphena sat rigid, her tatting fallen to the floor, her breath +coming with difficulty. It is impossible for the average modern mind, +calloused by promiscuous reading, to conceive the effect upon her +primitive organism of this attack from the printed page. She not only did +not dream that these stories might not be true, they seemed as real to her +as though she had seen the people. There was not a particle of blood in +her haggard face. + +Jombatiste read on--the story of a decent, ambitious man, employed in a +sweatshop tailoring establishment, who contracted tuberculosis from the +foul air, and who dragged down with him, in his agonizing descent to the +very depths of misery, a wife and two children. He was now dead, and his +wife was living in a corner of a moldy, damp basement, a pile of rags the +only bed for her and her children, their only heat what fire the mother +could make out of paper and rubbish picked up on the streets. + +Cousin Tryphena's horrified eyes fell on her well-blacked stove, sending +out the aromatic breath of burning white-birch sticks. She recoiled from +it with a shudder. + +Jombatiste read on, the story of the woman who, when her three sons died +in an accident due to negligence on their employer's part ... he read no +more that day, for Cousin Tryphena put her gray head down on the +center-table and wept as she never had done in her life. Jombatiste rose +softly and tiptoed out of the room. + +The tap-tap-tap of his hammer rang loud and fast the rest of that day. He +was exulting over having aroused another bourgeois from the sleep of +greasy complacency. He had made a convert. To his dire and utter +pennilessness, Cousin Tryphena's tiny income seemed a fortune. He had a +happy dream of persuading her to join him in his weekly contributions to +the sacred funds! As he stood at midnight, in the open door, for the long +draught of fresh air he always took before turning in on his pile of hay, +he heard in the wood on the hill back of the house the shrill shriek of a +trapped rabbit. He plowed furiously out through the deep snow to find it, +gave the tortured animal a merciful death, carried the trap back to the +river and threw it in with a furious splash. He strode home under the +frosty stars, his dirty shirt open over his corded, old neck, his burning +heart almost content. He had done a good day's work. + +Early the next morning, his neighbor came to his door, very white, very +hollow-eyed, evidently with a sleepless night back of her, and asked him +for the papers he had read from. Jombatiste gave them to her in a tactful +silence. She took them in one shaking hand, drawing her shawl around her +wrinkled face with the other, and went back through the snow to her own +house. + +By noon that day, everyone in the village was thrilling with wild surmise. +Cousin Tryphena had gone over to Graham and Sanders', asked to use their +long-distance telephone and had telephoned to Putnam to come and get her +sideboard. After this strange act, she had passed Albert Graham, then by +chance alone in the store, with so wild a mien that he had not ventured to +make any inquiries. But he took pains to mention the matter, to everyone +who happened to come in, that morning; and, by dinner-time, every family +in Hillsboro was discussing over its pie the possibility that the +well-known _queer streak_, which had sent several of Cousin Tryphena's +ancestors to the asylum, was suddenly making its appearance in her. + +I was detained, that afternoon, and did not reach her house until nearly +four; and I was almost the last to arrive. I found Cousin Tryphena very +silent, her usually pale face very red, the center of a group of neighbors +who all at once began to tell me what had happened. I could make nothing +out of their incoherent explanations. ... "Trypheny was crazy ... she'd +ought to have a guardeen ... that Canuck shoemaker had addled her +brains ... there'd ought to be a law against that kind of +newspaper. ... Trypheny was goin' like her great-aunt, Lucilly, that died +in the asylum. ..." I appealed directly to Cousin Tryphena for information +as to what the trouble was. + +"There ain't any trouble 's I know of," she answered in a shaking voice. +"I've just heard of a widow-woman, down in the city, who's bringin' up her +two children in the corner of a basement where the green mold stands out +on the wall, and I'm goin' down to fetch her an' the children up here to +live with me ... them an' a little orphan boy as don't like the 'sylum +where they've put him----" + +Somebody broke in on her to cry, "Why, Trypheny, you simple old critter, +that's four people! Where you goin' to put 'em in this little tucked-up +place?" + +Cousin Tryphena answered doggedly and pointedly, "Your own grandmother, +Rebecca Mason, brought up a family of seven in a house no bigger than +this, and no cellar." + +"But how, ..." another voice exclaimed, "air you goin' to get enough for +'em to eat? You ain't got but barely enough for yourself!" + +Cousin Tryphena paled a little, "I'm a good sewer, I could make money +sewing ... and I could do washings for city-folks, summer-times...." Her +set mouth told what a price she paid for this voluntary abandonment of the +social standing that had been hers by virtue of her idleness. She went on +with sudden spirit, "You all act as though I was doin' it to spite you and +to amuse myself! I don't _want_ to! When I think of my things I've kept so +nice always, I'm _wild_ ... but how can I help it, now I know about 'em! I +didn't sleep a wink last night. I'll go clean crazy if I don't do +something! I saw those three children strugglin' in the water and their +mother a-holdin' on 'em down, and then jumpin' in herself----Why, I give +enough milk to the _cat_ to keep a baby ... what else can I do?" + +I was touched, as I think we all were, by her helpless simplicity and +ignorance, and by her defenselessness against this first vision of life, +the vision which had been spared her so long, only to burst upon her like +a forest-fire. I hid an odd fancy that she had just awakened after a sleep +of half a century. + +"Dear Cousin Tryphena," I said as gently as I could, "you haven't had a +very wide experience of modern industrial or city conditions and there are +some phases of this matter which you don't take into consideration." Then +I brought out the old, wordy, eminently reasonable arguments we all use to +stifle the thrust of self-questioning: I told her that it was very likely +that the editor of that newspaper had invented, or at least greatly +exaggerated those stories, and that she would find on investigation that +no such family existed. + +"I don't see how that lets me out of _lookin'_ for them," said Cousin +Tryphena. + +"Well, at least," I urged, "don't be in such a hurry about it. Take time +to think it over! Wait till--" + +"Wait!" cried Cousin Tryphena. "Why, another one may be jumpin' in the +river this minute! If I'd ha' had the money, I'd ha' gone on the noon +train!" + +At this point, the man from Putnam's came with a team from our livery to +carry away the Sheraton sideboard. Cousin Tryphena bore herself like a +martyr at the stake, watching, with dry eyes, the departure of her one +certificate to dear gentility and receiving with proud indifference the +crisp bills of a denomination most of us had never seen before. + +"You won't need all that just to go down to the city," I remonstrated. + +She stopped watching the men load her shining old treasure into the wagon +and turned her anguished eyes to me. "They'll likely be needing clothes +and things." + +I gave up. She had indeed thought it all out. + +It was time for us to go home to prepare our several suppers and we went +our different ways, shaking our heads over Tryphena's queerness. I stopped +a moment before the cobbler's open door, watched him briskly sewing a +broken halter and telling a folk-tale to some children by his knee. When +he finished, I said with some acerbity, "Well, Jombatiste, I hope you're +satisfied with what you've done to poor old Miss Tryphena ... spoiling the +rest of her life for her!" + +"Such a life, Madame," said Jombatiste dryly, "ought to be spoiled, the +sooner the better." + +"She's going to start for the city to-morrow," I said, supposing of course +that he had heard the news. + +Jombatiste looked up very quickly. "For what goes she to the city?" + +"Why ... she's gone daft over those bogie-stories of yours ... she's +looked the list over and picked out the survivors, the widow of the man +who died of tuberculosis, and so on, and she's going to bring them back +here to share her luxurious life." + +Jombatiste bounded into the air as if a bomb had exploded under him, +scattering his tools and the children, rushing past me out of the house +and toward Cousin Tryphena's. ... As he ran, he did what I have never seen +anyone do, out of a book; he tore at his bushy hair and scattered handfuls +in the air. It seemed to me that some sudden madness had struck our dull +little village, and I hastened after him to protect Cousin Tryphena. + +She opened the door in answer to his battering knocks, frowned, and began +to say something to him, but was fairly swept off her feet by the torrent +of his reproaches.... "How dare you take the information I give you and +use it to betray your fellow-man! How do you _dare_ stand there, so +mealy-mouthed, and face me, when you are planning a cowardly attack on the +liberty of your country! You call yourself a nurse ... what would you +think of a mother who hid an ulcer in her child's side from the doctor +because it did not look pretty! What _else_ are you planning to do? What +would you think of a nurse who put paint and powder on her patient's face, +to cover up a filthy skin disease? What else are you planning to +do ... you with your plan to put court-plaster over one pustule in ten +million and thinking you are helping cure the patient! You are planning +simply to please yourself, you cowardly ... and you are an idiot too ..." +he beat his hands on the door-jambs, "... if you had the money of forty +millionaires, you couldn't do anything in that way ... how many people are +you thinking to help ... two, three ... maybe four! But there are hundreds +of others ... why, I could read you a thousand stories of worse--" + +Cousin Tryphena's limit had been reached. She advanced upon the intruder +with a face as excited as his own. ... "Jombatiste Ramotte, if you ever +dare to read me another such story, I'll go right out and jump in the +Necronsett River!" + +The mania which had haunted earlier generations of her family looked out +luridly from her eyes. + +I felt the goose-flesh stand out on my arms, and even Jombatiste's hot +blood was cooled. He stood silent an instant. + +Cousin Tryphena slammed the door in his face. + +He turned to me with a bewilderment almost pathetic so tremendous was +it--"Did you hear that ... what sort of logic do you call--" + +"Jombatiste," I counseled him, "if you take my advice you'll leave Miss +Tryphena alone after this." + +Cousin Tryphena started off on her crack-brained expedition, the very next +morning, on the six-thirty train. I happened to be looking out sleepily +and saw her trudging wearily past our house in the bleak gray of our +mountain dawn, the inadequate little, yellow flame of her old fashioned +lantern like a glowworm at her side. It seemed somehow symbolical of +something, I did not know what. + +It was a full week before we heard from her, and we had begun really to +fear that we would never see her again, thinking that perhaps, while she +was among strangers, her unsettled mind might have taken some new fancy +which would be her destruction. + +That week Jombatiste shut the door to his house. The children reported +that he would not even let them in, and that they could see him through +the window stitching away in ominous silence, muttering to himself. + +Eight days after Cousin Tryphena had gone away, I had a telegram from her, +which read, "Build fires in both my stoves to-morrow afternoon." + +The dark comes early in