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diff --git a/78169-h/78169-h.htm b/78169-h/78169-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..fdeb9f7 --- /dev/null +++ b/78169-h/78169-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,4557 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html> +<html lang="en"> +<head> + <meta charset="UTF-8"> + <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1"> + <title> + My Lady Valentine | Project Gutenberg + </title> + <link rel="icon" href="images/cover.jpg" type="image/x-cover"> + <style> + +body { + margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; +} + + h1,h2 { + text-align: center; + clear: both; +} + +p { + margin-top: .51em; + text-align: justify; + margin-bottom: .49em; +} + +hr { + width: 33%; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + margin-left: 33.5%; + margin-right: 33.5%; + clear: both; +} + +hr.tb {width: 45%; margin-left: 27.5%; margin-right: 27.5%;} +hr.tiny {width: 5%; margin-left: 47.5%; margin-right: 47.5%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0;} +hr.chap {width: 65%; margin-left: 17.5%; margin-right: 17.5%;} +@media print { hr.chap {display: none; visibility: hidden;} } + +div.chapter {page-break-before: always;} +h2.nobreak {page-break-before: avoid;} + +.pagenum { + position: absolute; + left: 92%; + font-size: smaller; + text-align: right; + font-style: normal; + font-weight: normal; + font-variant: normal; + text-indent: 0; +} + +.blockquot { + margin-left: 17.5%; + margin-right: 17.5%; +} + +.x-ebookmaker .blockquot { + margin-left: 7.5%; + margin-right: 7.5%; +} + +.indentright {padding-right: 4em;} + +.center {text-align: center;} + +.right {text-align: right;} + +.smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + +.ph1 {text-align: center; font-size: large; font-weight: bold;} +.ph2 {text-align: center; font-size: xx-large; font-weight: bold;} + +div.titlepage {text-align: center; page-break-before: always; page-break-after: always;} +div.titlepage p {text-align: center; font-weight: bold; line-height: 1.5; margin-top: 2em;} + +.xxlarge {font-size: 175%;} +.xlarge {font-size: 150%;} +.large {font-size: 125%;} + +.caption {font-weight: bold; text-align: center;} + +img { + max-width: 100%; + height: auto; +} + +.x-ebookmaker .hide {display: none; visibility: hidden;} + +.figcenter { + margin: auto; + text-align: center; + page-break-inside: avoid; + max-width: 100%; +} + +.poetry-container {text-align: center;} +.poetry {display: inline-block; text-align: left;} +.poetry .verse {text-indent: -2.5em; padding-left: 3em;} +.poetry .stanza {margin: 1em auto;} +.poetry .indent {text-indent: 1.5em;} +.poetry .first {text-indent: -3em; padding-left: 3em;} +@media print { .poetry {display: block;} } +.x-ebookmaker .poetry-container {display: flex; justify-content: center;} + +.transnote {background-color: #E6E6FA; + color: black; + font-size:smaller; + margin-left: 17.5%; + margin-right: 17.5%; + padding: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; + font-family:sans-serif, serif; } + +p.drop-cap { + text-indent: -0.35em; +} + +p.drop-cap:first-letter +{ + float: left; + margin: 0em 0.15em 0em 0em; + font-size: 250%; + line-height:0.85em; + text-indent: 0em; +} +.x-ebookmaker p.drop-cap { + text-indent: 0em; +} +.x-ebookmaker p.drop-cap:first-letter +{ + float: none; + margin: 0; + font-size: 100%; +} + +.x-ebookmaker .transnote {background-color: #E6E6FA; + color: black; + font-size:smaller; + margin-left: 5%; + margin-right: 5%; + padding: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; + font-family:sans-serif, serif; } + + </style> +</head> +<body> +<div style='text-align:center'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78169 ***</div> + +<div class="figcenter hide"><img src="images/coversmall.jpg" width="450" alt=""></div> +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<h1>MY LADY<br> + +VALENTINE</h1> +</div> +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/frontispiece.jpg" alt=""></div> + +<p class="caption"><i>My Lady<br> +Valentine</i></p> +</div> +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/titlepage.jpg" alt="title page"></div> +</div> +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + + +<div class="titlepage"> +<p><span class="xxlarge"><i>My Lady<br> + Valentine</i></span></p> + +<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/titlepagedeco.jpg" alt=""></div> + +<p><span class="large"><i>by Octavia<br> + Roberts</i></span></p> + +<p><span class="xlarge"><i>The A.M. Davis Co.