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diff --git a/35509.txt b/35509.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..9109d66 --- /dev/null +++ b/35509.txt @@ -0,0 +1,4753 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Golden Road, by Frank Waller Allen, +Illustrated by George Hood + + +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: The Golden Road + + +Author: Frank Waller Allen + + + +Release Date: March 7, 2011 [eBook #35509] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE GOLDEN ROAD*** + + +E-text prepared by D Alexander, Juliet Sutherland, Josephine Paolucci, and +the Online Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net) + + + +Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this + file which includes the original illustrations. + See 35509-h.htm or 35509-h.zip: + (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/35509/35509-h/35509-h.htm) + or + (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/35509/35509-h.zip) + + + + + +THE GOLDEN ROAD + + + There is night and day, brother, both sweet things; sun, + moon, and stars, brother, all sweet things; there's likewise + a wind on the heath. + + --GEORGE BORROW. + +[Illustration: + + "_Good-night, dear Jean Francois," said she with gaiety._ + + "_May your dreams be of your beloved roads of Picardy." + She threw him an elfish kiss from her finger-tips and + hastened into her airy improvised bedroom._] + + +THE GOLDEN ROAD + +by + +FRANK WALLER ALLEN + +Author of "Back to Arcady" + +With Illustrations and Decorations by George Hood + + + + + + + +[Illustration] + +New York +Wessels & Bissell Co. +1910 + +Copyright, 1910, by +Wessels & Bissell Co. + +October + +Entered at Stationers' Hall + +All rights reserved + +Premier Press +New York + + + + +CONTENTS + + +CHAPTER PAGE + + I THE HAPPY PEDLER COMES TO TOWN 3 + + II THE JADE AND THE INQUISITION 13 + + III JEAN FRANCOIS' VAST POSSESSIONS 23 + + IV THE MISADVENTURE OF A CIRCUS 35 + + V TIMID CONQUEST COMES TO TOWN 48 + + VI THE JADE, A NONENTITY, BECOMES THE ILLUSTRIOUS NANCE 57 + + VII A PEDLER'S PACK OF DREAMS 68 + + VIII MONSIEUR L'ABBE PICOT OF THE BRAVE, OUTLANDISH HEART 74 + + IX THE CHILD IS FATHER TO THE MAN 86 + + X ON THE MORNING ROAD 97 + + XI THE SATISFACTORY EXPLANATION OF NANCE 107 + + XII A HEBE OF THE HIGHWAY 117 + + XIII THE NIGHT IN THE GREENWOOD 129 + + XIV VICARIOUS VAGABONDS 136 + + XV "IF I WERE MONSIEUR L'ABBE PICOT" 146 + + XVI HEBE'S FAREWELL TO PAN 155 + + XVII THE DAY OF FAITH 163 + + XVIII THE DAY OF DOUBT 171 + + XIX THE DAY OF LOST CONFIDENCE 176 + + XX MONSIEUR L'ABBE AT HOME 185 + + XXI "LITTLE ST. JACQUES OF THE STREET" 194 + + XXII MONSIEUR L'ABBE LIES ILL 201 + + XXIII "I WOULD TALK WITH SOME OLD LOVER'S GHOST, WHO + LIVED BEFORE THE GOD OF LOVE WAS BORN" 210 + + XXIV THE PRIEST AND FAUN 216 + + XXV MONSIEUR L'ABBE PICOT GOES UPON A JOURNEY 222 + + + + +ILLUSTRATIONS + + + _She threw him an elfish kiss from her finger-tips and hastened + into her airy improvised bedroom._ (Page 135.) Frontispiece + + _The Boy ceased his sobbing. After a while, looking up with a + tearful, smiling face, he announced, as if to the Voice that + had called him_: "_Now I must go to work._" Facing page 92 + + _A solitary man, standing on the hilltop, turned slowly from + mountain to valley, from sky to field, seeming to eat and + think and breathe--to make a part of him by some paganish + transubstantiation--the very day itself._ Facing page 98 + + + + +PART FIRST + + + "'T WAS PAN HIMSELF HAD WANDERED HERE, + A-STROLLING THROUGH THE SORDID CITY, + AND PIPING TO THE CIVIC EAR + THE PRELUDE OF SOME PASTORAL DITTY! + THE DEMIGOD HAD CROSSED THE SEAS-- + FROM HAUNTS OF SHEPHERD, NYMPH, AND SATYR, + AND SYRACUSAN TIMES--TO THESE + FAR SHORES...." + + --_Edmund Clarence Stedman._ + + + + +THE GOLDEN ROAD + + + + +CHAPTER ONE + +THE HAPPY PEDLER COMES TO TOWN + + +At the close of a glad day in early June, Nance and I stood watching a +horse and van, driven by a stranger of captivating appearance, turn from +the down-river turnpike and halt on a grassy knoll overlooking the Ohio. +The cart, which was a large two-wheeled affair with little cupboard-like +boxes beneath, and a short pair of stairs for mounting stored on the top +among a medley of old umbrellas, bore an adventurous, foreign aspect. At +least we had seen nothing before so wonderful. Its wheels were low and +broad-tired; the shafts were thick and heavy with a prop suspended from +each of them, that the weight might be balanced when not supported by +the ragged brown mare now pulling it. The body, held rather high above +the axle by a pair of big, bowed springs, was completely closed upon +all sides like a circus wagon, though, more than anything else, this +queer craft seemed a sort of private Noah's ark. The entrance was in the +rear and, as we afterward discovered, could be reached by mounting a +wheel, hauling the steps from the roof, and attaching them to small +sockets in the door-sill. This amazing and spectacular vehicle was +painted a brilliant yellow. + +The man idling beside this magnificent equipage was the most picturesque +being I have ever seen. He was of medium height with broad, muscular +shoulders, sturdy legs like one used to walking much in the open, and a +general ease and grace of movement, as if each motion were made to +music, indicating a perfect health of body. His features were large and +generous with penetrating quizzical gray eyes, a nose slightly Roman, +and a wide mouth which seemed continuously to be struggling to suppress +a smile. He wore a short bushy beard that needed brushing. His hair was +red, heavy, unkempt, and a trifle long, completely covering his ears. +On his feet were stout, heavy-soled, laced boots. Thrust into their tops +were well-worn corduroy trousers. His shirt was of dark blue woolen +material, open at the neck, showing a corded, hairy chest. He wore no +hat. + +Upon arriving at the knoll the master of the van sat hastily upon the +ground and, as if gravel had been eating into his heels, quickly removed +his boots. Then he rubbed his feet slowly and sensuously over the soft +cool grass as if it were a specific for drawing fever from blistered +soles. Next, quite as suddenly, he arose and went about the business of +unhitching the mare from the cart. Just as he was leading her from her +burden we, like curious children, drew near and mumbled a bashful good +evening. + +"How do you do, my dears," he said, with frank good humor. + +"My name," I ventured, "is Charles Reubelt King, and hers is Nance +Gwyn.... This is our common," I added, with the condescending air of the +small proprietor whose vanity was touched because of not having been +consulted concerning its occupancy by the daring incumbent. + +"Happy to make your acquaintance, Mr. Charles Screwbelt Ring. Miss Nance +Gwyn, I am distinctly honored.... And I," said he, with an elaborate bow +in which he removed and swept the ground with an imaginary hat, while +one hand pressed his heart, "am Jean Francois, sometimes known as the +Umbrella Man, at others as the Happy Pedler.... I am pedler, poet, +mender of umbrellas." Here he straightened to his full height, all the +time yelling directly at me, "Umbrellas to mend! Umbrellas to mend! No?" +he exclaimed with a comical shrug of his shoulders, and then continued, +"I am philosopher, vagabond, musician,--a very sad gentleman you see, +who am fifth cousin to Master William Shakespeare, and own brother to +Francois Villon, one-time king of the French!" Then, again turning and +addressing himself particularly to me, "I own the road, the river, the +hills, the trees, and all the blue summer sky. The stars are mine, too, +and I turn 'em out to pasture o' nights." + +"O, I beg your pardon, Mademoiselle," he cried to Nance, as if he had +forgotten something pertaining to good breeding. + +"This lady," here he turned, including in his bow the patient little +brown mare waiting at his elbow for the bridle to be removed, "is my +mare Rogue. She's not a pretty lass, and she lacks a sense of humor. +There are none like her for a pleasant ramble down the road. She loves +her sugar like a child.... Shake hands with Miss Gwyn, my dove," he +added, while Nance timidly touched the extended hoof. + +"Also," continuing the presentations, "Mademoiselle Columbine," and he +waved a hand whimsically toward the yellow van. "She is beautiful, now, +isn't she, my dears? And she's sound, serviceable, and optimistic. She +holds my dreams.... What more could you ask? Yes?" + +"And last of all," said he, removing with a flourish a little, burned, +villainous briar-root pipe from his mouth, "this is Pierrett. She's a +dirty wench, but sweet and toothsome as parched corn. She is as +philosophical as a fisherman, as independent as a church pillar, and +she's my soul mate! Eh, Pierrett?" + +"You see," he said, addressing me to the exclusion of Nance, as he +turned Rogue onto the pasture, "I'm the lone male among all of these +females. A sort of Mormon elder, I am; but, tut, man, it's only a +brotherly kind of relationship which doesn't entail jealousy.... You +see, son, everybody's children are mine--yes, you two's my kiddies--and +I pretty much own the world; only, you see, I don't take it and use it +except for traveling purposes. All I ask," said he, becoming quite +serious, with a far-away expression in his splendid eyes while he +pointed down the long white highway, "is a road to roam,--_le long du +trimard_--a river now and then for variety, the sigh of my music in the +greenwood, a bit of milk and cheese on a village common at night, for I +love the homely gleam of distant lights, and the stars to sing me to +sleep while browsing Rogue twinkles her grass.... Um, ah, doesn't make +you sleepy, son, just to hear about it? Yes?" + +"Now, Mr. Charles--" + +"Reubelt King," I hastened to correct him, as he hesitated with a merry +twinkle in his eye. + +"--Reubelt King, run along and tell me whose house that is way down +yonder on the river." + +"The old home of the many pillars?" I questioned. "Monsieur l'abbe +Jacques Picot." + +"Father Picot?... The hell--O, I beg your pardon, Rogue, Pierrett, +Columbine, and your young ladyship!... You females are terribly +ubiquitous at times.... No, that's not a cuss-word, Mademoiselle. It +means you women are always lingering around a good, healthy, pleasant, +cussful male like me. + +"Where'd I come from? Just down the _chemin_, my dears. And if you were +impolite enough to ask me where I was going, that's where--down the +road.... Where do I live?" + +Jean Francois sings: + + "Under the greenwood tree, + Who loves to lie with me, + And turn his merry note + Unto the sweet bird's throat, + Come hither, come hither, come hither: + Here shall you see + No enemy + But winter and rough weather. + + "Who doth ambition shun, + And loves to live i' the sun, + Seeking the food he eats, + And pleased with what he gets, + Come hither, come hither, come hither: + Here shall he see + No enemy + But winter and rough weather." + +"Is that as you like it, my dears?... My cousin has quite a fancy for +the song. He's a sort of _trimardeur_ who once made plays.... He wrote +'em and acted 'em, but, son, I live 'em." + +Then, seated upon the grass, he spoke half jestingly, and yet with a +serious note of reminiscence in his voice: + +"Sometimes I'm Jacques, that melancholy cuss. Sometimes I'm Puck--merry +Robin Goodfellow. You wouldn't believe it, now, would you? Sometimes, +Touchstone. Often I am Ariel-- + + "'Where the bee sucks, there suck I: + In the cowslip's bell I lie; + There I crouch when owls do cry. + On the bat's back I do fly + After summer merrily: + Merrily, merrily, shall I live now + Under the blossom that hangs on the bough.'" + +"I have been Romeo, but no more for me.... Nance, you red-headed little +jade, how old are you?" + +We were preparing to leave. We weren't interested. What did we care +about all of this? Who were Ariel and Puck, anyhow? I could see that +Nance did not like one bit being a "red-headed jade." She was always +very sensitive about the color of her hair and the freckles on her nose. + +"Don't go, my kiddies," he suddenly pleaded. "Look-e-here. I'm going to +make a big, crackling fire in a minute. Then we'll have a bucket of +water from the river. I've a kettle and some eggs aboard the +Columbine.... Say, we'll have the one great time of our lives!" + +It took no unusual amount of insisting to make us enter into a game like +that with zest. And O, the mysteries of the interior of Mademoiselle +Columbine. O, the stories of caliphs and kings and grand viziers and +robbers and things. And they were friends of his, too. Personal friends! + +It was unpleasantly late when we stole away home to scoldings and to +bed. He told us to refer 'em to him, and he'd fix things with the +grown-ups. Our parting glimpse, as we ran across the pasture, was Jean +Francois, seated in the grass within the circle of the glowing light of +the embers, talking to his pipe. Pretty soon, we knew for he told us, +he'd be in bed. He used the stars, he remarked, to button the covers +down, and he'd dip 'em into the river to put them out in the morning. + + + + +CHAPTER TWO + +THE JADE AND THE INQUISITION + + +It is time you knew old Doctor Felix Longstreet, Nance Gwyn's Waltonian +grandfather. For short, she frequently designated him as "The G. F." His +chief happiness lay in the hours he stole from his practise to put in +with a rod and minnows on Eagle Creek and in rearing his granddaughter, +both of whose parents were dead, in the most unconventional manner +possible. With him lived a maiden sister, Miss Barbara. Her gods were +convention and propriety. They were the doctor's devils. Truly, Nance +lived "between the devil and the deep blue sea!" + +"The world of men," I once heard the old doctor remark, "is divided into +two classes: those who understand that a river has a heart and those who +do not care a tinker's damn if it hasn't." Upon his retiring from the +room a half-hour after this sentence was delivered, Aunt Barbara, after +glancing timidly about to be sure that he had gone, ventured to Nance +and me, engaged in making a small boat upon the portico, the following: + +"He is right. Always right, for that matter!" she exclaimed with +vehemence, nervously patting her foot upon the floor. "Now I know of no +one who has so many characteristics in common with a stream as my +brother Felix. He can be as full of peace and happiness and gentle +little ripples to-day, then to-morrow as picturesque with whippy, foamy +whitecaps and occasional squalls as the river he loves." + +"Very true, Aunt Barbara," commented Nance with deliberateness, "and I +know he can flow by in the most exasperatingly placid, disinterested +manner possible. Also, should the occasion arise, quickly fill up with +ice!" + +It would be unfair, however, not to tell you that a more gentle man or +true never lived than this old river god. Indeed, he is the veritable +reincarnation of Izaak Walton. It is true old Izaak tended his +linen-draper's shop, while Doctor Longstreet tends his pills. It was +Jean Francois who made the remark that the chief difference lay in the +fact that the one coated the body on the outside while the other coats +it on the inside. Our pedler also pointed out, again, that both were +very much alike in loving a friend, a pipe with a bit of philosophy, a +quiet stream, and a favorite rod with which to go a-fishing. + +Just how long Doctor Longstreet has practised medicine in Oldmeadow, I +shall not presume to say. It seems to me as if always he has been there; +always smelling delightfully of a mixture of strong tobacco smoke and +carbolic acid; always riding over the countryside, or carrying through +the town a pair of small leather saddle-bags or a fishing pole. Very +frequently both. Nance, who was in a position to know, said that one +side of these cases contained pills and the other angle worms. + +At any rate, I know that seemingly a very long time ago, in comparison +with myself, he was born in Virginia. In his youth he was graduated +from the University at Charlottesville, and later from the Jefferson +Medical College. Upon receiving his diploma, entitling him to practise +medicine, he came directly to Oldmeadow. Except for four years spent as +a surgeon in the Confederate army, he has given his life to this old +Kentucky town on the Ohio river. For the present this is enough of him, +save to mention that other than Nance, with the sun-colored hair; the +river, which embraces "goin' a-fishin'"; and General Robert E. Lee, a +name symbolizing all that Virginia and the South mean to him, he loves +the little town, with its old-fashioned customs and traditions, which +has been the background for most of his activities. + + * * * * * + +The morning following our glorious introduction to the magnificent Jean +Francois I was out early and bound for the commons. I scarcely expected +Nance to be up. I felt that there would be something intimate and +personal, perhaps undefinable, it is true, between this master of the +happy caravan and myself because we were both men. I had made up my mind +that he was a woman-hater. As I hurried along the street my plans were +brutally shattered, for whom should I encounter but the red-headed jade +herself, grinning quite wickedly, even though her hand was tightly +gripped in that of her Aunt Barbara, whose serious features were drawn +together in grim determination. + +"I want you, too, Charles Reubelt," said Miss Longstreet curtly, and +with evident disapproval not only in her tone, but in the look with +which she surveyed my full diminutive person. + +"Yes, we want you, Charles Reubelt," Nance reiterated in close, but +undetected, imitation of her Aunt Barbara. + +Now while this really very charming spinster had no actual command over +me, having quite tangible parents two blocks away, yet I acknowledged an +assumed authority felt by every boy and girl in Oldmeadow. So, +yielding, I fell in behind, marching meekly to Doctor Longstreet's +office. + +We entered in single file, Miss Longstreet shoving Nance unceremoniously +before her. I lingered, cap in hand, near the open door. + +"Felix," she began, in a voice slightly agitated by the fear of the +unknown result in approaching the old doctor upon any subject, "do you +know where these children were last night?" + +"No, my dear Barbara," he replied with irony, looking up from a series +of powders he was proportioning with his jack-knife on a piece of +newspaper; "were they drowned?" + +"No, but she might well have been, for all that you look after her!" she +exclaimed, now leaving me out of the arraignment and giving herself +solely to Nance. + +After carefully lifting each powder onto a small square piece of paper, +torn from his writing pad, folding them neatly, and placing all of them +in an envelope which he proceeded to seal, then to write directions upon +the back, he again gave his attention to his sister. + +"So she has been swimming with Charles Reubelt," he said, in mock +horror. + +"For heaven's sake, no, Felix. Don't you dare suggest such a thing to +her.... The way you do talk!" + +"What has she been doing then?" he asked, looking severely over the rims +of his spectacles at the offending young lady. + +With slow and effective emphasis Aunt Barbara brought her accusation: + +"They were out on the common until ten o'clock last night with a tramp, +that's what!" You will notice that again I was included in her remarks. + +"With what?... With who?" he exclaimed to Nance. + +"With Jean Francois," came the brave reply of the jade. + +"Barbara, Barbara," he exclaimed in quick, whispered hisses. + +"Yes, my brother," she replied, rising to the seriousness of the +occasion. + +"They say that his ears are pointed! That he has legs and feet like a +goat!" + +"How shockingly unbecoming," and she gazed reproachfully at the +culprits. + +The doctor glared viciously at each of us in turn; blew his nose +resonantly; shook himself like a big Newfoundland, and then, much to +Miss Longstreet's chagrin and our astonishment, burst into hearty +laughter. + +"What!" cried he. "So you two are just discovering my friend, Jean +Francois?... Poet, pedler, philosopher, mender of umbrellas, and player +on the pipes," said he, drolly imitating our friend of the night before. + +"You knew him all of the time?" I exclaimed. + +"Let me see," said the doctor reminiscently; "when did I first discover +the happy pedler?... O, yes, the second year after the Abbe Picot came +to live in Oldmeadow. I remember now. It has been some five or six years +ago.... That's what you youngsters get by going away every summer +instead of remaining at home with your betters." + +"Is he a _real_ poet?" ventured Nance, with her accustomed irrelevance. + +"Certainly," came the reply. "Hasn't he said so? Besides, he knows his +Shakespeare like a scholar.... Cultivate him." + +"Cultivate!" cried the now fully alarmed Aunt Barbara. "Felix, you are +positively indecorous.... Cultivate a tramp?" + +"Barbara, my dear, I assure you, he is quite a gentleman. He likes my +pills, he loves the river like a brother, and he knows his Shakespeare. +That is quite enough.... What do you want, my dear unwearied sister--a +frilled shirt-front? I've seen many a one bowing over you in the old +days all togged out in finery who hadn't half so great a heart and half +so genuine a manner. + +"Now, Nance," he said, turning from the thoroughly squelched Aunt +Barbara to us, "Jean Francois comes with his happy caravan--a name I +gave his outfit the first time I saw it--every year when May or June is +at her bonniest. Nobody knows just when or where he comes from, and no +one, who loves him, cares. All of a sudden he's here, that's all. He +always camps on the green, where you discovered him last night, +overlooking the river. Sometimes he's here most of the summer. Sometimes +it's just a week, or a month. Then, like he comes, he just goes. + +"'It's a fever,' he said to me once in answer to a question as to why he +was off, when I met him on the river road, bound west. 'It's a fever +that you, old Saddle-bags, can't pill or cuss away.... Au revoir,' and +his Columbine moved away. + +"Occasionally he returns during the late September days. It is only for +a week or a day, however.... I can always tell that he is coming by the +wild geese flying. He is a migratory bird--this Jean Francois of ours." + +If the doctor continued to speak of the pedler to Aunt Barbara, we never +knew it. Nance and I slipped through the door into the June sunshine and +hurried across the village to the common, where camped the master of the +happy caravan. + + + + +CHAPTER THREE + +JEAN FRANCOIS' VAST POSSESSIONS + + +Would it make you happy to know that you possessed, as your heart's own, +a long, white, alluring road? A joyous, lovable, intimate road which +leads over the hills through a thousand friendly trees, all sheltered +beneath the wide blue sky. A road of many moods: a gentle road; a brave, +true road; a morning road; a smiling, sunset road; a devil-may-care, +starlit road; a lover's moon-whitened road; a road that goes and goes, +never returns, yet always is homeward bound. Home to the dingle, the +glen, the sheltering greenwood, the chattering little river; the camp of +the gipsy. A road bordered by flower-faced fields with drowsing +villages, now and then, like ancient inns with bread and cheese and +milk. + +Such is Jean Francois' great highway. All the morning he spent telling +us of _le long du trimard_, to use an expression frequently upon his +lips. He told us of the men of the road, their dreams, their strange and +adventurous lives. Often he spoke simply of amazing and unlooked-for +deeds of heroism. He sang of nymphs, of dryads with wondrous beauty. He +talked of marvelous, strong-limbed satyrs, of gentle fauns stealing +through the wild-wood. In whispered words, with bated breath, as if he +told of sacred secret things, he described to us the days of his +brother, the great god Pan. + +"There are those," said he, "who say that Pan is dead. They are but +blind. Some day, if life is kind, I shall take you to him. When once you +hear the immortal music of his oaten pipes you will have discovered the +passionate note which will lead you, lead you down the road, over the +hills into the far away where youth and the greater love abide, as was +meant from the beginning of the world.... Long live the great Pan," +cried he. + +Then, as if suddenly coming back to this as from another world, his eyes +lost their preternatural expression and became wistful and kind and +merry. + +"And what do you think of it all, my children?" said he, with a sweep of +his hand, which was meant to include all the splendid things he had been +telling us. It never seemed to occur to him that he doubtless spoke of +much which was utter mystery so far as we were concerned. But that was +characteristic of the man. He talked to Nance and me in very much the +same manner in which he spoke with Doctor Longstreet. + +Nance's reply came as a surprise to me. I was glad her Aunt Barbara was +not numbered among those present. With slow and serious mien she said: + +"Some day, Jean Francois, I shall be a gipsy with you." + +"Ah, my little jade," said he, with an obvious note of sympathy and +gratitude in his voice, "so you have heard the call of the road?... Yes, +there will come a time when we'll go hand in hand down the traffic +lands. We'll roam forever and a day, forever and away.... You shall help +me cry my wares." + +Then, seeing in Nance's face a look which took him at his word, and upon +mine questionings bordering upon alarm, he burst into hearty laughter, +restoring our poise, and cried: + +"You must not take too seriously, my dears, the nonsense of the happy +pedler!" + +"What of you?" he asked, quickly turning to me. "Have you heard it +too--the call of the road? No?" + +As for me, I'm distinctly of the town. So, using a phrase kin to his +own, I replied: + +"Oldmeadow belongs to me," and I launched into a boyish panegyric of my +birthplace. + + * * * * * + +It is a quaint bit of a village, where spectacled old ladies in black +lace caps poke case-knives about the roots of rose-bushes, while elderly +gentlemen with canes hobble over flag-stone sidewalks to their favorite +seats in the spicy, leathery, brown-papery atmosphere of the store. In +some features Oldmeadow seems even older than the river, though I am +assured by cracker-barrel historians that this is not a fact. It has +been here long enough, however, to become a fixed part of the landscape, +which is no more likely to change than the course of the Ohio, or the +shape of the Kentucky hills away to the south. The older folk are +careful not to die until they have faithfully imparted to the younger +people all of their old-fashioned courtesy, gentle virtues, assorted +prejudices, and cures for mumps, measles, and rheumatism. + +"Oldmeadow herself--" I began, but Jean Francois interrupted. + +"Quite right, son. 