the mountains, and so, although I dare say there +was not a house in the village without a face at the pane after the late +evening train came up, none of us saw anything but our usual impenetrable +December darkness. That, too, seemed, to my perhaps overwrought +consciousness of the problem, highly suggestive of the usual course of our +lives. At least, I told myself, Cousin Tryphena had taken her absurd +little lantern and gone forth. + +The next morning, soon after breakfast, I set off for the other end of the +street. Cousin Tryphena saw me coming and opened the door. She did not +smile, and she was still very pale, but I saw that she had regained her +self-control, "Come right in," she said, in rather a tense voice, and, as +I entered she added, in our rustic phrase for introduction, "Make you +'quainted with my friend, Mrs. Lindstrom. She's come up from the city to +stay with me. And this is her little boy, Sigurd, and this is the baby." + +Blinking somewhat, I shook hands with a small, stoop-shouldered woman, in +a new, ready-made dress, with abundant yellow hair drawn back from the +thinnest, palest, saddest little face I had ever seen. She was holding an +immaculately clean baby, asleep, its long golden lashes lying on cheeks as +white and sunken as her own. A sturdily built boy of about six scrambled +up from where he lay on the floor, playing with the cat, and gave me a +hand shyly, hanging down his head. His mother had glanced up at me with a +quick, shrinking look of fright, the tears starting to her eyes. + +Cousin Tryphena was evidently afraid that I would not take her cue and +sound the right note, for she went on hastily, "Mrs. Lindstrom has been +real sick and kind o' worried over the baby, so's she's some nervous. I +tell her Hillsboro air is thought very good for people's nerves. Lots of +city folks come here in summer time, just for that. Don't you think Sigurd +is a real big boy for only six and a half? He knows his letters too! He's +goin' to school as soon as we get settled down. I want you should bring +over those alphabet blocks that your Peggy doesn't use any more--" + +The other woman was openly crying now, clinging to her benefactress' hand +and holding it against her cheek as she sobbed. + +My heroic old cousin patted her hair awkwardly, but kept on talking in her +matter-of-fact manner, looking at me sternly as though defying me to show, +by look or word, any consciousness of anything unusual in the situation; +and we fell at once, she and I, into a commonplace conversation about the +incidents of the trip up. + +When I came away, half an hour later, Cousin Tryphena slipped a shawl over +her head and came down the walk with me to the gate. I was much affected +by what seemed to me the dramatically fitting outcome of my old +kinswoman's Quixotism. I saw Cousin Tryphena picturesquely as the Happy +Fool of old folk-lore, the character who, through his very lack of worldly +wisdom, attains without effort all that self-seeking folks try for in +vain. The happy ending of her adventure filled me with a cheerful wonder +at the ways of Providence, which I tried to pass on to her in the +exclamation, "Why, Cousin Tryphena, it's like a story-book? You're going +to _enjoy_ having those people. The woman is as nice as she can be, and +that's the brightest little boy! He's as smart as a whip!" + +I was aware that the oddness of Cousin Tryphena's manner still persisted +even now that we were alone. She sighed heavily and said, "I don't sleep +much better nights now I've done it!" Then facing me, "I hadn't ought to +have brought them up here! I just did it to please myself! Once I saw +'em ... I wanted 'em!" + +This seemed to me the wildest possible perversion of the Puritan instinct +for self-condemnation and, half-vexed, I attempted some expostulation. + +She stopped me with a look and gesture Dante might have had, "You ain't +seen what I've seen." + +I was half-frightened by her expression but tried to speak coolly. "Why, +was it as bad as that paper said?" I asked. + +She laid her hand on my arm, "Child, it was nothing like what the paper +said...it was so much worse!" + +"Oh ..." I commented inadequately. + +"I was five days looking for her...they'd moved from the address the paper +give. And, in those five days, I saw so many others..._so many others_..." +her face twitched. She put one lean old hand before her eyes. Then, quite +unexpectedly, she cast out at me an exclamation which made my notion of +the pretty picturesqueness of her adventure seem cheap and trivial and +superficial. "Jombatiste is right!" she cried to me with a bitter +fierceness: "Everything is wrong! Everything is wrong! If I can do +anything, I'd ought to do it to help them as want to smash everything up +and start over! What good does it do for me to bring up here just these +three out of all I saw ..." Her voice broke into pitiful, self-excusing +quavers, "but when I saw them ...the baby was so sick ... and little +Sigurd is so cunning ... he took to me right away, came to me the first +thing ... this morning he wouldn't pick up his new rubbers off the floor +for his mother, but, when I asked him, he did, right off ... you ought to +have seen what he had on ... such rags ... such dirt ... and 'twan't her +fault either! She's ... why she's like anybody ... like a person's cousin +they never happened to see before ...why, they were all _folks_!" she +cried out, her tired old mind wandering fitfully from one thing to +another. + +"You didn't find the little boy in the asylum?" I asked. + + +"He was dead before I got there," she answered. + +"Oh ... !" I said again, shocked, and then tentatively, "Had he ...?" + +"I don't know whether he had or not," said Cousin Tryphena, "I didn't ask. +I didn't want to know. I know too much now!" She looked up fixedly at the +mountain line, high and keen against the winter sky. "Jombatiste is +right," she said again unsparingly, "I hadn't ought to be enjoying +them ... their father ought to be alive and with them. He was willing to +work all he could, and yet he ... here I've lived for fifty-five years and +never airned my salt a single day. What was I livin' on? The stuff these +folks ought to ha' had to eat ... them and the Lord only knows how many +more besides! Jombatiste is right ... what I'm doin' now is only a drop in +the bucket!" + +She started from her somber reverie at the sound of a childish wail from +the house. ... "That's Sigurd ...I _knew_ that cat would scratch him!" she +told me with instant, breathless agitation, as though the skies were +falling, and darted back. After a moment's hesitation I too, went back and +watched her bind up with stiff, unaccustomed old fingers the little +scratched hand, watched the frightened little boy sob himself quiet on her +old knees that had never before known a child's soft weight saw the +expression in her eyes as she looked down at the sleeping baby and gazed +about the untidy room so full of mire, which had always been so orderly +and so empty. + +She lifted the little boy up higher so that his tousled yellow hair rested +against her bosom. He put an arm around her neck and she flushed with +pleasure like a girl; but, although she held him close to her with a +sudden wistful tenderness, there was in her eyes a gloomy austerity which +forbade me to sentimentalize over the picture she made. + +"But, Cousin Tryphena," I urged, "it _is_ a drop in the bucket, you know, +and that's something!" + +She looked down at the child on her knee, she laid her cheek against his +bright hair, but she told me with harsh, self-accusing rigor, "Tain't +right for me to be here alive enjoying that dead man's little boy." + + * * * * * + +That was eighteen months ago. Mrs. Lindstrom is dead of consumption; but +the two children are rosy and hearty and not to be distinguished from the +other little Yankees of the village. They are devotedly attached to their +Aunt Tryphena and rule her despotically. + +And so we live along, like a symbol of the great world, bewildered Cousin +Tryphena toiling lovingly for her adopted children, with the memory of her +descent into hell still darkening and confusing her kind eyes; Jomatiste +clothing his old body in rags and his soul in flaming indignation as he +batters hopefully at the ramparts of intrenched unrighteousness ... and +the rest of us doing nothing at all. + + + + +THE GOLDEN TONGUE OF IRELAND + + + Tongue of spice and salt and wine and honey, + Magic, mystic, sweet, intemperate tongue! + Flower of lavish love and lyric fury, + Mixed on lips forever rash and young, + Wildly droll and quaintly tender;-- + + Hark, the hidden melodies of Elfland + In the under, in the over tone; + Clear faint wailing of the far-heard banshee, + Out of lands where never the sun shone, + Calling doom on chieftains dying.... + + + + +PIPER TIM + +I + + +When Moira O'Donnell was born, Timothy Moran was thirty-three years old, a +faery number, as he often told himself afterward. When he was forty and +she was seven, another mystic number, he dedicated his life to her and she +gave him back his lost kingdom of enchantment. It was on the evening of +her seventh birthday that she led him to the Land of Heart's Desire he +thought he had left forever in green and desolate Donegal, and her +birthday fell on the seventh of October, and October is the month when the +little people are busiest. He never forgot what she did for him that +evening, although her part in it was so brief. + +His own birthday was on the thirteenth of the month, and he often laid his +sorrows to that unchancy date. On the seventh he sat on the old Round +Stone, his pipes lying silent beside him, and brooded on his heavy ill. +Father Delancey had just left him and had told him flatly that he had no +ills at all. Hence he sat, his heart heavier than ever, drooping, under +the great maple tree, the road white before him, leading away into the +empty, half-translucent shadows of starlight. Father Delancey had said it +was only the faery nonsense in his head that made him miserable, and had +marshaled before him the irrefutable blessings of his life. Had he not +been cared for from the first minute of his landing from Ireland, a +penniless piper of nineteen, as though the holy saints themselves were +about him? Had he not gone direct to Father Delancey, sent by the priest +in Donegal, and had not Father Delancey at once placed him in the Wilcox +family, kindliest, heartiest, and most stirring of New England farmers? +And had he not lived in prosperity with them ever since? + +Timothy started at the faery number. "Twinty-one years? So 'tis, +Father--an' more! 'Tis twinty-one years to-day since I came, aven and +true--the seventh day of October. Sure, somethin' ought to happen on such +a day--oughtn't it?" + +"Happen?" queried Father Delancey. + +"The seventh day of October, the twinty-first year and October bein' the +month for thim," said Timothy, elucidating confidently. + +Father Delancey frowned and broke into an angry exclamation, "'Tis simple +mad ye are, Timothy Moran, with your faery foolishness, and I've a half a +mind to take your pipes away from you as a penance for your ignorant +superstition!" + +"But, Father, I'm the seventh son and sure ye must admit 'tis a lonesome +country, all this, that looks so like Donegal and Killarney mountains, an' +is so dead-like, wi' no little people to fill up the big gap between the +dead an' the livin', an' the good an' the bad. 