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diff --git a/old/64110-h/64110-h.htm b/old/64110-h/64110-h.htm deleted file mode 100644 index b75a0e4..0000000 --- a/old/64110-h/64110-h.htm +++ /dev/null @@ -1,12149 +0,0 @@ -<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" - "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> -<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> - <head> - <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=utf-8" /> - <meta http-equiv="Content-Style-Type" content="text/css" /> - <title> - The Project Gutenberg eBook of At the Sign of the Fox, by Barbara. - </title> - - <link rel="coverpage" href="images/cover.jpg" /> - -<style type="text/css"> - -a { - text-decoration: none; -} - -body { - margin-left: 10%; - margin-right: 10%; -} - -h1,h2 { - text-align: center; - clear: both; -} - -h2.nobreak { - page-break-before: avoid; -} - -hr { - margin-top: 2em; - margin-bottom: 2em; - clear: both; -} - -hr.tb { - width: 45%; - margin-left: 27.5%; - margin-right: 27.5%; -} - -hr.chap { - width: 65%; - margin-left: 17.5%; - margin-right: 17.5%; -} - -div.chapter { - page-break-before: always; -} - -p { - margin-top: 0.5em; - text-align: justify; - margin-bottom: 0.5em; - text-indent: 1em; -} - -table { - margin: 1em auto 1em auto; - max-width: 40em; - border-collapse: collapse; -} - -td { - padding-left: 2.25em; - padding-right: 0.25em; - vertical-align: top; - text-indent: -2em; -} - -.nw { - white-space: nowrap; -} - -.tdr { - text-align: right; -} - -.tdpg { - vertical-align: bottom; - text-align: right; -} - -.blockquote { - margin: 1.5em 10%; -} - -.center { - text-align: center; - text-indent: 0em; -} - -.figcenter { - margin: auto; - text-align: center; -} - -.larger { - font-size: 150%; -} - -.noindent { - text-indent: 0em; -} - -.pagenum { - position: absolute; - right: 4%; - font-size: smaller; - text-align: right; - font-style: normal; -} - -.poetry-container { - text-align: center; - margin: 1em; -} - -.poetry { - display: inline-block; - text-align: left; -} - -.poetry .stanza { - margin: 1em 0em 1em 0em; -} - -.poetry .verse { - padding-left: 3em; -} - -.poetry .indent0 { - text-indent: -3em; -} - -.poetry .indent2 { - text-indent: -2em; -} - -.poetry .indent6 { - text-indent: 0em; -} - -.poetry .indent18 { - text-indent: 6em; -} - -.right { - text-align: right; - margin-right: 1em; -} - -.smaller { - font-size: 80%; -} - -.smcap { - font-variant: small-caps; - font-style: normal; -} - -.titlepage { - text-align: center; - margin-top: 3em; - text-indent: 0em; -} - -@media handheld { - -img { - max-width: 100%; - width: auto; - height: auto; -} - -.poetry { - display: block; - margin-left: 1.5em; -} - -.blockquote { - margin: 1.5em 5%; -} -} - </style> - </head> -<body> -<div style='text-align:center; font-size:1.2em; font-weight:bold;'>The Project Gutenberg eBook of At the Sign of the Fox, by Mabel Osgood Wright</div> -<div style='display:block;margin:1em 0'> -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and -most other parts of the world 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 <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. If you -are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the -country where you are located before using this eBook. -</div> -<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Title: At the Sign of the Fox</div> -<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>A Romance</div> -<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Author: Mabel Osgood Wright</div> -<div style='display:block;margin:1em 0'>Release Date: December 22, 2020 [eBook #64110]</div> -<div style='display:block;margin:1em 0'>Language: English</div> -<div style='display:block;margin:1em 0'>Character set encoding: UTF-8</div> -<div style='display:block; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Produced by: D A Alexander and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive)</div> -<div style='margin-top:2em;margin-bottom:4em'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AT THE SIGN OF THE FOX ***</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_i"></a>[i]</span></p> - -<p class="center larger">AT THE SIGN OF THE FOX</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_ii"></a>[ii]</span></p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_iii"></a>[iii]</span></p> - -<p class="titlepage larger">AT THE SIGN OF<br /> -THE FOX</p> - -<p class="center larger"><i>A Romance</i></p> - -<p class="titlepage"><span class="smaller">BY</span><br /> -BARBARA</p> - -<p class="center smaller">AUTHOR OF “THE GARDEN OF A COMMUTER’S WIFE,”<br /> -“PEOPLE OF THE WHIRLPOOL,” AND<br /> -“THE WOMAN ERRANT”</p> - -<p class="titlepage">NEW YORK<br /> -HURST & CO.<br /> -PUBLISHERS</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_iv"></a>[iv]</span></p> - -<p class="titlepage smaller"><span class="smcap">Copyright, 1905,<br /> -By THE MACMILLAN COMPANY.</span></p> - -<p class="center smaller">Set up and electrotyped. Published July, 1905.<br /> -Reprinted August, September, December, 1905;<br /> -March, 1912.</p> - -<p class="titlepage smaller">Norwood Press<br /> -J. S. Cushing & Co.—Berwick & Smith Co.<br /> -Norwood, Mass., U.S.A.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_v"></a>[v]</span></p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_vi"></a>[vi]</span></p> - -<p class="center larger">This Book is for the Brave</p> - -<div class="figcenter" style="width: 50px;"> -<img src="images/i_openpoem.jpg" width="50" height="50" alt="" /> -</div> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">PRATE NOT TO ME OF WEAKLINGS, WHO</div> - <div class="verse indent2">LAMENT THIS LIFE AND NOUGHT ACHIEVE,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I HYMN THE VAST AND VALIANT CREW</div> - <div class="verse indent2">OF THOSE WHO HAVE SCANT TIME TO GRIEVE,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">FIRM SET THEIR FORTUNES TO RETRIEVE,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">THEY SING FOR LUCK A LUSTY STAVE,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">THE WORLD’S STANCH WORKERS, BY YOUR LEAVE—</div> - <div class="verse indent2">THIS IS THE BALLADE OF THE BRAVE!</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse right smaller">—RICHARD BURTON.</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<div class="figcenter" style="width: 50px;"> -<img src="images/i_openpoem.jpg" width="50" height="50" alt="" /> -</div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_vii"></a>[vii]</span></p> - -<h2 class="nobreak">CONTENTS</h2> - -</div> - -<table summary="Contents"> - <tr> - <td class="tdr smaller">CHAPTER</td> - <td></td> - <td class="tdpg smaller">PAGE</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdr">I.</td> - <td><span class="smcap">The River Kingdom</span></td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#CHAPTER_I">1</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdr">II.</td> - <td><span class="smcap">A Belated First Cause</span></td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#CHAPTER_II">13</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdr">III.</td> - <td><span class="smcap">The Decision of Miss Keith</span></td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#CHAPTER_III">25</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdr">IV.</td> - <td><span class="smcap">Interlude</span></td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#CHAPTER_IV">37</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdr">V.</td> - <td><span class="smcap">A Picture</span></td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#CHAPTER_V">49</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdr">VI.</td> - <td><span class="smcap">The Lawtons</span></td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#CHAPTER_VI">64</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdr">VII.</td> - <td><span class="smcap">The Day After</span></td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#CHAPTER_VII">84</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdr">VIII.</td> - <td><span class="smcap">Transition</span></td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#CHAPTER_VIII">101</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdr">IX.</td> - <td><span class="smcap">The Return</span></td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#CHAPTER_IX">125</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdr">X.</td> - <td><span class="smcap">Tatters transfers Himself</span></td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#CHAPTER_X">144</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdr">XI.</td> - <td><span class="smcap">Bread</span></td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#CHAPTER_XI">170</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdr">XII.</td> - <td><span class="smcap">Revelation</span></td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#CHAPTER_XII">195</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdr">XIII.</td> - <td><span class="smcap">At the Sign of the Fox</span></td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#CHAPTER_XIII">219</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdr">XIV.</td> - <td><span class="smcap">The Unexpected Happens</span></td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#CHAPTER_XIV">243</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdr">XV.</td> - <td><span class="smcap">A Masque of Spring</span></td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#CHAPTER_XV">263</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdr">XVI.</td> - <td><span class="smcap">The Way the Wind Blew</span></td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#CHAPTER_XVI">282</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdr">XVII.</td> - <td><span class="smcap">Locks and Keys</span></td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#CHAPTER_XVII">302</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdr">XVIII.</td> - <td><span class="smcap">The Return of Memory</span></td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#CHAPTER_XVIII">324</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdr">XIX.</td> - <td><span class="smcap">Setters of Snares</span></td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#CHAPTER_XIX">342</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdr">XX.</td> - <td><span class="smcap">Fire of Leaves</span></td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#CHAPTER_XX">362</a></td> - </tr> -</table> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_viii"></a>[viii]</span></p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_ix"></a>[ix]</span></p> - -<h2 class="nobreak">THE PEOPLE</h2> - -</div> - -<table summary="A list of the characters in the book"> - <tr> - <td class="nw"><span class="smcap">Brooke Lawton</span></td> - <td>A Young Woman of To-day, who sees Things as they might be.</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="nw"><span class="smcap">Adam Lawton</span></td> - <td>Her Father, a Country-bred New Yorker of Affairs.</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="nw"><span class="smcap">Pamela Lawton</span></td> - <td>Her Mother, a Brooke of Virginia.</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="nw"><span class="smcap">Adam the Cub</span></td> - <td>Her Brother, at the Difficult Age of Sixteen.</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="nw"><span class="smcap">Keith West</span></td> - <td>Adam Lawton’s Maternal Cousin, who stayed at Home.</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="nw"><span class="smcap">Lucy Dean</span></td> - <td>Brooke’s Friend, who sees Things as they are.</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="nw"><span class="smcap">Mrs. Enoch Fenton</span></td> - <td>A Cheerful Cripple.</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="nw"><span class="smcap">Silent Stead</span></td> - <td>Sportsman and Misanthrope.</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="nw"><span class="smcap">Marte Lorenz</span></td> - <td>Idealist and Artist.</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="nw"><span class="smcap">Tom Brownell</span></td> - <td>Engaged in climbing the Ladder of Journalism from the Bottom Rung.</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="nw"><span class="smcap">Henry Maarten</span></td> - <td>A Farm Hand working on Shares.</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="nw"><span class="smcap">Dr. Richard Russell</span></td> - <td>Of Oaklands, Friend of Stead and the Lawtons, and Confidant-general of the County.</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="nw"><span class="smcap">The Pieman</span></td> - <td>A Travelling Optimist.</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="nw"><span class="smcap">Tatters</span></td> - <td>A Person, though disguised as an Old Collie Dog.</td> - </tr> -</table> - -<p class="center">The Usual Critic’s Chorus, composed of Citizens, Villagers, Male and -Female, Commonplace, Eccentric, or Otherwise.</p> - -<p class="center"><span class="smcap">Time</span></p> - -<p class="center">The Present Century.</p> - -<p class="center"><span class="smcap">Place</span></p> - -<p class="center">Manhattan and the Hill Country of the Moosatuk.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_1"></a>[1]</span></p> - -<h1>AT THE SIGN OF THE FOX</h1> - -<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_I">CHAPTER I<br /> -<span class="smaller">THE RIVER KINGDOM</span></h2> - -</div> - -<p>Robert Stead and Dr. Russell, clad for hunting, -tramped down a pent road through the woodland and -halted at the bars that separated it from the highway.</p> - -<p>Like careful woodsmen, they made sure that their -guns were at half-cock before resting them against the -tumble-down wall; pulling out pipe and tobacco pouch, -they filled and fingered the smooth bowls with the deliberation -that is akin to restfulness. Then, face to windward, -they applied the match and drew the few rapid -puffs that kindle the charmed fire, and leaning on the -top rail, looked down the slope to where the river, broad -and tranquil as it passed, narrowed and grew more elusive -as the eye traced it toward its starting-point in the -north country many miles away.</p> - -<p>For more than a hundred miles between its throne in -the hill country and the sea travels the Moosatuk, and -all the land through which it passes is its kingdom. -What its stern mood was in the ancient days when as<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_2"></a>[2]</span> -an ice-floe, maybe, it tore a pathway through the granite -hills, fortressing them with splintered slabs and tossing -huge boulders from its course, man may but guess; but -to-day a wild thing, half tamed, it obeys while it still -compels. Above, below, confined by dams, it does the -will of man; and yet, flow where it will, man follows, -with his mills, his factories, his railways, until, by spreading -into shallows, it half eludes his greed. For twenty -sinuous miles it follows a free, sunlit course, now running -swift and lapping the banks of little islands wooded -with hemlocks, now stretching itself on the smooth pebbles -until it tempts the unwary to the crossing on a -bridge of stepping-stones. For all this space the ferns -and wood flowers stoop from the slanting banks to -snatch its lingering kisses, the wood folk drink from it, -the wild fowl sleep on it, and its waters bear no heavier -responsibility or weight than driftwood or the duck -boat, that steals silently forth, a shadow in the morning -twilight, like the Mohican canoes that a mere century -ago plied the selfsame waters.</p> - -<p>Such is the Moosatuk where it passes Gilead, a -peaceful village halfway between Stonebridge and -Gordon, with its farmsteads filling the fertile river -valley and climbing up the hillside as if to shun railways, -until from below the topmost are lost in the trees, -like the aeries of some furtive hawk or owl of the woods. -This was the scene which lay below the hunters as they<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_3"></a>[3]</span> -paused to rest in the October noon glow before returning -to Stead’s lodge on top of Windy Hill.</p> - -<p>For a little space neither man spoke. In fact, the -last mile of their walk had passed in silence save for -the occasional smothered exclamation of the younger -hunter, when he came upon a snare, now and then, -and broke it. Even the dry leaves lay untouched in -their tracks, for the foot of a woodsman seems instinctively -to avoid the dead twig and leaf-filled rut.</p> - -<p>The dogs, two brown-eyed, mobile Gordon setters, -well understanding that the signal of stacked arms and -the smell of tobacco meant that the day’s work was -over, started unchidden on a private hunting-trip, nosing -about through the ground-pine and frost-bleached -lady-ferns, and paused with tails swinging in wide -circles before a great patch of glossy wintergreen, -where a ruffed grouse or shy Bob-white had doubtless -made his breakfast on the pungent scarlet berries. -Out in the little-used highway, October, herself an -Indian in her colour schemes, had set her loom in the -grass-divided wheel tracks, a loom of many strands, -wherein she wove a careful tapestry of russet, bronze, -crimson, gold, and ruby from leaf of beech, sumach, oak, -pepperidge, chestnut, birch, and purpling dogwood, -only to drop it as a rug for hoof tracks or fling it aloft -at random, a bit of gracious drapery for the too stern -granite.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_4"></a>[4]</span></p> - -<p>Between these two men, neither young, as often happens -between close friends of either sex, silence did not -come from lack of mutual understanding. It is only -the machine-made or undeveloped brain that mistakes -garrulity for companionship and casts the blight of -motiveless chatter upon the precious gift of silent hours, -wherein the soul may learn to know itself.</p> - -<p>More than fifteen years divided their ages, and their -temperaments were wider still apart; you could judge -this even from trifles, as the shape of their pipes and -the way in which they held and smoked them.</p> - -<p>Robert Stead, turning fifty, tall and well knit, had -heavy, matted brown hair, beard cut close, and impenetrable -eyes, whose colour no one could tell offhand, -any more than he might read the meaning of the mustache-hid -mouth. His firm walk and clear skin told -of strength and present outdoor life; his slightly rounded -shoulders spoke either of past indoor hours or the resistless, -flinching attitude where a man ceases to face the -storms of life with chest thrown out and head erect as if -to say to warring elements—“See, I am ready; come -and do your worst!” “Silent Stead” people hereabout -called him from his taciturnity, and he either held his -short brier close against his lips and puffed between -tightly clinched teeth, as if pulling against time, or in the -revulsion let the flame die out until, forgotten, the pipe -hung cold, bitter, and noisome between his lips.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_5"></a>[5]</span></p> - -<p>Dr. Russell’s pipe, a plain meerschaum of moderate -length, held with light firmness, was smoked deliberately -as something that soothed yet held in no thrall, and -when its first sweetness passed, with a sharp, cleansing -rap, he returned the pipe to his pocket. Though in the -later sixties, the doctor radiated all the hope of youth. -One realized that his was a face to trust, even before -compassing its details; the easy turn of his shapely, -well-poised head, with its closely cut hair blended of -steel and silver, every glance of his searching gray eyes, -that looked frankly from under eyebrows that were still -black, conveyed both comprehension and sympathy. -His nose was straight and not too long, and the thin -nostrils quivered with all the sensitiveness of a highly -strung horse, while the mouth was saved from the sternness -to which the firm chin seemed to pledge it by a -drooping of the corners that told of a keen sense of -humour. In stature he was of medium height, but his -shoulders were still squared to the burdens of life, and -his erect carriage made him appear tall; but, after all, -the secret of his youth lay in a quality of mind, the very -quality that the younger man lacked—his steadfast -faith and confidence in his fellow-men; this had lasted -undaunted by disappointment during the forty years -and more that he had held to them the closest, wisest, -and most blessed of human ministries—that of the -good physician.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_6"></a>[6]</span></p> - -<p>The doctor’s pipe grew cold, and placing it in one of -the deep pockets of his jacket, he fumbled in the other -as he turned to his companion, saying: “Was I not -right, Rob? Give the city boys, with their automobiles -and pretty clothes, and the trolley-car hunters, the -first two weeks of October in which to moult their fine -feathers, ruin their firearms and dispositions, and decide -that the Moosatuk has been overhunted, and we may -have the rest of open season to ourselves without danger -when crossing a brush lot in broad daylight of being -mistaken for wild turkeys or what not. It is the eighteenth -to-day. We’ve tramped good twenty miles since -daybreak, and whom have we met? A woman looking -for cows, two men stacking slab sides, and some school -children on the cross-road, while we’ve had our fill of air -unpeppered by small shot, this glorious view at every -curve and through every gap, and,” freeing his pocket, -“a brace of grouse, another of quail, and three woodcock -as an excuse for our outing, in the eyes of those who -insist that excuses, aside from the desire, must be made -for every act.</p> - -<p>“Strange, perhaps, that the killing and hunting lust -should be an excuse. I often feel like begging pardon -of these little hunched-up feathered things; but in spite -of humanitarian principles, I somehow fear that we are -growing too nice, and when the hunting fever dies out -wholly, something vital is lacking in a man.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_7"></a>[7]</span></p> - -<p>“Hunting fever or not,” replied Stead, kicking a decaying -log at his feet into dust, “I’d rather the woods -were full of visible men with guns than invisible snares. -Do you know that I have broken thirty or more this -morning? Some day these setters of snares and I shall -meet, and there will be trouble; it seems that I am destined -always to war with the intangible.” Then he -spread his game on the fence, and though it outranked -the doctor’s spoils, he seemed to take no pleasure in it, -but still looked moodily across the river.</p> - -<p>“Ah, Rob, Rob,” said the doctor, throwing his arm -affectionately about the shoulder of the taller man, who -leaned heavily on the fence-top, “will your mood never -change? Can you not forgive and at least play bravely -at forgetting?</p> - -<p>“It is ten years—no, eleven—since your child whom -I tended died and Helen left you, or you her, whichever -way you choose to put it. The why of it all you have -never deemed best to tell, and I have never asked, trusting -your manhood. She led her own life then for the -four years she lived. I have managed to see you every -year since, in spite of the drifting life your profession -forced upon you. And since the railway’s completion, -when you settled here, I’ve spent a week of my holiday -each autumn with you, hoping to see a change, believing -you would waken and live your life out instead of moping -it away. But no! Your work and old comrades<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_8"></a>[8]</span> -need you, and you still refuse. What is it, Rob? Life -seems so good to me with the threescore and ten in plain -sight that I cannot bear to see it playing through your -fingers at fifty.</p> - -<p>“Love may be gone, or clouded, let us say, but there -is always work, and work is glorious! Get out of your -own shadow, man, and let the sun pass. It is with you -as <i>The Allegorist</i> says:—</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">“‘One looked into the cup of life,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">And let his shadow fall athwart;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The wine gleamed darkly in the cup—</div> - <div class="verse indent2">It surely was of bitter sort.’”</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<p>Stead withdrew his gaze from the river and turned it -on the face of his companion.</p> - -<p>“I know it all, doctor, and much more than you can -say. I know you’ve clung to me when no one else would -trouble, and that you drive all those forty miles from -home every autumn, rain or shine, to tramp the woods -with me, to sit beside my fire and give me comfort, and -yet—— Do you remember the old adage, that ‘Life -without work is water in a sieve’? but in the antiphon -lies the sting, ‘Work without motive cannot live.’ It is -motive that is dead in me. I think I have forgiven, I -delude myself if I say I have forgotten, but, good God, -doctor, can you imagine sitting and feeling yourself as -useless as water in a sieve and <i>not caring</i>? That is my -misery. If I could only really care, heart and soul, for<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_9"></a>[9]</span> -anything for one short month, I would give the rest of -my life for it.</p> - -<p>“I have not even the primal motive of hunger that -sets the wolf a-prowling. The few yearly thousands my -father left me have put that chance away, and my contempt -for that form of cowardice precludes suicide. So -I have actually come to be what passes current for content, -with every one but you. Here I am, located for -life on the hillside, with only half-breed José left of -what was, with my books, which can neither dissemble -nor betray, for company, and so long as I have food I -shall have dog friends to follow me by day and sleep -by me at night. Then, as long as eyesight lasts, there -is my River Kingdom,” and Stead stretched his arms, -half to relax their tension, toward the silver fillet shimmering -in the valley below, in which at that moment -some white gulls, with black-tipped wings, hanging in -the skylike clouds, were mirrored.</p> - -<p>Then, giving a nervous, mirthless laugh, he whistled -to the dogs, and as if led to speak of himself too much, -he turned to action, and vaulting over the bars with but -a hand touch, trailed his feet through rifts of glowing -leaves, and reaching backward for his gun, said lightly, -“Who was it, by the way, that christened this region -The River Kingdom? Was it your daughter?”</p> - -<p>“No, it was not Barbara,” said the doctor, crossing -the bars, but more sedately, his cheery temper relieved<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_10"></a>[10]</span> -at the change of theme. “It was Brooke Lawton, a -cousin or niece or some such kin of Miss Keith West—a -lovable child, full of both romance and common sense. -Her father, Adam Lawton, whom you must have met in -your capacity as a civil engineer, for he has floated many -railway schemes, was born here in Gilead in the West -homestead, his mother being of that family. Though -he never comes here, and all the kin but Keith, a first -cousin, are dead, some slight sentiment binds him to -the past, and he has kept the little farm abreast of all -improvements and leaves Keith in charge. A few years -ago Brooke, his elder child and only daughter, recovering -from an illness, came up and spent the autumn; -and I, being here for the shooting and knowing Keith -well, for she and my sister Lot were schoolmates at -Mt. Holyoke long ago, was called to see her several -times.</p> - -<p>“But there was little that I could do for her,—indomitable -pluck and dauntless spirits were her best -medicine. Well I remember one gray, cold day, the -last of her stay, I found Miss Keith in some alarm about -her, as the child had gone out on foot over two hours -before.</p> - -<p>“As we stood consulting in the porch, a slim, gray-coated -figure, with soft brown hair flying like a gypsy’s, -arms full of autumn leaves and berries, came swiftly -down the lane between house and wood, and throwing<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_11"></a>[11]</span> -her load on the steps, gazed at it in a sort of ecstasy, from -which she waked only at Miss Keith’s words of chiding.</p> - -<p>“‘I—lost?’ she queried, straightening her thick -eyebrows into an expression of incredulity, ‘why, Cousin -Keith, I’ve only been to my River Kingdom collecting -tribute, but when I’m grown up and do as I please, I’m -coming back here to reign and have the wild flowers -bow to me when I pass and the little wood beasts follow -me in procession.’</p> - -<p>“I must have told you of it at the time, for I was stopping -with you. Yes, it was Brooke Lawton who -christened the River Kingdom,—but she never returned, -and I heard indirectly that she had gone abroad -to study art. Come to think of it, she must be a grown -woman now, at the rate time goes. All of which reminds -me that I sent word that I would go to Miss -Keith’s to-day; she wants counsel of some sort, about -what I could not even surmise from her letter. As she -is one of the good middle-aged women who always -wish excuses made for every act, I will take her these -grouse as an apology and tangible explanation as to my -clothes and gun, and as she always insists that I should -take a meal with her, you will not see me until supper-time. -If you will tell José to dress and split the quail, -I myself will broil them over the wood coals in your den, -spitted on hickory forks. Metal should never touch -wild fowl, but you of the younger generation do so<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_12"></a>[12]</span> -grudge trouble and seem to have no capacity for detail,” -and, half chiding, half laughing, Dr. Russell shouldered -his beloved gun, picked up the grouse, smoothed the -rumpled ruff of the cock bird, and started on the mile -walk downhill to the West homestead, whistling.</p> - -<p>Robert Stead looked after him a moment, and then, -calling the dogs to heel, started up the hillside in an opposite -direction. Before him for a single instant stood -the form of the young girl of the River Kingdom, as Dr. -Russell had portrayed her, with arms full of gay leaves -and vines that she had stripped from the hedges as she -went, but as he reached her she vanished, and turning -toward the river itself, he was half surprised to find it -still moving as ceaselessly as ever. Love had mocked -him long ago and motive eluded him, but the dog at his -side touched his fingers with caressing tongue, and the -River Kingdom still remained.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_13"></a>[13]</span></p> - -<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_II">CHAPTER II<br /> -<span class="smaller">A BELATED FIRST CAUSE</span></h2> - -</div> - -<p>The West farm was on the upper of the two roads -between Stonebridge and Gordon, at the point where a -steep uphill grade paused, on a plateau of several hundred -feet in length, as if to rest and take breath and -allow those who travelled upon it to drink in the splendour -of the river view before attempting the still steeper -ascent beyond.</p> - -<p>Three generations of Wests had lived from this farm -until, some forty years before, its hundred acres being -all too small for the needs of modern push and life, the -last young male of the family, a man of twenty odd, of -tenacious mixed Scotch and New England stock, had -gone to New York to follow a quicker game of dollars.</p> - -<p>In due course, when Adam Lawton’s parents died, -his mother having been a West and the homestead her -portion, he found himself absorbed in the beginnings of -money-making, yet somewhere in him was a deep-buried -sentiment for his boyhood’s home, stern though the life -and discipline had been, and even though he found no -leisure to revisit it. He therefore had installed his maternal -cousin Keith in it as guardian, paying the taxes<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_14"></a>[14]</span> -and for such improvements and repairs as kept it -apace with the times. Then he promptly forgot it, -except on pay days, when he justified himself to himself, -the Scotch thrift in him insisting on justification, -for the comparatively slight outlay, by saying half -aloud to his private secretary, who did the forwarding, -“A snug little place, and always worth a price; my -daughter fancies it, and perhaps some day, who knows, -I may like to go back there for a rest.”</p> - -<p>Thus it followed that Miss Keith and the farm had -lived together for twenty years a life of almost wedded -devotion. The sheep had disappeared from the hills, -it is true, and four cows, a fat horse, and countless -chickens and ducks represented the live stock. The -cultivated ground had been reduced to a great corn-field, -a potato patch, and vegetable garden, on whose borders -grew fruits of all seasons, the rest of the land being sown -down to rye or hay, while the woodland that protected -the house on the north and east, being only required to -yield kindlings, had returned to the beauty of a forest -primeval, with a dense growth of oak, white pine, and -hemlock, underspread with untrodden ferns, amid -which, following the seasons’ call, blossomed arbutus, -anemones, moccasin flowers, snow crystal Indian pipe, -and partridge vine.</p> - -<p>Now, for the first time in all these years, Miss Keith -was faltering in her single-hearted allegiance, and this<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_15"></a>[15]</span> -upheaval coming on her fiftieth birthday, too, gave it a -double significance. At fifty one’s ideas and person -are supposed to be settled for life, but with Miss Keith -her semi-centennial was the first occasion upon which -she ever remembered to have felt thoroughly unsettled, -and as she stood in front of the parlour mantel-shelf, -arms akimbo, gazing at the <i>First Cause</i>, that rested -against the wall between the fat clock and a blue china -vase filled with quaking grass, she alternately frowned -and smiled.</p> - -<p>This First Cause was the highly finished cabinet -photograph of a man, coupled with a suggestion of marriage -contained in a letter, the edge of the pale blue -envelope containing which peeped from under the garrulous -little clock that ticked vociferously the twenty-four -hours through, and gave an alarming whir-r, -suggestive of asthma in the depths of its chest, before -striking every quarter and half, and mumbled a long -grace before the hours.</p> - -<p>The photograph was of a man past fifty, with a -good head, large, wide-open eyes, and a broad nose that -might mean either stupidity or a sense of humour, according -as to how the nostrils moved in life. Very little -else could be said of the face, for mustache and beard -covered it closely, running up before the ears to meet a -curly mop of hair that roofed the head. It was an -attractive face at first glance, and the low, turned-over<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_16"></a>[16]</span> -collar, flowing tie that was barely hinted at beneath the -beard, and loose sack-coat carried out the suggestion of -strength, that was continued to where a pair of powerful -hands, whose fingers rested together easily tip to tip, -completed the picture.</p> - -<p>Picture and letter had arrived three days before, and -yet the answer to the latter lay in process of construction -upon the flap of the old-fashioned bookcase in the window -corner. Perhaps the cause for the delay was more -in the fact that both picture and letter, though relating -to the First Cause, had not come directly from him, but -from his sister. She had been a school friend of Miss -Keith’s, who occasionally came to visit her and who -was now living in Boston, having become the third wife -of some one connected in a humble capacity with a free -library in the city where the State-house dome seeks to -rival Minerva’s helmet, and whose streets ever coil in -and out as if in classic emulation of Medusa’s locks.</p> - -<p>Taking the letter from under the clock, Miss Keith -went to the window and re-read it for the twentieth time.</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p class="right">“October 10, 19—.</p> - -<p class="noindent">“<span class="smcap">My dear Friend</span>:</p> - -<p>“It is only during the past year, since I have been living -within reach and under the privilege and influence -of all that is inspiring to one of my aspirations, that -I have realized how lonely your life must be upon<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_17"></a>[17]</span> -that farm, where your only intimate associates are -animals, feathered and otherwise, and evening, instead -of becoming as it is with me the period of self-culture -in the society of a loyal male companion, is too often a -period of premature somnolence and apathy.</p> - -<p>“Until now I have seen no method of escape to offer -you, and so have held my peace. Two weeks ago, however, -fortune smiled through a letter from my brother, -James White, out in Wisconsin. You must remember -James—the handsome man with curly hair who waited -on Jane Tilley when we were at Mt. Holyoke, until she -jilted him for William Parsons. He got over it nobly, -though, and brought us paper flower bouquets the day -we graduated. Mine was of red and white roses, and -yours was all white. Surely you will remember—he -said you looked ‘quite smart enough for a bride.’</p> - -<p>“Well, you <i>were</i> pretty in those days, Keith, with -your white skin and light brown hair, before you took -on freckles; but, after all, dark complexions like mine -wear the best.</p> - -<p>“Now, to come to time—James is a widower. He has -sweet children and needs a wife and mother for them. -Though there are plenty of western women, and some -that have hoards of money, out in Corntown, where his -canning business is, he was always particular and peckish, -preferring a refined eastern woman to influence his -family. Knowing that I am living in Boston in the<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_18"></a>[18]</span> -midst of opportunities, so to speak, our home being halfway -between Bunker Hill Monument and Harvard -University, he has intrusted me to select him a wife. -Your face appeared to me. Putting aside more pressing -claimants, I wrote to him of the girl he once declared fit -to be ‘a bride,’ and sent him your last picture—at -least it’s the last I’ve seen. He answered by return post. -He has not forgotten, and he will, if you consent, come -here the first of May to meet you and be married.</p> - -<p>“Now, dear Keith, why not put your place on the market, -and when winter sets in come here to me in Boston -and see the world, spend a season of relaxation, hear -lectures and music, and be thus attuned for matrimony -in the sweet spring, when the horse-chestnut buds yield -to the sun and drop their glossy shields in the Public -Gardens?</p> - -<p class="center">“Your friend and sister-in-law to be,</p> - -<p class="right">“<span class="smcap">Judith W. Dow</span>.”</p> - -</div> - -<p>Straightway Miss Keith, the strong of body and heretofore -of mind, the adviser of both men and women for -miles around, Miss Keith, the capable, who, with help -“on shares,” made the little farm pay and lived a life of -bustling content that was the opposite of somnolent -vegetation, began mentally to chafe and rebel against -the confinement and loneliness of her lot, and yearn -for change,—she who had always preached and<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_19"></a>[19]</span> -practised that one’s work is that which lies nearest to -hand.</p> - -<p>She ignored the freckle thrust and the phrase taking -for granted that the farm was hers to sell. The words -<i>music</i> and <i>lectures</i> seemed italicized, yet the strongest -appeal in the crafty letter was its promise of human -companionship, for she had often yearned for kin.</p> - -<p>Miss Keith was of no common type, even among the -many intelligent women reared on New England farms. -She had struggled her way through Mt. Holyoke and -fitted herself to teach in the Gilead school, where she -had remained ten years, until, at the death of her Aunt -Lawton, her cousin had offered to install her at the farm, -where the active life indoors and out proved a strong -attraction. During these years her clear, strong voice -had led in singing-school and in the village choir, where -it still held sway,—the fact that it was slightly “weathered” -increasing rather than diminishing its power. -Though pale of hair and face, at no time in her life had -she been wholly unattractive, and her speech, sometimes -lapsing into provincialisms when she was either -excited or constrained, was wholly free of either Yankee -dialect or nasal twang. She had met many people of -all grades in due course,—farmers, manufacturers, -prospectors, and the leisurely class of cottagers from -Stonebridge and Gordon; but no man had ever said, -“I love you.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_20"></a>[20]</span></p> - -<p>Seating herself at the desk with an unaccustomed -drooping of the head, she finished the letter begun the -day before, filling each of the four pages with rapid -strokes, folded it without once re-reading, sealed it with -a bit of crumby red wax that had not seen light probably -since her Aunt Lawton had used it for the sealing of her -will, and affixed the stamp with slow exactness precisely -in the proper corner. Then with folded hands -she leaned back and gazed at the missive, saying, as she -did so, “That decides it. I will go to Boston the first of -the year, when everything is closed up and settled for -the winter. Farrish, below, can tend the stock. I’ve -saved a little money to enjoy myself with, and when -May comes, if James White turns up and we hold to the -same mind, I shall marry him; if not—I suppose -Cousin Adam will be glad for me to come back, that is, -unless he makes other arrangements.”</p> - -<p>The alternative to the matrimonial scheme seemed -just then of such slight moment that she hardly pronounced -the words, but turned to leave the desk, when -a sharp, compelling bark from the rug before the hearth -made her start and brought a red spot to each cheek.</p> - -<p>There before her sat a shaggy brown dog, setter in -build, but with a collie cross showing in eccentricities -of hair that formed a ruff about his neck and gave the -tail a strange bushiness. A pair of great, soft, brown -eyes were fixed on Miss Keith’s face, and the expression<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_21"></a>[21]</span> -in them was accentuated by the slight raising of the -long, mobile, silky ears, which seemed to ask a question. -Meeting no response, the dog barked once more and -raised one paw pleadingly.</p> - -<p>Miss Keith, who had risen, seated herself again suddenly. -“Why, Tatters, old man, I’ve forgotten your -breakfast, and it is almost dinner-time. Where have -you been since yesterday? Hunting by the river? -You know you should not come in here with a wet coat -and muddy paws. Down! Down!” she cried, as the -dog, never moving his gaze from her face, crossed the -room and, sitting on his haunches before her, rested his -fringy wet paws on her lap.</p> - -<p>“What is the matter? Thorns or burs in your feet?”</p> - -<p>The dog continued to look at her steadfastly, giving a -little whine meantime, but never a wag of his tail.</p> - -<p>“Tatters!” she exclaimed at last, moistening her -lips, which seemed to be unaccountably dry, “I believe -you know what is on my mind, and what I’ve been -wrestling with in the spirit these three days,—but it’s -all settled now, and my mind is free. Come, and I’ll -get your dinner bone.”</p> - -<p>“Settled!” and then the thought struck her, “What -would become of Tatters?” A new caretaker might -easily be found for the place and cattle, who would -also understand the pruning of the cherished vines and -fruit trees, but would he understand Tatters, and would<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_22"></a>[22]</span> -Tatters understand or tolerate any one not born of the -family? As long as people of the West stock had lived -in Gilead, with them had been a sturdy breed of collies -and setters, whose sagacity and nosing power were -famed throughout the country-side. Now, through -chance and short-sightedness, the two breeds had -merged in one, and Tatters, of middle age, wise beyond -the dog wisdom of his ancestors, was its only representative.</p> - -<p>Ever since his year of puppyhood, when Miss Keith -with New England firmness had completed his house-breaking -education, he had been the house man, guarding -the picket gate by day, the door by night. In his -responsibility of combining double natures, he herded -young calves in a poorly fenced pasture, or tracked the -turkey hens (those most brainless of feathered things) -when they recklessly led their broods into the dark -woodland in May storms. As setter, he ran free by the -wagon when Miss Keith took eggs, butter, or berries -to her various customers, dashing in among the hordes -of English sparrows by the roadside, or going afield -with cautious tread and circling tail to flush the flocks -of meadowlarks with eager sporting fervour. As collie, -with Scotch traditions in his blood, he followed her to -meeting or singing-school, and slept under the pew seat -or sat sentinel in the vestibule, according to season and -weather. Then by the winter hearth fire he was Miss<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_23"></a>[23]</span> -Keith’s counsellor, for in spite of the stoves that her -Cousin Adam had supplied, her practicality of mind, -and the labour it entailed, she had a primeval streak in -her that yearned to see the heat that warms one. Tatters -was the silent partner, it is true, in their discussions, -and merely looked assent as he listened to the oft-repeated -tale of short weight in feed, and the sloth of -hired men as opposed to the thrift of those who work -on shares, with perfect composure, yet let one of these -hired men but raise his voice in unamiable argument -with Miss Keith, and Tatters crouched to heel, upper -lip cleared from his glistening teeth, ready for action, -and no one ever braved the warning.</p> - -<p>Then, too, he took the responsibility of beginning the -day’s work upon his shaggy shoulders. At six o’clock -in winter, changing to five on May day, he left his rug -in the outer kitchen, and going to Miss Keith’s bedroom, -nosed open the door, wedged from jarring by a mat, and -after lifting her stout slippers to the bed edge, carefully, -one by one, with many false starts and droppings, if -she did not waken, he would sit down, and with -thrown back head give quick, short barks until he had -response.</p> - -<p>How did he know hours and dates? How do we -know that of which we are most sure, yet cannot prove -by mathematical problems? He <i>did</i> know—that was -sufficient.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_24"></a>[24]</span></p> - -<p>As all these things surged through Miss Keith’s brain, -the First Cause on the mantel-shelf grew more remote, -and folding her strong lean arms about the pleading dog, -she rested her face against his head and began to cry -softly, a thing unheard of.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_25"></a>[25]</span></p> - -<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_III">CHAPTER III<br /> -<span class="smaller">THE DECISION OF MISS KEITH</span></h2> - -</div> - -<p>It was while mistress and dog were thus absorbed -that Dr. Russell, gun on shoulder, and grouse dangling -from his fingers, came up the side road on the -south that separated house and garden plot from the -barn and outbuildings, that stood close to the lane -edge, facing it, like a row of precise soldiers drawn up -to give salute.</p> - -<p>He expected that at his first footfall on the side porch -his coming would be heralded by short, percussive -barks,—Tatters’ greeting to his friends. He knocked -twice, then tried the yielding door-knob, and entered -the kitchen, where various saucepans, boiling over -madly and deluging the polished stove with an impromptu -pottage, told of some sort of domestic lapse. -Crossing the hallway, guided by a light streak toward -the first open door, he entered the sitting room at -the moment that Miss Keith had raised her wet eyes -from Tatters’ head, and was alternately rubbing them -with her handkerchief, held in one hand, and looking -at her answer to the disturbing letter, held in the other.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_26"></a>[26]</span></p> - -<p>“Why, what is the matter, Miss Keith,—bad -news or a love letter?” the doctor asked with the -easy cheerfulness that showed how little real anxiety -lay beneath the question. “The carrier said that -you wished to see me to-day, and so I’ve come down, -but I’d no idea that it was about a tearful matter, -and one in which Tatters was too much involved to -‘watch out’ as usual.”</p> - -<p>Taken thus unawares, an aggressive expression crossed -Miss Keith’s face for an instant, but immediately disappeared -under the influence of the doctor’s smile, -and, quickly recovering, she answered, as she gave -her hands into his hearty grasp: “It is both bad news -<i>and</i> a letter. To-day is my fiftieth birthday,—you -see I do not believe in belying the Lord’s work and -concealing one’s age as some do,—and I’ve had a -letter that I want man’s counsel upon.” Then, as a -sound of liquid hissing on a hot stove and the smell -of burning food came from the hallway, she remembered -the time of day, the dinner in peril, and her -duties as housekeeper, at the same moment, and -mumbling a hasty apology, fled to the kitchen, followed -by the doctor, who, after making the grouse serve as -a birthday offering, wisely retired to the sitting room -until dinner should be ready.</p> - -<p>Once there, he made a few rapid but direct observations, -beginning with the First Cause on the mantel-shelf.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_27"></a>[27]</span></p> - -<p>Then, as he saw the two letters on the desk, one envelope -hastily torn open and bearing the signs of much -handling, the other carefully sealed and lying face -downward, he chuckled to himself. “Woman all -through, Miss Keith, in spite of everything. Ten -to one she has made up her mind and answered her -letter while she was waiting for me to come and advise -with her about it. At the same time, when the dinner -is off her mind, she will tell me the whole story, and -discuss it from the very beginning, for the mere pleasure -of it; but no matter what I may say, she will post the -letter already written.” Then, going over to the bookcase -that topped the desk, he unlocked the diamond-paned -door, and pulling out a book at random, which -proved to be a dingy copy of Hogg’s “Shepherd’s -Calendar,” he resigned himself to the inevitable drowsiness -born of the volume and his long walk, and stretching -himself on the wide haircloth sofa, was soon -taking the “forty winks” that should sharpen his wits -for the coming interview.</p> - -<p>Fortunately he awoke before Miss Keith came to -call him, for she had scant respect for either man or -woman who was caught napping in broad daylight; -and together they went out to the wide kitchen that -served also as a cheerful dining room, with its long -double window filled with plants and beau-pot of gay -chrysanthemums on the table, the doctor meanwhile<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_28"></a>[28]</span> -offering Miss Keith his arm, half with natural, courtly -deference, half in mischief, a frequent mood of his -that old friends understood and loved.</p> - -<p>At first Miss Keith, speaking clearly for the sake -of breaking silence, appeared nervous. The talk ran -lightly in general channels,—the glorious season, the -shooting, the way in which the trolley line had turned -the horse traffic from the turnpike to the upper road, -and how much more life passed the West farm, Miss -Keith telling that sometimes of an afternoon a dozen -pleasure vehicles on the way from Stonebridge to -Gordon, or the reverse, would stop on the plateau -under the pines, combining a resting spell for horses -with their drivers’ enjoyment of the view.</p> - -<p>Next Silent Stead and his bachelor housekeeping -on Windy Hill followed in natural sequence. Did -the doctor know the real story about Stead’s dead wife, -or if it were true that he was going away, back to his -work as civil engineer again? Many visitors, men of -weight from Gordon, had called on him that season, -and the letter carrier said he had many thick letters -with great red seals, and it was whispered that he was -wanted to direct some new railway enterprise in the -far West.</p> - -<p>No, Dr. Russell could not answer, other than to -wish the gossip that sent his friend back to the world’s -work might foreshadow the truth.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_29"></a>[29]</span></p> - -<p>Then the doctor took the lead, asking home questions -about Mr. Lawton and the other kin, saying, -“I met your Cousin Adam last winter in New York -one evening at the Century, where Martin Cortright -introduced us. His is a keen and interesting face, -though rather nerve-worn. As he stood among a -group of financiers, that also deal liberally by the -various arts, his eyes roved about, dilating and contracting -strangely, as if they followed the workings of a -dozen thoughts each minute, though otherwise his face -remained unchanged and he never moved a muscle.</p> - -<p>“Did I like him? He is not easy to approach, and -it was only when I told him that, though living at -Oaklands, I go inland every autumn for the hunting, -and know Gilead well, also his Cousin Keith and West -farm, where I had once seen his daughter Brooke, that -his eye brightened and he showed any interest, while -at the same moment some one whom he had evidently -been watching broke away from a distant group, and, -your cousin darting off to join him, our talk ceased.”</p> - -<p>“If Adam cares for anything but money-making, -which I’ve sometimes doubted, it is for Brooke,” -said Miss Keith, quite at her ease again, the coffee that -she was pouring being fully up to its reputation. “In -fact, he deeded this farm to her on her twenty-first -birthday, all on the strength of her girlish whim and -talk long ago about the <i>River Kingdom</i>. This also<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_30"></a>[30]</span> -makes me feel uncertain about my stay here. What -if Brooke should marry and <i>he</i> should wish her to sell -the place? Not that Adam has ever said a word to -me about the transfer, and he pays the taxes and -what not just the same, but Job Farrish was looking -up his boundaries last spring and saw the deed recorded -in the Town House. In fact, Adam himself never -writes nowadays, his secretary does it all; and even -Brooke has only written once this year, and that was -when I said the gutter having leaked, the north room -needed new paper, and she sent it—pretty it is, too, -wild roses running through a rustic lattice—she’s -always had an open eye for colour.”</p> - -<p>“What! is that gypsy child twenty-one?” exclaimed -the doctor in surprise, pushing back his chair so as -to pull Tatters’ head between his knees and stroke his -ears, at the same time that he drew his coffee cup toward -him, sniffing the subtle aroma, only second in his nostrils -to that of the fresh earth in spring and his beloved -pipe. “It seems but a year or so since she was roving -about the lane with her hair flying and Tatters after -her,—the two were inseparable.”</p> - -<p>“Twenty-one! Why, Dr. Russell, that time was eight -years ago, the second autumn you came up to hunt -with Silent Stead. She’s turned <i>twenty-four</i>, and that -Tatters was this one’s uncle; they say there has been -a dog of the name in the family this hundred years and -more.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_31"></a>[31]</span></p> - -<p>“Yes, Brooke was twenty-four last May, and it -seems now that they should call her by her rightful -Christian name, Pamela, instead of that absurd one -that might as well be stick or stone. You did not -know she had any other? Oh, it is her middle name -to be sure—Pamela Brooke Lawton. Her mother -was one of the proud old Virginia Brookes, and they -say, failing of male heirs in the South, they often call -a daughter by her mother’s maiden name. Mannish -and affected though, I call it, still I must own it did -suit her eight years ago, for she had as many ways -and turns and deep and shallow places as that little -stream on Windy Hill that begins in only a thread -that wouldn’t move a fern, and then widens to the -Glen Mill-pond, and saws all the wood hereabouts -and grinds the flour for Gilead.</p> - -<p>“Yes, she has been here several times, though never -to stay long; mostly she came with her great friend, -Lucy Dean, when they were at school at Farmington. -I never liked <i>her</i> though, she had a way of asking -point-blank questions and calling a spade a spade -that sent a chill through you.”</p> - -<p>“And what has Brooke been doing since she’s been -a woman grown? What, for the last four years?” -asked the doctor, returning to the present with new -interest at sound of Brooke’s name.</p> - -<p>“Let me see,” and Miss Keith began counting on<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_32"></a>[32]</span> -her fingers; “after Brooke left school, she and her -mother and father, with the Dean girl and the Cub, -spent one summer travelling in the West,—Adam -was nosing out some scheme or other. Then the -women folks went to Europe for a year or more, leaving -young Adam, the Cub,—that’s what they call -the boy, and I must say, poor lad, he does seem a misfit -and hard to manage,—at a military boarding-school -somewhere.</p> - -<p>“The Dean girl had a voice that her people thought -worth the training, though I never heard what became -of it after, and Brooke wanted to go on with her painting. -Oh, yes, she does really paint—doesn’t just dabble -colours together like a marble cake, such as most -pictures are, and call it Art. Why, she got a prize, -they say, in a New York exhibition for a picture of -some children eating cherries. I’ve got a photograph -of it, that she sent me, on my bureau. It’s fine work, -good judges say; all the same, to my eye it lacks one -thing—it doesn’t look just quite alive. If she was -poor and had to work and kept on, I guess she’d -get somewhere; but now she’s at home again, and in -society, and not being in need of money, I suppose -she’ll let the painting slip, except maybe to make -candy boxes for charity fairs and such.</p> - -<p>“Adam’s always been too busy ever to have much -of a settled home. They travelled about mostly of<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_33"></a>[33]</span> -summers, and since they left the house down town -two years ago, where the children were born, they’ve -lived in a big sort of apartment arrangement, half -flat, half hotel, as near as I can make it out—‘It -gives mamma no responsibility,’ Brooke wrote in telling -of it. But without some responsibility you can’t get -much home comfort, to my thinking.</p> - -<p>“Now that Brooke is educated and at home, I hear -her father is building a big city house and another -down by the sea somewhere, and so perhaps—when -he has money enough—he will slow up and take a -rest. The Lawtons and Wests are both long-lived, -and Adam never drank or dissipated, I guess; but I -should think at the pace he’s trotted these thirty -years he’d be footsore by this, and like a back-stairs -sitting room out of reach, and a loose pair of -slippers.”</p> - -<p>Miss Keith grew more careless of her speech as -she warmed to her subject, and Dr. Russell laughed -outright at the idea of the Adam Lawton whom he -had met, tall and distinguished, a bundle of steel -nerves bound by will power, sitting to rest anywhere, -much less in loose slippers out of the sound of the -Whirlpool’s eddying.</p> - -<p>The fussy little clock in the sitting room, after -making many futile remarks, like a choking <i>do-re-mi</i>, -landed fairly on <i>do</i>, and struck four! Then Miss<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_34"></a>[34]</span> -Keith, saying casually that she must skim the milk at -five, began to unfold her plan matrimonial.</p> - -<p>She did not read Mrs. Dow’s letter to the doctor, -but spoke from memory, with which an unexpected -quality of imagination blended with dangerous frequency.</p> - -<p>Alack a day! How often are the overworked three -graces, Faith, Hope, and Charity, pushed into the -place of Truth, Experience, and Common Sense, and -forced to bear responsibility not theirs!</p> - -<p>When Miss Keith had finished, the good doctor -naturally supposed that she had received a direct -proposal from an old-time lover who, once rejected, -had married some one else in pique. Also that the -making of the sister’s home the meeting place was -her own idea, born of her maidenly regard of the proprieties, -which regard he well knew usually strengthens -in inverse proportion to the need for it!</p> - -<p>Finally, as he arose to go, she said, hovering tremulously -between kitchen and sitting room, “Now -that I know that you agree with me, I will ask one -favour more. I have a letter that I would like to -have posted in Gilead by your hand; these outdoor -letter boxes sometimes leak, you know. Then I shall -sleep content.”</p> - -<p>“Most certainly,” said the doctor, turning back, a -smile crossing his face and lurking at his mouth corners<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_35"></a>[35]</span> -at this latest of many vocations given him—that of -Cupid’s postman, though he could not but admit -that his age made him a peculiarly suitable assistant in -such a belated wooing.</p> - -<p>As he took the letter, he involuntarily turned it face -upward, and glanced at the address, saying in a dubious -tone, his eyebrows raised: “Mrs. Dow? Why -not James White himself?” Then adding, with a -touch of irony in his voice that Miss Keith missed, -“Is his sister acting the kindly part of go-between? -Ah, so! Well, Miss Keith, no one but yourself can -settle so delicate a matter finally, <i>but</i> one thing promise -me: go to Boston, if you will; jig and jostle, hear -reform lectures and eat health food, and see life if -you must; but for God’s sake, woman, don’t commit -yourself until you have seen the ‘<i>sweet children</i>’ and -the man! Photographs can lie, as well as tongues!” -Then, fearing he had been too harsh, he added kindly, -“If you find that Tatters can’t transfer himself, as -you call it, let me know,—there is always room for -one more dog at Oaklands, and Barbara will pamper -him.”</p> - -<p>That night Miss Keith, buoyed by the doctor’s talk -and a man’s recent presence in the house, albeit it was -temporary, was in an exalted mood and trod on air. -Already she saw visions of the future, and kept saying -to herself, “I will do and see so and so when I go to -Boston.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_36"></a>[36]</span></p> - -<p>When she lit her candle and went upstairs, she took -the First Cause from the mantel and bore him with -her. Where should she put him? Her dresser seemed -too intimate a place; the spare room album, too remote. -Finally she placed the photograph against the puffs -and quills of the pillow-shams of the best room bed -and then fled to her own chamber, where she blew -out the candle and undressed in the dark, or, rather, -by the half moonlight, saying aloud, as she got into -bed, “Thank fortune for one thing, I’ve kept my own -hair and teeth, and such as I am there is nothing of -me that takes off.” And though the remark was -apropos of nothing in particular, a wave of hot colour -covered her face at the words, and she buried her head -in her pillow and tried to sleep. This she didn’t do, -for Tatters, whom she had utterly forgotten for the -first time, and shut out when she closed the door, -resented being forced to sleep out on the porch at -such a frosty time, and at intervals throughout the -night bayed dismally at the moon, thereby calling to -her mind an old ballad of chilling and ominous portent.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_37"></a>[37]</span></p> - -<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_IV">CHAPTER IV<br /> -<span class="smaller">INTERLUDE</span></h2> - -</div> - -<p>On a bright afternoon in early December a number -of carriages and motor cars that usually entered Central -Park via the Plaza promptly at four, continued to the -right instead, and in impromptu procession slowed down -before the entrance of a new house in the Park Lane -section of the avenue.</p> - -<p>The house belonged to Senator Parks, and on this -day it was to be thrown open to that portion of the public -selected by the social sponsors of his new wife. This -wife, being a rather handsome California widow on the -agreeable side of thirty-five, had acquired enough knowledge -of the world during a three years’ residence abroad -to bend the knee gracefully, if not quite sincerely, to -the powers that make or mar the fate of newcomers, at -the same time always, so to speak, carelessly twisting -in plain sight between her slender fingers the strings -of a full purse.</p> - -<p>The conventional “At Home from 4 to 7 o’clock,” -therefore, had more than the usual significance, for it -was known to imply a concert in the superbly appointed<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_38"></a>[38]</span> -music hall, by singers from the opera, and an exhibition -of paintings in the new gallery, so spacious that it ran -from block to block, such a one as had never before -been seen in any private dwelling in Manhattan. Then, -too, there had been whispers of a <i>chef</i> of Gallic renown -who had served two emperors and a prince, and altogether -society, whose appetite is rather keen at the -beginning of the season, expecting novelty or at least -to be amused, was beginning to sally forth. It did -not commit itself by so doing, and it assumed no responsibility -other than leaving a card, by footman or -otherwise, at the door, in due course; it merely gave -itself the opportunity to pass judgment. But as the -new hostess understood this perfectly well, and only -desired the chance of playing her trump card to win -the lead, it was a beautifully frank arrangement on -both sides, in which no one was deceived.</p> - -<p>As the hour passed the stream of carriages became -continuous, the cavernous awning that swallowed the -people as soon as they alighted being the centre of that -strange mob, usually composed of fairly well-dressed -women, who appear spontaneously wherever the carpet-covered -steps and striped awning tell of an entertainment -to be. No buzzard hovering in air drops to his -prey more quickly than does the average idle woman -catch sight of this emblem of hospitality.</p> - -<p>Two young women, walking with easy, rapid gait up<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_39"></a>[39]</span> -the avenue, paused on the outskirts of the throng, uncertain -as to the best point for breaking through. At -least the shorter of the two hesitated, while the taller, -after a swift survey, put her white-gloved hands firmly -on the shoulders of a gaping dressmaker’s apprentice, -turned her about, saying, as she did so, “Let us pass, -please,” and instantly a way was opened.</p> - -<p>These young women were simply dressed for the street, -with no obtrusive fuss and feathers, yet each had an -unmistakable air of individuality and distinction. They -were both of the same age, twenty-four, yet the difference -in colouring and poise made the taller appear fully -two years older. She had glossy black hair, tucked -up under a three-cornered hat, heavy eyebrows, from -under which she looked one straight in the face with a -half-defiant look in the steel-gray eyes. Her nose was -aquiline, and her lips rather thin, but curled in a humorous -way when she spoke. She was broad of shoulder -and small of waist and hips; and it was only a shy curve -of neck and bust that, judging from poise alone, prevented -one from thinking Lucy Dean a young athlete -masquerading in his sister’s black velvet fur-trimmed -frock with its scarlet-slashed sleeves.