'She' is the word. She is distinctly an elderly +maiden lady with old-time beauty; a sort of adorable shyness; a certain +charming primness which sits upon her head like a Sunday bonnet. She +takes a friendly interest in the love affairs of the young if duly +governed by a proper regard for propriety. Her conventional amusements +she defends from the parson with roguish pleasantry. Over the evening +coffee she takes a half-frightened delight in mild gossip.... That's +your aunt Oldmeadow," concluded Jean Francois, with a smile. + +Oldmeadow rests--I think you will agree with me that "rests" is the +word--just high enough to be secure from the June rise, and very timidly +peeps, as if she were fully expecting to see some naughty naked little +boys in swimming, through the willows over the banks of the most +beautiful river in the world. The great, lazy Ohio slowly winds into +view from among the hazy hills in the east, lingers for a moment after a +manner most friendly, and then, with assumed indifference, drifts away +to disappear among other hazy hills in the west.... Do you remember how +we used to ask the grown-ups, "Where does the river come from?"... The +river is made very human, and the town, which has no railroad to this +day, is kept in touch with the outside world by the big, white-collared +steamboats which plow their way daily between Louisville and Cincinnati. + +When you climb the high banks and get into the village the sidewalks are +of large flat stones, with peppergrass and green old moss growing +between them and about the roots of the gnarled honey-locusts which have +stood for a hundred years along the primitive gutters. The houses are +delightfully old-fashioned and quaint. Some are mere plain white +cottages far back from the streets, where vines cover the latticed +porches. In the lawns circles and crude stars are made for peonies and +sweet williams. Some, however, are more pretentious, being built of +stone or brick, with occasional pillars, colonial in manner, with wide +old arches above the damp, moss-covered slabs of the floor. + +"Your village should be very happy," remarked Jean Francois, after my +conclusion. "Does she not have the river to sing to her; the tree-clad +hills for shelter; the good blue sky to smile upon her; grave old homes +with green sunny gardens to lend dignity; and the laughing loves of +youth to keep warm her heart?... There's the village for a road like +mine!" + +Oldmeadow possesses three points of greater pride: her hospitality, +which needs no encomium; the "college," of which more anon; and the Old +Mansion of Many Pillars.... It was of this home that Jean Francois now +asked the history. Every child in the village knew it, for, was it not, +with its mystery, its ghosts, its inviting splendor, the heart's desire +of Nance and me ever since, for us, time began? + +It stands in an ample yard, amid old pines, locust trees, and lilac +bushes, overlooking the river. It is a great square house of the +colonial type, with low wings to the right and left. The windows are +large, deep-seated, and many-paned. The enhancing feature, however, is +the big, broad portico, the roof of which is supported by noble +Corinthian columns, spotted and green with moss and ivy. This house is +not only the most elegant, inside and out, in Oldmeadow to-day, but in +that time it possessed an atmosphere of aristocratic seclusion, +amounting in the minds of the children and negroes to mystery. + +Until recent years it had been the property of an old French refugee of +the ancient regime. His father had fled from the court of Louis XIV to +Louisiana. The son, years later, having gotten into some trouble over a +woman, killing his man, which, so far as we are concerned, is another +story, came into the river valley of Kentucky and at vast expense built +the old mansion as it now stands. To all appearances he had wrought with +the expectations of some one sharing the home with him. It was made for +happiness, love, and children. At first he was a jolly, gay young +fellow, seeking society. After a few years, however, he gradually +withdrew from his companions, became silent, morose, and lived +altogether to himself. His townspeople saw him seldom, his servant +making the necessary trips for supplies. He led the life of a recluse +and a student. The reason for this always remained unknown. It served +for many a fireside topic on winter evenings. Old men spun gossipy +anecdotes concerning it, and the old ladies, romantic tales. Youth built +melodramatic love stories for him, while children made of it the source +of fantasy. + +Finally, when he sickened and died, beside his servant, Doctor Felix +Longstreet alone was with him. Unless the doctor knew, and no one dared +question him, the secret of the old Frenchman's life passed with his +soul. It was the physician, in compliance with the last commands of the +dead gentleman, who corresponded with the heir designated by the will. +This was Monsieur Jacques Picot, of Paris, whom he notified of his +inheritance and the conditions attached thereto. These were, briefly: +That he must come to America and occupy the house; that he could neither +sell nor give the property away; that at his demise, however, he could +bequeath the estate to whomever he chose. In case the Abbe Picot would +not accept these conditions, everything was to revert to a more distant +relative, Captain Martin Felon of the French army. It was said the +original owner of the old home made these strange demands because of his +desire to force all of his kith and kin from their native country. He +was an intense American, and had not forgotten that his father had been +a fugitive. + + * * * * * + +"Ah," cried Jean Francois, nodding his head with a mysterious air, "that +accounts for many things.... Some day I'll take Rogue, Columbine, and +Pierrett, go down among the bayous, and discover why a gentleman of the +old regime lost heart. Then, maybe, I'll tell you about it. + +"Meantime, my dears, don't you think it would be pretty fine for you to +grow up and live in this old home as your very own? Yes?... Monsieur +l'Abbe cannot live always, I know. I happen to be slightly acquainted +with him. He is very kindly disposed toward you. There's no telling what +he might do. + +"How would it suit you, Nance Gwyn of the sun-colored hair, to one day +be mistress of the mansion?" + +"I am not quite certain," said she, for the old home had quite a strong +hold upon the imagination of Nance as well as all the rest of +Oldmeadow's children, "but I think I should take Columbine and you and +the road, first, Jean Francois." + +"First?" exclaimed the pedler, with a humorous twinkle in his eye. + +"First," came the very certain reply from the jade; "for some day I mean +to have them both." + + + + +CHAPTER FOUR + +THE MISADVENTURE OF A CIRCUS + + +After a great deal of pleading, bringing to bear everything with which I +was acquainted in the art of persuasion, I had succeeded in inducing +Jean Francois to leave his happy caravan for a day and to become friends +with our back yard. My family, be it understood, were dining in the +country, leaving the premises to my undisputed control from early +morning until late afternoon. Our pedler came with trepidation. He +scented mischief of a kind which he did not find congenial. He had the +greatest aversion to unexpectedly meeting people whom he did not know or +did not like. Also he demanded room--the wide spaces of the open. To +come about a house, or to enter an enclosure where escape would be +fraught with embarrassment, was to him exceedingly painful. His apparent +panic reminded me strongly of some timid, uncertainly tamed animal +bravely trying to receive the caresses of human beings. Persistence +prevailed, however, and he stole around the house, like someone bent +upon a hopeless task, and seated himself upon the woodpile. + +He looked about him with evident disapproval. Then, removing Pierrett +from his mouth, he addressed her with elaborate politeness: + +"Say, my sweet hussy, did you ever notice the personality of a crack in +the fence? Have you ever given study to the sins of back yards?... +Yes?... Just the other day I heard the old doctor say that you could +tell the condition of a man's liver by the appearance of his back +yard.... He's right about it." + + * * * * * + +In general esteem our back yard, if you choose to remember, was second +only to the attic. The crack in the fence was its thorn in the flesh. Of +course the kitchen opened onto it, or rather, it opened onto the +kitchen, for this warm bread-scented producer of tarts is not to be +compared in point of importance with this plot sacredly set apart for +make-believers. Here, however, is a fitting place to state that for an +inn the kitchen suited admirably, and Betty, though black-a-visaged as a +pirate, made a very respectable Mine Host. + +The right side was flanked by an impassable high board fence which +Grown-ups, I have since learned, built to hide their back-yard sins from +their neighbors, the Greens, who possessed a similar assortment. To us, +however, it was a stockade erected by no less a personage than our +comrade Daniel Boone, famous for his cigars, and served to protect us +from the Indians who, in reality, were the half-dozen assorted little +Greens, then on the summit of the stone age. These savages weren't at +all neighborly, a thing for which we never ceased to be thankful. The +really splendid part about it was that at any time, without other +warning than a sudden whoop, rocks were likely to be thrown over the +fence at our unsuspecting heads. Though once and a while producing a +scalp wound upon our side, it was altogether a very harmless play, with +just enough excitement to keep it alive. Besides, in the end, all of the +stones the Greenlets ever threw away always found their way back to +their side of the stockade. And what matter to any of us if it caused +the mothers on either side to cease speaking except in company, and the +fathers to have only a mere business bow? + +In our back yard was the stable, two parts of which are worthy of +mention. There was the hay-loft, reached by a steep and rickety ladder +through a hole in the floor, a fine old place in which to hide from +visiting dressed-up small boys whose presence was, on general +principles, undesirable. Then there were great billows of hay, with +sweet, breezy odors, on which one might be cast away on a pitchfork raft +for days and days. Above, on the rafters, were drab-colored nests of +mud-daubing martins, which easily became gulls, albatross, or distant +sails, as the moment might demand. + +The very best place of all, as you will hereinafter discover, was our +buggy shed. The floor was nothing more than the good, hard earth. Here +and there were little wallowing nests of dust made by some cheerful hen +while engaged in an indolent sun-bath. On one side hung the harness, +which might be pressed into service for circus purposes. Along the +braces lay the monkey-wrench, hammer, nails, and delectable boxes of +fascinating axle grease. The rancid smell of this yellowish-black +article of lubrication is indissolubly associated with heaven-sent +memories of the happiest days. True I never tried it, though I believe +you once did with painful results; I always wanted to spread it on a +white slice of bread and eat it. The axle grease was a cause for sin. +More anon. + +In the center stood our phaeton, which served from a coach and four to a +low-raking revenue cutter. Behind it was the jolt wagon--so named +because of a lack of springs. This caused very delightful sensations to +those playing train within, when the vehicle was being driven at a trot +over a rough road. Now one of the privileges to be bought, often at a +high price, from the hired man, was the unalloyed joy of putting great +daubs of grease upon the axles of the aforesaid phaeton and farm wagon. +I have often done without my second piece of chocolate pie, gladly +thrusting it surreptitiously down the throat of this previously +mentioned man of many virtues, just to get to help at this task. +Something second unto it was being allowed to spin the recently attended +wheel before removing the jack from beneath it. All of this that you may +know the charms of axle grease.... O, the memories of that day of many +sins! + +Nance, who lived just back of me, with an alley between, had a habit +which was good or bad as it suited my purpose. It was to come through a +gate in her back fence, which mine did not possess, and enter my domain +through a crack in the fence. This entrance, which had been made long +ago by the removal of a board, was a constant source of annoyance to me. +Since her first appearance years ago, the crack had been worn smooth and +glossy by much passing of girl frocks. She insisted upon being played +with and the pity of her possessing neither father, mother, sisters, or +brothers of her own was all that saved the crack being securely nailed. +It was only when she attempted to force dolls upon me that I sternly +rebelled. Of course it was only in the back yard and upon the common +that she was allowed my comradeship. When we were fishing or swimming +she could not come, though she shed many tears and entered various +protests. + +Now of all times this was one when a visit from her was not wanted. Jean +Francois acted like she would be welcome, it is true. Just why he so +fancied her was then a mystery to me. I'll leave it to you. I had +prepared for a really wicked, good time all alone with the happy pedler. +In the morning, after playing Indian with the Greens, I hoped we should +be buccaneers in the hay until Aunt Bet began to get dinner. Then we +were to slip into the house and slide down the banisters until time to +eat. The whole afternoon was to be spent greasing the phaeton and the +jolt wagon. There was a new box of axle grease, and a splendid pine +paddle with which to apply it.... Suppose you had all of such a great +day planned and a red-headed little jade, with a very white frock, +taking her welcome for granted, squeezed through the crack of your +fence.... Jean Francois says you can always count upon a woman making +her appearance just when you are off on a particularly masculine jaunt. + +Well, the Indians had to be postponed. She had once taken a rather +awkward left-handed part in a battle and had gone bellowing through the +fence, a most unbecoming woman. She wasn't any heroine. The scar, which +her Aunt Barbara feels very sure will disappear, may be found in that +blessed red hair to this day. So politeness forbade warfare. The hay +proved better. It is true I noticed her eyes grow a bit wide with fear +as she arose on the rickety ladder. This was fostered by Jean Francois +following closely behind, playing sailor. We made believe that she was a +respectable merchantman, while I was a pirate, and the pedler the +man-of-war. I swooped down upon her only to be chased and hard put by +the shot and shell of the larger vessel. I feel sure she got the worst +of the fight. Then, in the storm, we covered her with hay until her weak +little protest from somewhere beneath the billows made me uneasy for her +ever again reaching port. + +It was the banisters where she surprised all of us. + +"I do it all the time at home," she informed us proudly. Just then I +ceased to sympathize with her lack of a mother. I, too, wished for a G. +F. who domineered a maiden aunt. + +"You see," said she, "I never walk down stairs unless Aunt Barbara is +around." + +Then she illustrated her ability for us, to almost knocking the newel +post from its dignified position at the bottom of the stair. We stood +watching with awe and a trifle of envy. It was an unfortunate thing in +some respects to have parents. Here, however, our joy was interrupted by +a call demanding Nance to report for dinner. She departed, and I was +left to dissipate on an old-fashioned circular baluster. Jean Francois +became a spectator, saying that he drew the line at such amusements. + +It was the afternoon which caused the telling of this story. History was +made. We had the jack under the front wheel of the jolt wagon when she +appeared. The umbrella man was unscrewing the nut while I worked the +grease. Her frock was a new one. A trace of recent tears told of the +folly of playing respectable merchantman upon a sea of hay. Here the +wheel was lifted off, placed against the wall, and the glistening axle, +already suffering from over attention, was liberally applied with +lubricant. When we turned to replace the wheel, there was the jade +sitting innocently against the hub. She stepped aside for us, only to +expose a neat black ring printed upon a part of her frock which +prophesied what awaited her within the immediate future. At first she +was inclined to cry. Instead, upon our laughing at her, she became +impudent. As each wheel came off, she promptly sat against it, regularly +increasing the number of rings. Then she insisted on at least putting +one paddle full on an axle. After that she must be allowed to attend one +entire wheel by herself, of course, allowing one of us to remove it. +This we did cheerfully. Were we not interested in getting her just as +black as possible? Had she not grown exceedingly bold and saucy?... Next +she decided to taste the grease. One little finger, on the tip of which +was a bit of black tar, was stuck delicately on her outstretched tongue, +while she made a face for our delectation. + +Suddenly she turned upon us with the information that she was a circus. + +"A whole circus?" asked Jean Francois derisively. + +"A whole circus, and I'm going to perform," she informed us. + +She then insisted that Jean Francois and I go away, as she was going to +do her act on the horizontal bar. In fact, she commanded us to leave, +but whatever we chose to do she nevertheless intended to do her trick. +The pedler promptly turned his back and began the imitation of the kind +of music played when the acrobats are out. As for me I stood my ground. +She needed an audience, I insisted. Who ever heard of a circus without +an audience? Then, quite to my astonishment, Nance proceeded to skin the +cat. She sputtered something about getting even at her party--I +remembered this afterward--as she heaved her legs between her hands, and +a multitude of clothes obscured her features. I was somewhat awed by +this bit of prowess. I respected her for it. Still, I, myself, fully +intended, so soon as I became a man, to walk on the ceiling. Also I +found myself wondering if the immortal Jean Francois numbered this among +his accomplishments. + +Just then the climax came, in the shape of her Aunt Barbara, who, +silently and suddenly, like death, stood before us. + +"Aunt Barbara," she explained as she dropped, a tearful little bundle of +apologies, into the dust, "Aunt Barbara, I didn't want to do it before +Charles. Really, I didn't, but I just couldn't get him to go away.... I +hated to do it, really, but he simply would not leave." + +Then to see her hurried through the crack in the fence with a sharp +spank, as she stooped through the opening, almost convinced me that she +was one thing on earth God had made without any purpose. + +Jean Francois says there isn't any greater creative force in this world +for pity than a very tearful, snuffy, turned-up, little girl-nose. + + + + +CHAPTER FIVE + +TIMID CONQUEST COMES TO TOWN + + +Less than a month following the events clustered about the rise and fall +of the unfortunate circus, a certain tow-headed, freckled-faced boy, +whom I knew once upon a time, long ago, might have been found seated on +the lar-board side of the ferry float, hidden away from his fellow men, +that he might contemplate. I am sure Izaak Walton knew a deal about +boys, and that much of his gentle philosophy was developed into +tangibility because he occasionally consulted them. + +Early in the morning Jean Francois and Doctor Longstreet had tramped up +the river seeking a favorite fishing pool. They had invited the boy to +go with them, but even the all-day companionship of his two heroes could +not withdraw him from the problem which now completely occupied his mind +and heart.... Nance was spending her time at home, doubtless enjoying +certain triumphs of the previous night. The fellows couldn't interest +him. The river--his river now--alone seemed adequate. The great stream +lay at his feet, stretching away to the Indiana hills, beautiful, calm, +majestic, yet sympathetic and inviting to confidences. At any rate, so +it seemed to the boy in whose life something new, mysterious, wonderful +was coming to birth. + +On the evening previous to this thoughtful dabbling in the water there +had happened in the life of this boy an event. Not such an event as it +might be if you were to find the rainbow's end; more important than if +you were granted three wishes by the queen of fairies. You have been +expecting these rather commonplace happenings all of your life. This +particular event came without the slightest warning or preparation, at +least so far as he knew; like you might wake some morning and find your +wings attached behind your ears instead of on your shoulder-blades, +where you are really expecting to wear them. The boy, it might be said, +was made of marbles and tops and little mud puddles; of rivers and trees +and all out of doors; of Daniel Boone, Simon Kenton, and Kit Carson; +and, of nights by the winter's fireside, of good adventurous books. For +him all of the rest of the world was yet to be created. To him his +mother wasn't a woman; she was just mother. Girls, like flies, were +inevitable nuisances, mostly to be ignored, but occasionally shot at +with a broken bit of rubber band.... He didn't even know that he was +ugly. Yet he had learned early that the boys best suited for "knux," +fishin', and the like had freckles, snub-noses, and cow-licks. Had not +father often remonstrated with mother at too much washing, insisting +that it was part of a small boy's portion to get dirty and to sniffle? +Hadn't he seen through old Doctor Longstreet's derision when he would +take such evident delight in saying to hovering little motherettes: + +"Madame, I congratulate you upon the hideousness of your son. Thank God +for ugly boys--they make men. A pretty boy, madame, is a misprint--the +wrong title under the wrong picture. I congratulate you!... Ah, it +reminds me of the story of--" + +Never mind the doctor's story. Sufficient to say it was not about a +pirate or a captain of the guards, or I'd tell it here. One thing: he +was generally right about boys, angle worms, and pills. + +So, in the late afternoon of yesterday, when he was informed by his +mother that Nance--Jean Francois' red-headed jade--was to have a +birthday party, and that he was expected to go, his heart became sick +and then rebellious. In the first place she held no interest for him. +She had always been in the world, he supposed. He couldn't remember when +she hadn't lived over the alley. It seemed that always she had made +herself conspicuous through the crack in the fence. For the first time +he genuinely regretted that he had not nailed it up long ago. + +Then another good reason for protest, upon the suggestion that it would +not be healthful for him if he failed to attend the party, was the fact +that he would have to wash his feet and put on shoes and stockings. It +was under such circumstances he wished he belonged to the Rices, who +lived on a shanty boat, fishing for a living. The little Rices never had +to wash except accidentally as they got wet helping their father trace +his trot-lines, or for fun when they went swimming. This time he pleaded +with his mother to let him run to the river and "go-in"; this being a +sure way of getting amusement out of an otherwise unpleasant task. +However, mother was very serious and father looked like a newspaper with +legs to it. He refused to be inveigled into sympathy. So the boy was +duly scrubbed, shined, stocking-and-shoed. Thus, feeling very stiff, dry +all over, and exceedingly unlike Robinson Crusoe, he was thrust +unceremoniously through the crack in the fence with a parting injunction +similar to the one he had seen administered to Nance not a great while +ago. He did not cry, however, but, very much of a martyr, he tramped +with reckless delight over Aunt Barbara's flower-beds to the front door +and lifted the knocker. Here he paused for fully a minute with timid +dignity, then let it fall. It seemed an earthquake. + +When he had once gotten in, had his hat, a very superfluous piece of +wearing apparel, disposed of, he was formally presented to many +uncomfortable-looking small boys in the strange disguise of Sunday suits +and fluttering, beribboned little girls who now, for the first time, +seemed to have the occasion better in hand than himself. The dry feeling +now left him for one that was hot and smothery, seemingly caused by +having on too much clothing. He accepted the chair thrust beneath him by +her Aunt Barbara, whose glance was one of withering disapproval. Knowing +that he had surely broken some rule of conduct, his eyes sought the open +window as if measuring his chance for escape. Evidently none presented +itself, for he turned resignedly to the gay group of tiny flutterers +about him. He mentally calculated how many times he could chin the +curtain pole if he were allowed to remove his coat; he wondered if she +ever tried it; and remembering the cat-skinning episode he concluded +that she was no doubt a practised hand. Suddenly he straightened up and +regained a portion of self-respect as he thought how he could throw the +whole lot of them out of