'Tis empty, all this +valley." + +"Timothy Moran, that are my sister's husband's cousin's son, I'm ashamed +of ye, an' I bid ye note that 'twas the hand of the Blessed Virgin herself +that sent ye out o' Ireland, for if you'd 'a' stayed in th' ould country +you'd 'a' been bewitched long before now--not, savin' us all th' blessed +saints, that I belave in any of your nonsense!" + +Timothy smiled at this with an innocent malice. "You see how 'tis, Father. +You cannot kape yourself from belivin' in thim and you a man o' God." + +"I do _not_, Timothy! Tis but a way of speech that I learned in my +childhood. An' 'tis lucky for you that I have a knowledge of thim, for any +other priest would have driven you out of the parish, you and your +stubborn pipes that do naught but play faery music. An' you a man of forty +in a trifle of six days, and no wife an' childer to keep you from foolish +notions. If ye had, now, you could be livin' in the proper tenant's house +for the Wilcox's man, instead of Michael O'Donnell, who has no business +livin' up here on the hill so far from his work that he can come home but +once a week to look after his poor motherless child. I will say for you, +Tim, that you do your duty by that bit of a slip of a girl baby, keepin' +her so neat and clean an' all, times when Mike's not here." + +Timothy did not raise his drooping head at this praise, and something +about his attitude struck sharp across the priest's trained observation. +The big, shambling, red-headed man looked like a guilty child. There was a +moment's silence, while Father Delancey speculated, and then his +experienced instinct sped him to the bull's-eye. "Timothy Moran, you're +not putting your foolish notions in the head of that innocent child o' +God, Moira O'Donnell, are you?" + +The red head sank lower. + +"Answer me, man! Are ye fillin' her mind with your sidhe[A] and your +red-hatted little people an' your stories of 'gentle places' an' the +leprechaun?" + +[Footnote A: Pronounced _shee_ (as in Banshee), the fairies.] + +Timothy arose suddenly and flung his long arms abroad in a gesture of +revolt. "I am that, Father Delancey, 'tis th' only comfort of my life, +livin' it, as I do, in a dead country--a valley where folks have lived and +died for two hundred years such lumps of clay that they niver had wan man +sharp enough to see the counts in between heaven and earth." He lapsed +again into his listless position on the Round Stone. "But ye needn't be +a-fearin' for her soul, Father--her wid th' black hair an' the big gray +eyes like wan that cud see thim if she wud! She's as dead a lump as anny +of th' rest--as thim meat-eatin' Protestants, the Wilcoxes, heaven save +the kindly bodies, for they've no souls at all, at all." From the stone he +picked up a curiously shaped willow whistle with white lines carved on it +in an odd criss-cross pattern. "To-day's her seventh birthday, an' I +showed her how to make the cruachan whistle, an' when I'd finished she +blew on it a loud note that wud ha' wakened the sidhe for miles around in +Donegal. An' then she looked at me as dumb as a fish, her big gray eyes +blank as a plowed field wid nothin' sown in it. She niver has a word to +show that she _hears_ me, even, when I tell o' the gentle people." He +added in a whisper to himself, "But maybe she's only waiting." + + +"'Tis the Virgin protectin' her from yer foolishness, Tim," returned the +priest, rising with a relieved air. "She'll soon be goin' to district +school along with all the other hard-headed little Yankees, and then your +tales can't give her notions." With which triumphant meditation he walked +briskly away, leaving Timothy to sit alone with his pipes under the +maple-tree, flaming with a still heat of burning autumn red, like a faery +fire. + +His head sank heavily in his hands as his heart grew intolerably sad with +the lack he felt in all the world, most of all in himself. He had often +tried to tell himself what made the world so dully repellant, but he never +could get beyond, "'Tis as though I was aslape an' yet not quite +aslape--just half wakin', an' somethin' lovely is goin' on in the next +room, an' I can't wake up to see what 'tis. The trouble's with th' people. +They're all _dead_ aslape here, an' there's nobody to wake me up." + +"Piper Tim! Piper Tim!" was breathed close to his ear. He sprang up, with +wide, startled eyes. + +"Piper Tim," said the little girl gravely, "_I've seen them_." + +The man stared at her in a breathless silence. + +"A little wee woman with a red hat and kerchief around her neck, an' she +said, 'Go straight to Piper Tim an' tell him to play "The Call o' the +Sidhe" as he sits on the Round Stone, for this is th' day of the Cruachan +Whistle.'" + +The child put out her hand, and drew him to the pipes, still keeping her +deep eyes fixed on him, "Play, Piper Tim, an' shut your eyes an' I'll see +what you should see an' tell you what 'tis." + +The first notes were quavering as the man's big frame shook, but the +little hands across his eyes seemed to steady him, and the final flourish +was like a call of triumph. In the silence which followed the child spoke +in her high little treble with a grave elation. "They're here, Piper Tim, +all the river fog in the valley is full of them, dancin' and singin' so +gay-like to cheer up the poor hills. An' whist! Here they come up the +road, troops and troops of them, all so bright in the ferlie green; an' +sure," with a little catch of merriment, "sure, they've no toes on their +feet at all! They've danced them all away. And now, Piper Tim, hold your +breath, for they'll be after comin' by, but all so still, so still! so you +won't hear them and maybe think to open your eyes and see them--for that +'ud mean--sh! sh! Piper Tim, don't stir! _They're here! They're here_!" + +His eyes ached with the pressure of the strong little hands across them, +his ears ached with straining them into the silence which lay about them. +His heart beat fast with hope and then with certainty. Yes, it was no +longer the thin, dead silence of the New England woods he knew so +unhappily well. It was the still that comes with activity suspended. It +was like the quivering quiet of a dancer, suddenly stricken motionless to +listen for the sound of intruding footsteps. There was not the faintest +sound, but the silence was full of that rich consciousness of life which +marks the first awakening of a profound sleeper. + +The hands were withdrawn from before his eyes, but he did not open them. +He reached blindly for his pipes, and played "The Song of Angus to the +Stars," tears of joy running from between his closed eyelids, to recognize +in his own music the quality he had been starving for; the sense of the +futile, poignant beauty, of the lovely and harmless tragedy, of the sweet, +moving, gay sad meaning of things. + +When he looked about him he was quite alone. Moira was gone, and the road +lay white and still before him. + + + + +II + + +He did not see her all the next day, although he went down to the little +house to do the household tasks his big hands performed with so curious a +skill. He wished to see her and clear his mind of a weight which the +morning's light had put upon him; but she did not come in answer to his +call. The little house seemed full of her in its apparent emptiness, and +several times he had swung sharply about, feeling her back of him, but +always the room had turned a blank face. + +That evening he was returning late from the upland pastures where he had +been searching vainly for a lost cow. His path lay through a thick copse +of maple saplings where it was quite dark. As he emerged into a stony +pasture, he saw the child standing still in the center of a ring of fern, +brown and crumpled by the early frosts. When he appeared she held him +motionless by the sudden passion of her gestured appeal for silence. She +did not stir after this, her hands laid along her cheeks as though to hold +her head quite still, her eyes directed with a smiling eagerness toward a +huge rock, looming dimly in the transparent twilight. The silence was +oppressive. Timothy's blood ran chill as the expectancy grew more and more +strained in the child's eyes. He did not dare look at the rock himself. +He stared only at the elfin creature before him, and when her hands were +finally flung out in a gesture of welcoming ardor, he broke the unearthly +silence by crying out loud in a rapid whirl, "God save us. Christ save us! +The Holy Virgin guard us! St. Patrick defend us! St. Columba--" + +The little girl burst into a storm of tears and sank down on the ferns. +Timothy stopped his hysterical litany and ran toward her. "Don't you come +a-near me, bad Piper Tim!" she sobbed. "You don't dare step on the magic +circle anyhow. It 'ud burn your wicked foot!" + +The big farm laborer drew back in a terror he instantly disguised. "I was +just lookin' for you, Moira aroon," he said propitiatingly. "I was wishin' +to tell you--to tell you--why, that it's all pretend. There aren't any +little people really, you know. Tis just old Tim's nonsense." He shivered +at the blasphemy and crossed himself. "Or, if there are any, 'tis only in +th' ould country." The child rose to her feet, eying him strangely, her +eyes like deep pools. + +He went on conscientiously, with a mental eye on Father Delancey, "An' if +there _are_ any, which they aren't, they're bad things for Christians to +have aught to do with, because they know neither right nor wrong, and +'tisn't fit that mortals should iver be light an' gay wi' that burden +gone! So they're bad for us--an' we shouldn't think of thim, and just +cross ourselves wheniver--" + +The unspoken protest in the child's face was grown so passionate that he +interrupted himself to answer it in a burst of sympathy. "Och, Moira, +acushla, sure an' I know how 'tis to ye--" And then with a reaction to +virtue, he said sternly, "An' if they're not bad, why do they go when you +call on the blessed saints?" + +At this the child's face twisted again for tears. "Och, bad Piper Tim, to +scare them away from me! It's not that they're bad--only that good's too +heavy for them. They're such _little_ people! It's too heavy! It's too +heavy." She ran away through the dusk, sobbing and calling this over her +shoulder reproachfully. + +In the weeks which followed, old Timothy Moran, as he was called, could +scarcely complain that he was but half awake. He seemed to be making up +for the dull apathy of his long exile by the storminess of his days and +nights. Mrs. Wilcox, bustling housewife, hastening about the kitchen, +engaged in some late evening task, was moved to a sudden burst of +hysterical tears, by the faint sound of Tim's pipes, dropping down to her +from the Round Stone in a whirling roulade of ever-ascending merriness. +"You, Ralph!" she cried angrily through her sobs, to her oldest boy, +stricken open-mouthed and silent by his mother's amazing outburst, "you, +Ralph, run up to the Round Stone and tell the Irishman to stop playing +that jig over and over. I'm that tired to-night it drives me wild with +nerves!" As she brushed away the tears she said fretfully, "My sakes! +When my liver gets to tormenting me so I have the megrims like a girl, +it's time to do something." + +The boy came back to say that Old Tim had stopped playing "the jig" before +he reached him, and was lying sobbing on the stone. + +Moira was as approachable as a barn swallow, swooping into the house for a +mouthful of food and off again to the sky apparently. Timothy's +child-heart was guiltily heavy within him, for all his excitement, and +when he finally caught her in the pine woods he spoke briefly and firmly, +almost like Father Delancey himself. "Moira, Tim was a big fool to tell +you lies. There aren't really any little people. Tis only a way of +talkin'-like, to say how lovely the woods and stars an' all are." + +"Why do you sit on the Round Stone evenings?" asked Moira defiantly. + +"That's just it! I pretend all kind o' things, but it's really because the +moon is like gold, and the white fog comes up in puffs like incense in the +church, an' the valley's all bright wi' lamps like the sky wi' stars. +That's all anybody means by fairies--just how lovely things are if we can +but open our eyes to see thim, an' take time from th' ugly business o' +livin' to hear thim, and get a place quiet enough to half see what +everything means. I didn't know before, in Ireland, but now I'm like one +born again to the ferie country, and now I think I know. There aren't any +Little People really but just in your own head--" + +Moira shook off his hand and faced him, laughing mockingly, her dark eyes +wide with an elfin merriment. "Are