</p> - -<p>Brooke Lawton, her companion, looked little more -than twenty, was formed in a more feminine mould, and -though half a head shorter, was still of medium height. -Her hair, of the peculiar shade of ash brown with<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_40"></a>[40]</span> -chestnut glints that artists love, was worn rather loose -at the sides and gathered into a curly knot at the back -of the neck, under a wide brown beaver hat that was tied -below the chin with a large bow and ends after the fashion -of our grandmothers. Her eyes were dark brown, -and yet a shade lighter than the brows and lashes. -Her nose was not of classic proportions, being rather -too broad at the base and inclined to be tip-tilted, but -her mouth had a generous fulness that softened a -resolute chin, albeit it was cleft by a dimple. Her -long coat was of brown, so that the only bright colour -about her was the vivid glow that the crisp air and -walking had brought to her cheeks.</p> - -<p>She also looked one straight in the eyes when she -spoke, but with an entire lack of self-consciousness -wholly at variance with the attitude of her friend. -Brooke might be typified as a joyous yet shy thrush; -Lucy, as a splendid but vociferous red-winged blackbird!</p> - -<p>“Is your mother coming?” asked Lucy, as they went -up the steps together.</p> - -<p>“Later, perhaps; she has not been feeling very festive -these few days past. In fact, she has been strangely -spiritless of late; living in a hotel disagrees with her -ideas of home hospitality. Father seems worried and -has not been sleeping,—has a bit of a cough, and anything -like that always upsets dear little Mummy; she<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_41"></a>[41]</span> -doesn’t realize that he is made of steel springs just as -I am. I’m sure she will try to come, if only for a minute, -for Mrs. Parks asked her to receive with her. She -didn’t care to do that because, though we met the -Parkses very often in Paris, they were never more than -acquaintances, not real friends; but to stay away might -hurt her feelings, and of course that must not be.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, no, a Brooke of Virginia would never do that; -she would be hospitable to a burglar, even while waiting -for the police to come for him, and when he left, handcuffed, -regret that uncontrollable circumstances prevented -his spending the night!” said Lucy, mimicking -the tone and manner of an old great-aunt of Brooke’s -so thoroughly that she was forced to laugh.</p> - -<p>“But thou, O most transparent of all the Brookes, -even if you have Scotch granite and American steel -concealed in your depths, you very well know that -Madame Parks would have given many shekels of gold -to have had your mother standing on her right this afternoon. -Do you realize that she even asked me to sing -to-day? Of course I wouldn’t.”</p> - -<p>“That surely was a compliment to your voice that you -can hardly find fault with,” said Brooke, pausing on -the threshold to gather together the requisite number -of cards.</p> - -<p>“My voice! That had nothing whatever to do with -it My voice might be like a jay’s with its crop full<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_42"></a>[42]</span> -of popcorn, for all she knows about it. No, it was all -on account of daddy; this affair has been well thought -out. She has been careful to have a representative -bidden from every department of the society trust,—clergy, -laity, art, music, science. Daddy represents -up-to-date financiering,—there is no Mrs. Dean, -hence me! She wandered a bit, though, in asking me -to sing on the same afternoon with paid professionals. -If it had been a very select and spirituelle affair, with -Maud Knowles at the harp and Dick Fenton with his -Boulevard imitations and songs, followed by bouquets -of orchids concealing bijouterie for the performers, -I might have yielded.</p> - -<p>“Yes,” Lucy chattered on, “let us go upstairs; we had -better drop our wraps, as we expect to make an afternoon -of it. What an apartment! Madame’s, of -course. Look at that bed on the dais and a boudoir -and breakfast room beyond! Eight maids! Why -didn’t she have four and twenty to match the pie blackbirds? -Look at the way in which their skirts stay in -place behind when they wiggle them. Never saw such -a thing off the stage; one straight line from belt to -hem, just the stunning way Hilda Spong wears hers in -‘Lady Huntworth’s Experiment’! What is the exhibit -in that room across the hall, with the walls draped -with white over sky-blue? Everybody is going that -way; let us also flock!</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_43"></a>[43]</span></p> - -<p>“As I live, it’s the baby lying in state—no, holding -a levée, I mean. What an odd-shaped cradle! Isn’t -he a fright, but look at his robe—Irish point all made -in one piece—and his gold toilet things on that tray! -Well, after all, there must be something novel to the -Parkses about this. Papa has been married three times -and mamma twice, and this Chinese Joss is all there is -to show for it! I wonder if her craze for collecting -bric-a-brac can possibly account for his looks? If -there isn’t the Senator himself, hovering around to show -off his little son. I wonder if Madame knows papa is -on the premises? Gracious, he’s taking the baby out -of the Easter egg! Hear the lace tear, and that monumental -English head nurse doesn’t move a muscle!</p> - -<p>“Don’t look distressed and blush so, Brooke; facts -are facts, and then besides, nobody can hear me in this -babel. Now, let’s agree where we shall meet, for we -shall be duly torn asunder directly we go downstairs. -Come in here a second, my head feathers are awry. -What a mercy it is to have hair like yours, that the more -it is let alone, the better it behaves!</p> - -<p>“No, don’t touch the strings of your poke, and leave -your bodice alone. That creamy lace simply looks confidential -and clinging, and not a bit mussy like mine.”</p> - -<p>“I think I will go to the picture gallery as soon as we -have made our bows to Mrs. Parks, and settle there,” -said Brooke, “so that I can see everything before the<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_44"></a>[44]</span> -concert is over. Then you will know where to find me. -To-day I feel more like looking than listening,” she -added, when Lucy was silenced a moment by holding -half a dozen jewelled stick pins between her lips, as she -rearranged the folds of an expensive draped lace bodice -that, in spite of the beauty of the fabric, seemed out of -key and mussy, the severe and tailor-made being better -adapted to her.</p> - -<p>For a few moments the two lingered in one of the -alcoves of the dressing room, looking for familiar faces -among the arrivals.</p> - -<p>“By the way, I suppose Mr. Fenton is coming in later -with the other down-town men?” said Brooke. “If -so, you needn’t look me up at all.”</p> - -<p>“Dick may be coming, though I doubt it, but it will -not be to meet me. See here, goosie,” said Lucy, half -avoiding her friend’s eyes, “I might as well tell you now -as any other time. Dick and I have agreed to disagree. -It happened last Sunday, and I’d have told you before, -only you take all such things so seriously.”</p> - -<p>“What is the matter; has he changed?”</p> - -<p>“No, he has not, that is half the trouble. He has -stayed quite too much the same; I only wonder that I -could have endured it for the eight months it has lasted. -You see, he was perfectly satisfied with himself as he -was, and that leaves no room for improvement. Of -course everybody knows, at the pace the world’s rolling<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_45"></a>[45]</span> -along, if you don’t go ahead, you slide back! I tend to -balk and jump the traces enough myself when it comes -to hills, Heaven knows, and if my mate in harness -can’t pull true on an up grade, where shall we be at? -Dick kept along on the level good naturedly, I’ll say -that for him, yet it was because I was my father’s -daughter, not because I’m myself. Being a young -broker, he thought it a good thing to have a father-in-law -with unlimited ‘pointers’ in every wag of his chin -(poor chap, he hasn’t yet realized that these things -mostly point both ways), and he was serenely content! -As for me, I felt as if I should go wild,—no conversation -except the eternal money market. I said so,—and -more besides!</p> - -<p>“He was very nice about it,—daddy really seemed -relieved,—and—well, it’s all over, though his mother -did glower at me at first when I met her on the avenue -yesterday, but she decided to bow.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, Lucy, why are you so impetuous? When you -told me of the engagement, you said—”</p> - -<p>“Now listen, Brooke Lawton, and hear me swear one -thing: money in one’s pocket is a blessing, but continually -dinned into one’s ears it’s the other thing. If -ever I marry any one, he must not be in this sickening -money business; he must do something different, if -it’s only drawing pictures on the sidewalk with chalk -held between his toes, like the armless sailor in Union<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_46"></a>[46]</span> -Square, though, come to think of it, I’d rather he’d -have arms!</p> - -<p>“By the way, why don’t you ’phone your mother to -come? It’s going to be an awfully smart party. There’s -a ’phone in the writing room or somewhere near—there -always is one now at swell functions for the use of guests, -and a young man (not a woman—too dangerous) -from central to work it; they say the society reporters -fight and bribe to get the job, they hear so much ‘inwardness.’ -Your mother needn’t worry and stay at -home. I don’t think your father’s sick. I heard -daddy say last night that he is in another big deal, with -trump cards enough to fill both hands, and he’s holding -them so close for fear of dropping any that he’s -bound to be preoccupied.”</p> - -<p>“It’s time for us to go; I hear the music,” said -Brooke, who had been set thinking by her friend’s talk.</p> - -<p>“Why not come into the music room for a few numbers -and then escape if you wish?” said Lucy, navigating -the crowded stairs easily, and pausing on a landing -to continue her chatter and glance into the room below. -“What, all the chairs taken already? Just look at -those orchids, by the dozen, not single, the whole plant -hung by gilt chains from the ceiling!</p> - -<p>“You won’t come? Well, so be it, if you have the -‘picture hunger’ as badly as you did in Paris. Do you -remember the big hybrid French-English-Dutchman<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_47"></a>[47]</span> -who gave that name to the moonstruck turns you used -to have over painted ‘masterpieces’ and unpainted -landscapes outdoors? Yes, I see you do. Well, I -thought at one time he was painfully smitten and would -probably lay himself down humbly at your feet, like an -inconveniently thick bear rug that, failing to be able to -step over, one must tread on, though often to one’s -downfall. Still, of course, with artists the meaning of -their looks and actions are usually either exaggerated or -vague, much like their talk of values and colour schemes -and atmosphere. I heard this same Marte Lorenz in a -group of ravers standing before a canvas one day at the -Mirlitons’ when I called for you, and I rubbered and -peeped over their shoulders, expecting to see the portrait -of a delicious woman at the very least; and what was -the whole row about but an onion on a wooden plate, -and they were saying that it was genuine and showed -insight!</p> - -<p>“It would be such fun to tease you, Brooke, if only -you were teasable. Suppose, after all, there should be a -real live man behind all this ‘picture hunger.’ I think -that there must be from the way you have turned slack -and dropped your brush in seeming disdain at your -work, even after you won that Baumgarten prize, with -the picture of your cousin Helen’s Mellin’s food babies -sitting on the ground <i>au naturel</i>, eating cherries (pits -and all), bless their poor fat tummies!</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_48"></a>[48]</span></p> - -<p>“However, there can’t be a man concealed in your -mind, you are too transparent,—I should have known -it, and helped matters nicely to a focus for you. Yet the -copy-books used to say ‘still waters run deep’; who -knows, innocent-looking mountain Brooke, but there is -a great, deep, still swimming pool somewhere in your -mind!”</p> - -<p>“Bless me, she is teasable after all!” ejaculated Lucy, -for, while she was still gabbling, Brooke had left her, -slipped through the portières, held apart by two footmen, -given her name to a third, shaken her hostess cordially -by the hand, and after carefully giving her -mother’s message of regret, melted away in the crowd.</p> - -<p>“Charming girl, that Miss Lawton,” was Mrs. Parks’s -mental comment. “I guess, after all, there is something -in having a well-bred-to-the-bone mother. Three hundred -people have squeezed my fingers already this afternoon -and murmured all sorts of things, while they either -gazed over my head or at my gown. She is the first one -that looked at <i>me</i> and as if she meant what she -said, or would really do me a good turn if she could.” -And the Senator’s ambitious wife gazed after Brooke -rather wistfully.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_49"></a>[49]</span></p> - -<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_V">CHAPTER V<br /> -<span class="smaller">A PICTURE</span></h2> - -</div> - -<p>Escaping from the ballroom, where, in spite of all -possible care, the hothouse heat and heavy odour of -flowers, together with the mild afternoon, made the air -stifling, Brooke was guided by instinct toward the picture -gallery. In the reception hall back of the stairs, concealed -by a rose-covered screen, a Russian orchestra, -the latest novelty, was playing; but as the first strains -of the concert floated from the music room, the intended -effect was lost and became wholly discordant and -bewildering.</p> - -<p>Once inside the doors, for the picture gallery was -separated from the house itself not only by a short passageway, -curtained at both ends, but by doors of richly -carved antique oak, Brooke found herself in another -world, in which two more of the liveried regiment and -she herself were the only inhabitants. One of the men -took from a Japanese stand of bronze, by which he was -stationed, a long satin-covered book, that proved to be -a catalogue of the paintings in the gallery. A photogravure -of each one filled the left-hand page, a few words -relating to the artist facing it.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_50"></a>[50]</span></p> - -<p>Mind and body were at once refreshed. The air -itself was pure and invigorating in the gallery, for the -only floral decorations were conventionally trimmed -bushes of box, European laurel in pots, and some -pointed holly trees red with their Christmas offering of -berries. Whatever there was of lavish overdisplay in -the other parts of this new palace stopped outside of -these doors. Ceiling and panelled wainscoting that ran -below the picture line were of the same carved oak, the -inlaid floor matching it in tone, while all else, wall hangings, -divans, and rugs, were blended of soft greens, as -harmonious and restful to the senses as the vines, ferns, -and moss that drape and floor the forest. The lights -adjusted above the paintings, with due regard to individual -effect, were hidden from the eye by screens of -coloured glass, in which design of flowers and leaf were -so well mingled that they formed a part of the general -whole.</p> - -<p>As to the pictures themselves—not too many, all in -a way masterpieces carefully hung—they seemed vistas -opening through the greenery, carrying the vision at once -into the scene or among the people represented. Only -art could so feel for art, and the fact that the seeming -simplicity was the result of much detailed thought and -expense was nowhere apparent.</p> - -<p>Brooke walked slowly to the upper end of the room, -and seated herself in one of the recesses of an oddly<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_51"></a>[51]</span> -divided settee, high of back and arm, that gave to each -occupant complete seclusion. For a few minutes she -leaned back against the soft velvet, letting the quiet -atmosphere envelop her, and then raised her eyes to the -two pictures that chanced to face her, peering at them -in her seclusion, from under her wide hat, with a -sidewise expression of eyes and lips slightly parted -that reminded one of Mme. le Brun’s portrait of the -charming Mme. Crussal.</p> - -<p>The nearer picture was a marine, in which the Irish -coast and waters of the Channel were revealed by light -of the full moon, and between the headland and the foreground -the white gulls were bedding themselves so -closely that they made a second moon path on the water. -Back flew Brooke’s thoughts across the sea,—England -and Holland held her for a moment, then she slipped on -to France, to Paris, where for a year she had worked in -Ridgeway’s studio in the Rue Malesherbes and out at -Passy, had been oftentimes elated and finally cast down. -How a past mood can dominate the present as well as all -surroundings! The next painting was of a stretch of low -country threaded by a canal, cattle in the distance, and -shivering poplars bending to the wind that scudded -across the sky in threatening clouds, while in the foreground -a flock of geese were looking about and pluming -themselves against the coming storm.</p> - -<p>Where had that scene passed before her? “The<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_52"></a>[52]</span> -Coming Storm near The Hague—E. Oliver (Salon, -1900),” said the catalogue.</p> - -<p>“Ah!” Brooke exclaimed, half aloud. She remembered -her first visit to the Salon, of standing before this -same picture with Marte Lorenz, “the big hybrid -English-Dutch-French artist,” Lucy Dean called him, -and laughing at the solemn, stupid geese, while he had -told her in his perfect, slow English that he had often -driven flocks of geese to pasture in his boyhood, also -that sometimes he had found them to be no laughing -matter,—a trifling incident at the time, but now a sort -of landmark in the receding journey.</p> - -<p>She had met this Lorenz (Marte his intimates called -him) often that winter and spring on the easy impersonal -footing that prevails between the well-bred American -woman and the art students of all countries. He -had been presented to her mother most regularly at a fête -in Ridgeway’s garden the autumn of their arrival, and -from that moment until their parting, a year later, one -thing had set him apart from all the score of men with -whom she had come in close contact, men who blindly -flattered, evaded, or temporized. He had always told -her the truth about her work. If she had not realized it -at the time, the conviction had always come to her -sooner or later.</p> - -<p>As to Lorenz himself, once a pupil of the Beaux -Arts, his nationality prevented his striving for the Prix-de-Rome,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_53"></a>[53]</span> -and he had turned his work toward less -classic lines; landscapes were his forte, the figure coming -second, and yet he oftenest worked at figure-painting -and conventional portraiture also, for he must have -money for the pot-boiling, much as he disliked the -necessity.</p> - -<p>Farther away slipt the Whirlpool city and its surroundings. -Once more was Brooke sketching in oils, with -some friends who often went to the Carlo Rossi garden -to pose for each other. Her subject was a girl of the -Boulevards, nominally a flower seller. Successful in -the drawing and colour, try as she might Brooke could -not give the touch that should bring the lifelike expression -to the face. With knit brows she looked up to see -whose was the shadow cast on the grass before her. It -was Lorenz, big, honest fellow, his hands clasped upon -the back of the garden seat, his thatch of dark hair sticking -out over his deep-set blue eyes, while a questioning -expression involved in its uncertainty his straight nose, -his deeply cleft chin, and the sensitive yet strong mouth -that separated them. Even his short-cut mustache, -which accentuated rather than concealed his lips, expressed -doubt.</p> - -<p>“What is it, M. Lorenz?” Brooke had asked, smiling -at his serious air; “no one ever tells me anything -definite but you. The master says, ‘Good! keep on!’ -One friend only grunts; some one else says ‘<i>Pas mal</i>.’<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_54"></a>[54]</span> -I know that I must work, work, work, but what do I -most lack?”</p> - -<p>Lowering his eyes almost to the grass itself, he spoke -rapidly, as if the telling was a pain to him: “You have -not yet had the awakening; for it you must wait; it is -the same with me, but I may not dry my brushes to wait -for the day, only work, and destroy, and work again, -come good, come ill. It is not enough to block the form -and lay on the colours truly. Unless you can interpret -your vision and see its shadow on the canvas, watch it -draw breath, move, and speak to you, you can never -create. But first of all you must know and feel, even if -you suffer. How can you interpret this woman before -you? Never could you paint for what she stands. Try -children, animals, anything else—or better, dry your -brush and wait!”</p> - -<p>Brooke had flushed angrily and answered curtly; -even now the memory brought colour to her cheeks. -Only once again had she seen Lorenz before leaving, and -now two years had passed. What had become of him? -There were depths in this woman’s nature that her -parents, all devotion in their different ways, had never -fathomed, of which her friends of every day had never -dreamed; and in one of these secret places, all unconscious -to herself, this man had gained sufficient place at -least to bar all others.</p> - -<p>While she was thus dreaming away the afternoon, the<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_55"></a>[55]</span> -concert being ended, the throng pressed toward the -gallery, and the confusion of voices, high in key and -surging on, brought Brooke quickly to herself. Rising, -she turned over the pages of the catalogue, reading the -artists’ names, and sauntered down the line to where the -numbers began, nodding occasionally, or saying a few -words to friends that came up; some of whom were -stopping to see the pictures, others merely noting the -scenic effect of the whole. Suddenly she halted so -abruptly, her fingers gripping the page between them -with noticeable tension, that a man behind nearly fell -over her, while her eyes fastened on the letters that -said, “24: Eucharistia. M. Lorenz. 1901.” Before -she could read the details opposite, the man whom she -had stopped, Charlie Ashton (now Carolus, cousin to -Lucy Dean and a courtesy artist possessed of a popular -studio for concerts) looked over her shoulder and said:—</p> - -<p>“Ah, Miss Lawton, looking for the picture the Senator’s -gone daft about, because he thinks the woman in -it looks like his wife when he first saw her as a girl out -in the California wine country? It’s over this way, that -one with the long palm over the frame. I’ve just come -from there; everybody’s crowding round, guessing what -the name means. I suggested making up a guessing -pool on it at five a head, and letting the winner choose -the charity; the Bishop is having a shy at it now.”</p> - -<p>Brooke steadied herself, and crossing the room joined<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_56"></a>[56]</span> -the group, catching at first but a partial glimpse of the -picture.</p> - -<p>“Step back here by this holly tree; this distance is -needed to preserve the atmosphere,” said Ashton, guiding -her by the sleeve into an alcove formed of holly and -laurel bushes arranged to shelter an exquisite ivory -statuette of Diana, the crescent, fillet, and bow being of -rich gold.</p> - -<p>“I have never before seen pictures so well hung,” -said Brooke, glancing about as they waited for the crowd -to move on, as it soon inevitably would, toward the -banquet hall.</p> - -<p>“A well-placed remark, Miss Brooke, sent straight -home,” gurgled Ashton, plucking at his collar, which -was too tight for his short neck. “I may say that I virtually -hung these pictures, for I sent the Senator the man -who did, you know. Before I forget it, the Bagby girls -and the rest asked me to see you about arranging a benefit -concert for that pretty little Julia Garth,—used to -give such stunning musicales a year ago,—now old -Garth is dead, and they’ve gone to no-put-together -smash! Yes, not a cent! I’ve offered my studio for it, -and they thought perhaps you’d give a picture to raffle,—just -any little thing you’ve thrown off in a hurry will -do.”</p> - -<p>His words passed almost unheard, for while he was -speaking the crowd parted and the entire painting became<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_57"></a>[57]</span> -visible. Brooke, leaning forward, at first flushed, then -grew white to the lips. The scene set before her was a -bit in the depths of the park at Fontainebleau. A grassy -path melted away in the distance between great sombre -oaks that strengthened as they reached the foreground. -At the foot of one of these sat a man, an artist, who had -been sketching, for his implements lay on the sward -before him. His whole position was of dejection, except -the head, which was raised in a startled attitude. A -little behind him stood a young woman, clad in the -dainty summer dress of every day, ash-brown hair loosely -caught up beneath a simple hat, paint box and luncheon -basket slung from her shoulder. One hand rested on -the gnarled oak trunk, the other, reaching across his -shoulder, dropped into the man’s idle, listless hands a -bunch of golden grapes, that in their ripeness carried -sunlight with them. Graceful and charming as was the -composition, it was the handling of the light wherein the -magic lay. Sifting down between the leaves, the glow -of early afternoon hovered about the girl’s bent head -like a halo, and passing behind, fell upon the man’s upturned -face, transfiguring it with a sort of holy joy, then -focussed and was swallowed in the bunch of grapes.</p> - -<p>A voice seemed calling in Brooke’s ears: “The last -afternoon, when you all went sketching with the master, -and after lunching in the woods you overtook the -brotherhood of Clichy (as Lorenz’s coterie was called).<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_58"></a>[58]</span> -Farther on and apart you found him alone, with head -bent. You thought he was asleep and dropped the -cool grapes in his hands, half as a trick, darting away -again. Then good Madame Druz, the chaperon of -the day, coming up, scolded you for ‘American imprudence,’ -and finally that night you cried, half at her -vulgar interpretation of a harmless act, and half because -Lorenz never gave word or sign before your leaving. -And because not a single flower of the mass that filled -your railway carriage was from him, you let Lucy -amuse herself all the way to Cherbourg by pelting -officials with them at each station passed. He has -painted you as you were!” cried the voice; “his face is -as he might wish it to be.”</p> - -<p>It required an effort on Brooke’s part not to cry out, -“Hush! speak lower!” so real did the words seem.</p> - -<p>“Good work, isn’t it?—though half a dozen of us here -at home could do as well, if we had the atmosphere, you -know,” said Ashton’s voice, sounding through the rush -of waters that filled her ears. “The Senator boasts that -he was the first to recognize the artist whom every one -now applauds, and he paid a cool ten thousand for it, -the man’s first important picture at that! The old man -saw it in the new Salon, but it wasn’t for sale. ‘No, no, -no,’ said the artist,—‘he had a superstition, a sentiment, -a desire to keep it,’—but the Senator thought ‘Yes, -yes, yes, the desire will decrease with time and—money,’<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_59"></a>[59]</span> -and so it did, for this fall, just as the Parkses were -on the verge of leaving, the Senator doubled the first -offer and Lorenz capitulated. Then, before the ‘brotherhood’ -could borrow his ‘luck penny’ he disappeared -somewhere in Normandy, they say, to study, out of the -depressing sound of the pot-boiling of the Quarter. -Half his friends were glad, Ridgeway wrote me, and the -other half, being jealous, shrugged their shoulders and -raised their eyes, groaning, ‘Another mad American!’</p> - -<p>“I have it all down fine, you see, for the papers to-morrow,—great -scheme! I had a Harvard chum that -was, Tom Brownell, who won’t go the respectable pace -his father set for him in finance, and has turned reporter, -work it up. He wants news, and, plague it, it -must be <i>true</i> or he won’t touch it. Of course I don’t -appear in it, but all the credit is socially mine, you see.</p> - -<p>“Why, come to think of it, Miss Brooke, I believe -the girl looks a bit like you! Did you ever chance to -see this man? But then, of course, so many charming -women look alike in those stunning shirt-waist things, -you know. What do you make of the name?”</p> - -<p>Brooke wished that he might babble on as long as -possible, that she might learn the painting by heart and -try to fathom the peculiarity of the shaft of light, but -as he stopped she said, almost without thought, “Eucharistia! -why may it not be the girl’s name?”</p> - -<p>“By Jove! of course, we never thought of it!” said<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_60"></a>[60]</span> -Ashton. “You’re growing quite pale from standing so -long. You must have some punch. Do let me take -you to the banquet hall; it’s jolly nice there—all small -tables and souvenir menus in silver frames. I planned -them, too, though Tiffany’s name <i>is</i> on them. There’s -Cousin Lucy, and the Bagby girls are waving to you -now.” (“Yes, we’re under way, hold a table,” he signalled.) -“We can cook up the concert while we feed,” -and offering his arm, upon which Brooke laid her hand -gratefully, for she felt a sudden weariness, he led her -through the maze of skirts and furniture as skilfully -and rapidly as if he had been her partner in the cotillon, -and seated her at one of the little tables amid a bevy of -her friends, who were discussing the house, the hostess, -the flowers, the menus, and the fallen fortunes of poor -Julia Garth in a most impartial way, and at the top -of their voices.</p> - -<p>“Of course it’s awful to suddenly drop from having -your gowns from Paris, a maid, a private turnout, and -keeping open house—or rather houses—and all that, -to a flat somewhere in Brooklyn, with a sick mother, and -trying to work off your music for a living,” said one shrill -voice; “but then it is an awful bore, too, for us to have -her on our minds. This concert is only the beginning, -I suppose.”</p> - -<p>“Julia plays delightfully, and we all have more or -less chamber music during the winter, and one of us<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_61"></a>[61]</span> -might take her to Lenox or Newport this summer,” -said another, in a reproving tone; “and then among us -all there are plenty of children for her to teach.”</p> - -<p>“If she plays and sings for us all winter, that is sufficient -reason why we shall be sick of her next summer,” -said the first voice. “You know how it was with Mrs. -Darcey Binks and her Creole songs. We thought we -could not get enough of her. She thought she was -settled here for life, and biff! the Spanish mandolin -players knocked her out the second season. As for -lessons, if you take up some one half out of charity, and -then go South in the middle of a term, they will always -whine about it, and you feel mean; a professional can -take care of herself and always gets even, but doesn’t -let you know it.”</p> - -<p>“I wish we could think of something newer than a -concert, that would make a hit and a pot of money,” -said Lucy Dean, not bragging of the fact that she had -already asked Julia Garth to come and live with her, -and been refused kindly but firmly. “What can you -suggest, Brooke? you are always overflowing with -ideas, even if some of them are too good for this world.”</p> - -<p>Brooke, thus challenged, half rose in her chair so that -she faced both tables, and said: “I do not believe in -offering Julia what she would accept as work and you -consider as charity; it is false pretence on both sides! -We can easily make up a Christmas purse for her among<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_62"></a>[62]</span> -ourselves, without giving her the pain of the advertising -of a benefit concert, and all the talk of it. Then when -she has a chance to know where she stands,—her -father only died a month ago, poor child,—I will get -my father or yours” (motioning to Lucy) “to give her -<i>real</i> work for <i>real</i> pay, and with no charitable tag hanging -to it. She has kept household accounts and sometimes -been her father’s private secretary. I saw her -last week, and what she wants and is able to do is real -work and plenty of it to make her forget, not charity -coddling to make her remember.”</p> - -<p>“Mercy on me! don’t cut us up like cheese sandwiches, -with your sarcasm!” ejaculated Lucy, “and -clutch that chair so, as if you had claws. Your eyes -remind me of a hawk that perches in a cage over in the -park opposite my window, and glares all day long at the -silly sparrows outside!”</p> - -<p>Brooke laughed, and the dangerous flash in her eyes -dying out again, she turned to her plate of salad and -the general gossip of the day, but a red spot still glowed -in the middle of each cheek. A few minutes later she -might have been seen driving down the avenue in her -mother’s brougham, trying to decipher, by the light of -the electric street lamps, some printing in the silk-covered -catalogue.</p> - -<p>This is what she read: “Marte Lorenz, born at his -uncle’s tulip farm near Haarlem, in 1872. Educated<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_63"></a>[63]</span> -in England, where his father had been a merchant. -Studied at the Amsterdam Art School, going afterward -to Paris, where his countryman, Israels, befriended him. -A hard student, but the picture ‘Eucharistia’ is his -first important work, while European critics and his -masters believe it is the beginning of a great career. -At present he is living in seclusion in Normandy, following -his art.”</p> - -<p>Ashton, the useful, had patched up the biographies -in the little book, helter-skelter, but Brooke did not know -it, and tucking the catalogue carefully into her great -muff, she leaned back and closed her eyes.</p> - -<p>It was her portrait that Lorenz had painted, together -with his own, whatever the mystic word “Eucharistia” -might mean. He had not forgotten her, then, -and he was loath to part with the picture. She did not -formulate the pleasure the thought gave her,—it was -enough in itself.</p> - -<p>Then the brougham stopped before the blazing lights -of the St. Hilaire, where the Lawtons were making a -temporary home, a sort of bridge, that both mother and -daughter had long wearied of, between the simpler past -and the long-delayed, complex future, when in the new -house, now building, her father promised once and for -all to drop the reins of tape and wire, cease from hurrying, -and take rest.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_64"></a>[64]</span></p> - -<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_VI">CHAPTER VI<br /> -<span class="smaller">THE LAWTONS</span></h2> - -</div> - -<p>With Mrs. Lawton the afternoon of the Park -musical had been a time of irresolution. When the -man of a family is noted for swift arbitrary decisions -and often unexplained action in all domestic affairs, -in important matters and petty details alike, his wife -is apt, simply by force of reaction, to be driven to the -opposite extreme in those things that concern herself -alone. Not that Adam Lawton’s wife had ever been -lacking in spirit, and when, as Pamela Brooke, a girl of -twenty, he had taken her from her southern plantation -home, then crippled and impoverished by war, yet -where she still held absolute sway, many nodded their -heads, and said that the calculating, keen-eyed Yankee -would some day be startled by the fire of southern -blood.</p> - -<p>Not but what his coming, seeing, and conquering -had been as swift as the most romantic could desire, -one short month compassing it all, for there was a -certain magnetism about Adam Lawton that, when -he chose to exert it, was irresistible, while to those<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_65"></a>[65]</span> -outside its influence he was doubly a bit of chilling -steel.</p> - -<p>Nor had his wife ever faltered in her loyalty to him; -she would have given much more than he would take, -for in the beginning hers had been a nature that sought -happiness in pouring out her love freely and enveloping -its object in it, at the same time giving the man she had -chosen, through imagination, every noble and winning -attribute that would increase her passion.</p> - -<p>Two sons had been born to her before she had -awakened from this ecstatic period and was perforce -obliged to separate the real from the ideal. Not that -Adam Lawton loved her a degree less strongly than -when, calling upon her father on purely business -matters, he had first seen her riding up the unkempt -avenue of her home, her beauty and bearing lending -distinction to the faded habit that she wore. His -love was of a strange quality, a sort of transmutation -of metals by sudden fire that, having once taken place, -must of necessity be welded for all time. In reality -an egotist, from his own point of view he was wholly unselfish, -for he asked little for what he gave, and would -allow none of the little daily services that nourish love, -whose best food must have the flavour of mutual -dependence.</p> - -<p>The two boys died of scarlet fever almost together, -before they were well out of babyhood, and after a<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_66"></a>[66]</span> -lapse of many years a daughter, Brooke, had come, -then another lapse, and another son, called Adam, -now about sixteen; and like many a son of a father -who has planned a boy’s career to the minutest detail, -he seemed not only bound not to go in the desired way, -but to lack the bump of direction, which turns a boy -from being merely driftwood and guides him in any sort -of way whatsoever.</p> - -<p>From habitual restraint of emotions learned in those -first ten years, Mrs. Lawton had come to pass for -a perfectly bred, though somewhat unsympathetic, -woman.</p> - -<p>Brooke, whose own heart naturally beat as tumultuously -as ever did her mother’s, had learned to feel -something of this even in her early childhood, when -at her father’s footstep she had been hushed in some -wild exhibition of childish enthusiasm; and though -she and her mother were the very best of friends, there -was a certain quality missing in their intercourse. -Perhaps missing is not the word,—a quality not yet -developed expresses it more exactly, and this, too, -came through the peculiar temperament of Adam -Lawton himself. Outside of his business he had -but one thought, his family, and to supply their needs -as he read them, his selfishness lying in the fact that -he asked so little of them, beyond their presence in -his house, that it was impossible for him to judge, by<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_67"></a>[67]</span> -intimate contact, what those needs really were, or to -realize that confidence and sympathy are better coin -than dollars.</p> - -<p>Brooke alone had been able to break through this -crust of self-sufficiency that he had used as a barrier -against the world in his early days of struggle, until -it now shut him off from the luxury of everything -natural, uncalculated, and spontaneous. Brooke had -enough of the enthusiasm of youth not to be chilled -by it. She looked forward hopefully to the promised -time when he should take a long holiday, and be with -them, and, as she explained it, only “think foolishness.” -He had never refused her anything that she asked of -him, not that her wishes had ever been extravagant. -Many a time, as some clever whim of hers brought a -rare smile to his keen, thin face, intelligent and alive, -if somewhat harshly fined and worn, he almost clinched -the hand that he always kept in his left pocket in despair -that this child was not the boy who should -keep his name alive, instead of that other who now -bore it. But in the fact that Brooke was a daughter -lay all the charm, for there is no other born relationship -so subtle, so potent of good for each, as that between -father and daughter.</p> - -<p>For many years the Lawtons lived in an ample old-fashioned -house in one of the streets converging at -Washington Square, where Brooke and young Adam<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_68"></a>[68]</span> -had been born. Here Mrs. Lawton had passed many -days of quiet content and social comfort, entertaining -in the open-hearted southern way that does not admit -of push or hurry. True, the neighbourhood was changing, -and others more ambitious were moving away; -in fact, Adam Lawton had one day said the time had -come when he was ready to build a modern house, -in a part of the city where a home more suited to his -position and a good investment could be combined, -for with him the two propositions always went together.</p> - -<p>Mrs. Lawton had sighed, but said nothing. She -loved the wide, sunny house, with its colonial mantels -and irregular staircase, and secretly she hoped that -no one would buy it. Faint hope, for in a week from -the day the matter was broached, Adam Lawton -announced that the house was sold. A business -building had purchased the adjoining property and -virtually gave him his price. They could live in an -apartment hotel pending the building of the new house. -It would give his wife a rest, for he was beginning to -notice that she was looking rather worn, and did not -attribute it to the real cause or the flight of years, but -to some extraneous reason that that most dubious of -all acts, “a change,” might overcome. So Mrs. Lawton -was spending her second winter at the St. Hilaire, -living apart from her own life, as it were. True, she -had been listless and not very well of late, but it was<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_69"></a>[69]</span> -more from inertia than any constitutional weakness. -No one could expect to keep for thirty years the radiant -type of blonde beauty with which Pamela Brooke -had glowed at twenty. Mrs. Lawton was still in a -sense a beautiful woman, but the vivacity that often -outlives freshness of tint and distinctiveness of feature -had died first of all. Her charm lay in a certain refinement -of outline; colour and features had grown -dim as the reflection of a face in a mirror blurred by -dust, and her mass of waving golden brown hair, that -in its lights and shades had once surpassed even -Brooke’s, was of a clear white, as of the days of powder, -and gave the delicate features an almost dramatic -setting.</p> - -<p>As Adam Lawton grew more and more absorbed in -finance, he was the more exacting of her presence -during the evening hours, when, too absorbed to either -go out or bid friends come to him, he sat in his simply -furnished den, for all luxury stopped at his door, and -pored over papers, letters, and maps, scarcely glancing -up or speaking to his wife twice in the evening, yet -expecting her presence and conscious if she left him -for a moment.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>When Brooke had started on this particular winter -afternoon for the Parkses’ musicale, in company with her -friend, Lucy Dean, Mrs. Lawton had quite decided<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_70"></a>[70]</span> -not to go. Her husband had been unusually silent -for the few days past, and had said something about -possibly coming home in time to drive up to the new -house, which was yet uncompleted, owing to the building -strike of the past summer.</p> - -<p>But as the early twilight came on and he did not -appear, she grew restless, and knowing that it was too -late for the proposed drive, quickly determined to go -to the Parkses’ for a little while and return with Brooke. -Going to her lounging room to call the carriage by -telephone, for she had an entirely separate wire from -the private service at her husband’s desk, she found -several letters lying upon the table. Exclaiming at -the carelessness of the maids, of whom two were kept -for service of meals, etc., in the apartment, she looked -at the addresses, and the handwriting on the last put -the thought of going out from her mind.</p> - -<p>Four were in the handwriting of private secretaries, -and promised social invitations; the fifth, addressed -in the shaded pin-point writing of the seminary of -thirty years ago, was postmarked Gilead; while the -sixth was in the rough and painfully unformed hand of -Adam, “the Cub,” as his friends called him, her only -living son, now at a military school some sixty miles -away.</p> - -<p>It was impossible to deny that the Cub was behind-hand -in his work, and that, instead of being within two<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_71"></a>[71]</span> -years of college, according to his father’s schedule, -he was little more than in sight of it; but her mother’s -heart told her that the rigidity of his father’s methods -was quite as much to blame as her son’s stupidity. -Coming of ancestors whose training on both sides had -been for and of the out-of-door life, the forcing system -of surveillance under which he had lived, summer and -winter alike, since his eleventh year, had developed -only the evil in him.</p> - -<p>Vainly she had suggested, nay almost fought, to -have him sent to a famous ranch school, where the -sons of several of her friends had learned self-reliance -and books at one and the same time. Adam Lawton -would not hear of it, saying the dangers of the life and -the distance were too great.</p> - -<p>In Brooke his measure of fatherly affection was -complete and satisfied, and that she should never -put her hand in an empty pocket his chief desire; but -still all his hopes of the future of his race theoretically -centred in this only son, as in an asset of both flesh -and money, and every hair of his tawny head and -freckle on his face was more precious than his own -life-blood; yet he had the narrowness of the self-made -man, the financier in particular, and he could see honour -and success in one path only—that in which he himself -had trodden.</p> - -<p>Adam Lawton senior, now halfway between sixty<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_72"></a>[72]</span> -and seventy, though he did not allow it even to himself, -often felt the lack of academic knowledge, and therefore -Adam junior must undergo a certain polishing -system perforce, even if the substance to be polished -lost its identity and crumbled to chalk in the process. -For only two things had Adam evinced any liking,—for -out-of-door life and a horse, while his backwardness -with his lessons had cut off these outlets by keeping -him at school or under tutelage the entire season -through.</p> - -<p>If Adam Lawton loved his son as a matter of heredity, -Pamela Lawton loved him as a human being, as her -baby, and her maternal passion gained fierceness by -repression. The letter was an appeal for permission -to go home, and contained a doctor’s certificate saying -that the boy had, in his opinion, outgrown his strength, -and needed several months of outdoor life, etc., etc. -Mrs. Lawton crushed the paper in her hand. The -last time such a missive had been received it had -resulted in the Cub’s being sent to travel with a tutor. -One human being the boy did love, and that was -herself,—he must have her care now or never!</p> - -<p>Without realizing that the hotel was no place for the -boy, or what the result might be, she went to her desk, -wrote a few emphatic words, enclosed a ten-dollar bill -in the envelope (it chanced to be the last money in her -purse), and, quickly putting on coat and bonnet, took<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_73"></a>[73]</span> -it herself to the post-box on the street corner, not trusting -it to the hotel box; then she returned to her room -with flushed cheeks, feeling as guilty as a girl slipping -out with a love-letter instead of a mother daring to -tell her own son to come home. At that moment -she fairly hated the motiveless comfort by which she -was surrounded; passivity had become almost a disease, -she must shake it off; she would speak that night, -and have an understanding about the Cub, no matter -how busy her husband might be.</p> - -<p>When she had laid aside her things, no maid yet -appearing, the Gilead letter claimed her attention, -and she was soon absorbed in it. It told of Keith’s -resolution to go to Boston, and gave an inventory -of the property on the farm that had been bought -with Adam Lawton’s money.</p> - -<p>She had also, she said, written for instructions as to -its future care; would he take charge, or should she -look for some suitable person in the neighbourhood? -Receiving no answer, and judging that the letter had -either been lost, or else that her cousin had been too -busy to consider it, Miss Keith had made a second -careful copy and enclosed it in a letter to Mrs. Lawton, -saying that time pressed, and she must rely upon her -to “jog” Cousin Adam’s memory, or perhaps, as the -farm at least stood in Brooke’s name, that she might -have some wishes in the matter.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_74"></a>[74]</span></p> - -<p>Mrs. Lawton had almost finished reading the inventory -of simple furnishings, etc., when Brooke -entered. Her mother at once noticed a strange expression -in her always candid features, and a new light -in her wide-open eyes; but the letters in her lap -caught Brooke’s attention, and after she had given -a brief history of the doings of the afternoon, the two -women, seated side by side, bent their heads over the -Cub’s epistle, though the elder already knew it by -heart, word for word.</p> - -<p>“The poor, poor Cub!” ejaculated Brooke at last, -half laughing, and then stopping short, for looking -up, she saw tears trembling on her mother’s lashes. -“If it were only long ago, we would buy him a horse, -and spear, and shield, and smuggle him outside the -castle walls at night, and let him gallop away to seek -his own fortunes. Do you know, little mother, that, -in spite of all the liberty I have, and money in my -pocket without the asking, I sometimes feel choked -and tied down like this bad boy of ours? It was only -an hour ago, when I was sitting in that beautiful -picture gallery, that it came over me how so many -of the things we do every day seem unreal and like a -useless dream. We ourselves arrange or else blindly -submit to customs that keep us apart instead of bringing -those who love each other together, until life gets -to be like those stupid gas fire-logs yonder, all for<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_75"></a>[75]</span> -show—a little feverish heat and unwholesomeness -as a result instead of the true thing, though to be sure -real logs are more trouble and a greater responsibility -to tend.</p> - -<p>“I want to be something more than furniture in -our new home, if it is ever finished, and we succeed -in getting out of what Lucy Dean calls this ‘elaborated -parlour-car method of living.’ Yes, mother, -I’m getting what you call a restless streak again. I -think I’m going to pick up my brushes”—and then -a serious, almost sad expression crossed her face as -she added, “if they will let me.”</p> - -<p>“So Cousin Keith’s going away,—going to be married! -I wish she could have done the second without -the first. I like to think of her at the farm just as -she used to be. You know it’s my farm now, and -I’ve always planned to go back there some summer, -and really work, for if anything could put life in my -brush, it would be to live in my ‘River Kingdom.’ I’d -much rather do that than have a large country place, -such as father plans, though of course Gilead is too quiet -and out of touch with things for him, and the farm -is too small a bit for his energy to work upon. Cousin -Keith has been very thrifty,—‘five cows, a farm -horse, chickens, ducks, seed potatoes, cordwood, etc.,’ -(all mine, too, because the deed says ‘inclusive of all -live stock, and furnishings’). Last of all she lists<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_76"></a>[76]</span> -‘Tatters, the family dog, whose race has been on the -soil as long as we ourselves; if he can’t transfer himself -to the newcomers not of the name, Dr. Russell -has promised to take him down to Oaklands. Please -understand, Cousin Pamela, that Tatters doesn’t -rank with live stock,—he is a person, and must be -treated as such!’”</p> - -<p>“Tatters!” repeated Brooke, looking involuntarily -at the artificial fire, so surely does visible heat draw the -outward eye when the mind’s eye is a-roving. “That -was the name of one of the dogs they had that autumn -when I spent that lovely month there, and played at -gypsy every day. But he must be very, very old -now. Yes, you shall be well treated, old fellow, and -not ‘transferred’ to anything or anybody against your -will.</p> - -<p>“Mother, do you know I think that if only Cousin -Keith were not going away, it would be a fine thing -to send the Cub to Gilead for a while, until he pulled -himself together, and then some not overzealous -tutor with a fondness for walking might be found for -him.</p> - -<p>“What is it?” asked Brooke, reading the confusion -in her mother’s face. “You have answered him -already and told him that he may come? Good! -now we will act together. You take father quite -too seriously; if he really understood just what we both<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_77"></a>[77]</span> -wish to do and be, I’m sure that he would be the last -one to hinder either, but we haven’t let him see. How -can a man who has lived his own life so long possibly -understand women unless they give him the clew, and -whisper ‘hot’ and ‘cold’ when he gets off the track?</p> - -<p>“No one, since ever I can remember, has been -allowed to let father even think that he can make a -mistake; consequently he really believes he cannot -err, and I don’t think that he is wholly to blame for it. -I’m going to beg for the Cub’s liberty the minute -father comes home, and more than that, I’m going -to tell him that we four have been groping round in -opposite directions, and that he simply must come -into our lives, and let us do for him, or take us into -his—that the ‘some day’ when he will have time to -listen must begin this very night!”</p> - -<p>“Dinner is served!” said the reproving accents of -the waiting-maid, letting drop the portière as she spoke, -and both women glanced in surprise at the clock that -was striking eight.</p> - -<p>“Eight o’clock already, and I’m in my street gown,” -said Brooke, gathering up her possessions, and making -sure that the silk-bound catalogue was in her muff.</p> - -<p>“Eight o’clock, and your father has not yet come -home!”</p> - -<p>“Perhaps he has stopped at the club, and talked -longer than usual. I heard to-day through Lucy,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_78"></a>[78]</span> -to whom her father seems to speak as freely about his -business as if she were his partner, that our parents -are engaged in some important ‘deal’ together!</p> - -<p>“He is probably late for our special benefit,” said -Brooke, cheerfully, “so that we may make ourselves -just a wee bit pretty,” and putting her arm about -her mother, she led her down the corridor to their -rooms, which adjoined, and five minutes sufficed for each -to slip on the tasteful, yet simple, dinner gown that the -lady’s-maid, now at her post, had laid in readiness.</p> - -<p>“Ask the page in the outer hall if any note has come -for mother,” said Brooke to the woman, as they went -to the dining room. “It was only yesterday that I -found that two personal notes had been travelling -up and down in the elevator for half the morning, in -spite of two men at the door, and one posted every -ten feet the rest of the way.”</p> - -<p>“There is no note come, ma’am,” replied the waiting-maid, -a couple of minutes later, “but he says that -Mr. Lawton’s been over an hour at home,—at least -he came in then, and he’s not seen him go out, that is, -not by the lift. He must have let himself in with a -key, then, for neither Sellers nor I opened for him.”</p> - -<p>“Perhaps he went to the den, thinking we were all -out, and does not realize how late it is,” said Brooke, -moving swiftly down the hall, followed by her mother. -Turning the corner, for her father had located his den,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_79"></a>[79]</span> -for the sake of quiet, as far as possible from the rest of -the apartment, she saw the light that shone above -and below the portière, for the door was not wholly -closed.</p> - -<p>“Yes, he is here after all!” and she threw open the -door without knocking, as she alone dared, and entered -with some playful words upon her lips, quite prepared -to rumple the iron-gray hair, a little thin on top, that -partially capped the figure seated at his desk, with his -left hand, as usual, in his pocket.</p> - -<p>The next moment she stopped, as an undefined feeling -of dread held her fast,—the right hand was stiffly -extended, as if it had just let go its hold of the movable -’phone that stood on the desk, and knocked it over. -The usually alert figure had settled in the chair, the -head dropping backward, while, after a single breath, -that resounded like a snore, there was no sound.</p> - -<p>Brooke touched him quickly; there was still the -warmth of life, and the left side of the face twitched -frightfully, but no words came; his face, flushed at -first, was growing rapidly livid. Instantly she wound -her strong young arms about him, and, laying him -on the thick rug, his head slightly turned and raised, -she motioned to her mother and the maid, who had -come at her unconscious call, to loosen collar and -clothing, while she sped back to the telephone in her -mother’s sitting room to call a doctor who was resident<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_80"></a>[80]</span> -in the hotel, and he was at hand almost before she -realized that the call had gone forth.</p> - -<p>“Cerebral hemorrhage; has he had bad news or -some sudden shock?” was what the physician said a -moment after he entered the room where Adam Lawton -lay, and saw the litter of papers and the overthrown -instrument. But there was no letter or telegram -among them that could indicate, and the ominous telephone -receiver was mute.</p> - -<p>As the men from the house helped move him to his -room, Mrs. Lawton and Brooke following silent with -the first calmness of a shock, her own words rang in -her ears. “He must come into our lives and let us do -for him or take us into his life; the ‘some day’ when he -will have time to listen must begin to-night!”</p> - -<p>The first hour passed, that period of rapid action -following a calamity that intervenes before the clutch -of the tension of continued strain is felt.</p> - -<p>The family physician came and called an expert in -counsel, and then Brooke was directed to send for a -nurse,—more than one her mother would not have, -and as she was intelligently calm, no objection was -made to her insistence that she should share both -the care and responsibility of the night.</p> - -<p>Adam Lawton was unconscious, and life itself must -hang in the balance for many hours at best, and the -physicians insisted upon the most perfect quiet.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_81"></a>[81]</span></p> - -<p>Who can say where the mind is when its physical -registry is interrupted? The physician cannot tell -you, but at the same time he is very careful to keep -injurious impression beyond the range of the seemingly -deaf ears. Brooke went to her father’s den and touched -the instrument that had so recently fallen from his -hand, almost with a shudder. If only it would repeat -to her what it had said to him, some light would be -shed upon the mystery.</p> - -<p>After arranging for the nurse, a desire for companionship -during this night of suspense seized her, and -she called the number that meant Lucy Dean, thinking -as she did so, “I must tell her as quickly as I can, for -I cannot bear her usual telephone joking now.”</p> - -<p>“Lucy? It is I, Brooke Lawton; can you come down -and spend the night with me? Please listen until I -finish. Something awful has happened—father—”</p> - -<p>Lucy (breaking in with a torrent of words): “Yes, -you poor dear, I know all about it; heard it just as -soon as I got home, before dinner—dad told me. -We would have been down by now, only dad thought, as -your father had gone against his advice through all -this matter, it might seem pushing in me. Cheer up, -it may come out all right yet.”</p> - -<p>Brooke: “I don’t understand; how could you -have heard before dinner?—it was eight o’clock before -we knew ourselves.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_82"></a>[82]</span></p> - -<p>“Dad was worried over the affair and had a special -sent him after he came up town.”</p> - -<p>“Lucy, what are you talking about?”</p> - -<p>“Why, what else but your father’s great deal to -buy up the stock control of the T. Y. D. Q. Railroad, -and the way those rascally friends of his turned traitor? -It isn’t so killing, after all. Dad was down perfectly -flat twelve years ago, and now he’s ten times to the -good. What dad thought foolish was for him to realize -on everything else he had to go into this shaky deal!”</p> - -<p>“You mean that my father has failed! Then that -accounts, oh, that accounts for it all!”</p> - -<p>“You don’t say that you did not know it? What -did you mean and what are you talking about? Your -father hasn’t—” Fortunately the question that Lucy -asked did not reach Brooke’s ears, for, pushing the instrument -from her across the desk, she neither cried -nor raved nor wrung her hands, but sitting forward in -her father’s chair, very much the attitude he took -when deep in thought, scarcely stirred for the quarter-hour. -The visible signs of the years she lacked of -being the age she really was came swiftly, and laid -their hands upon hers, not empty hands nor yet filled -with the trifles the years sometimes hold. Presently -Courage entered her heart, and then its sponsors, Hope -and Constancy.</p> - -<p>Soon a muffled closing of the door at the lower<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_83"></a>[83]</span> -end of the hall, and the approaching tiptoe tread of -two people of uneven weights, brought her to her feet -and into the crisis again. It was Lucy, who, with -every vestige of flippancy gone, threw her arms around -her friend’s neck and burst into tears, while Brooke -held out her hand to Mr. Dean, meanwhile, looking -him straight in the eyes, saying: “Thank you for coming. -Do not trouble to conceal anything, only tell me the -truth, and do it quickly,” not realising that in such -cases truth-telling is not the simple thing that it is -reckoned.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_84"></a>[84]</span></p> - -<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_VII">CHAPTER VII<br /> -<span class="smaller">THE DAY AFTER</span></h2> - -</div> - -<p>There was a single day of incredulity and suspense, -and then the fact of Adam Lawton’s financial downfall -was made public through the papers, together with the -names of those who had been swept from their feet in -his company. As to his physical collapse, it was merely -stated that he was ill at his department in the St. Hilaire, -denied himself to all visitors, and would hold no communication -even with his lawyer or business associates.</p> - -<p>Few people sink alone in a financial maelstrom, and -Lawton was not one of these; so that the cries and muttered -imprecations of those who, unlike her father, -were conscious and battling for life in trying to find and -cling to bits of the wreckage reached Brooke and -rang in her ears, partially deafening her to her own -thoughts.</p> - -<p>It was not until noon of the second day that she had -succeeded in getting her mother to leave her post and -see Mr. Dean in the library. At first Brooke had hoped -to keep the knowledge of the real cause of her father’s -illness from her mother, for a few days at least, but it<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_85"></a>[85]</span> -was of no use; every one in the great hotel was aware -of the facts, even though it made no difference in the -attitude of the employees, for with a certain class of -people, and a fairly intelligent one at that, failures are -often interpreted merely as an odd trick in the game of -finance now played. One of the important morning -papers even went so far as to print a thinly veiled hint -that Adam Lawton’s seclusion and supposed illness was -a very subtle excuse for gaining time or allowing him -to forget much that it would be extremely inconvenient -to be called upon to remember at this juncture.</p> - -<p>Mrs. Lawton had gone through her ordeal with Mr. -Dean very quietly; she heard his explanation—that -is, as far as anything that might be said could be called -such, but its full meaning had not yet dawned upon -her; and being utterly worn out she allowed herself to -be tucked up on the lounge in Brooke’s room, where she -fell into an exhausted sleep, under the soothing touch -of her daughter’s fingers.</p> - -<p>Lucy Dean, coming in during the late afternoon, for -she had remained with her friend since the first and had -only gone out for a walk, found Brooke sitting bolt upright -in her father’s chair in the den, a newspaper that -rested on the desk crumpled in one hand, and a dangerous -light in her eyes.</p> - -<p>“Have you seen this?” she asked Lucy, in a voice -that was fairly hoarse from suppression, as she pointed<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_86"></a>[86]</span> -to the insinuating article which bore the double significance -of being semi-editorial in form,—“and appearing -in the <i>Daily Forum</i>, too, the paper that father -always thought the most sound and moderate. Oh, -how I wish that I could get hold of some one and make -them believe at least that father is truly ill and knows -absolutely no one, not even mother and me!”</p> - -<p>“Brooke Lawton, if you are going to read all the -papers say or hint about your affairs during the next -few weeks, you will give me a chance to look up a sanatorium, -with nice cool bars for you to snub your nose -against, which won’t improve its shape. Don’t read -the papers; if the things aren’t true, why bother, and -if some of them are, what are you going to do about -it?”</p> - -<p>Lucy had been astonishingly quiet and sympathetic -for nearly twenty-four hours, but a long walk in the -fresh air had raised her indomitable animal spirits -to the top again, and though they sometimes made -Brooke catch her breath and gasp, like too crude a stimulant, -they were under the circumstances probably the -best counterbalance and tonic she could have had.</p> - -<p>“Of course,” Lucy continued, “if it was a purely -social affair, I could get Charlie Ashton to stuff the -papers to the limit. If he is my cousin, I must say that -he managed to syndicate the account of the Parkses’ -musicale most adroitly (of course, though, you didn’t<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_87"></a>[87]</span> -read that yesterday). The main description—gowns -and all that—was the same in each, but Charlie contrived -to let each reporter have some extra item that -fitted his paper specially. A little more about the music -for one, details of the picture gallery for another, the -brand of champagne used for a third, upholstery for a -fourth, and so on. Come to think of it, I remember -something about his saying that a reporter on the <i>Daily -Forum</i> was a chum of his at Harvard. I might try -and see what Charlie can do, but I’m afraid, as far as -serious news goes, even his chum wouldn’t swallow -him.