the window if he chose. + +It was then that the games began. Even the boys--Jim, "Capt." "Leggins," +and the rest--seemed more at ease, and the chances were, from +appearances, he believed, that they were actually going to have some +fun. Before he knew just how it happened, and wholly unconscious of its +nature, he was in a game in which the reward, or penalty it would have +seemed to him, was kissing the upturned cheek of some fluttering little +maid. Very abruptly, so it seemed, Nance stood before him. There was a +look of mischief in her dancing eyes, a droop of mock timidity about her +mouth, and a round, flushed, dimpled cheek was held for his lips. As the +other girls were always inclined to let him alone, this was a part of +the game he had not anticipated. Just as a drowning man thinks in a +second of every wicked act of his life, so the boy thought of every +worm he had ever put on her, of every pinch, every twitch of her hair, +of every bit of tantalizing of which he had ever been guilty. Most of +all he remembered the vengeance she had promised him for refusing to go +away while she skinned the cat.... At any rate, there she stood, her +happy little face sparkling from without a perfect mass of fluffy red +curls, that, to the boy, seemed quite as bright and beautiful as the +sunshine on the river in the early morning. Beneath this hair and lifted +cheek stood an eager small body, very much frilled and furbelowed, which +to him, for the first time, was very mysterious and alluring. It was +decidedly a new experience for him. For a moment he hesitated, uneasy, +blushing vigorously; then he glanced behind. Yes, it was there and open! +One bound and he was through the window, running and stumbling toward +the crack in the fence. For a second Nance gazed in amused amazement at +the place left vacant, and out into the night into which he had escaped. +Then she turned to another and the game continued. Within her heart was +a feeling of deep satisfaction. + +The boy was down in the buggy shed, his coat off, hanging on the bar +skinning the cat several times in rapid succession. + +"Huh," he exclaimed as he came to a sudden stop. "I bet she couldn't do +it agin!" It might be well to here record the fact that so far as +anybody ever knew, she never did. + +All of this was what passed in review as he sat paddling in the water +that June morning. He wondered what Jean Francois would say when he +heard about it. He was filled with pride and humiliation all at one +time. An unusual relationship was now evident. She was in the +ascendancy.... He wanted to think it all out, if it were possible, and +the river, rippling about his bare feet, felt very cool and very +soothing. + + + + +CHAPTER SIX + +THE JADE, A NONENTITY, BECOMES THE ILLUSTRIOUS NANCE + + +When our grandfathers were snub-nosed little boys, quaintly dressed in +the toggery of near a century ago, every town in the South boasted of +its college. It was long before the coming of the state universities and +the heavily endowed Church institutions. They were usually the property +of some pompous individual whose pedantry and assumption, among the +simple folk about him, went by the name of culture and learning. He was +usually looked upon as being something sacred. His authority upon +matters generally, and letters specifically, was indisputable. That +being a day when, though there were no poor, there were also no rich, +ancestry and one's mind counted for something. Therefore these old +scholars, whose charlatanry was what they deemed an honest part of +pedagogy, were honored with the very highest esteem. These schools soon +acquired an atmosphere very dear to the Southern heart: a quiet air of +good breeding. This was frequently abused by the institutions themselves +inasmuch as it was made an inducement to secure attendance. To-day our +very same grandparents are not so proud of the education attained, for +that was usually very meager, but of the aristocratic name left to the +now tottering buildings. + +One of the most popular of all of these in its day was Oldmeadow +College. Even to this time its legends are passed by careful and +reverent tongues to those born in so unfortunate a period as not to have +been able to attend it. In the narrow vision of many of our +cracker-barrel philosophers there never existed men so erudite, so +acceptably great as many of the old professors. Now and then, with +modifications, this was true. Our village had no doubt whatever that she +was the moral and culture center of Kentucky. It might please you to +know that from Lexington, with Transylvania University, down to the +least hamlet possessed of her college, every town in the State thought +the same thing ... feel reasonably sure each one of them was right! + +There was but one part of Oldmeadow which might boast of being anything +like a hill. On the western edge of the town beside the river this +knoll, many feet higher than the surrounding country, was entirely +within the college campus. At its apex was the college itself. A brick +building consisting of a basement with three stories and a half above +it--these stories were higher than the average--made a rather imposing +structure which sat like a monitor upon a stool overlooking the conduct +of the village spread before it. On the first floor were an assembly and +two recitation rooms. In the five apartments on the second lived the +President and his family. The third was devoted to music and class +rooms. On the pilot-house-like tower, which crowned the building, there +rested a huge bell once the property of a boastful steamboat, the +_General Litell_, which had blown up at a point just below town, in a +vain attempt to run faster than a rival. I used to believe the bell, +rope and all, had been neatly blown over upon the roof, but I am now +inclined to believe that friends must have rescued it from the sand-bar +for its present position. It is still a mystery to me how it was ever +mounted to where it is to-day. + +Now all of this was very long ago, before you knew anything about +Oldmeadow and my river beside it. When we first knew the village, you +will remember, all that was left of the college was the building, the +bell, and the wonderful view of the most beautiful stream in the world, +from its windows, or its top. Standing beside the relic of the _General +Litell_, you may see the great Ohio wandering idly, vagabondishly, +through the valley, until it looks like a silver thread losing itself in +the misty distance. Just think of being able to see, on a clear sunny +morning, twenty miles or more of the river you love. By your side it +drifts, broad, full of strength, in pleasing sinuosity, covered by a +thousand hurrying little ripples. Beyond it becomes smoother, the yellow +of the water turning a clearer green, and motionless it winds in and out +among the farms and woodland until it may be followed only by the line +of blue vapor between the hills. Here and there hangs the smoke of a +steamboat; a forest shuts it momentarily from sight only that you may +catch a glimpse of silver sheen, lake-like, smiling in the happy +sunshine; a farmhouse, as a silent, contemplative fisherman, sits here +and there on the bank; and over it all, as if with satisfaction the +master builder were viewing his work, there broods the great mystery. + +Though all of these things remained, when we came into our inheritance +the college was no longer a "college," but had fallen into the vulgar +times of being used as the public school building. Here some erstwhile +student held forth for six months in the year, teaching on the first +floor, living on the second, his children making a playhouse out of the +third. + +I will not presume to say how long I had been attending the "college" +when, upon a certain cheerful September morning, I saw old Doctor +Longstreet come walking up the campus with the timid fingers of our +Nance held protectingly in his own. She seemed very much scared, a +trifle knock-kneed, and just a bit too starched up to be as pretty as I +acknowledged her in my heart. She passed us--a group of boys at +play--with scarcely a look of recognition. I watched them climb the +steps into the building, her two huge red plaits seeming to be about all +there was of her. These same plaits looked quite lonely and as if they +wanted to turn and run for it. I do not think I have ever seen her so +humble, so unassuming as she was that day. To be sure it did not last +long. Before another week she had figuratively made a crack in the fence +and slipped through to victory. + +During these early years in school, to prove my prowess, when I believed +her looking, I never lost an opportunity to stand on my head. I did not +realize at the time how ungallant was the undue advantage I took of her. +Long, long since I have learned that she secretly practised it at home. +As a consequence, that which at first so won her admiration soon was the +cause of contempt. Though I could never know, she was sure that she +could do it with better grace than her one-time hero. I am now told that +I only maintained my prestige by my ability to suddenly seize upon and +throw down the boy nearest by. This was something of which she might +only make a dream. + +All of this showing off and the confidence in my own powers fully +convinced me how much superior was man to woman. All she could do was to +look on--at least so far as I knew--with an occasional attempt at being +something, by a sudden and unexpected getting of my tag. This I +frequently treated with contempt. Once in a while I risked my reputation +for being manly by running pell-mell after her until the tag was +successfully recovered.... And yet I was to be humiliated by this +red-headed jade. + +Jean Francois had caused consternation by announcing that within a few +days he must be off for the white highways. Already he had remained too +long in one place. However much he might love us, he could not afford to +let his liver atrophy. Besides, were they not waiting for their happy +pedler in another far-off gracious land?... "They await my pack," said +he restlessly, "for fine knacks for ladies--pins, points, laces, gloves, +and the thousand flimsy, silky things they adore!" And he bowed with a +smile full of splendid mockery.... Our hearts were sad. Did we not want +him forever? + +The story of my humiliation comes here.... You will remember how we used +to have to memorize long verses and recite them from the platform on +Friday afternoons before visitors and the high and mighty school +committee? It was upon such an auspicious occasion. Your speech--I am +sure of the terminology--was, "I Am Dying, Egypt, Dying." Mine, with +swimming gestures and trembling voice, was "Bingen, Fair Bingen on the +Rhine." Who, dear friends, could think of greater recitations than +these? Were they not time-honored? Were they not a part of the tradition +of Oldmeadow? Certainly, I answer. + +Now Jean Francois had been prevailed upon to enter for at least one hour +beneath a roof. The pedler had serious objections to hats, which he +never wore, and houses, which he rarely entered. Yet, out of compassion +because of his leaving us, he had come to hear our speech-making. He sat +with uneasy grace upon a front bench by Doctor Longstreet, who found +much to amuse him in the umbrella man's discomfort.... It was when Nance +stood before us, scared white, with tears beneath just the surface of +her restless eyes, that Jean Francois lost his self-consciousness. Mr. +Finus Appleblossom, proprietor of the store, chairman of the board, +prominent in lodge and church circles, cleared his august throat +ostentatiously and swelled with importance. Something seemed to be in +the atmosphere.... Then in a very pretty little voice, which at once +gained confidence, Nance began a song. Didn't I know it? Certainly, I +assert. Had I not heard Jean Francois sing it a hundred times, but who, +save the jade, would have ever thought of toppling custom, tradition, +and the school board by singing a song--a very short one at that--Friday +afternoon? And such a song! + +This was the song of the jade: + + "Lawn as white as driven snow; + Cypress black as e'er was crow; + Gloves as sweet as damask roses; + Masks for faces, and for noses; + Bugle-bracelets, necklace amber; + Perfume for a lady's chamber; + Golden quoifs and stomachers, + For my lads to give their dears; + Pins and poking-sticks of steel, + What maids lack from head to heel: + Come, buy of me, come; come, buy, come, buy; + Buy, lads, or else your lasses cry: + Come, buy." + +For a moment after she had concluded she stood as if dumb, +half-frightened, heart-sick, and then, bursting into tears, with a +stifled little cry of despair, she rushed and fell all in a heap at the +knees of Jean Francois. Forgetting all of us, he picked her up in his +big, strong arms--she who was but a fragile child--and, smoothing the +rumpled hair from her eyes, kissed her brow. + +"Dear little jade," said he quite tenderly, "I didn't know that it made +all of this difference." + +"You won't go, Jean Francois?" she smiled through her tears. + +"I must," said he regretfully. "I cannot help it.... But next June I'll +come again. And every June that follows, as long as I shall live, the +happy caravan shall be yours." + +A few moments later, as we hurried into the open, I noticed that Nance +was actually growing. It had never occurred to me that she would ever be +any larger than the day she first thrust herself through my crack in the +fence. As she passed with her grandfather, Jean Francois, and Mr. +Appleblossom, she nodded to me quite as if she were an equal. In my +humiliation I quite forgot to walk on my hands, a feat I was holding in +reserve. Instead, off I skipped down to the river and "went-in" by +myself. I felt that the world was very unappreciative and +unsympathetic. + + + + +CHAPTER SEVEN + +A PEDLER'S PACK OF DREAMS + + +"Jean Francois," Nance was pleased to say very earnestly, "the river and +the hills have belonged to us for so very long--I wonder when we will +own the old-fashioned home of the many pillars?"... Because of his +talking so frequently about it, we had grown to accept as a settled +thing the possibility of our one day possessing the house of our heart's +desire. + +Columbine stood securely packed, the pedler was shod with newly soled +boots, the road lay wistfully before him. It was the last beautiful +night of our summer. In the early morning, Jean Francois, mender of +umbrellas, would be off, and, for us, the winter. Yet it was not an +unhappy gathering beside the September camp-fire. No one might be +unhappy with the master of the caravan. + +We had cooked a genuine greenwood supper and eaten it in the twilight. +There was bacon held over the embers on a sharpened stick, bread baked +in the ashes on heated stones, eggs boiled in Jean Francois' great +kettle, and coffee, black and strong. What else, pray you, could one +have wished? Afterward, with the smoke of Pierrett curling about his +head and filling the air with the aroma of burning tobacco, he sang for +us. He told old tales of men-at-arms in France until our blood grew warm +and with him we fought great battles. Sometimes he would speak of +fairies, elves, and the people of the woods; or of ghostly visitors to +winter firesides; of far-off roads in far-away lands where the fields +were always in bloom and the sun always mellow, warm, and soft.... He +then told us how houses had souls the same as men and hungered to be +loved. It was at this time Nance asked her question about our +possessions. + +As I have said before, he had frequently talked of our one day +possessing the old home, but never with the seriousness with which he +now spoke. It was evident that this time he considered the matter with +sincerity. + +"So you would really like to grow up and live in the Abbe's house?" said +he, answering his questioner by a question. + +"It would be the most beautiful thing in the world," was her reply. +After a moment's hesitation, as if doubtful of what she should say, she +added: + +"That is, if--if you would come and live with us, Jean Francois." + +"Thank you, my dear," he replied, with a singular note of tenderness in +his voice. "Thank you very much indeed, but that would be impossible. +Quite as impossible as your becoming a gipsy. And what would become of +Columbine, Rogue, and Pierrett without the dingle and _le long trimard_? +No, that would never do!... But, as for the other, why not? + +"Why not, my girl?" was his comment, this time addressed to Pierrett. +His rather queer custom of consulting the little briar-root pipe as if +it were a conscious being was something to which we had long become +accustomed. It was his way of talking things over with himself. In the +same manner he held one-sided discussions with Columbine and Rogue. He +was not partial in his family, though I feel sure the shaggy, +sure-footed little mare was valued most highly. + +"Why not?" he continued. "Monsieur l'Abbe, whom I know full well, illy +deserves the home.... He is doing nothing worthy of enjoying such a +charming house, is he? Eh?... Monsieur Jacques, where are your poor? +Your shabby little brothers of the Parisian street? Where are the +pinched hungry mouths with whom you once shared your crusts?... Ah, +those were the days of crusts!... Where is the little attic in la Rue +St. Jacques?... Let me see, children, is this not what He said to him +each night: + +"'For I was an hungered, and ye gave me meat; I was thirsty, and ye gave +me drink; I was a stranger, and ye took me in; naked, and ye clothed me; +I was sick, and ye visited me; I was in prison, and ye came unto me.' + +"Now, Monsieur Picot, the voices are far away. You live in an alien +land. Your pleasures, instead of boldly as of old, you take +surreptitiously.... One day, you poor renegade, you will die and pass to +the only heaven I know of--the long roads and sunlit fields of +Picardy.... You haven't an heir by blood in the world. Why not an heir +by love? Eh, Pierrett? I knew that you would say, 'Yes.'... I'll suggest +it to the old curmudgeon." + +"My dears," said he, addressing us, "I know this Monsieur l'Abbe very +well. Some day I shall pay him a call and suggest how generous a thing +it would be if he were to make his will in your favor. Then, quietly, +with exceeding propriety, so as not to offend any member of your family, +pass unto his fathers.... I will say, 'Monsieur, He says that "inasmuch +as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my--"'" + +"Dear Jean Francois," interrupted Nance, a bit horrified, "how +disrespectfully you can talk!... I, too, know Monsieur l'Abbe--" + +"But I know him much better than you, Nance." And he held his hand for +her to be silent. + +"I think to-night," said he a moment later, "I shall conclude by telling +you the story of Monsieur l'Abbe Jacques Picot, of the little Rue St. +Jacques, Paris." + + + + +CHAPTER EIGHT + +MONSIEUR L'ABBE PICOT OF THE BRAVE OUTLANDISH HEART + + +Monsieur l'Abbe Picot, in whose heart there dwelt a queer mixture out of +which to make a priest, was talking with a letter, written in a strange +foreign hand, as it lay upon his knee. The entire morning had been spent +at the beloved task of writing a sonnet. The afternoon, in the most +miserable part of Paris, he might have been found visiting the homes of +his sick and his poor, to whose ills, of body and of spirit, he deemed +himself physician. In the evening for an hour he saw that happy laughing +premiere danseuse, Mademoiselle Andree, at the gay little theater near +the corner, pirouetting care from the heavy souls of men. In the early +night he had but recently ceased to read the book which still lay open +on the floor at his side, and for uncounted joyous moments had fancied +himself strutting the streets in the company of the brave D'Artagnan, +their swords clanking in their scabbards, their eyes fierce for +adventure. + +It was thus, upon a day, that his warm love of life would come calling +him for the army. At the very thought of men-at-arms his slender +nostrils would widen and his imagination sniff the pungent odor of +burning powder. There was no doubt in his mind that among his ancestors +there had been some great warrior whose passion for fighting was but +tempered by his patriotism. And his heroes, were they not Porthos, La +Fayette, D'Artagnan, Washington, and Napoleon? Could he have been born +to please his own choice of time, other than to have been the captain of +the Guards during the reign of Louis XIV--the Louis of his own Dumas, +the magnificent--he would have chosen to have fought under the Emperor. +Then those escapades of student life at Harcourt! He scarcely dared to +dream of such old brave days, now the well-beloved secrets hidden +beneath a cassock and a cowl. They were stored in a memory made all the +more sacred by the thought that such adventurous hours dare never be +lived again. Then he feared for his impulsive nature. His mind, cooled +and brought to the level of every day's simple duty, knew what was his +actual and true work in the world. But O, the mischief of his wandering +fingers, of his heart when the virile passion of life played riot in his +veins. So it was, at times he seemed to know that to lead the battle, to +cry for France, to spill one's blood for kings, that, indeed, was to be +a man. + + * * * * * + +Yet when the wild airs of the early springtime came caressing the +winter's fields and forcing from their barren and frosty breasts the +first of the gladsome flowers, the passion in his veins turned merciful. +The snows he did not love; for beneath the beauty and the softness of +the drifting flakes he saw the treachery of the cold--the cold that +brought but misery to his poor and made them almost forget that ever +again God would bring the summer-time days. But when the earth lived +again and became a mother with a thousand wombs, giving birth each +beautiful moment to every green and blossoming thing; when he turned his +eyes, made world-weary by looking on the suffering his people needs must +bear, unto the blue of the warm skies, where it seemed that the very +heavens were renewing, with some mysterious pigments, their blue and the +white clouds afloat therein; and women went about with a strange new +faith on their brows, while their men grew strong again with hope and +courage, it was then that the thoughts of the Abbe Picot wandered to the +gentler play of happy children, while his fingers, made kind through a +mood quickened by nature, wrought new dreams into song. A poet! Ah, he +told himself, was there anything better than to be a maker of dreams? +Was the good God ever more gracious than when he gave to one's mind to +see and appreciate everything beautiful in a world within which there +was so much of ugliness? Aye, on occasions even to find the very +hideousness of things containing some inner, secret loveliness for the +souls of men? Then, withal, to bless the hand with the art of expressing +the things seen of his heart so others, reading in passing, might know +His wonders too, was of a surety to be markedly favored of destiny. Thus +it was that our good Abbe made sonnets and madrigals with his master +Pierre Ronsard, ballades after the manner of that charming rogue +Francois Villon, and songs quite as exquisite as those of the amorous +troubadour, Bernard de Ventadour, whom he admired more for the structure +of his verses than the sentiment expressed therein. + +Probably most of all the Abbe Picot loved the earlier night hours, when, +in fancy, his priestly robes laid aside, he seemed to forget his +chivalry, his strength of arm, and the tenderness of his hands and live +merely to absorb himself in the superficial lives of the men and women +passing in the streets. The garish lights of theaters, cafes, and the +great salons, the thoroughfares congested with carriages, and bewildered +people hastened by fear and the threatening gendarme; the hurried, +half-confused movements of belated shoppers, the roaming groups of +pleasure-seekers, all found him thinking himself as Pierrot with his +Pierrett, the gayest of the revelers. Frequently he would take his stand +within an unused doorway and look with curious kindly interest into +every face that passed. The pretty chattering grisettes; the swaggering +soldier with his impudent leer; the wealthy, from quarters distinguished +for their aristocratic dwellers, out to dabble in questionable joys; the +vagabond stopping, meanwhile munching his miserable crust, to gaze into +the richness of a shop-window at the clothing he might never hope to +wear; the gamin, happy, ignorant, old at ten years, and appallingly wise +in the ways of crime and despairing poverty; a thief with furtive look, +shifting eyes, and hands whose searching fingers curved like the claws +of a bird of prey; a courtesan irresponsibly, artificially gay in her +rented finery; a priest hurrying to shrive some woful dying player on +the boards of existence; a palsied old man tottering on the very edge +of his finished days; a gladsome pink-cheeked youth, buoyed by the hope +and courage born of inexperience, with his years all unfulfilled; a sick +child crying in its mother's impotent arms; birth, death, and all that +passes between found a very human interest in the mind, with a prayer in +the heart of Monsieur l'Abbe, who now deemed it his particular business +in life to be a maker of joys. He knew that none of them were all bad. +The most of them were peculiarly generous and often good. His heart told +him that a knowledge of life was a far, far better equipment for the +soul's physician than a course in theology. To help his men and women, +he argued, he must know them, not only in their more potent wrongs and +uglier misdeeds, but in their pleasing sins, their follies, the gaiety +belonging to the idle, lighter part of their being. And because there +was in his own nature a subdued impulse which, uncontrolled, would have +led him into many of their venial intemperances, he had a confidence in +them wrought of an understanding mind and a sympathetic heart. So this +watcher by the side of the road loved the night and all of her +mysterious, alluring children. In his fancy he followed in and out of +their varied lives until his soul became a part of those to whom he +deemed it the biggest thing in the world to bring joy. + +After such a night, again in his home with the day's work and play +ended, kneeling beside his lonely little bed beneath the crucifix, the +sorrow, the shame, the pain, the misery caused by all of life seemed to +surge through his veins like a tempestuous sea overwhelming all before +it. Quickly crossing himself, sighing while gently shaking his head, he +would once again become the good Abbe Jacques Picot. He was, so to +speak, a religious free-lance; a priest without benefice, whose +relations with the authority of the Church were scarcely evident--a +condition somewhat prevalent in France. Yet, unlike many of his brother +clerics, he believed his parish to consist of humanity at large. + +"Wherever a heart is broken, a soul is sick, or a body suffering," he +is known to have said, "it is there I have a work to do. _Patria est +ubicumque est bene._ So my task is wherever joy may be made." + +Yet withal, at heart and in temperament he was a loyal Parisian. + + * * * * * + +Just how long the Abbe's meditations had been going on from the moment +he had ceased to read until the concierge, after knocking upon the door, +slipped in and laid a letter upon his lap, it would be difficult to +calculate. Whatever that may have been, for much longer did he read, +reread, and study the missive before him. Finally he raised his good +gray eyes, filled with a sort of an amazing despair, and cried aloud: + +"Jacques, Jacques, thou art indeed sore beset. To be one man is of +course to be none at all; to be two is the average lot of the more +fortunate; but to be no less than five, by all the saints in paradise, +is to be worse off than that angel whose right wing was born of heaven +and the left of hell!" + +"What is it, my brother?" one of the men within him seemed quietly to +ask. In fact, the wee, small voice appeared so actual that the good Abbe +was startled. + +By way of reply, for the hundredth time he read the letter.... It was +from a Doctor Felix Longstreet of Oldmeadow, Kentucky, United States of +America, announcing an inheritance--that is, with conditions. To him it +meant wealth. + +"Shall you go?" now inquired the quiet man uneasily. + +"It is a green, grassy old name for a town," was the rather irrelevant +reply. + +"Do you wish to go?" again came the inquiry from the same anxious +source. + +"Kentucky!" he pronounced with not unbeautiful accents. "Kentucky sounds +like poetry for 'out of doors.'" + +"What will you do?" insisted several of the little men within at once. + +"Things will be different there," argued the Abbe. "It is an old +Protestant community. So said the letter.... You will not be in +unconventional Rue St. Jacques. You cannot have liberties." He advanced +a hundred objections, yet scarcely believing in any of them. + +"But I may study," he continued. "I scarcely have an opportunity here. +And my beloved philosophy shall have more time. I might even write my +memoirs.... You know," in a tone of apology to the quiet one, "every +Frenchman who can hold a pen wants to write memoirs.... Besides, cannot +I make the people good Catholics?" This he said for conscience's sake. + +"That, you know when you say it, would be next to impossible," came the +prompt objection. + +"I can try very hard, very gently." + +"Certainly! It will ease your conscience for accepting quiet, +well-ordered years of ease away from the problems of life." + +"O, thou tender friend, you are brutally frank.... You help me make up +my mind.... I shall go to this land of Kentucky." + +"Do.... 