</i></span><br> +<span class="large"><i>Boston-Mass.</i></span></p> +</div> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p class="center">Copyright, 1916, by<br> + A. M. DAVIS</p> +<hr class="tiny"> +<p class="center"><i>All rights reserved</i></p> +</div> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p class="center">TO MY<br> +<span class="large">HUSBAND</span></p> + +</div> +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_7">[7]</span> +<p class="ph2">MY LADY VALENTINE</p> + +<h2 class="nobreak">CHAPTER I</h2> +</div> + +<p class="drop-cap">CALEB WHITMAN was in a bad humor. The +task of editing the Valentine Special with +which <i>Better Every Week</i> was planning to celebrate +its tenth anniversary, was far from his taste. +The theme of this number was to be—as one +might surmise—Love; and Whitman did not believe +in love, at least not in the violent emotion +which the story writers were so fond of describing.</p> + +<p>“Do you suppose,” he said to his friend Radding, +who had dropped in upon him one hot August afternoon, +“that any man in his senses ever carried on +over a girl as these story-book fellows do? Do +you think any man ever felt like saying the sickly +things the poets write? I can’t see why writers +want to turn out such stuff. I can’t see why anybody +reads the silly yarns when we print them.... +How do you account for it, Rad? You’re a philosopher.”</p> + +<p>Radding smiled and yawned. He moved out of +the direct draft of the electric fan which blew his +thin brown hair about his high, intelligent forehead:</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_8">[8]</span>“There are three classes of people,” he said. +“Those who have been in love; those who are in +love; and those who hope to be in love.”</p> + +<p>“What’s that got to do with it?” asked Whitman.</p> + +<p>“The first class read love stories to recall past +happiness, the second to intensify present happiness, +the third to anticipate future happiness.”</p> + +<p>“I must be in a class all by myself, then,” stormed +Whitman, “for the more time I put in on this bunch +of stuff the more determined I am never to be a +lover. Why, Rad, it takes a man’s reason—”</p> + +<p>“Yes,” Radding admitted, “it does.”</p> + +<p>“It warps his judgment.”</p> + +<p>“It certainly does that.”</p> + +<p>“It causes as much misery as joy, apparently.”</p> + +<p>“The evidence is all with you.”</p> + +<p>“Then what on earth does it give in return?”</p> + +<p>“That,” said Radding, smiling at the younger +man’s vehemence, “is what you will some day find +out.”</p> + +<p>“Not I,” boasted Whitman.</p> + +<p>“You mean that you have set yourself against +marriage?” his friend inquired.</p> + +<p>“Not at all. I’ve merely set myself against the +emotional state of the story-book lover. When I +pick out a wife, I’ll do it with my head. I’ll look +first of all for a rational human being, secondly for +a healthy human being.”</p> + +<p>“You might not like her, you know,” Radding reminded +him.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_9">[9]</span>Whitman looked up from the manuscript he was +glancing over to say, “I don’t want to like her in +the crazy way these lovers do. All I want to feel +is a calm regard. I don’t want to have my heart +thump every time she comes around the corner. I +don’t want to be a prey to jealousy every time another +man looks at her. Above all, I don’t want to +sink into second childhood and call her silly +names.”</p> + +<p>“What names, for instance?” Radding asked.</p> + +<p>“‘Darling.’ ‘Birdie.’ ‘Honey-Love,’” quoted +Whitman scornfully from the ardent page before +him.</p> + +<p>“Oh, that kind of names!” said Radding, with +a nod of understanding. “What shall you call +her?”</p> + +<p>“‘Mary,’ if that’s her name; ‘Susan’ if that’s +what she was christened; and I shall expect her to +call me ‘Caleb.’”</p> + +<p>“You even let me turn it into ‘Caley,’” Radding +reminded him.</p> + +<p>“You’re different,” said Whitman, honest affection +shining in his eyes. “You’re all the family I +have, Rad; the best friend I have in the world. +Don’t let me get started on you, or I’ll turn as sentimental +as the novelists.... By the way, I’m +going to try my own hand at a novel this vacation.”