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, Lucy, Lucy! can’t you see it is not <i>stuffing</i> -and <i>swallowing</i> that I want, but for people to know that -father is really ill and not shamming—that we are not -all combining in a dreadful game of deceit?”</p> - -<p>“Do be content, child, to let the talk wear itself out. -From what the doctor told my father this morning, -your father may be a long time like this—weeks and -months perhaps—even if by and by he comes to himself. -It isn’t like a toothache that will be over to-morrow. -You can’t rush out on the avenue and pull the -people up here in flocks to see for themselves, though -by to-morrow, just as soon as society has made up its -mind what it ought to do, you’ll have plenty of callers. -You told me yourself that the result of the consultation -was that everything hinges on quiet.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_88"></a>[88]</span></p> - -<p>“By the way, there were two reporters clamouring at -the lift when I went out, one actually trying to bribe the -boy to tell whether your father was really here in the -apartment. I sent them scurrying in a hurry, I can tell -you. Listen! I believe that there is another at the -door now; anyway, some one is asking for you. I think -I heard the words <i>Daily Forum</i>,” and Lucy pulled aside -the curtain, and going to the angle in the hallway peered -down its length to where the maid was talking in whispers -to a tall somebody in pantaloons.</p> - -<p>“Yes, it is a reporter,” said Lucy, stepping back -noiselessly. “Sellers is trying to shoo him out, but -he’s all inside the door and asking, not a bit humbly, -to see ‘a member of the family.’ Watch and see how -long it will take me to get rid of him,” and Lucy -pulled on and buttoned her gloves, which, on coming -in, she had begun to take off, with a gesture as though -fists were to take part in the encounter, if necessary.</p> - -<p>Brooke, who had been listening to Lucy, yet not looking -at her, with eyes fixed on the crumpled paper before -her, suddenly sprang to her feet, the warning flash returning -to her eyes, saying: “Don’t go; I will see this -man myself, and please remember, Lucy, whatever I -may say or do, you are not to speak. No, don’t leave -the room. I want you to stay by me, but this matter -of father’s feigning illness is an affair of honour that -only one of the family can conduct.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_89"></a>[89]</span></p> - -<p>Going quickly down the hall, she relieved the harassed -maid by indicating to the visitor that he was to follow -her, at the same time making a gesture to caution -silence, as she guided him back to the den.</p> - -<p>What he first saw on entering the room was the tall, -straight figure of a young woman, back turned, half a -hat and one cheek outlined against the lace drapery, -through which she was looking into the street with a -frozen fixedness, as if her very life depended upon not -moving or turning the fraction of an inch. His second -glance rested on the other woman, who, having preceded -him, was standing by the desk corner, half supporting -herself by it. She raised her head with its -wreath of ash-brown hair proudly, and looked him in the -face with eyes in which anger struggled with a pleading -expression, in keeping with the heavy shadows that -underlay them.</p> - -<p>After moistening her lips once or twice nervously, -Brooke spoke: “You asked to see one of the family, -and said it was important that you should. If you are -a gentleman, as you appear to be, of course you would -not have come at such a time on trivial business. I am -Brooke Lawton; what do you wish to ask?”</p> - -<p>For an instant the young fellow hesitated, thoroughly -abashed; he had met with a variety of experiences in -following his vocation of news collecting, but never before -had he felt so much like beating a retreat, or his<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_90"></a>[90]</span> -errand seemed so intrusive. Without any special -claim to good looks or great stature, he had a certain -clear-cut distinctiveness of feature, a mouth that stood -the harsh test of the shaved upper lip, and eyes that, -though they opened lengthwise rather than wide, -looked as if they would take in the surroundings and -atmosphere as well as the main object on which they -were focussed.</p> - -<p>While he hesitated the newspaper which Brooke -still clutched attracted him, and as he read its title he -divined that Brooke had overheard the name he had -just given the maid at the door and already associated -him with the sneering article. Laying the card, which -the maid had refused, upon the table, he said quietly, -but with an earnestness that carried conviction: “I am -Tom Brownell of the <i>Daily Forum</i>, the sheet you have -in your hand. I know that there was a nasty leader in -this morning’s issue that was slipped in, no one seems -to know how, by some one who had animus or was hard -hit in this T. Y. D. Q. deal. We pride ourselves upon -getting at the truth of things that concern the public, -so I have come here to settle for once and all the question -of Mr. Lawton’s reported serious illness, by direct -communication with some one of his family.”</p> - -<p>“You mean that you wish to know if my father is -really ill? Then people do doubt it and think he may -be merely hiding to avoid inquiry?” said Brooke, who<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_91"></a>[91]</span> -now had full control of the voice that her friends called -silvery, but which now had more of steel in its ring.</p> - -<p>“Moreover, you expect to learn the truth by <i>asking</i> -one of his family—what will that amount to if they -choose to aid and abet the illness that your paper hints -is part of a well-arranged covering of a retreat? If I -should tell you that night before last, while my mother -and I were waiting for him to return to dinner, my -father had come home, unknown to us or the maids, -letting himself in with a latch-key, which he used so -seldom that we had forgotten its existence; when -finally, attracted by a light under the door of this room, -we opened it, he was in this chair, unconscious, stricken -with apoplexy, his hand by the receiver of the overturned -telephone; since then, though as far as physical -life goes he is living, he has neither moved nor spoken -nor recognized any one, nor can he swallow, and such -liquid food as he has taken is given artificially,—if I -tell you all this, still how can you be sure it is the truth?”</p> - -<p>“Please, please, Miss Lawton, I am shocked and -awfully grieved and ashamed. Don’t be so hard on yourself -and on me as to think that I dreamed of any such -condition existing. We reporters do not rejoice in the -misfortunes of others. But that it is not the time for -such things, I could tell you that one of the reasons I -had in beginning life in this way was to get to the bottom -of things, and see if some people at least didn’t really<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_92"></a>[92]</span> -want to tell and hear the truth in the newspapers. Of -course I will believe what you tell me, and all that remains -is for me to apologize for pushing in upon you -and—go as quickly as possible. I only wish I could -help or do something to ease you.”</p> - -<p>“You forget that I have told you nothing,” said -Brooke, hesitating and catching at the throat of her -blouse as if she wished to pull it away and give herself -more room to breathe—“I only said <i>if</i>, and if you are -looking for truth, to be certain you must see it, not ask -about it.” Then, as the new thought grew upon her, -and she realized that her mother was asleep, the tragedy -fled from her eyes, that she had fixed upon the face -of the reporter,—who, fast losing his self-possession, -stood looking uncomfortable and foolish, turning his -hat about by its rim like an applicant for a situation,—her -entire poise had altered, and she seemed several -inches taller.</p> - -<p>“Oh, Mr. Brownell, don’t you see that the only way -that you can help us in telling the truth about father is -by seeing for yourself? Put down your hat and come -with me—” and before he had recovered from his -astonishment, Brooke grasped Tom Brownell by the -wrist and literally led him from the room, up the hallway, -not toward the entrance but along the side passage, -where the electricity had not yet been turned on and -which was in a dim and uncertain light.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_93"></a>[93]</span></p> - -<p>Pausing before the door of Adam Lawton’s room, -and without releasing her hold of Brownell’s wrist, she -turned the handle carefully, entered, and was standing -with her companion in the shadow of the bed before -the nurse at the opposite side realized that any one had -come in, or could even raise her hand in caution. No -one spoke, and the footsteps on the thick rug that covered -the floor made no sound—the breathing of the -pale figure prone upon the bed was the only vibration -even of the air.</p> - -<p>For two, perhaps three, minutes, that held an eternity -of torture to Brownell, who stood with bent head, they -remained, so that no detail could escape his notice. -Then Brooke led him back to the den, leaving the nurse -in grave doubt as to what manner of man this might -be who had seemingly been forcibly led into the room -where, by the doctor’s orders, no one but mother and -daughter were to be admitted.</p> - -<p>The moment that the curtains had closed behind the -two, Lucy Dean turned from the window with a suddenness -that might be described as a bang, except that no -noise went with the motion. Drawing two or three -long breaths, as a relief to her suppressed speech, she -crossed the room and picked up the reporter’s card, -turned it over and over and, reading the name with deliberation, -put it in her pocket. “Thomas Brownell, -Jr., the <i>Daily Forum</i>,” she repeated, at the same time<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_94"></a>[94]</span> -making a mental note that the card itself was of good -quality and engraved, not printed, an unusual occurrence -with the average reporter. Spying his hat, she -next seized upon that, discovering at a single glance the -name of a maker of good repute and Brownell’s own -address, at a comfortable though inexpensive bachelor -inn, stamped in gilt letters on the band. Hearing a -slight rustling in the hall, she returned to her post by -the window, but, instead of standing, she had thrown -herself into a chair, half facing the room, by the time -that the two returned.</p> - -<p>Nothing further was said as to what had been seen. -Brownell picked up his hat, preparing to leave as -quickly as possible, yet he could not but notice that -Lucy Dean, who by this time had turned wholly toward -the room, was looking at him with an expression half -quizzical, half challenging.</p> - -<p>Brooke dropped wearily into the chair by the desk; -the strain of the last hour had been greater than what -she actually felt; she had been hurried swiftly to face -stern realities, which all her life, though through no -choice of her own, had been to her a side issue in -which she took no part or responsibility, and which she -was never allowed to question. Then, seeing that the -reporter was standing and evidently at a loss how to go, -she went forward with extended hand, saying, very -gently, “Good-by. I think I may trust you not to<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_95"></a>[95]</span> -misunderstand my father’s illness now.” Turning to the -figure by the window, now all on the alert, she said, -“Lucy, dear, will you please show Mr. Brownell the -way out, there are so many turns in this inner hall?” -Then, as Lucy raised her eyebrows in disgusted question -marks, Brooke continued, “Ah, forgive me! this -is my dear friend, Miss Dean, Mr. Brownell, and”—a -little smile hovered around the comers of her mouth -in spite of herself—“you may be very sure that she will -never tell you anything but the whole truth!”</p> - -<p>Then, as the two girls changed places and Lucy led -the way down the main hall, Brooke reseated herself -before the desk, that might tell so much if it only could, -folded her arms upon it, hiding her weary eyes in them. -Had she done right or wrong in letting a stranger see -her father’s real condition? Would it make outside -conditions better or worse? Why had the doctor given -out such evasive bulletins? Well, the die was cast, -and something within told her that from that hour, -when she had taken the family responsibility upon herself, -she would have to bear it.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>As Tom Brownell crossed the rug that lay before the -outer door of the Lawton apartment, something between -it and the tiled flooring slid under the pressure -of his foot. Checking his first impulse to pass on and -get out as quickly as possible, he turned back, even<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_96"></a>[96]</span> -though the door itself was open, and, lifting the corner -of the rug, picked up two thin keys, one smaller than -the other, that were joined by a steel ring. Accustomed -to fit two and two together rapidly, he involuntarily -glanced at the spring lock on the door to see if they belonged -to it, but found it of a different pattern. Stepping -outside, the better to see by the hanging electric -light, he found that the keys bore no name or mark -other than figures, probably the factory number of keys -of a fine make. Turning to Lucy, who had already -come into the main hall and, half closing the door behind -her, was watching him, he muttered a hasty apology -for his curiosity concerning the keys, saying: “To me -unfamiliar keys have always had a strange fascination, -for all my life I have expected to find one that would -unlock a mystery. These probably belong to some -of Mrs. or Miss Lawton’s possessions—a travelling -bag or jewel case. Will you please take charge of them? -And thank you for showing me the way out,” turning -up the corridor as he spoke.</p> - -<p>“You needn’t thank me for showing you the way, as -you evidently don’t know it,” said Lucy; “that is, unless -you have professional reasons for going down in -the luggage lift with trunks, baby wagons, clothes-baskets, -and scrubbing pails. No, you needn’t raise -your eyebrows, I’m not English or infected with Anglomania -either, simply I’m to the point, and <i>luggage lift</i><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_97"></a>[97]</span> -is a much more smooth and pronounceable expression -than baggage elevator, don’t you think?</p> - -<p>“To the right—there you are! Not running? Why, -the thing was all right when I came in not an hour ago, -but I’ve noticed that the power has a way of giving out, -or the machinery needs oiling, about the time the man -might be supposed to want an afternoon nap. You’ll -have to walk downstairs. Good afternoon. Oh, by -the way, do you happen to know Charlie Ashton? I -beg his pardon, <i>Carolus</i>, though I only promised to call -him that at his studio teas. He had a chum at college, -he said, with a literary and reformatory streak, who a -year ago had cut away from his father’s business, and -incidentally his own fortune, and was climbing into -journalism, not in at the top story, but up the cellar stairs. -I’ve rather forgotten his name. He doesn’t chance to -be you, does he?”</p> - -<p>“I’m afraid he does, and that Ashton has guyed me -unmercifully to you, in spite of all the good turns that -he has done me. But as I am myself, you must be his -cousin, Miss Dean, of whom he talks so much at the -club. I did not quite catch what name Miss Lawton -said.”</p> - -<p>“I am Lucy Dean, and I dare say that he has talked -about me even at so reprehensible a place as the club. -Talking about me, I fear, is a bad habit that a great -many of my friends have. I also know that he didn’t<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_98"></a>[98]</span> -call me Miss Dean. What club was it? What did he -call me? Lucyfer is his pet title—and what did he -say?”</p> - -<p>“Oh, Miss Dean, it wasn’t the way you mean at all. -I was lunching, at his invitation, with him at the Players,—quite -by ourselves on my word, and—he—well, -he did call you Lucyfer, and said it expressed your -stand-off way and all that; but he declared you were the -best chum a fellow ever had, and if he wanted a studio -entertainment to be a corking success, he always had -you pour tea. If I hadn’t been spending all my -time the last year climbing up the cellar stairs, as you -express it, I should have begged him to ask me to one -of the teas; but I’m out of that sort of thing, for good -and all, you see.”</p> - -<p>Lucy flushed slightly, an odd thing for her, and then -said suddenly, holding out her right hand, both having -been held behind her, after a habit she had, until -this moment: “You are keen to avoid teas, they are -horribly stupid; the cigarette smoke makes one’s eyes -weak, and the Saké punch does for the rest of one’s -head, and unless we act like mountebanks and shock -people so that they forget to be bored, no one would -come twice. Ask Charlie to bring you up to the house -some afternoon, as you live so near to him, about five -for a cup of real tea. No, don’t thank me, it is not an -invitation. It’s years since I’ve taken the responsibility<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_99"></a>[99]</span> -of giving one to a man,—certainly not since I was -eighteen; you must take the responsibility of coming -upon yourself!”</p> - -<p>“As you have never seen me until this afternoon, and -I only moved over from—well, let’s call it the Borough -of Queens—last month, how could you know where -I live?” queried Brownell, looking up with a quizzical -expression, and passing over the first part of her speech, -not because he did not heed it, but for the reason of a -certain Indian instinct he had of picking up trails as he -went along, that helped him not a little in his work.</p> - -<p>Lucy flushed furiously, this time to the roots of her -hair, sought refuge for a single instant in subterfuge, -but finding herself fairly caught, throwing her head up, -stood with hands again clasped behind her, and lips -parted, smiling at the man who had already gone two -steps downward on the stairs when she had called the -halt.</p> - -<p>“You say that you are seeking for truth with a fountain -pen and a stenographer’s note-book, also Brooke -says that I always speak the truth—attention! I saw -your address in your hat this afternoon!”</p> - -<p>Brownell, who was at that moment holding his hat -against his chest, looked anxiously at the top of the -crown, wondering if it had become transparent.</p> - -<p>“No, I didn’t see <i>through</i> the hat, it’s not my way; I -looked <i>in it</i> when you were out of the room, because I<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_100"></a>[100]</span> -wanted to know where it was bought! A woman can -tell a great deal by that! The biped <i>I</i> call a <i>man</i> -never buys a department-store hat, for instance, he’d -rather wear a second-hand one first. Well, yours did -not come from a department store, neither was it second-hand; -in fact, it was painfully new, address and all!”</p> - -<p>Then Lucy Dean turned on her heel with right-about-face -rapidity and vanished around the corner of the corridor; -while Tom Brownell, half angry, half fascinated, -and wholly amazed, went down the marble stairs two -steps at a time, a difficult feat, and one that would -have made the very correct man at the door suspect that -the visitor had been summarily ejected, if it had not been -for the expression of Brownell’s face, which, by the time -he reached the bottom stair, wore a decidedly satisfied -smile.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_101"></a>[101]</span></p> - -<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_VIII">CHAPTER VIII<br /> -<span class="smaller">TRANSITION</span></h2> - -</div> - -<p>When Lucy Dean returned to the den, she found -Brooke leaning upon the desk, her head still pillowed by -her arms, and fast asleep. Checking her first impulse -to waken Brooke and discuss the episode of the reporter, -Lucy stood thinking a moment, looked at the clock, -then, drawing a sheet of paper toward her, wrote a few -words upon it in vigorous upright characters, placed it -where the sleeper could not fail to see it the moment -her eyes opened, and, after rearranging her furs, that -she had thrown off when she had returned from her -walk, vanished from the room.</p> - -<p>Her coming and going made a mental movement, -for there had been no sound. Brooke raised her head, -and looking about in a dazed way spied the note, -which said, “As everybody and thing seems to be -asleep, have gone home to dine with father; will be -back before ten.”</p> - -<p>It was a positive relief to Brooke to be quite alone for -a few hours, and it would also give her the chance to -see the physicians more satisfactorily; they were due -about six.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_102"></a>[102]</span></p> - -<p>Going to her own room, she found her mother had -returned to the sick room, so, slipping on a wrapper and -loosening the tension of hair-pains, she busied herself -by laying away in closet and dresser various things that -had lain about since two nights before, which Olga, the -maid, under stress of confusion, had neglected. Taking -up her great chinchilla muff from a chair, she was -shaking it in an absent-minded fashion before putting -it in its box, when something slipped from it and fell -lightly to the carpet. Groping in the dim light, she -picked up, not her card case, as she expected, but the -silk-covered catalogue of the Parkses’ pictures and the -souvenir menu in its frame of silver filigree. It was -only two days since she had put them in her muff, but -it seemed almost as if she were looking back from -another world.</p> - -<p>The catalogue naturally opened to the little reproduction -of Marte Lorenz’ picture. Cutting it carefully -from the page, she slipped it into the silver frame, which -chanced to be of the exact size, and setting it upon the -dressing table, turned on the light above. Somehow -the sight of it gave her comfort more than anything -else could, and the separation of circumstances and distance -seemed suddenly to have grown less. Whatever -the interpretation of the picture might be, whatever -else might tide, she had entered into and formed a part -of the artist’s first serious work, and even if they never<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_103"></a>[103]</span> -met again, they would be comrades upon the canvas -as long as it lasted. For, in spite of the veiling of both -the likenesses by certain subtle touches, it did not obliterate -the characteristics of the two; and the longer that -Brooke gazed upon the picture the stronger grew her -conviction that, under guise of an attractive composition, -it was he and she that Lorenz had painted, that -he had bound together forever by some mystical inspiration.</p> - -<p>Still Brooke did not formulate her feelings toward -this man who had been the first one to tell her the truth -when an untruth or evasion would have had a pleasanter -sound; such a thing did not occur to her. Lucy Dean -would have dragged her emotion into the electric -light, diagnosed, and duly labelled it at once. Neither -did Brooke kiss the portrait nor put it under her pillow, -nor hide it away in her orris-scented drawer for sentiment’s -sake or to feed mystery, as many a girl would have -done; but as the light glared upon the glass she turned -it out, and lighting a small green candle of bayberry -wax, that stood upon her desk, placed it near the -frame so that its rays fell obliquely in accord with the -picture’s scheme of light, while the pungent fragrance -of the wax wafted like incense at a shrine.</p> - -<p>As she stood thus, the outer door closed, a squeaky -tread awkwardly muffled came along the hallway, and -stopping outside her door made her turn hastily. Without<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_104"></a>[104]</span> -further ado the door opened, and a pair of lean, sloping -shoulders and a freckled face topped by a mop of -sandy hair parted the curtain, while two dull, greenish -hazel eyes, very round and wide open, explored the -room to the very corners with an expression of apprehension. -Evidently being satisfied with the result, -the rest of the six feet of overgrown boy followed the -head, swinging a suit case before him with one hand, -while he closed the door behind him with the other.</p> - -<p>Brooke was almost startled into calling out aloud, -but the figure clapped his hand to her mouth, and her -voice dropped to a whispered “Oh, Cub, Cub, where -did you come from? How did you hear?”</p> - -<p>“Why, from school, to be sure, Sis, and I heard from -Mummy, else I hadn’t dared, or couldn’t have come,—she -sent me a ten,—for I spent all that was left of my -quarterly on Pam; she was worth it, even if I’d have had -to walk. I’ve only had her a month, but she knows my -whistle out of twenty, and she just loves me; yes, she -does, you ought to see her look at me with her head on -one side. I’ve just left her below with the engineer till -I saw if the coast was clear. I’ll bring her up to -you, unless you think father’s likely to come in. Then -I suppose I’ll have to take her to the stable for keeps.”</p> - -<p>While the boy rattled on, Brooke was recalling the -fact of her brother’s letter, and that her mother had told -her about sending for him to come home in spite of<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_105"></a>[105]</span> -everything. He had come, then, in response to that -and knew nothing of what had happened.</p> - -<p>“Father will not come in,” she said, going to him and -speaking very quietly to gain time, also because she -did not know exactly how best to break the matter to -this sixteen-year-old brother of hers, who, partly through -perversity, but chiefly because his father had never -understood his temperament or considered him as an -individual, was the sort of cross between a mule and a -firebrand dubbed “an impossibility” by people in -general.</p> - -<p>“Who or what is Pam?”</p> - -<p>“She! She’s the finest year-old brindled pup you -ever rolled your eyes on, only a quarter English for -bone and grit, and the rest Boston for looks. Her -father’s got eight firsts, and Bill Bent’s father owns the -mother, and she’s reckoned the finest bitch shown this -year. I paid fifty, but if Bill hadn’t been my chum, -two hundred was the price! I called her Pam, after -Mummy, you know, and I thought maybe she’d keep -her for her own if father sends me off again to where -they won’t have Pam. Lots of women have Boston -bulls to ride out with them every day,” while, at the -likelihood of catastrophe in connection with his pet, the -animation that had lighted the boy’s face and shown -the improving possibility of latent manhood died out, -a weary look replacing it, and the Cub dropped into a<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_106"></a>[106]</span> -lounging chair and began to cough, holding his hand to -his side.</p> - -<p>“If you think I’d better not bring her up, I’ll take -her round to the stable right away,” he said, when the -fit had passed over.</p> - -<p>“Leave her downstairs for now,” said Brooke; -“I’m not sure if there is any stable to-day,” and sitting -on the arm of the chair, untangling his mop of hair -with her strong, slender fingers, a proceeding that he -did not resent as roughly as usual, she began to give -him a brief history of the past two days. At first he -looked at her in amazement, as if he thought that she -had lost her mind, then his head sank, and when she -finished and tried to take his hand, he pulled it away, -and, turning from her, buried his face in the chair -back, breaking into long sobs that almost strangled -him, and that he could not stifle.</p> - -<p>In vain Brooke tried to comfort him, to find if there -was anything on his mind of which she did not know. -Her brother had never been emotional in this way, and -though she knew that her father’s strictness with the -boy was a sign that all his hope was in him, she never -dreamed the Cub would care so much, if at all. Pushing -her away, he staggered toward the door, his face -still hidden by his hands.</p> - -<p>“Where are you going? you must be very quiet,” -said Brooke, getting between him and the curtain.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_107"></a>[107]</span></p> - -<p>“To mother! I want my mother! I must have her -all to myself, and father can’t prevent it now!” Then, -to her amazement, Brooke realized that her brother’s -tears were not born of grief, but of hysterical relief at -release from a mental and physical bondage that had -fretted and cramped and warped his very soul.</p> - -<p>“Stay here,” she begged, “and I will bring mother -to you!” Turning back, with a look that told the -boy better than words that she understood his outburst, -and did not brand it as foolishness, she said: -“Be careful of her, for I know now that you and I must -be father and mother, and do some hard thinking, and -perhaps acting, in these next few weeks, for they cannot. -Will you stand by me, Adam?” Then the boy -did not push away the hands that rested on his shoulders, -but held his sister close, awkwardly, it is true, but as he -had not clung to her since the old days in the down-town -house, when as a little girl she stooped over his -crib to kiss him good night.</p> - -<p>The doctors came, and when they left, Mrs. Lawton -went to her son. An hour passed, dinner was served, -and still the two did not come out. Brooke went to -the door, then prepared and carried in a tray of food, -eating her own meal afterward in solitary silence that -was very soothing to her.</p> - -<p>For the first time she had been able to see the specialist -alone, and put such definite questions to him as dispersed<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_108"></a>[108]</span> -the usual non-committal generalities, while at -the same time it convinced him that here was a member -of the family to whom the truth might and should be -told. It was possible that her father might recover -from this attack, if there was no further hemorrhage; -also that the clot that plugged the brain channel might -be absorbed, the paralysis of face, leg, and arm relax, -and speech and memory return, so that though full -vigour would never again be his he might still have -years of placid living and enjoyment. Or else he might -regain his physical faculties without the brain cloud ever -lifting. As for medicine, a few simple regulations and -then quiet must do its work, coupled with constant care. -His failure and its agitation had struck the blow, and -of this cause not the faintest suggestion must reach him -or be even whispered of, for in such cases no one may -precisely tell how much of conscious unconsciousness -exists.</p> - -<p>Meanwhile the laws of trade must be carried on, and -others, to keep their rights, sift and settle Adam Lawton’s -affairs as far as possible, before Brooke could -learn what they as a family had or did not have and by -it measure what might be done. For neither mother -nor daughter knew of the extent of this final venture of -all, and beyond keeping domestic accounts and holding -a joint key with her father to a box in an up-town safe -deposit company, where family papers and some securities<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_109"></a>[109]</span> -belonging to her mother were kept, Brooke was no -partner in her father’s affairs. In fact one of the things, -Mr. Dean said, that had hurried the crisis and complicated -its untangling was the habit that Adam Lawton -had formed of holding aloof from the advice and confidence -of his fellows.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Later in the evening, when the Cub emerged from -Brooke’s room, he found that she had taken the nurse’s -place by her father and the library was empty. While -he walked about the room restlessly, alternately enjoying -his comparative liberty or wondering what he had -best do about his dog, something led him to cross the -hall and turn the angle to the den, where, to his intense -astonishment, amid a blaze of lights, that contrasted -vividly with the semi-dark silence of the other rooms, -was Lucy Dean, in the great leather-covered Morris -chair, upon one arm of which sat the bull pup, whose -persuasive pink tongue had just succeeded at the moment -he entered in touching Lucy’s nose in affectionate -salute.</p> - -<p>“Brooke told me about the dear, and I went down -and fished her out of an old box, where they had bedded -her, just in time to save her from spoiling her figure -with a whole bowl of oatmeal and soup,” said Lucy, in -answer to the question on the Cub’s face. “You’ve -got to be very particular about feeding her, remember,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_110"></a>[110]</span> -or she’ll grow groggy and sleepy and wheeze, instead of -keeping her sporting blood up—” and Lucy held out her -unoccupied left hand to the boy, who, after the callowness -and fervour of youth, regarded this friend of his -sister’s, eight years his senior, with her dash and vim, -as the combination of everything admirable and adorable -and himself her equal in years.</p> - -<p>“No, I’m not going to kiss you this time,” she continued, -leaning back in the chair, as he half stooped -behind her; “I’ve just transferred that to Pam here. -Why? Because you’ve gained a year and two inches -since I saw you when you came home last Christmas—and -sixteen is a good stile to stop at. Then hands -off, young man, and no kisses outside the family until -you are twenty-one and able to shoulder your own -responsibilities.” The Cub growled out something -half sulkily.</p> - -<p>“Yes, I know I never had an own brother, but I’ve -been a good sister to more of you boys than were ever -born even in a Mormon family, and I’ve kept them all -for good friends, just such as you’re going to be. No, -don’t mope and go over in the corner, because within -five minutes you’ll simply have to come back again and -sit by Pam and me—so you might as well do it now.</p> - -<p>“That’s it, stretch and be comfortable! See, chains -wouldn’t keep Pam away from you now! Do you know -I don’t blame you for squandering your last penny on<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_111"></a>[111]</span> -this bull pup—her points are all right, she has an angel -disposition; but she doesn’t forget to whom she belongs -for a single minute—it was all I could do to drag her -past your coat in the hall! But suppose she barks, -how can you keep her here?”</p> - -<p>“That’s the point, I must take her over to the stable -right away; but you’ll be here when I come back, -won’t you? I think Brooke said you were stopping -here.”</p> - -<p>“I was, but I guess now that you are here, I’ll go -home. I stayed so that Brooke shouldn’t be lonely; -besides, I have your room.”</p> - -<p>“That don’t count,” protested the Cub, “I can sleep -here just as well as not.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, there is one other thing,” added Lucy. “I’m -not so sure who there is at the stable or how they would -treat Pam, so best not take her there. I’m so glad that -you have come home, boy. I dined with dad to-night -and tried to learn as much as I could about this money -trouble of your father’s, and it is about as bad as can -be, and though of course it may be some time before it -can be known exactly how things stand, there is little -doubt but when what’s left of the apple is divided there -won’t be even the core for you all. Of course, if the -illness had not come, some arrangement might have -been made to tide things over. Suppose you take Pam -down to our house to-night, and stay there and have<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_112"></a>[112]</span> -a talk with dad. He will tell Brooke all he knows to-morrow. -Don’t go yet, it’s only nine, half an hour -later will do as well as now.</p> - -<p>“Tell me, what is the matter with you, honour -bright? Are you really sick or only sort of lazy and -shilly-shally, obstinate, discouraged, and crazy to get -out of jail? I know the symptoms, for I’ve had them -all one by one, in my youth, doing everything by rule, -duty the watchword, more mathematics the penalty -for forgetting it, and dyspepsia the result. <i>My</i> sons -shall be reared in the open, if they never get beyond -horse-breaking and cattle-breeding,” and a shiver of -sympathy ran down Lucy’s flexible spine, branching -off in an odd twisting of her fingers that sent her handkerchief, -that she had rolled into a ball to amuse the -pup, flying across the room, much to the amusement of -Pam, who caught it, and made her master jump to -rescue the roll of cambric and lace from her investigating -paws.</p> - -<p>“Honour bright, Lucy, it’s the being shut up so much, -and the confounded mathematics and knowing that I -never seem to satisfy the old man on top of that. If -he’d only let me work at something I like, and learn -to do something out-of-doors, but at this rate I think -I’m getting consumption—” and the Cub gave a really -dismal cough.</p> - -<p>“Of course a man must know how to count, and a<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_113"></a>[113]</span> -few little things like that, no matter what he does,” -said Lucy, so seriously that the boy did not at first realize -that she was mocking him; “for whether you handle -your own or some other person’s money, or eggs and -potatoes, counting will be a painful necessity.</p> - -<p>“Oh, oh! what is this?” she exclaimed, as in handing -her back her handkerchief the thumb and forefinger -of his right hand caught her eye. These were -stained a brownish yellow on the inside. Spreading -the fingers apart, she looked the boy in the face, and he -flushed scarlet under his freckles.</p> - -<p>“Been smoking cigarettes, on the sly, of course, and -consequently in a hurry, swallowed the smoke, and -sometimes chewed the butts to pulp! There is half -the cause why your head won’t work right, as well as -one reason why you are lanky and cough. See here, -young man, do you know that only <i>what-is-its</i> and <i>mistakes</i> -smoke cigarettes? <i>Men</i> smoke pipes, or cigars -if they can afford them; and I’m going to give you a -pipe on your next birthday, with Pam’s head carved -on a meerschaum bowl. I’ll get Charlie Ashton to -order it to-morrow; he knows a fellow who carves pipes -that are perfect dreams. Meantime not a whiff or -sniff of a cigarette. Yes, of course it’s hard to stop, -they all say that, but really, Cub, it’s a horrid trick. -Yes, I know all about it; I tried cigarettes once myself. -Empty your pockets quick and swear off.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_114"></a>[114]</span></p> - -<p>At first the boy had looked annoyed, and a curious, -obstinate expression, akin to that of a horse putting -back his ears, crossed his features, flattening them; but -it only lasted a moment. It was impossible to be angry -with Lucy, for her tongue was pointed with common -sense born of experience, and there was never anything -censorious or priggish in her strictures.</p> - -<p>So the Cub produced two packages of cigarettes, an -amber holder, and a silver match-box, and piled them -in the outstretched hand of his mentor.</p> - -<p>“Keep the match-box, and we’ll give those things to -the ‘grasshoppers’ that go around the street picking up -cigar stumps with a spike in the end of a stick.” So -saying, the vigorous young woman opened the window, -and with a sidewise motion skittled the cigarettes -through the air into the street below, much to the alarm -of an old gentleman upon whose shoulders a shower -from the first box fell. He had come out of the house -to sample the weather and immediately returned for -umbrella and goloshes, while the second box landed -intact on the top of a passing hansom, much to the -driver’s satisfaction.</p> - -<p>Then the Cub brought his suit case, and, picking up -Pam, went to carry out Lucy’s suggestion, while she, -after watching him go, said half aloud:—</p> - -<p>“He’s all right if you only understand him. I’ll -give Brooke a hint. I shouldn’t wonder if this smashup<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_115"></a>[115]</span> -will give him a push and his chance—for somebody -has got to go to work in this family, and pretty quick, -too, according to father’s ideas.</p> - -<p>“Heigh-ho, I wonder what Tom Brownell will have -to say in the <i>Daily Forum</i> to-morrow. Will he make -a sensation column of us,—I mean of Brooke and her -object lesson,—or will he turn his back on the devil -and give out a simple, dignified statement regardless of -making copy? No, I don’t wonder either, I’ll gamble -he’s straight as a plumb-line. Gracious, what did I do -with those keys?” and Lucy began feeling in the gold -chain bag that hung from her belt, as, hearing Brooke -leave her father’s room, she went to join her.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>The <i>Daily Forum</i> not only corrected its insinuation -of the previous day, but printed a further statement, the -sincerity and judiciousness of which at once made the -financial disaster of Adam Lawton secondary to his -physical collapse. This allowed the numerous family -friends and acquaintances the chance to offer sympathy -with perfect good taste, which in the conventional -society of the Whirlpool usually takes the place of more -spontaneous warm-heartedness.</p> - -<p>For many days a stream of callers came and went -from the St. Hilaire, some content merely to leave a -card with inquiries, others asking for Mrs. Lawton -or Brooke, emphasizing their offer of “doing something”<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_116"></a>[116]</span> -with a hand-shake, but asking no prying questions. -Still others, as “intimate friends” of the family, -as the days wore on and it was definitely known that -though the creditors might in time receive dollar for -dollar, there would be nothing over, not only called, -but stayed and mingled advice and chiding with their -verbal sympathy.</p> - -<p>“Reduced to absolute beggars,” was the term that -Mrs. Ashton, Lucy Dean’s aunt, applied to the Lawtons -when discussing the affair at a luncheon she was giving, -where all the guests were women of Mrs. Lawton’s -class and set, though few of them had her gentle breeding, -“and if Mrs. Lawton and quixotic Brooke had not -had such ridiculous scruples as to what belonged to -whom, quite a lump might have been rescued for them, -my brother says.”</p> - -<p>“My dear Susie,” protested Mrs. Parks, who since -her housewarming was fast advancing in power and -called several exclusives by their first names by request, -“that is not a fault that can be often found with any -one nowadays. The Senator says that through all this -business it was precisely the same trait in Adam Lawton -of not being quite willing to knock down others -and make them serve as scaling ladders that dealt him -out at last.”</p> - -<p>“The question is now,” continued Mrs. Ashton, “What -shall we be expected to do for them? They will leave<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_117"></a>[117]</span> -the St. Hilaire the 1st of January; Mr. Dean has manipulated -things so far as that for them, and he wants them -to put Mr. Lawton into a partly endowed sanatorium -of which he himself is a trustee, as all the physicians -say he must be kept out of turmoil. The Cub, as they -call the boy, is rather out of health, so that a year on a -school-ship would be a good place for him. They say -if he went into an office at once, as Mr. Dean expected, -it would probably kill him.</p> - -<p>“Brooke, of course, will have to take up her painting, -teach, and paint bonbon boxes for Cuyler and Gaillard, or -menus for us. We can all use influence to get her work -of that sort, and it will help out for a time until we get -sick of her style probably. Lucy swears that Brooke -shall live with her; we shall see. I think that there -will be something a year from some little investment -they have, with which Mrs. Lawton might board in -some cheap place, not of course in New York, but Brooklyn -or up in the Bronx.”</p> - -<p>“Don’t, pray don’t suggest boarding in those dreadful -places for that sweet, sensitive woman; it would be -like putting lilies-of-the-valley in a saucepan,” cried -Mrs. Parks with warm-hearted energy; “it’s too awful! -I would be only too glad to have her live with me, if she -could put up with the whirl of it, and Brooke too. I often -wish that I had an elder sister in the house with whom -I could talk things over comfortably and not have<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_118"></a>[118]</span> -them spread over the face of the earth. The hard part -of this is that whatever is done the family will be split -to kindlings, and it’s no joke parting a mother and son!” -For be it said that since the arrival of the belated and -beruffled little man in the Easter-egg crib, though Mrs. -Parks’s social ambition had rather increased than -diminished, the cold-heartedness that is often a part -of a social career was altogether lacking.</p> - -<p>“Besides, suppose that Mr. Lawton comes back to -himself suddenly, for you know they say that it sometimes -happens when this aphasia (I’m always possessed -to call it aspasia, after the snake that bit Cleopatra) -lifts—how will he feel to find himself in an institution -and his family scattered?”</p> - -<p>“I don’t see that it concerns us,” said Mrs. Ashton, -shrugging her shoulders. “If he had only died at once -and been done with it, they would all have been comfortable, -for my brother says that he carried a simply -fabulous life insurance, and that the keeping it up was -what made him so economical.”</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>It was the last week in December, Christmas week. -Brooke and her mother sat opposite each other in the -den in a silence that was keeping the brain of each more -active than the most rapid speech. Although Adam -Lawton had not spoken, the tension that had drawn -his face had relaxed, and sensation was slowly returning<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_119"></a>[119]</span> -to his foot, though his right hand was still quite useless. -But while he took no apparent notice of what passed -about him, his wife felt that his eyes dwelt upon her and -followed her when she was in range, and only that -morning he had feebly retained the hand she had laid -within his upturned left palm. Recovery to a certain -extent was possible, the physician proclaimed, with no -further jars, and care and quietness; but how to secure -this? Quiet is not always the inexpensive thing it -seems. But with this new-born hope, everything else -seemed unimportant to her.</p> - -<p>The apparent worst had been carefully explained to -them and accepted several days ago, but there had been -yet more, for when Brooke had that morning gone to -the safety box, where some jewels of her mother’s,—a -necklace and other things seldom worn,—and some -dozen railroad bonds, the little property that came to -her from the Brookes, with some shares of an industrial -stock, a birthday gift to Brooke at twenty-one, were -stored, the box was empty!</p> - -<p>Thoughts would come that must not find words even -between themselves as they sat there. They both believed -in Adam Lawton’s honour and that if he could -speak he would explain; and finally, as the tension -tightened into agony, Brooke went over to her mother, -and kneeling by her said, “Don’t try to think it out now, -mother; some day we shall know, and now it is how to -live and work until that day comes.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_120"></a>[120]</span></p> - -<p>As for Brooke, she had lived five years in those few -weeks. Every word that she had ever heard of criticism -of those in their present position came back to her, -the cruel discussion of Julia Garth at the musicale -topping the list.</p> - -<p>All the various suggestions, practical and problematical, -for their future arrayed themselves mockingly in a -row before her, but one and all they had their beginning -in the separation of the family; not a single plan offered -the remotest possibility of keeping it together.</p> - -<p>That morning, after her finding of the empty box, -Brooke had seen Mr. Dean in his office and learned -definitely that the only income they could count upon after -the new year was the interest upon her shares of stock, -six hundred dollars a year—fifty dollars a month; -for though the shares themselves were missing, as they -stood in her name upon the company’s books, the interest -would keep on. Besides this, there would be a fund -gathered here and there from articles she or her mother -personally owned beyond question—a scant two -thousand dollars.</p> - -<p>One asset had been overlooked until that interview, -the homestead at Gilead, Brooke’s own property, asked -for in a moment of sentiment and freely given her. -Mr. Dean, knowing the place and location well, thought -that, with good management, it might be sold at the -right season for perhaps six or eight thousand dollars.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_121"></a>[121]</span></p> - -<p>All these circumstances were pushed into Brooke’s -brain, jostling and crowding each other until it seemed -hopeless to think. Even Lucy Dean, huffed because -Brooke would not come to her for the rest of the winter -or borrow money of her father to establish a little -apartment where she could work at her painting, though -she came as regularly as ever, had ceased to question -or even offer cheer. And it seemed almost impossible -for Brooke to tell her mother, in the face of hope, that -Mr. Dean’s plan of sending Adam Lawton to the sanatorium -in the country seemed the only feasible solution -at the present moment. As for her mother and herself, -she would work for both, but not in anything obtained -merely by the insecure path of social influence. It -would be teaching drawing, of course, for too well -she realized Lorenz’ words that as a painter of pictures -she had not yet “awakened,” and in the world of competition -the winners of a single prize or the acclaim -won in charity bazaars is a damning introduction.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>The entrance of some one brought Brooke to herself, -a shrill voice that replied in a high key to the answer -of the maid, “In the den? Then we’ll go right in very -informally, no need to take the cards,” and Mrs. Ashton, -followed by a married daughter, entered quite -abruptly, the elder lady looking at the two women with -something akin to disapproval on her florid face, an<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_122"></a>[122]</span> -expression that Brooke interpreted instantly. Mrs. -Ashton was becoming bored at the situation and had a -feeling of resentment that all her opportunities of becoming -the patroness of the Lawtons were vanishing.</p> - -<p>She still had one more card to play, a trump she considered -it, and she suddenly drew it from the pack and -cast it before Mrs. Lawton. A widower, more than -passing rich, though not of her precise set, with two -daughters just leaving school, had intrusted her to find -a well-bred New Yorker as chaperon and companion -to travel with them until the next autumn, and then -launch them tactfully in the Whirlpool. Any reasonable -salary might be demanded—would dear Pamela -like the chance? Six or eight months abroad would -doubtless restore her tone and spirits.</p> - -<p>Brooke’s eyes flashed fire, Scotch fire not easily put -out when once it was kindled; but Mrs. Lawton only -grew a shade more pale, and said in her soft, slow accent, -looking steadily at her friend, “Susan, you are forgetting -Adam. How could I both go abroad and give him -the care he will always need while he lives?”</p> - -<p>For some reason the soft answer not only did not turn -away wrath, but augmented it, and shortly the couple -left; but alas for the treachery of portières—scarcely -were the pair in the hall when, forgetting that it was not -a door that closed behind them, Mrs. Ashton said, in -an echoing whisper, “Care, while he lives indeed—it’s<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_123"></a>[123]</span> -just as I said the other day, if Adam Lawton had -only died at once and had done with it, those women, -instead of being beggars, could have lived in luxury on -his life insurance!”</p> - -<p>With the harsh, insistent vibration of a graphophone, -the words stung the ears of mother and daughter, who -were standing where their guests had left them. A look -of horror froze Mrs. Lawton’s face to the immobility -of a statue, while in Brooke’s brain, still tingling with -the other blow, the thoughts were suddenly clarified as -if by fire, and she never noticed that the Cub had come -in and was looking from one to the other in alarm.</p> - -<p>“It is monstrous!” she choked out, clasping her -mother in her strong arms. “Oh, mother, mother! do -not look so, as if you were turning to stone! You shall -not be torn from father; we will go together and keep -together! Listen, you and he desired me and brought -me into your world for love, and took the responsibility -of me when I was helpless; now you shall come into -mine and be my children, and I will bear the responsibility -for that same love. Father needs country quiet; -so be it; we will take him home to Gilead. It is my -home, my very own in deed and truth, given so long -ago that no creditor can grumble. I never have lived -in the country, and I know nothing, you may say. What -I do not know I can learn. At worst, with what I have -we can be secure somehow for a year. Cousin Keith<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_124"></a>[124]</span> -has lived and worked there, so can I, and if only Adam -will stand by me, I cannot fail. But you must trust -me like a child, as I did you, and do not question.”</p> - -<p>A look of wondrous joy crept into the mother’s eyes, -but with it her strength gave way, and when she tottered -and would have fallen, it was Adam who caught -her, and as he held her with tender awkwardness, -nodding at his sister as if in answer to her appeal, -he jerked out, “You bet your life, Sis, I’ll stand by the -crowd, and won’t it just suit Pam and me to get out of -town!”</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_125"></a>[125]</span></p> - -<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_IX">CHAPTER IX<br /> -<span class="smaller">THE RETURN</span></h2> - -</div> - -<p>It was the 10th of January. At Gilead winter had -been a-masking all through December, and played the -part of a fantastic snow-draped Columbine in the Christmas -pantomime where, the North Wind being piqued -to keep his distance, she was wooed by the South and -West Winds alternately amid a setting of warm noons, -dramatic sunsets, and moonlight nights of electric clearness, -to the song of the Moosatuk’s mad racing.</p> - -<p>With January the reign of the North Wind began in a -wrath of sleet and ice that bound forest, field, and river -also in cruel, glittering shackles, covering the wayside -granaries and driving the faithful birds of the season, -hooded and clad in sober garb of grays and russet, to -beg from door to door like mendicant friars of old.</p> - -<p>Even before its close, each day of the New Year had -been checked by a double cross from the calendar that -hung on the door of Keith West’s pantry, as if by its -complete obliteration she hoped to hurry time itself.</p> - -<p>Waiting for others to act had never before fallen to -Miss Keith’s lot in life. For twenty years her comings<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_126"></a>[126]</span> -and goings, her waking and sleeping, and even the setting -of the first spring brood of embryo broilers had -depended upon herself alone, for she had long since substituted -an incubator for that coy and freakish feathered -female known as a setting hen. Consequently this -delay at the very outset of a new order of things found -her restless and in no very amiable mood. Also Judith -Dow had written that, as Miss Keith had promised to -come the first of the year, she had reserved her room and -must charge her accordingly, which, as the whole affair -was upon a nominal basis, irritated her not a little.</p> - -<p>In writing to Adam Lawton of the determination to -leave the farm, the 1st of January had been the date -she had set for starting for Boston <i>en route</i> to Matrimony, -and when, a short time after Christmas, Brooke -had combined her reply to the unanswered letter with -the announcement that she herself expected to go to -take charge of the place as near the 1st of January as -possible, Miss Keith had hastened to complete her -arrangements.</p> - -<p>Brooke had written concisely, yet with entire frankness; -but even then Miss Keith did not compass the -exact condition of her cousin’s affairs, or understand -that as far as his relation with the world stood he was -as helpless and irresponsible as the day of his birth. -She knew that money and health had been lost, -but fancied that, after a few months’ retirement, more<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_127"></a>[127]</span> -voluntary than enforced, as had been the case with -one or two families of the wealthy summer colony at -Stonebridge, every one concerned would swing back to -the old pace again.</p> - -<p>Nevertheless she took great pride in making the evidence -of her thrifty stewardship apparent on every side. -The hired man had been well-nigh frantic at the number -of times that he had been obliged to whitewash spots -that had dried thin in the cow and poultry houses. A -fringe of unthreshed rye straw made a lambrequin over -the entrance to the stall of Billy, the general utility horse -with the long, common-sense face. The front gate, -always removed from its hinges at the coming of frost, -had been scrubbed before being stowed away in the -attic, and the plant boxes that edged the front porch -and held nasturtiums in summer were filled with small -cedar bushes and branches of coral winterberry in -remembrance of Brooke’s youthful love of such things.</p> - -<p>The outside condition of things gave Miss Keith -much more satisfaction than did the inside arrangement -of the house. Her only concern about them was -lest the mischievous boy should upset everything and -doubtless stone the cows, torment Laura, the sedate -barn cat, and turn the laying hens out in the cold; for -to her spinster mentality if there was a dubious quantity, -it was the growing boy, the last straw under which the -many-humped back of female patience must break.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_128"></a>[128]</span></p> - -<p>She had considered the house the pink of perfection -until she peopled it with New Yorkers accustomed to -every luxury, and then the gay flowers of the chintz slip -covers that hid the haircloth gloom of the parlour furniture -began to pale and fail to hold their own, and the -texture of the freshly laundered dimity curtains, those -upstairs having wide hems, while those below were edged -with tatting of the wheel pattern, seemed to grow coarser -as the days went by.</p> - -<p>And all the while that she bustled to and fro, now -in the cellar to see that the stones had not slipped in the -pork barrel and allowed the meat to rise above the brine, -then to the attic to be sure that her personal possessions -of bedding, linen, and tableware, neatly put up in barrel, -bale, and bundle until her marriage and final move, did -not take up more room than was necessary,—Tatters -followed her, either so close to heel that he literally -seemed to dog her footsteps, or else sitting a little way -apart with his eyes fastened upon her with a blended -look of dread and reproach. Then she would often drop -whatever she held and raising his face (yes, Tatters had -a face, not a “muzzle”) between her hands, plead with -him to tell her what he made of it all and if he believed -she could be happy away from Gilead, and if he thought -that he could follow any one else to market, allow her -to shake out his mat, and choose juicy bones that were -not too hard for his middle-aged teeth. All of which<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_129"></a>[129]</span> -showed that she did not rejoice in thought at the <i>First -Cause</i> as completely as would, under the circumstances, -have been desirable; while Tatters understood that -this was not the accustomed affectionate babble or the -confidential discourse of everyday doings in which he -was frequently consulted, and he would raise his head -and give, not his usual howl belonging to moonlight -nights, but a strange bay like an echo, deep down in -his throat.</p> - -<p>Three times in those ten bleak January days had she -given what she declared aloud to be a “final dusting” to -each room. Three times had she baked bread, cake, -pies, and custard for the invalid (no, the third time she -made boiled soft custard to break the monotony), and -then hovered between the dread of waste and surfeit in -consuming the food.</p> - -<p>However, on the tenth day of waiting her spirits rose, -for soon after breakfast Robert Stead stopped on his -way back from Gilead, whither he rode daily, rain or -shine, to the post-office, as the rural carrier went to -Windy Hill but once a day and that in early afternoon, -to say that he had just heard from Dr. Russell and expected -him up from Oaklands that afternoon, as he was -coming to meet Adam Lawton at the request of his New -York physician, in order to see the invalid safely -established after his precarious journey.</p> - -<p>In addition to this bit of news, Stead brought a fine<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_130"></a>[130]</span> -pair of wild ducks, shot a few days previous, farther -down where the river was not ice-locked, and he had -taken the wise precaution of having them dressed by -José, his Mexican man of all work, for in Miss Keith’s -agitation at the knowledge that her kinsfolk were actually -coming that very day, the task of picking pin-feathers -would have been impossible.</p> - -<p>In fact her hands trembled so, as she took the basket -from Stead, that, contrary to his habit of taciturnity, he -questioned her closely as to her health, and if he could -help her in any preparations, and finally, after leading -Manfred to the stable, followed Miss Keith into the -house only to find her in the kitchen seated, as Dr. -Russell had some months before, with her face pressed -against Tatters’ ears in a vain effort to stifle her sobs.</p> - -<p>“I’ve wished for kin so long that now they are coming -it doesn’t seem as if I could bear it,” she said by way -of explanation. “If it was only Adam and Brooke, I -wouldn’t mind; I’ve sampled her, and though she’s -full of spunk, she’s as pleasant as if she never had -a cent, but to think of that high-spirited southern -woman, perhaps lording it over me, it’s too much, even -though I’m only going to hold over a day or two to give -them the lay of the land, as it were. Then like as not -their city help will take me for a servant, for they’ll not -likely bring less than two for all the cooking and the -waiting that they are used to, which reminds me that<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_131"></a>[131]</span> -they’ll need to use the living room to dine in, for of course -they won’t eat in the kitchen as I’ve done, and what -with turning the south parlour into a bedroom (which -it was in his mother’s day) for Adam, so that he can get -out on the porch easily, there won’t be any best room at -all.</p> - -<p>“Would you help me move the table and dresser with -the glass door into the living room? Larsen bangs furniture -so when he does it, and the deal table from the -summer kitchen can come here for the help.”</p> - -<p>Jumping up—“There’s some one knocking now! -Dear me, it’s the Bisbee boy with a telegram. Open it, -do, and give him a quarter from the shelf by the clock, -for riding up with it,” and Miss Keith sank back in the -rocking chair and closed her eyes like some one about -to have a tooth drawn, who dreaded the sight of the -instruments.</p> - -<p>Silent Stead opened the blue envelope with the studied -deliberation with which he performed every act of life, -except riding Manfred, at which time the two abandoned -themselves to mutual impulse. Shaking out the sheet, -he read slowly:—</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p class="right">“<span class="smcap">New York</span>, January 10, 1904.</p> - -<p class="noindent">“To <span class="smcap">Miss Keith West</span>, Gilead.</p> - -<p>“Please meet us with closed carriage at Stonebridge, -two-thirty. Baggage to Gilead.</p> - -<p class="right">“<span class="smcap">Brooke Lawton.</span>”</p> - -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_132"></a>[132]</span></p> - -<p>“To-day at two-thirty!” ejaculated Miss Keith, who, -mind you, had been more than ready for ten days; -“then there’s no time to fix up the living room, or do -more than sweep and tidy up and get dinner,—they -will have to put up with the kitchen for once. Why do -they get out at Stonebridge? It is three miles farther -than Gilead Station, and a closed carriage means one of -Bisbee’s hacks, for the rockaway must go too for the -help. Has that boy of his gone?” Stead hurried to -the road, but the boy was disappearing down the third -hill at a pace that forbade recall.</p> - -<p>“I will go down and order the carriage for you,” -Stead volunteered, “and tell them to put in hot stones -and plenty of rugs; it’s a cold drive from Stonebridge, -but they come that way doubtless because the express -stops there and not at Gilead. They could not bring -a man in Mr. Lawton’s condition so long a journey in -a way train.”</p> - -<p>“If you would, I should be so relieved, and one thing -more. I know you make a point of keeping away from -folks, especially women, and these are strangers to you; -but they’ll be so worried likely as not they’ll hardly -notice you. Now would you be so good as to meet them -and see they find the carriage and get properly started, -and tell Bisbee to keep to the lower road in spite of the -trolley until they reach the third hill? It’s far less jolty -and better shovelled out.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_133"></a>[133]</span></p> - -<p>“You see Brooke says, ‘Please meet us,’ and it doesn’t -look hospitable to send an empty hack, as if it was to -meet a funeral; besides which there wouldn’t be room, -and I can’t spare the time, though, as I suppose the boy -is small, they could set him between.”</p> - -<p>“Yes, I will go to meet them,” answered Stead, hesitating -a moment and still looking at the telegram, which -he folded absent-mindedly and dropped into his pocket. -“I do not think you need fear seeing Mrs. Lawton. I -knew her family and met her once long ago; she is a -gentlewoman to her finger-tips, and such are never overbearing,” -and after making this unusually long speech -Silent Stead went out for his horse, Tatters bounding in -front of him joyously, for dogs and children always -swarmed about the lonely man whenever they had the -chance, and they alone, Dr. Russell excepted, were -welcome at his retreat on Windy Hill.</p> - -<p>Like many capable people, who fuss aimlessly when -there is really little to do, but bring their best efforts -to bear swiftly under stress, Miss Keith set in motion -certain necessary preparations for an afternoon meal, -which should be a compromise between a country dinner -and supper, and then went to the south parlour, until a -few days ago her pride and the most precise best room in -the neighbourhood, and sitting quietly down with hands -folded in her lap, took a final survey.</p> - -<p>Something had suddenly changed her attitude toward<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_134"></a>[134]</span> -the room. She ceased thinking of it as her state apartment, -sacred to sewing society meetings and the more -formal and rare social function of a high tea to welcome -the wife of a new minister, and now looked at it as it was -to be, the bedroom to which her Cousin Adam was coming -for rest, and as she sat there it occurred to her that -it was the very room in which he had been born.