'Au revoir, my happy, sunny France,' you shall say, but many's +the time your poor heart shall break for her freedom, the merry, +care-free streets of Paris, and the road to Amiens we have traveled so +often together." + +"Very likely.... I think I shall go," came from the Abbe. + +"Are you certain?" again insisted the quiet one, with a note of +suspicious eagerness illy suppressed. + +The Abbe looked about him, before replying, as if sensing something +wrong. "I am absolutely sure!" he said a trifle vehemently. + +"I am glad," chuckled the quiet one good humoredly. "I wanted to go +myself." + + * * * * * + +It was thus, after much debating with himself, that Monsieur l'Abbe +Jacques Picot came to live in the old-fashioned home of the many +pillars. + + + + +CHAPTER NINE + +THE CHILD IS FATHER TO THE MAN + + +Monsieur l'Abbe Jacques Picot, in the old home of many pillars, sat in +the library at his desk writing his memoirs. He was dressed with unusual +neatness in the garb of a French priest. His closely cropped hair showed +a well-shaped head, while his face, freshly shaven, presented strikingly +interesting features. His mouth was big and amiable, his lips full yet +firmly set, his nose almost too large, and his prominent lower jaw +bespoke a strong will. It was a pair of humorous gray eyes, twinkling in +irrepressible goodwill, that lighted and relieved a countenance which +otherwise might have appeared unduly severe.... Can you imagine the +disciple Peter with the eyes of Rabelais? Had he been a saint he would +have been Francis of Assisi. + +The room in which he wrote was filled with books and manuscripts. The +library, upon closer inspection, would have shown that it was largely +given to general literature. Subjects upon theology were conspicuously +absent. The tastes of the owner were evidenced by the volumes upon the +table. Poems by Ronsard; Rabelais' "Les Faits et Dicts Heroisques du Bon +Pantegruel," "Twelfth Night" by Shakespeare, and "The Life and +Adventures of Guzman d'Alfarache" by Mateo Aleman. + +As he wrote in a memorandum evidently intended for amplification later, +then to be placed in the memoirs, he smiled as if taking a whimsical joy +in what he recorded. + + * * * * * + +This is what Monsieur l'Abbe wrote: + +On the afternoon of September 14, as I took my first walk upon my return +home, I watched, quite unobserved by me, a tow-headed, freckle-faced +boy, just reaching the Dumas stage of his charmed life, wade through the +hot limestone dust of the turnpike, which forms Oldmeadow's chief +street, and, upon reaching the spring just without the town, stand and +cool his feet in the water of which he had drunk but a moment before. +Even to this day I never see a small boy but what, if the opportunity +presents itself, I look to see if he is web-footed. If certain +illustrious warriors of an age when there never appeared to have been +any real boys may be said to have been, like Romulus, suckled by a +she-wolf, so it seems most of the youths I know must have been turned +out by their mothers to be reared by the ducks. At any rate I know what +an instinct all normal, healthy boys have for puddles. + +Now I think I have a very acute intuition about boys and their thoughts. +This time it was not different. This self-conscious boy was saying +good-by to the very little boy, more than half baby, that he had been +ever since he could remember. Previously he had been just a child, +without sex-consciousness. All of the fluffy little girls were merely a +part of the landscape. A part, at that, whose existence to him, so far +as their being of any use, was a mystery. To him they were as +superficial in their importance as the mice from which they ran in +horror, or the abominable cats which they chose to pet. He had always +proved sufficient unto his little self, and there was really no one whom +he felt that he could really do without, unless it be mother, father, +and the river. Recognizing his superior physical strength when compared +with that of girls, and measuring all things by this prowess, his +inability to place them in their proper relationship to life increased +with each new feat. There was where his world lay, and girls were +forbidden. It is true Nance Gwyn possessed some recommendatory +qualifications, yet her frequent readiness to tears kept her without the +pale. + +Finally it was this same Nance who burst his world like a bubble and +sent him forth upon a quest which would occupy him for the remainder of +his life. Within the past year there had softly and unwittingly crept +upon him a knowledge of her necessity to his well-being. He now saw in a +measure her place in the whole. She was now in the ascendancy, and he +knew in his boyish heart that she always would be. And while he never +doubted it being worth it, he was sure that he had paid a great price. +He had given something that, however much he longed to retain it, he +might never hope to have again. He had given his very little boyhood +with its irresponsible innocence born of this same lack of any +appreciation of sex. For this tenderness that had brought him to know +and feel the thrill of a thousand sweet mysteries in the now glorious +Nance he had given up the circus days, the joy in a dirty face, the fun +of hearing her squeal in response to his torments, and from a sort of +undesirable, weak boykin, in a fluff of little skirts, whose only +redeeming quality was a vain attempt to be like "the fellows," she +became of a sudden a woman-child with all the alluring and delightful +charms of girlhood. + +It is only fair to say that had the boy been asked to choose between the +two, he would have unhesitatingly taken the life he knew lay all before +him, unlived, unfulfilled, full of mystery, hope and Her. Yet it was no +disloyalty, no cowardice to spend a day in getting used to the new by +dwelling in tender memory over the old. + +So he stretched himself under a hillside tree, and held his head in his +hands with fingers interlaced beneath. His bare knees were crossed with +one wet muddy foot propped in the air, while the other found a hold in +the moss at the roots of his shelter. His eyes wandered through the +green cool leaves above him and noted the wonderful blue of the sky +where the white clouds sailed like great, snow-sheeted ships in a sea of +turquoise. They seemed very beautiful, very kind, very prophetic of the +joy of the long, long days to be. Everything now seemed different. It +was the same colorful late summer heaven of a year ago, it was true, but +to it there had been added a new, more vital meaning. The blue was the +same as that of her eyes and the clouds spelled her name. + +It seemed that before he had never discovered that there were so many +girls in the world. Everywhere there was nothing but bright eyes in +lovely fresh faces, always beaming in friendly innocence upon him. He +had scarcely noticed them before. Now they lent a subtle joy, an +alluring mystery to everything with which they were associated. A bit of +ribbon, a piece of lace, was no longer a portion of silk or so much +linen. + +For him, of a surety, God had created "a new heaven and a new earth." +Forgotten was the ancient story of Eve and the garden. Now Nance, of the +sun-colored hair, was the first woman. And as he lay in a fine sensuous +health beneath the sky, which brought to him the deep color of her eyes, +it seemed that a voice, calling him from somewhere within the mighty +distance, named him Adam. It unnerved and startled him. Turning upon his +face he burst into tears. His small shoulders shook convulsively, and +for the first time he sobbed as does a man. As his body heaved with the +pain of his unaccountable sorrow, a top with a soiled string fell from +his pocket, and, rolling down the hill, lay neglected in the mud; a bird +in the tree-top above broke the stillness of the afternoon with a +full-throated, joyous song to his mate; a great white cloud, passing +over the sun, cast a soft running shadow across the valley to the +ridges; all nature seemed to sigh, like a sleeping child, or was it the +oaten pipes of Pan, and then to awaken into new life. + +[Illustration: + + _It was the same colorful late summer heaven of a year ago + it was true, but to it there had been added a new, more + vital meaning. The blue was the same as that of her eyes and + the clouds spelled her name._ + + _The Boy ceased his sobbing. After a while, looking up with + a tearful, smiling face, he announced, as if to the Voice + that had called him_: + + "_Now I must go to work._"] + +The boy ceased his sobbing. After a while, looking up with a tearful, +smiling face, he announced, as if to the voice that had called him: + +"Now I must go to work." + + + + +PART SECOND + +TEN YEARS LATER + + O MASTER, IF YOU DID BUT HEAR THE PEDLER AT THE DOOR, YOU + WOULD NEVER DANCE AGAIN AFTER A TABOR AND A PIPE; NO, THE + BAGPIPE COULD NOT MOVE YOU: HE SINGS SEVERAL TUNES FASTER + THAN YOU'LL TELL MONEY; HE UTTERS THEM AS HE HAD EATEN + BALLADS AND ALL MEN'S EARS GREW TO HIS TUNES. + + --_A Winter's Tale_. + + + + +CHAPTER TEN + +ON THE MORNING ROAD + + +The morning road--jocund, robust, strong, and bright--dropped slowly +over the long hill, crossed a merry little river through a covered +bridge, turned to the right, ran sinuously through a green valley for a +mile and a half, quickly gathered a cluster of houses about it, and +promptly became the street of a small town of southern Kentucky. The +crimson of the sunrise, like blushes on the cheeks of a child, patched +the eastern sky. A haze of misty blue lingered above the stream, the eye +thus being able to follow it for miles through the bottom lands. The +mountain tops to the west wore their eternal gray, the shade of the +uniforms of Confederate soldiers. The sun's yellow splendor shimmered +warm and soft as if caressing the pregnant fields. The air was charged +with gentle breezes perfumed from the woodland of the ridges and the +fresh, mellow scent of rich earth, newly stirred by the plow. Orioles, +robins, blue jays, larks: a perfect medley of rollicking song flew by on +joyous wing. A solitary man standing on the hilltop turned slowly from +mountain to valley, from sky to field, seeming to eat and drink and +breathe--to make a part of him by some paganish transubstantiation--the +very day itself. Like a brother to Pan, he belonged to it all, and the +impulse to make himself felt, as the other forces abroad, was strong +within him.... No wonder the entire earth was happy: there had been born +that dawn, full-grown like Athena sprung from the head of Zeus, the +spirit of June. + +[Illustration: + + _A solitary man standing on the hilltop turned slowly from + mountain to valley, from sky to field, seeming to eat and + think and breathe--to make a part of him by some paganish + transubstantiation--the very day itself._] + + * * * * * + +A few moments later the eyes of this lone son of the morning sought the +distant village. The gray smoke of wood-fires, bespeaking the approach +of the breakfast hour, arose from the chimneys of friendly kitchens. +Far-away voices, calling the cows to be milked, mingled with snatches of +song, the rattle of well-sweeps and the chopping of wood lent a human +note of melody to the hour. The man's nostrils extended as in +imagination he scented the smell of frying ham. He had slept by the +roadside on the hilltop, and his appetite was healthful and ample. He +had provisions with him, it was true, but for ten days he had eaten his +own cooking by the camp-fire, and he had promised himself a change of +food at the table of the little hotel the virtue of whose menu he had +learned years ago. Besides, while the roving spirit of the road was +strong in his blood, he loved human companionship. This morning he +wanted the touch of some congenial hand. + +"All right, Rogue," said he, and the shaggy mare, pulling onto the +turnpike, began to leisurely make her way toward the village. Columbine +was glorying in a glistening new coat of paint--yellow, to be sure. +Pierrett, yes, certainly, the immortal Pierrett, only a trifle blacker, +a bit more burned at the bowl, a little more worn at the mouthpiece. +Following them all--Rogue, Columbine, Pierrett--in single file, was the +happy master of the caravan, Jean Francois. As he walked, hatless, +coatless, head thrown back and eyes upon the sky, he sang. The music, if +music it might be called at all, seemed an improvisation, yet it had a +certain strange, chanting melody in harmony with this picture of the +morning: + + "Will you buy any tape, + Or lace for your cape, + My dainty duck, my dear-a? + Any silk, any thread, + Any toys for your head, + Of the new'st and finest, finest wear-a? + Come to the pedler, + Money's a meddler, + That doth utter all men's ware-a." + +As he sauntered singing down the hill-road the thoughts of Jean Francois +were in Oldmeadow. This was for more reasons than one. His mood called +for friends, and there were to be found his truest. Also the village in +the valley below him, with its inviting streets and old hotel, recalled +certain pleasant features of the home of Nance and Charles and Doctor +Longstreet. More than all else, less than two weeks and once more he +would be camping on his friendly common by the river. He expected this +summer to be the best in many years. The little freckle-faced King boy, +after four years in a deadly medical college, had graduated in April, +and was now occupying Doctor Longstreet's office, while trying to assume +the old gentleman's practise. There was doubtless a new sign hung from +the post by the door, bearing the legend: + + Charles Reubelt King, M.D. + Physician and Surgeon + +Doctor Longstreet, having retired, would certainly have more time for +fishing, yarning, and philosophizing. For the matter of that, the +chances were that he would be all the more irascible. This, however, +would prove an amusement for Jean Francois. The old fellow's irony and +wit were truest when brought forth under a passing flash of +irritability. + +The summer of a year ago Nance Gwyn had been in Europe. Now and then she +had written Jean Francois humorous and amusing little letters. She had +returned during the spring. Before she left she had grown into quite a +beautiful and charming young woman, yet there still clung to her the +spirit of her childhood.... He wondered if a year in Paris--his +Paris--and Berlin, would spoil her. If she would become worldly, +artificial, and conventionalized. He thought of her old simplicity, her +open-mindedness, her frank disregard of the factitious, her courage to +act, and realized that it would take a veritable revolution to even +modify her temperament. + +As for himself, he smiled as he rubbed his hand into his bushy beard, +thinking that, though it scarcely seemed more than a year or two since +he was thirty, yet in reality he had recently passed his fiftieth +birthday. He would have to die some day, he reckoned. Yet if he had ever +grown older at any period of his life he wasn't aware of it. Forever +young, thought he, forever young!... Maybe we--Columbine, Rogue, and +I--are the exceptions. What if we should never die? As long as we were +lusty and the road was at the morning, why should we care? Perhaps we +are immortal!... And he pirouetted gaily like a premiere danseuse. +Unlike the dancer, however, his caper was cut short midway. Rogue came +to a sudden stop. A choking sob from someone seated directly in the +center of the road just beneath the mare's nose brought him to earth. + +He stooped and peered beneath the cart, beneath the mare at the +obstruction. He saw the back of a woman, as she sat in the dust, with +her head bowed in her hands. He reckoned her head was in her hands, for +he could not see it. The back was shaking in accompaniment to tears or +laughter, as to which of them he was uncertain. Doubtless both, it being +a woman. Rogue smelled the object good humoredly and then turned her +gaze inquiringly to her master. This was an unforeseen problem hitherto +not dealt with in their varied experience as travelers. Jean Francois +straightened up, smoothed his beard with his hands, gave his trousers a +hitch at his belt, clearing his throat loudly and with ostentation. The +shoulders in the road ceased their sobbing movement long enough to +perceptibly shrug. + +"Damn!" ejaculated Jean Francois, beneath his breath. + +Then, removing an ample bandanna handkerchief from his pocket, he +signaled by a demonstrative blowing of his nose. This, producing no +effect save to heighten the disturbance of the shoulders before him, +encouraged him to call out: + +"I beg your pardon, Madame." + +There was no reply. + +"Bite her, Rogue, you sacre pig of a zebra," he commanded, with mingled +good humor and disgust showing in his voice as he, at the same time, +stepped around the cart toward the cause of the disturbance. + +As he approached, a rather disheveled young woman turned a tearful, +laughing face toward him, and, not rising, cried somewhat trembly, yet +merrily: + +"Umbrellas to mend!... Umbrellas to mend!... Fine knacks for ladies. +Within this pack are pins, points, laces, and gloves.... I am poet, +pedler, and wandering troubadour. Fair ladies from their tears I +rescue. A knight errant of the pack am I!" + +Jean Francois threw up his hands in strong amazement, consternation upon +every feature, and his tongue tied by surprise. A moment, that seemed to +him as a nightmare in which he struggled in vain attempt for words, and +then these expressions came with marvelous speed and versatility. + +"Ventre de biche!... Sacre pig of a zebra!... By all the saints in +paradise!" he cried with a hundred imprecations. Finally, as if +exhausted, he asked rather meekly: + +"From what star did you drop?... You little red-headed jade!" + +Indeed it was Miss Nance Gwyn, about to cry, a little soiled and mussed, +distractingly pretty, pointing a derisive finger as a baton, and +shouting with laughter to the helpless and dumbfounded Jean Francois: + + "Will you buy any tape, + Or lace for your cape, + My dainty duck, my dear-a? + Any silk, any thread, + Any toys for your head, + Of the new'st and finest, finest wear-a? + Come to the pedler, + Money's a meddler, + That doth utter all men's ware-a." + + + + +CHAPTER ELEVEN + +THE SATISFACTORY EXPLANATION OF NANCE + + +Columbine had been hauled to the side of the road and Rogue was allowed +to nibble blue-grass at her pleasure. A fire had been kindled, and Jean +Francois was broiling bacon speared on the end of a sharpened stick. A +coffee-pot was steaming upon a few hot embers raked aside for that +especial purpose. A great loaf of white bread lay on a cloth on the +bottom of an upturned bucket. Nance, over behind the cart, was arranging +her toilet. She had rummaged within the yellow depth of the van, filled +with much pedlers' finery, and, among other necessities, discovered a +small mirror. This she propped upon the hub against a spoke of the +wheel. With its aid she readily set herself to rights. + +Just as she appeared, fresh and resplendent as the morning itself, Jean +Francois announced breakfast. He directed her to be seated on the bank +of the turnpike, placed a clean board some two feet square upon her lap, +and gave to her two slices of firm bread between which lay several +strips of crisply cooked bacon. He then brought her a heavy china cup +filled with delicious coffee. This, with sparkling cool water from a +spring near the bridge, constituted his offering for the morning meal. +After giving himself a like helping, they ate in silence. Once a farm +wagon, in which three men rode, was driven by. As they passed, they +stared very markedly. The pedler, usually so amiable, scowled furtively +at them. Nance became uneasy, for Jean Francois had scarcely spoken to +her since his torrent of French and English invectives which came so +volubly upon his surprise at finding her unexpectedly. This was very +unlike her old-time friend the umbrella man. She began to realize that +it was a very delicate problem with which she had precipitately +overwhelmed him. She wondered how he would solve it, yet was +indifferent enough not to offer any assistance. + +After the meal, with his usual deliberateness, he drew Pierrett from his +pocket, filled her with an adorable mixture, and, with a brand from the +fire, proceeded to light her. As the blue smoke curled above his head, +he leaned upon his elbow, otherwise his body lay at full length upon the +earth, and, at last, looked at the petulant and unhappy Nance. + +"Son," said he, without any apparent consideration of the sex implied by +the title and as if he were subtly indicating the relationship which he +wished them to assume; "son, tell me all about it." + +"I ran away," exclaimed Nance in her most bewitching manner. + +She had decided upon her method of procedure. She would be seductive, +helpless, and appeal to his sympathy and chivalry. A course which he +readily perceived was going to make his sexless comradeship rather +difficult. + +"To be sure, sir," was the reply. And then as if a bit alarmed: + +"I sincerely hope that no one will think for a moment that you have +been kidnapped!" + +"I shouldn't wonder if they did," she brightened in mischievous delight. +"Wouldn't it be exceedingly funny?" + +"It would," was the laconic reply, accompanied by a shrug of the +shoulders. + +Jean Francois removed Pierrett from his mouth. After examining the pipe +carefully, he refilled it, and continued his smoke. Five minutes passed +without a word, and then, looking up quite seriously at his charge, he +said: + +"See here, Nancy Bricktop, are you aware of the fact that you are no +longer a ten-year-old child?" + +Nance flushed, a trifle embarrassed. + +"Anyone but myself," he continued, "would say you were pretty much of a +grown-up woman.... My dear child--" + +"Now, don't you 'my-dear-child' me," she cried tearfully. "All of them +conspire against me, and you aren't a bit better!" + +Jean Francois arose and placed his pipe in his pocket. He walked the +length of the cart a half dozen times. It appeared to be rather a bad +beginning. + +"Nance," said he, turning and for the first time showing sympathy in his +voice and manner, "Come! Tell me all about it. Why did you run away?" + +"I--I cannot tell you," she replied, dropping her head. + +"O, but you must," said he. "You haven't stolen anything?" + +"Perhaps," she smiled archly. + +"Seriously, now little jade, forget that I have reminded you that you +are grown up, for you are not. Just think of me as the old umbrella man +of your barefoot years. I--" + +"Of my barefoot years?" she exclaimed. "What do you know--" + +"Of the years, my dear," he explained, "when you used to run barelegged +and barefoot along the dusty road pleading to go gipsying