there not, Piper Tim? Are there not? +Listen! You'll see!" She held up a tiny forefinger to the great man +towering above her. As he looked down on her, so pixy-like in the twilight +of the pines, he felt his flesh creep. She seemed to be waiting for +something infinitely comic which yet should startle her. She was poised, +half turned as though for flight, yet hung so, without a quiver in an +endless listening pause. The man tried in vain to remember the name of a +single saint, so held was he by the breathless expectancy in the eyes of +the little hobgoblin. His nerves gave way with a loud snap when she +suddenly leaped up at him with snapping fingers and some whispered, +half-heard exclamation of "_Now! Now_!" and turning he plunged down the +hill in panic-stricken flight. And the next day Father Delancey took her +down to the valley to begin her schooling. + + + + +III + + +Upon her return she had adopted the attitude which she never changed +during all the years until Timothy went away. She would not speak openly, +nor allow Tim to discuss "their" existence. "They mind their business and +we should mind ours," she said, eying him hard; but she made his world +over for him. Every spring she came back from the valley school and every +autumn she went away; and the months in between were golden. After +Timothy's work was done in the evenings, he left the hot kitchen, redolent +of food and fire and kindly human life, took his pipes up on the Round +Stone and played one after another of the songs of the sidhe, until the +child's white face shone suddenly from the dusk. + +Then their entertainment varied. Sometimes they sat and watched the white +river fog rise toward them, translucent and distant at first, and then +blowing upon them in gusty, impalpable billows. Timothy's tongue was +loosened by the understanding in the little girl's eyes and he poured out +to her the wise foolishness of his inconsequent and profound faery lore. +He told her what was in the fog for him, the souls of mountain people long +dead, who came back to their home heights thus. He related long tales of +the doings of the leprechaun, with lovely, irrelevant episodes, and told +her what he thought was their meaning. + +Some nights the moon rode high and the air was clear and those were not +the times for words--only for sitting quite still and playing every air in +all the world on the pipes. Moira lay beside him, her strange, wide eyes +fixed intently on the road and the shadows until she peopled them almost +visibly to the musician with the folk of his melodies--with Angus, the +beautiful and strong, with Maive, the sad, the happy, with Congal of the +frightful Vision of War, and Mananan, strange wanderer on these mountain +tops. + +Sometimes it rained, the long steady downpour of summer nights, and they +sat on the steps of Michael O'Donnell's little cabin, Timothy's pipes +sounding sweet and shrill against the deep note of the rushing rain. This +was the time of the wildest stories, when sheltering walls were close +about them; of newly wed wives carried off by the fairies to live happy +always, always without a moment of pain, and then to perish utterly on the +Day of Judgment, like a last year's butterfly, for souls cannot live +without sorrow; of newly born babes whose souls were carried away by the +sidhe because a cock was not killed on the night of their birth, and of +the mystic meaning of vicarious sacrifice; of people who had lain down to +sleep unaware in a fairy ring and were foolish ever afterward--that is, as +people say, foolish, but really wise, for they saw how things are; of +homes built unknowingly across a fairy path where the sidhe take their +journeys, and how ill luck followed the inhabitants until they moved, and +of the strange penalties for living out of harmony with the little-known +currents of the soul's life; of how blind men see more than others; of how +a fool is one whose mind is so cleared of all futile commonplace traffic +that it reflects untroubled and serene the stars and their courses; of how +wisdom is folly, and life, death. All these things and many more did +Timothy say in words and play in music on his pipes, and to all of them +Moira gave her wide comprehending silence. + +The best of all was on evenings when the stars came out first, and then as +the two sat watching them from the Round Stone they suddenly began to +pale, and the moon flashed into sight, rising swiftly over the mountain +Moira called "The Hill o' Delights," because it was from a wide, white +door in it that the rushing, light-footed little people came out every +evening when the twilight fell and the harsh endeavor of human life was +stilled to peace. There was neither talk nor music on those evenings, but +a silence full, like the lovely world about them, of unsaid, quivering +joy. Sometimes Timothy would turn after such a long time of deep and +cheering mutual knowledge of how fair were all things, and find Moira +slipped away from beside him; but so impalpable was the companionship she +gave him in the strange and sweet confusion of his thoughts that he did +not feel himself alone, though she might be already deep in the pines +behind him. + +The girl grew taller, but the cool whiteness of her face was untinged by +any flush of young maidenhood. At seventeen she was a slender sprite of a +girl, to reach whose unearthly aloofness the warm human hands of her +companions strained unavailing. Each winter she descended to the valley +and to school and church, a silent, remote child, moving like one in a +dream. And every spring she came back to the hill, to Timothy and his +pipes, to the pines and the uplands, to the Round Stone and the white road +in front of it. Ralph Wilcox, hearty, kindly son of his hearty, kindly +parents, tried to speak to her long enough to make her seem real, but she +was rarely in the house except during the day and a half of each week when +her father was there; and on their casual encounters out of doors she +melted from before his eyes like a pixie, knowing the hiding places and +turns of his own land better than he. Sometimes he caught a glimpse of her +afterward, regarding him steadily and curiously from a nook in a hillside, +and once as she darted away she had dropped a handkerchief and turned her +head in time to see him pick it up; but she did not slacken her pace, or +speak to him then or at all. + +She rarely spoke, even to Timothy, but this was no barrier between them. +All the winter Timothy lived on the thoughts of the spring, and when the +arbutus and Moira came back he poured out to her the strange treasures he +had found in his heart. Scarcely to her, for she only gazed silent at the +stars as he talked. Rather she seemed to unlock in him the rich stores of +his own understanding and emotion. He marveled that he could ever have +found the valley empty. He felt within him a swelling flood, ever renewed, +of significance to fill all his world with a sweet and comforting meaning. + +And so his red hair grew threaded with white, and his foolish, idle heart +happier and happier as the years went on. Then, one midwinter day, Father +Delancey climbed the hill to say that Timothy's sister's husband was dead, +and that Timothy was sent for to take his place, hold the Nebraska claim, +work the land, and be a father to his sister's children. Timothy was +stunned with horror, but the unbending will of the never-contradicted +parish priest bore him along without question. + +"Sure, Tim, go! I tell you to! 'Tis the only thing _to_ do! And 'twill be +a man's work and earn ye many hours out of purgatory. An' 'twill be grand +for ye, ye that never would have a family o' your own--here's the Blessed +Virgin pushin' ye into one, ready-made. 'Twill be the makin' o' ye, 'twill +make ye rale human, an' ye'll have no more time for star-gazin' an' such +foolishness. Ye can find out what people are in the world for, instead +keepin' yerself so outside o' things. Sure, yes, man, yes, I'll tell Moira +ye said good-by to her, an'--yes, I give ye my word, and promise true and +true, I'll lave ye now if she moves away or if any harm comes to her." + + + + + + +IV + + +His grizzled hair was turned quite white when his sister kissed him +good-by, fresh tears in her eyes, scarcely dry from the excitement of her +youngest daughter's wedding. She had a moment of divination like his, and +said sadly, "There's no use trying to thank ye, Timmy, words can't do it. +If ye'd been anybody else, I cud ha' said ye got ye'r pay for all these +long, hard years in the love the childer bear ye. That's the pay folks get +for workin' an' livin' for others--but ye're not folks. Is't that ye're +the seventh son? Is't that ye've second sight? Is't that--_what_ is't that +makes ye so far away? An' what _is_ ye'r pay, Tim? Now that it's over and +the children all safe and grown up, ye look yerself like a child that's +done its lesson an' run out to play. Is't all just work or play with ye? +Can't ye niver just _live_?" + +In truth her brother's eagerness to be away was scarcely concealed at all +from the grateful, wistful Irish eyes about him. He was breathless with +haste to be off. The long trip to New England was a never-ending nightmare +of delay to him, and although he had planned for years to walk up the +hill, his trembling old legs dragged in a slow progress maddening to his +impatience. A farmer, driving by, offered him a lift, which he accepted +gratefully, sitting strained far forward on the high seat. At a turn of +the road he looked back and saw that he had passed the cluster of pines +where Moira had laughed at him, and where he had felt so thick about him +the thronging rush of his newly awakened perceptions of the finer meaning +of things, the gay, sweet crowd of gentle little people. + +He stopped the farmer and, leaping down from the high seat, he took his +pipes under his arm and fairly ran up the little path. His rheumatic knee +creaked a little, but the color came up hard in his tired old face as the +twilight of the pines and their pungent, welcoming breath fell about him. +He cast him down and buried his face in the rust-red dried needles. He did +not weep, but from time to time a long sigh heaved his shoulders. Then he +turned over and lay on his back, looking at the sunset-yellow sky through +the green, thick-clustered needles, noticing how the light made each one +glisten as though dipped in molten gold. His hand strayed out to his +pipes, lying beside him with mute, gaping mouths. "The Gold o' the +Glamour," he murmured to himself, and as he broke the silence with the old +tune faintly blown, he felt the wood peopled about him as of yore with +twilight forms. Unseen bright eyes gazed at him from behind tree-trunks, +and the branches were populous with invisible, kindly listeners. The very +hush was symbolic of the consciousness of the wood that he was there +again. There was none of the careless commonplace of rustling leaves, and +snapping twigs, and indifferent, fearless bird-song. In the death-like +still he felt life quivering and observant with a thousand innocent, +curious, welcoming eyes. + +When he had quavered through the last note he let the pipes fall and gazed +about him with a smile, like a happy old child. The sun sank behind the +mountain as he looked, and he pulled himself heavily up. His way to the +farm lay over bare upland pastures where his feet, accustomed for years to +the yielding prarie levels, stumbled and tripped among the loose stones. +Twilight came on rapidly, so that he found himself several times walking +blindly through fairy rings of fern. He crossed himself and bowed his head +three times to the west, where the evening star now shone pale in the +radiance of the glowing sky. Between two of the ridges he wandered into a +bog where his feet, hot in their heavy boots, felt gratefully the oozing, +cool brown water. + +And then, as he stepped into the lane, dark with dense maple-trees and +echoing faintly with the notes of the hermit thrush, he saw the light of +the little house glimmer through the