</p> + +<p>“I thought you didn’t believe in them?”</p> + +<p>“I believe in this one. It’s to be the story of a +sane courtship, like the one I’ve been outlining to +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_10">[10]</span>you. I’ve been planning it ever since I was assigned +to this job of getting out the Valentine +Special. I believe that there are thousands of people +who will read my kind of love story with relief.”</p> + +<p>“You can but try it,” Radding granted. And +then he asked, “Where are you going on your +vacation, anyway?”</p> + +<p>“Up in the hills, to a camp I know of—a kind +of writers’ colony.”</p> + +<p>“When do you start?”</p> + +<p>Whitman did not answer. He was lost in the +contents of the last of the envelopes which he had +taken up from the great pile before him.</p> + +<p>“Got hold of something good?” asked Radding, +noticing his preoccupation.</p> + +<p>“I’ve come upon something odd,” Whitman explained, +raising his eyes for only a fleeting moment +from the letter he was reading.</p> + +<p>“What is it?”</p> + +<p>“A poem, a letter—and a signature.”</p> + +<p>“Want to share them with me, or am I in your +way?”</p> + +<p>“Not in my way. I’m going to knock off in a +minute and go home with you.”</p> + +<p>“Is it a good poem?”</p> + +<p>“Not very; but it may do with editing. We are +going to have two pages of light verse. The idea +of this is at least new. Something kind of winsome +about it. But it’s the personality behind it +that piques my curiosity. Take a look at it, Rad.” +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_11">[11]</span>And Whitman held out a thin sheet of cross-barred +country paper on which some one had written in +a firm hand:</p> + +<p class="center">“TO MY UNKNOWN LOVER</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> +<div class="poetry"> +<div class="stanza"> +<div class="first">“I know not where thou art,</div> +<div class="indent">Thy name I do not know,</div> +<div class="verse">And yet for thee my heart lives on</div> +<div class="indent">Like violets under snow.</div> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<div class="verse">For some day thou wilt come,</div> +<div class="indent">Dear Lover, all unknown;</div> +<div class="verse">And find thy waiting, faithful love</div> +<div class="indent">And claim her for thine own.</div> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<div class="verse">How shalt thou know me thine?</div> +<div class="indent">Remember, dear, by this:</div> +<div class="verse">My lilies all will ring their bells,</div> +<div class="indent">My foxgloves waft a kiss.</div> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<div class="verse">My cedar tree will offer shade,</div> +<div class="indent">My vines will dance with glee,</div> +<div class="verse">My garden gate will stand ajar—</div> +<div class="indent">So loneliness may flee.</div> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<div class="verse">I know not where thou art,</div> +<div class="indent">Thy name I do not know,</div> +<div class="verse">And yet for thee my heart lives on</div> +<div class="indent">Like violets under snow.”</div> +</div></div></div> + +<p>“Rather forthputting,” said Radding, handing +the paper back.</p> + +<p>“Oh, I don’t know,” said Whitman. “Now +listen to the letter which accompanies it;” and he +read:</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_12">[12]</span></p> + +<div class="blockquot"> +<p class="right">“Deep Harbor, N. Y.</p> + +<p>“Dear Editor of <i>Better Every Week</i>:</p> + +<p>“Here are some verses that grew in a garden. +Please buy them. You would, I feel sure, if you +knew what it would mean to me. I must make +money”—</p> +</div> + +<p>“I suppose they all say that,” ejaculated Radding.</p> + +<p>“They don’t say it in this way,” said Whitman, +continuing to read:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> +<p>“I must make money—a certain sum within +a specified time.”</p> +</div> + +<p>“Been playing cards or following the ponies?” +Radding joked.</p> + +<p>Whitman didn’t smile. “Don’t, Rad,” he said. +“The writer is in real trouble. Listen:”</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> +<p>“It isn’t easy to earn anything when one lives +in a little village that has been asleep these hundred +years. It isn’t easy to sell anything in a +town where the only demand is for peppermint +candy, gray yarn and dry groceries.