with me. Do +you remember?" + +"That's part of why I'm here, Jean Francois," she said. + +"Nance, Nance, Nance," he repeated, slightly exasperated, "go right +along and tell me why you have left Oldmeadow, Doctor Longstreet, +and--and the practise of medicine, and dropped like a lost star into my +top-o'-the-morning?" + +"Charles," said she tearfully. + +"Ah, I thought so.... What has he done? Eloped with your Aunt +Barbara?... Tell me, tell me!" + +"Charles came home," she explained, looking into her lap, "after four or +five years of college, imbued with the idea that I was his property.... +He acted as if he owned me!" she blurted indignantly. + +"Well, doesn't he?" asked Jean Francois, innocently. + +"Doesn't he! Doesn't he!" she flung at him. "That's just what +grandfather asked." + +"And your Aunt Barbara?" he queried humorously. + +"Aunt Barbara," she continued with fine sarcasm, "my precise, correct, +conventional Aunt Barbara, who will not acknowledge, Jean Francois, that +she has such vulgar things as legs; this dear, darling devotee of +propriety actually pointed to herself as a horrible example of a +too-exacting young woman!... My Aunt Barbara is a silly old ass!" + +"How you do mix your genders when you become excited, my dear-a." + +"You're a goose!" she exclaimed. "A darling, old adorable goose.... You +never liked my Aunt Barbara." + +"But my question, Nance ... I thought things were all decided years ago. +Do tell me." + +"Dr. Charles Reubelt King," she pronounced the name with withering +scorn, "was disgustingly presumptuous. He treated me as if he were +feeling the pulse of the world and was just about to administer to it +the particular pill which would cure all of its ills.... I despise +pompousness, pedantry, and unconscious condescension in a man.... As for +me--well, if he didn't say it, he acted it. I was nothing. I knew +nothing. At my best I was but a red-headed spiritualized slave--and not +always quite spiritualized!... I knew nothing!" + +"It seems to hurt you pretty bad, Nance," he said mildly. + +"What?... Nothing hurts me!" + +"Do you, Bricktop?" + +"Do I what?" + +"Know anything?" asked Jean Francois. + +"Certainly I do, and you know it, you horrid old pedler. Didn't I sense +the real river and the road and the happy hills long, long ago?... And +as for you, Monsieur, I know things about you of which our stupid +Charles Reubelt has never dreamed. Shall I tell you things, Jean +Francois?" + +Jean Francois raised his hand in protest, shaking his head forbiddingly. + +"Never mind," said he, good humoredly. + +"Ah, Jean Francois," she exclaimed in a burst of tenderness, "I +preferred the road and--" + +"Finish your Dr. Charles, whom you must remember is quite young and +possesses a new diploma," said he, interrupting her hastily. + +"The undesirable part of it is," said she, obeying, "is that grandfather +and Aunt Barbara are on his side. They say he is such a pretty, nice +boy with such an acceptable family and promising prospects. All of +which, so far as that is concerned, is true. They thought I should have +led him to the altar accompanied by the Oldmeadow brass band, with me +dancing in front as David did before the Ark of the Covenant." + +"Nance," said Jean Francois, extending his hand to her, "you are always +pretty nearly right. You might have shown more wisdom by not carrying +things so far as to run away like a spoiled child.... Here's my hand. +I'm with you.... Now tell me how you got here?" + +While she entered into the details of her trip he busied himself with +hitching Rogue to the cart and turning the face of the caravan about to +the north. She had learned through a note, requiring an answer, which +Jean Francois had written to Doctor Longstreet, that he would call about +the first of June for his mail at the little town which lay behind them +in the valley. She had arrived the night before, and, after learning at +the post-office that he had not called, she, doubtless very foolishly, +but with her old-time adventurous spirit, had started out to meet him. + +"Come, let's be going," said he. And he helped her onto a little +apron-like seat which projected over the shafts and had for a back the +front of the body of the van. + +"All right, Rogue," said Jean Francois for the second time that morning, +and they were off. + +Then it was Nance seemed to discover that they had turned and were going +back up the hill from which he had descended only two hours before. + +"Where are we going, Jean Francois?" she asked with slight alarm. + +"Back to Dr. Charles Reubelt King," he smiled, "to teach him how not to +be a fool!" + +Nance frowned for a moment, but saw the old friendly strength restored +to the face of the man walking at Rogue's flank, and with a contented +little sigh she sank back into the comfortable cushions of Columbine. + + + + +CHAPTER TWELVE + +A HEBE OF THE HIGHWAY + + +Jean Francois was right when he called himself poet. Not that he was a +maker of verse, for, if it were so, no one had ever seen a single rhyme. +But that was his which was far better, perhaps, than writing. He +possessed all of the wondrous, painful gifts of the builder of dreams. +His was the sympathetic eye for beauty in her subtlest forms. Most men +see only the outward and more materialistic things: he saw the deeper, +truer meaning which lay at the heart of life. He found mysterious +kinship in every living thing from the simplest wayside wild blossom to +the complicated soul of man. He could clasp hands with an oak and feel +the fine yet strong pulsations of unknown forces which gave personality +to a hospitable greenwood. Every little scurrying animal that flew from +his path he felt was a part of the great life, and, in a manner, a +brother to men. He was a mystic; a lover of ancient lore and the tales +of once-upon-a-time; a friend of elves, gnomes, fairies, fays, goblins, +and children; and, with all of his knowledge of the world, was +exceedingly childlike. + +His year had been varied. At times he had worked at bitter tasks and +known much of sorrow, despair, hunger, suffering, hardship. He had +shared with the poor and loved them. Yet, withal, he had gone through +life playing. Without needing a specific reason, he had entered into +some of the most whimsical adventures imaginable. His fiftieth birthday +found him still a child, making of some of the most serious problems a +thing for play. And pray, why not? He filled his place, bore his +burdens, but with the graciousness of buoyant youth unlearned in +hopelessness and pessimism. He laughed along the way, and the gods, +loving him, took care of him and made him happy. Is it any wonder that +the elves, the fairies, the children came and ministered unto him? Do +you think it anything strange that the fays should light his fire by +night, that the pixies should dance before him in the white moonlight, +or that Puck should seal his eyes with magic juice of flower and send +him laughing and joyous into the delectable land of dreams?... As I have +said, Jean Francois was right when he called himself a poet. + +All of this to help you understand something of the day Nance had as +they loafed along the highway, through green sweet-smelling woodlands, +by pasture, meadow, field, and plowman, over limpid swelling streams, +all in the gentle welcome sunshine of early June. It was always to be +remembered as the most wonderful day of all of her life. + +For an hour or more after the start, being fatigued by her journey and +the strain of her interview with Jean Francois, she slept. He walked +quietly beside the van, now and then directing Rogue by a word, at times +lost in thought, unconsciously gazing at the road at his feet; again, +with sweeping glance, scanning the beauty of some purple valley watered +by a silver thread of a river. Once, some ladies driving by in an old +phaeton became all agog upon seeing the sleeping girl upon the seat. +They stopped the pedler and insisted upon his showing them his wares. He +did this grudgingly, turning the rear of the cart toward them, +apparently to make his goods more accessible, but in reality to hide +Nance from their curious gaze. As they drove on, the more bold of them +remarked: + +"Your daughter is quite beautiful, sir." + +"Thank you.... All right, Rogue," said he, and once more they were on +the road. + +As he walked this time, he studied Nance. She had grown very handsome, +Jean Francois thought. She possessed charm. Her face was strikingly +frank. Her hair was soft and sun-colored, with darker shadows here and +there. Her eyes, being closed, showed more plainly the long black lashes +and well-arched brows, which made her at once both blonde and brunette. +The nose was slender, with sensitive and expressive nostrils. Her mouth +was rather wide, with straight lips, the lower of which, like that of +Herrick's Julia, seemed bee-stung. The features taken together gave her +countenance an intellectual cast, softened and beautified by an air of +childlike candor that, when fired by her sparkling, dancing, azure eyes, +lent her a look seductive to intoxication. A certain abandon in her +sleep brought out more evidently that she was round-limbed, beautifully +shaped, and lithe, with lovely swelling breasts. + +Jean Francois began to understand how Charles Reubelt might have been +surprisingly in haste. He turned his gaze to the valleys. They were +beautiful in a sheer primitive way, and, even if more awake, also +decidedly more quieting subjects for one's admiration. + +A little later, upon awakening, she insisted upon being allowed to get +down beside him and walk on slightly ahead of the caravan. At last her +dream had come true. She was idling down _le long trimard_ with Jean +Francois, his Pierrett--a lady upon whom she laid no claim--Rogue, and +Columbine. She picked flowers; teased Rogue by pokes and inoffensive +jabs; tantalized the pedler by asking a thousand childish questions, +which he answered with becoming patience; ate voraciously and often; ran +and jumped the brooks and insisted upon wading until she was threatened; +smiled upon the staring, open-mouthed rustics; insisted upon showing +goods at places he wished to hurry by, and, for the sake of selling, +making outlandish bargains; and ever and anon breaking into song. At +least a half dozen times did she sing the pedler's favorite air: + + "Will you buy any tape, + Or lace for your cape, + My dainty ducky, my dear-a?" + +Once she caroled, much to Jean Francois' delight, an old song he had +taught her as having been sung by the debonair Henry of Navarre. It +especially pleased him because she sang in French: + + "Morning bright, + Rise to sight,-- + Glad am I thy face to see: + One I love, + All above, + Has ruddy cheek like thee. + + "Fainter far + Roses are, + Though with morning dew-drops bright; + Ne'er was fur + Soft like her, + Milk itself is not so white. + + "When she sings, + Soon she brings + Listeners out from every cot; + Pensive swains + Hush their strains,-- + All their sorrows are forgot. + + "She is fair + Past compare; + One small hand her waist can span. + Eyes of light-- + Stars, though bright, + Match those eyes you never can. + + "Hebe blest + Once the best + Food of gods before her placed: + When I sip + Her red lip, + I can still the nectar taste." + +In the middle of the afternoon they rested for about two hours in a +little glade just off the road. It was here, near a branch, that Nance, +while wandering about, discovered a rather curious old arrow-head with +which she immediately ran to Jean Francois. + +"That, my dear," said he, "is an elf-arrow." + +"An elf-arrow?" she asked. + +"Don't you know the elf people, Nance? Their dances and their songs? + + "'That harp will make the elves of eve + Their dwelling in the moonlight leave,'" + +he repeated. + +"No," said she, "tell me of the elves." + +Upon which he launched into whimsical tales concerning elfin-land and +the merry little people of the night and the greenwood. It was a new +world which he created for her. To be sure she had been reared on fairy +tales--but they were without a semblance of fact. Here were chronicles +of a real people as related by their friend. He was authority, for was +he himself not an elf-child but a few generations removed? + +"Comme extrait que je suis de fee," said Jean Francois, quoting his +brother Francois Villon. + +"Jean Francois," she said, when they had resumed their way, "did you +know I believe that somewhere among my ancestors there must have been a +wonderful gipsy woman? I can fancy her a slender, dark-skinned, +black-haired girl with wander-longing in her eyes, loving some +bully-rook of a young English gentleman, and, without a thought of +to-morrow, allowing herself to be carried off to his home, a sort of +stolen bride. Then," said she, "I see her later on, when he has settled +down to a very respectable ale-drinking, big-paunched squire, eating her +heart out for the roads, the camp, and the crimson sky of morning.... +What do you think?" + +"I think, young woman," said he, with a humorous twitching about his +mouth, "that you must be mistaken. In the first place, such a maid as +you describe could not be quite so badly fooled in her man.... In the +second place, Nance, Charles isn't really half so stupid as you are +making him out to be." + +"O!" she exclaimed in hurt surprise. + +For the next hour she kept well ahead of him, refusing to be inveigled +into any topic of conversation whatever. She could have done nothing +more in harmony with his mood. Jean Francois wanted a time for thought. +Night was coming on. There was a question upon his mind that made him +laugh to himself when he realized its nature. It caused him to think of +Aunt Barbara. He knew what she would have advised straightway.... What +would Nance expect? Should he stop at the next farmhouse and leave her a +victim for the spare bedroom? Heaven forbid! And yet-- + +He raised his eyes and with pleasure watched, as she walked with ample +stride before him, the graceful, free motions of her body. After all how +like a gipsy's were her movements. He thought of what she had just said +concerning a woman who might have been her mother. This led him to +wondering about her father and mother. He had never given her parentage +a thought before. He knew that they were dead, and that Doctor +Longstreet was certainly her grandfather. No elf-child, she. Yet there +was a strain of wild, untamed blood in her that he could scarcely +account for in the staid, conventional family of which she was a +member. For, notwithstanding his rebellion against Miss Barbara's sense +of propriety, the old physician was distinctly the product of the +civilization of the aristocratic South. + +She is of herself complete, he thought, and no man's child. Then it +suddenly occurred to him that she was just such a being to whom he would +have loved to have been father. She was his child! The idea pleased him +and he smiled. So far as concerned kith and kin he was alone in the +world. Also had he not touched her sensitive mind and quickened it into +a genuine understanding of the life of the highways, the woodland, and +all of the birds therein, the river, the poetry of the starlight, the +sunshine and the moonbeams? Had he not shown to her the ways of fairies +and elf-kings?... In fact was she--the real, true, immortal she--not his +creation? Did not the dominant spirit within her bear a close likeness +to his own phantasmagoric soul? Indeed, in his own image he had +fashioned her.... She was his child!... He would have her for his +daughter. No one could prevent.... He raised his head and called her. + +She, who waited for him to catch up with her, saw a gentle, tender humor +in his eyes, a sweet smile upon his lips, which bespoke confidence and +trust. With childlike faith she put her hand in his and together they +walked down the hill into the coming twilight. + + + + +CHAPTER THIRTEEN + +THE NIGHT IN THE GREENWOOD + + +In the dusk, near a little river which came tumbling down from the +mountainside, they stopped and prepared their camp for the night. Rogue +was unharnessed, led to water, and turned to roam where the grass seemed +most toothsome. Jean Francois knew that she would be standing by the van +at morning waiting with patience for her measure of oats. After building +a crackling fire of sticks and limbs of dead trees, he went in search of +a spring. Some minutes later a great black pot, taken from a hook +beneath the cart, was swinging over the flames, the sparkling water +beginning to bubble within it. + +It was then the pedler climbed upon the wheel, removed the pair of steps +from the top, adjusting them at the rear door so one might easily climb +in and out of the cart. Next he proceeded to remove many things from +the mysterious depths of Columbine. Nance stood by receiving them. Among +many things were these: a smoke-cured old ham, doubtless taken in trade +from some lusty farmer; a basket of eggs and a bucket of milk bought at +the last farmhouse on the road; a huge loaf of what the housewives term +"salt-rising" bread; a flagon of Burgundy wine; a skillet, a coffee-pot, +and a teakettle. Then came bundles, boxes, and drawers containing the +knick-knacks of the pedler's pack. These he lifted to the earth himself, +placing them softly beneath a near-by tree, covering them with a heavy +canvas. Afterward, from the front end of the almost empty small room, he +produced bedding which he spread down upon one side of the floor. Next, +from the side near the open door, he let down a table hinged to the wall +and supported by a prop. Above it he hung a mirror; upon it he laid a +brush, comb, and a basin; before it he placed an open camp-stool. He had +done his best.... Turning to Nance with a characteristically elaborate +bow, he said: + +"Now, Titania, ascend the steps of your castle. To your right you will +find your dressing-room; to the left, your bed-chamber. Your supper will +be served _al fresco_.... Will you deign to share it with me?" + +"With all of my heart, Robin Goodfellow," cried Nance as she walked +airily into Columbine. + +Jean Francois poked the mysterious pot, fried ham, scrambled eggs, made +coffee, and toasted bread. This they ate by the light of the fire and +the stars. + +After the meal the pedler filled his pipe, lighted it with an ember, and +stretched himself full length upon the earth with his ugly red head +propped by his arm. Nance sat gazing into the fire, her knees hugged +against her stooping figure, a dream upon her face. The darkness about +was intense. The light flickered in ghostly shadows upon the yellow +sides and spokes of the van. The steady munching of Rogue, the +occasional popping of the fire, the murmuring of the river with the +melancholy song of a thousand insects, now loud, now still, as the +breeze came and went, made the sleepy music of the night. + +Thus they sat for two hours, neither of them speaking a word. Jean +Francois was occupied with a choice entertainment in which he often +indulged. To begin with, in imagination he went over the whole matter of +Nance's escapade with Doctor Longstreet and Charles King. He explained +her temperament, defending her nobly with a delicate suggestion of his +own attitude toward her. Then, again in fancy, he talked of young Dr. +King to the jade. All to himself he became quite an old match-maker. +This was followed by witnessing them as the occupants of the old home of +the many pillars. Here his dreams took unusual liberty; he peopled the +house with other and tinier folk than the father and mother.... Here he +smiled as he thought of Nance's chagrin could she but see his mind. He +looked up and caught her gaze bent upon him. + +"Did you ever hear the story of 'The King of Bohemia and the Beggar from +Bagdad'?" he asked as he knocked his pipe, to empty it, upon the heel +of his boot, and dropped it into his pocket. + +"Never," she said, looking at him interestingly. "If there isn't any +moral to it, tell it." + +"I'm afraid there is," said he. "It is about a sleepy monarch--" + +"O," she exclaimed, light breaking on her face as she remembered an old +trick of the childhood days which he had used a hundred times to send +her and Charles to bed, "and you dream the tale?... I remember." + +"That's right," said the pedler. + +"But you say that I am now grown up.... The stars are very bright, the +fire is in a friendly communicative mood, I think I shall go to my bed +when it pleases me, Monsieur le debonair pedler!" + +"Very well," said he, with his accustomed shrug of indifference. Then, +after a moment's study of Nance, who had resumed her gazing into the +fire: + +"Of what has the fire been speaking to-night?... Yes?" + +"I have been thinking all evening of babies," she replied with charming +candor. + +"What ever made you think of babies?" he asked quickly. + +"Did you notice that dear dimpled little red one at the house where we +bought the milk?" was her reply. + +"I must confess that I did not see the little Indian," he answered. + +"Just like a man," said Nance, ignoring his levity, a trifle of scorn in +her voice. + +"Little babies in the utterly helpless stage," was Jean Francois' +remark, "have always been just without the limit of my appreciation." + +"That's because you are a man," she explained. + +"Great heavens!" he exclaimed. "'Because you are a man.'... 'Just like a +man.' Nance, your phrases show intelligence! I might reply, 'Just like a +woman.'... Bah, it positively sounds bourgeois.... Now, honest, lady, +don't you really suppose that there are men who actually like infants in +their crinkly state?" + +"I've always wanted a baby," said Nance irrelevantly, "and some day I +mean to have one." + +"Thank God!" was Jean Francois' very serious ejaculation. + +A moment later Nance was upon her feet ready to say good night and away +to the pleasant land of sleep. + +"Good night, dear Jean Francois," said she with gaiety. "May your dreams +be of your beloved roads of Picardy." + +She threw him an elfish kiss from her finger-tips and hastened into her +airy improvised bedroom. + +"And you, my daughter," murmured Jean Francois, as he turned upon his +back and sought the stars between the interlacing boughs of the +sheltering trees, "may you dream of Charles King, the old home of many +pillars, of romping merry children, and a great love." + + + + +CHAPTER FOURTEEN + +VICARIOUS VAGABONDS + + +Thus it was the days flew by on romantic wings, each seemingly more +filled with adventurous happiness than the last. Up with the promising +rosy dawn, a mouthful of oats for the bonnie mare, a bit of bread and a +draught of wine for the roadsters, the van packed, and heigh-ho for the +alluring highway! It was a joyous, beautiful, glorious road with never a +sigh nor a fret, for were they not homeward bound with hearts set to +rights? + +All day long they idled, never hurrying, stopping to gather flowers, +fruit, or to admire a tree, a river, a valley, or a hill. Sometimes they +fished for a dinner, or accepted the friendly invitation of a countryman +to his table. Ever and anon they would sell a yard of lace, a ribbon, a +trinket, a pack of thread. Often they sang, or chattered about kings and +cabbages and things. Nance walked the greater way, but occasionally, +tiring, she climbed into the cradling arms of Columbine and from the +apron-like seat drove Rogue. In the early afternoon they would rest for +an hour or two, sometimes more, if they were tired and the shade +enticing. An early nightfall always found them securely camped waiting +only for the darkness in which to go to sleep, Nance to dream on her +couch in the cart; the pedler to lie upon the soft sweet-scented earth +beneath a sheltering tree. + +Aye, but they were wonderful, never-to-be-forgotten days! Glad halcyon +days! Happy days in Arcady. Days of strange and gentle adventures.... +Upon long-sought, rare days life gives us a dream come true, whose +realization is even more wonderful than was the fancy. Such days were +these. + +It was the third or fourth day of such a vagabondish journey that found +them at nightfall approaching a beech wood. Here, hidden from the road, +beside a clear cool branch, in a charming little dingle about a hundred +yards from an old country meeting-house, they pitched their camp. After +things were made snug, Jean Francois left for a house which could be +seen a quarter of a mile away, proposing to buy eggs, cheese, and bread. + +Left to herself, Nance discovered a quiet, limpid pool, not far from the +van, which appeared to be some two or three feet deep. Testing its +temperature with her hand and finding it pleasurable, she dropped her +petticoats and stepped gracefully into the water. Her fair body against +the dusky twilight seemed that of a naiad. As she stooped, from time to +time, and sported in the kissing ripples of her own creation, the +loveliness of her was such as to have held captive every faun the +greenwood knew. Then she climbed upon the grassy bank and stood for the +warm winds of summer to dry her. O, how wonderful it was to be free! + +Was she not a part of the great life? Then she thought of the old days, +and smiled as she covered her breasts with her hands and sought her +clothing. + +Upon dressing she stretched herself at full length beneath a tree and, +following her thoughts of the bygone times, began thinking of home folk, +Oldmeadow, and Dr. Charles Reubelt King. In the light of the simple, +primitive life she now led, coupled with many days of absence, his +conduct did not appear quite as disagreeable as at first. Her +grandfather was already forgiven. Of course dear conventional Aunt +Barbara did not count. She laughed aloud when she thought of how shocked +Oldmeadow would be when she came walking along the river road with Jean +Francois. Then, for the first time, it occurred to her to wonder what +her reception would be. She dwelt secure in the knowledge that she had +been born and reared in the village. To have been an actual son or +daughter of Oldmeadow was a virtue which would cover unnumbered sins. +The world was judged harshly, but special privileges belonged to +natives. Last of all she wondered if Dr. King would ever again dare to +kiss her as he had the day before she ran away. + +Suddenly she sat up, listening intently. She could hear Jean Francois +talking to someone as