</p> - -<p>Then there stole over her one of those subtle inspirations -called intuition, with which the Creator has blessed -woman as a token of sympathy with their weaknesses -and a reward for much unspoken suffering, and thereby -more than bridged the difference of her physical inequality -with man. If the hope was to bring Adam -Lawton back to himself, what could be more suitable -than that the surroundings should be those of his early -youth?</p> - -<p>Ringing the dinner bell out of the back door, the -sign to Larsen that he was wanted, Miss Keith began -by taking the decorated “fireboard” from before the -wide fireplace, and brushing up the fragments of swallow’s -nests that had fallen down since the regular -autumn clearing. Going to a deep closet under the -back stairs, she pulled out a large bundle wrapped in -papers and cloth, which being unrolled gave forth a pair -of long-necked andirons, with oval head-pieces and curiously -curved legs, made of what was known in the old -days as princess metal, a warm-hued alloy of copper and<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_135"></a>[135]</span> -brass. Setting these in the fireplace, she directed Larsen, -who now appeared in the carpet slippers without -which he never dared come indoors, to bring in logs and -lay a substantial fire with backlog, forestick, catstick, -and kindling, such as would outlast a night, instead of -the mere “splutter blaze that needs tending like a spoiled -child,” as she called the modern wood fire.</p> - -<p>Next she had the ornate and hideous black-walnut -bed, a product of the “ugly sixties,” that she had -long regarded as a patent of respectability, unscrewed, -taken up garret, and put under the eaves, from which she -unpacked the frame of a slender-limbed four-poster of -mellow, unstained mahogany. The Wests had always -been of plain farming stock, and had never possessed -carved mahogany or beds of the famous pineapple pattern. -Dull and lustreless as was the wood, she set the -man to work with rags and a compound of beeswax, -oil, and turpentine, of which she always kept a jar for -brightening spotted furniture. Meanwhile she untied -a bundle shaped like a pillow, and carefully unfolded -curtains, valance, and tester of dimity, finished with -a cross-stitch border, mended carefully here and there, -and yellow with age.</p> - -<p>Looking at the clock, which had not yet struck ten, -she turned the fabric over carefully, evidently weighing -something in her mind, the while saying aloud, “Yes, -I’ll simply scald them, and iron them out with a bit of<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_136"></a>[136]</span> -starch. To bleach them would take weeks, and besides -this old dimity will never stand the strain.”</p> - -<p>While the irons were heating she returned to her reconstructive -attempt. The canvas bottom was laced -firmly to the bed frame, the bedding adjusted with -mathematical precision, and finished with a cheerful -patchwork quilt from one of the attic chests. From -the floor of her own room she dragged a great rug made -of rags in the herring-bone pattern, and spread it over -the somewhat faded parlour carpet, which it concealed, -all but a narrow border. A work-stand, with fat -stomach and many little drawers, and an old chintz-covered -English arm-chair, with high back and head-rest -flaps at the top, were also brought to light and put -in place, while the haircloth parlour set, in its flowered -outer covering, suggestive of a gay domino worn over -ministerial clothes, was distributed in living room and -hall, the long sofa being obliged to seek refuge under -the plant window in the angle of the kitchen itself.</p> - -<p>Twelve o’clock saw the bed draperies ironed and -fastened in place, the yellow hue of the dimity harmonizing -with the painted woodwork and blending with -the wall paper of a cheerful nosegay pattern that Brooke -had chosen several years before, much to Miss Keith’s -disappointment, as at the time embossed papers with -effects of gold, silver, and copper were much in vogue -in Gilead.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_137"></a>[137]</span></p> - -<p>Still not quite satisfied, Miss Keith swept into her -apron all the accumulations of little meaningless nothings -that covered table and mantel-shelf. Seeking for -something with which to replace them, she gathered -half a dozen books from the old desk case in the living -room, and set a pair of iron candlesticks as sentinels on -the corners of the mantel-shelf, to guard a row of polished -shells of various sorts.</p> - -<p>Raising the flap of the table near the west window, -that coming between two closets formed a small bay, -Miss Keith placed half a dozen geraniums upon it, that -were rather overcrowding the plant window in the -kitchen. Satisfied with that quarter of the room, she was -haunted by the partial recollection of some bit of furniture -that had once filled in the angle between chimney -and door leading to the back stairs, yet refused to become -definite. But presently the veil lifted, and going -to the attic for the twentieth time that morning, she returned -followed by a bumping sound, one bump for each -stair of the two flights, twenty-six in all, and presently -the light of the fire that had kindled slowly cast sidewise -glances at a mahogany cradle, from under whose -hood three generations of little Wests had first gazed -out into life.</p> - -<p>With a sigh of content Miss Keith folded her arms, -searched every nook in the room with eyes into which -there crept a moisture, born neither of nervousness<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_138"></a>[138]</span> -nor of grief, but of an emotion in which race instinct -and true womanliness of heart were blended, and -as, the circle of the room being rounded, she looked -beyond into the square hallway, her eyes stopped, as if -asking for courage, upon the face of the tall clock, above -which a full-rigged brig had been sailing for more than -a hundred years toward the harbour it never reached. -At the same moment it struck the six strokes of the three-quarter -hour, and the words it said sounded like “Well -done! well done! well done!”</p> - -<p>In January, though the days have begun to lengthen -minute by minute, dusk begins to weave its shadows -soon after four o’clock, and this fabric was blending -hill and river in its impenetrable gray when Miss -Keith’s keen eyes, now strained with watching, saw a -man on horseback coming up the second hill, while -farther down, turning from the cut that connected the -upper and lower roads, two vehicles could be seen moving -slowly, the rockaway being in the lead, but as to -their occupants, nothing was discernible.</p> - -<p>Throwing a heavy shawl about her, Miss Keith -reached the gate at the same moment as Robert Stead, -who flung himself from his horse the better to answer -her sudden fusillade of questions. Tatters, who had -followed her to the porch, paused with one paw raised, -sniffed the wind, and came no farther, in spite of the -sight of his friend.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_139"></a>[139]</span></p> - -<p>“Have they come? Does Adam look badly? Can -he walk? How much help did they bring? Where are -the trunks? Did they have them taken off at Stonebridge -and changed to the way train for Gilead?”</p> - -<p>Smiling in spite of himself, Stead made answer, counting -on his fingers as he did so that he might check off the -questions:—</p> - -<p>“The family have all come. Mr. Lawton seems very -ill and wan, but as I have not seen him for many years, -I cannot speak of his looks comparatively. I do not -think that he can walk; the porters carried him from the -car, and his wheel-chair is lashed behind the coach. -They have brought no maids. Their luggage will be at -Gilead to-night, and Bisbee has agreed to deliver it in -the morning. Mr. and Mrs. Lawton, with Dr. Russell, -who came on with them, it seems, are in the coach, -and Miss Brooke and her brother are in the rockaway. -I will house Manfred for a few moments if I may, so -that I may help the doctor get his patient safely indoors.”</p> - -<p>Half turning about, Stead hesitated a moment and -then added hurriedly, but with much emphasis, “For -God’s sake get indoors, Miss West, and don’t stand -staring down the road like that, nor mention maids, nor -ask a thousand questions before they are fairly inside -the door. No one knows just how much Adam Lawton -remembers or understands; but his wife and daughter -are neither dumb nor blind, and both look spent.”<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_140"></a>[140]</span> -And Miss Keith, too conscience-stricken to be angry -at the rating from an almost stranger, fled in and closed -the door before the rockaway came over the last hill -grade, and paused, as all vehicles did, on the long -plateau that reached and passed the house.</p> - -<p>Adam junior, long, lanky, and sandy of hair and -skin, got out and swung his sister to the ground. -Something was bundled up under one of his arms, -but head and ears alone were visible. “Grandpa -Lawton all over again, Scotch hair and all! and he’s -brought one of those snub-nosed dogs, as I live!” -ejaculated Miss Keith, from behind the curtain that -screened the glass half of the door, at the same time -wondering if the proper moment had arrived for -hospitality. Brooke and young Adam waited for the -coach to draw up before they even looked houseward, -and then Dr. Russell, with serious cheerfulness, helped -Mrs. Lawton, whose face Miss Keith could scarcely see -for the load of pillows that she handed to her daughter. -Stead and the doctor deftly bore out their burden, and -Miss Keith opened the door, stepping within its shadow. -So Adam Lawton came home again, surrounded by -his family.</p> - -<p>Brooke entered first, close by her father, and spying -Miss Keith, there was a single moment of strained, -painful silence, but only a moment, for, dropping her -pillows and holding out her hand with a little smile in<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_141"></a>[141]</span> -which the doctor and Stead alone discerned a pathetic -droop, her silver voice said, “Here I am, Cousin Keith; -I’ve come back to my River Kingdom, and I’ve more -than kept my promise, by bringing all the others -with me;” then the tension relaxed, every one spoke, -though quietly, and they carried Adam Lawton into the -south parlour, where the fire burned upon the wide -hearth as steadily as if it had never been extinguished -in all those intervening years, and set him in the old -chintz-covered chair.</p> - -<p>Miss Keith held back in stiff reserve, and Mrs. Lawton -followed, at first blindly. Then, as her eyes, focussed -to the firelight, took in the details of the room in one -swift glance,—bed hangings, quilt, cradle, and all,—she -caught her breath and turned toward Miss Keith -with arms extended, and whispered, “Ah, Cousin Keith, -how did you know?—how did you think of it? They -say that he may come back to himself by the long way -of childhood; and how could he better do that than here -in his mother’s room?” And the head, with its lovely -crown of silver, rested against the taller woman’s bosom, -and that swift touch of sympathy bound them doubly -as kin.</p> - -<p>“That’s a bully fire and no fake,” said the Cub, suddenly, -after examining the long, thick log with the toe -of his shoe; then he followed Miss Keith toward the -kitchen, led both by curiosity and the smell of the -supper in preparation.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_142"></a>[142]</span></p> - -<p>“Where is that dog?” asked Miss Keith, abruptly. -“I don’t know what Tatters will say to him, so you had -best not bring him in too sudden.”</p> - -<p>“That’s what the man said,” replied the Cub, cheerfully, -“but your dog couldn’t help liking Pam; she’d -make friends with a lion.”</p> - -<p>“She. Oh, that’s different,” sniffed Miss Keith.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>For the moment Dr. Russell was busy in taking Adam -Lawton’s pulse, and when Brooke turned to speak to -Robert Stead he had silently slipped away. “Never -mind, Miss Brooke,” said the doctor, who read her -thoughts; “Stead is a strange fellow, though a man to -be trusted, but I know of no more bitter punishment to -him than verbal thanks. You may need to remember -this. I found out long ago that the best gratitude that -any one may show him is to let him have a motive for -doing something, no matter how trivial, for some one -else,—lack of motive is his curse.”</p> - -<p>Then Dr. Russell also passed out into the living room, -and the three were left alone.</p> - -<p>“Mother, are you glad that we have come?” asked -Brooke, going to her with that new look of complete -understanding that each had worn toward the other -since that fateful night when Brooke had decided.</p> - -<p>“Glad, my daughter? I cannot say how thankful! -Oh, if only I could be sure that we could stay!”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_143"></a>[143]</span></p> - -<p>“No <i>ifs</i>, mother,” said Brooke, gently, her eyes opening -wider as she gazed into the fire. “You know in our -new creed of work there is to be plenty of love and faith -and hope, but not a single <i>if</i>. In fact, I always did think -<i>if</i> a poor, leaky word, that let people escape from all -sorts of nice promises; now we will simply banish it,—you -and I and Adam and—father.”</p> - -<p>Lowering her eyes to the hearth-rug, she became aware -of a shaggy form stretched out there—Tatters, <i>couchant</i>, -with his solemn eyes fastened upon hers, watching their -every movement questioningly. In answer to his appeal, -Brooke knelt on the rug before him, raising him -so that his paws rested on her shoulders, and whispered, -“We are of your people, Tatters, and we are so tired -and lonely. Won’t you love us, and let us live here -with you?”</p> - -<p>Then Tatters, who had not yet moved his eyes from -Brooke’s, touched the tip of her nose with his tongue as -lightly as the brush of a moth’s wing, and dropping his -head to her lap, closed his eyes, as if in sign of complete -confidence.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_144"></a>[144]</span></p> - -<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_X">CHAPTER X<br /> -<span class="smaller">TATTERS TRANSFERS HIMSELF</span></h2> - -</div> - -<p>Not even the insistent sense of responsibility and -of the literal work of hands that lay before her could -keep Brooke awake that first night in the homestead.</p> - -<p>With the fact that the move was accomplished came -a feeling of relief, as if a heavy weight had suddenly -slipped from her shoulders, while the knowledge that Dr. -Russell had elected to return there for the night after -supping with Robert Stead gave her a wonderful sense -of security.</p> - -<p>In future Adam would sleep in the small room that -opened between his father’s and the back entry, but -for this one night Miss Keith insisted upon occupying -it herself, “So that you can all sleep with both eyes -shut, and naught but dreams to trouble you,” she insisted -when Brooke, after helping wash and put away the -tea things, had proposed to discuss certain domestic -questions.</p> - -<p>The combination of a jingle of sleigh bells and the -whirr-r with which the hall clock cleared its throat, -preparatory to striking nine, were the first sounds<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_145"></a>[145]</span> -that Brooke heard when she opened her eyes upon -the new surroundings, and then suddenly came to herself, -conscience-stricken at her utter oblivion of the past -ten hours. Going to the east window, whence the sound -of bells and voices came, she raised the shade and -peered between the curtains. This window faced the -front road, and consequently the Moosatuk, to which -it was parallel, though on a much higher level; but -all that could now be seen of the river was a broad -roadway, smooth, white, and level, bounded on each -side by rugged banks, set thick with snow-draped -hemlocks.</p> - -<p>A light snow had fallen in the early hours of the -night, not a sufficient storm to drift and block the -roads, but merely to “polish up the sleighing,” as the -country parlance has it, while its magic touch lingered -on every brier and roadside weed in fantastic crystals, -which, meeting the sunbeams, radiated dazzling prismatic -colours.</p> - -<p>Stopping outside the fence was Silent Stead, driving -Manfred before an odd-looking low-running sled, -with seat in front and box for merchandise in the rear. -With him was Dr. Russell, engaged in earnest conversation, -and also Tatters, who, as usual, was receiving -his share of attention, as he stood paws on the edge of -the seat, the expression of his face, ears, and tail seeming -to vary according to the conversation of the men.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_146"></a>[146]</span></p> - -<p>Brooke stood there spellbound, the muslin draperies -held together beneath her chin like a garment, and, -as she looked, the Cub came up the lane road from -the barn, carrying the beloved Pam held high on one -shoulder. At sight of Tatters, the pup struggled to free -herself, and began to bark wildly. Stead evidently -said something to the Cub, for, lowering Pam to the -sleigh box, he stood back, and watched Tatters walk -about the box at a little distance, his tail stiffly erect, and -the neck ruff that belonged to the collie half of him -bristling also. As he drew nearer, Pam leaned forward -on her outstretched paws, barked saucily, and before -the dignified old dog could think of a suitable reply, -outflanked him by giving him an enthusiastic lick on -the nose, as he drew near. Next, casting herself recklessly -from the sleigh, she slid along sidewise, landing -on her back almost between his front feet, with her -paws held up, as if in sign of complete submission. -Then, as the men laughed heartily at these tactful -feminine antics in a puppy of only six months, Pam -began running to and fro in the snow, making believe -to eat large mouthfuls of it, and kicking it into the air. -For a moment Tatters hesitated, and then bounded -awkwardly after the pup as fast as his stiff hind leg -would let him. To and fro they ran in the ecstasy -of puppy play until Miss Keith, shawl over head, -came out in amazement at the turn of things, and<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_147"></a>[147]</span> -Tatters, quite spent with his unusual exercise, lay -panting in the snow, Pam following suit. For there -is one inflexible dog rule—that as soon as a newcomer -has received recognition, he must yield obedience -to the dog already in command; that is dog -law. Thus it was that young life came to Tatters -with the new arrivals, even as it had come to the homestead -itself.</p> - -<p>As Miss Keith returned to the house, she glanced up -at Brooke’s window, and, seeing the face between the -curtains, she nodded and waved her hand gayly, a -totally different attitude from that with which a week -or even a day before she would have greeted any -one who had stayed abed until nine in the morning. -Instantly Brooke turned to her dressing, and though -at first the very cold water made her gasp, the after -glow more than made up for it.</p> - -<p>Brooke could not conceal her satisfaction at the -fact that some breakfast had been stored away for her -in the “hot closet,” and the mere fact placated Miss -Keith more than a thousand apologies for oversleeping. -Why is it that people, women especially, feel it a special -point of virtue to suppress or deny the existence of -natural appetites that to be truly without would prove -them abnormal?</p> - -<p>When both Mrs. Lawton and Brooke had duly -learned where every dish, pot, and pan belonged, and<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_148"></a>[148]</span> -had seen the empty closet with its shelves edged with -scalloped paper that had been prepared for the china -they had brought,—one complete set, a Christmas -present from Mr. Dean a few years before, having -been retained,—Mrs. Lawton returned to her husband, -and Brooke cornered Miss Keith for the necessary -business conversation which, though inevitable, the -older woman for some reason was seemingly trying -to avoid.</p> - -<p>“In a minute I’ll be there, and we’ll have it all out,” -she said, rushing out the back door toward the chicken -houses with a dish-pan of scraps that she had deftly -made into a sort of stew, while she talked, by the addition -of some corn meal, red pepper, and hot water, -returning in a very few minutes with the empty receptacle.</p> - -<p>“That reminds me, Brooke, it’s best the next three -months to feed them their hot meal in the morning, -and not to let them out to exercise before eleven, and -shut them up tight, sharp at three, even on clear days. -If you don’t, they get so cold it sort of discourages -the eggs at the time you most want them. I’ve made -out a list of my steady customers, and put it here in -the drawer along with the farm book, in case you -have enough eggs to peddle, and mind! forty cents -a dozen is my steady price from December to March. -Don’t let ’em cheat you. After March you must follow<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_149"></a>[149]</span> -market rates. The farm book tells just what I plant, -and when, and what I naturally expect to get back. -You see the place has run itself fairly well, hired man -and all, though you won’t expect it to now, because -you’ll need eggs to eat, and pretty much all the milk -and butter output, while your father’s on slop food.</p> - -<p>“If you’ll take my advice, you’ll tend the fowls -yourself, and don’t trust the hired help. And I don’t -think you’d best start the incubator this year,—you’ll -have enough on your hands. There are eight or ten -hens that have been working overtime this winter, so -I expect they will be thankful to rest their legs, and -set the first week in March. By the way, there’s -spring latches on the doors of the roosting and laying -houses,—my idea to trap light-fingered folk if they -get in, and to keep the fowls from straying. Best -be careful not to get shut in without the keys (they -lie in the box by the clock with all the others, plainly -labelled). What money there is to be had from poultry -in these parts comes from caring for it yourself, and -you can’t trust hired female help, ’specially when it -comes from the city.”</p> - -<p>“But, Cousin Keith,” said Brooke, as soon as she -could be heard, and struggling not to laugh at the -outpouring of words, which, when the farm was the -topic, she soon found flowed as steadily as Niagara, -“I do not expect to keep female help from the city.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_150"></a>[150]</span></p> - -<p>“Oh, you relied on getting them from about here, -then? Well, I’m afraid you’ll find it a scant market, -unless you’ll put up with coloured; the American -girls won’t live out in families where they set them -at separate tables, and I don’t blame them. There’s -old Mrs. Peck, she sometimes accommodates for a -month or so, as a working housekeeper in confinement -cases, but she is old-fashioned New England -and wouldn’t take to city ways. Why, she would think -her soul lost if she used prepared flour for her buckwheat -cakes instead of setting them with yeast, and -she sticks to soda and cream of tartar, which she -understands the workings of, for all baking, as she -claims that baking powder isn’t plain and above -board and so is to be avoided, though I must say -her tea biscuits took the prize over mine at the Gordon -fair.”</p> - -<p>Once again Brooke shook her head, this time not -trying to suppress her laughter,—“I have no intention -of keeping any household help whatsoever,” she managed -to say at last.</p> - -<p>Miss Keith stopped short with a gasp, as if a pail of -ice-water had been poured upon her head, and then -said: “No hired help! then who is to do the -cooking, and what will you eat? If this was Stonebridge, -you could get table board at the Inn, though -it is expensive, and the people that often stop here<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_151"></a>[151]</span> -in driving, to buy my fresh cake, complain that it isn’t -satisfactory.”</p> - -<p>“Cousin Keith, you must take me seriously. I do -not think you understood the letter that I wrote, telling -you we were coming here. <i>I</i> am going to do the work; -fifty dollars a month is our present income, and I do -not mean to touch the little principal we have, but -keep it in case of accident,—at least until I am in -working order and have devised some plan for earning -more. All I hope to do is to get some good woman, -like your Mrs. Peck, to come here for a few weeks and -teach me how to cook plain food and be economical, -for it is the other part that I understand, and learned -at Lucy Dean’s cooking class, to make cake, and -candy, and all the little supper dishes in a chafing-dish. -Adam has already promised that he will make the -fires and do the heavy things, so you see I’m not so -badly off after all. You mustn’t look so discouragingly -at me, Cousin Keith. You see the only way -for us to earn money in the very beginning is by not -spending it.”</p> - -<p>Instantly Keith West’s whole attitude changed. -She not only ceased making objections, but the distance -that she herself had, in her imagination, forced -to be kept between herself and her kin disappeared, and -practical suggestions took the place of obstruction.</p> - -<p>“That minute you spoke and looked just like your<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_152"></a>[152]</span> -Grandma West, when the outlying members of the -family tried to argue her into giving up, and going -down to winter at Gilead, after grandpa died. Gentle, -but set as fast as bricks in Portland cement. Of course -you can do the work for a while anyway (I did the -same, and more too, at your age), if you can only -get the knack of turning it off, and I don’t know of -any one more likely to help you out than Mrs. Peck. -That is, unless I postpone my going for a couple of -weeks, and do it myself,” and Miss Keith paused -with an eager look that said she would ask nothing -better; for the advent of the family, instead of making -her feel out of place, had already made her reasons -for the change grow vague and hazy, and the departure -itself seemed not an escape, but more like an eviction.</p> - -<p>“You are very kind to offer, but that is impossible, -you know,” answered Brooke. “In the last letter -you wrote me, regretting the delay, you said that you -must <i>absolutely</i> leave on the 12th, and that will be -to-morrow. It is better too that we should begin at -once before Adam and I grow lazy from seeing you -take the lead and being accustomed to our liberty. -How much does Mrs. Peck charge, and where does -she live? I think I had best go to see her to-day -while you are here to be with mother.”</p> - -<p>Thus Miss Keith, by no act but her own, had literally -closed the door upon herself, which fact she was<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_153"></a>[153]</span> -clear-sighted enough to recognize, and bore herself -accordingly, making haste to reply: “Mrs. Peck -has six dollars a week when she cares for mother, -child, and the house, but when it is just ‘accommodating’ -with a grown girl to help out and take steps, she -has three, and must be called for and returned home. -She would jump at the chance to come here for three -dollars, for there have been next to no births this winter, -and she has either been at home most of the time, or else -at her daughter’s, where she is kept busy and, of course, -gets no pay. She is very intimate with Mrs. Enoch -Fenton, who lives just round the turn on the Windy -Hill road, not half a mile from here. You can go -up there for a walk after dinner, as I suppose you’d -rather settle your own business. No, you can’t go -this morning, no one disturbs Mrs. Fenton before -dinner; you see, situated as she is, she must have -all the forenoon uninterrupted for her work—she -manages wonderfully, but if any one comes in before -it is done, it upsets her for the day. Why, the neighbours -would no more think of calling on Mrs. Fenton -in the morning than they would of visiting the minister -on Saturday night!”</p> - -<p>Brooke was about to ask how this particular woman -was differently circumstanced from her neighbours, -when Miss Keith again took up the domestic thread:—</p> - -<p>“There’s hay and straw and corn fodder enough<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_154"></a>[154]</span> -to last over until pasture is growing again. I’d -advise you to sell the two old cows, the two young -ones (one calves in April, the other in September) will -be enough for you to manage. <i>Of course</i> you’ll keep -Billy; you’d be stuck fast here on the hill like moss -on a rock but for him. There’s no earthly reason -why Adam can’t learn to curry him, and milk too after -a spell; but Larsen is engaged until April, when he -expects to be married, and work on one of the great -estates in Gordon. He works for me three hours a -day in winter, just the milking and chores morning -and night. I pay him ten dollars a month; the Fentons -keep him the rest of the time, and pay him fifteen -dollars and board, for, of course, I couldn’t board a -man here!”</p> - -<p>Brooke did not appreciate the exact reason, but did -not say so, and Miss Keith continued: “After the -1st of April, Adam ought to be well broken in, and -you can doubtless get a man to plot out the garden, -and work the corn lot, the potato, hay, and rye fields -on shares. I’ll speak to Mr. Bisbee and the blacksmith -about that before I go, and tell them to keep -their eyes open for one.”</p> - -<p>“Don’t you think that three dollars a week is very -small pay for a woman such as Mrs. Peck appears to -be, from what you say?” said Brooke, unthinkingly, -her old habits of generosity being yet strong upon her.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_155"></a>[155]</span></p> - -<p>“Brooke Lawton, if you are going to bring your -ideas of city wages and charitable reforms up here, -you’ll make trouble for others, as well as for yourself,” -snapped Miss Keith, vehemently. “That is her price, -set by herself, and you can’t afford to change it for -one thing (you’re good to eat on your principal these -first three months anyhow); and suppose you could, -what good would it do her, but make her discontented -with what others could pay, and humble them? People -ought to hesitate before they upset the wages of a -place they come into new. Half such charity is selfish -gratification, to my thinking. There was old John -Selleck; he used to do little garden chores for fifty -cents a day and food,—light work with frequent -resting spells. Along comes a city man and hires -a cottage on the lower road for two months. Said it -was a shame to ‘underpay the labourer,’ gives him -a dollar and a half a day. When the two months -were over, and he left again, would John Selleck chore -about for fifty cents a day and food? Not he, so, as -nobody would pay him more, and he wouldn’t work -for less, he nearly starved last autumn, and now he’s -working on the town farm for board without the -fifty cents!”</p> - -<p>It put matters in a different light to Brooke, and -she was about to say so when Dr. Russell thrust his head -in at the door, and, catching only a few words of Miss<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_156"></a>[156]</span> -Keith’s oration on local political economy, judged -that Brooke was being unduly lectured, and would -welcome release, which he hastened to offer, by asking -her to wrap up well and take a survey of her property -with him, saying that Adam had driven down to Gilead -with Stead, who had offered to show him the rounds -of post-office, store, and blacksmith’s shop.</p> - -<p>As Dr. Russell opened the front door for Brooke -to pass out, Tatters, who for the past hour had been -lying by Adam Lawton’s chair in the sitting room, -now rose, stretched himself, and prepared to follow, -while as he did so, Mrs. Lawton saw that her husband’s -eyes followed the dog with an expression very similar -to the one that he had worn the last week when -either she or Brooke came into plain view. By thus -reading his expression, and by it guessing of his -needs, she had already established a certain means of -communication, which Dr. Russell had explained to -her she might hope to develop day by day to the -point when continuous memory and coherent speech -should return.</p> - -<p>Once outside the door, Tatters sniffed at Brooke’s -cloak, touched the fingers of her ungloved hand lightly -with his tongue, and then fell behind, following her at -a measured distance, pausing when she paused, and -straightway marching along as soon as she did.</p> - -<p>“It appears to me,” said Dr. Russell, smiling, as he<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_157"></a>[157]</span> -watched the old dog’s soldier-like tread, “that Tatters -has ‘transferred himself’ pretty thoroughly, and Miss -Keith will therefore have her last objection to going -to Boston removed.”</p> - -<p>A path was shovelled from the front gate to the side -lane above the house, into which it turned, passing -barn, cow, and chicken houses.</p> - -<p>“How well our forebears knew how to build for -winter convenience,” said the doctor, tucking Brooke’s -hand under his arm, as they walked, for there was a -layer of treacherous ice under the new snow. “Nowadays -a landscape architect would put all these outbuildings -out of sight below the slope, or else up behind -that knot of cedars, where it would take a day’s work -to dig a road in snow time, while here all you have to -do is to look out the kitchen window, and see that all -is safe and sound. It is a compact little home, dear -child, and in view of my practical knowledge, as well -as of the sentimental value of such things, I believe -that under any circumstances it is the best and most -possible life for you all for many years to come; only -remember, do not be discouraged if you have some -blue days before the spring sun shines. There is a trite -old saying, ‘Who loves the land in February loves -for life.’ Simply keep working and do not try to look -too far ahead; even the Bearer of the World’s Burden -would only have us cope with evil day by day. There<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_158"></a>[158]</span> -is where we often make our error—by cutting off the -vista to the good with the shadow of borrowed trouble.”</p> - -<p>Brooke looked up at him gratefully, and hesitated a -moment before she said: “There is only one thing -about which I am troubling a little, and that is -Adam. How will dropping everything in the shape -of books, and turning into my assistant farmer, much -as he likes the idea, affect his future? You may not -know how backward he is even now, and,” smiling -archly, “I’m afraid he’ll have to work for his board -this first year before I can even afford him an immigrant’s -wages.”</p> - -<p>“I’m glad that you have come straight to this point,” -said Dr. Russell, “for it is one where I can meet you -halfway. I had a talk with your brother on the train -yesterday, and I am convinced that the practical, and -not the scholastic, is his forte. When he goes to college -it should be to the scientific, not to the academic -school; that part of his culture must come from good -reading. His first need is out-of-door air and life—so -far, so good, that he can have. Last night at supper I -discussed this with Robert Stead, as his early training was -both at the School of Mines and the Polytechnic of Troy. -The upshot,—‘Let him come to me every day,’ said -Stead, ‘for as many hours as he can spare, more or -less, and I will see what he lacks, and perhaps stimulate -him by companionship in study, or at any rate we can<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_159"></a>[159]</span> -fight out the essentials together. Perhaps it will warm -my brain again, doctor, who knows?’”</p> - -<p>Brooke clasped her hands with an expression of -delight, and then dropped them, saying, “But we -cannot pay for such a favour as that would be, and -on the other hand we couldn’t put ourselves under -an obligation.”</p> - -<p>“My child,” said the doctor, stopping in the middle -of the cow-house, which they chanced to be investigating -at the moment, and leaning against a stall, while the -gentle occupant pulled at his coat with her inquisitive -tongue, “there is another way in which we all make -grave mistakes. God forbid that I should advocate -the shirking or casting of responsibility upon others, -but there is another extreme that we are falling into -in this twentieth century—an eye-for-an-eye, tooth-for-a-tooth -breed of independence, while the brotherhood -that should blend and sweeten all our daily -actions is treated as a vocation, a thing set apart, and -labelled ‘Charity’ or ‘Social Service.’ It seems to me -that the Christian law of silent burden-bearing is far -finer and more subtle than this, in that it leaves no -obligation in its wake.</p> - -<p>“If Robert Stead, the man cursed with lack of -motive, finds a fragment of impulse in the stimulation -of awakening his buried knowledge and in contact with -your brother, when your brother needs this knowledge,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_160"></a>[160]</span> -where lies the obligation? No, the scales are evenly -balanced; accept the result, and do not draw a breath -to jar the adjustment. Moreover, do not judge Stead -by the usual social standards, but bear with him. -Perhaps at times he may even seem discourteous, for -what he thinks he suffered by one woman, and a most -remarkable one she was too, has made him curt with -all; for his great failing is that he can never judge -except by the personal measure, and unconsciously -he has made a cult of selfishness.”</p> - -<p>“I understand, oh, now I understand; how can I -ever thank you for showing me the way? Do you -know, Dr. Russell,” Brooke said, clasping her hands -on his arm, “it seems to me I never began really to -live until the day that trouble came to us;”—while -as Brooke spoke, the silent hour in the Parkses’ gallery, -and Marte Lorenz’ picture, stretched themselves as the -inseparable background to all that had followed, and -deepened the colour in her cheeks, that were already -glowing with the keen air.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>When Brooke and the Doctor finished their tour, and -were returning to the house, Tatters still following solemnly, -Bisbee’s double-runner sled with the baggage -was seen coming from the lower road, while Stead’s -cutter turned into the yard from the hill way. The Cub -being in a very happy frame of mind as the result of -his morning’s trip.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_161"></a>[161]</span></p> - -<p>“Only think, Sis!” he cried, as soon as he was -within speaking distance, “the blacksmith has a registered -dog bull pup, with just as good a pedigree as -Pam’s—a son of imported Black-eye who is owned over -in Gordon. He’s got a pedigree a mile long all written -out, but it’s smudged and mussy, and the blacksmith -has offered me a dollar to copy it out on a fan-shaped -paper like mine. That will just come in handy to -pay Pam’s tax, too; it’s due up here the 1st of January. -Then you see next year we’ll go in partnership, and -raise some pups, and fifty dollars apiece is the very least -we can get for them, and maybe a hundred for the -dogs, if they’re clever!”</p> - -<p>The elder men smiled at each other, and the doctor -said to Silent Stead, “Enthusiasm is an element that -can be ill spared from <i>materia medica</i>,—it will do you -good even to get a whiff of it.” To Brooke: “Good-by -for now, my child; your father will have all that can -be done for him. A sloping platform from the kitchen -door will allow him to be wheeled out in pleasant -weather, and time and care alone will show the result. -Remember, do not hesitate to send for me if you are -puzzled—and courage! the courage that is always -given to the world’s workers at their need,” and the -good physician, the spiritual son of St. Luke of old, -took his place by Stead, who turned Manfred in the -direction of the Gilead station.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_162"></a>[162]</span></p> - -<p>Meanwhile Tatters had disappeared, and when -Brooke went indoors again, realizing too late that she -had not yet thanked Silent Stead, she found the dog -stretched by her father’s chair, an indoor post he thereafter -occupied.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>A little after two o’clock Brooke set out for Mrs. -Fenton’s, leaving her mother to superintend the unpacking -of the simpler things, clothes, books, and the -little table furniture that they had deemed best to save -from the wreck and bring with them, a task in which -Miss Keith seemed to revel so unfeignedly that Brooke -began her walk with an unusual sense of freedom.</p> - -<p>She had gone only a few hundred yards when she remembered -Tatters, and, turning back to get him, found -that he was already close behind, and hurrying as if -life or death depended upon his escort. “How did -you know I was coming? How did you get out?” -she asked him, and then laughed at herself for expecting -a reply other than the short, joyous bark he gave, as -he circled around her, pawing up the snow, inviting -her to play with clumsy, stiff gestures that plainly said, -“I know I am rather an old fellow for this sort of -thing, but I’m willing to do anything I can to amuse -you,” while he even raced after the snowballs she -threw at random, and rashly tried to retrieve one, -dropping it hastily at her feet with a comical expression,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_163"></a>[163]</span> -showing by a twist of his jaw and rubbing his nose -between his paws that it was too cold for his teeth.</p> - -<p>The walk was up an almost straight hill, relieved by -occasional resting-places by which alone travel in -such a country is made possible to man or beast, so -that when Brooke reached the gate of the Fenton house -she paused, both for breath and to get her bearings. -No pathway had been shovelled to the front door, -and the beaten track led round the side of the house -to a wide porch at the south, which also held a well-house -in its shelter, and this Brooke followed.</p> - -<p>Her knock at the door was followed by a rumbling -sound from within, which began in an opposite corner -of the house, and drew rapidly nearer; then the door -opened outward, singularly enough, and just inside -it sat a little old lady in a wheel-chair that she both -guided and propelled with her own hands.</p> - -<p>“I’m so sorry to have troubled you,” Brooke began. -“I wished to see Mrs. Enoch Fenton, and Miss Keith -said that it was the first house before the cross-roads, -but I must have misunderstood.”</p> - -<p>“And so it is, dear. I’m Mrs. Fenton.” Then, -as she read Brooke’s puzzled expression: “Oh, I see, -Keith didn’t tell you that I use wheels instead of feet. -Come right in; see, Tatters is quite at home here, -and he knows where my cooky drawer is just as well -as any child in the neighbourhood,” and, jerking a<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_164"></a>[164]</span> -strap that she held in her hand, which was also fastened -to the door handle, she closed it behind her guest even -before Brooke realized and apologized for not doing -it herself.</p> - -<p>Quick as a flash the chair was turned, and travelled -across the square hall, which also served as a summer -sitting room, into a kitchen, cheerful and neat as wax, -while as Brooke followed, her senses now keyed to -the unusual, she noticed that not only had the door-ways -been widened, but that all the furniture, tables, -dresser, chest of drawers, and even the stove itself -were below the usual level.</p> - -<p>“Choose a chair,” said Mrs. Fenton, smiling brightly -as she brought herself to a stop close to the sunny -southwest bay window, where a wide shelf with a -deep ledge, containing sewing materials and various -garments in process of manufacture, showed it to be -her habitual nook.</p> - -<p>As Brooke drew a splint-bottomed rocker nearer -to her hostess, she noticed that, though the white hair -and thin face had at first given the impression of -greater age, Mrs. Fenton was not more than sixty-five, -while the intelligence of her expression and -brightness of eye might well belong to a woman of -fifty, and although her lower limbs seemed small and -were wrapped in a shawl, her arms and chest were -full and muscular.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_165"></a>[165]</span></p> - -<p>“You don’t tell me your name, but I make it that -you are Adam Lawton’s daughter, whom Keith has -been expecting and worrying about these ten days -past. She told me about your father’s money loss -and shock, and how he was coming back home; and -I’ve been real interested to hear, because you see, -dearie, Adam and I went to school together fifty odd -years ago, and to the day he left we were always a -tie in spelling matches, and now here we are again, -like as not matched together as cripples. Tell me all -about him, dear, if it don’t hurt you. I’ve found, -these eight years since I’ve had my discipline, that -exchanging experiences with others likely situated -is apt to make one credit a lot of things to the mercy -side of the record that would never have been set down, -if we hadn’t been brought face to face with other folks’ -misery, and so forced to take count of stock, so to speak. -And please, before we begin and have a comfortable -chat, give Tatters a sugar cooky out of the drawer -there (I never before set eyes on a dog so fond of sweet -cake,—his mouth is fairly watering),—no, not that -little drawer, the peppermints and maple candy are -in there, though you might like a bit of that to nibble -on,—the second drawer;” and Brooke, after giving -the expectant dog his cake, drew still closer to the -wheel-chair, and, such was the spell of single-hearted -sympathy, quite as a matter of course she told Mrs.<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_166"></a>[166]</span> -Fenton, naturally and frankly, of both her hopes and -fears, ending with her desire to get Mrs. Peck to “accommodate” -until she should have learned to manage -alone.</p> - -<p>“You dear child!” exclaimed the lame woman, laying -her work-hardened hand on Brooke’s soft, shapely -one as she ended, and looking at her through the reminiscent -tears that would gather on her lashes, “I take -it a special thought of Providence, your coming to me, -for who has had to learn, more than I, how to keep -housework in hand?—and as to Mrs. Peck, she will -be here to-night, as Enoch, being Deacon, must sleep -over at Gordon, where the Con-Association meets.</p> - -<p>“Listen, and I’ll tell you of my trouble quickly as -may be, because what’s over and gone best not be -dug too deep, except for the planting of future seeds -of grace. Eight years ago this winter I was down -at my daughter’s house in Gilead (she being the only -one of six left me outside God’s Acre), tending her -first-born. All around the well was laid with great -cobbles, I slipped, and having a heavy pail in hand -could not save myself, and hurt my spine, and it -paralyzed my legs.</p> - -<p>“They brought me home, and weeks and months -went by. Enoch had the best doctors that summer -over from Gordon, but nothing could be done to liven -me; and then I knew that I must lie there bed-ridden,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_167"></a>[167]</span> -or be propped in a sick-chair for life, and leave -my work undone for others. Oh, it was bitter, and -I sorely rebelled to see a hired woman in my place, -and father only half cared for. Then came fall of -the year, and one day father brought in Doctor Russell, -who had come up to stop on Windy Hill with Robert -Stead for the shooting. He asked father to go away -and leave him alone with me. Then he looked me -over, bent all my joints that would bend, and, after -listening to my heart, sat in the big chair by the bed -(I can see him now just as plain), and said: ‘What -troubles you the most, Mrs. Fenton? What is your -worst suffering, and what do you most wish?’</p> - -<p>“‘To do something, to get to work, and not lie dead -in the midst of life.’ He sat quite still for ten minutes -or more, matching his finger-tips together in thought, -and then he said, ‘If you have will enough, and courage, -as I believe, we’ll have you downstairs and back at -work again within a year.’ Then he told me of the -chair, and how I could be fastened in it to keep from -falling, and learn to use the wheels for legs, as a child -does how to walk. Bless him! it all came true. At -first, to be sure, I was afraid, and banged about, and -my arms were tired to aching, and I often cried. But -Enoch took such comfort, seeing me at table even, -that it was a nerve tonic. And gradually, as I strengthened, -he had the doors widened, and the sills done<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_168"></a>[168]</span> -away with, and everything set within my reach, until, -when the year was up and a little more, I turned off -all my work except the washing, and cooked the dinner -for the doctor the next time he chanced in.</p> - -<p>“When the weather is seasonable, too, I get all about -the yard, and now I really feel ambitious to go down -to see your father when the roads are settled. You -see it was a special Providence that I hit my back -just the spot I did, for if it had been higher up, or on -my head, it might have paralyzed my arms. Yes, -there’s always something to the mercy side, if we only -stop to reckon up.”</p> - -<p>The sun was setting when Brooke left Mrs. Fenton, -for she had been there for two hours. The south-western -sky was all aglow as the sun broke its way -through the dusky clouds of falling night, and like it, -the heart of the young woman glowed within her breast. -Free of health and of limb, what might she not will -and do, ah, if only she could become, even as that -woman in the wheel-chair, one of the world’s workers!</p> - -<p>As she walked swiftly down the road, the long shafts -of light and the wind gusts also, sinking to rest, played -with her hair; and at the turn she met Silent Stead, who -was returning from Gilead. Thinking the opportunity -had come to recognize his kindness, she stopped, half -turning to the roadway; but he, either through offishness -or suspecting her design, passed on with a mere -greeting.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_169"></a>[169]</span></p> - -<p>Not piqued, because she remembered Dr. Russell’s -warning, Brooke went her way, smiling to herself in -amusement; and when she neared the farm she broke -into a run, Tatters barking and gambolling about her, -so that Miss Keith, who came to the door at the sound, -was forced to confess, though much against her will, -that, in spite of his years of service to herself, Tatters -had “transferred himself.”</p> - -<p>Meanwhile, by a strange perversity of fate, the -radiant face of the girl whom Robert Stead had passed -by so curtly on the road, turned homeward with -him, all unbidden, now smiling at him from between -Manfred’s mobile ears, sitting opposite him at his -table, and even permeating the smoke wreaths from -his pipe that coiled, as in a vision, around her head -in fantastic tresses.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_170"></a>[170]</span></p> - -<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XI">CHAPTER XI<br /> -<span class="smaller">BREAD</span></h2> - -</div> - -<p>Three weeks had now passed since Miss Keith’s -departure, and the daily toil of each had been punctuated -by a series of unexpected events.</p> - -<p>Much as Brooke had dreaded the going of her executive -kinswoman, it was in a sense a relief. She was -well aware that until she was entirely thrown upon her -own resources it would be impossible to judge her -strength or plan definitely for the future; and now that -the move had been made, this planning was the next -hill to climb. It was impossible for Brooke to have a -quiet moment, except when she was alone in her room -at night, so long as Miss Keith was in the house; for the -estimable woman was continually remembering some -important bit of advice, relative to the year’s rotation of -work in the garden or the “putting up” of the fruit. One -of the last details that she impressed upon Brooke in -showing her baskets of various bulbs and a large store -of the seeds of sweet peas, nasturtiums, and other -hardy annual flowers, all neatly put up in paper bags, -was to sow plenty of them in long rows like vegetables,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_171"></a>[171]</span> -because as she said “the rich folks were always -stopping to see the view as they drove from Stonebridge -to Gordon, and often sent in and begged to buy the old-fashioned -flowers, because their gardens had not room -for them.”</p> - -<p>Brooke promised, but the matter passed quickly -from her overcrowded mind; for, interpreted by Miss -Keith, the work of the mistress of the West homestead -would have kept at least six Plymouth-Rock-ribbed -housewives at work from rise until set of sun. -Very different indeed was it from Mrs. Enoch Fenton’s -soothing advice, “Dearie, just begin by doing what -you must, and let the rest sort of slip off your hands until -the Lord gives ’em the knack to handle it.”</p> - -<p>When the rockaway, driven by Larsen, at last came -to the door with the Cub as honorary footman to see -Miss Keith off and make sure that none of her twelve -pieces of wonderfully assorted baggage went astray, she -broke down completely, yet did not seem comforted -or pleased with Brooke’s invitation to return if she -changed her mind about matrimony, the final sniff that -followed the sincere and cordial offer being more of -scorn than of grief.</p> - -<p>Mrs. Lawton was now fast shaking off the state of -being in a waking dream, in which she lived since the -night of the calamity; and, once Miss Keith had gone, -both mother and daughter began to taste the quiet joys<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_172"></a>[172]</span> -of a companionship that the forced separation of the -last few years of conventional city life had not only left -undeveloped but unknown.</p> - -<p>Their intercourse was none the less sustaining because -the things that they discussed were the bread-and-butter -affairs of every day—whether the invalid should -have chicken or mutton broth, and as to whether it was -possible to make many of the dishes they desired with -only half the ingredients the cook-book demanded, -Mrs. Lawton’s experience of long ago and Brooke’s -common sense deciding in the affirmative.</p> - -<p>In fact, the young mistress had not been working -side by side with Mrs. Peck (who came to “accommodate” -and instruct the day after Miss Keith left) a week -before she was sure of what she had always suspected, -that fully three-quarters of modern recipes for cooking -are merely competitive struggles to see how much good -material can be crammed into something totally unsuitable -for the human stomach.</p> - -<p>Gradually, as the first week drew to a close, it happened -that, after the Cub and Brooke had helped -establish their father in his wheel-chair for the day, -Mrs. Lawton went to and fro about the lower floor, -dusting, adjusting, wiping dishes, watering the plants, -and doing the thousand and one little things that make -a woman a part of her home. Then later in the day -she would wheel Adam Lawton into the kitchen perhaps,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_173"></a>[173]</span> -and, taking out her work-basket, do some of the -sewing that was imperative to make the garments of -the past even possible for present use. As to Adam -Lawton himself, he was more alert and did not seem to -doze as constantly as before, while his eyes wandered -from object to object with a changeful expression unlike -the apathy of his first conscious period.</p> - -<p>Before the seven days were completely rounded, -three things had happened. Brooke heard her mother -hum a snatch of the ballad “Jock o’Hazeldean,” as she -snipped withered leaves from the plants in the kitchen -window; she saw her father stroke Tatters’ head and -finger his ears with his well hand; and Robert Stead, -who now left their mail as he returned with his own -from the village every morning, brought her, together -with some belated foreign New Year’s cards, a flat, -square package, spattered with foreign postmarks, -addressed in an unknown hand, in care of Charlie -Ashton, and evidently remailed by him.</p> - -<p>In a perfectly unobtrusive and matter-of-course way, -without so much as by your leave, the silent man had -established a more or less silent intercourse with the -Lawton family as a whole. He must pass the house on -his daily horseback trip to the village, and the fact -that he brought their morning mail or did a bit of -marketing was a courtesy that could not be construed -into an obligation, and the lending of a magazine,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_174"></a>[174]</span> -novel, or gardening book soon came to be a matter of -course.</p> - -<p>Mrs. Lawton could not but welcome one of her -own kind who belonged as remotely to a certain past -as she herself. Brooke, remembering Dr. Russell’s -words, greeted him cordially, glad to give cheer to -one so lonely, and added to this motive, be it said, was -the general interest which a man of fifty, who is in any -way surrounded by a tragedy or mystery, excites in a -young, warm-hearted woman; while the Cub fairly -adored his tutor to be, afar off, for had not Stead a taste -for horses, dogs, guns, fishing tackle, and, above all, -liberty? Also, had he not offered to make easy the torturing -pathway of mathematics?—while best of all from -the first he had treated the youth of the difficult age, -which is both aggressive and sensitive, like a fellow-man, -younger, of course, but still an equal, instead of -a cross between a fool, a nuisance, and a criminal, as -some of his instructors had chosen to regard him.</p> - -<p>When Brooke had taken the little package from -Stead’s hand, in spite of the unfamiliarity of the writing -upon it, a sudden embarrassment seized upon her, -making her redden to the temples; and, instead of considering -and opening it as one of the many cards of -Christmas greeting that she had received from fellow-students -and friends ever since her Paris year, she laid it -aside and presently carried it to her room.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_175"></a>[175]</span></p> - -<p>Closing the door, though it was very seldom that even -her mother came to the second floor, Brooke turned -the thick envelope over several times before cutting the -heavy cord that bound it, and so swift and sure is the -speech of telepathy that she did not wonder who had -written to her in care of Carolus Ashton. She did not -try to trace the identity of unfamiliar characters or -remember that in the years that separated her from that -time no similar letter had reached her; she simply knew -that the address had been traced by the pen of Marte -Lorenz, without for a moment realizing that the source -of this clairvoyance lay in the undeniable craving of -her whole being to know of him. Once opened, a -double sheet of blank paper enclosed a square of artists’ -board covered with light tissue. Tearing this off, with -eager trembling fingers, instead of the man’s face that -she had expected to look out at her, with those wide-open -eyes from under the tumbled thatch of hair, instead -of the mustache-veiled lips which told simple -truths with such sympathetic sincerity that it made them -more desirable than praise, she saw herself, or rather -one of herselves, for it is only a strangely monotonous, -colourless type of woman who can be interpreted by -merely the universal blending of composites.</p> - -<p>It was simply a head, small, perforce, and lightly -sketched in oil, with only enough of the shoulder curve, -over which the face was turned, to give a balance, the<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_176"></a>[176]</span> -sombre background of deep browns serving to throw out -the golden glints of the hair; but the quality that struck -Brooke at once was the same strange effect of lighting -that had puzzled her in the picture of Eucharistia. -Without being in the form of the conventional halo of -the old masters, a raying light emanated from behind the -head, and the eyes seemed as if they were but the opening -to a vision beyond.</p> - -<p>Still hoping for some message or word, Brooke, holding -the picture close, saw in one corner, half hidden by -a bit of drapery, the initials “M. L.” and the words -“For the New Year.”</p> - -<p>Then Brooke, the girl of sentiment and idealized -emotions, argued with Miss Lawton, the head of the -family, the young woman of responsibilities and practicalities.</p> - -<p>Brooke said, “Why did he send me my picture instead -of his own?”</p> - -<p>Miss Lawton answered, “Perhaps it is not intended -for a portrait at all, but merely a chance resemblance -in a New Year’s token, such as an artist may send to -a dozen friends!”</p> - -<p>“But,” queried Brooke, not listening, but following -her desire, “he may have meant by sending my portrait -that he wished to tell me that he still thought of me, and -a girl always likes to have her picture painted; but -if he had sent his own it would be like intruding himself<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_177"></a>[177]</span> -upon me, if I had forgotten. How shall I thank -him?”</p> - -<p>“It is evident, as he sent no address, he particularly -desires not to be thanked,” replied Miss Lawton, somewhat -tartly.</p> - -<p>“If he trusted his letter to Carolus Ashton, probably -hearing of him through some mutual artist friend, why -should not I do likewise, who have known him as Lucy’s -cousin all my life?” persisted Brooke.</p> - -<p>“And have him get up one of his fabulous tales about -a mysterious correspondence and tantalize Lucy with -it until she turns about and extracts the scant truth from -him?” sneered Miss Lawton.</p> - -<p>Without deigning further reply, Brooke went to the -little table by the window, where stood an inkstand, in -the drawer of which were some loose sheets of paper and -envelopes. Picking up one of the latter, she addressed -it in her usual hand, stamped it, and then, resting it on -the window ledge, drew a sheet of paper toward her -and straightway fell into a brown study, during which -either her brain refused to think or her hand to write. -Then, suddenly starting up, she crossed to her bureau -and, taking up the little picture of Eucharistia, gazed at -it steadily, slipped it from the delicate silver frame, and -with a sigh, half of regret, wrapped it in a sheet of note-paper -and sealed it in the addressed envelope.</p> - -<p>Putting the wordless letter in the pocket of the short<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_178"></a>[178]</span> -working apron she wore, Brooke went to the letter-box -that stood at the junction of main road and lane leading -to the barn, and dropped it in, that the carrier might -find it that afternoon on his daily trip.</p> - -<p>Returning by way of the kitchen, the loaves of bread -that Brooke had that morning kneaded, moulded, and -covered for their final raising met her eye. At first, -smiling at the sudden change of motive, she examined -them seriously, for in reality these loaves were of no -small importance, representing as they did the girl’s -first independent baking.</p> - -<p>Opening the oven doors, she tested floor and side, -adjusted dampers after Mrs. Peck’s custom, and then, -shutting the loaves from sight, went away, feeling -very much as if she had imprisoned some living thing -in a fiery furnace, so much depended upon the outcome -of the first venture.</p> - -<p>An hour later Mrs. Peck, returning from a neighbourly -call upon Mrs. Fenton, surprised Brooke in the -act of taking the four freshly baked loaves from their -pans. They were done to a nicety of golden brown, -and she laid each one down carefully and paused a -moment, sniffing the appetizing odour before covering -them with a clean towel, lest too sudden cooling should -make the crust seam.</p> - -<p>“Tired, bean’t you!” ejaculated Mrs. Peck, whose -principal comfort in the present was to lament and bewail<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_179"></a>[179]</span> -a past of fabulous grandeur upon the like of which -no living contemporary had ever set eyes. “I suppose -you are thinking how little wunst you ever expected -to hev to set to riz and knead and bake your own bread. -Poor dear, I kin feel for you! I’ve been through it all—it’s -turrible to feel yoursel’ downsot like I was after -Mr. Peck died, and not through your own deserts!”</p> - -<p>Brooke, who knew the good woman’s pet infirmity, -hardly listened to her; there was another theme that -filled her brain, almost shaping itself to rhythm, not of -the past alone, but the present, the future—of all time, -as old as life itself, the unending song of the man who -sows, of the grain in the field that endures the winter -and leaps upward, spears aloft, militant, at the bugle of -spring; of the grain in the ear, of the molten gold of -the harvest that goes to the mill, of the clear white flour -that the man’s mate blends with the magic leaven to -be bread for the house. And her heart took wing as -she looked at the loaves, for if the weal of the land -rests on the farmer’s plough, second only should stand -the toil of the maker of bread.</p> - -<p>There were only four loaves, it is true, but to Brooke -they stood for a definite power—her first direct productive -work.</p> - -<p>Choosing one from the rest and half wrapping it in -a white towel, she carried it to her mother, who was -sitting beside her father, whose chair was placed close<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_180"></a>[180]</span> -by the sunny window. For the two days past his lips -had moved, though inarticulately, and his wife was -doubly on the alert for a single spoken word.</p> - -<p>Holding the loaf before her as if it had been a trophy, -Brooke crossed the room and, folding back the towel, -the steaming odour of the bread reached her mother’s -nostrils. Then she held out her hands to her daughter, -taking the bread from her almost reverently.</p> - -<p>“Watch father!” whispered Brooke.</p> - -<p>There was a look of recognition struggling with other -visions in his eyes, and strange incoherent sounds were -formed on the struggling lips. His eyes fixed themselves -on the loaf, which his wife held close. His nostrils -quivered as if in unison with his other awakening -senses. Brooke knelt by his chair, endeavouring to read -sense in the vague sounds he uttered. There came a -pause, a hush, and then, in hoarse, uncertain accents, -unmistakable yet feeble at the close, Adam Lawton -whispered two words, “New bread.”</p> - -<p>Meanwhile, outside in the kitchen, warming himself -by the stove, was the Cub, who, coming in from the cold -and the exertion of rounding up refractory chickens -after their morning sunning, had brought a keen appetite -with him. Snatching a knife that lay on the table, -he cut a thick crust from one of the loaves; this he hastened -to spread with molasses from a jug in the pantry, -and then stood with his back to the fire, taking great<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_181"></a>[181]</span> -round bites with the wholesome gusto of six, instead of -his old-time critical mouthing of surfeited dyspeptic -discontent.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>The surprise of the second week was a visit from Lucy -Dean at its close. The excellent sleighing had filled -many houses of both Stonebridge and Gordon for the -week end, and shortly before noon of Saturday Brooke -was sitting at the old desk in the living room, for which -her added books had earned the name of library, writing -her weekly letter to Lucy, when a shadow darkened the -nearest window, and, looking up, she saw Lucy in the -flesh, peering in at her with a serio-comic expression -that Brooke knew of old to mean deep, real feeling. -Bells had been jingling by the whole morning, so that -those that had heralded her coming had passed unnoticed.