</p> + +<p>“Please take my poem. If you are an old +man—I imagine you with gray side-whiskers, a +round red face that wrinkles into smiles, and a +thick gold watch chain stretched across a white +waistcoat”—</p> +</div> + +<p>At this point Whitman looked up with a smile, +as if to invite Radding to share his amusement. +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_13">[13]</span>With his red hair, keen gray eyes, straight shoulders, +the young editor could not have been less like +the writer’s vision.</p> + +<p>Again he went on:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> +<p>“say to yourself ‘a little encouragement from me +may make a difference in this person’s whole +life.’</p> + +<p>“If you are young—but oh, dear, how should +I know how to appeal to a young man. I don’t +know anything about young men. They all left +Deep Harbor long ago. The last one that was +seen here was in, well, 1812 at the very latest.”</p> +</div> + +<p>Whitman paused for dramatic effect before reading +impressively:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> +<p class="right"><span class="indentright">“Yours respectfully,</span><br> + +“<span class="smcap">Henry B. Luffkin</span>.”</p> +</div> + +<p>“Well?” said Radding.</p> + +<p>“Well,” said Whitman. “Of course no man +wrote that note and no man wrote those verses.”</p> + +<p>“Why not?” asked Radding. “Every village +of over two hundred inhabitants has a poet. Deep +Harbor has Henry. I can see him plainly. He’s +pale, and watery blue eyed, with tow colored hair, +which he wears long. He ties his cuffs with ribbons. +He owes a soda water bill at the village +drug store and hopes that you will pay him enough +for the poem to square it.”</p> + +<p>“Rad,” said Caleb, “you don’t believe that.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_14">[14]</span>“Why not?”</p> + +<p>“Why not! Because every word of that letter +and every line of that poem was written by a girl. +Look here. This <i>proves</i> it—it isn’t dated.”</p> + +<p>“Henry wouldn’t date it,” said Radding. “He’d +think it was commercial.”</p> + +<p>“I can just see that village,” Whitman continued, +ignoring Radding’s chaffing. “A lonely little place, +at the end of the earth, with a deserted harbor where +no ships ever come; sagging old wharves, ruminating +old fishermen, and somewhere in it—this girl, +panting for a wider world. You see, I know, Rad, +because I spent my boyhood in that kind of place.”</p> + +<p>“What are you going to do about the poem?” +asked Radding.</p> + +<p>“I’m going to take it. We can edit it a bit, and +stick it in somewhere. At space rates she won’t be +much richer, but she may be happier.”</p> + +<p>“Buy that poem, and you’ll have Henry on your +hands for the rest of your life,” Radding warned +him.</p> + +<p>“I can’t take you seriously,” said Whitman stubbornly, +“because I feel certain that Henry—isn’t +Henry.”</p> + +<p>“Do you want to back your judgment?” Radding +demanded.</p> + +<p>“I’ll stake a dinner on it.”</p> + +<p>“All right, my boy. If I win, the toast will be +to Henry Luffkin, village poet.”</p> + +<p>“And if I win,” Whitman laughed, entering into +the spirit of Radding’s fun, “the toast will be to—Lady +Valentine.”</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_15">[15]</span> + + +<h2 class="nobreak">CHAPTER II</h2> +</div> + +<p class="drop-cap">“I  LIKE to eat at Tony’s, because he cuts out +the din.” As he spoke, Whitman lifted the +cover from two of the thick, juicy English chops +which were the restaurant’s specialty, and passed +one to Radding. “I don’t care to compete with +a Hungarian orchestra and a cabaret show when +I have something to say,” he finished.</p> + +<p>“Have you something to say?”</p> + +<p>The question caused Whitman to flush consciously. +Radding was so unfailingly logical.</p> + +<p>“Nothing special,” the younger man parried; and +through the rest of the meal he discreetly confined +his conversation to commonplaces. It was not until +after the soufflé that he said with forced nonchalance:</p> + +<p>“By the way, Rad, it looks as if I’d won the +bet.”</p> + +<p>“What bet?”</p> + +<p>“What bet! The one about the writer of the +letter from Deep Harbor.”</p> + +<p>“Ah,” said Radding carelessly, “I’d forgotten.”</p> + +<p>“Forgotten!” Whitman looked at his friend +closely, as if to test his sincerity. He could never +be sure when Radding was quizzing him.