he approached through the trees. She sprang to +her feet, alarmed. No one had ever before intruded upon their seclusion, +and she resented it now. She was in no very gracious mood for visitors +as she stepped into the open that she might see at some distance the +companion of the pedler. + +There was with Jean Francois a tall, angular dusky-hued man who walked +very erect and with a certain air of command. His forehead was +noticeably high and broad; his thin hair as black as a gipsy's; his +beard, of the same color, was neatly trimmed, soft, and fell to his +waist; his brown eyes sparkled with humor and kindness. + +"This gentleman," said Jean Francois, presenting him to Nance, "is the +parson of the little church yonder. He lives in the cottage down the +road and gave me this," indicating by a motion of his hand the +provisions he was now spreading upon the grass. + +Nance bowed and with some distrust inspected the visitor. He bowed +graciously, smiling the while. + +"I know your grandfather," he ventured in a pleasant voice, "and I have +seen you in Oldmeadow." + +"O, yes, I remember you," said Nance quickly, yet without thawing. +"Grandfather likes you," she added. Then, frowning and with a touch of +sarcasm: + +"I suppose you will disapprove of me?" + +"Why should I?" he inquired with surprise. + +"You are a parson," she said. + +"O, I'd forgotten," he laughed, showing a mouthful of splendid teeth. "I +suppose I'd better lecture you?" he queried. + +Nance laughed, too. His merriment was catching. Then suddenly, with a +questioning glance of reproach at Jean Francois: + +"You did not know I was here?" + +"Certainly not," he replied. "I love the road." + +He seemed to think this sufficient explanation. But Nance was a trifle +puzzled. + +"A preacher who loves the road," and she shook her head doubtfully. "If +you love it, why don't you follow it then?" She seemed to think that +this was sufficient proof that at least he loved but little. + +"Why don't you follow it?" she repeated with a touch of conclusiveness, +as if no more could be said upon the subject. "St. Francis did.... I +love it and I have chosen it. The road is my religion," here she looked +up with a suggestion of defiance in her eyes as if anticipating his +disapproval, but, upon seeing nothing save interest upon his face, she +continued, "My camp-fires at night are a flaming offering upon his +altar, the earth, to Pan.... Why don't you take the road?" + +Nance was unconsciously posing a trifle. + +"It calls me strongly sometimes," he replied, and his eyes became tender +and sought the soft shadowy highway through the growing night. The +wander-longing was in his face.... Then, quickly recalling himself, he +exclaimed: + +"Besides I have my work to do! It could not be done on the road.... At +least," he hastily corrected, "I could not do the task I have planned +for myself." There was a simple, unconscious note of courage in his +voice. + +"Why?" asked Nance in wonder. + +"There are many and profound reasons. It would not prove pleasant to +speak of them. But for one of the least: Do you think," said he, "that +vagabondia would mix with the average conventional church community?" + +"Become the pastor of vagabondia," she suggested, smiling. + +"It would be a hopeless task," he returned. + +"How do you stand it?" she inquired, somewhat irrelevantly. + +"Why, I've my home and my work," said he, now on the defensive. "It's +only occasionally that I hunger for the traffic lands. Then, like +to-night, I take my gipsying vicariously." + +Jean Francois straightened up from his work over the fire. + +"Jesus, the good Master," said he, "loved the roads, the Judean hills, +the laughing Jordan, and to sleep out under the stars at night, did he +not?" + +"True," replied the parson. + +"He possessed the genuine poetic spirit of vagabondia, my son," +continued the pedler, who was older than the visitor. "He followed the +roads and sought the hillsides for his couch. It's many a joyous, +irresponsible, nomadic journey he made over the countryside. He loved +the poor, the common people, the oppressed, the struggler--all save the +struggler at the needle's eye--and the happy sunny hills of Arcady." + +"I know, my friend," was the reply. + +"I also know your point of view, comrade," said Jean Francois, suddenly +melting into sympathy. "You are right. It could not be done. At least in +America. You would have to either give up your walk or your talk. The +people'd make you.... Let's see--they would call it a sort of highway +heresy.... Now, things are vastly different in my sunny France." + +"And in Paradise, too, I hope," smiled the parson, with good humor. + +The supper had been removed from the fire, and awaited them spread +temptingly upon the grass. The three of them sat facing the flames so +they might get the full light upon what the pedler termed Pan's table. +They dropped their more serious subject, chattering playfully like a +group of care-free children at play.... An hour later this new-found +friend arose to go. He extended his hands to them, saying, + +"Here's luck, love, and a prayer.... Good night." + +They watched him walk leisurely down the road until he was lost from +sight in the night. In the distance they could see the twinkling +friendly light which called him to his home, and to his task. And they +knew that he went gladly. + + + + +CHAPTER FIFTEEN + +"IF I WERE MONSIEUR L'ABBE PICOT" + + +The next morning at half an hour after sunrise they passed the country +church where the gentle parson preached and prayed, and took the rough +and picturesque road down the hill for the village which lay beside the +river a mile or more below. In those days it was known as the "Old +Road," and was as rocky and impassable as it was interesting and +adventurous. One never quite knew, as one rounded its many sharp turns, +drove close to hazardous declivities and beneath great over-hanging +boulders, whether one was to be wrecked by an approaching team, to fall +to painful yawning depths, or crushed to an unrecognizable pulp. That no +one was hurt was largely due to the fact that the danger was so +apparent. At the bottom of the highway, dug and blasted from the hill +side, there abided a small village with the erudite and classical name +of Milton. + +Jean Francois was charmed with the old hill road. He lingered at each +bend seeking glimpses of the valley away below--almost beneath. Upon +every side grew great oaks, spreading beech, and tall, strong hickory. +These trees appeared to have forced themselves from the very boulders +which surrounded them, partaking of their solidity and massiveness. At +intervals were patches of shrubby, ill-smelling "heavenly bushes." At +one place, by peering through a ravine, he discovered a large +old-fashioned farmhouse perched on the highest point above, guarding, +like a sentinel, the small domain of the dead, the near-by community +cemetery. + +A final turn in the road brought them once more into sight of their +beloved river, the magnificent Ohio, which they were to leave no more +even to the journey's end. A few moments later they were passing through +Milton. Once out on the smooth level turnpike which took them through +Hunter's bottom on the Carrolton way, Jean Francois turned to Nance, +who rode upon the seat, and began talking of their unusual visitor of +the night before. + +"Nance," said he, "I've been thinking very much about this parson. I +have been wondering if he is right. That he does love the road, the +dingle, and the gipsy's camp is easy to see. He loves them deeply. Yet +he has deliberately foregone any opportunity to go over the hills with +his pack. Think of it, my dear-a, he's preaching! He is a seeming +paradox.... It is true his home keeps him. He has a four-gabled cottage +set in a group of firs with a garden to the right, as you enter, and an +orchard to the left. He has a wife who is comely and smiling, and three +or four daughters about.... Now, lady, let me ask you a question?" + +"Go on." + +Jean Francois deftly filled and lighted his pipe before continuing. + +"Nance," he said earnestly as he flicked the burning match into the +dust, "I do not think I would make much of a preacher, do you?" + +At first she was inclined to laugh. In one sense the question seemed +absurdly ridiculous. Her devil-may-care, whimsical, light-o'-road, +brother-o'-Pan, green-woodsy pedler of songs a parson!... But he was +serious, so, repressing a smile, she answered him as gravely as she +might. + +"It is owing to what you call preaching, my dear-a," she replied. "If it +is firstly, secondly, thirdly, fourthly, fifthly, sixthly--" + +"Please to be serious," he interrupted. + +"--Seventhly, _ad finem_ and conclusion," she continued, "with the moral +highly evident, like Dr. Thistlewood, Aunt Barbara's pastor, why I +should say not." + +She accompanied her remarks with a highly significant shrug of the +shoulders which she had early learned from the pedler. + +"What would you have?" he asked. + +"But if it is fighting the battles of the poor, demanding justice for +the hungry, being very gentle with folks,--and being natural--" + +"Ah, that will do," he interrupted. "Now, Nance, fancy, if you can, my +being a priest, say, like Monsieur l'Abbe Picot." + +Her eyes lighted with dancing mischief. + +"That is very easy," she exclaimed. "You are now Monsieur Picot." + +"Just fancy," he ejaculated, looking up quickly to catch her eye. + +"O, certainly. Just imagine, you mean?" + +"Yes, Nance, 'just imagine.'" + +"Go on, Father," she said, with slight mockery. + +"Now," said he, too serious himself to pay attention to her levity, "if +I were the Abbe in the old house with my duty staring me in the face +like an injured child, and a veritable hell of a conscience hacking at +you continually for having left where you were doing something for +somebody, and coming where you were helpless, your longing for just +every-day human companionship, the road, and all, and all--what would +you do?... What would you do, I ask?... What would a man do?" + +For a space she walked in silence. Now she fully realized that he was +evidently very sincere in his questionings. The seriousness of the whole +thing to him was impressively apparent. Also her answer meant a great +deal to him. She must have time. There must be no levity, no mockery, no +play in her reply. It must come from her heart to his soul.... She +turned to him: + +"Dear old friend, you'll give me a little time?... Until to-night?" + +"Until to-night," he repeated. + + * * * * * + +At nightfall they made a camp down on the gravel of the river bank just +a short distance below the mouth of the Kentucky river. It was the last +night, and each of them was thinking of it. There was a feeling of great +sadness in the heart of Jean Francois, for he realized very surely that +he must now renounce the chiefest joy of his life for the sake of the +love he bore his friends. He reflected that such things had been done +before by better men than he, and he dismissed the self-pity as beneath +him. + +Nance sat and watched the old Ohio. There is an extraordinary beauty +about the river with the coming of the night. The sun goes down behind +the hills slowly, as if sorrowful at leaving the silent waters. The +great river glistens in a thousand peaceful shades that play at +hide-and-seek among the ripples. When the west had ceased to wear the +crimson mantle of her lord the water becomes a lucid green. Then, as +twilight comes, the stream grows a somber gray, and more silent still, +as the stars climb into the sky. The lights begin to appear in the +windows of the homes among the trees and wink, solemn beacons by +friendly hearths. The rumble of the paddle of a distant steamboat may be +heard in melancholy cadence on the summer breezes. Finally the moon, as +if uncertain of the way, comes peeping through the willows and casts her +wake across the water. + +The night had come. + +Jean Francois came and sat beside her. + +"Well, Nance?" said he. + +"You asked me, my dear Jean Francois, what I would do were I Monsieur +l'Abbe Picot and heard the call of Pan?" + +"Yes." + +"A call to the beautiful, the wholesome, the healthful for body and mind +and soul, where I might meet my fellows and become their friend? Where I +could and would at times bring gentleness and love into their lives? +Where I should meet children and make them see? Women and teach them the +value of life?... A road like that, my friend?" + +"Yes, I think it is that kind of a road." + +"Are you sure of it?" + +"Yes, I am sure of it!" + +"Well, Jean Francois," she said as she arose and gave him her hand for +good night, "I would listen to Pan. I would take my pack and the long, +splendid open road. I'd become the happy pedler. A pedler, I should say, +if I were Monsieur l'Abbe Jacques Picot, of little joys for troubled +hearts, heartsease for the sad, elfish tales for romping children, merry +songs for lovers, and an exceeding great love for all of them.... That +is as I should do, my friend.... Good night," and she was gone. + +Jean Francois sat with his face hidden in his hands. He prayed a little, +wept a little, and laughed between his praying and his weeping. + +It was the last night. + + + + +CHAPTER SIXTEEN + +HEBE'S FAREWELL TO PAN + + +For once the morning road was disturbed. Its happiness was feigned. The +sun lay just as warm upon the field as the week before. The air was +quite as soft, as scented, as full of the freshness of spring. The river +was fully as beautiful as of old as it flowed lazily by with glorious +sunlit waters. Yet, withal, happiness seemed to have fled. + +If you had been upon a journey at this time on the way west from +Oldmeadow, known as the river road, you would have met two travelers +afoot following a horse and van. As you approached them it would easily +be noticed that they were playfully chattering in an apparent abundance +of spirits. Their greeting would have been one of marked good cheer. You +would have felt singled out for their especial attention. Then, after +passing, should you have turned to look at the strange, grotesque +figure of the man whom you had already marked as an extraordinary +person, and at the genuine easy grace and beauty of the girl, whose +startled, wistful face you had seen a moment before, there would have +been awakened within you a sense of pity. A picturesque group you would +have said, whose air of frivolity seemed but a masque beneath the veneer +of which lay sorrow. You would have been right.... The road which one +stumbles and falters along in the heart is not always so smooth and +alluring as the road at one's feet. For once the great highway had lost +its charm.... So, as you passed from hearing, there was a distinct note +of sadness in the merry-tuned song which they joined their voices in +singing. + + "Will you buy any tape, + Or lace for your cape," + +ran the song with the plaintive strain which seemed out of place in so +jocund an air: + + "My dainty duck, my dear-a? + Any silk, any thread, + Any toys for your head, + Of the new'st and finest, finest wear-a? + +As their voices dwelt upon the words, it appeared to be a bidding +good-by to an old, familiar theme, well loved. + + "Come to the pedler; + Money's a meddler, + That doth utter all men's ware-a." + +As you rode that day, my friend, had you indeed been passing upon the +highway, you, too, would have felt the spirit of grief. It would have +seemed as if a cloud had for the moment obscured the sun. + + * * * * * + +They were within a half of a mile of Oldmeadow when Jean Francois called +a halt to his happy caravan. They drew up beneath a tree by the +roadside. Whether Nance realized it or not, the pedler knew it to be the +end. A week ago he would have laughed in derision had he been told that +he would have taken anything so seriously, so painfully, as he now was, +after this joyous lark, at the parting of the ways. + +"Sit down, Nance." + +She obeyed, without protest or interest, as an indifferent child. + +"Nance, my little sister," said he, "we'll soon be home." + +"Will we?" She could not see any use in lingering, now that the joy was +all gone. She wished to hurry through the agony of the end and the +sooner reach the adjustment which she thought would restore the old-time +happiness. Why should he care to stop and tell her such painfully +self-evident facts.... The sympathy which Jean Francois expected was not +forthcoming. + +"I've been thinking a great deal to-day," said he, "about the parson we +had at camp the other evening." + +"I thought that was all settled last night," she exclaimed in surprise. + +"No, it is not, Nance. At least not yet.... He was right, I tell you. +For him, in his work and his home lay his task and his happiness. There +was the better part. He understood the road. His love of it made you his +sister, me his brother. He will always be kinder, gentler, and purer of +soul, Nance, because he knows the wander-longing. Yet it would be wrong +for him to follow the patter an.... I see it all. He is right. And O, +the tenderness in his eyes." + +"Yes," came disinterestedly from Nance, "he's right." + +"It's best!" exclaimed Jean Francois, a trifle hurt at no more evidence +of understanding. + +"For him," she repeated firmly. + +"For anybody," insisted the pedler. + +"For who?" she asked in scorn. + +"For me!" cried Jean Francois. "For me." + +She looked at him for fully a minute with surprise upon her face. Then, +with a curl upon her lips, yet a kinder note in her voice to soften the +harshness of her words, she slowly, deliberately, replied: + +"My good, good friend, Jean Francois, you lie!" + +"Nance!" + +"Jean Francois!" + +"Very well, then," said he, with a shrug, "have your way.... As for you, +however, my dear, the road can be no more for you." + +He had been dreading saying this to her. It had been upon his lips a +dozen times in the last few days, yet his uncertainty as to the wiseness +of talking to her at all upon such a subject had kept his mouth +closed.... He now continued: + +"Like your tall, dark brother of the gentle eyes, your task lies in the +better way." + +"Dear old Jean Francois," came the reply, without resentment and with +perfect understanding, "there you go preaching already! What do you know +about my task? After all, dear-a, it is where my heart leads. If I +should choose the merry pack, what of it? I think I should not mind +turning back right now, would you? Nobody's seen us! No one knows! Come, +my comrade, and away while the call is loud! What do you say? I am +ready!" + +"You impulsive jade," said he, evidently pleased, "would you banish me +from Oldmeadow?" + +"Not in a thousand years, you old goose," she replied with tenderness. + +"But you will--you surely will, if you insist on sharing Columbine and +Rogue with me. I'll have to discover another green field, another pair +of children--" + +"And I, Monsieur," she said with gaiety, "I shall again drop from the +heavens into your top-o'-the-morning." + +"Then I shall go back to my France and the sunny fields of Picardy." + +"I love France," was her reply. + +"Look!" exclaimed Jean Francois, pointing up the road. + +A doctor's gig was approaching, driven at a rapid gait. Nance's heart +almost stopped beating. There could be no doubt as to whom the vehicle +belonged. It came nearer and the portly figure of old Doctor Felix +Longstreet became evident, and, by his side, young Dr. Charles Reubelt +King. Both were vainly trying to appear dignified and severe. Jean +Francois was in the mood that could, with equal ease, pray, cry, or +fight. + +"With the help of the bon Dieu to fight like hell," he murmured +gleefully, as he realized his pugnacious tendencies. + +"Good-by for now, dear Jean Francois," whispered Nance; "but another +day ... another day.... O, God!" + +The gig drew up and stopped with a jerk. Dr. King climbed out; the old +doctor shouted in a voice which tried to be severe, yet was tempered +with gladness, and trembled with relieved anxiety: + +"Get right in here this minute, Nance Gwyn! Your Aunt Barbara has been +intensely worried about you. As for me, you know I didn't care a +tinker's damn. Charles, there, is a fool!" + +Nance was driven rapidly into Oldmeadow, leaving Charles and Jean +Francois to come leisurely with the caravan. + + + + +CHAPTER SEVENTEEN + +THE DAY OF FAITH + + +None of the folk of Oldmeadow saw much of me during the years I spent +preparing myself to take care of their colics, rheumatism, and +occasionally, I assure you, only when it was necessary, to cut off their +legs. I also have taken as goodly care of their hearts, their gentle +souls, and the love which they have bestowed upon me. You doubtless +remember the years at Virginia in which I returned for a few short +months each summer and exploited my erudition on the boys who remained +at home. Also I strutted in conspicuous glory beside Nance, whom I duly +treated with becoming condescension upon the part of one so wholly +promising of greatness. Then they almost forgot me, though I felt I was +needed betimes to tie tick-tacks upon tempting front doors, during my +four years in the medical college. This was the period during which +Nance was learning French and violin at some college in Boston. + +Perhaps it was never before made known, but when I graduated I received +a very delightful letter from Doctor Longstreet inviting me to come to +Oldmeadow and really learn something about medicine! Meanwhile I was to +gradually assume his practise so he might have the more time for his +river. + +"Then," he concluded, "when I shall have taken my immortal rod and +crossed the river--praise God not into Indiana, but to some +Virginia-like country, where pills are out of fashion and the only +restriction worthy of mention is that the truth must needs be told about +the fish you catch--you will have everything your own way here." + +I might here mention that the only thing the old gentleman had against +the river was that it did not flow between Virginia and Kentucky. + +"Think of it," he would ejaculate; "so beautiful a river as ours and +the Yankees north of it! It will be different in the next world. Then +Virginia shall be on one bank and Kentucky on the other. And Yankee +Indiana--" But why speak here of the place to which Indiana is duly +consigned for eternity. + +At any rate, with a grateful and happy heart I accepted the invitation +so generously given me by Doctor Longstreet and, in due time, promptly +arrived ready for business. + + * * * * * + +I had been home less than two weeks. A great deal of this time, it is +true, I had given to getting settled in the office of Doctor Longstreet. +I had dined once with Nance, however, and had taken part in a few +scrappy conversations. There was a slight reservedness upon her part +toward me which seemed to be largely because of the almost continuous +absence of several years. This I believed would shortly wear off. + +One late afternoon we were strolling about her yard and talking of many +things: of herself when she would permit it, of Jean Francois, of +Monsieur l'Abbe Picot, and the happenings of Oldmeadow. Finally we +leaned against the fence and gazed across the street at the silent old +house of the pillars. Its owner was away and the place looked lonely. + +"Well, I'm quite grown up now," smiled Nance jestingly, "and still I +have not come into my possessions.... I wonder when, Charles?" she +asked, much in her old-time manner. + +"When this blessed old village that we have owned for so very long," I +replied, with a meaning glance toward my shining new instrument case and +pill-bag, which I always carried with me, "increases my collection of +patients." + +Like untried youth I was unconscious of limitations. That, if Nance +wanted it, I could not make money enough to buy the place, never +occurred to my dreaming brain. + +"It would be really wicked, I suppose, to wish they would go on and get +sick," she said, "but I do think they might have you in now and then for +a little friendly, advisory chat about their rheumatism, rose-bushes, +and the like, that they might learn how interesting you are." + +Since I have had some years in which to think of this episode, I feel +that there must have been a trifle of irony in her remark. At the time +it appeared serious enough. + +"Never mind, Nance," I replied, "my collection of friendships is +sufficiently large at present. Anyhow, just think of a statement of +account like this: + + "TO DR. CHARLES REUBELT KING _Dr_. + + MISS JEMIMIAH APPLEBLOSSOM, _Cr._ + + April 27, to one half-hour's chat on rose-bushes $10.00 + December 2, to fifteen minutes' conversation upon weather 5.00 + Same date, one hour's rheumatism talk 15.00 + Total $30.00 + Please remit." + +"Well, it is all right, Charles, my friend. It will come, and meanwhile +we can wait for the time.... Monsieur l'Abbe once said to me, 'Blessed +are the makers of dreams, for theirs is to own a river, divers trees, +many hills, even a village, and their abode shall be a house in the +heart.'" + +In my memory I call that the day of faith. + +"Let's go over and sit upon the portico," I suggested. It met with her +approval, and a few moments later we were beneath our beloved old +pillars. + +"I wonder where he is?" she asked. + +"Who is?" I said, for I was not interested in any third parties. + +"Monsieur l'Abbe," she replied. + +"Doubtless in New Orleans," I answered. I might just as well have said +New Guinea, for I had mentioned the first place which occurred to me. + +Suddenly, from far above in the sunset sky, we heard the faint, +plaintive cry of wild geese. + +"O, it is the sign of the coming of Jean Francois," she cried. "He'll be +here in less than a fortnight.... Have any of you heard from him?" she +asked. + +"Your grandfather," I replied, still not interested. + +For fully half an hour we sat and looked upon the river, watching the +nightfall. It is difficult to talk at such an hour. It brings out all of +your sentiments. Old memories crowd your mind and the whole is made +sweet by a note of sadness.... Then Nance turned to me: + +"You must tell me all about yourself, Charles, and your plans," she +said, with a suddenly deepening interest. + +Now what better could a man want? Here I was just out of college, young, +untried, and bursting with hope. Was there anything of greater interest, +I ask you, than my possibilities, my plans, my expectations? Nance was +exceedingly wise. Immediately, and with enthusiasm, I launched into my +attainments, and my dreams. With a sweet patience she sat and listened. +(I am now inclined to think, Jean Francois, that, in imagination, she +was with you and Rogue and Columbine somewhere upon the road.) Now I +feel sure that I must have made a slight mistake in not at least hinting +that if I hoped to make any money it was that I might use it to obtain +the home of her heart's desire; that if I sought for honors, it was that +I might take them to her, placing my triumphs at her feet as her due; +and that, perhaps though illy defined in my own mind, all that I +was--and it looked big to me, for had I not toiled for it?