</p> - -<p>In an instant Brooke was at the door, and no one who -saw the silent but emphatic meeting could ever after -deny the possible existence of real friendship between -women.</p> - -<p>“Where did you drop from?”</p> - -<p>“The Hendersons’ sleigh! I’m up there for Sunday -simply because you haven’t asked me here yet!”</p> - -<p>“Oh, Lucy, everything has been so unsettled and -uncertain I really didn’t even think of it.”</p> - -<p>“Of course not; now don’t begin to worry, it’s only<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_182"></a>[182]</span> -my brutal way of letting you know that I simply had to -see you, and have not in the least increased my admiration -for the country in the winter, or the Hendersons in -particular!”</p> - -<p>“You will stay to dinner, surely? Or are they -waiting outside?” cried Brooke, in a sudden panic at -the thought of being brought thus face to face with some -of their ultrafashionable friends.</p> - -<p>“No, my lamb, they have gone over for luncheon to -the Parkses’ at Gordon (you don’t know, of course, that -the frisky Senator has just bought the Smythers’ big -estate,—furniture, servants, and all,—in order to carry -still farther the success of the New York housewarming). -I begged off for the day, and, as the party was one man -shy, they gratefully gave me my liberty, and will pick -me up about four.</p> - -<p>“Now show me your property, live stock and all, and -tell me of its advantages and otherwise, that I may have -the right background to keep in my mind’s eye when I -go home. But bless me! where is your mother? and -your father—perhaps he may know me!”</p> - -<p>Lucy clung to Mrs. Lawton as she always had, with -a wealth of the untutored daughterly affection that had -missed its own outlet motherward, so Brooke left the -two alone together for a few moments in the library -while she went in to see how her father was faring. -Tatters, as usual, was by his chair, not lying down but<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_183"></a>[183]</span> -sitting erect and close. Adam Lawton was looking -intently at a picture paper that Stead had brought which -was propped on the rack before him. Seeing that her -father had not yet noticed her, Brooke stood quite still, -watching the pair. Once in a while the left hand would -pat the dog’s head, that was constantly turned toward -him, but Tatters’ attention seemed fixed upon the useless -hand that rested, a dead weight, upon the knee. -Nosing it gently, as a mother dog does her sleeping pups -to make sure that they are alive, Tatters moved it perhaps -an inch, his eyes open wide and ears moving questioningly.</p> - -<p>Meeting with no response, no sign of life, his dog -mind evidently argued that the poor human paw was -ill, and bringing the universal medicine of his race in -play, he began to lick the hand with slow regular strokes -of his strong, clean tongue, first going over the entire -surface, then separating each finger with a clinging -circular motion.</p> - -<p>Amazement seized Brooke as the thought came to her -that, after all, had not nature antedated man in this, as -in many things, and endowed the tongues of the dumb -beasts with the vital principles of massage? Did the -dog know, with that wisdom that only the confessed -materialist is willing to call mere instinct, the impotence -of that right hand; and why might there not be healing -in his imparted vitality? Why might not the natural<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_184"></a>[184]</span> -magnetism be as good as the electricity from the little -machine that her mother gave her father each day?</p> - -<p>As she thought all this, she again heard that hoarse -whisper. Straining every nerve, she listened; the sound -came once more—a single word, “Tatters,” repeated -again and again, and lingered over as if it were a magic -clew to the loosening of a tangled skein of memory.</p> - -<p>Stepping quickly to his side, Brooke said, slowly and -distinctly, “Father, Lucy Dean is here, with mother in -the library. Lucy Dean—would you like to see her?” -Ever since his return to Gilead, Brooke had made a -point of calling Adam Lawton “father” very distinctly -whenever she entered the room in his waking hours, -to accustom him to the sound, also to speak of the -ordinary unemotional affairs of every day as a matter -of course, regardless of the fact that he did not heed.</p> - -<p>As she repeated the words “Lucy Dean” he shook -his head slightly, but the word “mother” he repeated -quite distinctly several times, smiling as he did so; and -then Brooke knew for a certainty that, though motive -power and sense of touch and taste and smell were -coming back, memory had halted, and that it was the -Tatters and mother of his youth that he associated with -the words.</p> - -<p>Presently Pam came rushing in; she had tracked -the footprints of her friend through the snow and had -cast herself wildly against the front door, regardless<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_185"></a>[185]</span> -alike of paint or bruises, and scrambled into Lucy’s -lap in a very ecstasy. Nor was the Cub far off, and -as the two young women, two dogs, and one youth -trudged off presently to see the “estate,” as Lucy called -it, she caught the boy by the wrist and held his right -palm upward as a fortune-teller might, asking what -to Brooke seemed strange questions.</p> - -<p>“Where did those blisters come from?”</p> - -<p>“Please, teacher, I got ’em splitting wood,” whined -the Cub, in comic imitation of the drawl of the children -at the school below at the cross-roads.</p> - -<p>“That dark red stain?”</p> - -<p>“Paint, off Silent Stead’s box sleigh—it’s been done -over.”</p> - -<p>“Who, pray, is Silent Stead?”</p> - -<p>The Cub explained with adjectives and details, while -Lucy made a mental note of the same, watching Brooke -out of the tail of her eye the while.</p> - -<p>“Yes, but those dirty brown stains on the thumb and -fingers—they are not paint!”</p> - -<p>“Nope—pine tar!” jerked the Cub, uncertain -whether to laugh or resent this catechising, but deciding -on the former.</p> - -<p>“Honour bright, nothing else?”</p> - -<p>“Honour bright!”</p> - -<p>“Then here’s your pipe!” cried Lucy gayly, to the -further mystification of Brooke, who could not interpret<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_186"></a>[186]</span> -the by-play. “Your birthday is half a year off -and Christmas is past; what comes next? Why St. -Valentine’s Day, of course! It’s a present for that with -Pam’s love and my—respects for your fortitude!” -Then, rummaging in the front of her blouse, the present -and only pocket universal allowed women by fashion, -she drew out a leather case that enclosed a meerschaum -of really beautiful curve, the bowl being the carved head -of the bull terrier!</p> - -<p>Then Brooke understood, and locking her arms in -those of the other two, they slid her between them as they -ran up and down an icy bit on the side road, while the -Cub further suggested a good coast down the river -slope on an improvised bob-sled after dinner.</p> - -<p>But after dinner and its dishwashing, in which Lucy -gayly took part, the two young women ensconced themselves -so snugly before the library fire that it would have -taken a stronger lure than a whiz down ever so smooth -a hill to drag them forth. Then they talked woman’s -talk, and Brooke found herself gradually asking for -people, as from the distance of another world, that two -months ago she had met in almost daily intercourse; -while the strangest part of all was the fact thus borne -in upon her that a scant dozen, perhaps, were all -among the throng who had been bound by kindred -tastes which make the enduring sympathy called -friendship. The rest were merely incidents, the floating<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_187"></a>[187]</span> -clouds of summer skies bred and born of the -caprice of social wind and weather.</p> - -<p>“By the way, Brooke,” said Lucy, after they had -travelled the old paths once more in company, “what -did you do with those two thin keys that Tom Brownell -picked up from under the rug the day I escorted him -from your apartment at the St. Hilaire? I gave them to -you afterward. Don’t say that you have lost them!” -and, as Brooke hesitated, Lucy sat up straight with a -look of alarm.</p> - -<p>“Oh, no, they are quite safe in a box in my drawer, -though they are nothing to bother about, for they do not -belong to anything of ours, and both your father and our -lawyer said that they fitted no business desk or box of -father’s.”</p> - -<p>“That may be,” said Lucy, guilelessly, “but Tom -Brownell asked me particularly if I would beg you to -lend them to him. You see he has a sort of genius for -fitting odd numbers together, and finding those ownerless -keys as he did, they seem to have fascinated him -strangely.”</p> - -<p>“Tom Brownell,” mused Brooke; then, becoming in -her turn suddenly all on the alert, she continued: -“Why, he was that reporter who contradicted the story -of father’s feigned illness in the <i>Daily Forum</i>, was he -not? And pray, where did you stumble over him -again?”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_188"></a>[188]</span></p> - -<p>“I haven’t stumbled over him—that is, I mean not -to any great extent. I wish I had, for he’s a most -refreshing person,” answered Lucy, at first surprised -into confused utterance and next growing defiant and -continuing recklessly: “Didn’t you recognize him as -the college friend of Charlie Ashton? Oh, I thought -you did! Well, he is, anyway, though he wouldn’t go -to Charlie’s red New Year’s tea, even when I begged -him; and he doesn’t go to dances or play bridge, for -he’s on the jump most of the time with his newspaper -work. He’s been to the house a couple of times, with -Charlie, of course, and father being at home and unshakable, -we four have sat down to a solemn game of genuine -whist; and you know yourself that to sit opposite -to a youngish man for two whole evenings under such -circumstances and not hate him is a proof of remarkable -character, and as I can’t be accused of anything of -that kind, it lies with him, you see.”</p> - -<p>“Did he ask for the keys that night?” said Brooke, -with overtransparent innocence, which, however, passed -unnoticed.</p> - -<p>“No, quite another time, when, having observed my -intense interest in cards, he dropped in between assignments -(while he was waiting for it to be time to take -the speeches at an important corporation dinner, I -think) and offered to teach me solitaire; but that was yet -more melancholy than the whist, for as he had to look<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_189"></a>[189]</span> -over my shoulder, I couldn’t even gaze at him, so we -drifted to casino, which allowed both sight and speech!</p> - -<p>“Really, Brooke, he is an awfully nice fellow; a -gentleman and poor as a church mouse, for though -Charlie says his father would overlook his distaste for -the hereditary family business, a stepmother has recently -occurred, whose policy it is to keep the feud boiling. -But you see the fact that he can’t afford to marry, -as Charlie says, and plainly stating it, puts everything -on a nice friendly basis, with no possible misunderstanding -on either side, which is quite delightful,” and Lucy -bridled with an amusing air of disinterested and sisterly -virtue.</p> - -<p>So the time slipped away, as it has a way of doing -under like circumstances, and the cross streak of sunlight -that illuminated the title “The Pilgrim’s Progress,” -on the lower shelf of the diamond-paned bookcase topping -the desk, told Brooke, now becoming versed in the -language of such things, that it was past four o’clock.</p> - -<p>“Now we will have some tea before the Hendersons -come for you,” she said, moving a quaint spindle-legged -table from the corner to a convenient place by the -lounge, and lifting one of the flaps.</p> - -<p>“Yes, we have it as usual every day, mother and I, -all by ourselves, except once in a while when Mr. Stead -joins us; and though Adam scorns tea, I find that he -happens in if fresh cakes are about, and Mrs. Peck has<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_190"></a>[190]</span> -simply spoiled us with her seed cookies, though of course -in another week that sort of thing will all be over.</p> - -<p>“No, don’t come and help, sit quite still while I get -the tray and kettle. Mother will make the tea; you -know the girls always said, even in the rush of the season, -that a cup of her tea was something to remember, and -the making of it seems to pull her together.”</p> - -<p>The three women had but just gathered about the -little table, with Tatters sitting sedately beside, sniffing -and coaxing for cookies, by waving one paw in the air, -while Pam found herself being fed literally in the lap -of luxury as personified by Lucy, when a clanging of -heavy shaft-bells sounded, quite unlike the merry jingle -of the usual sleigh, and then stopped suddenly, while -at almost the same moment the ring in the brass lion’s -mouth that was the door-knocker sounded a vigorous -rat-tat-tat!</p> - -<p>“It’s the Hendersons; they’ve come for me!” cried -Lucy, looking from Mrs. Lawton to Brooke anxiously -and jumping up in a confusion unusual for this young -person, who prided herself upon never being caught off -guard. For it suddenly occurred to her that it might be -painful for her friends to have their privacy thus invaded -by those who were nothing if not gossipingly critical, -while at the same time she made a motion as if to -put on her outer garments before answering the knock.</p> - -<p>Brooke’s face, too, reflected something of her apprehension,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_191"></a>[191]</span> -but Mrs. Lawton arose quietly, her head unconsciously -taking the half backward poise of mingled -dignity and courtesy which many women of her world -had tried in vain to imitate. Stopping Lucy by a single -gesture, she said: “Do not hurry, it is still quite early; -surely our friends will be glad to join us, for they have -already had a long drive and it has been growing bitterly -cold these two hours past. Who did you say made up -the party beside Paula and Leonie Henderson?”</p> - -<p>“Violet Lang, the Bleecker brothers, and Charlie -Ashton,” replied Lucy, sinking meekly back into her -chair, holding Pam up before her face as a sort of screen -against consequences.</p> - -<p>“Brooke, will you please get some fresh tea, bread, -and butter, and ask Adam to show the coachman the -way to the barn, where he can shelter the horses and -warm himself by Larsen’s little wood stove?” Then, -as the second battery of knocks began, Mrs. Lawton -went swiftly to the door and threw it open, revealing -Charlie Ashton, enveloped to the eyes in the most picturesque -of furs, beating his hands and stamping his feet -with the cold.</p> - -<p>At the unexpected sight of the sweet-faced woman -at the door, backgrounded by the hospitable firelit -interior, Ashton dropped back the hooded arrangement -that covered his head, and, holding out both hands, -grasped those of Mrs. Lawton with a fervor and expression<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_192"></a>[192]</span> -of face that said twenty times more than the conventional -words of greeting that followed.</p> - -<p>Would they all come in for a cup of tea? Just -wouldn’t they, though! The ladies were growling most -dangerously about the wind, their ears, etc., and he’d dig -them out of that uncomfortable omnibus sleigh in a jiffy!</p> - -<p>When the six had fairly entered and been unwrapped -from their furs in the square hall, and the female portion -had patted up ragged locks at Great-grandma West’s -eagle mirror that faced the old clock, Brooke (aided by -Mrs. Peck, who arose at once to the country watchword -“company”) had returned with fresh tea and two plates, -one of thin bread and butter, the other of wafer-like -cheese sandwiches, while the hospitable influence of the -teakettle put the visitors quite at their ease. As for -the men, they were naturally and frankly delighted at -seeing old friends, at the dogs, the genuine simplicity -of the house, and with the good things.</p> - -<p>True, the colour had rushed to Brooke’s face as -Charlie Ashton had greeted her, but no reference was -made to the letter sent to his care save a significant pressure -of the hand, which somehow gave Brooke comfort -and a feeling of championship.</p> - -<p>The women talked rather nervously of the gossip of -everyday and eyed the surroundings in an uncomfortable, -furtive sort of way that, as Lucy wrote Brooke afterward, -must have nearly made them cross-eyed. The men<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_193"></a>[193]</span> -roamed about openly after being bidden by their hostess -to make themselves at home and go where they pleased, -“even into the pantry!” This they presently did. -Charlie Ashton, returning with one of Miss Keith’s -jars of strawberry jam carried aloft, and holding out -the empty sandwich plate, begged for more bread to -spread it on.</p> - -<p>“Very well,” said Brooke, recovering her old-time -gayety, “only you must come to the kitchen and cut it -for yourself; my hand is quite tired.”</p> - -<p>“Where did you buy such delightful sandwich bread -in this out-of-the-way place?” inquired Miss Henderson, -patronizingly. “It is awfully difficult to get it even -in New York, and it’s one of Tokay’s specialties that -lets him ask such fabulous prices for his sandwiches, -and this is even a shade better. I wish I could get the -recipe just to start a rival and pique him, he’s so lordly!”</p> - -<p>“The bread?” said Brooke, looking back over her -shoulder, “oh, I make it. The recipe? That is one -of the West family inheritances that I cannot part with,” -but as she spoke an idea entered Brooke’s teeming -brain, which remained there for many days awaiting -development.</p> - -<p>Then the adieus were said, Brooke whispering to -Lucy, as she drew her inside for a final hug, “Remember, -in the spring you are to come to stay with me, even if -the sky falls.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_194"></a>[194]</span></p> - -<p>To which Lucy replied, “If I may do as you do in -every way, it is a bargain.” Then the door closed, -and the jingle of bells died away in the distance.</p> - -<p>Brooke, going to the kitchen, collected the crusts -clipped from the sandwiches into her chicken dish, Mrs. -Peck, who had miraculously kept in the background, -remarking that she never saw pleasanter gentlemen -and that for solid satisfaction in feeding company, -give her males.</p> - -<p>The men, speeding downhill in the sleigh, praised -house and hostesses alike and said that they had never -been to a finer tea-party, the Bleecker brothers declaring -that Brooke’s cheese sandwiches knocked the -truffle and lettuce messes of Ashton’s pink, yellow, and -red teas out of the game. For some unaccountable -reason, however, the women were very silent, but that -might have been because with Lucy’s return they were -again one man short.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_195"></a>[195]</span></p> - -<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XII">CHAPTER XII<br /> -<span class="smaller">REVELATION</span></h2> - -</div> - -<p>Winter was loitering through its last calendar month, -although it usually fastens its iron claws upon the first -days of spring also, and is dislodged only after a gusty -struggle. Brooke turned from the cross-way into the -river road, upon the daily walk she forced herself to -take in all but impossible weather, according to her -compact with Dr. Russell. Of walking in general she -would have declared that she was passionately fond, but -navigating the uneven roads, scarred by the storms of a -winter of unusual severity, did not come under the usual -term.</p> - -<p>After crossing an especially slippery bit she paused -to rest for a moment, supporting herself by the rough -fence of split rails that made a barrier between the road -edge and the rocky bank which fell away, at first sharply, -and then more gradually toward the Moosatuk. As -she stood there, looking up and down, the saying came -forcibly to her, “Whosoever loves the land in February, -loves for life.” Did she love nature, or was she only -baffled and cowed by its omnipotence and bent to it by<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_196"></a>[196]</span> -the force of necessity? This day she herself could not -have judged.</p> - -<p>All the sources of inspiration seemed closed. Silence -reigned in the River Kingdom; the voice of the ruler -was stilled. Great, sooty crows, lean and ravenous, patrolled -the river meadows, croaking ominously as they -quarried a meal from the frozen wild apples, or rent -asunder the few blighted ears that remained in the corn-fields.</p> - -<p>The day before had been one of sleet and wind; no -human being had even passed the homestead—merely -a brindled cat of the half-wild breed, and he had scuttled -along on the other side of the road under cover of the -wall. Robert Stead was ill of a sudden cold, Adam had -reported when he returned from his daily lessons, consequently -José, the Mexican half-breed factotum, had -not left the shack even to fetch the mail.</p> - -<p>Thinner than when she had come to Gilead a month -before, Brooke’s supple figure had the spring and elasticity -of physical health in spite of its lack of roundness, -for the long nights of sleep and the simplicity of the daily -routine offset the strain of unaccustomed toil. Neither -was she lonely in the common meaning of the word, -which always implies a great degree of leisure; also she -was young, and Bulwer was right—“The young are -never lonely.” Then there were the books that the -silent man brought her—poetry, story, and all the lore<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_197"></a>[197]</span> -of her fellows, the birds and beasts of the field, that -heretofore had been to her unknown creatures of mystery; -while Adam (she had never called him the Cub -since the night of his return) and she had many new sympathies, -and when the boy, inspired by the talk of his -teacher, rushed in to tell her of the track that he thought -perhaps might belong to a fox or a mink, or with the -surmise that a strange bird was feeding by the granary, -she was as eager as he to see and to prove it.</p> - -<p>The grisly mood that had seized upon her this -12th day of February was born of the sudden stepping -into the foreground of the future with all its necessities, -which, until that moment, had been blended optimistically -with the middle distance at the very least.</p> - -<p>In two days more Mrs. Peck’s period of “accommodation” -would be over; the 1st of March Larsen would -go to Gordon, and the spring work must be begun if -they would eat of the harvest. Toil as she and the -boy might with their hands, there must either be more -money, or cattle and land must be parted with, the -homestead depleted, and the family start on that dreadful -shrivelling process of acquiring the habit of doing -with less and less, instead of pushing forward to fresh -effort, which enervates the mental, and finally the moral, -nature, and has made some parts of New England a -graveyard of abandoned farms. For the thousandth -time Brooke thought of her mother’s little dower,—this,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_198"></a>[198]</span> -if it had not vanished, would have more than doubled -the monthly yield,—then she put the thought from her -as she had done before, but this time less forcibly.</p> - -<p>With all around ice, snow, dusky tree trunks, and -rock of granite, she felt all the sensations that would -belong to a wild animal at bay. Indeed, she might -have lingered on there to her hurt, had not Tatters -barked and pulled her by the skirt.</p> - -<p>“Yes, I will come now, old man! I’m sorry I stood -so long; I know your paws must be chilled!” she exclaimed -ruefully. “You want to go to Gilead village -instead of to the foot of Windy Hill to see old Mrs. Fenton? -Well, so be it, we shall see more people on that -road; besides, I think that both you and I need something -from the store,—post-stamps, and lavender oil, -for I’m going to try my hand at painting, you see, Tatters, -if it’s only Easter bonbonnières. Cookies? Yes, -sugar cookies, and you can get two stale ones for this -penny. Watch out, Tatters,” and Brooke, throwing -off her dismal mood with an effort, held the copper coin -before his nose as she spoke, and the dog, comprehending -either tone, word, gesture, or all three, preceded -his mistress joyfully in an uneven but steady trot, that -ate up the road and caused her fairly to break step in -order not to be left behind.</p> - -<p>The cookies were bought and eaten, mistress and dog -resting awhile at the little shop that sold simple drugs,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_199"></a>[199]</span> -etc., and eleven o’clock saw Brooke climbing the upper -road toward home. She had gone but half of the way -when, missing Tatters, she turned about to look for him. -Whistling and waiting a moment, she saw his head appearing -slowly over the last upward roll in the road, and -noticed that he was limping painfully. She hurried back -to where he had paused, as soon as he knew that he was -in no danger of being deserted, and he began to lick -one of his front paws, which had been cut by a -sharp, jagged piece of ice, and which was bleeding profusely. -Kneeling in the road beside him, Brooke -moistened her handkerchief by the slow process of holding -snow in her hands until it melted, and, after cleansing -the cut as well as she could, wound the handkerchief -tight around it.</p> - -<p>“You can’t hobble a mile in this plight, neither can I -carry you. Will you lie up there on that dry moss in -the spot where the snow has melted, and wait until I -can send Adam for you?” and Brooke took a few steps -uphill to illustrate what she meant while waiting for -his answer.</p> - -<p>No, Tatters emphatically declined to wait, for as soon -as she had moved a step he began to hobble on three legs, -while at the same time the leaden sky shed a few big -snowflakes, as if to show casually what might be expected -at any time before night. So his mistress halted -and began to look about as if for a possible suggestion.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_200"></a>[200]</span></p> - -<p>Presently the head of a meek, ginger-colored horse -began to rise above a steep “thank-you-ma’am.” A -stout body and four legs followed, next a covered wagon, -such as milk pedlers use, with a glass front, through -which a man’s face looked out. The sight was such a -relief to Brooke that she made no pretence of concealing -the fact, but waited until the team came alongside, when -she read the legend “Mrs. Banks’ Homemade Pies,” -printed in elaborately shaded letters on the side of the -canopy.</p> - -<p>The horse stopped of its own accord on the small -plateau, the driver dropped his window and looked out, -smiling cheerfully. It was anything but a handsome -face,—that of a man who was probably sixty but might -be less, weathered and somewhat sharp; small gray -eyes, but with a merry twinkle, peered from under -shaggy, sandy eyebrows, that matched a half-starved -mustache. The hair of the head was gray, and from -it at right angles two very sizable ears stuck out with -somewhat startling effect. Yet, in spite of these details, -the whole was a face to inspire trust.</p> - -<p>“Miss Keith West’s dog, and in trouble, I take it,” -was his opening remark. “I’m goin’ straight past her -house, and I’ll fetch him up if you like and relieve your -mind, as you seem partial to animals.”</p> - -<p>“Could you take me, too?” asked Brooke, returning -his smile, “that is, if I shall not make your load too<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_201"></a>[201]</span> -heavy, for though Tatters seems to know you” (Tatters -had given the coolest sort of tail wag at the sound of the -man’s voice), “I’m afraid he will not go without me.”</p> - -<p>“So you are travelling uphill too—climb right in, -though I reckon you’ll hev to set on this box here. -Do you happen to be one uv Miss Keith’s folks that -owns the farm and wuz comin’ to live there when she -goes to Boston? Though, as I says to my wife (she’s -<i>Mrs. Banks, Homemade Pies</i>, and I’m Mr. Banks that -peddles ’em, besides raisin’ and pickin’ the berries and -apples and pumpkins fer their innards, along with a -considerable lot of garden sass), I says, ‘Keith’ll never -make up her mind to go; the city isn’t all it’s cracked up -to be when onct you’re used to plenty o’ room to move -and free empty air.’ What air there is in big cities is -so chuck full o’ noise and smell and one thing and -another, you wouldn’t know it. Why, it’s worse than -the Methody church down in the holler, when they had -a revival meetin’ on a summer night, and felt called to -close the winders on account of gnats.</p> - -<p>“Yes, I lived in N’ York six months,—it’ll be nigh -five years ago. You see, the farm didn’t pay as it uster -when I raised six children on it and we was all satisfied. -Everything doin’ got to be more wholesale and knocked -out us small fry. Next, for a spell, I took to the railroad; -got a job through one of the big bugs down ter -Stonebridge, and after a time got ter be conductor on<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_202"></a>[202]</span> -the through express freight, sleepin’ home every other -night. Well, it gave me a chance to see life, I’m glad to -say, for which I’d allus hankered, but it was a nervous -job, and kep’ me too far above the ground, which was -my born station.</p> - -<p>“Then the boys coaxed ma and me to go to N’ York, -she to keep a flat for ’em,—I suppose maybe you’ve -seen one o’ them contrary sort of outfits, a floor divided -up small like a parlour box car for racing stock, well -enough looking till you close the doors, then everybody -shook up together until you’re sick o’ the sight and smell -o’ your very own. All of God’s sunlight you get is what’s -dribbled in down a flue, like the chute of a feed bin, and -not a scrap o’ grass to bleach clothes on, only to hang -’em out in a little narrer place to sweat on a line like -bacon in a smoke-house. Mother withered so that -summer I was afeared she’d let go the tree before -autumn, like a windfall apple; and as for the ‘genteel -work for my old age’ the boys had got me—genteel be -<i>damned</i>! I beg your pardon, Miss—?”</p> - -<p>“Lawton.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, then you are one o’ Miss Keith’s kin. But that -word’s one that remains of my experience on the through -freight that somehow’s too handy, though wrong, to be -quite give up. What was that job with short hours that -was to keep me clean-handed and from bendin’ my -back? To wear a plum-red coat, like a circus monkey,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_203"></a>[203]</span> -and stand in a bank on a stone floor, that made me cold -as an ice pond when you hole fer frost fish, without the -pleasure o’ catchin’, and openin’ and shuttin’ the door -all day fer a lot of fool Jays and Jenny Wrens, well able -to do it fer themselves, and me reachin’ toward sixty! -<i>Genteel nothin’!</i> My spirit broke before noon of the -second day, and goin’ to that flat I just picked up -mother and we lit out fer home, which the summer -folks that rented it had left, we leavin’ a note behind -like young folks ’lopin’. Then, when we’d set and considered -a spell, the Lord pointed out pies, like a sky-fallen -revelation; the boys caved in and gave us a horse; -now life’s jest a hummin’ along brisk as a swarm o’ bees! -And once more the Lord’s borne it in upon us two old -folks, after that discipline of city life, that if we was -goin’ to scratch a livin’ nowadays we’d got to give folks -jest what they want, and make it good, and no skimpin’. -Folks in Gilead County eats pies, and they need ’em -good!”</p> - -<p>“Cousin Keith has been away a month now,” said -Brooke, when Mr. Banks paused for breath, “and she -writes that she is enjoying herself immensely, so I do -not think that she is likely to return.”</p> - -<p>“She’s actoolly gone, then? That knocks me out,” -said the pieman, with a disappointed droop in his voice. -“I didn’t know that, fer I’ve been goin’ the short way -and haven’t been over this upper road since New Year,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_204"></a>[204]</span> -the goin’s been so bad. I allus reckoned on puttin’ up -at the West farm for the noon hour to bait Maria here -and get my coffee het up; but maybe your ma won’t -fancy shelterin’ strangers, for I think Miss Keith said -the farm came through the female line and was again -rightly vested in a female.”</p> - -<p>“I own the farm, and I shall be very glad to have you -rest and feed your horse there and take your dinner -with us to-day,” said Brooke, taking a mischievous satisfaction -in the effect of her words on the funny little -man.</p> - -<p>“You! a slip of a girl like you own the snuggest -small place in the county, and best kep’ up!” he -ejaculated, his jaw dropping with reflex wonder; “but -maybe you’re married?”</p> - -<p>“No.”</p> - -<p>“Keepin’ company, then?”</p> - -<p>“No”—this time Brooke had great difficulty in -controlling either voice or countenance.</p> - -<p>“Left a beau in town or in foreign parts somewhere, -then?” he persisted, almost anxiously.</p> - -<p>“No”—but this time the word had a different -sound.</p> - -<p>“Not even got picked out yet? well, I want ter know! -I thank you kindly for yer invitation, and I’ll be pleased -to go in. Hev you got a ma and pa, or only a hired -man?”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_205"></a>[205]</span></p> - -<p>With a person of his persistence social topics might -have now become embarrassing, but chance turned the -subject at the right moment, taking the shape of a covey -of quail, huddled under some cedar bushes by the roadside. -The pieman spied them first, and at his sharp -pull patient Maria stopped, although the spot was not -very suitable for such a halt. Brooke expected to see -the flock either rise in a body or disappear in the under-brush, -but they did neither, only huddling still closer, -while, inexperienced as she was, she noticed that even -their ruffled feathers illy hid the leanness of their -bodies.</p> - -<p>“The game along this route has suffered this winter, -and it’s missed me,” he whispered, preparing to raise the -curtain on the opposite side of the wagon to the birds.</p> - -<p>“Raise up a minute, please, so’s I can git some buckwheat -out uv that box, and keep a hand on Tatters, else, -lame as he is, he’ll out and flush the covey.”</p> - -<p>Brooke did as she was told, while the pieman scooped -up a handful of unhulled buckwheat from the box, and, -letting himself down quietly from the wagon, scattered -it among the bayberry bushes, not too near to the flock, -yet in plain sight of it. Returning, he re-fastened the -curtain and started the horse again before he said a word -in answer to the interrogation of Brooke’s face. Reaching -the next level, a dozen rods on, he half turned the -wagon in order to give a clear view down the hill; the<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_206"></a>[206]</span> -quail had crossed the road and were feeding eagerly -upon the buckwheat, like a brood of chickens.</p> - -<p>“Puzzled, ain’t yer, ter see a Yankee scatterin’ good -fodder by the way?” said the pieman, highly gratified. -“Well, it may seem uncommon, but the truth is these -five years I’ve been peddlin’ and coverin’ a wild tract of -country twict every week in cold and heat, rain and sun, -I’ve come to think that man ain’t the only created thing -that the Lord has cause to be proud uv or care fer. I’ve -got kinder close to the wild folks along the route, which -after all is but accordin’ to Scripture, that bids us ‘Consider -the way the lilies grow and look to the fowls of the -air,’ and says the Lord himself ain’t too busy to indulge -in counting sparrers—(if he’d only worded it song or -chippin’ sparrers it would be more comfortin’, though he -couldn’t hev meant English ones, cause that island -wasn’t discovered in those days, and so is of no account -in Scripture, which must rile their pride).</p> - -<p>“I allus did like birds, even way back when I followed -the plough, and of course I knew some of them apart,—robins -and swallers and phœbes and hawks and all the -gamies,—and I jest plumb knew that when crows sat -on the fence a-quaverin’, it was interestin’ and worthy -conversation, most like, if we could only sense it. But -it was after that hell-fire summer in the city that I got the -call to treat ’em like my brothers and help ’em out with -food in winter like we would neighbouring house folks.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_207"></a>[207]</span></p> - -<p>“Soon as it come hot weather there, that time in N’ -York, I couldn’t set closed into meetin’ of Sundays -(though mother, she sit it out for sake of principle), and -I don’t believe the Lord does, either,—stands to -reason he’s got too much sense, not havin’ to set an -example,—so I uster wander out through that long -narrer park o’ theirn, and when onct I cut clean through -westward, I strayed into that big museum where they -keep the natural relics, and there I come face to face -with all the birds that ever wuz together since Eve’s -time. When I’d observed all the cockatoos and parrerkeets -and such like, I went on a bit further, ’n if there -warn’t a partridge a struttin’ on the leaves with his tail -all fanned out, and beyond it the brown eggs was nested -in a ground holler. I passed that by and next I seen a -catbird in a syringa bush and a robin on an apple branch -and a highholder on a stump, that set my heart a-bumpin’ -so I was all of a tremble and sidled off into a small room -to set down. When I looked up next, what was there -in a case marked something about ‘seasonable birds’ -but a big medder lark. His breast was jest as fresh and -yaller as when he sings from a tree-top to yer in plantin’ -time, or turns and teeters on a fence to keep you from -seein’ him too plain, and it seemed as if I heard him -calling fer spring. That broke me all up, and I jest -leaned over and cried it out into the white Sunday -handkerchief mother got me, ’cause my red ones jarred -the boys.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_208"></a>[208]</span></p> - -<p>“I think it was the sight of those birds gave me -grit to break loose fer home. That next winter a -woman we sold eggs to over in Gordon, seein’ my fancy, -gave me a book all about their ways and needs, and so -ever since I’ve been with ’em in heart. My, but ain’t -they company along the lonely road bits and in early -mornings when I’m comin’ home! (I go up Tuesdays -and Fridays to sleep at Sairy Ann’s, my wife’s sister’s -house near Gordon, startin’ fer home next dawn.)</p> - -<p>“Along in April to see the woodcock flirt an’ dance’s -as good’s a circus. Sometime, maybe, ’twould pleasure -you to take the trip with me, and Sairy Ann’d be -proud to hev you stop with her. My, here we are at -your corner! How good conversation does pass the -time!”</p> - -<p>Without in the least realizing that he had been -doing the whole of the talking, the pieman handed -Brooke out at the door stone, Tatters limping carefully -after, and Maria turned down the lane to the barn, -with which she was perfectly familiar.</p> - -<p>Brooke, hastening in to explain their unique guest to -her mother and tend the sick paw, found that Mrs. Peck -had been sent for to “sit up” with a bereaved household -down at Gilead; telling Mrs. Lawton that it was expected -of her, no matter whom she might be “accommodating,” -she had left immediately, promising to return -the next night.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_209"></a>[209]</span></p> - -<p>Brooke prepared the dinner, to which was added -as a contribution, received in the spirit in which it -was offered, one of Mrs. Banks’ most juicy whortleberry -pies (truly the best of its kind), which the Cub -pronounced to be “just bully,” while in turn the pieman -praised Brooke’s coffee, and, for some reason that he -could not have explained, kept his knife in abeyance, -while by his cheerful common sense gained the respect -of his entertainers.</p> - -<p>After he had left, taking Brooke’s ready promise to -go over the route with him some spring day to see the -woodcock dance and hear the partridge drum, the -cloud that his cheerfulness had lifted again settled over -the girl’s spirits. Why was no gleam vouchsafed to -lighten her darkness as the vision of pies had led these -humble people into a sort of promised land?</p> - -<p>When she had washed the dishes and made everything -neat, it was still only half-past two. She could -neither sew nor read nor settle herself to write to Lucy -Dean, her usual outlet when cast down; a new sort of -restlessness seized her, that of a wild animal caged, who -paces to and fro to its own exhaustion.</p> - -<p>Looking into her father’s room, she saw that he slept, -while Tatters, his hurt paw comfortably stretched out, -lay on the rug. Her mother was writing letters at the -old desk; and going out to the barn she found the Cub, -with Pam of course close by, mending some spring<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_210"></a>[210]</span> -traps that he discovered in an old barrel, and preparing -to set them, for mink or weasel tracks, he could not tell -which, had been seen that morning about the chicken -house. He was so absorbed and fascinated with his -occupation that he only grunted answers to his sister’s -questions, so she returned to the house, realizing that the -change was doing wonders for the Cub, which was one -consolation.</p> - -<p>“What is the matter with me?” she said, half aloud. -“Is it an illness coming on? or can it be the painting -fever? The air seems to sparkle and rush through me -like electricity! Oh, why did I not work harder when -I had the time? for now if the desire comes I cannot -stop,” and Brooke wrung her hands, and then laughed -hysterically at her tragic action.</p> - -<p>Going to her room, she unpacked palette and paint -box, and took the maul stick from the closet, where it -had remained all winter tied to some umbrellas. Of -canvas she had none, but hunting up some bits of -manila board from between her books, she took them -to the kitchen and spread them on the table, where she -had left the turpentine and oil. What should she try? -The snow and rock bit from the window lacked colour -and was too harsh in outline to be seductive to her mood. -A scarlet geranium in a pot against the dark window -frame caught her eye, and seating herself, she began to -draw it in rapidly with chalk—anything, if it would only<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_211"></a>[211]</span> -find vent for the fever of action that tingled in her finger -tips.</p> - -<p>She was surprised to find that a certain accuracy as -well as facility of touch had not left her, in spite of stiffened -fingers and lack of practice. For her colour sense -she claimed no credit; it was born with her. But -after the outline took shape and she began to paint and -give it texture, she dropped her brush again as the -words of Lorenz seemed whispered in her ears, “You -have not yet had the awakening, for it you must wait; -it is the same with me; you must interpret your -vision and see it on the canvas before you can -create; but first of all you must know and feel, even if -you suffer.”</p> - -<p>The awakening had not come to her, and still she -waited; did she not now know and feel, and had she not -suffered enough? The stiff geranium cramped in its -pot bore her no message to interpret, and as a snow-squall -darkened her window she cast the brush aside. -Shivering at the utter silence of the house, she fled to -her room and, throwing herself face downward on her -bed, was abandoning herself to the spirits of darkness, -when the thought of her other self, radiating light as -Lorenz had painted her, crossed her wild mood, checking -it, and she lay quite still until her pounding heart calmed -to its regular beating, when bodily fatigue claimed its -dole and she fell asleep.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_212"></a>[212]</span></p> - -<p>When she awoke it was after five o’clock; the -squall had passed away and sunset light was warming -the whole sky, even taking the chill from the -full moon, which it had worn on its apparent rise -from the river ice.</p> - -<p>Below stairs everything was as she had left it, and yet -a different atmosphere pervaded the place, and the tension -left her throat. The Cub came in with the news, at -which he seemed to think she would rejoice, that Robert -Stead was better and would be out again on the morrow. -Her mother expressed unfeigned pleasure, and -Brooke was almost ashamed of the fact that she had -for the moment forgotten that he was ill. Yet she -always enjoyed his visits and watched for them, for he -was a travelled and well-read man, and, when off his -guard, most entertaining, and not without a certain compelling -magnetism.</p> - -<p>“Let’s hurry supper,” said the Cub, when he had -brought in the milk. “I’ve had the last milking lesson -I need, and I can do it all right now without pulling too -hard, or squirting, or laming my wrists. Larsen says -I’ll be worth twenty a month and board by summer if -I keep on steady,—just as if I wouldn’t! But I’ve got -to keep the other end up besides, and I’ve some reading -to do to-night, if I’m going up to the shack again in the -morning.” Crossing the kitchen, he picked his mother -up as if she had been a feather, and whirling her about,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_213"></a>[213]</span> -gave her a hearty kiss that sent a glow to her heart and -cheeks at the same time, before he seated her, like a -small child, on the table edge, where she struggled, -laughed, and was sublimely happy at his rough caress. -Then, further to carry out his genial mood, he bounced -into his father’s room and, wheeling him to the kitchen, -pushed the chair close to the table, and thus they all -supped together, a circumstance that had seemed impossible -in Mrs. Peck’s presence.</p> - -<p>After Adam Lawton had gone to bed, the Cub -helping him as usual, the boy settled himself by the -bright lamp in the kitchen with his books, while Mrs. -Lawton and Brooke sat by the firelight in the library, -talking quietly. Brooke, hunched on the rug, leaned -her head back against her mother’s knee, and yielded -to the soothing touch of gentle fingers upon her eyes -and brow.</p> - -<p>Presently Tatters began to growl deeply and give -what they had learned to designate as his animal bark, -quite different in quality from that with which he announced -the approach of man. Pam, of course, joined -him, springing from the cushioned chair in which she -slept.</p> - -<p>The Cub went to the door and listened—cackles of -alarm were coming from the chicken house.</p> - -<p>“It’s the weasel or mink, or whatever it was that -prowled last night,” he reported. “I’ll go out and see,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_214"></a>[214]</span> -because Stead says that sometimes, if you leave them -all night, they gnaw out of the trap. Don’t you want -to come too, Sis? Hurry up, then, and get your cape. -No, don’t let the dogs out, they’ll get pinched in the -trap, or chew the beast up, maybe, and I want to keep -him whole. I guess the moon is bright enough, we will -not need the lantern,” and seizing a stout stick, the Cub -tiptoed carefully out to make as little noise as possible, -not having yet learned that to wild animals scent serves -as a warning even more than sound. Brooke, however, -preferred to take the lantern, and lighting it, she quickly -followed.</p> - -<p>The Cub examined his traps. They were untouched, -but as he knelt he saw a straight row of tracks in the -snow, that were too large to belong to either weasel or -mink. Following these, they led him around to the -roosting house. There, between it and the open yard, -something that appeared to be a small dog crouched in -the corner.</p> - -<p>The moon shone brightly between the buildings, and -every hair of the little beast stood out as clearly as by -electric light.</p> - -<p>“It’s a half-grown fox,” whispered the Cub, to -Brooke. “Good work if I can only kill it; there’ll -be one less to kill the fowls. Look out that it doesn’t -dodge past you there, Sis,” and the Cub was going -toward it, club raised. But the little fox never stirred.<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_215"></a>[215]</span> -They could only tell that it was alive by the heaving of -its lean sides.</p> - -<p>“Stop!” said Brooke, hoarsely, laying a detaining -and no very gentle touch on her brother’s arm. “I -won’t have it killed. I believe that it is starving, like -those quails I saw this morning, only they could move, -and this fox is too weak. I’m going to take it in the barn -and feed it, and make it live. Get me some milk, and -eggs, and meat.”</p> - -<p>“You’re crazy, Sis; it is only a fox, and they’re bad -things. It’ll bite you and make no end of a row,” but -as he glanced at her face he saw something there that -stopped all argument, and he hastened to obey.</p> - -<p>Then Brooke, placing the lantern on the ground, drew -nearer to the little beast. Yes, he was starving. He -tried to stand and toppled over against the shed; he -was powerless and at bay. Fixing her eyes on his, she -read his feelings interpreted by her own of that very -afternoon, and kneeling there in the snow, she understood -him.</p> - -<p>A vital wave swept over her. Hanging the lantern -on her arm, she slipped the cape from off her shoulders -with a swift movement, and covered the fox with it, -wrapping him completely. Then, lifting him in her -arms, for he was less weighty than a well-fed cat, -she carried the bundle to the barn, and slipping -the latch, laid the poor little beast on the haymow,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_216"></a>[216]</span> -a futile snap and snarl or two having been its only -protests.</p> - -<p>When the Cub returned with the various articles of -food, he was astonished to see the pair facing each other, -not a yard apart, with the lantern hanging from a beam -shedding light upon the strange scene.</p> - -<p>While the Cub was near the fox would not touch the -food, but when he hid from its sight, after a time it -lapped the egg that Brooke broke and put before it, as -a dog would, and presently the milk; then, still wearing -the hunted look, settled deeper into the hay lair where -she had placed it, panting and with lolling tongue.</p> - -<p>“We will go away now and leave it in peace; only -promise me, Adam, that when it grows strong it shall -run free, and no one shall kill it; remember, it is my -guest.” Adam promised, and hastily securing the latch, -they went back to the house. The Cub went to the -library to tell his mother of the adventure, but Brooke -lingered in the kitchen. A half-hour passed, and hearing -no sound, the Cub went to the door. Returning -softly, he beckoned his mother to follow, and together -they stood in the shadow of the doorway, looking into -the room. Two lamps stood side by side on the mantel-shelf, -casting an oblique light; below and at one side of -the fireplace stood Brooke, palette in hand, a straight-backed -chair before her; resting on its arms, as if -it were an easel, was the great oblong bread-board,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_217"></a>[217]</span> -and on this the girl was painting, with broad rapid -strokes, the head of a fox. Her cloak still hung from -her shoulders, her cheeks glowed; her eyes they could -not see until she half turned her head for a moment -as if following a strayed memory, then they noticed a -strange light in them as of inspiration.</p> - -<p>Quietly they crept back into the dark and waited. -An hour passed; still Brooke kept at work. Another -thirty minutes and they heard the chair move and again -they went to the door.</p> - -<p>Brooke stood back from the improvised easel, her -hands behind her, looking at her work. From the -board gazed back the head of the little fox, roughly done, -but with the look in its eyes at once hunted, defiant, -and pleading,—not an image, a created thing, living -and breathing. Through suffering and its kinship had -come the revelation to Brooke that if she willed she -might be the painter of animals, and as she looked -again, Lorenz’ words sounded in her ears. She had -felt and suffered, and had seen her vision in the eyes -of the hunted beast. She had interpreted it, she felt for -what it stood, and now, crude as was the labor, it lived -under her brush. She had awakened, but the strength -of the vital touch was his, and he could not know it. -Kneeling before the chair with clasped hands, as if at -some shrine, not to the picture, but to what it stood for, -Brooke took new courage.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_218"></a>[218]</span></p> - -<p>Before his mother could restrain Adam he had dashed -across the kitchen, and stood a moment with his hands -resting on his sister’s shoulders. Then, without warning, -he tipped back her head and gave her a kiss of -genuine boyish enthusiasm, crying, “That’s a living -picture all right, Sis. Look out it don’t get away -from you. I bet you’ve struck your luck this time.”</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_219"></a>[219]</span></p> - -<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XIII">CHAPTER XIII<br /> -<span class="smaller">AT THE SIGN OF THE FOX</span></h2> - -</div> - -<p>In the morning the Cub hastened to the barn. Either -the old-fashioned latch had sprung up, or some one -had been there before him, for the little fox, having -eaten every scrap of food, and thereby gained strength, -had gone his way, which, according to the string of -footprints, was up in the rock and hemlock country -behind the farm. Yet after supper on that night, -and all the others that came before the spring thawing, -a woman’s figure, wearing a cape under which was -concealed a dish of scraps, outwitting Tatters, slipped -from the pantry door, and going around the barn, -halted at a flat rock set in a group of hemlocks, presently -returning with the empty platter, her face wearing -as rapt an expression as that of some pious woman -of old carrying food to the haunts of hermit or saint -of the pillar.</p> - -<p>February, as if sick of its dreary self, suddenly fell -away before March’s vigour, and its first gusty mood -had softened before Brooke and Adam realized themselves -at least the sole guardians of their parents and<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_220"></a>[220]</span> -the homestead; yet in spite of this and the work it entailed, -the Cub managed to spend at least a couple of -hours a day with Stead at the lodge on Windy Hill, -and Brooke tried to snatch a little time for painting, -but even with her mother’s help her toil was by far more -constant and exacting than her brother’s. However, -direct motive had come to both of them, and that alone -can make one walk sure-footed on the tight rope which -at intervals through life replaces a safe path. Brooke -worked persistently, using Tatters, Pam, and Robert -Stead’s hunting dogs as studies, conscious of crudeness, -imperfections, and the need of criticism, but letting -nothing quench her spirit as long as the spark of -vitality flashed back at her. She longed for the warm -weather to come, so that she might work outdoors, -and use as a studio an old hay-thatched shed on the -hillside, once a sheepfold, which opened northeast -toward the river valley.</p> - -<p>At this juncture Robert Stead, whose technical training -and passionate love of nature and animal life gave -his words more than a casual value, stepped in, both -as encourager and critic, and Brooke eagerly promised -to try a picture of Manfred,—“a serious order,” Stead -called it,—as soon as the season would permit. Meantime -he brought her books and studies of animal -anatomy, of whose cost she little guessed, and in explaining -the details to her forgot both his warp and<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_221"></a>[221]</span> -himself, becoming for the time that most enthralling -of beings, the man of middle age who blends all the -directness and fervour of youth with the subtle and -reassuring charm of matured experience.</p> - -<p>Was it a wonder that Brooke was glad at his coming? -Between herself and the usual man twice her age -she would have felt need for greater ceremony of outward -deference. With Stead the friendship had -begun on the most informal of footings, and been -almost instantly cemented with the gratitude born -of his kindness to her brother, as well as the mutual -isolation of the two households; while over it all hung -Dr. Russell’s words of caution, that owing to the -peculiar circumstances of his life, she must not regard -Stead in the same light as other men or magnify his -little acts of kindness. Dear honest doctor, even he, -with all his fine humanity, could not diagnose the -human emotions with anything like finality.</p> - -<p>Here again the need of money in hand, even for -canvas, pressed upon Brooke, and like many another -before her, she seized what came nearest to hand; and -when the Cub discovered a head of Pam upon the -cover of the sugar bucket, he straightway removed -it from the closet to his room, thereby letting some -very early ants into the sugar.</p> - -<p>One great lesson in portrait art Brooke learned for -herself in those lonely days, that whatever the care<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_222"></a>[222]</span> -and detail of finish, the life and likeness is the work -of but a few strokes.</p> - -<p>Meanwhile the fox’s head on the bread-board stood -on the mantel-shelf in the kitchen, watching Brooke -as she went about her work, until she began to feel a -mysterious kinship with the little doglike animal of -the narrow eyes, and talked to it as if it was a human -companion.</p> - -<p>One day she had gone for a call at Mrs. Enoch -Fenton’s, where, ever since that first January afternoon, -she went when the tension of the mental and physical -became too great, to be soothed and relaxed by the -cripple’s cheerful common sense. She felt more than -ever the absolute necessity of adding at once to the -family income, as for the second time since their arrival -she had been obliged to draw on the slender principal. -Though the real motive for the visit was to consult -the Deacon, indirectly, through his wife, about the -likelihood of finding a man willing to cultivate the farm -on shares, the talk drifted toward the topic of ways -and means, in spite of Brooke’s constant resolve to -keep such matters to herself.</p> - -<p>“If you want to get folks’ money steady,” Mrs. -Fenton said, pausing in her occupation of sewing a -button on one of the Deacon’s blue hickory shirts, -and using her thimble finger to point and emphasize -her remarks, “you must give ’em something they<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_223"></a>[223]</span> -want and need in exchange for it, and what they need -most constant is something good to eat!”</p> - -<p>Brooke smiled to herself, thinking of the pieman’s -similar reasoning concerning his wife’s “revelation,” -but did not in any way apply the matter personally -until Mrs. Fenton’s next sentence.</p> - -<p>“The jell and jam market is a good one, only it’s -pretty well taken up, hereabouts, by Miss Ryerson at -the Mill Farm, t’other side of Stonebridge. She puts -up for nearly all the city people clear through to Gordon, -and last year she added cherry bounce and blackberry -brandy. Strange enough, too, made by your Great-grandmother -West’s rule,—I suppose you know she -accommodated wayfarers with meat and drink down -at the farm, and being strictly temperance had a great -name for her ginger-mint pop; the rule is in my -book now. The old sign used to be in the far side -of your attic, behind the four-poster—it was a fox -chasin’ a goose, and I always heard it came from the -old country; that reminds me, Enoch says that old -bed is set up, and your father’s sleepin’ on it again—well, -old times lets go hard sometimes.</p> - -<p>“Why, last year Miss Ryerson cleared two thousand -above the wages of her woman she keeps now to help -her out. Of course there’s more in making such things -than meets the eye of those that hasn’t been inside -the preservin’ kettle, so to speak. It’s the keepin’<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_224"></a>[224]</span> -sound and eatin’ well that counts, and that’s why, -like everything else, for every ten that tries the business, -nine drop out because they pinch and neglect, and -slop somewhere, and don’t give the best there is. In -eatin’ there’s always a market for the best. But jam -and jell won’t do for you, for let alone not havin’ experience, -you’d have to put out everything for a season to -catch your market, same as they cast away samples of -new soap and bakin’ powder.</p> - -<p>“Oh, yes, I almost forgot that you were askin’ about -that man for the ploughing! Enoch saw a big strong -Dane, or Swede, or some of those north-country people, -down at the smithy last night. He’s come here lately, -and hired the little Bisbee cottage on the river road—plans -to fix it up, and plant a bit of garden, ’n make it -ready for his sweetheart that’s coming over in the fall. -They say he’s got a bit of money saved and table boards -at Bisbee’s sister’s. He wants to work on shares or -by the day this season, so’s to have time for his own -work between. He brought a letter to Mr. Denny, -the printer down at the <i>Bee</i> office, and he says he’ll -recommend him willing. Somebody like that, steady, -and who would go ahead, would be better for a girl -like you than a wild Polack that you’d have to manage, -or one of our town boys that would likely feel called -to boss you. Father says the fellow doesn’t own a -horse mower yet, but we’ll lend ours, and you’ve got<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_225"></a>[225]</span> -a plough and scythes, as I suppose Keith showed you. -Father’ll bargain with him for you, and plan out the -work—he thinks it’ll be better to let the man see -you’ve a farming friend that knows, to come between -you and what you’ve never seen done, and in consequence -hev no notion of.”</p> - -<p>Thanking the dear old lady both with words and -the spontaneous kiss of sudden gratitude, which she -prized far more, Brooke walked home in a sort of -dream. She passed, quite unheeded, the blooming -hepaticas clustering amid the dry leaves in a sunny -spot on the road bank, though she had been looking -among their thick ruddy leaves for the flowers ever -since Stead had shown her where they were bedded -a week before. A song-sparrow, perched on a twig of -silvery pussy-willow, threw back his head as she passed, -and poured forth the most melodious verse of his -changeful song. She scarcely heard it, or if she did, paid -no heed, any more than she did to the fact that Tatters -had flushed a partridge down in one of the wood roads -that start from the highway and end in silence, -leaving her for its ecstatic but fruitless quest.</p> - -<p>Going to the kitchen, she stood before the mantel-shelf -looking at the fox, as if at an oracle that must -one day speak to her. Then something cool seemed -to touch her brain, clearing it and crystallizing her -thoughts, as it had that night when the plan of coming<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_226"></a>[226]</span> -to the homestead drove away the oppression of despair -itself.</p> - -<p>“Yes,” she said aloud, “to win money it must be -the best of its kind. What can I do that is the best?—paint -animals? by and by perhaps—but for daily -bread this spring? Ah, it has come! I can make -sandwiches, all kinds, of the very best (how the -Hendersons and Bleeckers gobbled them up), to go with -mother’s tea, also the bread for them! I will make -the summer drink of ginger ale, ice, a lemon slice, -and three sprigs of mint, that father once said tasted -so much better than the ginger-root affair they bottle -for sale. I will play I am Great-granny West, swing -out my sign, and ‘accommodate wayfarers’—that -is, the pleasure drivers between Stonebridge and Gordon—with -food and drink, as Mrs. Fenton put it! She -says a day never passes from May to November but -what people in driving stop, and beg to buy even bread -and milk. Grandma West’s sign was a fox and a -goose, but to-day geese are out of the running. My sign -shall be only the Sign of the Fox. You shall hang -out over the gate on the old pine in an iron frame, -and talk wisely to the passers-by,” she said, looking up -at the picture.</p> - -<p>Then, taking the bread-board down from the shelf, -she kissed the fox on the nose in the fervour of hope -that was dawning.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_227"></a>[227]</span></p> - -<p>“Instead of cakes and ale, or anything like that, -you shall have just one word—tea—painted over -you, and we will leave them to guess the rest,” and -Brooke, who was in a mood to declare that the wise -beast winked, and licked his lips, needs must laugh -at the curious yet satisfactory blending of her dreams -of the future, love, painting, and fame, with the eternal -everyday theme, bread and butter!</p> - -<p>After a moment the revulsion came. What would her -mother say? That passed away in the thought that she -could not object, for to act untrammelled was unquestionably -the first link in the chain by which Brooke was -to endeavour to keep the family bound together. Yet it -was a relief when, an hour later, the plan had been thoroughly -discussed and formulated, to find that her -mother not only fully approved, but was already on -the alert, and full of suggestions to make the simple -service as dainty as might be.</p> - -<p>Silent Stead was the first to throw a wet blanket -upon the scheme, his reasons being purely personal, -as it usually developed that they were; though he -would bitterly have resented the idea of it. He found -it difficult to put his objections into reasonable words, -and so merely retired within himself, and was “grumpy,” -as the Cub put it.</p> - -<p>The Cub came back from the village a few days -later with the rings and frame for the sign, which the<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_228"></a>[228]</span> -blacksmith had fashioned; and Brooke, after varnishing -the bread-board well to keep out the weather, had -fitted it in place, and was looking at the result when -Stead came in. In his arms he carried several packages -of bulbs and garden seeds for her, which he dropped -on the table. He had a lovely hillside garden of his -own below the lodge, which he and José tended, and -already he was planning a more elaborate arrangement -of the old-fashioned kitchen garden at the farm than -Miss Keith had attempted, saying, in answer to Brooke’s -objection, that it would perhaps be more than they -could care for:—</p> - -<p>“Turn about is fair play; you give me, an idler, -a daily resting spot between the valley and the hill; -why may I not give you a spot to rest in between the -day’s work? For God’s sake, do not make me feel -more of a cumberer of the ground than necessary!”</p> - -<p>As for the gifts of seeds and roots, to Mrs. Lawton, -accustomed as she had been to the perfect southern -courtesy of such things, that bore no obligation -between neighbours and equals, they seemed quite -matters of course, and of no special import.</p> - -<p>Mrs. Fenton, when Brooke told her of the new -venture, and consulted her as to the ways of the great -folk of the neighbourhood, and their seasons for coming -and going, had expressed her opinion that the first -of May was time enough to begin, as then the people<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_229"></a>[229]</span> -in general ran over from Boston and New York for -a few days at a time to start the wheels in motion, and -take a breath of air. This left Brooke a full month -for her preparations, and both Robert Stead and -the mail carrier noticed the frequency with which -letters flew between herself and Lucy Dean during -this time.