trees in so exactly the spot where +his hungering eyes sought it that his heart gave a great hammering leap in +his breast. + +He knocked at the door, half doubtfully, for all his eagerness. It might +be she lived elsewhere in the parish now. He had schooled himself to this +thought so that it was no surprise, although a heavy disappointment, when +the door was opened by a small dark man holding a sleeping baby on his +arm. Timothy lowered his voice and the man gave a brief and hushed answer. +He spoke in a strong French-Canadian accent. "Moira O'Donnell? I nevaire +heard before. Go to ze house on ze hill--mebbe zey know--" + +He closed the door, and, through the open window, Timothy saw him sit +down, still holding the baby and looking at it as though the interrupting +episode were already forgotten. The old man shivered with a passing eerie +sense of being like a ghost knocking vainly at the doors of the living. He +limped up the hill, and knocked on the kitchen door of the old Wilcox +house. To his eyes, dilated with the wide dusk of the early evening, the +windows seemed to blaze with light, and when the door was opened to him he +shaded his eyes, blinking fast against the rays of a lamp held high in the +hand of a round, little woman who looked at him with an impersonal +kindness. His heart beat so he could not speak. + +Suddenly from the past rang out his old name, the one he had almost lost +in the dreary years of "Uncle Tim" which lay behind him. + +"Why, Piper Tim!" cried the woman in a voice of exceeding warmth and +affection. "Why, it's dear, dear, darling old Piper Tim come back to visit +his old home. I knew ye in a minute by the pipes. Come in! Come in! +There's not a soul livin' or dead that's welcomer in th' house of Moira +Wilcox." + +The name blazed high through all the confusion of his swimming senses. To +his blank look she returned a mellow laugh. "Why sure, Timmy darlint, +hasn't anybody; iver told ye I was married? I'd have written ye myself, +only that I knew you couldn't read it, and 'twas hard to tell through +other people. Though, saints preserve us, 'tis long since I thought +anything about it, one way _or_ th' other. 'Tis as nat'ral as breathing +now." + +She was pulling him into the warm, light room, taking his cap and pipes +from him, and at the last she pushed him affectionately into a chair, and +stood looking kindly at his pale agitation, her arms wide in a soft angle +as she placed her hands on her rounded hips. "Oh, Timothy Moran, you +darlint! Moira's that glad to see you! You mind me of the times when I was +young and that's comin' to be long ago." + +She turned and stepped hastily to the stove from which rose an appetizing +smell of frying ham. As she bent her plump, flushed face over this, the +door opened and two dark-eyed little girls darted in. On seeing a +stranger, they were frozen in mid-flight with the shy gaze of country +children. + +"Here, childer, 'tis Piper Tim come back to visit us. Piper Tim that I've +told ye so many tales about--an' the gran' tunes he can play on his pipes. +He can play with ye better nor I--he niver has aught else to do!" She +smiled a wide, friendly smile on the old man as she said this, to show she +meant no harm, and turned the slices of ham deftly so that they sent a +puff of blue savory smoke up to her face. "Don't th' ham smell good, ye +spalpeens, fresh from runnin' th' hills? Go an' wash ye'r faces an' hands +and call ye'r father an' brothers. I've four," she added proudly to the +man by the table watching her with horrified eyes. + +The fumes of the cooking made him sick, the close air suffocated him. He +felt as though he were in some oppressive nightmare, and the talk at the +supper-table penetrated but dully to his mind. The cordiality of Moira's +husband, the shy, curious looks of the children at his pipes, even Moira's +face rosy from brow to rounded chin, and beaming with indulgent, +affectionate interest all melted together into a sort of indistinguishable +confusion. This dull distress was rendered acute anguish by Moira's talk. +In that hot, indoor place, with all those ignorant blank faces about her, +she spoke of the pines and the upland bogs, of the fog and the Round +Stone, and desecrated a sacred thing with every word. + +It would have been a comfort to him if she had even talked with an +apostate's yearning bitterness for his betrayed religion, if she had +spoken harshly of their old, sweet folly; but she was all kindness and +eager, willing reminiscence. Just as she spoke his name, his faery name of +"Piper Tim," in a tone that made it worse than "Uncle Tim," so she +blighted one after another of the old memories as she held them up in her +firm, assured hands, and laughed gently at their oddity. + +After supper as Tim sat again in the kitchen watching her do the evening +work, the tides of revulsion rose strong within him. "We were a queer lot, +an' no mistake, Piper Tim," she said, scraping at a frying pan with a +vigorous knife. "An' the childer are just like us. I've thried to tell +them some of our old tales, but--I dun'no'--they've kind o' gone from me, +now I've such a lot to do. I suppose you were up to the same always, with +your nephews an' nieces out West. 'Twas fine for ye to have a family of +your own that way, you that was always so lonely like." + +Timothy's shuddering horror of protest rose into words at this, incoherent +words and bursts of indignation that took his breath away in gasps. +"Moira! _Moira_! What are ye sayin' to me? _Me_ wid a family! Anyone who's +iver had th' quiet to listen to th' blessed little people--_him_ to fill +up his ears wid th' clatter of mortial tongues. No? Since I lift here I've +had no minute o' peace--oh, Moira, th' country there--th' great flat +hidjious country of thim--an' th' people like it--flat an' fruitful. An' +oh, Moira, aroon, it's my heart breakin' in me, that now I've worked and +worked there and done my mortial task an' had my purgatory before my time, +an' I've come back to live again--that ye've no single welcomin' word to +bid me stay." + +The loving Irish heart of the woman melted in a misunderstanding sympathy +and remorse. "Why, poor Piper Tim, I didn't mean ye should go back to them +or their country if ye like it better here. Ye're welcome every day of the +year from now till judgment tramp. I only meant--why--seem' they were your +own folks--and all, that ye'd sort o' taken to thim--the way most do, when +it's their own blood." + +She flowed on in a stream of fumbling, warm-hearted, mistaken apology +that sickened the old man's soul. When he finally rose for his great +adventure, he spoke timidly, with a wretched foreknowledge of what her +answer would be. + +"Och, Piper Tim, 'tis real sweet of ye to think of it and ask me, an' I'd +like fine to go. Sure, I've not been on the Round Stone of an +evening--why, not since you went away I do believe! But Ralph's goin' to +the grange meetin' to-night, an' one of th' childer is restless with a +cough, and I think I'll not go. My feet get sort of sore-like, too, after +bein' on them all day." + + + + +V. + + +As he stepped out from the warm, brightly lighted room, the night seemed +chill and black, but after a moment his eyes dilated and he saw the stars +shining through the densely hanging maple leaves. + +Up by the Round Stone the valley opened out beneath him. Restlessly he +looked up and down the road and across the valley with a questing glance +which did not show him what he sought. The night for all its dark corners +had nothing in it for him beyond what lay openly before him. He put out +his hand instinctively for his pipes, remembered that he had left them at +the house, and sprang to his feet to return for them. Perhaps Moira would +come out with him now. Perhaps the child had gone to sleep. The brief stay +in the ample twilight of the hillside had given him a faint, momentary +courage to appeal again to her against the narrow brightness of her +prison. + +Moira sat by the kitchen table, sewing, her smooth round face blooming +like a rose in the light from the open door of the stove. Her kindly eyes +beamed sweetly on the old man. "Ah, Piper Tim, ye're wise. 'Tis a damp +night out for ye'r rheumatis. The fog risin' too, likely?" + +The old piper went to her chair and stood looking at her with a fixed +gaze, "Moira!" he said vehemently, "Moira O'Donnell that was, the stars +are bright over the Round Stone, an' th' moon is risin' behind th' Hill o' +Delights, and the first white puffs of incense are risin' from th' +whirl-hole of th' river. I've come back for my pipes, and I'm goin' out to +play to th' little people--an' oh, shall old Piper Tim go without Moira?" + +He spoke with a glowing fervor like the leaping up of a dying candle. From +the inexorably kind woman who smiled so friendly on him his heart recoiled +and puffed itself out into darkness. She surveyed him with the wise, +tender pity of a mother for a foolish, much-loved child. "Sure, 'tis th' +same Piper Tim ye are!" she said cheerfully, laying down her work, "but, +Lord save ye, Timmy darlint, _Moira's grown up_! There's no need for my +pretendin' to play any more, is there, when I've got proper childer o' my +own to keep it up. _They_ are my little people--an' I don't have to have a +quiet place to fancy them up out o' nothin'. They're real! An' they're +takin' my place all over again. There's one--the youngest girl--the one +that looks so like me as ye noticed--she's just such a one as I was. +To-day only (she's seven to-morrow), she minded me of some old tales I had +told her about the cruachan whistle for the sidhe on the seventh birthday, +an' she'd been tryin' to make one, but I'd clean forgot how the +criss-cross lines go. It made me think back on that evening when I was +seven--maybe you've forgot, but you was sittin' on the Round Stone in +th'----" + +Timothy's sore heart rebelled at this last rifling of the shrine, and he +made for the door. Moira's sweet solicitude held him for an instant in +check. "Oh, Tim, ye'd best stay in an' warm your knee by the good fire. +I've a pile of mendin' to do, and you'll tell me all about your family in +th' West and how you farmed there. It'll be real cozy-like." + +Timothy uttered an outraged sound and snatching up his pipes fled out of +the pleasant, low-ceilinged room, up the road, now white as chalk beneath +the newly risen moon. At the Round Stone he sat down and, putting his +pipes to his lips, he played resolutely through to the end "The Song of +Angus to the Stars." As the last, high, confident note died, he put his +pipes down hastily, and dropped his face in his hands with a broken murmur +of Gaelic lament. + +When he looked abroad again, the valley was like a great opal, where the +moon shot its rays into the transparent fog far below him. The road was +white and the shadows black and one was no more devoid of mystery than the +other. + +The sky for all its stars hung above the valley like an empty bowl above +an empty vessel, and in his heart he felt no swelling possibilities to +fill this void. To the haggard old eyes the face of the world was like a +dead thing, which did not return his gaze even with hostility, but +blankly--a smooth, thin mask which hid behind it nothing at all. + +He was startled by the sudden appearance of a dog from out of the shadows, +a shaggy collie who trotted briskly down the road, stopping to roll a +friendly, inquiring eye on his bent figure. His eyes followed the animal +until it vanished in the shadows on the other side. After the sound of its +padding footsteps was still, the old man's heart died within him at the +silence. + +He tried vainly to exorcise this anguish by naming it What was it? Why did +he droop dully now that he was where he had so longed to be? Everything +was as it had been, the valley, the clean white fog, tossing its waves up +to him as he had dreamed of it in the arid days of Nebraska; the mountains +closing in on him with the line of drooping peace he had never lost from +before his eyes during the long, dreary years of exile. Only he