--and all +that I hoped to be was because, from the old remembered days of +childhood I had loved her with all of my life.... I did not hint this. +Perhaps I was taking it for granted that she knew. Then you know how +ambitious youth can become wrapped utterly in its expectations?... All +of this I have since had ample time to see. + +"It is time we returned, Charles," she at last broke in, arising from +her seat. + +We walked through the yard and across the street arm in arm. At the door +I bade her good-night, as I had a hundred times before, by raising her +flower-scented hand to my lips and kissing it while pressing her fingers +ever so tenderly. + + * * * * * + +It all seemed quite the usual way, Jean Francois. Now wouldn't that +pretty well indicate that a man had some privileges? Eh? + +As for the trouble, I'll tell you how it began. + + + + +CHAPTER EIGHTEEN + +THE DAY OF DOUBT + + +For a very long time I was quite at a loss to determine whether it was +the red of her hair or the lips of her large and interesting mouth which +caused me to love Nance Gwyn. Even to this day, as a lover of long +standing, I am not always certain that I know the whys and wherefores of +such an inconsistent mixture of passion and tenderness. There have been +moments, such as when a wild whisp of it would come taunting my face +with its soft caresses, or when my hands inadvertently must need touch +it for a seemingly timeless instant, that I was very sure, as sure as I +knew for some reason I loved her with all of my life, that it was her +hair. Of one thing I have always been confident: I could never have +loved a woman whose hair was other than the color of Nance's. + +Of course there were times when I thought it was for other things than +the hair and the lips. Her feet, for example, when I came upon her +wading in the Middleton's brook. This hurrying little stream ran through +the heart of a small woodland pasture near town. It was in a leafy +hollow and its course was over great flat rocks with occasionally +sandy-bottomed pools worn by the fall of water. The place was a favorite +summer-time haunt of the old days. It was cool, inviting, and dim with +an abundance of fern, green moss, and tiny wild violets. + +Now, in the first place, how was I to know Miss Nance Gwyn had sauntered +down there in the middle of the afternoon? About five o'clock I came in, +tired and hot, from a long drive to the country. So soon as I found no +calls waiting for me, I thought of the pool in the Middleton's woods. +Just before climbing the fence which would bring my destination into +view, I heard one of Jean Francois' songs, but coming from the throat of +the adorable Nance: + + "It was a lover and his lass, + With a hey, and a ho, and a hey nonino, + That o'er the green cornfield did pass, + In the spring time, the only pretty ring time, + When birds do sing, hey ding a ding, ding; + Sweet lovers love the spring. + + "Between the acres of the rye, + With a hey, and a ho, and a hey nonino, + These pretty country folks would lie, + In the spring time, the only pretty ring time, + When birds do sing, hey ding a ding, ding; + Sweet lovers love the spring. + + "This carol they began that hour, + With a hey, and a ho, and a hey nonino, + How that life was but a flower + In the spring time, the only pretty ring time, + When the birds do sing, hey ding a ding, ding; + Sweet lovers love the spring. + + "And therefore take the present time + With a hey, and a ho, and a hey nonino, + For love is crowned with the prime + In the spring time, the only pretty ring time, + When birds do sing, hey ding a ding, ding; + Sweet lovers love the spring." + +I shall steal upon her and surprise her, I thought. So I crept silently +over the fence, stepped around a tree, and how should I know with what +my eyes were to be greeted? + +There she sat like a nymph upon a ledge of projecting rock, idly +dabbling her feet in the shallow water of the pool. But that was not +all. Her dress was gathered from beneath her and slightly raised above +her knees, disclosing some very frilly, lacy lingerie. I stood as one +dumbfounded. I did not know whether to run and doubtless get caught in +my hurrying away, or to take it as a matter of course, boldly facing it +out. While I was arriving at a decision she raised the slenderest, +whitest, most adorable pink-soled foot it would be possible for any +woman to possess, with dainty air from the water, bringing her knee +beneath her chin, and placed her heel upon the rock upon which she sat. +Then she reached behind her for a pair of flimsy silk stockings and some +slippers. Never before or since have I seen a picture at once so +innocent and yet so seductively beautiful. + +All of this took place, you must understand, in a very few seconds. Just +here, however, when I was preparing for as hasty and as silent a retreat +as possible, she involuntarily raised her face and caught me full in the +eyes. + +"Hello, Nance," said I, careless like, as I came forward, "been wading?" + +"Wading," she replied, hastily standing, with a look of mingled dismay +and anger upon her face. "As for you, Mr. King, I think you had better +go!" + +"Nance," I began. + +"Go!... Did you hear me? I say, go!" she exclaimed, trembling, her +cheeks becoming sickly white. + + * * * * * + +I went precipitately and as I hurried to town I gave myself such a +lecture as a man ever got. Yet, in spite of my reproach for an +unfortunate incident which happened very innocently, I could not keep +from my mind that I was now very sure of another reason why I loved +her. + + + + +CHAPTER NINETEEN + +THE DAY OF LOST CONFIDENCE + + +I shall not bore you with the details of my work in once more +establishing confidence. And, at that, it was a sort of shaky, +at-arms-length confidence. One morning, a few days after the episode of +Middleton's brook, Nance came into my office, very properly and +charmingly clad, and perched herself upon the top of her grandfather's +writing-table. She was extremely saucy-looking, and inclined to be +impudent. I came and stood by, looking down upon her. She was unusually +pretty and tempting with an air of old-time daring in the tilt of her +face. + +At that moment I was sure I loved her for the three or four adorable +little freckles upon her nose. The sight of these same scarcely +perceptible beauty spots, which appeared regularly with the summer, +carried me back to a day when I had made fun of the sun's tampering +with her complexion. In those days she chose to sniffle very pityingly, +yet becomingly, in the vain attempt to make me repentant. As she sat +before me, instead of the handsome young woman she was, I saw an awkward +girl of eleven or twelve with spindling legs that were rather uncertain +in their movements; long thin arms with small bony hands, all attached +to a shapeless little body, the only redeeming feature of which was a +truly promising face and wonderfully beautiful hair as red as burnished +brass. I remembered that, on many occasions, there was mud between the +toes of her bare feet, for she always had possessed a boy's propensity +for puddling. This brought to mind the wading I had seen earlier in the +week, and I admit I blushed at the contrast presented to my mind. + +"Are you still web-footed?" I asked, with a reminiscent smile. + +"When I grow to be a very old woman," she replied impudently, "I shall +dabble in the puddles in my back yard; climb apple-trees in the spring; +and help my boys make snow men at Christmas time." + +Then I had but to see her merry, mischievous face to discover the Nance +of my friend, the happy pedler. "Is it her feet or her hair," was +rattling through my brain, "or is it the old-day Nance, or the +beautiful, splendid young woman now sitting on her grandfather's desk?" + +Here she picked up an open knife, a piece of pine from the window sill, +drew her lips into a distractingly tempting pucker and began to whistle +and whittle in imitation of one of the village's wise-acres at the +store. I watched her for a moment with a heart which I was almost sure +she could hear thumping away like a trip hammer. Hadn't I seen her +whistle a thousand times, it seemed a thousand years ago, and gravely +imitate every rheumatic old gentleman who occupied a chair in summer +under the awning, or a box in winter behind the stove at Mr. +Appleblossom's? Then all of a sudden I knew it was for her thumb. The +big barlow had unceremoniously taken a whack at this adorable part of +her hand and, as she smilingly held it aloft, a tiny stream of blood +oozed forth and fell on the handkerchief she held beneath it. It was +really a mere trifle, but immediately I looked deeply concerned, hauled +out my instrument case, and removed what I needed therefrom with much +seriousness and dignity. Meantime as I bathed the injured member she +looked on, though two tears stood in her eyes, with an impish grin which +left no doubt but that she readily saw through my hypocrisy. Anyhow she +let me use absorbent cotton, much adhesive plaster, and great yards of +bandage with which to bind it. I was a very long time doing the work, +and when I had it completed, as I have said before, I was sure it was +for her thumb. + +Now you know--at least if you are a woman and young and pretty--that a +doctor, even if he is doing nothing more than dressing a thumb, may get +unusually close to his patient without the least mischievous intentions. +Therefore I am sure you will not blame me when I tell you that I was led +to it by the soft caress of her perfumed hair as it now and then +brushed dangerously against my cheek; the occasional touch of her knees +bringing vividly annoying memories of a few days past, as I busied +myself about her; and, as I bent above her, the healthful, sweet odor of +her breath in my nostrils; these things, I say, with the alluring +mystery of all of her, breathing, pulsating, hot, close beside me, +overpowered me and I was trembling when she looked up to thank me. Then, +before I knew it or had time to think, I had my arms about her, crushing +her to me, and passionately kissing her lips. + +It might not be telling things too much just to mention that she fought +a brief little battle quite consistent with the temperament of her hair. +Then, when she learned how strong and determined were my arms, suddenly +she ceased to struggle, her eyes becoming friendly and timid. Ah, surely +this was the moment that, while the glorious hair, the feet, the +freckles, and the thumb did not lose caste, the heart within me crowned +her lips! + +"Now, strange to say," commented Dr. King to Jean Francois, "it was the +next day she ran away.... You may understand why, but I do not." + +"I do," was the laconic reply of the happy pedler. + + + + +PART THIRD + +MIDWINTER: EIGHT MONTHS LATER + + We talked of "Children of the Open Air," + Who once on hill and valley lived aloof, + Loving the sun, the wind, the sweet reproof + Of storms, and all that makes the fair earth fair. + Till, on a day, across the mystic bar + Of moonrise, came the "Children of the Roof," + Who find no balm 'neath evening's rosiest woof, + No dews of peace beneath the Morning Star. + We looked o'er London, where men wither and choke, + Roofed in, poor souls, renouncing stars and skies, + And lore of woods and wild-wind prophecies, + Yea, every voice that to their fathers spoke: + And sweet it seemed to die ere bricks and smoke + Leave never a meadow outside Paradise. + + --_Theodore Watts-Dunton._ + + + + +CHAPTER TWENTY + +MONSIEUR L'ABBE AT HOME + + +The snow had fallen all day in great, heavy, wet flakes until the trees, +as if by the magic of Aladdin's lamp, were opulent crystal palaces, +while the fence posts were white-cowled mendicants with bowed heads, +begging without the gates. As night drew near the cold came with it, +bitter and penetrating. A cutting north wind cleared the sky; the stars +appeared, shimmering in distant glory, but barren of sympathy; the moon +came climbing over the frozen hills, casting her wake upon the +uninviting gray waters of the river; the leaping flames from ample cozy +hearths flashed hospitable beacons far into the streets; while the +crunching snow beneath hurried feet, or the rattle of the wagon of a +belated traveler, caused the fireside dreamer to snuggle in his warm +corner, thanking life for shelter and for food. + +It was early evening. I sat alone by the glowing backlogs in the great +fireplace of my office enjoying that delicious animal sensation which +comes to one who, after having been all day in the cold, is now +thoroughly warm, drowsy, and reasonably secure in the thought that one +will not have to venture forth. As I sat and stared into the embers +beneath the andirons my mind, released from the task of the day, +naturally sought the channel of its dream-things. + +Nance! was she not always in my mind, my heart? Was there ever a time, +which the business of the moment did not demand, that I was not building +a thousand fancies of her? I was yet childlike enough to imagine myself +saving her life from some dangerous disease, telling her dramatically of +my passion, and, in the end, receiving the reward of her hand. Aye, what +dreams men dare to build! + +My practise had so grown with the coming of winter that I did not get to +see as much of her as I should have liked, but when I could I sought her +and always found her my splendid, true friend. Yet some mysterious and +inexpressible something in her personality and bearing withheld me, so, +while she was all that was friendly, there was still a more sacred +portal closed to me. What her inclinations and ambitions were I could +not discover, save that she was diligently pursuing the study of +folk-lore while showing a special interest in my patients. This was +markedly so when any of them needed a womanly touch not to be found in +their homes. Against my protest she nursed three severe cases entirely +through to convalescence. The motherless child of Martin Farewil she +brought through double pneumonia; old Sarah Boutwell, a widow, childless +and seventy-six, after a lingering spell of fever, died in her arms; +Elizabeth Book, a servant living alone on the outskirts of town, gave +birth to a bastard, and would have suffered inhumanly from inattention +had Nance, to the horror of Oldmeadow and the prostration of Aunt +Barbara, not spent the greater part of a month with the woman. + +Notwithstanding this task she had chosen she was just as much alive and +as merry as of old. With it all she was becoming more serious and +considerate. In fact the care-free, hoydenish girl seemed to have +ripened into a strong-hearted, wholesome, healthful woman. She showed an +unusual grasp of things, her relation to them, and their value to life. +Her humor saved her from taking this new attitude too seriously. + +Old Doctor Felix Longstreet, her immortal grandfather, now retired from +active practise, had joined the autocratic group of cracker-barrel +philosophers. Daily he hobbled with rheumatic legs over the flagstones, +bowing gallantly to the women whom he passed, to my office, where he +still maintained a desk. There, upon the sidewalk beneath the shade of +the honey-locust trees in summer, by the fireplace in winter, he gave +many charming dissertations upon politics, fishing, religion, +when-I-was-a-boy, and medicine. God bless him for one of the finest +gentlemen I ever knew. + +Strange to say, Monsieur l'Abbe Jacques Picot had not returned with +September to his house of many pillars. Ever since anybody could +remember each Maytime found the good Abbe bound for some other lands; +each September, just as regularly as the children were gathered to +school, found him again at home. We could always tell of his presence, +for once each day he might be seen making his way through Oldmeadow +bowing to right and left with easy grace, as he sought the river road +for the outing he never failed to take, no matter what might be the +condition of the weather. As a consequence, in the late afternoons of +fall and winter, his figure, dressed with scrupulous neatness in the +garb of a priest, wearing a broad-brimmed soft hat, became quite +familiar to the dwellers in Oldmeadow. And while the dates of his annual +leave-taking and return were not fixed, it was unusual for him to remain +away into the new year. We were ignorant of the cause of his absence, +which served on more occasions than one as a topic for conversation. + +As for Jean Francois, of course he never came near us at all in winter. +Some more gentle climate claimed his blessed presence with his happy +caravan. Upon his return with Nance in June he had not remained in town +more than a week. Just where he spent the remainder of the months he was +accustomed to give to Oldmeadow common was another thing of which we +were ignorant. + +Thus while I sat dreaming of my heart's desire, there came a crunching +of the snow, a hearty bursting open of the door, and Nance came stamping +into the room followed by Doctor Longstreet puffing like a porpoise. I +helped them off with their wraps, placed chairs at the coziest corners +of the hearth, threw on a fresh backlog, gave the doctor a little nip of +Bourbon, and sat down as close to Nance as the occasion would permit. + +"The old house is lighted up," said the Doctor. "I suspect Monsieur +l'Abbe has returned." + +"Well, I'm glad," said I. "I wonder what has kept him so long?" + +"That is what we came by to tell you about," was his answer. Here he +cleared his throat ostentatiously. I knew what was coming. + +"My, my!" exclaimed he, "how this cold does get your rheumatism. Um, ah, +and my throat is a trifle choked up, too, Charles. I am afraid I shall +have to have--" + +I passed the demijohn without comment. + +"Um, ah Nance!" said he, quizzically, holding aloft a tiny glass filled +to the brim, "that's the color of your hair, my dear! Prettiest color on +earth? Eh, Charles?" + +I gave hearty assent so far as concerned the hair. + +"But one thing sweeter, Nance!" he continued, bowing as gallantly as his +age would permit; "just one thing sweeter, more inspiring, more +retiring, more hell-firing! Ah--ah--you know who she is, Charles?" + +Again I bowed my assent, and Nance blushed confusedly. + +"You had better tell your tale, Granddad," she admonished, "before it +becomes retiring.... No telling, you'll be off on a fish story in a +moment. There is nothing which seems to make the fish you catch weigh +more than a little nip of the inspiring--" + +"Tut, tut, girl," said he, gathering himself together with amusing mock +dignity, "I shall prove that you slander your old grandfather." + +"The girl," he began, indicating Nance with a nod of the head, "went to +Louisville Tuesday. She came back to-night on the _Spreading Eagle_. Old +Captain Mead was in command. It was his first trip after several months +spent south looking after the steamboat company's business during the +recent yellow fever epidemic in Mississippi. He had been in Baton Rouge, +New Orleans, and other places along the route attending to the paralyzed +shipping interests and quarantined steamboats. It was in New Orleans +that he heard of Monsieur l'Abbe. The priest was not working under the +organized relief committee itself, but went here and there with +undisciplined yet effective zeal. It seems, so the Captain was told, +that this Monsieur Picot came driving into the city in a cart one day, +made his way to the quarters occupied by those of his own nationality, +sought information concerning where he might be of use, and set off +again." + +Nance, who had made several attempts to interrupt Doctor Longstreet, now +succeeded. + +"Charles, he practically laid down his life for the people. The constant +work in all kinds of weather, mud and filth, living on insufficient +food, has left him broken and with a miserable cough. Yet as much in +need as he was, he worked heroically on, scarcely giving thought to +himself. He was not attacked by the fever, but ruined his constitution +by nursing those who did have it." + +Then the doctor launched more specifically into the affair as related to +Nance by the steamboat captain. When he had completed the story and they +were leaving, Nance looked up at me with glistening, tearful, yet happy +eyes, adding: + +"They gave Monsieur Picot the sobriquet of 'the Little Abbe of the +Church of the Street.'" + + + + +CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE + +"LITTLE SAINT JACQUES OF THE STREET" + + +In the old days, you will remember, the Beau Brummel of a Southern +steamboat was the captain. He was the pink of courtesy and gallantry, +with all the pride of the gentleman of his day. The passengers were +received into his cabin with the same hospitality he would have welcomed +them ashore in his home. It was a distinction sought after, to eat at +the table over which he presided. The lady to whom he offered his arm +when dinner was announced was envied by the less fortunate, who must of +necessity be content with the company of a less attractive escort. + +Thus this master of the Ohio and Mississippi sidewheelers of forty or +fifty years ago was to men, either at poker or in business, the soul of +honor; to the young bucks the good fellow and manly; and, with apologies +to St. Paul, all things to all women.... Such an officer of the old +school was Sam L. Mead of the _Spreading Eagle_, who, while showing +Nance first honors when upon her trip on his boat, told her of his +experiences when quarantined by yellow fever. + + * * * * * + +"Who is that little priest with his robes tucked up, struggling through +the street with the yelling dirty brat in his arms?" asked Captain Mead, +who was watching the work of the relief corps, of the first passer-by. + +"Little St. Jacques of the Streets," was the reply. + +"He looks familiar," said the Captain; "what other name is he called?" + +"Monsieur Picot, I believe," was the answer. + +Monsieur l'Abbe Picot, traveling after a fashion purely his own, found +himself in picturesque Louisiana at a time when the yellow fever was +upon one of its infrequent but periodic outbreaks. For a time it seemed +as if hell had been transferred. Suffering, sorrow, despair reigned in +undisputed tyranny.... The Abbe had sought the state, so he told +himself, to pursue a long deferred inquiry into the life of the ancestor +who had willed him the home in which he lived in Oldmeadow. When he +found anguish, hunger, misery, and death upon every hand he turned with +eagerness to a more compassionate task. + +Once at it, he toiled incessantly. If he ever rested, no one knew of it. +At any time of day or night he always could be found taking food to some +half-starved child; carrying upon his back to a more comfortable quarter +some old man or woman; cooling the burning bodies of the fever-stricken; +bringing the sympathy of tender words and the helpful pressure of +ministering hands to the grief-stricken, or shriving some dying adherent +of his own religion. His lips wore a great, hopeful smile as he turned +from call to call upon his strength. In his eyes shone the light of a +mighty faith. Indeed, he had the face of a saint--St. Francis, no doubt. +He possessed all the preternatural ability of making his love felt which +has ever belonged to those wondrous souls who give the greater gift. +Some even thought that the touch of his strong rough hands had wrought +things miraculous.... Had he not--but why tell of it to the unbelieving? + +There are just two things of which I shall tell you that wisdom may be +justified by her works. One was at Christmastide, the other some weeks +later. To fully appreciate the first you must remember that everybody +living where he was serving was destitute, needing the mere sustenances +of life: bread, meat, shelter, water. When all ate no one had as much as +he needed. There was just enough to keep them alive. + +A few days before the happy time of holly, mystery, and good cheer, the +Abbe, for the first time since he had begun his task, lost his smile. He +seemed to be worried and depressed. He went about like a man carrying a +weight almost greater than the strength of his heart. His co-workers +felt it, and to the sufferers it seemed as if virtue had gone out of +him. This continued until the morning of the twenty-fourth of December. + +Had you been about that day you would have seen a weary old priest with +shuffling reluctant steps leading an ugly, but good-humored, little +ragged brown mare, for whom he showed unusual affection, through the +streets. At the horse market where he sold her they secretly laughed at +him, for did he not on parting whisper into her furry ears, shed tears +upon her neck, and kiss her between her large brown eyes? Yet, strange +as it may seem, as he turned into the street where grief was waiting for +his compassionate hands, he wore the old-time smile and, beneath his +breath, sang a queer outlandish tune. Nevertheless you still could not +have fathomed the heart of St. Jacques of the Streets. + +Early that night he again stole away and this time sought the garish +stores all aglow with lights, tinsel, toys, and hurrying crowds. From +place to place he went, dogging in and out of shops, gazing long into +inviting windows, as if in search of some particular thing. At last he +discovered a little Frenchman whose small business occupied a mere hole +in the wall. The shop was given to Frenchy trifles of much glitter, and +brilliant paints galore. After a deal of gesticulation, more rapid +talking and bargaining, the shopman and the Abbe began making a thousand +small bundles