</p> - -<p>Brooke, at first being humble-minded as to her ability, -and therefore as to the prices to be charged, was gradually -convinced by her hard-headed friend that if her -wares were the equal of those which Tokay furnished -the same patrons at their houses in town, why might -she not charge the same at the wayside tea garden -of the Moosatuk, where such things had hitherto not -only been unattainable but unknown?</p> - -<p>To clinch her unanswerable argument, Lucy had -made and sent to her friend a box of dainty cards, -such as are often used at bazaars in private houses. -A fox’s head appeared at the top—next below TEA, -lemon or cream—MILK—FOXHEAD JULEP (the -name with which they had christened Granny West’s -delicious ginger, lemon, and mint concoction). Then -followed the price-list of sandwiches—cheese—potted -chicken—lettuce—jam, and plain bread -and butter, singly or by the dozen, according to Tokay’s -schedule. And Brooke accepted Lucy’s advice, but -exacted a promise that she should tell no one, nor exploit<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_230"></a>[230]</span> -the plan in any way, saying, “I want the venture to -make its way from the inside out, not from the outside -in.”</p> - -<p>Thus the matter was settled, and when mother and -daughter had agreed that it was best to use the exquisite -fern-leaf china cups and saucers for their added attraction -over commoner china, and there seemed nothing -more to do but to work along in the interim, a new -difficulty suddenly smote Brooke. Though she and -her mother might brew and bake, who was to serve -the tea to those who, lacking footmen, wished it brought -to carriage or served in the porch, which Brooke already -called her Tea Garden, where she planned, if business -warranted, to place some seats and small tables?</p> - -<p>One day, the very last of March, Deacon Fenton -stopped at the West farm, and in answer to Mrs. -Lawton’s urgent invitation to come in, replied: “Thank -you kindly, but not to-day. I’m looking for that -farmer daughter of yours. I’ve fetched up the new -man, and given him an idee of the plantin’. He seems -to sense it all right, though he’s kinder soft and unconditioned, -and slow for spring ploughin’, and his -hands blister up so’s I told him he’d better wear sheepskin -mits fer a spell, as it’s some time he claims since -he worked land for his mother. That don’t count, -however, when it’s work on shares. You get your -half jest the same if he’s a week doin’ a day’s work,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_231"></a>[231]</span> -and that’s the sense on it fer a girl like yourn, who -can’t be expected to drive farm hands up to the bit, -as must be did if you’re goin’ to git enough offen your -land to feed a sparrer! Where’s the young lady? -A-paintin’ pussy cats—no, I think it was wild rabbits -likely, in the barn, Adam said, only I didn’t see her -when I tied up. I thought maybe she’d like to go -down to the ploughed field, and be made acquainted -with her new help. She won’t need to bother much -with him, not payin’ out wages, but it may come in -handy for her to have speech with him, jest the same.</p> - -<p>“Say, Mis’ Lawton, the tea and spice pedler saw -that fox-head sign, settin’ in there in the kitchen, and -he says the firm he travels fer are just introducing a -new brand of condensed goat’s milk, and if she’d paint -out a nice, white, lively-lookin’ goat with a pretty, dressed-up -baby sittin’ on its back, and a dreadful thin baby -sittin’ on the road a-crying ’cause she didn’t get none, he -reckons he could get her all of twenty-five dollars for -it—maybe more. There’s a fine big carriage goat -boardin’ at Bisbee’s fer the winter that she could copy—’tain’t -a milking one, but she might add to it a little. -Thought I’d jest mention it; you know ’tain’t often she -might get the chance to turn picture paintin’ into something -useful and instructive and payin’ all to onct.”</p> - -<p>At this juncture Brooke appeared to speak for herself, -and, after she had cleaned the paint from her<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_232"></a>[232]</span> -fingers with turpentine, the shrewd old farmer and -the warm-hearted young enthusiast walked side by -side down the cross-road, skirting the hay-field, now -growing green around the moist edges. The meadowlarks -were soaring and singing, the first white butterflies -fluttered in the sun, and down from the garden -wafted an odour that tells of spring in every quarter -of the globe, the perfume of the little white English -violets. These nestled in sociable tufts under the protection -of the leafless bushes of crimson and damask roses -in the garden that Great-granny West had planted,—violets -whose ancestors had doubtless come overseas -in company with the Sign of the Fox and the -Goose.</p> - -<p>The unploughed corn-field lay to the right of the -cross-road, and to reach it they were obliged to skirt a -small field of fall-sown rye that was bounded by the -roadway. As they picked their way along the stubbly -edge, between which and the stone fence ran one of -those little brooks of the hill countries that brawl -and rush along in spring and autumn, but shrink -away and keep their silence in summer heat and -winter cold alike, Brooke paused once or twice to -look upon her River Kingdom, which, after the rain -and freshet of a week past, was now showing the first -real signs of life. Dun and gray were still the prevailing -hues of the river woods, except where a ruddy<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_233"></a>[233]</span> -or golden glow lying on the tree-tops told of swamp -maples or willows. The hemlocks on the rocky banks -looked rusty and winter-worn, not having yet donned -their curved-tipped new feathers. The marsh meadows, -thickly studded with ponds by the overflow, alone -showed solid green, and glittered with the sunlit emerald -leaves of the arums, that had now risen above and concealed -their ill-smelling mottled red blossoms.</p> - -<p>Here and there on the hillsides the columns of pearl-gray -smoke, wafted straight skyward, showed both the -location of cultivated land where litter and brush were -burning, and also that the wind was in abeyance, and -the sun once more in power. The sky wore a misty -veil over the blue, and the Moosatuk, rushing, foaming, -and overleaping itself in its spring-running seaward, -drew more from the ground for colours than of the sky -reflections. Now and again an uprooted tree would -be swept by, turning and stretching its bare arms -upward, as if giving signals of distress, and then a log -would plunge along, striking against the submerged -rocks, rearing, and plunging again like a gigantic water -snake.</p> - -<p>Yes, in deed and in truth, life had returned to the -River Kingdom at the sound of the voice of the waters, -and yet throughout all the wide expanse the only human -touch was in the field below, where a man, who cast -a Titan’s shadow behind him, was driving a plough<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_234"></a>[234]</span> -into the deep, cool soil, slowly shattering the stubbly -hillocks of last year’s corn. Calmly he worked, but -with finality. The reins that guided the horses hung -loose about his neck, for he only made use of them at -the turnings, while the motive power seemed to come -less from the horses than from the shoulders of the man -who kept the ploughshare true in its course.</p> - -<p>Brooke Lawton stood spellbound. For the first -time she saw and comprehended the most primitive -labour of primitive man, and it appealed to every sense -of her body,—the mental, spiritual, physical,—appealed -to her as had the freshly baked loaves, by its -symbolism as well as directness, for beneath the leavening -development of generations, side by side with the -temperament for music expressed in rhythm and -colour defined by pigments, walked another Brooke, the -primitive woman.</p> - -<p>Ah! if she could but fix and paint the scene as she -felt it! Instantly the ploughman stood as the rightful -ruler of the River Kingdom, and dominated it. -It was not the personality of the man, for she had not -yet seen his face, merely his fitness to his surroundings. -Enoch Fenton’s voice broke the spell: “A slow -worker, as I told your ma (I put in my mare with your -horse, it’s too heavy for one), but that don’t signify in -share farmin’; you won’t hev to watch out sharp until -the harvestin’, and then I’ll help you out. If you was<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_235"></a>[235]</span> -left to yourself, you might fare like that pretty city -Widder Harris, down to the Forks; she let old Ed -Terry keep her cow fer half the milk. Firstly the cow -was dry, and Mis’ didn’t get any of course; time went -along, and the cow calved, and after a week Mis’ -Harris went across lots with her kettle fer her -milk.</p> - -<p>“‘There’s no milk due you,’ said old Terry, chuckling. -‘How’s that?’ says she, mad-like, ‘I’m to get half, and -I saw you take in a full pail this morning.’ ‘That’s -all true,’ says he, ‘half comes to me, and your half -goes to the calf!’</p> - -<p>“Not that I expect this chap is that kind; he’s -sort o’ mild and solemn, that’s why I chose you a foreigner; -the native is often overcrafty to work with -green women folks that ain’t had the picklin’ experience -gives. There’s fellers round here would sell you cold -storage eggs for settin’ as quick as not. I know ’em, -and bein’s you’re a friend o’ Dr. Russell, wife and I -feel a charge to look after you a spell. Now ’f it was -Keith, she’s different—no cold storage eggs for her! -Do you hear when the weddin’s coming off? That’s -the only bargain of hers I mistrust. The sharpest -women on general trading most allers slips up on -matrimony. I’ve often said to ma, when it comes to -matrimony, I think the Lord loves and favours women -best that, when they sets their mind on a poor sinful<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_236"></a>[236]</span> -man, jest closes their eyes, and topples right into marriage -without bargaining.</p> - -<p>“Old Terry was a corker! ’twas he that was mowin’ -fer me one day, and I says at the nooning, ‘Will you -take rum and water, or cider?’ Says he, ‘As the rum’s -handiest, I’ll take that while you’re drawin’ the cider!’</p> - -<p>“Hi there, Henry! Henry! halt at the turn!” he -called to the ploughman as they reached the field edge. -“It’s good he understands English, and speaks it only -a little back-handed. What’s his other name? Let’s -see—Petersen? no that was the one that wanted a -steady job. Yes, I remember, it’s Maarten,—they -spell it with double <i>a</i> where he comes from.</p> - -<p>“This is Miss Lawton you’re agoin’ to halve the crops -with, and bein’ as it is she expects you’ll measure full -and fair, and something over, and she wants you to -remember that I’m standing by her, and my eye teeth -is cut!”</p> - -<p>“Why, I didn’t tell you to say that, deacon. I’m -sure Mr. Maarten will be fair,” stammered Brooke, -feeling personally embarrassed at the implied lack of -confidence, and oblivious of the wink that her agricultural -preceptor had given her, for he had simply wished -to show the newcomer that she had a protector; -while she stood there colouring with distress, her hand -half raised, not knowing whether she was to greet -the farmer, as she had made a point of doing their<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_237"></a>[237]</span> -neighbours, or keep the reserve that belonged to the -city service of inferiors.</p> - -<p>As for the man, he stood quite still, one hand on -the plough, the other lifting his wide hat by the crown -in greeting, an act of politeness no country yokel would -have vouchsafed. What he said she could not hear, -but the single glance he gave her, though interrupted -by the shadow of his hat, tinged with a swift respect -instead of lingering curiosity, she read as an appeal -for fair trial and mercy for his awkwardness, so her -outstretched hand dropped to the stone wall that -divided them. Leaning on it, she asked some trifling -questions that could be answered by a brief yes and -no, to put him at his ease, then strolled on again along -the field edges, only half listening to what Enoch Fenton -said of the best rotation of crops for soil somewhat -overfarmed, and half busy with her own thoughts, -quickened in a dozen different ways by the impulse -of spring.</p> - -<p>“New man don’t seem sociably inclined to women -folks,” said the deacon, with a chuckle; “funny he -should be took that way too! Most as dumb and -offish as Silent Stead up there on Windy Hill, though -Stead’s thawed out considerable toward ’em, ain’t he, -since you folks come here?” he added, in a persuasive -tone intended to open further possibilities of conversation.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_238"></a>[238]</span></p> - -<p>“Oh, that is not because we are women folks,” -answered Brooke, simply, smiling at the old man’s -eagerness; “it is also because of Dr. Russell, who -introduced us. We are strangers, and lonely like himself, -and you know he is teaching my brother, so that -he may not wholly lose sight of college, and of course -we are very grateful for that.”</p> - -<p>“Want ter know!” was the enigmatical reply, the -non-committal answer of the countryman, given as -it always is with the falling inflection, though the -words imply a question.</p> - -<p>As they turned again toward the cross-road, the -head of a man and horse could be seen above the -leafless wild hedge that covered the fence. It was -Robert Stead, and as he caught sight of Brooke, he -pulled some letters from his saddle-bag and waved -them toward her.</p> - -<p>“As you’re likely to have company home, I reckon -I’ll cut across lots,” said Enoch Fenton, dryly, noticing -her eagerness, for letters always opened a realm -of possibility, while the deacon’s query about Keith -West’s marriage reminded Brooke that she had not -heard from the prospective bride for nearly a month, -and so she had unconsciously hurried her steps.</p> - -<p>When she reached the bars (four rough chestnut -poles held by old horseshoes driven into the posts -like staples,—the relic of an old country tradition<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_239"></a>[239]</span> -to keep the distemper from the cattle pastured therein), -Stead had already dismounted, and stood waiting -for her, and saying, “Letters first,” handed her the -package—six in all: two for her mother, one being in -the writing of Mr. Dean, and one of the lawyer; -one from Lucy; two in strange hands, and the last -addressed in the square, upright characters that she -had seen once before, this also readdressed by Charlie -Ashton.</p> - -<p>With a swift movement she dropped them into the -pocket of her brown linen pinafore, and, turning -backward toward the Moosatuk, let the beauty of the -vista—which at that point was framed by the mottled -trunks of two gigantic plane trees that linked their -gnarled branches across the roadway—take the -place of speech for a few moments.</p> - -<p>“Then you too love the river, and turn to it as I do,” -Stead said, watching her face, and attributing its changeful -expression, now wrapt, now alert, to its influence.</p> - -<p>“Yes, surely,” she answered, looking far off and -beyond, “and I think I must have known it somewhere -in dreams, perhaps before ever I saw it. You do not -know that when I was only a child I christened all -over there, as far as eye can see, my River Kingdom, -and said that some day I would be fairy queen of it!”</p> - -<p>“Yes, I know; Dr. Russell once told me of your -gypsying,—and now?” Stead dropped Manfred’s<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_240"></a>[240]</span> -bridle that he had been holding, and drew a step nearer -to the young woman, while the horse, feeling his liberty, -began to crop the tender tufts of grass that were growing -between the wheel tracks. “Is it not still your -kingdom?”</p> - -<p>“Yes and no. The kingdom is still there, but fairy -days have flown away with their kings and queens, -and all of that; it is only a corner of the same big -round workaday world, though an enchanted one, -and I am only just one woman in it, not even a gypsy -queen. The river alone has not changed: when I -am quiet, it soothes me; when I am restless and dissatisfied, -it moves for me and cools the fever. This -winter, when it was frozen and buried, I too felt turned -to stone at times, or as if I stood by watching the face -of some one I loved who was dead. If the ice had -lasted another month, I do not think I could have -borne it,” and Brooke, as she gazed, clasped her hands -before her with a gesture half supplication, half resolution, -that had always been peculiarly her own.</p> - -<p>Then Stead saw that the hands, with the firm, but -slender fingers that tell of the artistic temperament, -were no longer white and rose-tipped, but roughened -and seamed like the ground itself with the stress of -the winter,—the patient hands of the woman who -works, not of the queen who toys.</p> - -<p>Suddenly the frost wherein his heart had been encased,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_241"></a>[241]</span> -numbing him all these eleven years, melted in the sunshine -of her simple, wholesome womanliness, and -broke away with a swift wrench, like the ice of the -river in the force of the freshet. The red blood -pulsed anew and sang in his ears the eternal spring -song that was all forgotten, or worse yet, disbelieved; -for a single moment it swirled him about, and hurried -him along, struggling uselessly, backward toward -youth,—a perilous journey.</p> - -<p>Manfred, who had cropped all the grass within easy -reach, now nibbled sharply at his master’s pocket for -sugar; with an impatient gesture Stead turned—and the -moment passed; while Brooke, once more sweeping the -landscape with her gaze, slowly stretched out her arms -toward it unconsciously, and began to climb the hill -again. The last detail of it all that lingered in her -memory was the ploughman following in the furrow -that his strength made true, and as the two walked -slowly homeward, the ploughman in his turn stopped, -and, lifting his hat to cool his head, stood watching them.</p> - -<p>Robert Stead stopped at the barn to show the Cub, -now in the first enthusiasm of the coming trout season, -how to repair an old rod of his father’s that had grown -brittle from disuse, and Brooke carried the letters to -her mother, reading that from Lucy; but she took -the one marked Overveen to her own room presently, -where, sitting by the window, she opened it slowly.<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_242"></a>[242]</span> -It held a single sheet that bore these words—random -verses from the “Lost Tales of Miletus,” carefully -copied—no less, no more!</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">But haunted by the strain, till then unknown,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Seeks to re-sing it back herself to charm,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Seeks still and ever fails,</div> - <div class="verse indent6">Missing the key-note which unlocks the music—</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse center">...</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">“They gave me work for torture; work is joy!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Slaves work in chains, and to the clank they sing!</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Said Orpheus, ‘Slaves still hope.’</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">“And could I strain to heave up the huge stone</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Did I not hope that it would reach the height?</div> - <div class="verse indent2">There penance ends, and dawn Elysian fields,</div> - <div class="verse indent6">But if it never reach?”</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">The Thracian sighed, as looming through the mist</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The stone came whirling back. “Fool,” said the ghost,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">“Then mine at worst is everlasting hope!”</div> - <div class="verse indent6">Again up rose the stone.</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<p>Holding the paper clasped against her breast, again -Brooke’s thoughts sought counsel of the river, but -now between her and it, a silhouette standing against -the water, on the slope below the ploughman guided -the horses to and fro unceasingly across the corn-field.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_243"></a>[243]</span></p> - -<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XIV">CHAPTER XIV<br /> -<span class="smaller">THE UNEXPECTED HAPPENS</span></h2> - -</div> - -<p>April flew by on the wings of the migrating birds, -and it was almost the last week, that brought the fragile -wind flower to the wood edges and the swallows to the -old barn, before Brooke realized that the month had -fairly begun. For not more relentless is the rush of the -city itself than life on a farm in the springtime, when -the power that drives is the vital force of Nature herself, -while a day dropped at this time slips back beyond -recall.</p> - -<p>One morning, in herding a refractory hen, who had -strayed with her brood out among the young oats, -Brooke had found herself close by the spot where Henry -Maarten was planting potatoes, and, half laughing and -wholly out of breath, she called to him for help, which -call he answered by catching the clucking, scratching -hen, while she gathered the brood in her apron, and he -followed her silently back to the chicken yard at a -respectful distance.</p> - -<p>Having put the chicks safely in a coop, Brooke pointed -out a shorter way across the flower garden by which<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_244"></a>[244]</span> -Maarten might return to his work. Seeing that he -paused by the straggling clumps of early tulips and -daffodils that were already in bloom, and thinking they -might be reminding him of some other garden for which -he was homesick, she bade him gather as many as he -wished, asked him if he was fond of flowers, and whether -he would not like some roots, seeds, or cuttings for his -little place, saying in a friendly way, to put him at his -ease, for he always seemed to dread her presence, -“They tell me you are painting and repairing to make -a home at the Bisbee place for some one who is coming -over in the autumn. Nothing is so homelike to a -woman as growing flowers.”</p> - -<p>Pulling his hat over his eyes with a gesture of embarrassment -rather than because the sun was bright, he -said, in carefully pronounced musical English, with a -decided foreign accent: “And they told you that I -make a home for a sweetheart who comes? Yes, I -had thought to; but if she comes not, what then?”</p> - -<p>“But why should she not come? Surely she will if -she has promised, and knows that you work for her,” -said Brooke, insensibly adopting his pronunciation and -speaking with ready confidence in the faith of woman -born of her own temperament.</p> - -<p>“She has not promised it,” he faltered, looking down -at the tulips and again pulling his hat betwixt himself -and his young questioner, as if he feared that if she saw<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_245"></a>[245]</span> -his eyes she might penetrate too far into his innermost -feelings.</p> - -<p>“She knows you are working for her?”</p> - -<p>“No, not even that.”</p> - -<p>“At least she believes that you care?” persisted -Brooke, too direct and sympathetic to realize at once -that she might be probing a wound.</p> - -<p>“I once dared to think so, but since I have come away, -the word has travelled that perhaps her liking may be -for another.”</p> - -<p>“Why, doesn’t she know her own mind?” said -Brooke, half to herself, all at once becoming the self-appointed -champion of her farmer-on-shares, and not -realizing until after the words had left her lips that she -was herself too young a woman to be a safe adviser to -so young a man, and she blushed hotly.</p> - -<p>Turning to the flowers to aid her in an unforeseen -situation by which she found herself much moved, she -spied the great clump of white bridal roses, now putting -out green shoots, that had spread from a single bush -almost to a hedge, and which Miss Keith had pointed -out in its winter leafless state as a much-cherished -family possession. “Cut a root from this with your -knife, carefully, for its thorns are long and sharp, and -plant it by your porch, for the saying is that it brings -luck to new homes,” she said quickly. As she watched -him she thought of the verses in her letter, and all<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_246"></a>[246]</span> -unconsciously repeated them half aloud, “‘Then mine -at worst is everlasting hope—’” but a sharp exclamation -from the man, who with back toward her was -tugging at the rose root, stopped her; his hand had -slipped, and the sharp thorn pierced his thumb to the -bone.</p> - -<p>It was the pieman’s day, and promptly at noon his -cart turned into the barnyard. Mrs. Lawton, as well -as Brooke, had come to look forward to the break -made by his visits, for embodied cheerfulness must -always be a welcome guest. This time, however, he -was bustling with importance, and laid a pink envelope, -with an embossed violet in the place of a seal, upon -Brooke’s lap as she sat on the porch step waiting for -him to settle and unfold his budget.</p> - -<p>The envelope contained a painfully written letter -from his wife’s sister, Sairy Ann, inviting Brooke to -take the long-promised drive on the “Friday route,” -and pass the night at her farm, “to see the early birds -in the morning.” The sincerity of the invitation was -so evident and the promised experience so tempting, -that, after thinking it over a moment, Brooke went -indoors to write an answer of acceptance, realizing that -after the Sign of the Fox should be hung in its place -there could be no holidays.</p> - -<p>“Going, bean’t you?” smiled the pieman, when she -returned.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_247"></a>[247]</span></p> - -<p>“Yes,” she nodded gayly, “that is, if I can persuade -Mrs. Peck to keep mother company. You see I have -hunted far and wide for a young girl to help in our new -venture,” of which, by the way, the pieman most -heartily approved, and had been heralding it like the -most persistent advance agent along the entire course -of both his town and country routes.</p> - -<p>“Never mind, suthin’ may turn up yet,” he advised -soothingly; “you’ve got a week to spare and the Lord -can raise up a heap o’ good as well as trouble in that -time, and sometimes waitin’ fer Providence after you’ve -done your best is advisable, and not to be jedged like -settin’ and waitin’ before you’ve done aught, and leaning, -which is not faith, but the devil’s yeast of laziness.”</p> - -<p>In the early afternoon, after the pieman had gone -on his way, Brooke wheeled her father into the garden, -while she planted the seeds of mignonette, bluets, sweet-sultan, -and China pinks, and the second planting of -sweet peas of Miss Keith’s saving, in the long rows that -she had advised, for now there would be a double reason -for having jugs of fragrant flowers on the table of the -honeysuckle-screened south porch, which Brooke had -christened the Tea House.</p> - -<p>Tatters was worried. Indoors he stayed by his master, -outdoors he followed his mistress—under the present -circumstances, what was his duty? First he licked -Adam Lawton’s hand persistently, and then followed<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_248"></a>[248]</span> -Brooke along the line she had carefully marked with -stick and string, according to Stead’s gardening instructions, -until he was made to understand that his -footprints in the newly turned earth were not things -to be desired; then he returned to the chair.</p> - -<p>There could be no question that physically Adam -Lawton was in every way improving. The use of his -hand was gradually returning, and with the aid of a cane -he could move slowly from the bed to his chair; he -could also play a game of checkers, and though he -spoke slowly the words were finished, not broken as at -first. Still his thoughts were of the past and lacked -connection.</p> - -<p>A sudden shower of potent April rain fell with sharp -sound on Brooke’s seed packages. Gathering them -together hastily, she pushed the chair up the sloping -platform through the kitchen door that had been widened, -and as she did so the fishing pole that the Cub -had mended fell clattering to the floor. Stooping to -pick it up she noticed that it caught her father’s eye, -and as she held it toward him, he grasped it eagerly, -saying softly to himself, “My new pole; to-morrow -I’ll go fishing, if Enoch Fenton will play hookey too.”</p> - -<p>The rain increased and by five o’clock had promised -to settle into a steady pour that drew a curtain across -the river, cut ruts in the roadway, and gullied the soft -fields,—a class of storm dreaded in spring in a hillside<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_249"></a>[249]</span> -country, and entirely the reverse of the traditional -growing rain.</p> - -<p>The Cub came in and hung his coat to drip in the -porch, and even the water that ran from Pam’s grotesque -and stubby tail made a puddle on the floor.</p> - -<p>“I turned the cows out and shut the gate, because -Mr. Fenton said I ought to from now on,” said the -Cub, looking at the rain, and then gauging the wind, as -it tore downhill, like a veritable native. “I guess I’ll -go back and let ’em in again, just this once. No, I -don’t want an umbrella, it’ll only go bust,” he added, -as he stepped out the door, closing it with much difficulty -against the rising tide of wind and rain.</p> - -<p>Brooke, who had proffered the umbrella, stood -watching him through the glass half-door, and then a -dark object coming up the cross-road drew her attention. -At first she could not make out whether it was -man or woman; then, while she was still in doubt, the -screening umbrella broke loose from its fastenings and, -turning completely inside out, showed that its carrier -was a woman.</p> - -<p>“Mother, please come here and see if you can tell -me who this is struggling up the road. Can it be Mrs. -Peck? She is the only human being hereabouts who -does not keep a horse!” But the figure proved to be -too tall and straight to belong to the widow, who not -only had settled and gone to flesh, but was somewhat -listed as well.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_250"></a>[250]</span></p> - -<p>“When she reaches the house, whoever she may be, -I would ask her in. It may be some one who has come -up by the trolley on the lower road expecting to be -met; better go and open the front door,” said Mrs. -Lawton, hastening to light the lamps, which were her -special care.</p> - -<p>Brooke started to act upon the suggestion, but as she -gave a final look she saw that the woman had already -turned into the barn lane, and, though evidently almost -spent, was coming across to the kitchen door with a -directness that betokened familiarity. So Brooke returned -to the side door and, opening it a crack, held -it against the racking wind. As the gust swept through -the house, Tatters, who had been lying in the hallway, -arose, gave a growl, then a sniff, and, with his tail -beginning to swing in a circle, nosed open the door, -in spite of his mistress’s effort to stop him, and threw -himself violently against the dripping figure coming up -the cobbled path, who seemed to grapple with him.</p> - -<p>“Back, Tatters! come back!” called Brooke, letting -go her hold of the door, which swung back with a -clatter, as she clapped her hands to attract the dog’s -attention.</p> - -<p>“Down, bad dog! Why, he will tear the woman to -pieces. Quick! blow the horn for Adam; I never -dreamed he could act so!” cried Mrs. Lawton.</p> - -<p>Brooke raised her hand to take the ram’s horn from<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_251"></a>[251]</span> -its hook, still calling and whistling to the dog, whose -actions seemed to be wholly unaccountable. As she -looked, her hand dropped; the woman was hugging -Tatters, not buffeting him, while at the same instant the -wind gave her hat a final twist, breaking it from its -moorings and carrying with it the short veil whose -modish black dots clung soddenly, like concentrated -tears, and the woman’s face was revealed.</p> - -<p>“It is Cousin Keith!” gasped Brooke, dashing into -the rain to lend a helping hand, for the water-soaked -skirts had finally wound themselves into a bandage -around the poor woman’s legs and effectually prevented -her from lifting her feet to the steps, upon which she -sank, chancing into the biggest puddle she possibly -could have chosen.</p> - -<p>Mrs. Lawton came to the door with hands extended, -and a totally bewildered expression on her face, while -the same ideas were crowding the brain of both mother -and daughter. Had Keith West gone out of her mind, -or had a letter telling of her coming miscarried, and -was her plight wholly the result of not having been -met and having miscalculated the strength of the storm? -Probably by this time she was no longer Keith West, -but Mrs. James White. If so, where was the First -Cause? Had there been a railway accident, or had -she been “abandoned at the altar,” as the newspapers -put such matters?</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_252"></a>[252]</span></p> - -<p>“No, not into the kitchen,” expostulated Miss Keith, -as Brooke would have led in; “let me stand here -and drip a bit—that is, unless you can set down the -little starch tub for me to stand in,” she added, as a -shiver went up her spine, making her teeth chatter.</p> - -<p>“Nonsense, water cannot hurt oil-cloth, and you -must go close to the fire while I take off these sopping -things at once,” said Brooke, decidedly, pushing Miss -Keith resolutely over the threshold and closing the -door, thinking, as she afterward said, that if she had a -lunatic upon her hands, she must neither hesitate nor -argue.</p> - -<p>Meanwhile the Cub had returned from the barn and, -throwing open the door, came upon the apparition of -his tall and somewhat angular kinswoman, who three -months before had gone away in such brave array, -being rapidly divested of her outer garments by his -mother and sister. Her sandy hair, usually trigly coiled -about her crown, had fallen down and stuck to her face -in gluey strings, suggesting, to his boyish fancy, seaweed -clinging to the figurehead of some shipwrecked vessel -that at last view had swept proudly from port, all sails -set.</p> - -<p>Giving vent to a long-drawn “wh-e-w,” the Cub began -to laugh; it wasn’t nice of him, but the scene was -irresistibly funny. Not a word was spoken, Miss -Keith as yet offering no explanation whatever; and while<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_253"></a>[253]</span> -she managed to keep her usual poise, erect as a ramrod, -she only moved her legs and arms to release or put on -garments as Brooke guided, like a marionette. His -laugh died away unheeded, and it was not until he whispered -“What’s up?” in a somewhat awe-struck tone -in Brooke’s ear that either of the women noticed him; -and then Miss Keith gave a shriek, and snatching one -of the stockings that Brooke had but just succeeded -in peeling off, wrapped it around her neck, while -Brooke said over her shoulder, “We don’t exactly -know, but won’t you <i>please</i> go and stay with father -and coax Tatters with you,” for the dog was not a -respecter of clothes, and his joy at seeing his old friend -was more emphatic than convenient.</p> - -<p>Seated in an arm-chair before the stove, enveloped -in the Cub’s striped blanket wrapper, her hair pushed -out of her eyes, and her slippered feet resting on the -oven ledge, Miss Keith looked about the kitchen and -then at Mrs. Lawton, who had quietly taken a seat -beside her as if expectant of some new sort of outbreak, -while Brooke went for a stimulant, and mixing some -whiskey and water, held it to the thin, teetotal lips, that -at first sipped dubiously and then quaffed eagerly, -as she felt vitality returning in the wake of the -draught.</p> - -<p>“Are you not better, and will you not tell us what -has happened?” asked Mrs. Lawton, in the precise,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_254"></a>[254]</span> -deliberate staccato speech by which the calmest people -often show that they are nervous.</p> - -<p>“Did you write us that you were coming? And -why, pray, did you not take Bisbee’s hack from the -station, instead of risking such a walk in a storm like -this?”</p> - -<p>“Because I am a fool!” jerked Miss Keith; “I -wanted to get here without being seen; I hoped you -would let me hide for a few days until I could think -out where to go and what to do! I came on the train -as far as Stonebridge, and when I boarded the trolley -it promised to clear off. If I’d taken Bisbee’s hack, the -talk of me would have been all over town and into prayer-meetin’ -to-night. This is Wednesday, isn’t it?”</p> - -<p>“No, Tuesday,” replied Brooke, soothingly, exchanging -an anxious glance with her mother, which as much -as said, “Yes, the poor soul is deranged,” while at the -same time she was revolving in her mind how she -could manage, without attracting attention, to send -Adam for Dr. Love, a young physician of Dr. Russell’s -recommending, who had lately established himself in -Gilead, hitherto the people of the River Kingdom having -been obliged to send either to Stonebridge or Gordon. -Swift as the glance was, Miss Keith, who was -rapidly recovering herself, caught it in passing and, -moreover, read its full meaning.</p> - -<p>“I’m not crazy, nor coming down with typhoid, nor<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_255"></a>[255]</span> -dying from justice!” she announced in a tone of suppressed -excitement that was far from reassuring. “In -that I have proved scripture (not that it needed proving), -my visit of the last three months has been a success. -Pride goeth before destruction and a haughty spirit -before a fall. My pride is gone and I have fallen—”</p> - -<p>“Oh, Keith!” said Mrs. Lawton, faintly.</p> - -<p>“In spirit, from my high aspirations,” she continued, -not heeding the interruption nor the sudden painful -colour that suffused Mrs. Lawton’s face. “Also a fool -and his money are soon parted, likewise my money and -me. So I am, as I said before, a fool, but one who -would like a few days to review her folly before the -minister and the neighbours feel called upon to wrestle -with her about it.”</p> - -<p>Light was beginning to dawn upon Mrs. Lawton -and Brooke, though as yet the clouds were by no means -lifted.</p> - -<p>“Would you not rather rest until after supper or -have a night’s sleep before you pain yourself by telling -us? We do not wish to force any confidence, only -naturally we feared that you were ill. Your room, by -chance, was aired to-day, and the bed-making is only -a minute’s work,” said Mrs. Lawton, rising and laying -her hand soothingly upon Keith’s shoulder, as a hint -that she might perhaps like to retire, which would have -been an unspeakable relief. Not she! Keith West’s<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_256"></a>[256]</span> -nature, blended curiously as it was of Scotch and New -England granite, was softest and most retiring in triumphant, -happy moods, but in adversity, unsparing and -unflinching.</p> - -<p>“What I have to tell won’t improve by keeping,” -she said by way of answer. “To begin with, I ought to -have known better, after all my farming experience, -than to buy a pig in a poke, a cow over seven, or a -horse without knowing its age, and expect a bargain.”</p> - -<p>“You seemed to be having a delightful time in Boston -when you last wrote,” ventured Brooke, quietly, in an -endeavour to hasten and focus the explanation, which, -being epigrammatically expressed, acquired vagueness -thereby.</p> - -<p>“Yes, I did at first, until I found out that my friend -Mrs. Dow was charging her car fare up to me when -she took me about, and that her company, with which -the house was so full that I had to take a third story -back, were boarders, and I was charged double rates -because I’d only come for what she called the ‘cream -of the season.’ I didn’t find all this out until the first -month’s payday, and then I overlooked it because I -know learned men never get big salaries and I felt for -Judith’s pride. The next shock was that Mr. Dow, -who I supposed was at the very least a professor or -something in the museum and, as they say, ‘counted -an honourable position above high pay,’ was only the<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_257"></a>[257]</span> -janitor! One day when I was out alone I called on -him, and the door man said the only person of that name -about the place was tending the furnace in the cellar. -As I stood on the sidewalk, hesitating, wondering if I -had mistaken the place, up popped Dow’s head through -the coal-hole!</p> - -<p>“Why hadn’t I guessed it before? I don’t know why, -except that you don’t judge a man by his looks or his -clothes in Boston, only by his language, and Mr. Dow -certainly had a choice and entertaining flow. I meant -to speak of it to Judith, but I let that pass by too. -Thinking of being married so soon myself made me -feel sympathy for a woman who wanted the man of -her choice to appear to advantage. All the same I felt -like shortening my stay as much as possible, and I -wrote to James White to that effect, he replying by return -mail. He said that only one thing stood in the -way of his coming on the first of April, instead of -waiting until May; a small mortgage of three thousand -dollars was due on the farm, so that he must wait and -arrange for it, as he wished to use the money he had in -hand for our journey and improving the place to suit -me. He hinted that money cost more out in Wisconsin -than it does East, but he guessed that he’d -have no difficulty in renewing the mortgage at ten per -cent.”</p> - -<p>Here Miss Keith paused for breath, clenched her<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_258"></a>[258]</span> -hands, and set her teeth, as if taking a fresh grip on herself -before she continued the confession. The expression -on her face was that of a martyr, not only refusing -to recant, but rather insisting upon punishment. This -time, however, there was a third auditor, the Cub, who -was standing in the hallway, concealed by the door -niche, his rather small, deep-set, gray eyes fairly sparkling -with mischief.</p> - -<p>“As I said before, a fool and his money are soon -parted, and here is where I parted from mine. I don’t -excuse myself and say that I was overpersuaded, for I -wasn’t—I was hallucinated and avaricious all in one. -My twenty years’ savings, four thousand dollars, only -drew four per cent in the savings-banks where I’d put -it. If I took up that mortgage at seven even, I should -really be owning my own home, favouring my husband, -and being well paid for so doing, besides having something -left over, for even then a long experience in -peddling eggs had learned me not to put them all in -one basket.</p> - -<p>“So I wrote James White, and after a little of what -seemed natural hesitation, he took my offer, told me how -to forward the money, and said he’d bring the mortgage -on with him, as it would be safer than in the mails. -Also that he would be on in ten days and bring his -youngest girl with him, as she was piney and he wanted -her to see a Boston doctor, and she’d be company for<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_259"></a>[259]</span> -me if I felt strange in going back. He did write real -considerate,” and Miss Keith paused a moment, as -if she could not yet wholly forget her hopes.</p> - -<p>“I lived well at Judith Dow’s those last ten days,—ice-cream -every night and as much real clear coffee as -I could drink; and Mr. Dow brought home three reserved-seat -tickets to a Boston Symphony concert, but -there was a blizzard that night and the electrics got -fouled, so we didn’t get there, which was probably lucky, -as I now firmly believe he found the tickets in the -street, or else in the museum, and the owner might have -faced us down.</p> - -<p>“Judith helped me with my shopping, and I was -ready even to my bonnet (yes, that very one lying annihilated -over there) the last week of March. James wrote -that he would be on by the first week of April, and -he was, the first <i>day</i>, as it chanced. It was just before -supper that night when Judith came running up all -those three flights of stairs and only had strength left -to say ‘they’ve come,’ and ask me wouldn’t I rather -meet James alone before they all came in to tea, adding -that her little niece was very weary and so she had gone -to bed. I thought Judith looked rather queer and pale, -but I laid it to the stairs and a weak heart, and having -my new blue waist on, I went straight down.</p> - -<p>“Judith opened the door of the parlour to let me pass, -but as there was nobody in it but a lean old man with<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_260"></a>[260]</span> -a loose, close-shaven upper lip and chin whiskers, I -backed out again, thinkin’ she’d made a mistake, and -James was in the livin’ room where we ate; but she -held the door, and I said, thinking she didn’t notice, -‘Mr. White isn’t here!’</p> - -<p>“‘Yes, he is,’ said she; ‘James, this is Keith West, -your affianced!’</p> - -<p>“‘You’re not James White!’ I said, getting as cold -as clams, ‘I have his picture; he is dark, and stout, and -personable, with a heavy beard, and but a little turned -of fifty!’</p> - -<p>“‘So I was, twenty years ago, when that picture was -took,’ said the horrid old man, grinning and wobbling -his chin as he came forward, and before I knew what he -was doing he put his arm around my waist.</p> - -<p>“‘How dared you both lie to me so!’ I cried, turning -to Judith.</p> - -<p>“‘I didn’t send you any picture; it was sister,’ said -he.</p> - -<p>“‘I didn’t lie—you deceived yourself, you never -asked when the picture was taken! You are fifty and -he was a grown man when you were in the primary,’ said -Judith, sharp as a knife. And when I came to think -of it I never had thought of this, or worked out his age.</p> - -<p>“‘Give me back my money and I’ll leave this house -to-night!’ I said, but even then Judith persuaded me -to sleep over it and that things might look differently -in the morning.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_261"></a>[261]</span></p> - -<p>“They did—only worse—for that night one of the -oldest boarders, a third cousin of theirs, crept in and told -me that James White was already four times a widower, -his farm being in a feverish sort of country, and that -the girl—belonging to his second wife—who had come -with him was really twenty, though she had never grown -since she was ten, and had epileptic fits.</p> - -<p>“I never slept a wink, but packed my trunks and -slipped out for an expressman as soon as it was light, -and moved to a woman’s temperance hotel that I had -noticed not many blocks away.</p> - -<p>“James White and his sister followed me hot-foot -after breakfast, and words passed on both sides, Judith -doing more talking than her brother, who it then seemed -to me was somewhat lacking and wouldn’t have fought -back without being egged on.</p> - -<p>“I said that I would sue for my money, and she said -that he would sue me for breach of promise, which -he had in writing and signed plainly! I stayed at that -hotel until yesterday, wrestling with my pride, and then -I grew so homesick, the money I’d taken dwindled, -and you know, Brooke, you said that you’d be glad to -see me if I ever came back, and so here I am. I’ll work -my board out, if you’ll let me, until I can look about -and perhaps rent a little place and go to raise chickens—if -only you’ll forget all that I’ve told and not -repeat it except to Dr. Russell. Just say I’ve changed my<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_262"></a>[262]</span> -mind, for if Enoch Fenton got hold of this there’d be -no rest for me short of Middletown Asylum,” and Keith, -relaxing at last, began to sob just as she had the day -that she had answered James White’s first letter, using -Tatters’ head (he had stolen in again) for a pillow.</p> - -<p>Both Brooke and Mrs. Lawton, remembering her -kindly welcome home in their trouble, said all in their -power to reassure her, and the younger woman gave her -a rapid sketch of her new business plans, saying that if -her hopes were realized fair pay would also be a part of -the coöperative living. Something else she was about -to add, for with all her sentiment Brooke was far-sighted, -but her inborn delicacy stopped her, for the idea seemed -harsh and brutal when put in words.</p> - -<p>But the third listener read his sister’s thoughts and -did not hesitate. Striding into the room, he stood before -his astounded kinswoman, towering above her, -and said, with an apparently genial smile and hands in -pockets: “I’ll make a bargain with you, Cousin Keith, -fair and square over the right. I’ll forget all about -your trip to Boston, and help you do the same, <i>unless</i> -you forget that sister is mistress here, that I’m her -backer, and mother the dowager duchess! In which -case I shall <i>remember</i>, and with <i>trimmings</i>!” And -strange to say, the boy’s unasked championship was -possibly the only thing that could have clarified the -situation and made the coöperative household a possibility -without embarrassment or bitter feeling.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_263"></a>[263]</span></p> - -<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XV">CHAPTER XV<br /> -<span class="smaller">THE MASQUE OF SPRING</span></h2> - -</div> - -<p>The new dweller in the country longs for the coming -of May as the only truly gracious month of the New -England spring. In a few seasons, however, he learns -to regret April, for when that month has gone, and the -curtain fairly rises on the Masque of Spring, while -it seems as if the orchestra is but playing the overture, -and while yet he is watching the drapery curtain of -leafage unfold, the throng on foot and wing pass by, -all madly whirling to the pipe of Pan as they follow -the voice of the ages that guides them to their breeding -haunts, lo and behold! spring promise has merged in -the summer of fulfilment.</p> - -<p>It was Brooke’s first knowledge of the coming of -spring in wild nature. Spring in New York means -a certain lassitude and enervation—the sun withers -and the river winds chill alternately with exasperating -inconsistency. The planted tulips put up their decorous -heads in the parks at a certain date, much as the -women in the streets don their flowery spring head-gear,—both -are pleasing to the eye, yet there is nothing<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_264"></a>[264]</span> -spontaneous or unexpected about either; while to come -suddenly upon a mat of arbutus or catch the silvery -gleam of a mass of bloodroot transfiguring the silence -of the woodland, where the leaves of a dozen winters, -graduating to leaf mould, muffle the tread, is an event. -So every night Brooke longed for the next morning -and its surprises, and every morning she was eager -for sunset and the night voices. Not that she wished -time away,—far from it,—but to her its passing also -meant progress, the nearing a certain goal.</p> - -<p>Sometimes it seemed to her that in a previous existence -she had lived the life of the River Kingdom; perhaps -it was the heredity moulded beside the Highland -torrents that sang to her in the voice of the Moosatuk. -On this last day of April, as she stood at the edge of -the pasture, with wands of delicate cherry bloom waving -softly between her and the river, like heralds ushering -one into the presence of a monarch, the words from -the song of the migrant bird, “Out of the South,” came -to her lips, and she chanted them softly, watching the -old horse holding a nose-to-nose conversation with a -neighbour in the next field:—</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent18">“I have sought</div> - <div class="verse">In far wild groves below the tropic line</div> - <div class="verse">To leave old memories of this land of mine.</div> - <div class="verse indent18">I have fought</div> - <div class="verse">This vague mysterious power that flings me forth</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_265"></a>[265]</span> - <div class="verse indent18">Into the north.</div> - <div class="verse">But all in vain, when flutes of April blow,</div> - <div class="verse">The immemorial longing lures me, and I go!”</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<p>Then, abandoning for the time the fight against the -lure of a voice beyond her ken and a memory in which -sweetness and pain were inextricably blended, she -gave herself wholly up to the spell of the present.</p> - -<p>Another happening that day lent wings to her spirit, -though the thing was both practical and humble. -Bisbee, the stableman, upon the strength of having -seen the Sign of the Fox when it was at the blacksmith’s -being framed in iron (for the rings had not held), -ordered a sign for his newly completed stable, offering -the generous price (to him) of twenty-five dollars for -it, he to furnish the wood.</p> - -<p>“There’s a regular horse painter over in Gordon -will do me a race-horse in a sulky, driver included, -for fifteen,” said Bisbee, a big, jolly, liberal man, whose -rosy cheeks plainly told that they were not made in -New England; “but he’s done that same one fer -everybody within ten miles. Besides, what sense in a -race-horse sign fer a family stable, say I? Give me -something safe and assuring, yet not too safe!”</p> - -<p>So Brooke had eagerly accepted the commission, for -with the return of Keith West, two or three hours a -day for work had become a joyful possibility, and -she conceived the idea of painting the heads of two -horses upon the sign-board he had sent up. One<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_266"></a>[266]</span> -must represent a staid family horse, and the other a -more speedy roadster, and as she looked across the -pasture, the natural position of the two gossips by -the stone fence gave her the motive in a flash. If she -only had the board there, she might sketch in the -grouping at once, she thought, and the light also was -exactly as she would wish it. The sign was in the barn, -but it was too heavy for her to carry, and Adam had -gone up to Windy Hill for the day, to do double work, -as Robert Stead was expecting Dr. Russell to go on -their annual trouting excursion to Stony Guzzle the -next day. Well, there was no help for it, but still -Brooke gazed about as if expecting help would fall -from the skies or spring Jack-in-a-box fashion from -the ground. It was the latter that happened, for at -that moment the head of the farmer-on-shares appeared -above the fence of the potato field, where he -had just completed his task of planting, and was about -to follow along the little brook to the road.</p> - -<p>As Brooke hesitated to ask him to do an errand that -certainly had nothing to do with farming, he paused -involuntarily. Meanwhile Brooke thought, “I can -surely ask it as a courtesy such as any man would -do me,” and said, “Good morning, Mr. Maarten” -(she did not call him by his Christian name as she -would have one distinctly in service, for instinct -hinted to her that he might have been driven to his<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_267"></a>[267]</span> -present vocation by hard luck), “would you do me a -favour?”</p> - -<p>Instantly the tools and potato bag were dropped, -but he did not take the advantage of coming nearer, -as he might easily have done.</p> - -<p>Then Brooke explained her need in the frank way -she had of taking people into her confidence, yet without -gush or familiarity, that had always been one of -her charms; and Maarten hastened to the barn while -she went to the house for her chalk and sketching -stool.</p> - -<p>In an hour, after several false starts, Brooke had -compassed the grouping and outline, though there -was one curve in the neck of the young horse that -displeased her. Hearing the pieman’s whistle out -on the road, and remembering that this was the day -when she was to accompany him on his route to “Sister-in-law -Sairy Ann’s,” and knowing that Maarten would -naturally have gone home to his dinner,—for he -never brought it in a pail like other labourers, her -informant being Enoch Fenton, who said he table-boarded -at the best place in Gilead, and paid six dollars -a week, and most likely had a big head,—she was -demurring as to how she should get the sign back, -for to leave it might tempt the cows to lick the chalk -off. At this point she became conscious, through one of -those swift half glances that tell so many tales, that<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_268"></a>[268]</span> -Maarten was waiting a little beyond, and not only -waiting, but watching her eagerly. Therefore, taking -advantage of the circumstance, she laughingly apologized -for asking two favours in one day, but would he -carry the sign back to the little harness room, long -disused, with a door of its own on the pasture side -of the barn, where the sign could be kept free from -hay dust?—adding, half aloud, as she took a final -look at her work, “There is something wrong about -the line of old Billy’s neck; it could not possibly twist -like that.”</p> - -<p>Point of view frequently has as much to do with -our estimate of a thing as the value of the thing itself. -Therefore Brooke’s progress of fifteen miles through -the hill country in the pieman’s wagon brought her -in touch with an entirely different side of the world -of the woods than if she had driven over the same -way with a party of guests who chattered inconsequently, -or gone on horseback in the company of -Stead, as she had done once or twice lately, for even the -mild-mannered old horse required guiding and attention -that banished the spirit of revery.</p> - -<p>The pieman had covered his wares carefully, and -rolled up the curtains all around, while the horse, -dragging the loaded cart, proceeded perforce at a -walk, so that Brooke, seated on a low chair, travelled -with all the leisurely ease of an old-time queen in a<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_269"></a>[269]</span> -palanquin. This pace brought her close to every -feature of the Masque of Spring, face to face with the -reality of it, and she could anticipate, and then realize, -every detail in its fulness.</p> - -<p>Her charioteer also was as much a child of nature -and a part of it all as the big gray squirrels that raced -along the fence-tops, while his simple and positive -faith in the goodness of all created things, and his -intense love and kinship with the wild brotherhood, -opened a new world to Brooke, banishing for the time -all care and responsibility and replacing it with -the wholesome pleasure of the hour, born of the pure -joy of mere living. When one has known trouble, -and then felt this touch of peace, is it not the new -Revelation of God, fitted to meet the needs and greeds -of to-day, even as nineteen centuries ago the single-hearted -Messenger brought his spiritual message to the -material Oriental world?</p> - -<p>They would travel a mile, perhaps, in entire silence, -the pieman merely pulling up now and then, and pointing -with his whip to a warm spot, where a group of -silver-green ferns slowly unfolded and stretched their -winter-cramped paws, or else, with finger raised, caution -silence while the song of some elusive bird thrilled -the air,—“Whitethroat,” “Fox-sparrow,” or “Oven-bird,” -being his only words. Then a settlement of -half a dozen houses, and a period of bustle, barter,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_270"></a>[270]</span> -and exchange of news would interrupt, and so on until, -as the “peepers” began to tune up, and the sun called -the warmth of the day swiftly after him, they turned -into Sairy Ann’s yard.</p> - -<p>After a keenly relished supper, Brooke and her -guide stole out to the edge of a strip of woods that -separated some grass meadows from a brawling trout -stream running its downhill course a dozen miles -before the Moosatuk received it. There, seated on -a log, they waited as the twilight began to cast its mysterious -spell. Presently a strange cry sounded through -the gloom, was repeated, and echoed by others a -second and a third time. Next a rush of wings, as -if a bird was flung suddenly into the air, opening its -wings at the same time. A sharp whirring sound -followed, increasing as the wings that made it vanished -skyward. Bending forward to watch the wonderful -flight, until eye could not see it, in a moment Brooke -was startled by the falling as of a bolt from the clouds -close beside her, followed by a sweet musical whistle.</p> - -<p>“First one’s down again,—see, he’s doin’ it over!” -said the pieman, and the call and lunge were repeated -as before. But this time the girl’s eye did not follow; -the wonder and rush of it all was thrilling her from -head to foot. She had seen the sky-dance of the woodcock, -the free Walpurgis night’s festival of the American -river woods, with wild flowers for bracken and hemlock<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_271"></a>[271]</span> -boughs for witches’ brooms. Once more her -toes tingled, music rang in her ears, sorrow and love -both slipped away, and she was again the little girl -playing at gypsy queen in her River Kingdom. -That night Brooke slept deeply, but it was the sleep -of dreams that comes from being drowned in a “best -room” feather-bed for the first time, an experience both -fearful and wonderful.</p> - -<p>Instead of starting on his return trip at seven the -next morning, as usual, the pieman’s advice was asked -by his widowed relative concerning the buying of a -cow, which was to be sold at auction that morning -in the next village. For this one day at least Brooke -was in no haste, and as the auction began at nine o’clock -and was two miles distant, the pieman suggested that she -might like to spend the time in the woods that they had -skirted the previous night, and walk along the stream. -Then, when she had gone as far as she chose, all she -had to do was to follow the brook north again without -fear of going astray, while by way of a lunch Sairy -Ann gave her half a dozen mellow russet apples, the -storing and keeping of which, in prime condition, -well into the summer was a matter of great pride.</p> - -<p>Nothing could have suited Brooke better than these -few hours of perfect liberty,—she was responsible -for nothing about her, not even for her presence there. -The widow’s hens were cackling vigorously, and she<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_272"></a>[272]</span> -laughed as she realized that, whether they broke their -eggs or stole their nests, it was a matter of indifference -to her. The revulsion from the tense responsibility -of the past three months flew to her head like the subtle -May wine of the Old World, her heart beat fast, she -stretched her limbs, and then began to thread the -woods toward the stream in a delicious waking dream.</p> - -<p>Being guided by sound, she stood looking at the bits -of drift that swirled by, the water drawing her eyes -and holding them as a mirror does those who are near -it.</p> - -<p>In a few moments she noticed that, while there was -a distinctly marked path among the rocks and stones -along her side of the watercourse, the opposite bank -was heavily brushed and almost impenetrable, while -the sunlight came filtering through and danced upon -the water in a way that entranced the artist in her. -Choosing a mossy stump, and being thirsty, for the first -thirst of spring is more keen than any that follows, she -seated herself, buried her shoe tips in the deep moss, and -taking an apple from her pocket bit into it deliberately, -critically watching the juice ooze from the wound -her teeth had made. As she munched, gazing at the -sunbeams chasing the shadows over the water, she -was startled by a ringing sound, as of metal striking -stone. It was repeated several times before she -located its direction, and as she did so, saw that the<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_273"></a>[273]</span> -noise was made by the shoes of a horse, who was coming -downstream, browsing along the foot-path, in the line -of which she was seated.</p> - -<p>A second glance showed her that it was Manfred, -Stead’s horse, with bridle fastened loosely to the saddle, -while a fishing basket attached to one side easily -explained his presence. Seeing Brooke, he came -quickly toward her with a friendly whinny and nosed -the apple. Almost at the same time Robert Stead -himself, in the water to the knees, slowly wading the -somewhat treacherous shallows, and whipping the -stream as he came, appeared from under the arch -of overhanging hemlocks.</p> - -<p>For a moment he did not seem to believe the sight -of his own eyes, and then, rapidly reeling in his line, he -looked out for the nearest landing spot and stood before -Brooke, with an expression that might be interpreted -either as one of surprise or resentment at having his -sport thus interrupted. But then he had acquired a -stern expression by practice. Brooke had often before -thought he wore it as a mask, and his words were not -angry, but almost playful.</p> - -<p>“Eve, the apple, and a bit of Eden! But how did you -come here and what are you doing?”</p> - -<p>“<i>Not</i> Eve, because, as you will observe, I am not -going to offer my apple to the only man in sight, but -share it with a good sensible horse, who will not tell<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_274"></a>[274]</span> -tales. I came up to the farm last night with Mr. -Banks, the pieman, to see the woodcock dance, and -I’m waiting here while he buys a cow for Sister-in-law -Sairy Ann. As to what I am doing, I <i>was</i> eating an -apple, but Manfred interrupted me; and now I’m going -to begin another, and I’m very sorry that your simile -prevents my offering one to you,—for they’re good,” -and Brooke took a bite from a particularly fine specimen, -a mischievous glance following her words.</p> - -<p>Stead tethered the horse a few yards away and, coming -back, threw himself down on the clean hemlock -needles beside her. He felt suddenly relaxed, tired -he would have called it, as if rigidity and strength -had mysteriously left him.</p> - -<p>“And you?” continued Brooke, “I see of course -that you are fishing, by the two small trout in the basket; -but how do you come to be so far away from home -at eight in the morning, when Adam said that Dr. -Russell was to visit you to-day?”</p> - -<p>“Because Dr. Russell came on the mail train last -night and is now whipping the west branch of the -stream; in this narrow cut we interfered, and we shall -meet a mile below at Stony Guzzle in the course of an -hour.”</p> - -<p>“Then you had better take to the water again, for -I heard them saying last night that this stream takes -two steps sideways for every one it goes forward,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_275"></a>[275]</span> -and that gives you a three-mile walk plus fishing!” -said Brooke, with a perfectly frank unconcern that -piqued the man to natural contradiction.</p> - -<p>“Thank you for your prudent advice, but I would -rather sit here, for once simply because I wish to, -and trust to Manfred’s hoofs for catching up with -the doctor!”</p> - -<p>“Do you not always do what you wish?” asked -Brooke, surprised at his changing mood, and feeling -her way.</p> - -<p>“Do you suppose that I can wish to lead the idle -sort of life I do?” he asked quickly, looking up at her -to compel a direct answer. “It is only because I -have not a motive strong enough to make me break -away, and desire of action is dead; but is that doing -as one wishes?”</p> - -<p>“Oh, I thought you loved it here at Gilead, and -could not be happy out of sight of the river—I—at -least that is—what I made of what Dr. Russell said,” -stammered the girl, astonished at his vehemence in -contrast to his usual deliberation.