was +changed. His eye fell on his mud-caked boots, and his face contracted. +"Oh, my! Oh, my!" he said aloud, like an anxious old child. "She couldn't +ha' liked my tracking bog durt on to her clane kitchen floor!" + +But as he sat brooding, his hand dropped heavily to the Round Stone and +encountered a small object which he held up to view. It was a willow +whistle of curious construction, with white lines criss-cross on it; and +beside it lay a jackknife with a broken blade. The old man looked at it, +absently at first, then with a start, and finally with a rush of joyful +and exultant exclamations. + +And afterward, quite tranquilly, with a shining face of peace, he played +softly on his pipes, "The Call of the Sidhe to the Children." + + + + +ADESTE FIDELES! + +I. + + +The persuasive agent sought old Miss Abigail out among her flower-beds and +held up to her a tiny chair with roses painted on the back. "I was told to +see you about these. They're only four dollars a dozen, and the smallest +school children love 'em." Miss Abigail straightened herself with +difficulty. She had been weeding the gladiolus bed. "Four dollars," she +mused, "I was going to put four dollars into rose-bushes this fall." She +put out a strong, earth-stained old hand and took the chair. Her affection +for her native Greenford began to rise through her life-long thrift, a +mental ferment not unusual with her. Finally, "All right," she said; "send +'em to the schoolhouse, and say they're in memory of all my grandfathers +and grandmothers that learned their letters in that schoolhouse." + +She went back to her digging and the agent clicked the gate back of his +retreat. Suddenly she stood up without remembering to ease her back. She +heard the first shot from the enemy who was to advance so rapidly upon her +thereafter. "Wait a minute," she called to the agent. As he paused, she +made a swift calculation. "I don't believe I want a dozen," she said, much +surprised. "I can't think of that many little ones." The agent took his +notebook. "How many?" he asked. + +The ponderous old woman stared at him absently, while she made a mental +canvass of the town. She spoke with a gasp. "We don't need any!" she +cried. "There ain't a child in school under eleven." + +"Take some now and have them handy," urged the agent. + +Miss Abigail's gaze again narrowed in silent calculation. When she spoke +her exclamation was not for her listener. She had forgotten him. "Good +Lord of Love!" she cried. "There ain't a single one comin' up to sit on +those chairs if I should buy 'em!" + +The agent was utterly blotted from her mind. She did not know when he left +her garden. She only knew that there were no children in Greenford. There +were no children in her town! "Why, what's comin' to Greenford!" she +cried. + +And yet, even as she cried out, she was aware that she had had a warning, +definite, ominous, a few days before, from the lips of Molly Leonard. At +that time she had put away her startled uneasiness with a masterful hand, +burying it resolutely where she had laid away all the other emotions of +her life, under the brown loam of her garden. But it all came back to her +now. + +Her thin, fluttering, little old friend had begun with tragic emphasis, +"The roof to the library leaks!" + +Miss Abigail had laughed as usual at Molly's habit of taking small events +with bated breath. "What of it?" she asked. "That roof never was good, +even back in the days when 'twas a private house and my great-uncle lived +in it." + +Miss Molly fluttered still more before the awfulness of her next +announcement. + +"Well, the talk is that the town won't vote a cent toward repairs." + +"They'll have to! You can't get along without a library!" + +"No, they won't. The talk is that the men won't vote to have the town give +a bit of money for shingles. No, nor to pay somebody to take the place of +Ellen Monroe as librarian. She's got work in the print mill at +Johnsonville and is going to move down there to be near her mother's +family." + +"Oh, _talk_!" said Miss Abigail with the easy contempt she had for things +outside her garden hedge. "Haven't you heard men talk before?" + +"But they say really they _won't!_ They say nobody ever goes into it any +more when the summer folks go away in the autumn." + +Miss Abigail's gesture indicated that the thing was unthinkable. "What's +the matter with young folks nowadays, anyhow? They always used to run +there and chatter till you couldn't hear yourself think." + +Miss Molly lowered her voice like a person coming to the frightening +climax of a ghost story. "Miss Abigail, they _ain't_ any young folks here +any more!" + +"What do you call the Pitkin girls!" demanded the other. + +"They were the very last ones and they and their mother have decided +they'll move to Johnsonville this fall." + +Miss Abigail cried out in energetic disapproval, "What in the Lord's world +are the Pitkinses going to move away from Greenford for! They belong +here!" + +Miss Molly marshaled the reasons with a sad swiftness, "There aren't any +music pupils left for the oldest one, the two next have got positions in +the print mill and little Sarah is too old for the school here any more." + +Miss Abigail shook her head impatiently as though to brush away a +troublesome gnat. "How about the Leavitts? There ought to be enough young +ones in that or family to--" + +"They moved to Johnsonville last week, going to rent their house to city +folks in the summer, the way all the rest here in the street do. They +didn't want to go a bit. Eliza felt dreadful about it, but what can they +do? Ezra hasn't had enough carpentering to do in the last six months to +pay their grocery bill, and down in Johnsonville they can't get carpenters +enough. Besides, all the children's friends are there, and they got so +lonesome here winters." + +Miss Abigail quailed a little, but rallying, she brought out, "What's the +matter with the Bennetts? The whole kit and b'iling of them came in here +the other day to pester me asking about how I grew my lilies." + +"Why, Miss Abigail! You don't pay any more attention to village news! +They've been working in the mills for two years now, and only come home +for two weeks in the summer like everybody else." + +The old woman stirred her weighty person wrathfully. "Like everybody else! +Molly, you talk like a fool! As if there was nobody lived here all the +year around!" + +"But it's _so!_ I don't know what's coming to Greenford!" + +An imperative gesture from the older woman cut her short. "Don't chatter +so, Molly! If it's true, that about the library, we've got to do +something!" + +The interview had ended in an agreement from her, after a struggle with +the two passions of her life, to give up the tulip bulbs for which she had +been saving so long, and spend the money for repairing the roof. Miss +Molly, having no money to give, since she was already much poorer than she +could possibly be and live, agreed, according to Miss Abigail's peremptory +suggestion, to give her time, and keep the library open at least during +the afternoons. + +"You can do it, Molly, as well as not, for you don't seem to have half the +sewing you used to." + +"There's nobody here any more to sew _for_--" began the seamstress +despairingly, but Miss Abigail would not listen, bundling her out of the +garden gate and sending her trotting home, cheered unreasonably by the old +woman's jovial blustering, "No such kind of talk allowed in _my_ garden!" + +But now, after the second warning, Miss Abigail felt the need of some +cheer for herself as she toiled among the hollyhocks and larkspurs. She +would not let herself think of the significance of the visit of the agent +for the chairs, and she could not force herself to think of anything else. +For several wretched weeks she hung in this limbo. Then, one morning as +she stood gazing at her Speciosums Rubrums without seeing them, she +received her summons to the front. She had a call from her neighbor, Mr. +Edward Horton, whom the rest of the world knows as a sculptor, but whom +Miss Abigail esteemed only because of his orthodox ideas on rose culture. +He came in to ask some information about a blight on his Red Ramblers, +although after Miss Abigail had finished her strong recommendation to use +whale oil soap sprayed, and not hellebore, he still lingered, crushing a +leaf of lemon verbena between his fingers and sniffing the resultant +perfume with thoughtful appreciation. He was almost as enthusiastic a +horticulturist as Miss Abigail, and stood high in her good graces as one +of the few individuals of sense among the summer colony. She faced him +therefore in a peaceable, friendly mood, glad of the diversion from her +thoughts, and quite unprepared for the shock he was about to give her. + +"I'm on my way to interview the trustees of the church," he remarked. "It +is curious that all but one of them now really live in Johnsonville, +although they still keep their nominal residence here." + +"What do you want to see _them_ for?" asked Miss Abigail, with a bluntness +caused in part by her wincing at his casual statement of an unwelcome fact. + +"Why, I've had what I flatter myself is an inspiration for everyone +concerned. I've got a big commission for part of the decorations of the +new State House in Montana, and I need a very large studio. It occurred to +me the other day that instead of building I'd save time by buying the old +church here and using that." + +Miss Abigail leaned against the palings. "_Buy our church!_" she said, and +every letter was a capital. + +"I didn't know you were a member," said the sculptor, a little surprised. +"You don't often go." + +Miss Abigail shouted out, "Why, my grandfather was minister in that +church!" Mr. Horton received this as a statement of fact. "Indeed? I +didn't realize the building was so old. I wonder if the foundations are +still in good shape." He went on, explanatorily, "I really don't know why +I hadn't thought of the plan before. The number who attend church in that +great barn of a place could easily be put into someone's parlor, and save +the trustees the expense of heating. One of them whom I saw the other day +seemed quite pleased with the notion--said they'd been at a loss to know +what to do about conditions here." He glanced at his watch. "Well, I must +be going or I shall miss the train to Johnsonville. Thank you very much +for the hint about the blight." + +He went down the street, humming a cheerful little tune. + +To Miss Abigail it was the bugle call of "Forward, charge!" She had been, +for the last few weeks, a little paler than usual. Now her powerful old +face flushed to an angry red. She dashed her trowel to the garden path and +clenched her fists. "What's coming to Greenford!" she shouted. It was no +longer a wail of despair. It was a battle-cry of defiance. + + + + +II + + +She had no time to organize a campaign, forced as she was to begin +fighting at once. Reaching wildly for any weapon at hand, she rushed to +the front, as grim-visaged a warrior as ever frightened a peaceable, +shiftless non-combatant "Joel Barney!" she cried, storming up his front +steps. "You're a trustee of the church, aren't you? Well, if you don't +vote against selling the church, I'll foreclose the mortgage on your house +so quick you can't wink. And you tell 'Lias Bennett that if he doesn't do +the same, I'll pile manure all over that field of mine near his place, and +stink out his summer renters so they'll never set foot here again." + +She shifted tactics as she encountered different adversaries and tried no +blackmail on stubborn Miles Benton, whom she took pains to see the next +time he came back to Greenford for a visit. Him she hailed as the +Native-Born. "How would you like to have brazen models and nasty statues +made in the building where your own folks have always gone to church?" + +But when the skirmish was over, she realized ruefully that the argument +which had brought her her hard-won victory had been the one which, for a +person of such very moderate means as hers, reflected the