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_16">[16]</span>“Heard something, have you?” Radding asked.</p> + +<p>For answer Whitman fumbled in his breast +pocket and drew out a letter which he spread on +the table before them. “This came this morning, +in answer to my acceptance of the poem,” he said.</p> + +<p>“What did you say in your acceptance? I’m +not sure that doesn’t interest me more than +‘Henry’s’ reply.”</p> + +<p>“Why?” There was a hint of defiance in Whitman’s +manner.</p> + +<p>“I don’t know; I just wondered.”</p> + +<p>“I said we’d give five dollars for the poem,” said +Whitman. “I wish it might have been more.”</p> + +<p>“Is that all you said?”</p> + +<p>“All except—”</p> + +<p>“Except—?”</p> + +<p>“I did speak of her”—</p> + +<p>“<i>His</i>,” corrected Radding, plainly enjoying +Whitman’s resentment at the change of pronoun.</p> + +<p>“I did speak of <i>her</i> trouble,” continued Whitman. +“I think I’d have been a brute not to have +mentioned it.”</p> + +<p>“Are you so tender with all your contributors?”</p> + +<p>“I never had much to do with the correspondence +before,” the young editor explained. “They put +me on the job because the office is short handed at +this time of year.”</p> + +<p>“Ah, I see. And so you told ‘Henry’ that you +were sympathetic with him in his difficulty?”</p> + +<p>“Not that exactly. I told <i>the girl who wrote +the letter</i> that I hoped the encouragement from the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_17">[17]</span>magazine would be the beginning of better things +for her.”</p> + +<p>“Anything more?”</p> + +<p>“Hang it, Rad. Why are you so curious?... +Let me see. The whole letter was only a few typewritten +words. Nothing very personal in that, +you’ll admit.”</p> + +<p>“Dictate the letter?”</p> + +<p>“No, I happened to write it myself.”</p> + +<p>“I see! Go on.”</p> + +<p>“Go on! I can’t remember what I was going to +say, you pick me up so every other word.”</p> + +<p>“I’ll promise not to do it again. What else was +in the letter?”</p> + +<p>“That was about all, except I did say I knew how +he felt (I had to say ‘he’ until I’d proved that the +name was a blind.)”—</p> + +<p>“Yes; or the truth.”</p> + +<p>“And I told her that I spent my boyhood in a +village like Deep Harbor.”</p> + +<p>“Did you let ‘Henry’ know what a short time +ago that was?”</p> + +<p>Whitman showed his white, even teeth in a broad, +conscious smile, as he met Radding’s twinkling eyes +across the table. “Rad, I’ve a guilty conscience,” +he confessed. “I hope it was fair; but if she could +pretend to be a man, I thought I might pretend to +be an old one. A fatherly friend seemed to be +what she needed.”</p> + +<p>“Um umph.”</p> + +<p>“I did not say I corresponded to her picture of +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_18">[18]</span>me; but I did say that no matter how gray my +whiskers or how ample my white waistcoat, I could +never forget my own early struggle for a footing.”</p> + +<p>Radding nodded. “I see,” he said. “Now +we’ve had the prologue, let’s have the letter.”</p> + +<p>“Shall I read it, or will you?” asked Whitman.</p> + +<p>“You read it, if you will. That kind of angular +hand-writing makes my eyes tired.”</p> + +<p>“She thought it was manly to write that way,” +Whitman defended the writer. He began to read +the letter, lowering his voice so that the good German +family near them could not hear.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> +<p class="right">“Deep Harbor, N. Y.</p> + +<p>“Dear Editor of <i>Better Every Week</i>:</p> + +<p>“Thank you, thank you for your letter and the +money. I can’t tell you how I felt when I got +the courage to look into Box 37 and made sure +that there was an envelope between the seed +catalogue and the weekly copy of <i>The Harbor</i>.</p> + +<p>“All the way down the road I had said to myself +‘there won’t be a letter there. I know there +won’t. I don’t expect any;’ but that was just +to keep up my courage in case another empty day +awaited me. Did you ever cheat yourself that +way when you were young? But when I got to +the Post Office there was my letter.</p> + +<p>“I made up my mind not to open it until I +was at home with the door locked. Then if you +had returned my verses, I could have had a good +cry. But as I ran down the road, I loosened the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_19">[19]</span>flap, put in one finger and felt the check. I can’t +tell you what it meant. It wasn’t just money. +It was HOPE.