</p> - -<p>“I do not know what he has said,—nothing unkind, -that I warrant; but he does not know—no one does. -Listen, Brooke, for I am minded to do what I have -never done before—put my burden on some one else -by sharing it, and tell you the real reason why I am -as I am, which has never before passed my lips in<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_276"></a>[276]</span> -words. No, you must be patient and listen,” he said, -for Brooke had made a sudden movement as if to -rise. Stead did not realize that he was perhaps spoiling -the girl’s holiday; self-centred he was, at base -an egotist, though an unconscious one; and to the -fact that he regarded everything at the point where -it touched himself could be laid the pith of all his unhappiness.</p> - -<p>“Why do I tell you? I do not know, except that -in all these years since, you are the first woman I have -met whom I think would understand and who is also -young enough to have mercy, and it is a matter for -woman’s judgment. Yesterday a letter came to me -from an old friend in my profession, asking me to overlook -a bit of bridge work for him for a month or so -in early summer, while he takes some needed rest. -At the end he tells me of his plans for work, urges me -to join him, and gives me what he words as ‘a last -call back to life.’ All this has stirred up the sources -of a stream I thought long dry; instead of putting it -away, as I once did, as something done and gone, it -tempts me, and I am strangely all at sea. I feel as if -I only need some one in whose sincerity I could believe -to say, ‘Go back to work,’ and I should go.”</p> - -<p>“And leave the River Kingdom?” asked Brooke, -looking up in alarm, her first thought, it must be said, -being of the Cub’s schooling. “We should miss you -so.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_277"></a>[277]</span></p> - -<p>Stead’s eye brightened, and taking her hand that -was not busy with the apple and rested on the stump, -he held it between his own. He himself did not analyze -his motive, simply it gave him comfort and secured -her attention. Then he said earnestly, solemnly it -seemed to the girl, from whose eyes the merry banter -of a few minutes before had passed, “Listen, Brooke, -brave woman, who is fighting out her own problems -to the shame of others such as I.</p> - -<p>“When I was turning thirty and engineering a railway -through a mountain region of the south, I met -and loved a woman as heartily as a man may, but -the passion seemed one-sided. She had given me -a final answer, and I was preparing to go away, as -gossips whispered there was ‘some one else,’ when -the next day she recalled the no and made it yes.</p> - -<p>“I was almost beside myself with surprise and joy, -and after a brief month we were married, for my work -was ended and I was going North. For ten years we led -a charmed sort of life, a little girl soon coming to share -it with us. We three, with José always as attendant, -travelled wherever my work lay, sometimes living in -houses, sometimes in tents, but always happy. Then -the first grief came to me (it is nearly twelve years -since)—my little Helen died, down near Oaklands, -where we were summering. The illness came like a -shot in the dark, without warning, and Dr. Russell,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_278"></a>[278]</span> -whom I then met for the first time, was powerless.</p> - -<p>“After this my wife began to droop and grew sadder -day by day. This was natural except for the fact -that she sought to be alone and avoided me, until -one day in a fit of bitter melancholy she told me the -secret that had lain between us like a sword all through -those married years.</p> - -<p>“When I had first met her she had a lover, a wild, -hot-blooded, handsome fellow of the south mining -country,—for him she refused me! At the same -time, unknown to her, he had committed a crime and -the law was on his track. He took refuge, as they -thought he would, in her vicinity, and she was watched -to see if she would take him food or shelter him. To -foil them she betrothed herself to me, and thus disarmed, -the watchers left, and her lover escaped scot -free.”</p> - -<p>“But why didn’t she go too, or follow him?” interrupted -Brooke.</p> - -<p>“Because what she called her sense of honour forbade -her, and she never meant that I should know,—she -was willing to pay the price of the scamp’s life with -her peace of mind.”</p> - -<p>“How she must have loved him!” said Brooke, tears -trembling in her voice; “I don’t see how she could -have lived it down. To save the man you love by<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_279"></a>[279]</span> -marrying another, even if it was the only way—oh, -I am not brave enough to do such a thing, and so I -must not judge her!”</p> - -<p>For a moment a startled expression crossed Stead’s -face, as if this side of the matter had never occurred to -him; but again self conquered.</p> - -<p>“Do you wonder that I cannot forget, and that -nothing seems worth while when I know that in those -years of seeming happiness I was the companion of a -woman whose heart was never mine; who played -her part to me, until the child’s death broke the capacity? -Whom can I trust after that?”</p> - -<p>“I do not think you could have really loved her as -you thought,” said Brooke, looking at him simply -with deep, quiet conviction in her voice, “for if you -had you would have at least understood her. And -at the worst I should think you would have flown to -work instead of away from it.”</p> - -<p>“It may be that you are right,” Stead said, after -a long pause, in which the thoughts of both travelled -far, but in different directions; “I have a mind to try, -but I shall never go away permanently from the River -Kingdom. Child, child! how strange it is that your -words should have been so long on my lips before ever -I met you! Will you wish me luck for a motive, if I go -in June?”</p> - -<p>“Yes,” answered Brooke, wondering about the time -of day, for the shadows had shifted greatly.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_280"></a>[280]</span></p> - -<p>“And be glad to see me when I return?”</p> - -<p>“Of course,” said Brooke, frankly; then, as other -words struggled on Stead’s lips, blocking each other -by haste, the pieman’s bell warned her that he had -returned and was ready to start. Giving the last apple -to Manfred, she freed her hand, stretching it vigorously, -for it was almost numb, sent a hasty message to -Dr. Russell, and fled out into the open.</p> - -<p>Robert Stead waited motionless for several minutes, -looking after her; then, shaking himself as a horse -does after a period of standing, he led Manfred to the -wood road below, and prepared to make up for lost -time. Yet for some strange reason he did not give the -girl’s message to Dr. Russell, neither did he vouchsafe -any explanation of the fact of there being only -two trout in his basket, or prate about “fisherman’s -luck” when the enthusiastic doctor showed ten beauties -bedded in wet moss.</p> - -<p>There was enough light left on Brooke’s return for -a survey of house, garden, and barns. It is strange -when one goes away but seldom, that to find everything -in place on the return and people doing as usual comes -as a certain surprise. She opened the door of the old -harness room to peep at her sketch of the horses. After -a careful survey, she said to herself, “It is certainly -true that one cannot judge work justly at the time -it is done. Yesterday the neck of the young horse<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_281"></a>[281]</span> -seemed all awry, but to-day it has exactly the toss and -turn I was striving for.”</p> - -<p>As she closed the door she glanced down over the -fields, but neither man nor horse was there, only a convocation -of crows sitting on the fence. The pieman -would doubtless have maintained that they were discussing -among themselves the probable location of this -season’s corn-fields.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_282"></a>[282]</span></p> - -<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XVI">CHAPTER XVI<br /> -<span class="smaller">THE WAY THE WIND BLEW</span></h2> - -</div> - -<p>However anxious the wife of Senator Parks had been -to impress herself upon New York society, she experienced -a delightful sense of relief when the winter of her -novitiate was ended. Furling her banners of tactful -triumph, she left town immediately after Easter, thereby -doing the correct thing and following her own mood, a -combination of rare accomplishment.</p> - -<p>Many times during the season she had thought of the -Lawtons and missed Brooke sorely from the circle of -bright young women in their “third and fourth winters,” -whom she had the good sense as well as the attraction -to draw about her; but the swirl of the pool had been -so insistent that she had done little more than to send -Brooke one or two cordial, if inconsiderate, notes of invitation -to visit her, which of course had not been -accepted.</p> - -<p>Now that she had moved to the famous Smythers place -at Gordon, and found her early passion for outdoor life -and her developed taste for luxury at once sufficiently -satisfied by its beauty and stimulated by its possibilities,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_283"></a>[283]</span> -she desired the companionship of some one of taste, -a friend and not a timeserver, with whom she could -discuss her plans. Immediately her mind reverted to -Brooke Lawton, and knowing from Lucy Dean that -Gilead was within driving distance from Gordon, she -set out in her victoria one exquisite afternoon toward -the end of May to locate Brooke. Visiting Mrs. Parks -was an elderly New York matron, Mrs. Van Kleek, of -particular social importance, who was anxious to run -over to her own cottage, recently built in Stonebridge -and not yet open for the season, in consequence of which -this drive, having a double mission, began immediately -after luncheon.</p> - -<p>Both coachman and footman, being new importations -to the hill country, knew even less about the upper -and lower turnpike and maze of cross-roads than did -their employer, who had a general idea of the region. -It seemed an easy matter to keep the river in sight, and -yet the constant desire of the ladies to follow up each -pretty lane, with its delicate fringe of wild flowers or -drapery of catkins, kept luring them away from it at -right angles; so that five o’clock in the afternoon found -the sweating horses, as yet unused to anything longer -than the drive through the park to Claremont and return, -toiling wearily uphill on the upper pike just above -Gilead, facing the way in which they desired not to go, -but had accomplished by looping about in a figure eight.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_284"></a>[284]</span></p> - -<p>The coachman was growing momentarily more anxious -lest the horses should break down; the footman was -bored and cramped with long sitting; both ladies were -weary, quite talked out, and longing for their afternoon -tea; while Mrs. Parks was also exasperated at the -failure of the excursion.</p> - -<p>“Stop a moment, Benson, and let Johnson ask that -man in the field yonder if we are on the right road to -Stonebridge, and if there is any place near where we -can rest,” she said finally. Benson pulled up as well -as he could on the incline; Johnson dismounted and -interviewed the farmer and, returning with a disgusted -expression, said, “Stonebridge is six miles downhill, the -way we’ve come up, mum, and if you please Gilead is -that village a mile and a half back, mum, we passed -a bit ago. This ’ere is the hupper road, the one in the -dip below follows the river easy from Gordon to Stonebridge, -and he says we’d best get on that.”</p> - -<p>Mrs. Parks demurred a moment, and while she did -so Benson, whose word was law in all matters concerning -the Parkses’ horseflesh, turned on the box and, touching -his hat, said in a tone that was not to be contradicted, -“Mrs. Parks, mum, we must keep on the way we are -going, facin’ with the wind until we can get to a flat spot -where I can blanket my horses and rest them a bit. -I’d not take the risk of turning them against that chill -river breeze in their present sweat.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_285"></a>[285]</span></p> - -<p>Both ladies understood stable ethics, and the moods -of husbands when these same are disregarded, too well -to object, and so a drive that would not have been -abandoned for anything else was reversed by the mere -blowing of the wind.</p> - -<p>Reaching the beginning of the plateau by the West -homestead, Benson had the tact to choose a spot for -blanketing the horses where the cross-road opened -Brooke’s favourite river vista to the ladies in the carriage.</p> - -<p>“How beautiful!” mumbled Mrs. Van Kleek, -drowsily, her dry tongue cleaving to the roof of her -mouth.</p> - -<p>“It would be if we could only have our tea,” sighed -Mrs. Parks. “I declare I must have an outfit of some -kind adjusted to this carriage, for I’m devoted to driving, -and every one says that it is the great feature of this hill -country, and of course there isn’t a place around here -where they know what tea is.”</p> - -<p>Johnson, who had been reconnoitring with an eye -to a well, returned at that moment. “Hup yonder, -mum, there’s a neat house, mum, and a sign of a fox -hangs by the gate, mum, quite like the old country, only -it says ‘TEA’ instead of hale, mum.”</p> - -<p>“Tea on a sign-board here in the backwoods! Lead -the horses a little farther up, Benson, and Johnson, do -you go in and ask what we can have,”—turning to -Mrs. Van Kleek, “I don’t suppose the tea will be any<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_286"></a>[286]</span> -good, herbs or old hay, but at least it will be wet, and -perhaps hot, and I’m beginning to feel the evening chill -in the wind. I wonder why no one has the sense to -have a good tea place hereabouts, like the English tea-gardens, -where they would put up sandwiches for -fishing and touring parties and all that. They could -make a fortune in the season, I’m sure.”</p> - -<p>“Here’s the bill of fare, mum,” said Johnson, returning -and presenting the card; “a most genteel place, -mum, though they’ve no license for spirits. Everything -made fresh to order, mum, and in fifteen minutes. -Besides what’s there, mum, there’s ginger hale and -club sody, and will you ’ave it ’ere or go on the porch, -mum?”</p> - -<p>“Mrs. Van Kleek, will you look at this!” ejaculated -Mrs. Parks, laying the card upon that lady’s lap as if -she had suddenly been presented with a patent of -nobility.</p> - -<p>“Printing, get-up, prices, quite like Tokay’s! We -will decide quickly, lest the thing prove an illusion and -vanish as we near it, Cheshire-cat fashion. Johnson, -we will have a pot of tea for two, with cream, and half—no, -a dozen lettuce and chicken sandwiches, served out -here. Also you may get ginger ale and cheese sandwiches -for Benson and yourself,” for Mrs. Parks owed -much of her social success, as well as happiness in life, -to the fact that she recognized the equal primal necessities<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_287"></a>[287]</span> -of all classes, and she argued that if Mrs. Van -Kleek and herself, seated at ease in the carriage, were -thirsty beyond endurance, Benson and Johnson on the -box must be doubly so.</p> - -<p>In due course the man returned, and turning up the -flap seat in front of the ladies, placed the tray, with its -dainty array, upon it.</p> - -<p>“Damask napkins, instead of paper!” gasped Mrs. -Van Kleek.</p> - -<p>“Real cream!” said Mrs. Parks, “and domino -sugar!”</p> - -<p>“English breakfast tea, smell the aroma! a pot with -an inside strainer, and porcelain cups and saucers!” -continued Mrs. Van Kleek, proceeding to pour the tea, -after which the remarks of the two women turned into -a veritable patter song of praise, punctuated by sipping -and munching.</p> - -<p>“Really, this is most extraordinary! I wish I could -tell of what those plates remind me; I seem to have -seen the pattern before. Ferns, and no two bits quite -alike,—it’s not at all like the usual commercial china,” -said Mrs. Van Kleek, sinking comfortably back among -the cushions, after finishing two cups of tea, together -with five of the delicate sandwiches, and still looking -meditatively at the sixth, murmuring, “Tokay could -not outdo this, they are of the best—and the tea—simply -unique!”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_288"></a>[288]</span></p> - -<p>“Johnson,” called Mrs. Parks, for the two men were -eagerly regaling themselves at a respectful distance, -“take back the tray and see if they can change this bill—and -Johnson, was there a waiter or any one there who -should have a tip?”</p> - -<p>“I should jedge, mum, there was one elderish party -who should; she was rather snappy, mum, and charged -me not to break the ware; but the others are gentlefolks, -mum, quite through, and said as of course I’d be -careful, which of a certain I would, mum, and me bein’ -in service, mum, where I’d always known real china -from Liverpool, and plate from pewter, which they -’ad the eye to see, mum,” and Johnson walked off, bearing -the tray as carefully as if it held family plate.</p> - -<p>“Wait a minute,” Mrs. Parks called after him; “ask -if they can put me up fifty sandwiches, some of each -kind, for ten o’clock to-morrow, and pack them in a -box, and if they know where a family named Lawton -live hereabouts,—the Adam Lawtons.” Then to Mrs. -Van Kleek, “The Senator is going to take those four old -California chums of his, that come to-night, trout fishing -somewhere up this way to-morrow, to a place called -Muzzle Guzzle, or some such name. I wished to send -a nice luncheon out in the bus with the camping stove -and the under cook to have it hot for them, but no, the -Senator has ordered sandwiches—plenty of sandwiches, -with Scotch and soda. They are to be driven<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_289"></a>[289]</span> -only to the foot of the hills, and then walk for the rest -of the day. He says they want to forget who and where -they are for once,—be boys and all that sort of thing, -you know,—so if I could get the soda and sandwiches -here it would be quite delightful.</p> - -<p>“How long he stays! I believe I will go in myself -and see to the matter, for my curiosity is quite piqued. -Will you come? No—very well, I’ll not be gone a -moment,” and Mrs. Parks, her delicate robes trailing -behind her, crossed the dandelion-studded sward toward -the house, with a swish and swirl of skirts, and a step -as elastic as that of a young girl. Laugh, as has been -the foolish fashion, at those women who come out of the -West to receive the chill of eastern polish; yet they -bring us a better gift than they take, that of buoyancy -of heel, head, and heart that we greatly need.</p> - -<p>Mrs. Van Kleek meantime adjusted her head, heavy -with comfortable sleep, and gratefully entered the Land -of Forty Winks, evidently for a protracted visit.</p> - -<p>Hesitating as to whether front or side door was the -legitimate entrance for wayfarers, and deciding upon -the latter, Mrs. Parks, rounding the corner hurriedly, -came face to face with Brooke, who was coming up from -the garden bearing a great bunch of lilies-of-the-valley, -while Tatters trotted beside her carrying a basket that -held still more.</p> - -<p>“Brooke Lawton at last!” and Mrs. Parks put out<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_290"></a>[290]</span> -her arms and, to Johnson’s amazement, clasped Brooke, -flowers and all, in a hug of spontaneous pleasure, that -made the girl’s heart beat quick for many a day, as she -thought of it.</p> - -<p>“Is this quaint, delightful place an inn as well, and -are you stopping here?” queried Mrs. Parks, holding -Brooke off at arm’s length, first looking at her and -then sweeping the surroundings with a comprehensive -glance.</p> - -<p>“No, it isn’t an inn exactly,” replied Brooke, mischief -lurking at the corners of her eyes and mouth, -“though I’m staying here. I am the Sign of the Fox, -and this is my home! Now that you are here, pray -come in and see mother, while I make you a bouquet -from my very own garden in remembrance of the hothouse -lilies you sent us when father was first ill.”</p> - -<p>“The Sign of the Fox!—you! how do you mean?” -ejaculated Mrs. Parks, knitting her brows as if some one -had asked her to guess a conundrum. “Ah, yes, then -that was your <i>mother’s</i> fern china and her brand of tea -that we all used to rave over! Mrs. Van Kleek was -recalling it only an hour ago—by the way she’s out in -the carriage (go tell her, Johnson, that Miss Lawton -lives here and ask her to come in). But I do not yet -quite understand.”</p> - -<p>“It is this way,” explained Brooke, with an admirable -self-possession, in which diffidence and independence<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_291"></a>[291]</span> -were equally blended. “We had the farm and a bit of -money, but not quite enough to keep us; the life agrees -with father, and may cure him. If Adam and I went -away to earn more money, mother could not stay -alone. Then I tried to think what I could do or -sell here. People drive a great deal hereabouts; the -hill country makes people hungry; therefore why not -make and sell good tea and good sandwiches? And -I think that you must have found them so,” she added -archly, looking at the empty plate upon the tray that -Johnson had left on the serving table in the screened -porch.</p> - -<p>“Good! superlatively so! but why didn’t you write -me of your plan and let me exploit it and interest -our own set? for you know that they are scattered -all over these parts at some time of the year, either -for the entire season, or between times, and before and -after Newport and Europe. I would have done it with -a will, I assure you, as I shall now with a megaphone -voice, in spite of you!”</p> - -<p>“I know that you would have, Mrs. Parks, and Lucy -Dean wished to also; but what has happened, I think -you must acknowledge, is best. I wanted people to find -out for themselves, as you have done, and if they bought -my wares, to do so because they are good and they need -them, not because I sell them and desire their money. -Otherwise the sun would very soon set on the Sign of<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_292"></a>[292]</span> -the Fox, instead of apparently beginning to rise. You -know that it is the way of the world!</p> - -<p>“But tell me; how did you come upon us? merely -by chance? This must be a lucky ‘red letter day,’ for -Lucy herself is coming to visit me to-night; Adam has -already driven down to Gilead for her.”</p> - -<p>“Partly that, but chiefly because of the way the wind -blew. You see we started for Stonebridge and circled -about, not finding our mistake until we began to climb -the hill below. By that time the horses were quite -spent, and Benson would not turn back in the teeth of -the river wind.”</p> - -<p>“It’s no use, mum,” said Johnson, returning, “Mrs. -Van Kleek is sleepin’ that ’eavy and ’appy it would take -a brass band to wake her, mum,” so the two women -passed indoors, the fragrance of the lilies-of-the-valley -lingering in the air.</p> - -<p>When Mrs. Parks left, her arms full of flowers, a half-hour -had sped by; but Mrs. Van Kleek, awaking with a -jerk, was none the wiser for it, for one of Mrs. Parks’s -maxims was that it is always a mistake to apologize, save -at the pistol’s point, because it usually provokes irritation -by calling attention to things that, ten to one, would -otherwise pass unnoticed. As the victoria, following -Brooke’s advice, turned the corner toward the lower road, -they met, coming up, a fat-stomached country horse dragging -a rockaway, that pulled to the side of the narrow<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_293"></a>[293]</span> -cross-road to let them pass. In it, beside Adam, sat -Lucy Dean, while the rear seat was heaped with hand-baggage; -she waved gayly to Mrs. Parks, who would -have stopped then and there for a gossip about the afternoon’s -events, but Benson, intent on making the home -stretch, all deaf to her exclamation, kept his horses up -to the bit, and soon the river road echoed their hoof-beats.</p> - -<p>As to Mrs. Lawton, the visit, brief as it had been, did -her untold good, besides giving her no feeling save of -pleasure, thus bringing her for the second time naturally -in contact with old acquaintances, without in the least -destroying her peace of mind or making her doubt the -wisdom of having broken away from the old life.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Brooke and Lucy always met with enthusiasm; indeed, -one of the reasons for the stanch friendship of -the two being the way in which they supplemented each -other, thus allowing the character of both complete -scope, without forcing either into the lead, except in -matters conversational.</p> - -<p>“I was so surprised and pleased when I knew that -you would come, for the very evening after I wrote I saw -in the <i>Daily Forum</i> that you were starting with your -father on his car party to California. How did it happen -that you changed your mind?” asked Brooke, leading -the way to the little room next hers, for which Lucy had<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_294"></a>[294]</span> -begged, instead of the formal and unused best room -over Mr. and Mrs. Lawton’s, which some day was to be -beautified, but at present harboured the dreadful black -walnut furniture moved from below, in addition to smelling -of wood soot and wasps.</p> - -<p>Lucy threw herself into the arms of a fat rocking-chair -that was covered with a cheerful bird-of-paradise chintz, -and rumpled her hair back from her forehead before she -answered. So long was she about it that Brooke looked -toward her apprehensively, fearing that the trip might -have given her a headache; then she noticed that -Lucy really looked tired, and that there was a lack of -colour in her cheeks for which car soot could not wholly -account.</p> - -<p>“I did expect to go, and had planned out a delightful -group of people for the trip, which, aside from pleasure -as a side issue, was to explore and exploit a new bit of -country that father thinks needs a railroad, and help -convince his friends of that fact.</p> - -<p>“<i>The Forum</i> offered to send Tom Brownell as the -newspaper man of the trip, besides which two or three -others we had chosen are always excellent fun, and Mrs. -Parks was to be chaperon, at which she is a perfect -success. She has the knack of always being on the -spot, in case any one needs to prove or disprove an -alibi, yet at the same time is totally oblivious; so Mrs. -Grundy never has a chance to say a word, and every -one is happy.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_295"></a>[295]</span></p> - -<p>“Did you turn your back on such attractions to come -to us?” said Brooke, deeply touched. Her feeling -showed plainly in the look she gave Lucy, as after unpacking -her friend’s toilet things, she had dipped a sponge -in warm water, and kneeling by her, began to bathe her -forehead and eyes as gently as if Lucy had been a tired -little child.</p> - -<p>Lucy closed her eyes and gave a sigh of content at -the touch of Brooke’s fingers, but in a second opened -them again, and looking straight at Brooke, replied: -“No, I won’t let you quite think that, though you know -that I love to be with you and your mother. Some of -the party turned their backs on me; first, Tom Brownell -had himself replaced (I made sure through Charlie -that it was his own doing) by a young westerner who, -he said, ‘knew the local ropes’ better, and would be of -greater advantage to the prospectors. Next Mrs. Parks -decided that as <i>the</i> baby was teething she could not leave -him for so long, in spite of having a separate maid for -his head, hands, and feet, besides a trained nurse in -perpetual residence.</p> - -<p>“Then father suggested that little Mrs. Morton be -invited in Mrs. Parks’s place. You must remember -her,—the Hendersons’ cousin, a pretty, subdued little -widow of about thirty, who puts people’s houses in -order and sees to the curtains and other interior decorations. -She always looks as if she’d been cut out for a<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_296"></a>[296]</span> -good time, but fate has been rough to her, and though -she is working hard to get used to it, a merry devil -will look out of her eyes in spite of herself.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, yes, I remember. She redecorated your house -as a surprise for you the season we were abroad, I -believe,” said Brooke, sudden illumination coming to -her, for it had been openly whispered, early in the -season, that Mr. Dean was ardently, if maturely, in -love with Mrs. Morton, but that the little lady’s -peace-loving nature and hardly won independence, -coupled with a fear of Lucy and her sharp tongue, -stood firmly in the way of a very comfortable and -suitable match.</p> - -<p>“Yes, and father wished it done over again this winter, -but I absolutely refused to be routed out in cold -weather. Now I’d heard, as I know you have by your -face, Miss Simplicity, that father was supposed to wish -to marry the lady long ago, but that she was afraid of -me. At first it pleased me to have her afraid; I revelled -in it, also I thought that the idea would wear off with -father.</p> - -<p>“Lately I’ve changed my mind, and I think life is too -good to live it alone, and that everybody ought to marry -any one they wish to, provided the person does not have -fits or inherit consumption. Then I went to father -and told him so, and he was so pleased that he nearly -made me cry, for though he always said that I was<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_297"></a>[297]</span> -everything to him, it wasn’t quite true it seems; and he -said that some day I would find out that he was not -quite everything to me, and oh, Brooke, I really think -I should like to!”</p> - -<p>Brooke, who was still kneeling by Lucy, put her arms -around her, and the two women, each having felt the -mysterious throb of the woman heart that made them -kin, rested a moment cheek to cheek.</p> - -<p>Lucy recovered first, and shaking off the tender mood, -tossed her head, the usual bravado returning to eye and -lip as she said: “Next, I went to see Mrs. Morton and -told her that so far as I was concerned the coast was -clear, that I bore no malice, and that I hoped she -and father would have a jolly old age (she is only six -years older than I); but that I simply could not go on -the car trip with them, though I would thank her not -to announce it until after the start.</p> - -<p>“She—well, she is a good sort, and I guess we understand -each other, for she looked me straight in the face -and said she hoped she’d have a chance some day to -stand by me in return, and she didn’t slop over or call -me ‘dear daughter,’ or say she’d be a mother to me, for -any grown woman knows that there is only one who can -be that.</p> - -<p>“Consequently society and Charlie Ashton think -that I’m speeding to California, while in reality I’ve -flown to you for protection against the blues, and I want<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_298"></a>[298]</span> -to stay a month if you will let me cook and do everything -as you do—it is what I need. Who knows but -I might turn farmer, or try love in a cottage myself -some day.”</p> - -<p>“A month, Lucy! oh, how good!” cried Brooke. -“Yes, you shall do as we do,—you’ll really have to if -business rushes as it has since we began,—but I’m -afraid you will find it very dull, unless your fate dashes -up in an automobile.”</p> - -<p>“Dull! not a bit of it! Why, if I feel my flirting -ability growing rusty, I can practise on the Cub’s -elderly paragon, Mr. Stead, or try archaic sentiment on -your big farmer man to console him for the sweetheart -who has not yet materialized. From your ardent -written descriptions of the landscapes about here, and -the important places he always fills in them, it seems -to me that he must be at least a straying Walther or -a prince in disguise, seeking to be loved for himself -alone.”</p> - -<p>“Mr. Stead will probably be down to-night, so that -you need lose no time in beginning,” Brooke made -answer, flushing hotly. “We four have been playing -whist a good deal, lately, and as I am not passionately -fond of it, you shall take my hand. I think that you and -he will prove pretty evenly matched in most things. -As to my farmer, as you absurdly call him, you had -better leave him alone,—it’s not worth while,—he<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_299"></a>[299]</span> -might misunderstand, take you in earnest, and embarrass -you.” Whereupon, after making the most -cutting speech that Lucy had ever heard from her -tongue, she turned about and went quietly downstairs, -saying something about hurrying supper, as Lucy must -be hungry as well as tired.</p> - -<p>A new idea came to Lucy, born of her own teasing -words, spoken wholly at random and in jest, and of -Brooke’s flushing. She had always thought Brooke -wholly an idealist in affairs of the heart, and that whatever -emotion she had ever been able to detect had been -brought out by the artist Lorenz during their Paris -sojourn. When it had apparently ended in naught -she had been both disappointed and glad, the latter -especially after Adam Lawton’s failure, for after this -she had desired Brooke, through matrimony, again to -have the luxury and chance to enjoy her art that she -thought her friend deserved.</p> - -<p>When Charlie Ashton had drawn her attention to the -resemblance to Brooke in the picture, “Eucharistia,” -she had expected developments, but now that nearly six -months had passed she regarded the thing as a mere -artistic coincidence, the lingering in the man’s memory, -perhaps, of a face for which he doubtless had a passing -fancy.</p> - -<p>Now a tangible possibility in the shape of Stead came -into the foreground. Though Lucy had not seen the<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_300"></a>[300]</span> -man, the Cub had given him a glowing recommendation. -As to his age,—Lucy was a woman of experience,—fifty -might mean many things, fatherly or otherwise, and the -life of leisure he led implied that he had some independent -property. Was he not always much at the -house, and were not his books and various offerings -scattered about everywhere, even at her first visit? -Brooke had written of horseback rides in his company. -Surely he did not come alone out of respect for Mrs. -Lawton or anxiety about the Cub’s lessons. Why -had Brooke blushed and been so resentful?</p> - -<p>Lucy sprang up, and seizing a brush, began to work -at her hair with a will, until the colour returned to her -cheeks and the glossy dark locks wreathed her crown -in a way to add a fascinating air of maturity to her arch -face. Then, picking out the most dashing waist she -had brought, having merely chosen her plainest clothing, -she adjusted it over a long, flowing skirt and stood surveying -herself for a moment, saying half aloud, “I will -look at Milor Stead, widower; if he is a good possession -for little Brooke, so be it, I stand aside; if not, I interfere!” -and then a softened expression followed the one -that Brooke’s semi-challenge had called forth, and she -added, with a sigh, “How I wish Brooke could have -some one’s whole, first, fresh love, be he rich or poor! -She would keep it and live and die for it, and not mar -it with a selfish thought. I wonder if Charlie is right<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_301"></a>[301]</span> -and that Tom Brownell is trying to avoid me? Bah! -but it is really a handicap for a woman to have a rich -father; the money lures those she dislikes, and gives the -others blind staggers, and they bolt in the wrong -direction.”</p> - -<p>Two minutes later, Lucy, wholly radiant, was pushing -Adam Lawton’s chair in to supper, and insisting that -she was sure that he recognized her, even though he -could not speak her name, while the Cub changed seats -so as to be next her at table, and Pam insisted upon -sharing the somewhat narrow chair by wedging herself -between Lucy and the straight, high back.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_302"></a>[302]</span></p> - -<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XVII">CHAPTER XVII<br /> -<span class="smaller">LOCKS AND KEYS</span></h2> - -</div> - -<p>Ten days passed, and June was urging the growth -of flower and leaf with ardent breath. Even in the -hill country, with its cool nights and winds that rush -down the river valley, the days were sultry, and August -lent her younger sister electric batteries for her relief; -and almost every afternoon the soft, rounded summer -clouds that seemed to flock about Windy Hill, like -pasturing sheep, were put to flight by the dun-edged -thunder scud with its whips of lightning.</p> - -<p>Robert Stead had now gone his way to the north-west -at his friend’s request, the work indoors and out -had settled with an even and soothing monotony over -the West farm, while the Sign of the Fox and its fame -were already relieving Brooke’s anxiety as to the immediate -future.</p> - -<p>As Lucy paced to and fro along the neatly gravelled -walks of the old-fashioned garden, where the Cub was -engaged in “brushing” the long line of sweet peas, a -vocation requiring a knack that he did not possess, -it seemed to her that two months, instead of two<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_303"></a>[303]</span> -weeks, had passed since her coming. Not that she -was in any way bored or discontented, rather did it -seem as if she had always been a part of the household -and living her normal life, while the revelation, -indoors and out, of work done by personal service, -instead of by money proxy, had given her active brain -much food for thought of a new though baffling order.</p> - -<p>In many other ways also did Lucy feel herself baffled. -Upon Robert Stead she had failed to make the slightest -impression, either during the half-dozen calls he had -made at the farm, or upon a ride she had taken in his -company to his lodge on Windy Hill, when he had -invited Mrs. Lawton and Brooke to see his garden -and some prints of old masters that they had been -discussing. The Cub being busy, Brooke had driven -her mother in the buggy with old Billy, and Stead, -who had ridden down with an extra saddle-horse in -tow, had accompanied Lucy back.</p> - -<p>Not that he was discourteous; quite the contrary. He -was the polished man of the world, always polite, with -a pretty compliment, too well-rounded for spontaneity, -upon his lips and plenty of intelligent conversation, -as well as chink-filling small talk that prevented dangerous -pauses, yet withal he was inscrutable.</p> - -<p>Hardly less so did Lucy find Brooke herself; perfectly -free and frank in their daily intercourse, yet she neither -offered nor asked special confidence. She brightened<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_304"></a>[304]</span> -with all the charm of a born hostess when Stead came, -and he gravitated toward her as naturally; yet when -he left, even for six weeks’ stay, she exhibited no sign -of loneliness and threw herself into her play, which -she called the few hours she seized for painting, with -fresh vigour, either working in the old carpenter’s -shop, that by opening a trap door above had a fine -north light, or going into the open fields to use Enoch -Fenton’s colts, sheep, or oxen as studies.</p> - -<p>It was not strange, however, that Lucy could not -fathom the mind of either maid or man, for did they -really know themselves? Stead was experiencing the -conscious coming of a second youth, even before he was -more than in the full vigour of middle life. The period -of torpor through which he had passed was much like -the indifference and languid, brooding time of adolescence -before the bite of motive and passion awakens -body and brain and clears the vision; and it was Brooke -who blamelessly had brought all this to pass, Brooke, -with her heroism of womanhood that was none the -less subtle and acute because of its elusiveness.</p> - -<p>Robert Stead loved her as a man loves but once, -no matter how often he may marry, but this second -passion was so different in its elements from the first -that he did not recognize it as such, and consequently, -unchecked, it doubled its hold, even while Lucy was -unable to put two and two together, and piece a single -palpable symptom.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_305"></a>[305]</span></p> - -<p>In a state of rebellion bordering on disgust, Lucy, -who heretofore had been the sort of woman that had -usually obtained anything for which she had cared to -try, and much for which she had not striven, turned -her attention to the farmer-on-shares,—Walther, as -she called him, who was undoubtedly a most filling -and picturesque figure in the perfect series of pictures -that grouped themselves between the homestead and -the Moosatuk,—to find him not only difficult but -impossible of approach, and try as she might, she -had not yet succeeded in exchanging a word with him. -At the same time many of his doings puzzled her, -for though he was entirely his own master, by the -very nature of the half-and-half agreement, and had -nothing to do with the home garden or aught else -about the place, his whole desire seemed to be of use -and to serve its occupants, though unobtrusively.</p> - -<p>It had been only a few mornings after her arrival -that Lucy, just at dawn, looking out of one of her -windows (which overlooked the back of the house, -Brooke’s having wholly a river view), discovered the -big fellow setting out a quantity of seedling asters, -a task that Brooke had begun the afternoon before, -and darkness had stopped when half accomplished. -Did Brooke know of it, she wondered.</p> - -<p>Again, at the same hour, she saw him, hands encased -in great leather mittens, uprooting the vigorous poison<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_306"></a>[306]</span> -ivy and tearing it from the pasture fences, and at -once she remembered that Brooke bore the crusty -burn of contact with it on one hand.</p> - -<p>The Cub now and again remarked that Maarten -was a brick and helped him out of lots of tight corners, -without even a hint being given, and Lucy wondered -if Brooke saw or understood; apparently she did -neither, and yet the very day after the Cub had thrown -down his armful of pea-brush in disgust at the tottering, -inebriate line that rewarded his best efforts, the brush -appeared all set in place, standing like an evenly trimmed -hedge, attractive in its neatness, aside from the crop -of fragrant promise that already was beginning to -finger the support clingingly with its tendrils.</p> - -<p>But how was it with Brooke herself? If it is true -that filial love or work in sufficiency can fill life to the -brim, then hers was full to overflowing; yet this is not -all,—work, to be the heaven it may be at its best, -demands that the heart be satisfied.</p> - -<p>Lorenz she had known less as a man than as an -idealist, and it was this side of his nature that she loved, -together with his respectful yet truth-speaking attitude. -Then came the mystic picture, bringing with it to fan -the naturally kindled flame the knowledge that he -remembered! No further word had come from him -since the verse of Sisyphus that she had answered -merely by a spray of arbutus blossom, the New England<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_307"></a>[307]</span> -flower of spring hope, shining through melting -snow. Could he interpret it? Perhaps not.</p> - -<p>Sometimes a sense of the unreality of it all and the -dream stuff it was made of came over Brooke, and -she wondered if the spell would hold or if the separation -was not more sweet than the reality; but this -mood never lasted long.</p> - -<p>Of the patient service of the farmer-on-shares she -could no longer be ignorant, nor of the fact that he drew -her eyes toward the landscape of which he had come -to be an inseparable part. Unwittingly she found -herself watching him day by day, though usually as a -mere speck in the distance. At such times she was -bewildered, and trembled at herself. Was it the poise -of his head, and an occasional gesture as he stepped -back to look at something that he had done, that reminded -her of Lorenz and confused the two identities -for the moment, or had the strain of the long winter -of struggling warped her brain?</p> - -<p>Brooke was no analyst who had made the mental -dissipation of the dissection of motives take the place -of natural emotion. The ideal of her nature had its -outlet; why not then the real? It was the natural -man in Maarten that drew her, something beneath -the surface, obliterating the bands of caste and the -social grades that divided their normal positions, -though for that, except for her father’s disastrous city<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_308"></a>[308]</span> -career, she was equally born a child of the soil and -its heredities.</p> - -<p>She avoided the hay-fields, now swept by the June -snow-storm of daisies, and in spite of success and her -friend’s companionship, was truly miserable for the -first time, for she could neither understand nor throw -off the spell she felt upon her. Self-respect is not -oblivion, and is but a chilly comforter for youth.</p> - -<p>The frequent thunder-showers had forced a new -necessity upon the Sign of the Fox. An open shed -at least must be had to protect vehicles that needed -cover, while their occupants were sheltered by either -screened porch or welcomed in the neat kitchen itself; -so that an old lumber room in the cow barn had been -cleared, and furnished with rings for tying up, the drivers -upon the upper road being chiefly of horses; for the -chauffeur avoided the steep, uneven hills, which jarred -the constitution of the car of Juggernaut unpleasantly, -even in the downward trip.</p> - -<p>It chanced a little before this time that a party of -young fellows, headed by Charlie Ashton, in his big -Mercedes touring car, built for long-distance runs, had -started for Gordon, where they were in demand for -a tennis tournament. Ashton’s chauffeur turning ill -and unfit at the last moment, they had beat about, -and discussed the possibility of substituting one of their -number for the professional, as they all had more or<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_309"></a>[309]</span> -less experience; and the lot had fallen to Tom Brownell, -who had joined the party for a brief vacation, at the end -of which he was to take the position of city editor of -the <i>Daily Forum</i>, a well-earned promotion for which -his gift of discerning the true from the merely sensational -peculiarly fitted him.</p> - -<p>Brownell knew from Ashton that the Lawtons were -located somewhere on the route they were to take, -and ever since his first maladroit interview with Brooke -he had desired to be of some service to her, that should -atone for his blunder.</p> - -<p>The pair of keys on which he had stepped that day -in leaving the apartment had always remained, as it -were, before his eyes, and after learning all possible -details of the Lawton failure from many sources, he felt -doubly convinced that, if these keys were placed, they -might solve at least one of the many questions unanswered -because of Mr. Lawton’s illness. He had -therefore asked Lucy Dean to get them if possible—which -she had done.</p> - -<p>Two months of following the faint trail furnished -by two thin keys merely bearing numbers but not even -the initials of their makers, had at last brought about -a certain result which might or might not be satisfactory, -but at least warranted him in seeing Brooke, and telling -her of his progress; and this was one of his many motives -of touring to Gordon.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_310"></a>[310]</span></p> - -<p>He knew, from Lucy herself, that the Lawtons were -located in the vicinity of Gilead, and inquired the nearest -way to the homestead, when they reached the village -late in the afternoon. On learning that it was on -the hill road, and as the machine he was driving had -had two temper fits within the hour, Brownell side-tracked -it in a pleasant spot on the lower road, and -leaving his companions to spend an hour with their -pipes and the liquid remains of their luncheon, he -started afoot up the cross-road.</p> - -<p>There had been many people stopping for tea at -the Sign of the Fox that afternoon; in fact, the last -trap was only leaving as Brownell turned the corner, -being that of Mrs. Parks, who dined at eight on purpose -to have the sunset hours for driving,—a performance -that the Senator could not understand.</p> - -<p>Brownell hesitated a moment, as many others had -done, as to which door, front or side, was the more -direct entrance, and deciding upon the latter, turned -the corner of the house and took the cobbled path -that ran between the prim box bushes toward the kitchen -door. As he passed under the window of the little -library, the sound of a voice inside made him stop as -abruptly as if a detaining hand had been laid on his -shoulder. “They are at Coronado,—the engagement -is announced,—they are to be married immediately, -and instead of coming home with the party<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_311"></a>[311]</span> -go on to Vancouver and Alaska. Father can no longer -be my all in all, yet there is no one to take his place!” -were the words the voice uttered deliberately, with an -accent half mocking, yet with an undercurrent of sadness -to one who understood.</p> - -<p>Standing on tiptoe for one brief moment, Brownell -saw Lucy Dean’s clear-cut face through the shielding -vines; it was turned away from the window, and she -continued speaking to some one whom he could not see, -but easily divined was Brooke herself.</p> - -<p>Recovering his power of motion as quickly as he -had lost it, Brownell darted down the lane toward -the barn, and opening the door of the first outbuilding -that he reached, sprang in, closing it quickly behind -him with a heedless bang, in all the guilty trepidation -of some peeping Tom in fear of justice. In reality -the being that Brownell most feared at that moment -was himself, as rendered illogical, helpless, and oblivious -of even the carefully planned work of his life, when in -close proximity to Lucy Dean. If she turned and saw -him, he knew himself lost, so that immediate flight was -the only hope left.</p> - -<p>From the moment he had first met her Brownell had -admired her stanch friendship for Brooke, while her -buoyant and frank audacity had soon fairly swept -him off his feet. He had gone to the Dean house many -times, it is true, half because not to do so would have<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_312"></a>[312]</span> -been brutally rude, half fluttering, moth-in-the-candle -fashion and courting a singeing, until in the close -companionship of the six weeks’ journey that had -been proposed, he saw that he would not only be at bay, -but completely at the mercy of that most uncertain -of quantities, the motherless daughter of an influential -and wealthy man.</p> - -<p>As an institution he had no quarrel with matrimony,—simply -it had no place at present in his somewhat -altruistic plan of work. He did not wish either to -love or to marry; to see Lucy had cast him into the -former state, and caused matrimony to fill the entire -vista.</p> - -<p>What had he to offer—that is, financially? Even -with his promotion he could little more than compete -with her father’s <i>chef</i>. Of himself he had but an indifferent -opinion, which was unwise, merely his ambitions -were so far ahead of his achievements that he measured -his shortcomings by the discrepancy.</p> - -<p>That Lucy delighted to compete with him in a sort -of game that Brooke had called “truth telling” he -knew, also that in some way he seemed to stimulate -her wit; but that there was a grain of sentiment in -her practical, and what people thought somewhat hard, -nature, he never for a moment dreamed. Therefore, -knowing that if he saw her often the moment would -come when from his own standpoint he must become<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_313"></a>[313]</span> -ridiculous in her eyes, he had escaped from the overland -trip, as he now sought to escape the sudden and -unexpected meeting by flight.</p> - -<p>It would soon be dusk, and he could slip back to his -companions unseen, make some easy excuse for not -having called, and tell Brooke of his partial discovery -by letter. This flashed through his mind as the door -closed. At the same time he looked about the building -that he had entered, to see if it had another exit, and -discovered it to be a poultry house, the well-white-washed -perches of which were crowded by mature, -experienced hens, each wing-capped for the night. -In the uncertain light he made a misstep on the uneven -ground, compounded of ashes and broken lime, that -formed the floor, which sent him reeling into the midst of -the feathered multitude, and as he grasped a perch -to save himself from rolling in the dust, he shook off -the portly sleepers. A perfect babel of hen alarm -arose as the frightened ladies flew in his face and -lodged on his arms and shoulders in their useless flight.</p> - -<p>“Be still,” he called in a husky voice; “for heaven’s -sake don’t raise such a devil of a row—they will take -me for a rat or a weasel at the very least, and set the -dogs on me,” and then he laughed when he realized -upon what unintelligent scatterbrains his words had -fallen. The windows, all too small for retreat, were -also netted. There was but one door, so finally, getting<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_314"></a>[314]</span> -his bearings, he made a dive for that, only to find it -firmly fastened by Miss Keith’s anti-chicken-thief -spring lock! They say love laughs at locksmiths, but -bitter satire! when before had the device of one of the -craft imprisoned a man flying love, in a fowl house?</p> - -<p>Folding his arms, with shoulders squared and jaw -set, Brownell waited. Already he heard the barking -of a dog, women’s voices, and steps upon the porch of -the house. Could any position be more preposterous?</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Lucy had finished reading her letter, and stood in -the porch, watching a catbird’s fantastic wooing as -it paused in the midst of an impassioned song to jeer, -expostulate, coax, and protest all in a breath, now -raising itself tiptoe on an ecstatic high note, and then -languishing until it seemed to melt into the bushes. -Every other bird loses self-consciousness and pours -his heart out in the love time, the catbird never; and -yet its compelling fascination lies in that it is always -itself.</p> - -<p>Lucy laughed softly as she watched the feathered -pair, and said to Tatters, who stood beside her, “Do -you know, old fellow, I think if any one wooes me, he -will have to do it all in a breath, and after hypnotizing -me by his rattling, like that bird yonder, secure -my hand and heart before I wake. How I wish I -were that lady bird this very minute, having all this<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_315"></a>[315]</span> -fuss made for me, and sitting perfectly composed in -a bush without a thought to spare for my trousseau!”</p> - -<p>Tatters’ answer was a low growl, and then a series -of quick barks as the hubbub in the hennery began.</p> - -<p>“I think something is stirring up your poultry; -shall I go and see?” Lucy called, going around under -Brooke’s window, for the latter had gone up to rest -a few moments after a tiresome afternoon.</p> - -<p>“I guess the hens have only fallen off their perches, -and are frightened,” Brooke answered, coming to the -window; “they often do, the sillies. It cannot be rats -or weasels, for that is not Tatters’ animal bark,—that -tone means a man, and no one would be so foolish -as to come prowling before dark.”</p> - -<p>Lucy continued to watch the catbird, but on the -noise recommencing, Tatters growled again, and leaving -the porch, nose to ground, skirted the library window, -went to the gate, returned, stood under the window -for a second with bristling hair, and then, leading -straight to the fowl house, began tearing at the door.</p> - -<p>Interested in his tactics, and thinking the intruder -nothing worse than a prowling cat, Lucy threw the -skirt of her flowered dimity over her arm and crossed -the garden to the lane.</p> - -<p>“Quiet, Tatters, quiet!” she cautioned, patting -his head; “you must let me attend to this; dogs are -not allowed in fowl houses, they have been known to<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_316"></a>[316]</span> -produce heart disease in susceptible young pullets. -Sit down and watch out!”</p> - -<p>Touching the spring, she released the latch, and -opening the door cautiously, lest any fowls escape, -she peered in, thus coming instantly face to face with -the caged man! The shock for a moment made her -lose her poise, and she almost tottered as she cried, -“Tom Brownell!”</p> - -<p>At the same time Tatters, seeing the strange man, -sprang forward, and to keep him back Lucy stepped -inside the sill-less door; his weight as he sprung closed -it with a snap, making her in turn a prisoner.</p> - -<p>“I thought you were in New York! What are you -doing here?” she flashed, regaining her poise and -colour at the same time.</p> - -<p>“And I thought that you were in California,” retorted -Brownell, carelessly, hands in pockets, holding -sentiment down hard.</p> - -<p>“Then you did not come here to see me?”</p> - -<p>“On the contrary, I came to see Miss Lawton! -Are you usually to be found in chicken houses?”</p> - -<p>“Ah, she <i>is</i>, then? Suppose, as we must put up -with each other’s society until Tatters leads Brooke -to our rescue, that we play the truth game to kill time,—you -know that truth can be trusted to kill almost -anything nowadays; I will ask the first question. Did -you give up the California trip because you wished to -avoid me?”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_317"></a>[317]</span></p> - -<p>“Yes, but not in exactly the way—Yes, I did,” -this with an emphatic nod.</p> - -<p>“It is my turn. Why did you not go to California?”</p> - -<p>“Because—because—” and the eloquent Lucy -became suddenly tongue-tied.</p> - -<p>“Because of a prospective stepmother, was it not?” -assisted Brownell, feeling an instant warmth about -his heart, as her defiance relaxed.</p> - -<p>“No, it was because you were not going—that is, -because my feelings, my pride, were hurt,” and again -she raised her head with a defiant glance, adding -hastily, “Now my turn. Why did you wish to see -Brooke, and if you came to see her, why are you found -hiding in the fowl house?”</p> - -<p>“I came because I have learned something about -those mysterious keys. They belong to a box in a -little-known safe deposit company in Brooklyn, and -the name of the lessee is not Lawton; further, they -would not tell me, nor can I go on without some aid -from the family. Does this errand meet with your -approval?”</p> - -<p>“Then the keys do belong to something! Come -quick, Brooke, let us out and hear the news!” called -Lucy, pounding on the door; but no response came,—only -a growl, not from Tatters, but from the unseen -thunder-shower that was, as usual, making its way -over Windy Hill.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_318"></a>[318]</span></p> - -<p>“As to your last question,” continued Brownell, -without heeding the interruption, “I was passing a -window on the way to the side door when I heard -a familiar voice reading a letter. One look confirmed -my suspicion, and, like a wise brute in danger, I made -for the nearest cover, not expecting to be made a -prisoner, but to get off unseen!”</p> - -<p>“Why do you avoid me? What have I done to -make you hate me so?” Lucy almost whispered, -a little break creeping into her voice that made Brownell -start forward.</p> - -<p>“Why? Because a sane man usually avoids a danger -of which he has had many warnings. Don’t look at -me like that, Lucy, and for God’s sake take your hand -off my shoulder, or you’ll make me forget my self-respect -and let myself go, only to be mocked by a -woman!”</p> - -<p>But Lucy did not move her eyes or her hand, while -its mate stole to his other shoulder.</p> - -<p>“Talking of self-respect,” she said slowly, but with -an indescribable tender archness of accent, “why -do you wish to make me lose mine by forcing me to -throw myself into your arms? See, I am braver than -you, I do not fear to be mocked by a man!”</p> - -<p>“Lucy!”</p> - -<p>“Tom!”</p> - -<p>Those were the only two intelligible words of the<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_319"></a>[319]</span> -rush that followed, but even the catbird in the syringa -bush, had his eye and ear been turned that way, might -have taken a lesson in rapid and complete wooing -and winning.</p> - -<p>A patter of rain on the roof, another growl, and a -flash caused Brooke to hasten out to the porch to -look for her friend, while Tatters still barked and -clawed at the door of the poultry house. Opening -the door, she spied Lucy, who, for the moment, had -pushed Brownell into the darkness behind her.</p> - -<p>“So you looked for cats and weasels, and the door -slammed on you!” she cried, dragging Lucy out by -the wrist, and brushing away the whitewash that -powdered her dark hair. “Hurry back to the house, -for you know that neither one of us has a love of -thunder-storms!”</p> - -<p>“You were right, Brooke, it was not Tatters’ animal -bark,—it was a man that frightened the fowls,” -answered Lucy, still holding back.</p> - -<p>“A man! Then why do you stay out here in the -dusk? Who was it? You are laughing,—it must -have been Adam playing a trick on us!”</p> - -<p>“Adam! Oh, no, it is the man I am going to marry! -Brooke Lawton—Tom Brownell! I believe, by the -way, you have never before been properly introduced!” -and the next flash saw three figures, followed by a joyous -dog, scudding toward the house under a burst of rain.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_320"></a>[320]</span></p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>While the storm raged it was impossible either for -Brownell to regain his companions or to communicate -with them in any way, while the probabilities pointed -to the chance of their having returned to Bisbee’s stable -for shelter at the first signs of the storm.</p> - -<p>At the supper table Lucy’s radiance was so dazzling -that no one could pretend to ignore it. The Cub, -to whom Brownell was of course a stranger, was inclined -to be resentful and clumsily sarcastic, but as the elder -man had both tact and magnetism, he speedily concluded -that it was better to have a new friend than -an unnecessary enemy. Mrs. Lawton and Miss Keith -were made partakers of the news by mere inference -before the formal words were spoken, and Brownell -at once became a friend of the family, even before -the matter of the keys and his diligence in their interest -came up. Brownell took the bits of metal from his -pocket and laid them on the table beside him, as he -told of his idea that, being paired and of the type -that is used by safety-vault companies, they might in -some way be connected with the personal belongings -of Mrs. Lawton and Brooke; how that by chance he -had seen keys of a similar pattern in the pocket of -a friend, but, in locating the company, had found the -name given by the man renting the box to be West -and not Lawton!</p> - -<p>“That was grandmother’s maiden name, and this<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_321"></a>[321]</span> -is the West homestead,” said Brooke, in a tense whisper. -“The keys must have something to do with father and -all of us, if we can only fathom how!”</p> - -<p>“If West is a family name, the rest must unravel -in time,” said Brownell, looking eagerly toward Adam -Lawton, who, sitting as usual in his wheel-chair at -the foot of the table, had turned slightly toward the -young man, idly fingering the keys, his eyes fixed on -the distance.</p> - -<p>The circular storm, that had veered off for a time, -now returned with renewed fury. Pam jumped into -Lucy’s lap and hid her head under the table-cloth. -Miss Keith fled to her room and bounced into the -middle of her feather-bed, to “keep her feet off the -floor,” as she said. Lucy held Tom tightly by the hand, -while even Mrs. Lawton and Brooke grew pale and -the Cub feigned an indifference that he was far from -feeling, for the effect of the air charged with electricity -was palpable and not to be ignored.</p> - -<p>There came a moment when a series of explosions -followed one another like pistol shots, next a scathing -flash and a deafening report, and at the same instant -a sound of ripping and tearing in front of the house, -while a sulphurous odour filled the room.</p> - -<p>Tatters, who was huddled close to Brooke, raised -his head and gave a weird howl, and for a moment -no one had either power of speech or motion.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_322"></a>[322]</span></p> - -<p>Brownell was the first to recover, and going quickly -to the front door, he threw it open and looked out -The giant button-ball inside the fence was split from -crown to trunk, and great twisted splinters littered the -short grass; but the old pine, holding the Sign of the -Fox upon one of its gnarled arms, stood safe and intact -like a good omen.</p> - -<p>“Look at father!” were Brooke’s first words, spoken -as Brownell returned, and the entire group about -the table watched him in wonder.</p> - -<p>At the flash his eyes had closed and a tremor passed -over him, but when he opened them again, a new intelligence -was there. Slowly he looked about; then, -noticing the keys, that had remained between his -fingers, he clasped them tightly with an exclamation -of satisfaction, and, turning toward his wife, who had -drawn close to his chair, said slowly, with perfect -articulation, yet hesitatingly, as if each word suggested -its neighbour: “Mela, here are those keys of the -new box that I hired to-day to hold your little belongings. -I—seem—to—have—dreamed—that I—lost—them! -I may have a business ordeal—to go through—and -what little belongs to you—and—daughter -must be put apart—in—safety. I took—this—in -the name—of Adam West, and to-morrow Brooke -must go—also—to be recognized—Where am I? -how—did I come here at the old home?” Slipping<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_323"></a>[323]</span> -from her chair, Brooke went to her mother, and gently, -each holding a hand, they wheeled the chair back to -the familiar bedroom, so that neither place nor people -should cause the return of memory to rush too swiftly -and overtax itself. Brooke left her father and mother -together there, and going to the library, wrote a brief -note to Dr. Russell, asking his guidance in this new -crisis that might mean so much or so little.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_324"></a>[324]</span></p> - -<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XVIII">CHAPTER XVIII<br /> -<span class="smaller">THE RETURN OF MEMORY</span></h2> - -</div> - -<p>Of the household at the homestead, one heart sank -instead of rejoicing, at the first sign of the return of -memory to Adam Lawton. This one bumped painfully -in the chest of the Cub, as, leaving the room unnoticed, -with face pale as it had not been for months, -and unheeding the flapping sheets of rain that smote -and enveloped at the same moment, he fled to the -barn and threw himself with head buried in his arms -on the dwindling haymow that had once sheltered the -little fox.</p> - -<p>Poor Cub, with the first perfectly lucid utterance of -his father all the old cringing dread had returned, and -his manhood again struggled with the fear that he had -believed dead. This, also, after five months of proving -the stuff of which he was made by bitter, patient toil, -until day by day the warring elements were adjusting, -the jangling grew fainter, and at each hammer touch of -experience the metal rang more true. If Adam Lawton -could have realized this, and seen his boy with unbiassed -clearness, the loss of money and life itself would have<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_325"></a>[325]</span> -been nothing to the bitterness that would have come -to him as the results of his arbitrary attitude.