least hope for +future battles. At the last, in desperation, she had guaranteed in the +name of the Ladies' Aid Society that the church, except for the minister's +salary, should thereafter be no expense to the trustees. She had invented +that source of authority, remembering that Molly Leonard had said she +belonged to the Ladies' Aid Society, "and I can make Molly do anything," +she thought, trusting Providence for the management of the others. + +As a matter of fact, when she came to investigate the matter, she found +that Molly was now the sole remaining member. Her dismay was acute, +Molly's finances being only too well known to her, but she rallied +bravely. "They don't do much to a church that costs money," she thought, +and, when Molly went away, she made out her budget unflinchingly. Wood for +the furnace, kerosene for the lamps, wages to the janitor, repairs when +needed--"Well, Abigail Warner," she told herself, "it means nothing new +bought for the garden, and no new microscope--the roof to the library +costing more than they said 'twould and all." + +But the joy of triumphant battle was still swelling her doughty old heart, +so that even these considerations did not damp her exultation over her +artist neighbor the next time he came to see her. He listened to her +boasting with his pleasant, philosophic smile, and, when she finished, +delivered himself of a quiet little disquisition or the nature of things +which was like ice-water in the face of the hot-blooded old fighter. + +"My dear Miss Abigail, your zeal does your heart credit, and your +management of the trustees proves you an unsuspected diplomat; but as a +friend, and, believe me, a disinterested friend, let me warn you that you +are contending against irresistible forces. You can no more resuscitate +your old Greenford than you can any other dead body. You have kept the +church from my clutches, it is true, though for that matter I wouldn't +have offered to buy it if I hadn't thought no one cared about it--but what +do you mean to do with it now you have it? You cannot bring back the old +Greenford families from their well-paid work in Johnsonville to sit in +those rescued pews, or read in your deserted library, or send their +children to your empty schoolhouse. You tell me they are loyal to their +old home, and love to come back here for visits. Is that strange? +Greenford is a charming village set in the midst of beautiful mountains, +and Johnsonville is a raw factory town in a plain. But they cannot live on +picturesque scenery or old associations. The laws of economics are like +all other laws of nature, inevitable in their action and irresistible in--" + +Miss Abigail gave the grampus snort which had been her great-grandfather's +war-cry. "Hoo! You're like all other book folks! You give things such long +names you scare yourselves! I haven't got anything to do with economics, +nor it with me. It's a plain question as to whether the church my +ancestors built and worshipped in is to be sold. There's nothing so +inevitable in _that_, let me tell you. Laws of nature--fiddlesticks! How +about the law of gravity? Don't I break that every time I get up gumption +enough to raise my hand to my head!" + +Mr. Horton looked at the belligerent old woman with the kindest smile of +comprehension. "Ah, I know how hard it is for you. In another way I have +been through the same bitter experience. My home, my real home, where my +own people are, is out in a wind-swept little town on the Nebraska +prairies. But I cannot live there because it is too far from my world of +artists and art patrons. I tried it once, but the laws of supply and +demand work for all alike. I gave it up. Here I am, you see. You can't +help such things. You'd better follow on to Johnsonville now and not +embitter the last of your life with a hopeless struggle." + +Miss Abigail fairly shouted at him her repudiation of his ideas. "Not +while there is a breath in me! My folks were all soldiers." + +"But even soldiers surrender to overpowering forces." + +"Hoo! Hoo! How do they know they're overpowering till they're overpowered! +How do they dare surrender till they're dead! How do they know that if +they hold out just a little longer they won't get reenforcements!" + +Mr. Horton was a little impatient of his old friend's unreason. "My dear +Miss Abigail, you have brains. _Use_ them! What possible reinforcements +can you expect?" + +The old woman opposed to his arguments nothing but a passionately bare +denial. "No! No! No! We're different! It's in your blood to give up +because you can reason it all out that you're beaten," She stood up, +shaking with her vehemence. "It's in my blood to fight and fight and +fight--" + +"And then what?" asked the sculptor, as she hesitated. + +"Go on fighting!" she cried. + + + + +III + + +She was seventy-one years old when she first flew this flag, and for the +next four years she battled unceasingly under its bold motto against odds +that rapidly grew more overwhelming as the process that had been +imperceptibly draining Greenford of its population gained impetus with it +own action. In the beginning people moved to Johnsonville because they +could get work in the print mill, but after a time they went because the +others had gone. Before long there was no cobbler in Greenford because +there was so little cobbling to do. After that the butcher went away, then +the carpenter, and finally the grocery-store was shut up and deserted by +the man whose father and grandfather had kept store in the same building +for sixty years. It was the old story. He had a large family of children +who needed education and "a chance." + +The well-kept old village still preserved its outer shell of quaintness +and had a constantly increasing charm for summering strangers who rejoiced +with a shameless egoism in the death-like quiet of the moribund place, and +pointed out to visiting friends from the city the tufts of grass beginning +to grow in the main street as delightful proofs of the tranquillity of +their summer retreat. + +Miss Abigail overheard a conversation to this effect one day between some +self-invited visitors to her wonderful garden. Her heart burned and her +face blackened. "You might as well," she told them, "laugh at the funny +faces of a person who's choking to death!" + +The urbane city people turned amused and inquiring faces upon her. "How +so?" + +"Roads aren't for grass to grow in!" she fulminated. +"They're for folks to use, for men and women and little children to go over +to and from their homes." + +"Ah, economic conditions," they began to murmur. "The inevitable laws of +supply and--" + +"Get out of my garden!" Miss Abigail raged at them. "Get out!" + + +They had scuttled before her, laughing at her quaint verocity, and she had +sworn wrath fully never to let another city dweller inside her gate--a +resolution which she was forced to forego as time passed on and she became +more and more hard pressed for ammunition. + +Up to this time she had lived in perfect satisfaction on seven hundred +dollars a year, but now she began to feel straitened. She no longer dared +afford even the tiniest expenditure for her garden. She spaded the beds +herself, drew leaf mold from the woods in repeated trips with a child's +express wagon, and cut the poles for her sweet-peas with her own hands. +When Miss Molly Leonard declared herself on the verge of starvation from +lack of sewing to do, and threatened to move to Johnsonville to be near +her sister Annie, Miss Abigail gave up her "help" and paid Miss Molly for +the time spent in the empty reading-room of the library. But the campaign +soon called for more than economy, even the most rigid. When the minister +had a call elsewhere, and the trustees of the church seized the +opportunity to declare it impossible to appoint his successor, Miss +Abigail sold her woodlot and arranged through the Home Missionary Board +for someone to hold services at least once a fortnight. Later the "big +meadow" so long coveted by a New York family as a building site was +sacrificed to fill the empty war chest, and, temporarily in funds, she +hired a boy to drive her about the country drumming up a congregation. + +Christmas time was the hardest for her. The traditions of old Greenford +were for much decorating of the church with ropes of hemlock, and a huge +Christmas tree in the Town Hall with presents for the best of the +Sunday-school scholars. Winding the ropes had been, of old, work for the +young unmarried people, laughing and flirting cheerfully. By the promise +of a hot supper, which she furnished herself, Miss Abigail succeeded in +getting a few stragglers from the back hills, but the number grew steadily +smaller year by year. She and Miss Molly always trimmed the Christmas tree +themselves. Indeed, it soon became a struggle to pick out any child a +regular enough attendant at Sunday-school to be eligible for a present. +The time came when Miss Abigail found it difficult to secure any children +at all for the annual Christmas party. + +The school authorities began to murmur at keeping up the large old +schoolhouse for a handful of pupils. Miss Abigail, at her wit's end, +guaranteed the fuel for warming the house, and half the pay of a teacher. +Examining, after this, her shrunk and meager resources, she discovered +she had promised far beyond her means. She was then seventy-three years +old, but an ageless valor sprang up in her to meet the new emergency. She +focused her acumen to the burning point and saw that the only way out of +her situation was to earn some money--an impossible thing at her age. +Without an instant's pause, "How shall I do it?" she asked herself, and +sat frowning into space for a long time. + +When she rose up, the next development in her campaign was planned. Not in +vain had she listened scornfully to the silly talk of city folks about the +picturesqueness of her old house and garden. It was all grist to her mill, +she perceived, and during the next summer it was a grimly amused old +miller who watched the antics of Abigail Warner, arrayed in a +pseudo-oldfashioned gown of green-flowered muslin, with a quaintly ruffled +cap confining her rebellious white hair, talking the most correct +book-brand of down-east jargon, and selling flowers at twenty times their +value to automobile and carriage folk. She did not mind sacrificing her +personal dignity, but she did blush for her garden, reduced to the most +obvious commonplaces of flowers that any child could grow. But by +September she had saved the school-teacher's pay, and the Martins and the +Allens, who had been wavering on account of their children, decided to +stay another winter at least. + +That was _something_, Miss Abigail thought, that Christmas, as she and +Miss Molly tortured their rheumatic limbs to play games with the six +children around the tree. She had held rigorously to the old tradition of +having the Christmas tree party in the Town Hall, and she had heartened +Miss Molly through the long lonely hours they had spent in trimming it; +but as the tiny handful of forlorn celebrants gathered about the tall +tree, glittering in all the tinsel finery which was left over from the +days when the big hall had rung to the laughter of a hundred children and +as many more young people, even Miss Abigail felt a catch in her throat as +she quavered through "King _Will_yum was King _James's_ son!" + +When the games were over and the children sat about soberly, eating their +ice-cream and cake, she looked over her shoulder into the big empty room +and shivered. The children went away and she and Miss Molly put out the +lights in silence. When they came out into the moonlight and looked up and +down the deserted street, lined with darkened houses, the face of the +younger woman was frankly tear-stained. "Oh, Miss Abigail," she said; +"let's give it up!" + +Miss Abigail waited an instant, perceptible instant before answering, but, +when she did, her voice was full and harsh with its usual vigor. +"Fiddlesticks! You must ha' been losing your sleep. Go tuck yourself