with something bright and happy in each. Then, leaving a +clerk in charge, after piling the stuff into a hand-cart, they set off +for the district upon which despair battened most hideously. Monsieur +l'Abbe Picot was playing Santa Claus to hundreds of starved, eager +little hearts. + +When some disgruntled man saw fit to grumble about the waste of money, +one of the nurses, a big, brawny Irish laborer, promptly knocked him +down, accompanying his blow with the startling scriptural reference: + +"An' did ye niver hear of the allibister box, ye Dutch pig?" + + * * * * * + +As I have written, it was a week later when they discovered that he had +not eaten his portion of food for many days. Watching him, they found +that he conveyed it secretly to certain children whose mothers and +fathers had died of the fever. When they confronted him with his neglect +of himself, he lied. + +"Lied like a gentleman, this little St. Jacques," said the Captain, who +knew. + +It was no use to remonstrate. He came to give his life and he was giving +it. Who would dare to say this was not his privilege? And he had +remained faithfully until the blessed cold had come and hell had +withdrawn her flaming despair. + +That is how, my friends, Monsieur l'Abbe Picot proved his heart. + + + + +CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO + +MONSIEUR L'ABBE LIES ILL + + +It was eleven o'clock, or after, when I sat beside a roaring fire of +recently renewed backlogs debating whether I should sleep upon the couch +pulled close beside the fireplace, or bundle up and face the cold for +five blocks to my home. I had arisen and was drawing the lounge toward +the hearth when, again, after a crunching of the snow outside, there +came a timid knock on the door. I opened to find a shivering, bent old +man upon the threshold whom I recognized straightway as the servant at +the old home of the many pillars. He hurriedly informed me in his +cracked and high-pitched voice that I was wanted at once by Monsieur +l'Abbe Picot, who was ill. + +Ten minutes later, upon entering the big cheerful library, I found the +man whom I now thought of as St. Jacques of the Streets seated by the +fire in a great armchair drawn close to the blaze. His closely cropped +head was supported by a pillow, a decanter of wine sat on the table +beside him, while Prosper, the old servant, stood by to anticipate any +wish. I was shocked at the appearance of the Abbe. I had never before +thought of him as little, yet now I saw him not only small, but +emaciated. While his countenance was cheerful, yet suffering and +deprivation had left their cruel stamp upon him. He seemed slight, worn, +and world-weary. He was excessively nervous. A slight fever caused a +hectic flush in his sunken, close-shaven cheeks, and lent a +preternatural brilliancy to his eyes. + +"You will pardon me, Monsieur Doctor," he said politely, yet in a voice +which startled me because of a note which was familiar to my ear, "for +calling you out into such a night as this, but Prosper," indicating his +servant by a wave of the hand, "threatened to take matters upon himself +and, knowing something of the nature of his blisters and nostrums, I +consented to your being consulted. It is terrible weather to make a man +leave comfortable quarters, and I'm sorry." + +Of course I assured him of my readiness to attend him. I told him that I +thought there was nothing too severe for one to do if it might bring him +relief. Upon examination I discovered Monsieur Picot much worse off than +he believed himself to be.... While I was not quite sure, desiring to +see other developments before fully making up my mind, I felt that my +patient was in for a battle the successful outcome of which was equal to +about one chance in a hundred. + +"First thing, Monsieur," I said, after taking his temperature, his +pulse, looking at the tongue, and asking a multitude of questions, "you +must go to bed immediately." + +"For the night, you mean?" he questioned, with eyes searching +penetratingly into mine. + +"For several days, Monsieur. It is absolutely necessary," I added, +anticipating trouble upon that score. + +With a shrug of his shoulders he threw up his hands, a thing which I +had seen Jean Francois do a thousand times, with protest upon every +feature. Then, appearing to suddenly lose courage, he gave up, letting +his hands drop limply into his lap. + +"Mon Dieu! If I must, I must.... Prosper, assist me." + +We helped him into the adjoining bedroom and into the big four poster. +He sank back among the pillows with an air of utter weariness. By a +strong will he had kept himself up and about. He had exerted every power +at his command to conquer his growing weakness. He had hoped to win and +had determined, as a last resort, that stimulants and medicine would +save the day. Then, when he discovered it to be beyond his strength, he +surrendered completely. I looked into his face, outlined against the +whiteness of the linen, and for the first time noticed that he appeared +old. As aged as old Prosper himself, whose alarmed countenance stared +questioningly at me upon every turn. + +I prepared his medicine and yelled the directions into Prosper's deaf +ears. Then I placed a chair by the bed and sat down, taking a thin +fevered hand into my own. + +"My friend," said I to the Abbe, "you must be very quiet. You need rest. +A few weeks of peace and good food should start you well on toward +recovery." + +"One moment, Monsieur Doctor," said he with a weary gesture of the hand, +"I've a request." + +"Certainly. What is it?" I asked. + +"Do you think I shall be ill for any length of time?" + +"I shall know more about that to-morrow," was the reply. + +"Yes, I know," he smiled. "But remember that I am not a child. I'm an +old man--at least I feel it--and life is not as alluring as it was once. +Tell me frankly, shall I be very sick?" + +"It is more than likely, Monsieur," I answered. + +"More than likely--more than likely," he repeated reflectively, "and who +knows save the good God--and who knows?" + +Here he ceased to talk, closed his eyes restfully, and became more +quiet. For an hour I sat and watched him. Had it not been for an +occasional pressure of his fingers in my hand I should have thought him +asleep. Finally he opened his eyes and with childlike sympathy sought +mine. + +"Monsieur Doctor," he said, "I have not yet made the request." + +"O," I said with surprise. I had thought it referred to the duration of +his illness. + +"You say I shall die?" he said. + +"No, I have not said so," I answered. + +"Very well. We'll not discuss it. No matter.... But the request.... On +my desk you will find an envelope upon which is the address of a dealer +in horses in the city of New Orleans. Inside the envelope is three +hundred dollars. It will be enough, I am sure.... That sum should pay a +passage to New Orleans and return and buy a little mare, should it not, +Monsieur?" + +"It would be more than enough," I replied, puzzled. + +"It is asking a great deal of you, Monsieur," he said with hesitancy. + +"It is nothing.... Nothing would be too much," and I pressed the hand of +the little St. Jacques in sympathy. I was beginning to understand. + +"Thank you," he continued gratefully. "If--if I should die, Monsieur, +would it be asking too much of you to go to that city and inquire of the +dealer for the little mare left with him last twenty-fourth of December +by the Abbe Picot? He will remember, and he promised me to keep her at +my disposal for three months. Buy her from him, Monsieur, and bring her +back here with you. She is a part of this estate and my will gives her +into hands that love.... Would this be asking too much, Monsieur Doctor? +It is a great deal." + +"It shall be done," I assured him. + +This was the nearest he ever came to telling anything to confirm the +words of the Captain concerning the service which he gave his brothers +of the south. + + * * * * * + +It was well into the morning when I arose to leave. After repeating +directions to Prosper about the medicine and the temperature of the +room, I went to his bed, for he was not asleep. + +"I shall call about noon," I said, "and hope to find you better." + +"My friend," said he rather abruptly, "if I should need a nurse other +than old Prosper, whom would you likely get for me?" + +"I scarcely know," I answered. "You will need someone. Prosper has not +the strength to give you constant attention.... Perhaps Miss Gwyn might +help. She has often nursed cases for me. Living just across the street, +I do not see why she would not at least run in now and then." + +"Ah," he sighed with evident relief. "Could you--do you suppose she +would come to-morrow? You see," he said with eagerness, "I may become +too ill before long to tell her about the house. Prosper, you know, is +such a deaf old curmudgeon. He's good enough. Do not think I do not love +Prosper.... But do you think she would come?" + +"I am sure she will come," I answered. "Especially if it is your +request." + +"I thank you. I think I should like it very much indeed to have her +occasionally in to see me.... Good-night, Monsieur Doctor.... You are +very kind." + +Again he sank restfully into his pillows. + +I waited for a moment by the library fire before wrapping myself +securely against the cold. The wind roared in merciless gusts through +the trees. The old house cracked and moaned as if shaken to the +foundation by the blast. Just before stepping out into the night, I +glanced through the half-open door at the children's little St. Jacques. +He himself was sleeping as peacefully as a child. + + + + +CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE + + "I would talk with some old lover's ghost, + Who lived before the god of love was born." + + +Two days later we were seated in the firelight near the bed of Monsieur +Picot. He had rallied some, though I was unable to say whether or not it +was merely temporarily. The large old room was played upon by the +flickering flame and a thousand ghostly shadows stole about the +furniture and hid in the darkest corners. The bright, feverish face of +the Abbe could be seen among the pillows. The rest of the bed was hidden +by the half-drawn curtains. Nance sat upon a stool and gazed at the +embers, beneath the andirons, from time to time lifting her face, aglow +with interest. My patient, whom I cautioned to become less animated for +his nerves' sake, was speaking. For many minutes he had been telling us +of some of the strange and wonderful happenings within his old house, +so long a mystery for the children of Oldmeadow. + +"Now as for ghosts," said he whimsically, "it is a matter of choice. +Frankly I rather like them, Mademoiselle.... Now there is the old +lover's ghost of the banquet hall in the west wing. He's such a gentle, +tobacco-loving shade. I assure you he is fully as harmless as a +spinster. He is almost domesticated. A little timid, however, and a bit +suspicious of you.... He--comes--every--Christmas--eve," he slowly and +solemnly reiterated, with a twinkle in his eye, "and sits and dreams +over the empty banquet table. The feast is ended. The spoils strew the +table. Among the empty glasses and forgotten viands lies a broken fan. +Here my gentle friend is to be found. He is a solemn spook.... Perhaps +it is his liver, Monsieur Doctor.... Thus he sits with bowed head before +the wreck of tasted pleasures, and seems to dream of another day. You +may enter as quietly as you please, yet, with a sort of hurt expression +about him, as if, though quite unconsciously, yet surely, you had +gently broken his heart, he fades away like the smoke. This look of +reproach upon his face, doubtless because of his knowledge of your +innocent intentions, is tempered by plainly written forgiveness. When he +is gone you catch the faint odor of tobacco, with the still more subtle +perfume of a handkerchief, as if a lady had at least been present in his +dreams." + +"I think I should love him," ventured Nance, speaking softly. + +"I hope you will, my daughter," was the Abbe's reply.... Then he +continued: + +"Perhaps my friendly ghost has something to do with the Love Story of +the East Room and the Duel in the Wine Cellars.... Yes?" and he waited +for an answer. + +"Go on!" cried Nance gleefully, looking at me with an appeal to share +her delight in the adventures of the old house. + +"Prosper tells me," continued the Abbe, "that every midsummer's eve--you +know I am always away in midsummer and I only know this of old +Prosper--there is a beautiful quaintly dressed lady of the long ago who +makes her abode in the great east room. She is a very weepy, pretty +lady, at first, Prosper asserts. Then, when a great splendid buck of a +fellow in laces and frills and long-plaited powdered hair comes climbing +up by way of the portico, she quickly becomes very beautiful and the +light of her eyes brightens the whole room. In fact it is this very +brilliancy which attracts another gentleman who comes from the hallway. +Immediately, with much bowing, he invites the gallant cavalier off to +the wine cellars, where blood is spilled.... Now I tell Prosper it is +merely rats he hears with his deaf old ears. + +"'Non, Monsieur,' he insists; 'what of the casks of good red wine I find +spilled upon the floor the morning following midsummer eve?'" + +"He's right, Monsieur," said Nance simply. "I myself have seen the light +and believed it elf-fire." + +"I believe you, my dear-a," he replied. + +"Go on," said she. + +"Then there is the cabinet with the hidden drawer, and the secret +stairway we shall climb when I am well.... Ah, it is at the top of the +magic stairway where old Jacques finds his forest of Arden.... Some day +you shall know.... There are the merry ghosts of two happy children in +the very heydey of youth. There is the spook of an old vagabond who +sleeps in dingles in phantom greenwoods. There, my children, are a +thousand dreams of mine: the ghosts of yesterday; there the little +narrow streets of old Paris--St. Jacques, Rue de l'Abbe de l'Epee, the +Rue de la Fouarre; there, gentle Amiens and her great cathedral; a long, +white road--_le trimard_--through Picardy; a tiny garret in the Rue St. +Jacques, where first I knew all the bright hopes and brave fancies of +youth. All--all these and a thousand more at the top of my secret +stairs, and some day, le bon Dieu knows how soon, I shall bequeath it +all--all to you!" + + * * * * * + +Then Nance bade him be quiet and began to smooth his brow with her +hand. Presently he fell into a troubled sleep, murmuring of roads and +rivers and tree-clad hills. + +"I think we had better go, Charles," said she, leading the way into the +library and closing the door after us. Old Prosper with the wonderful +eyes, and who was deaf, was with his master. + + + + +CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR + +THE PRIEST AND FAUN + + +On another day, while alone with old Prosper and Nance, he turned to her +and said: + +"Nance, did I ever tell you about the Priest and the Faun, whom I found +in my blessed attic at the top of my secret stairway?... Yes?" + +"Are you feeling quite strong enough, Monsieur Jacques?" was her gentle +answer. + +"Better than I shall ever feel again," came the reply. + +"I should like to hear about them," she said. + +"When I found them," he began, "the Priest was seated upon a stool. His +head was bowed, about his neck was the rosary, the crucifix of which he +held in his hand. Upon his face was sorrow, a great pity, infinite +patience, gentleness. His features though rugged were softened and +refined by the strength and compassion of his heart. + +"His brother, the Faun, stood facing him. He was closely enough like the +Priest for their relationship to be seen at once. Yet he who stood was a +trifle larger of body, with features bearing a wild and inhuman cast of +countenance. His small bright eyes glistened in astonishment mingled +with anger. The wide, large-lipped mouth was twisted into a leer of +contempt. The small pointed ears twitched nervously. In his hand there +was the branch of an oak all clustered with leaves and acorns. + +"'So you would remain here,' said the Faun in a preternatural, highly +pitched voice which had the sound of the wind in the tree-tops, 'and +count your weary beads?... You--you would do good to man,'" he smiled. + +"'I would, my brother,' came the reply in a quiet, even tone, yet +compassionate withal. + +"'Ah! Out with you,' fairly shouted the Faun, 'you are no brother of +mine! I--I,' he laughed shrilly, 'am brother to the trees, to the +hills, to the river, to the old god Pan, but never-- + +"'Ah,' he cried, changing his tone to one of gentle pleading not unlike +a summer's breeze on the river, 'come! Come with me where the wild thyme +grows, where the rhododendron climbs the mountainside with sinuous +grace, where the lusty trout leap out of their clear course from sheer +joy of living! Come with me to the dingle where my cousin the gipsy +camps o' night. Where their maidens frolic in enticing nakedness in the +streams and the old crones chant their witches' songs. Come where men +are brave and strong and virile like my sire, the oak. Come where the +berries shall stain your mouth with gladness; the frolicsome squirrel +shall call you comrade; the fairies and elves, even the goblins of hell, +shall dance about you in moonlit revels; the great-limbed satyrs shall +teach you their bacchanalian bouts; while with amorous-breasted dryads +you will discover the delectable madness of passion.... You shall roam +the wide earth--free, alive, with love and an open heart! Come!' + +"At this the priest stood, and anger lit his face. The resemblance +between them was now more marked. + +"'Come with me, brother to Pan,' cried he. 'Come into the house of the +poor, the broken of spirit, the conquered, the beaten, the hopeless who +have fallen in the battle! Come into the house of death, of shame, of +ignominy. Come into the hovels of wretched, diseased hearts and leprous +souls! Come where children are born into crime, and the breasts of +mothers secrete the poisonous milk of lust! Come where all of the misery +of hell reigns, brutalizing, dwarfing, killing the souls of men. Come +and let your slender Faun's fingers bring hope and health and +opportunity.... Come?' + +"Thus they struggled, the Faun and the Priest, threatening, pleading, +defying. Sometime the Faun fled to his greenwood; often the Priest to +his people. Rarely, as if they would effect a compromise, did they go +together: the Priest gladly to the hills; the Faun with terror into +town. And to-day they yet wrangle. + +"I have wondered in my heart, Nance, which one of them would win." + +"It is when they go together, first to the dingle, then to the street, +that I like them best. That comes nearest to the way of solution," she +said, with a smile as comprehending as it was sympathetic. + +"The Priest must come to nature; the Faun, at least occasionally, to +town. May not old Pan with his pipes be the brother of the Man with the +heart of God?" she asked. + +"I have given a great deal of time to living, Nance, and little enough +to thinking, but I feel that you speak the truth." + + * * * * * + +An hour later Monsieur l'Abbe, dreaming of France with her sunny fields, +her morning roads, and happy village streets, discovered a boy fishing +by a merry little stream. + +"Do you live here?" questioned Monsieur Picot, indicating the town near +by. + +"Yes," returned the boy, "I live when I am here," meaning the river and +the hills, "but I stay in the town. I know it is natural to live in the +fields.... Was it not queer that the good God should make that which is +right so different from that which is natural?" + +"But the good God did not, my son," replied the priest. + +"Are you sure, sir? My master thinks He did." + +"Your master is wrong, my lad.... Tell me, your face seems familiar to +me," said the Abbe, "have I ever seen you before?" + +"You have," replied the boy; "I am your soul." + +And Monsieur l'Abbe smiled in his sleep. + + + + +CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE + +MONSIEUR L'ABBE PICOT GOES UPON A JOURNEY + + +As Monsieur l'Abbe Picot's illness grew and he became largely +unconscious as to what was going on about him, the more closely Nance +confined herself to nursing. Because of many urgent calls I was forced +to be away from them more than I liked, but old Doctor Longstreet spent +many hours of each day reading in the library, adjoining the bedroom, in +case he should be needed. But dear little Nance, whose face became thin +and whose eyes grew large with watching, scarcely left her patient. + +Then there came the day when old Prosper went across the river in a +small skiff to a neighboring city a few miles away, returning two hours +later with the parish priest. He was an old man of delicate frame, with +the thoughtful, patient cast of countenance of the student. After the +confession, upon his return to the library, his face wore a very gentle +and peaceful expression. I have wondered at the strange words he must +have heard. He came from a charge whose sins were doubtless exceedingly +commonplace. Was there any rare and startling tale stirring his heart? +What were the struggles and experiences of the soul of this adventurous +brother of St. Francis of Assisi? If there was anything to startle, it +could be guessed only from the preoccupied manner in which he sat +looking into the fire with eyes which, when you caught them, were +brimming with wonder and with tears. The three of us, though no words +were then or ever spoken, shared with profound sympathy a common sorrow, +which we alone fully understood. + +"I shall remain with you," he said. We nodded our approval, his being +the only words spoken. + +All night long we kept a prayerful vigil beside the troubled bed of +Monsieur l'Abbe. For hours I leaned above him in the darkened room, lit +only by the firelight, giving him what assistance and relief lay in my +power. Nance, at the east window, gazed out into the impenetrable +darkness. For hours at a time she stood and looked as into space and +without so much as moving. Now and then she came to my side and raised +questioning eyes to my face. Upon shaking my head she would return to +her place, like a sentinel upon duty. At last, when the gray dawn shone +ghastly and ugly over the snow-covered landscape, my patient appeared to +grow easier and from a restless suffering night he sank into a very +gentle sleep. I closed the curtains about his bed and, stealing softly +across the floor, stood beside Nance. + +The day was breaking. Together we stood and watched the sky turn from +its sickly pallor of many weeks' duration into wonderful shades of gold +and then to glorious crimson. All of the east was streaked with red. +Together we watched the winter's sun peep over the edge of the world and +restore the hope of the land with a smile. Together we stood and +watched and waited while the Master painted. Unconscious of anything but +the present need of the heart, forgetful of anything which now lay +eternally behind, I tenderly placed my arm about her, and Nance, with +the sob of a grief-stricken child, laid her weary head upon my breast. +The sunlight from over the hills and the river burst into the room like +an irresponsible, happy youth and flooded it with light. + +"I shall need you very much now, dear," she said simply. Suddenly from +the bed we heard him call: + +"My children!" + +We hastened to his side and drew the curtains. + +"The sun!" exclaimed he. "I own the sun," he smiled at me. + +Then for a moment he caressed it and seemed to drink in its life and +beauty as it shone in lusty splendor upon his counterpane. + +"Will you place some pillows behind me?" he requested. + +"Now, that will do. Thank you, my dear-a," he smiled feebly at Nance, +who had deftly arranged him so that he half-way sat up. + +"Ah, my little jade, I'm off for the long, white highway.... My +children, yours is the old home-- + +"Do not interrupt me!" he exclaimed. "I must speak now, for they are +waiting, for me.... The old house, the old Prosper, the books, and my +pleasant ghosts--I shall leave them and yet take them, that being a +special privilege allowed choice spirits--all, all yours, my dears.... +As for me," here he smiled in an old familiar whimsical way, "I'm off +for Paradise!" + +Nance fell sobbing to her knees and buried her face in her hands. + +"What," he cried, with unnatural strength, accompanied by flights of +fantasy, "have you not heard me say, many's the time, that when I should +come to die--" + +He stopped long enough to place a hand upon the head of the kneeling +girl. + +"Ah, Nance, the word must not hurt you.... When I should come to die," +he continued, "I hoped to find myself, on passing, in a certain little +house in the Rue St. Jacques, with Rogue and Columbine waiting at the +door while the good angel would be saying, 'Monsieur Picot, my +compliments.... Here, my dear Monsieur, there are no poor, no sick, no +broken-hearted. There is nothing at all to be done--no task for the +little Abbe of the Church of the Street. Take your blessed caravan and +follow _le long trimard_ of your heart's desire.... I--I, eternal +Wayfarer, am Death, and this--this is Paradise.' + +"Au revoir, my son.... Au revoir, my daughter.... I'm off--off for +France!" Here he seemed to gather a moment's strength.... He attempted +to sing: + + "'Will you buy any tape, + Any lace for----for----' + +"I'm off, my dear-a, for Picardy, for beautiful Amiens, Rouen, to black +Rennes, for dear old Paris, for the road from Lille to Dunkerque." + +Here his voice grew faint and it was with an effort he whispered: + +"Sometimes, my dear-a, come here to the green and watch for me as of +old.... Who knows? Who knows, my children? Perhaps I shall be gone +forever and a day.... Perhaps," and he rose from his pillows, +"perhaps--au revoir-- + +"Rogue, you sacre pig of a zebra, home.... Home!" + +And Monsieur l'Abbe Jacques Picot had gone upon his journey. + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE GOLDEN ROAD*** + + +******* This file should be named 35509.txt or 35509.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/3/5/5/0/35509 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. 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