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      The Project Gutenberg eBook of At the Sign of the Fox, by Barbara.
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<div>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 64110 ***</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 &amp; 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 &amp; Co.—Berwick &amp; 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>

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<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>
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  <div class="stanza">
    <div class="verse right smaller">—RICHARD BURTON.</div>
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<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>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 64110 ***</div>
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