up +and get a good night's rest and you won't talk such kind of talk!" + +But she herself sat up late into the night with a pencil and paper, +figuring out sums that had impossible answers. + +That March she had a slight stroke of paralysis, and was in an agony of +apprehension lest she should not recover enough to plant the flowers for +the summer's market. By May, flatly against the doctor's orders, she was +dragging herself around the garden on crutches, and she stuck to her post, +smiling and making prearranged rustic speeches all the summer. She earned +enough to pay the school-teacher another winter and to buy the fuel for +the schoolhouse, and again the Martins and the Allens stayed over; though +they announced with a callous indifference to Miss Abigail's ideas that +they were going down to Johnsonville at Christmas to visit their relatives +there, and have the children go to the tree the ex-Greenfordites always +trimmed. + +When she heard this Miss Abigail set off to the Allen farm on the lower +slope of Hemlock Mountain. "Wa'n't our tree good enough?" she demanded +hotly. + +"The _tree_ was all right," they answered, "but the children were so +mortal lonesome. Little Katie Ann came home crying." + +Miss Abigail turned away without answering and hobbled off up the road +toward the mountain. Things were black before her eyes and in her heart as +she went blindly forward where the road led her. She still fought off any +acknowledgment of the bitterness that filled her, but when the road, after +dwindling to a wood trail and then to a path, finally stopped, she sat +down with a great swelling breath. "Well, I guess this is the end," she +said aloud, instantly thereafter making a pretense to herself that she +meant the road. She looked about her with a brave show of interest in the +bare November woods, unroofed and open to the sunlight, and was rewarded +by a throb of real interest to observe that she was where she had not been +for forty years, when she used to clamber over the spur of Hemlock +Mountain to hunt for lady's-slippers in the marshy ground at the head of +the gorge. A few steps more and she would be on her own property, a steep, +rocky tract of brushland left her by her great-uncle. She had a throb as +she realized that, besides her house and garden, this unsalable bit of the +mountainside was her only remaining possession. She had indeed come to the +end. + +With the thought came her old dogged defiance to despair. She shut her +hands on her crutches, pulled herself heavily up to her feet, and toiled +forward through some brush. She would not allow herself to think if +thoughts were like that. Soon she came out into a little clearing beside +the Winthrop Branch, swirling and fumbling in its headlong descent. The +remains of a stone wall and a blackened beam or two showed her that she +had hit upon the ruins of the old sawmill her great-grandfather had owned. +This forgotten and abandoned decay, a symbol of the future of the whole +region, struck a last blow at the remnants of her courage. She sank down +on the wall and set herself to a losing struggle with the blackness that +was closing in about her. All her effort had been in vain. The fight was +over. She had not a weapon left. + +A last spark of valor flickered into flame within her. She stood up, +lifting her head high, and summoning with a loudly beating heart every +scattered energy. She was alive; her fight could not be over while she +still breathed. + +For an instant she stood, self-hypnotized by the intensity of her +resolution. Then there burst upon her ear, as though she had not heard it +before, the roar of the water rushing past her. It sounded like a loud +voice calling to her. She shivered and turned a little giddy as though +passing into a trance, and then, with one bound, the gigantic forces of +subconscious self, wrought by her long struggle to a white heat of +concentration on one aim, arose and mastered her. For a time--hours +perhaps--she never knew how long, old Miss Abigail was a genius, with the +brain of an engineer and the prophetic vision of a seer. + + + + +IV + + +The next months were the hardest of her life. The long dreary battle +against insurmountable obstacles she had been able to bear with a stoical +front, but the sickening alternations of emotions which now filled her +days wore upon her until she was fairly suffocated. About mail time each +day she became of an unendurable irritability, so that poor Miss Molly was +quite afraid to go near her. For the first time in her life there was no +living thing growing in her house. + +"Don't you mean to have any service this Christmas?" asked Miss Molly one +day. + +Miss Abigail shouted at her so fiercely that she retreated in a panic. +"Why not? Why shouldn't we? What makes you think such a thing?" + +"Why, I didn't know of anybody to go but just you and me, and I noticed +that you hadn't any flowers started for decorations the way you always do." + +Miss Abigail flamed and fulminated as though her timid little friend had +offered her an insult. "I've been to service in that church every +Christmas since I was born and I shall till I die. And as for my not +growing any flowers, that's _my_ business, ain't it!" Her voice cracked +under the outraged emphasis she put on it. + +Her companion fled away without a word, and Miss Abigail sank into a chair +trembling. It came over her with a shock that her preoccupation had been +so great that she had _forgotten_ about her winter flowers. + +The fortnight before Christmas was interminable to her. Every morning she +broke a hobbling path through the snow to the post-office, where she +waited with a haggard face for the postmaster's verdict of "nothing." The +rest of the day she wandered desolately about her house, from one window +to another, always staring, staring up at Hemlock Mountain. + +She disposed of the problem of the Christmas service with the absent +competence of a person engrossed in greater matters. Miss Molly had +declared it impossible--there was no money for a minister, there was no +congregation, there was no fuel for the furnace. Miss Abigail wrote so +urgently to the Theological Seminary of the next State that they promised +one of their seniors for the service; and she loaded a hand sled with wood +from her own woodshed and, harnessing herself and Miss Molly to it, drew +it with painful difficulty through the empty village street. There was not +enough of this fuel to fill even once the great furnace in the cellar, so +she decreed that the service should be in the vestibule where a stove +stood. The last few days before Christmas she spent in sending out +desperate appeals to remote families to come. But when the morning +arrived, she and Miss Molly were the only ones there. + +The young theologian appeared a little before the appointed time, brought +in the motor car of a wealthy friend of his own age. They were trying to +make a record winter trip, and were impatient at the delay occasioned by +the service. When they saw that two shabby old women constituted the +congregation, they laughed as they stood warming their hands by the stove +and waiting for the hour. They ignored the two women, chatting lightly of +their own affairs. It seemed that they were on their way to a winter house +party to which the young clergyman-to-be was invited on account of his +fine voice--an operetta by amateurs being one of the gayeties to which +they looked forward. + +Miss Abigail and Miss Molly were silent in their rusty black, Miss Molly's +soft eyes red with restrained tears, Miss Abigail's face like a flint. + +"A pretty place, this village is," said the motorist to the minister. "I +have visited the Ellerys here. Really charming in summer time--so utterly +deserted and peaceful." He looked out of the window speculatively. "Rather +odd we should be passing through it to-day. There's been a lot of talk +about it in our family lately." + +"How so?" asked the minister, beginning cautiously to unwind the wrapping +from around his throat. + +"Why, my brother-in-law--Peg's husband--don't you remember, the one who +sang so fearfully flat in----" He was off on a reminiscence over which +both men laughed loudly. + +Finally, "But what did you start to tell me about him?" asked the minister. + +"I forget, I'm sure. What was it? Oh, yes; he owns those print mills in +Johnsonville--hideous place for Peg to live, that town!--and of late he's +been awfully put out by the failure of his water-power. There's not much +fall there at the best, and when the river's low--and it's low most all +the time nowadays--he doesn't get power enough, so he says, to run a +churn! He's been wondering what he could do about it, when doesn't he get +a tip from some old Rube up here that, above this village, there's a +whopping water-power--the Winthrop Branch. I know it--fished it lots of +times. He didn't take any stock in it of course at first, but, just on the +chance, he sent his engineer up here to look it over, and, by Jove, it's +true. It'll furnish twice the power he's had in Johnsonville lately." + +"Seems queer," said the minister a little skeptically, "that nobody's ever +thought of it before." + +"Well, _I_ said that, but Pete says that his engineer tells him that there +are lots of such unknown water-powers in the East. Nobody but farmers live +near 'em, you see." + +The minister was but mildly interested. "I thought the cost of +transmitting power was so great it didn't pay for any water-force but +Niagara." + +"He isn't going to carry the power to Johnsonville. He's going to bring +his mill here. A lot of his operators come from around here and most of +'em have kept their old homes, so there won't be any trouble about keeping +his help. Besides, it seems the old hayseed who wrote him about it owned +the land, and offered him land, water-power, right of way--anything!--free, +just to 'help the town' by getting the mill up here. That bespeaks the +materialistic Yankee, doesn't it?--to want to spoil a quiet little +Paradise like this village with a lot of greasy mill-hands." + +The minister looked at his watch. "I think I'll begin the service now. +There's no use waiting for a congregation to turn up." He felt in one +pocket after the other with increasing irritation. "Pshaw! I've left my +eyeglasses out in the car." The two disappeared, leaving the vestibule +echoing and empty. + +For a moment the two women did not speak. Then Miss Molly cast herself +upon her old friend's bosom. "They're coming back!" she cried. "Annie and +her children!" + +Miss Abigail stared over her head. "They are _all_ coming back," she said, +"and--we are ready for them. The library's ready--the school is ready--" +she got up and opened the door into the great, cold, lofty church, "and--" +They looked in silence at the empty pews. + +"Next Christmas!" said Miss Molly. "Next Christmas--" + +The young minister bustled in, announcing as he came, "We will open the +service by singing hymn number forty-nine." + +He sat down before the little old organ and struck a resonant chord. + + "Oh, come, all ye faithful!" + +his full rich voice proclaimed, and then he stopped short, startled by a +great cry from Miss Abigail. Looking over his shoulder, he saw that the +tears were streaming down her face. He smiled to himself at the +sentimentality of old women and turned again to the organ, relieved that +his performance of a favorite hymn was not to be marred by cracked +trebles. He sang with much taste and expression. + + "Oh, come, all ye faithful!" + +he chanted lustily, + + "Joyful and triumphant!" + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Hillsboro People, by Dorothy Canfield + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HILLSBORO PEOPLE *** + +***** This file should be named 13091.txt or 13091.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/3/0/9/13091/ + +Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Valerine Blas and PG Distributed +Proofreaders + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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