</p> - -<p>The Cub need not have trembled. Remember -whatever Adam Lawton might, a law of life had been -broken and their positions were reversed, the leader must -be led, the dictator of another’s free-born will must be -protected, gently dealt with, guarded from trouble, -loved pitywise, but never would he square his shoulders -to the world and give and take. Can worse irony of -fate come to any man who has really lived?</p> - -<p>An hour after the electric bolt had riven the plane -tree planted as a landmark by the first West, and by its -mystic influence cleared Adam Lawton’s brain, the -warm June moon, a line from full, was slowly pushed -edgewise from between the clouds and rolled slantwise -above Moosatuk, a giant coin of gold, fresh and articulate -from the mint.</p> - -<p>Lucy Dean and Tom Brownell, coming out-of-doors -the instant the storm abated, walked up and down the -cobbled path, all oblivious of the puddles between -the stones or of the dripping trees above. Brownell -had meantime entirely forgotten how he came to be -where he was, also his friends below on the river road, -whose motive power he represented for the time being, -or the fact that, as the only resting-place in Gilead for -the homeless was a “Commercial Hotel” of small -dimensions and still less visible cleanliness, it would be<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_326"></a>[326]</span> -necessary for them either to sleep in the touring car -or in Gordon.</p> - -<p>As the pair for the twentieth time reached the road -end of the path and turned again into the deep, sweet-smelling -shadows of the great box bushes, a buggy -turned the corner from the cross-road and came to a -halt by the side gate. A slender male figure in a light -suit and cap, leaping therefrom, attracted their attention, -and Brownell exclaimed, “Great Cæsar! I’ve -forgotten those wretches down below and they’ve come -for me! Now for it! right-about face, Lucy!” at the -same time by a dexterous turn of the arm catching her -about the waist; for Lucy, whose chief pride had always -been facing the music, whether necessary or not, had -started to bolt, and exhibited as charming a bit of -struggling confusion as the heart of man could desire.</p> - -<p>The moonlight struck the man’s face as he came forward. -“It’s only Charlie Ashton,” she said, freeing -herself at once, her head raised to its defiant poise; -“as he doesn’t know that I am here, it is his turn to -be surprised!”</p> - -<p>Charlie Ashton, the useful and ornamental, did not -bear a reputation for overweening brilliancy; but the -moment his eyes rested upon the pair before him, -divided though they now were by a box bush, he divined -what had happened.</p> - -<p>“So this was the plot, and the reason you thought the<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_327"></a>[327]</span> -hill would disagree with the auto, and left us to drown -all this time down on that soaking river road so that -you could meet Lucyfer alone,” he cried, seizing Brownell -by the hand and nearly wringing it off, while he -aimed a kiss at his cousin’s cheek, in token of his approval, -which by a toss of the head landed on her chin.</p> - -<p>“On my word, Charlie, there was no plot, it was pure -accident. I never dreamed of my luck!”</p> - -<p>“Most certainly not!” interrupted Lucy; “otherwise -he would have been safe and sound in Gordon two hours -ago, instead of being engaged to me. He really came -here to tell Brooke about the keys, but circumstances -which he could not control (as he did the overland trip) -obliged him to see me first in a place hardly as airy, -though quite as secluded, as a special Pullman vestibule!”</p> - -<p>Ashton, scenting a mystery, but being too wary to -press his cousin for the clew, gave Brownell’s hand a -final wring, saying, without being in the least aware of -his play upon words, “She’s a match for you, old man, -stubborn as you are—yes, and more than a match, and -you have my profound sympathy; but do have pity on -us to-night and pilot us into Gordon, for we are damp -and hungry and sleepy, and this old plug is all I could -get at the stable. To-morrow you shall have the confounded -car for the rest of the week to return here in, -choose your passenger, and go and break down in the<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_328"></a>[328]</span> -wildest cross-road of this confounded hill country. I’ll -even give you leave to ruin a tire, or if the worst comes -to the worst, wrench the steering gear, though I hope -that won’t be necessary. Cheer up, Lucyfer, it isn’t -nine o’clock yet, and he can have a good sleep and be -back in twelve hours. I’ll go in and see the ladies a -moment while you do the finals!”</p> - -<p>“I shall write to father to-night,” Lucy said abruptly, -as the door closed upon Ashton, and Pam, who had -been waiting to get out, began bounding about her -friend, giving yelps of joy. “What do you suppose he -will say?”</p> - -<p>Brownell began to speak, then paused, setting his -teeth, and raising Lucy’s chin gently, looked steadily -in her face—“He will say one of two things, according -to his mood. Either that, resenting a stepmother, you -have thrown yourself away upon the first fellow who -chanced by; or that you have met the man who is to be, -what he could not, ‘all in all’—that you have found -your mate!”</p> - -<p>And Lucy, pale with feeling, a different pallor from -that the moonlight gives, returned his gaze fearlessly, -proudly, and from the lips that met his bitterness -vanished, while truth remained. He was indeed her -mate, her match, the first of many suitors, rich and -poor alike, who had wooed her, man to woman, without -thought or apology of money.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_329"></a>[329]</span></p> - -<p>The second day after the great storm, for such it came -to be called, its erratic course through the hill country -being blazed by lightning-splintered trees and gullied -watercourses, Dr. Russell came and with him the Lawtons’ -lawyer. Little by little the various happenings -were made clear, his situation and as far as might be his -presence at the farm explained, while, as the days went -by, slowly the jarred brain fitted the links in the chain -of memory. But Dr. Russell said truly, that Adam -Lawton’s grit and grip were broken once for all, desire -of power was dead and in its place came desire of peace. -Soon the little pottering details of the farm, despised -in youth, seemed dearer than aught else, and he would -sit for hours in his wheel-chair, training a vine or busied -with harness buckles in the barn. Nothing, however, -would induce him to allow his chair to go outside the -gate, or to drive about the country or to the village -with Adam or Brooke upon their many errands.</p> - -<p>Side-tracked though he was to many eyes, one of his -selves, the one unknown,—for most of us have two,—came -back to him through kinship with the soil; and at -his first words of pride in and praise of Adam’s usefulness, -the boy had fled away to the rick again, great sobs -tearing his throat, but in this tempest lay no dread, -and with those tears the Cub cast off his nickname and -leaped a year in manhood.</p> - -<p>Toward his wife Adam Lawton was all tenderness,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_330"></a>[330]</span> -as in the early years, and once more he called her -Mela. But instead of the protective pride of lover to -sweetheart, it was the twofold, leaning quality, that -makes some men as they age seek the mother element -in their wives and rest upon it.</p> - -<p>Before July came round the little property of Mrs. -Lawton and Brooke, together with the farm deed and -the jewels, was restored to them. In all it made an -annual sixteen hundred dollars, less by many times than -either woman had spent for clothing or the many little -luxuries and nothings that smooth and beautify the -daily life—yet for their station they had been frugal -women, though always generous.</p> - -<p>This money did not lessen Brooke’s determination or -endeavour; it simply turned striving to possibility of life -in the composite household. Neither, had the sum been -ten times what it was, would any of the three, mother, -daughter, son, have cared to give up the work and with -it motive; simply Brooke could now dream more than -day-dreams of her art. Rosius, the animal painter, had -built a studio at Gordon, and, after seeing a head that -Brooke had done of Senator Parks’s prize bull, he had -replaced his usual shrugging lethargy toward amateurs -by enthusiasm, offered to criticise her work throughout -the season, and take her as a student of animal anatomy -in his winter studio in Washington, where the models -of the Zoo would be open to her, saying, “You feel, you<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_331"></a>[331]</span> -understand, you catch the thought, the meaning in the -eyes,—this must be born, not taught, all the rest only -means much work and is learnable.”</p> - -<p>If all went well and the Sign of the Fox remained -her talisman, who knew but the fund might grow, her -father become strong enough to be house man in more -than name, Adam might have some education even if -Stead returned to work, and she herself could steal a -month or two in the dead season?—for the Parkses -would be in Washington, and both the Senator and -his wife took an interest in her work, not born of -desire to patronize.</p> - -<p>Presently Adam Lawton began to read a little and -could move slowly from porch to garden seat, steadied -by canes, and attend to many of his wants. Then one -glad day Mrs. Fenton had come down in her wheel-chair, -and by sheer force of will broke the home-staying -spell by coaxing him to drive back to a country boiled -dinner with her, saying, “Don’t you remember, Adam, -when we were boy and girl together, and I said I’d go -to your father’s barn-raising dance with whichever of -you boys could lift himself up and touch his chin to -the schoolroom door frame, three times? Some boys -couldn’t claw, and some got a grip and let go, while -some wanted boosting. You were the smallest, yet you -got a hold and lifted yourself slowlike, inch by inch, -until you got there. That’s the way now, Adam!<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_332"></a>[332]</span> -You’ve had your tumble, and naturally you’ve got to -help lift yourself!”</p> - -<p>Was it what rural folks call a good growing season, -or did love and labour brighten and sweeten the simple -garden flowers beyond their wont? Who can say? -Adam had made some corner brackets for the vine-screened -“tea room” porch, which Brooke had covered -with tufts of gray moss and coral-capped lichens, and -here every day she placed, as well as on the table, -quaint stone jugs and lustre pitchers, rescued from the -high top shelf of Grandma West’s dresser, filled them -with sweet peas, Madonna lilies, mignonette, sweet-william, -and clove pinks, and kept long sprays of sweet -syringa, lilacs, snowballs, lemon-lilies, foxgloves, larkspur, -hollyhocks, according to the season, in an old -stone churn raised upon a bench before the kitchen -window end to veil it.</p> - -<p>Not only did the garden yield its best to those who -paused for refreshment in passing by, but Brooke’s -measure of added liberty, scant though it was, gave her -a breathing time to go abroad for flowers of roadside, -wood, and the rank river meadows; and while her eyes -and hands were busy with the blossoms, her soul drank -in the beauty of the scenes beyond, her heart beat strong, -and her whole nature seemed to expand and perfect -itself in the growth and perfecting of the earth about -her.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_333"></a>[333]</span></p> - -<p>It was on the return from one of these walks through -the river meadows, arms laden with blue fleur-de-lis -and golden sundrops gathered to the tinkling music -of soaring bobolinks, that she met the postman turning -up the cross-road from the lower pike, and he begged -that she would take the mail, as he had none this -afternoon for any other on that branch and his horse -was lame.</p> - -<p>Good-naturedly she turned up a corner of her skirt -to act as mail pouch, for the papers, circulars, and -what not made quite a budget.</p> - -<p>Reaching the boundary of her land when halfway -uphill, and being wrist-cramped by the double load, -she dropped her flowers and mail, and sitting in the -shade began to sort it. Behind her was the rye field, -and the wind curling across the crisping ears, now gold-green, -made sound as of a gently rising tide on pebbled -shores, while as she leaned against the bank the bayberry, -sweet-gale, and hay ferns breathed their wild -fragrance.</p> - -<p>Oh, what a day it was! June dominance and rush -yielding to the more finished manners of July—nothing -was lacking! That is, nothing attainable; the -love of things seemed to eclipse the love of people. -Ah, no, not quite, for as she gazed idly at the letters -in her lap, her heart gave a great throb, and one square -package lurched and slid between her trembling fingers,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_334"></a>[334]</span> -for the address on it was written in Ashton’s eccentric -hand. Picking it up, she laid the others by, and -steadying herself deliberately broke the seal, for it was -sealed endwise with wax. Inside was a double-folded -piece of foreign-looking paper, but no other address or -postmark, the transit cover evidently having been torn -or soiled, and not a written word of any sort in view. -Within its folds a little square of millboard, the duplicate -of that which had borne her picture, only from this -looked forth the face of Lorenz himself, standing in -a doorway, clad in his loose blouse, palette and brush -in hand. The heavy thatch of hair shaded his forehead -deeply, the face was thinner than she remembered -it, the chin under the thick mustache more -determined, the jaw set with a depth of purpose, while -the eyes looked half away as if seeking inspiration and -yet followed her everywhere, until Brooke covered them -with her hand a moment as if to escape the too tense -gaze of a real presence.</p> - -<p>Hoofs sounded on the road, and there passed by -Enoch Fenton with his horse-rake, coming in neighbourly -fashion to help the farmer-on-shares gather up -the timothy hay from its last sunning to house it before -nightfall; to-morrow it would be turn about, according -to country lore. Seeing Brooke he stopped, and after -making the usual crop and weather epigrams, said: -“That there man of our’n is right smart and steady,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_335"></a>[335]</span> -but he hustles too much and he’s losing girth—’fore -summer’s out he’ll be slim enough to swim through an -eel run. I’ve advised him, if he’s goin’ to follow the -soil, to locate farther north, but he seems unsettled and -I reckon he’ll move on after leaf-fall,—they mostly -do, the smart ones, besides which he acts as if the girl -he’s waitin’ fer wasn’t comin’. If she don’t, she’s a -silly, for I nary seen a man with two strong hands hev -such a wise head!</p> - -<p>“Say, but you look sort of like a picter setting there -with all them posies, something like the one on the calendar -they give with the ‘Rise up bake powder’ when -you’ve bought six cans. It’s called ‘The Love Letter,’ -only the girl’s got red heels to her shoes and powered-up -hair, besides which they’d bought her too small a -pattern for her waist to piece it well up in front!</p> - -<p>“Want ter know! I bet it’s a love letter, his picter -and all, and I’m right glad on’t!” Then farmer Fenton -chirruped to his horses and went his way, laughing to -himself, and turning the tobacco from cheek to cheek -with relish, for Brooke had reddened under his banter, -and in trying to save the sliding letters in her lap had -not only dropped them, but the picture as well (which -the farmer barely saw, having no glasses). When she -stooped to gather them up, and slipped the picture -inside her blouse for safer keeping, a second shadow -crossed the road—that of Henry Maarten, following<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_336"></a>[336]</span> -the brook path to the hay-field, but if he saw her in -the sheltered bank nook he made no sign; neither did -Brooke, but huddled there among the ferns elated, disappointed, -and quite bewildered, until the sound of hoof -and wheel had died away, and she knew that both men -were well within the fence.</p> - -<p>The words that Enoch Fenton muttered as he walked, -talking to himself in lengthy monologue, after the style -of those much alone, were these: “Bob Stead! by -gosh, he’s been away a month, and what’s more likely -than he’s sent his picter and writes reglar? Anyhow, -all the women folks this side of Windy Hill and further -has planned it so, and so it’s bound to be! Besides -which our darter’s boy, Willie, was lookin’ fer wintergreen -for mother’s rheumatiz up in North Woods beyond -Stony Guzzle two months back, and he spied a couple -settin’ by the stream a-holdin’ hands and eatin’ apples. -Now if that ain’t courtin’—what is? Though it’s only -jest likely hit and miss, wife and Sairy Ann Williams -met and pieced together who they wuz. He’s a mum -sort, but that’s the kind it takes a girl to get goin’, -and he’s well set up, funds and all, though oldish! -Well, she might do worse seein’ she’s had a taste o’ -pinchin’,” and selecting a fine spear of timothy with -which to pick his teeth, Fenton reversed the rake and -mounted.</p> - -<p>Adam had written to Stead several times since his -going away, and received cheerful, though brief, replies,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_337"></a>[337]</span> -which, however, said nothing definite as to his return, -and though the time mentioned was a month, the term -might be merely nominal. All the household had -missed him in their different ways, the Cub with almost -girlish sentiment, Mrs. Lawton as a link with the state -of life that was, and Brooke chiefly because she was -entirely used to him and associated him with so much -that had given hope and eased the winter rigour, that -the friendship to her had become almost the easy -intimacy of relationship.</p> - -<p>It was an afternoon early in July that Brooke was -searching along the foot-path in the hemlock woods -above the Fenton’s for the flowers of pipsissewa, with -their wax petals and spicy wood fragrance, when the -snapping of twigs made her turn, and striding down -the hill, straight into the light, with quick, elastic step, -came Robert Stead, a new, alert expression on his well-tanned -face that wiped at least half a dozen years from -his time record.</p> - -<p>Brooke was surprised and also frankly glad. Dropping -her flowers, she held out both her hands and told -him so.</p> - -<p>“As this is the first word from you in five long weeks, -it is well that it is a kind one,” he replied. Then, -holding her off, he looked at her as if to make sure it -was she herself, and not the masquerading gypsy girl -whose image always rose and came between them when -he met her out-of-doors.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_338"></a>[338]</span></p> - -<p>“Ah, so much has happened since then! but Adam -has written it all, except perhaps that now I may hope -to go to Washington for next winter to study. That is -quite far off, however, so tell me about yourself, also -how working has agreed with you!” she added mischievously.</p> - -<p>“Work! They tell the truth—those that call it the -master-word that unlocks all barriers! Child, child, -do you know what you have done for me by acting and -teaching it, so that now to me life, that was ended -(as far as joy is life), has but begun?</p> - -<p>“Not only the desire for work, but the motive, came -from you—is you! You have the magic crystal of -youth, I hold anew the power to shield it; you have -the fire of genius, I the fuel to feed its flame! Come -to me, Brooke; with you only I can forget, forgive! -Redeem the past for me!”</p> - -<p>As he paused with arms extended, Brooke shrank -backward against the trunk of a great hemlock, bewildered, -dizzy almost, by the sudden fierceness of his -passion, confounded by the meaning that now banished -what was friendship. She moistened her lips -nervously and tried to speak, but found no words.</p> - -<p>Hardly noticing her silence, he swept on: “Listen, -and you will believe that I know love at last. Ever -since the day I met you by the trout stream, I have -understood how Helen could give up all to save her<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_339"></a>[339]</span> -lover. Why do you shrink? Is it all too sudden, my -rebirth? Did you not even guess?”</p> - -<p>Brooke steadied herself with difficulty and merely -shook her head. Stead leaned toward her and would -have clasped her in his arms, but something in her face -held him at bay.</p> - -<p>“What is it, child? for God’s sake, don’t look so! I -have frightened you! You welcomed me as a friend, -why not a lover? Am I then too old for that?” and -for an instant an iron frown drove the radiance from -his face.</p> - -<p>Slowly Brooke began to realize that he was offering her -his love, his protection to them all. It meant pleasant -companionship, no more struggling, certainty and -reasonable ease, time for study. For an instant she -felt weary, overcome, vanquished, and the relief within -her grasp seemed almost sweet. The next moment her -woman’s nature, frank and real, knew that this was not -all, and faltering, yet gaining courage as she spoke, -she answered:—</p> - -<p>“That is not it; you do seem old to me, but if I had -loved you, I should not think of that or know it—only -that I loved you.”</p> - -<p>“And how can you know that you do not? you with -the transparent nature of a child, how can you judge of -these things as well as those who have been tried by -fire? Unless—” and his voice dropped and the colour<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_340"></a>[340]</span> -died from his face, leaving it an earthy gray under its -coat of tan—“unless there is some one else this time as -there was before. Is there this some one, Brooke, and -has he stood proof as well?”</p> - -<p>Brooke’s pallor left her, and strength came to limb -and voice. Stepping quickly toward him, she laid her -hands on his that were now held clenched, and looking -into his face said, in a voice quivering with coming tears: -“I need your pity, too. There is another, Robert -Stead, but he does not and may never know.”</p> - -<p>“God help us both,” he murmured, and stooping -almost reverently, pressed the kiss upon the folded -hands with which a moment before he would have -sought to kindle the fire in her lips.</p> - -<p>For many moments they stood thus, and then Brooke -said, with difficulty, “You will come sometimes to see -my mother and Adam? Oh, do not let my blindness -make you cast him off!”</p> - -<p>“Yes and no—” Stead answered, as they turned and -walked mechanically down the wood lane toward the -highway.</p> - -<p>Once in the open he paused and said, in a voice so -low and trembling that it was but a whisper, “I have a -report to make to-night, but to-morrow I will go to see -your mother.” Then, taking her hand gently: “Do not -grieve, gentle one, I was blind too; we are all blind -when the heart’s eye is satisfied. At worst, you have<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_341"></a>[341]</span> -done more than you know for me; now, the motive -lacking, I shall try to work for work’s sake—and—” -pointing eastward—“I shall still share with you the -River Kingdom!”</p> - -<p>No word of this ordeal ever passed the lips of -Brooke, but it lay heavily upon her, for she was of the -sort who feel that love, honestly proffered, even if unsought, -carries an eternal obligation. Yet some one -else had seen and shared the secret that lay buried between -them, and read the meaning amiss. The farmer-on-shares -had crossed the path below on his way from -Enoch Fenton’s rye-field at the moment that Stead -had stooped to kiss Brooke’s folded hands.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_342"></a>[342]</span></p> - -<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XIX">CHAPTER XIX<br /> -<span class="smaller">SETTERS OF SNARES</span></h2> - -</div> - -<p>The month of Lucy Dean’s stay spread itself over -the entire summer, and before she left the fragrance -of wild grapes came from the river woods, and the -blue ribbon binding the tasselled grasses of the moist -meadows was loomed of Puritan fringed gentian instead -of royal fleur-de-lis. Time was when Lucy’s -protracted presence, under like circumstances, would -have been a strain, akin to moving in a comedy of -rapid action, where every actor must be on the alert -to take his cue. But to this restless, high-strung woman -love had come as a clarifier, like the magic electric -touch that vitalizes the air after the summer storm -has passed, and makes the breath come more freely.</p> - -<p>As she became an open book to her friend, their -relative positions altered, and the transparent Brooke -of old in her turn became a mystery to Lucy, while -Stead fairly piqued her to the point of anger. She -thought she knew at least the eyemarks of masculine -devotion, and before Stead’s June departure she had -read them in all their changefulness when his eyes<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_343"></a>[343]</span> -rested upon Brooke, and wondered if she were wholly -blind, or seeing it unwillingly, feigned blindness. Time -would tell, she thought, for judging by herself, she -knew that, to some moods at least, separation is the -searcher of hearts in doubt. All visible signs, however, -had failed, as on the return the visits, though -hardly less frequent, seemed to lack the personal spontaneity -of before, and to come under the family or -merely casual order. Still this might be accounted for -by the fact that Stead was absorbed in the designing -of a serious piece of work of some magnitude, and the -remote hermitage had become the destination of men -of divers sorts,—old friends who had been held almost -forcibly aloof and new professional acquaintances.</p> - -<p>Dr. Russell, who had been at too great a distance -to divine the intimate reason of the revulsion, laid it -wholly to the humanizing effect of the general companionship -and contact with the wholesome, firm-purposed -family life of the homestead, and he rejoiced -exceedingly that at last his friend had, as it were, -separated self from shelf, and stood aside from the -self-inflicted gloom of his own shadow. But one day, -chancing upon Stead in New York, and reading a -different, yet deeper, suffering, purged of old selfishness, -in his face, his habit of mental diagnosis, tinged -with kindly philosophy, was at an equal loss with -Lucy’s lightning intuition.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_344"></a>[344]</span></p> - -<p>As to Brooke, she walked straight forward, almost -mechanically, throughout those summer days, filled -alike with work and sunshine. The anxiety of the -winter had been to know if the new life could possibly -become a permanence. Now life under the Sign of -the Fox seemed a thing assured; and yet the days -seemed longer labourwise now than before, for though -Brooke could read the material future, she did not -know herself. The culmination of Stead’s friendship -pained her, almost haunted her, though chiefly because -it had laid bare the needs of her own heart. Ideal -and real alike had grown intangible. Even Lorenz’ -picture seemed to look at her in reproach, and the -giant shadow of the farmer-on-shares crossed the fields -less frequently now that the growing time was past. -It seemed, too, that Enoch Fenton’s words were proving -true, for the man had grown gaunt under the -scorching sun and toil, and Bisbee duly reported that -his plans had fallen through about his sweetheart and -settling, and that he was going to the old country -before winter.</p> - -<p>As to Lucy’s proposed descent upon the farmer-on-shares, -begun in a spirit of teasing and continued -purely through curiosity, it was, as she afterward -termed it, “a regular toboggan slide”; and no matter -in what way or from where she approached him, without -the least apparent effort on his part, he was immediately<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_345"></a>[345]</span> -at the farthest possible point away from her. -So that a one-sided wager she had made with Brooke, -who professed complete ignorance, that she could tell -the colour of his eyes and what he would look like -without his “barbarous beard” at first sight, remained -unproven,—for Lucy there was no near-by first -sight at all.</p> - -<p>From the West homestead Lucy Dean had gone -to Gordon to visit Mrs. Parks. After she had been -away a week the early twilight saw her coming up the -cross-road from Gilead station, driven by the ubiquitous -Bisbee boy in the same buggy that had brought Ashton -the night of the storm.</p> - -<p>No one was ever wholly surprised at any action on -Lucy’s part, and when Mrs. Lawton and Brooke -noticed that the buggy had driven away again, they -concluded that Lucy had come to bid them good-by -before returning home, as the papers were full of the -return of the new Mrs. Dean to New York, of the -satisfaction of their friends in general, and of the popularity -of the couple. They themselves were both -dubious as to how Lucy would enjoy being even temporarily -only a daughter in the house where she had -reigned supreme; and though Mr. Dean had cordially -approved of Lucy’s engagement, it was well understood -that it must necessarily be a long one.</p> - -<p>After the greetings were over, and Lucy learned<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_346"></a>[346]</span> -their thoughts of her coming, she did not appear as -much at ease as usual.</p> - -<p>“The fact is,” she began abruptly, “I haven’t come -to say good-by; I’m stopping with Mrs. Parks until -she goes to town, for the Senator has to be away, -and we hit it off nicely together. I’ve taught the heir -apparent endless tricks, so that he can outrank any -baby of the social circus, and consequently of course -they adore me.</p> - -<p>“I’ve come to bid Tom good-by, for he is suddenly -being sent abroad to report socially, politically, and -otherwise on that Congress at The Hague. Of course -it isn’t exactly the work of city editor, but he knows -the ground and languages and all of that, besides which -it will be good for him in every way, and he sails on -Saturday!”</p> - -<p>“But where is he?” asked Brooke, too much puzzled -to be surprised. “We have not seen him, and how -do you expect to meet him here when he knows that -you are in Gordon? though I’ve often thought it safest -to look for you where you are not, for there is where -you are usually to be found,” and then they both -laughed at the Irish bull Brooke had perpetrated.</p> - -<p>“The telephone, my dear—from Gordon to New -York—price one dollar! He wired frugally: ‘Sail -for Hague Saturday, will be in Gordon to-night,’ upon -which I called him up, and limited his trip to Gilead,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_347"></a>[347]</span> -supper at the Sign of the Fox, afterward the Commercial -Hotel by the depot, unless <i>urgently</i> requested -by Mrs. Lawton to pass the night in the wasp room -with the black walnut furniture! Unfortunately, as -you have no ’phone, I could not inform you of the -arrangement until I came in person,” and even Adam -Lawton joined quietly in the laugh that followed -Lucy’s audacious confession.</p> - -<p>“There will be a ’phone here for you to announce -your marriage next summer, if you grow impatient -of watching and waiting,” said Brooke mischievously; -“so many people have asked us to have it that they -may send orders with less trouble, and then both -Cousin Keith and mother think that it would be real -economy of both time and material for us to know -when large parties are driving out.”</p> - -<p>Tom Brownell came duly, and Mrs. Lawton almost -purred with content as she saw the pair of strong young -faces at the tea-table, happy with the tender happiness -that is refined by a coming parting for anticipated -good. Again the two paced up and down the path -beside the house in the moonlight, but this time it was -the young hunter’s moon, curved as a powder-horn, -and hurrying early to bed after his sun mother, that -looked narrowly between the trees athwart the western -sky.</p> - -<p>“It will be a splendid trip for you,—nothing could<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_348"></a>[348]</span> -be better,” said Lucy, brightening; “you’ve not had -a month out of the city these two years past.”</p> - -<p>“It would be better if it were to be our wedding journey,” -answered Brownell; “being engaged may be an -excitement and stimulant to the sluggish, but for us the -calmness of certainty would be far better; but as it is, -dear, I am more than thankful for my half-loaf.”</p> - -<p>Lucy did not speak for a few moments, and then, -turning swiftly and putting both hands on his shoulders, -in her old earnest fashion, said, transfixing him with -her black eyes, in which mischief and pleading now -struggled for mastery: “If a thing would be better, -it is wrong not to do it, for we are bound to do our -best. It shall be our wedding journey. How much -money have you of your very own?”</p> - -<p>Stunned into plain fact-telling, Brownell named a -sum of less than three thousand dollars, accumulated -of extras and contributions to magazines.</p> - -<p>“Good! I have as much more of my half year’s -allowance, which papa always pays in advance; it -will do very nicely!”</p> - -<p>“But Lucy, you wonder, I will not take a wedding -trip or travel on your money!”</p> - -<p>“Certainly not; yours will be more than enough for -two months! I will save mine for the suburban cottage -furniture on our return, and I can paper a not -too big room beautifully myself, if the paper has stripes<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_349"></a>[349]</span> -to guide by. Miss Keith taught Brooke and me this -past summer, and we practised on the pantry, which -looks quite well, because when the shelves were put -back they hid the bubbles, where our arms ached -and we didn’t rub the paper smooth.”</p> - -<p>“But think a moment, sweetheart,” almost gasped -Brownell, who felt that he was on the full run downstream -toward rapids for which he had not a paddle -adjusted to shoot in safety. “Where shall we be -married? This is Wednesday,—there are only three -days! How about your father? and then, clothes?—women -always need clothes! Don’t think I am objecting; -it’s only that I will not take unfair advantage of -your warm-heartedness,” he added, as a shadow of -disappointment lurked on her piquant face.</p> - -<p>“Where? Here, to-morrow, at the Sign of the Fox, -father and company to be bidden by telephone; they can -arrive at three-forty, and go on to Gordon later. As to -clothes—oh, Tom! all women have clothes enough in -which to follow their heart’s desire, and I have trunks -full!”</p> - -<p>Then that slim young hunter’s moon (which should -have been in bed) thought some one called him softly, -and, looking back, saw what would have lured his -godmother Diana from her hunting trail of solitude!</p> - -<p>For the second time that season the personal affairs -of Lucy and Brownell electrified the sober old house<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_350"></a>[350]</span> -by their rapidity, and each one received the news quite -differently. Miss Keith rushed for the raisin jar and -began seeding with might and main, and handled -the spice boxes until they rattled, for it would take -all the early morning hours to bake the wedding cake, -and all the early afternoon to cool it.</p> - -<p>The Cub was in his element, as, with Billy harnessed -to the buggy, he escorted Tom Brownell to the telephone -office and the parson’s. Brooke and Lucy -opened a great chest in the attic, where some gowns -of past luxury were stowed away, to find a muslin for -Brooke’s part of bridesmaid; while Mrs. Lawton, -thinking as ever first of her husband, told him of the -happenings with her hand resting on his, to secure -attention, and at the same time wondered, somewhat -apprehensively, how the sight of his old friend in the -flower of his prosperity would affect him. She need -not have troubled, for Adam Lawton dwelt in that -strange between-land called Peace, where life is made -up of apathy and simple comfort, and was content, a -state altogether different from the triumphant peace -that follows work achieved or victory won.</p> - -<p>So it came about that the next afternoon at five, in -the little library of the homestead, two strong human -identities merged, and Lucy, no longer Lucy Dean, -in her dark red travelling gown, her bouquet made by -Brooke of fleece-white garden chrysanthemums, turning<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_351"></a>[351]</span> -to her father, clasped her arms about his neck with -a new fervour, and whispered, “You see I’m still following -your lead, you dear old daddy, so have a care!” -Then, led by Brownell, she went to the screened porch, -gay with bright leaves and berries, to cut the wedding -cake, which, both well baked and safely cooled, crowned -the hastily improvised collation. Tatters and Pam -appeared wearing white neck bows, and the only outsiders -were Mrs. Parks and Charlie Ashton, the mysterious -coming of whom no one could fathom, and -of which he emphatically declined to tell. Although -Brooke watched him wistfully and lingered after the -others had left for Gilead station, he made no sign.</p> - -<p>It was three months since Lorenz had sent word or -token. Was it, after all, only an illusion? Brooke even -began to doubt if Ashton’s was really the hand that had -forwarded the letters from Lorenz. She was minded to -ask him outright, but while she hesitated the moment -passed, for, entering Mrs. Parks’s landau, he returned -with her to Gordon. Looking up at the Sign of the -Fox, her talisman, as she passed under it and in at -the gate, she wondered if it would ever see another -wedding, and smiled in spite of her own thoughts, -and at the possible comic answer to them as she looked -up the path and saw the parson, lately installed, an -unencumbered man of sixty, taking his fourth cup -of tea, alternating lemon and cream, while Miss Keith<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_352"></a>[352]</span> -twittered about him with the eatables, and gave a -deeply freckled blush at some remark he made in -stowing a small, flat package of wedding cake in his -waistcoat pocket. Thus does hope often triumph over -experience.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Again it was the hunting season, and Dr. Russell -would soon come for his autumn holiday. Stead -waited for him with more than usual eagerness, being -in pitiful want of companionship in which he need -no longer play a part that was growing every day more -impossible and intolerable. Brooke desired to see the -doctor, and learn if possible how far her father’s steady -and rational improvement might be trusted; and Miss -Keith, remembering some past advice of his, began -to feel tremulously that possibly before another visit -she might need a fresh instalment, and so resolved -to be forehanded.</p> - -<p>Much game had been let loose during the past few -years in the hill country in a sportsmanlike effort to -restock it as far as might be, and when this is done -there follows the pot-hunter with his snares. Robert -Stead, always an enemy of these slouching malefactors -of wood and brush lot, had this season announced -that he was prepared to give the tribe no quarter. The -very day before the doctor’s expected arrival he had -covered their shooting grounds quite thoroughly, and<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_353"></a>[353]</span> -after breaking numerous snares, set with the utmost -boldness on his own immediate land, he took his gun -and ambushed himself at dusk, telling José and two -constables, whom he had summoned from the village, -to be in readiness to come to him whenever the signal -gun was fired, indicating the different routes that they -were to take to make a capture the most likely.</p> - -<p>Sunset came, and another hour passed, when a single -report called the watchers; but as they circled in the -direction of the sound, they did not meet the flash of -Stead’s dark lantern as agreed, and heard no crash -of bushes as of men in sudden flight,—nothing but -darkness and deep silence.</p> - -<p>José, the half-breed, bloodhound by nature, with even -more of the animal instinct than human intelligence, -the outcome of the trailing instinct coupled with much -adventure, at once scented calamity. Was the gun -the master’s or was it another’s? To him it had a -heavy, muffled sound, and besides, it was not the discharge -of both barrels, as agreed upon.</p> - -<p>Returning quickly to the lodge, he seized the lantern -and a flask of brandy, and locating the foot-path -his master had purposed to take, stole carefully along -it, the others following in his wake.</p> - -<p>Suddenly he paused and lowered the lantern; before -him, stretched between two trees, was what is called -a foot-snare, a thin, stiff cord, well-nigh invisible, which<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_354"></a>[354]</span> -was fastened across the path between the trees at such -a height as to the most surely throw the passer. José -cut this with a muttered curse and hurried on. Twenty -yards farther he found another; still following the path, -his nostrils began to quiver and his eyes to dilate, as if -he felt a presence he could not see. A low groan -made him bound forward, and he almost fell upon -the form of his master, doubled upon the ground, head -upon breast, where, in coming up the path, the third -snare had thrown him.</p> - -<p>Raising him in haste, one of the men stepped backward -on his gun, and lo! the tale was told. The lurch -of the sudden fall had reversed the weapon and pitched -it against a tree bole, which, striking the cocked hammer, -had discharged the gun, shooting its owner in the -chest.</p> - -<p>Laying him on the moss, José attempted to stanch -the bleeding, which came also from the lips. “It is -the lungs,” he muttered, and making the sign of the -cross above his master, he poured some brandy down -his throat, giving a grunt of satisfaction when it was -swallowed. Awkward in emergency, yet the constables -made stalwart bearers, and between them, guided by -José, they carried Stead—now truly Silent—to the -lodge, pausing now and then to reassure themselves, -by his laboured breathing, that he was alive.</p> - -<p>Once there, José used all the skill of the half-savage<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_355"></a>[355]</span> -to make his master comfortable, one of the men bearing -him company, while the other, leaving the rig in -which they had come to Windy Hill, took Stead’s horse -Manfred and rode against time for the Gilead doctor, -who, also being a hunter and a firm friend of both -men, telegraphed to Dr. Russell before starting on -his drive.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>The next morning, when news of the accident reached -the homestead, Brooke was already on her way by -train to Gordon to buy the weekly supplies according -to her habit, and Mrs. Lawton, driven by Adam, wild -with grief at the calamity to this friend, started for -Stead’s home.</p> - -<p>Arriving at Windy Hill by ten o’clock, they found -Dr. Russell there, so that, with Dr. Love and José, -who would not leave his master’s side, as nurse, and a -coloured woman of the neighbourhood in the kitchen, -material help was not needed; while as for personal -sympathy, though Stead was quiet and perfectly conscious, -Dr. Russell, who came into the book-strewn den -to greet them, told them gently but firmly that the -strain on the emotions would be most dangerous for -Stead, as the wound from the scattered shot must prove -fatal, rally as he might, and that he wished to arrange -some business affairs as soon as might be. If later<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_356"></a>[356]</span> -in the day he had the strength and the desire to see his -friends, they would send down a messenger.</p> - -<p>So mother and son drove home in silence to break -the news to Brooke on her return, and Mrs. Lawton -cautioned Adam that it must be done most gradually, -for even Brooke’s mother did not know how far beyond -the outward friendship her feelings might be involved, -or even but what some deeper understanding was either -foreshadowed or might actually bind them.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Dr. Russell had been alone with Stead for half an -hour, José keeping jealous guard outside the door, -where, lying upon the floor, he dozed lightly, worn -out with the night’s reflected suffering.</p> - -<p>Gradually the heart history of the last six months -was revealed to the good physician, who, half sitting, -half kneeling, by the narrow bed, hands clasped before -him, eyes half closed as if to shut away outside things, -might easily have passed for a purely spiritual confessor. -Yet in the fact of closing his eyes lay his only -power to keep back tears. Twice he essayed to speak -and stopped, and then said gently, “A year ago you -said that you would willingly give the rest of life if -you could only feel and care once more. At least -that wish has been granted.”</p> - -<p>“Yes, and I rejoice in it, even now,” Stead answered -slowly and painfully. “What now lies before me<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_357"></a>[357]</span> -is to take the means and give, as far as it will do so, -all that I have to secure the rest and comfort of the -woman who gave me the power to care, but could not -grant me more. There is paper in the desk, good -friend, so now sit and write as I dictate. Black -Hannah and the doctor outside shall be the witnesses.”</p> - -<p>Then came to Dr. Russell the hardest task of all, -to argue with one dying, but he did not flinch. “Stop -for a moment, Robert, and think, led by your new power -of caring. If Brooke could not take your love, do -you think that she would take your money? Would -not the idea hurt that same brave tenderness that -kindled you to life? Think of some other way.”</p> - -<p>“She said that there was ‘some one else,’ but that -‘he did not know.’ Some day his eyes will open, for -God will not allow a steadfast heart like Brooke’s to -be shut out of life.”</p> - -<p>A struggle seemed to pass over Stead’s face that -left a blueness about the lips and the eyes, that quivered -and closed. Dr. Russell gave him a stimulant and -waited in silence.</p> - -<p>Presently the eyes opened and he spoke deliberately, -as one reciting a hard lesson. “Then let me leave -all in trust to you for the man Brooke Lawton marries, -not to be known or given until their wedding day, -when you must tell him all, and if he is struggling -with life,—as I have a feeling that he is, for nothing<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_358"></a>[358]</span> -else could keep him from such a woman,—for her -sake he will take the gift as from man to man.”</p> - -<p>“And if the day does not come, or he refuses?” -asked Dr. Russell, joy at the man’s final unselfishness -beaming from his face.</p> - -<p>“After ten years, then let it become a part of the -endowment of your hospital, in memory of the two -Helens, my daughter and her mother.”</p> - -<p>Thus the will was made with due regard to formality, -making the doctor holder of a trust, the details of -which were contained in sealed instructions to keep -privacy; a certain sum being set aside to furnish the -faithful José with an annuity; Stead’s lodge, guns, -fishing rods, books, and furniture to Dr. Russell for -his convenience as a shooting-box; his saddle-horse to -Adam; and his pictures and his two dogs to Brooke -herself, for these last were really the possessions he -most prized. Then Dr. Love and Hannah Morley -signed as witnesses, they having, as is needful, no -part in the will.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>For a short time Robert Stead seemed better, as if -a load was lifted from his brain, but Dr. Russell was -not deceived by it, while his heightening colour spoke -of increasing fever.</p> - -<p>About two o’clock Stead asked the time, and that he -might be lifted up to see the river, that, far below in<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_359"></a>[359]</span> -the distance, flashed by between the trees. But his -sight no longer carried. Presently he said, “Do you -think that Brooke would come here for one single -moment?—would it be too hard for her to -bear?”</p> - -<p>“No; I have sent the horses for her, and she should -be here at once. Yes, I see them now coming up the -lower hill.”</p> - -<p>Brooke entered alone, as Dr. Russell had asked, -and led by him went to the bedside, gently taking the -single hand that lay upon the counterpane, the other -arm being bandaged at the shoulder. She knew -by Dr. Russell’s face that there was perfect mutual -knowledge, and that she might be herself without -fear of misunderstanding.</p> - -<p>Slipping down to her knees, to relieve the tension -of stooping, neither spoke, for what is there to say -when each knows the other’s grief and helplessness? -Stead fastened his eyes upon her face with fading -vision that still saw through and beyond.</p> - -<p>“I cannot see the River Kingdom, it has faded from -me, but you have come to me from it,” he said at last. -Then looking toward Dr. Russell, he added, “Open -the window, please, that I may hear the rushing of the -water.”</p> - -<p>“You could not hear it, there has been no rain this -fall and the river is still; it is only in the spring flood<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_360"></a>[360]</span> -that the waters rush noisily,” answered Dr. Russell, -watching the man apprehensively.</p> - -<p>Again a space of silence, and Stead murmured, -“What was that about still waters?—a hymn or prayer -or something of the sort. I used to know it when I -was a little chap—my mother taught it me!”</p> - -<p>Dr. Russell glanced at Brooke. Did she understand, -and could she bear the strain and answer? -Yes,—leaning forward, she repeated softly, close to -his ear: “The Lord is my Shepherd; I shall not -want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: -he leadeth me beside the still waters. He restoreth -my soul: he leadeth me—”</p> - -<p>Here the grasp of Stead’s hand tightened, so that she -paused abruptly, and turning toward her, he cried—“Child, -child! that is what you have done—you -have restored my soul to me!” and answering the -unconscious appeal in the pleading eyes, Brooke, without -hesitation, kissed him on the lips. Then, obeying -a sign from Dr. Russell, she arose and passed quickly -from the room.</p> - -<p>The next day Robert Stead died, and to Brooke it -seemed as if a hush must fall over all the River Kingdom,—the -hawks stop sailing to and fro, the keen -October wind rest from blowing, and the meadowlarks -in the low fields cease their song. Yet it was -not so, for this is not the law of life, which must forever -be triumphant over the other law.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_361"></a>[361]</span></p> - -<p>After a time people who had missed and wondered -about Stead and Brooke concluded that they had -been mistaken; the little gifts of the will were the -natural ones to friends and neighbours, and the trust -placed in Dr. Russell’s hands was natural, and doubtless -for charity, and there was no one in the Hill Country -who would deny his fitness to hold it.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_362"></a>[362]</span></p> - -<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XX">CHAPTER XX<br /> -<span class="smaller">FIRE OF LEAVES</span></h2> - -</div> - -<p>Killing frost had come and given the blackening -touch to garden and wild hedge-row. Even the hardy -chrysanthemums bowed their hoary heads, and a snow-like -rime covered the river meadows every morning. -The flame was already burning low in the leaf torches -of the swamp maples, while the oaks changed to wine -and russet slowly, with majestic dignity and pride of -hardihood.</p> - -<p>The modest crops the farm had yielded were divided, -and Brooke’s portion of hay, rye, corn on the cob, potatoes, -and apples duly stored away under Enoch Fenton’s -argus eyes; while even this astute Yankee found -nothing to quibble at, so generous had been Maarten’s -halving.</p> - -<p>In fact, when the strange “farmer-on-shares,” after -the sharing time, prepared to plough up the corn stubble -for burning and harrow the cleared field, Fenton -laughed half derisively, and said, “It’s plain to me he’ll -never make a farmer,—that harrowing job belongs to -next year’s man.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_363"></a>[363]</span></p> - -<p>Still Maarten kept on at work, this last week of his -stay, for that mysterious source “they say” had informed -Adam that the man was homesick and would -return to the old country, also that Bisbee knew it to be -true and he had bought Maarten’s portion of the crops.</p> - -<p>So when, one afternoon of late October, Brooke, in a -restless mood, looking down the fields toward Moosatuk, -saw the opal smoke of burning brush, stubble, and -leaves following the fence line just above the brook, -while a dark figure moved in and out, stirring and feeding -the flames with a trident fork, her feet followed her -inclination to go and thank the man who had worked -for and halved so well with her, and wish him God-speed.</p> - -<p>Later, she herself would flit for a time, and though -she desired to go, yet she dreaded it. The pleasure -season itself was waning, although many of the hill -people, especially at Gordon, lingered until Thanksgiving. -After this, winter would quickly close in, they -told her, and as Rosius would be in Washington executing -some commissions, Brooke, urged by the entire -household, had agreed to spend the first two winter -months there with Mrs. Parks, to study animal anatomy -under him.</p> - -<p>As Brooke strolled slowly down the lane, Tatters, as -usual, followed her. At first, when Adam Lawton began -to walk daily about the garden, Tatters’ indecision<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_364"></a>[364]</span> -whom to follow had been most amusing; but he had -evidently worked it out to his entire satisfaction by dog -philosophy, and convinced himself that the one who -went farthest afield was most in need of company, so -followed her as at first, mounting guard again by the -master’s chair the moment of her return; and though he -was kind and obedient to Miss Keith, after her return, -there was a decided tinge of condescension in it.</p> - -<p>Brooke reached the line of smoke and found that the -fire was north of the tumble-down wall, while Maarten -was bringing rakesful of dry chestnut leaves from under -the trees, beneath which they had drifted half across the -hay-fields. These leaves he was using as kindling for -the obstinate stubble, piled in a long line.</p> - -<p>As the breeze veered and brought the pungent smoke -toward her, Brooke walked back a few paces, dragging -her feet luxuriously through the leaves, and waited for -Maarten to come down the line once more, that she -might speak. Then, as the time lengthened and he did -not return, the idea forced itself upon her that perhaps -he was keeping on the outskirts of the fire to avoid her -or her thanks, either one or both, and feeling humiliated, -she turned nonchalantly to cross the hay-fields toward -the wood-lot, a customary walk of hers.</p> - -<p>As she did so she scented something burning that was -not the brush fire. Glancing about, she saw that a thin -tongue of flame had crawled out from the brush heap,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_365"></a>[365]</span> -and was licking up the dry leaves all about, and that -the flaring line was scorching her wool and cotton -outing gown and slowly creeping upward toward her -hand. For a second she tried to beat it out; then, seeing -the leaf fire spreading on every side and no way of escape -save through it, she tried to call, but fear muffled her -voice.</p> - -<p>Faint as the cry was, it was heard by Tatters, who -was hunting squirrels in the fence. Bounding toward -her, he too felt the fire; circling it, he flew straight -across the brush toward Maarten, barking in a wholly -new and piercing key of pain and warning.</p> - -<p>Running down the line, Maarten took in the situation -at a glance, tried to beat the flame out with his hands, -and failed. Tearing off his loose coat, he wrapped -Brooke in it, and lifting her bodily, dashed over the -brush and wall, setting her down at the stream’s edge, -where a few hatsful of water put out the fire without -even blistering her finger-tips.</p> - -<p>As he seized Brooke, crushing her to him in his speed, -a fierce wave of joy that banished all fear enveloped -the girl from head to foot, and when he put her down -and she knew that the flames were extinguished, she -was still breathing hard, and could find neither voice -nor words to thank him.</p> - -<p>Glancing at Maarten, she saw that he was bathing his -scorched, sooty face and wrapping a wet handkerchief<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_366"></a>[366]</span> -about his hands, also that the brush fire had caught his -beard and singed it all away.</p> - -<p>At her exclamation of regret and pity, he turned, then -stood upright before her with folded arms, his eyes -fixed directly on hers. In the short interval the outline -of his face had changed, solidified, and the firmness of -mouth and chin was revealed.</p> - -<p>Brooke’s heart stood still, and then surged, in wild, -clamorous beating. “Lorenz!” she cried. “Lorenz! -Oh, why have I not always known you? This explains -everything! Why did you come here like this? Why -did you change your name and turn into a labourer?”</p> - -<p>Her voice had an unconscious reproach in it,—or at -least the man so heard it,—and a light that had gleamed -through all the smut and scorch died from his eyes; -while half kneeling, half crouching, on the bank among -the bleached ferns and feathering seed-stalks, her hair -fallen to her shoulders, bright colour succeeding the -pallor of fear, looking again the gypsy ruler of the -River Kingdom, Brooke waited for the explanation of -the man who stood before her. Slowly it came, and the -voice, from which the feigned accent was dropped, -trembled at first, but grew stronger with fervour every -moment.</p> - -<p>“Why did I come? To see you! Why did I come -as a farm labourer? That is to what I was born, back -in the little tulip farm that I have often told you of, near<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_367"></a>[367]</span> -Haarlem. Also it was the only way that I might both -be near and serve you. My name is my own, as was -that by which you first knew me—Henri Lorenz -Maarten—Lorenz being my mother’s maiden name, -and by it I was as often called in the days I spent with -my uncle, who brought me up, as Maarten, the name -of my father, who died so long ago. In Paris my -friends reversed the titles, student fashion, to please -themselves, and I for the time became Maarten or -Marte Lorenz.”</p> - -<p>Why did he stand there, stern and aloof? Could he -not read her thoughts, Brooke wondered. Did he not -fathom the deep undercurrent upon which her questions -had merely floated like bits of driftage?</p> - -<p>No; what Maarten saw before him, as he looked, was -that scene in the July woods—a young woman with -eyes cast down, the suitor with eyes aflame pressing -kisses upon her hands. That the man was dead did -not obliterate the vision. Maarten had resolved to -make his own confession, complete and unmistakable, -and then to go his way.</p> - -<p>Not knowing this, Brooke let her thoughts fly to him -in eager questions.</p> - -<p>“The picture! Tell me of ‘Eucharistia’ and the -meaning of the light in it, and how you found me here -when the papers said that you had gone to work and -study in Brittany.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_368"></a>[368]</span></p> - -<p>“Did they say that? I did not know it, for I came -direct from home, where I had seen my mother. As to -the picture, it is a long story. Shall I tell it to you now -or write it down and leave it when I go? You will be -chilled, perhaps, if you wait longer.”</p> - -<p>“Then you <i>are</i> going?”</p> - -<p>“Yes, next week, my work now being done,” here he -glanced across the fields; “and having seen you, I must -go back to my brush again, hoarding the studies I have -made. Oh, yes, I have worked—between times—painting -you always; such work is life to me.”</p> - -<p>“No, do not write, tell me now,” said Brooke, wondering -if the chill that seized upon her spirit had its -source from without or from within.</p> - -<p>“Then I will tell you if you will listen to the end.” -Brooke nodded assent.</p> - -<p>Maarten drew nearer, and half sitting, half leaning -against the bank, told his story.</p> - -<p>“When I met you in the Paris studios, it was five -years after I had turned my back on England and the -commercial life my father’s brother, a London Hollander, -had planned for me. I belonged in an art -country, and its traditions held me in its grip, not to be -broken. I had fought my way along and worked -steadily, first at home, earning some praise, and yet -always when I felt success coming toward me, it -passed me by. At first I thought you one of the great<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_369"></a>[369]</span> -flock of those young women who dabble at art, as an -excuse for greater liberty,—soon I learned better. -You were kind and frank; you never seemed to wait -for flattery, but rather shrank from it. Presently I came -to think, ‘Here is a woman to whom one may not only -tell the truth, but who craves it.’ So I spoke my mind -freely, as you remember on that day at Carlo Rossi’s, -when, with a dozen others, you were trying to sketch a -woman of the street, and catching poise and colouring -admirably, the face was still a blank, because you could -not fathom the meaning of her expression.”</p> - -<p>“Yes, I remember,” Brooke whispered, half introspectively, -as with hands clasped over her knee she -looked down toward the river.</p> - -<p>“I craved your friendship, and you gave it. Then the -time came when it was too little for me; and I—what -had I to offer? So I kept in the background; my work -grew stale, and for the first time I half regretted the five -years’ struggle, and might have given up save that, had -I done so, my mother’s pride and pinching, that I might -become a painter, would have been wasted.</p> - -<p>“One day I went with some others from the Quarter -to Fontainebleau to sketch out of doors. Three of us -had resolved to enter a competition. For a week I had -scarcely slept, for somewhere in my brain dwelt a picture, -that was growing, yet would not focus. All the morning -I had wandered about, and in the early afternoon,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_370"></a>[370]</span> -leaving the others, I threw myself down under the -oaks, quite in despair and wholly miserable.</p> - -<p>“Presently I heard a footfall on the grass. Before -I could turn, a cluster of cool, golden grapes dropped -in my feverish hand, and looking up and backward, I -saw your face, and in the smile it wore a ray of light, of -inspiration, pierced my soul. Before I had awakened -from the vision, you passed on and joined your scolding -chaperon.</p> - -<p>“As for me, as I lingered there, those grapes became -as drops of sacramental wine. I seized my brushes and -hastily caught and kept the vision as I saw it—for to -me it was the divine awakening.</p> - -<p>“For weeks I dreamed and painted as I never had -done before. My comrades laughed and said, ‘Is it -love or genius?’ and old Rossi shrugged his shoulders -and asked, ‘What is the difference?’</p> - -<p>“The picture finished, I sent it to the competition, -and there your rich Senator both saw and coveted it. -I would not sell it,—no, never! Ah, then I never -thought to; but later my mother sickened, and the price -would more than buy her a good annuity. I thought -again, and something said, ‘<i>She</i> would have liked to -help your mother, who is old and still plods on the tulip -farm behind the poplars, which she will not leave;’ and -I yielded, and I then resolved to follow you,—across -the earth if must be,—for lacking you, my inspiration -fled.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_371"></a>[371]</span></p> - -<p>“Through Carolus Ashton, the amateur, well known -in the Paris studios, I learned your whereabouts, -and at the same time I chanced upon words of your -swift sorrow in a paper at a fellow-artist’s home.</p> - -<p>“‘She has trouble,’ I thought. ‘Surely in some way -I can aid her,’ and I sent the picture of yourself as -not too bold a reminder. Your little copy of my picture -coming in return, I said, ‘Now I may go; she did -not resent my painting us together,’ and hope gave me -wings.”</p> - -<p>“Ashton knew that you were here from the beginning, -then, and forwarded your portrait in the summer, -and made no sign! How cruel!”</p> - -<p>“Yes, he knew, and also one named Brownell; but -do not condemn them, for there is a silence in such -matters that is as honour among men, though almost -strangers; it is as strong as woman’s love. Besides, -what good would it have done?”</p> - -<p>“But the name you gave the picture? ‘Eucharistia,’” -said Brooke, leaning forward.</p> - -<p>Maarten drew closer, and almost dropping on his -knees, looked in her eyes and took her hands in his, -that were hardened by toil and blistered by fire of -leaves, both for her sake, and said, “The word has two -meanings,—‘a sacrament,’ and ‘thanksgiving’; you -had become the first to me, for this I gave the title -‘Eucharistia.’ It has become my name for you, and—I -still give thanks.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_372"></a>[372]</span></p> - -<p>Then, dropping her hands as that other picture in its -setting of July woods again crossed his inner vision, he -stood, erect and proud, as one waiting inevitable sentence, -yet glad in the consciousness that he had told -the truth.</p> - -<p>For a moment there was silence, and Brooke’s head -dropped lower, until it rested on her hands. At last -Maarten regained himself: “And now that all is told, -what is there more for me to do here? What more for -me to say?”</p> - -<p>Slowly Brooke struggled to her feet, for in truth her -clothes were damp and heavy, though she had not -before felt it. Standing there, she looked up and smiled, -and once again that shaft of light went forth from her to -him, as she said in yearning accents: “What more to -say, Henri? All that a man may say to the woman who -loves him.”</p> - -<p>“Eucharistia!” he cried, still holding back in blind -amazement. “It is not parting, then, beloved, but -waiting for you and work for me!”</p> - -<p>“No; work for you <i>and work for me</i>, for what else -means the awakening?” And placing her hand in his, -she walked by his side along the border of the stream, -while the wind carried the news throughout the River -Kingdom, and Tatters, pushing himself between them, -wagged his tail as he licked the blistered fingers.</p> - -<div style='display:block;margin-top:4em'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AT THE SIGN OF THE FOX ***</div> -<div style='display:block;margin:1em 0;'>This file should be named 64110-h.htm or 64110-h.zip</div> -<div style='display:block;margin:1em 0;'>This and all associated files of various formats will be found in https://www.gutenberg.org/6/4/1/1/64110/</div> -<div style='display:block;margin:1em 0'> -Updated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions will -be renamed. -</div> - -<div style='display:block;margin:1em 0'> -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United -States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. 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