</p> + +<p>“And your letter,—your dear, kind letter. I +can’t find the right words to thank you for that. +With five dollars that I have earned, and a friend, +I know I can accomplish anything!</p> + +<p>“I hope you will accept a very tiny present as +a mark of my appreciation of your kindness, just +a simple little gift from Deep Harbor. I hoped +if you are old, it might please you. Grandfather +used to wear them.</p> + +<p class="right"><span class="indentright">“Gratefully yours,</span><br> + +“<span class="smcap">Henry Luffkin</span>.”</p> +</div> + +<p>“What was the present?” Radding asked, not attempting +to conceal his amusement.</p> + +<p>Whitman hesitated. Then he reached into his +pocket and took out a soft gray ball, which he kept +in his own hands, smoothing it gently. “Wristlets,” +he said. “Gray worsted wristlets.”</p> + +<p>“What on earth are wristlets?”</p> + +<p>“That shows you weren’t brought up in the country, +Rad.” He slipped the bands on his wrists and +held his hands out, smiling. “You can saw wood, +milk cows, pump water, do all sorts of things that +are best done with bare hands, and yet keep warm, +if you have wristlets. I wouldn’t take anything +for them. Not that I’ll use them in New York; +but because they’ll bring up my boyhood every time +I look at them.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_20">[20]</span>Radding examined them curiously. “I see,” he +said. “I wonder where ‘Henry’ bought them.”</p> + +<p>“Henry!” protested Whitman. “Henry! +Won’t you acknowledge you’re beaten, yet? Did +‘Henry’ knit wristlets? Did ‘Henry’ write that +letter?”</p> + +<p>“You haven’t proved he didn’t, not to my entire +satisfaction.”</p> + +<p>“What other proof do you want?”</p> + +<p>“Well, I’ll have to think it over. I’ll try my +own hand at the detective business. Dine here +again a week from to-night, and I’ll have some evidence.”</p> + +<p>“Very well, a week from to-night—but Rad, +you know more about girls than I do, I’ve always +avoided them. Girl stenographers can’t spell and +lady contributors cry if you criticize their copy. +But tell me this, if Henry <i>is</i> a girl isn’t he unusually +interesting, something out of the ordinary?”</p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_21">[21]</span> + + +<h2 class="nobreak">CHAPTER III</h2> +</div> + +<p class="drop-cap">A WEEK later, well before the appointed hour, +Caleb Whitman was at the table, which he +and Radding always occupied, under the cuckoo +clock. From time to time he peered intently down +the aisle between the rows of tables overhung with +festoons of paper flowers, in search of his friend. +He neglected to unfold the evening paper he had +bought at the door. He ignored the menu which +the German waiter had thrust before him. He +merely waited, with impatience in which there was +no ill nature, but only eager expectancy. And then, +at last, he saw Radding leisurely strolling down the +room.</p> + +<p>“Well,” said Whitman, as his friend drew out +the chair opposite. “I had about given you up.”</p> + +<p>Radding consulted his watch. “I am late,” he +said dryly, “three minutes.”</p> + +<p>“Three minutes seems an eternity when a fellow +is hungry,” Whitman defended himself.</p> + +<p>“If you are as hungry as that,” Radding drawled, +his mouth twisted into a whimsical smile, “I’ll wait +until later to show you what I have in my pocket.”</p> + +<p>“What is it, Rad? Show it to me and quit your +kidding.”</p> + +<p>“Nothing of importance; just a letter.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_22">[22]</span>“Let’s see it. Hand it over.”</p> + +<p>Radding turned to the waiter, deliberately. +“Well, Otto, what shall we have to-night? And, +Caleb, what do you feel like eating?”</p> + +<p>“I’m not hungry.”</p> + +<p>“Not hungry? That’s good; because this dinner’s +to be on you.”</p> + +<p>“Like thunder it is.”</p> + +<p>“Yes. I’ll produce the evidence that wins me +the bet with the coffee.”</p> + +<p>“Then I’ll have my coffee with my dinner,” Whitman +threatened.</p> + +<p>Radding was not to be hurried. He ordered the +dinner with the care and the interest of a man whose +time is abundant and whose palate is discriminating, +stopping continually to consult the young man opposite +as to details, ignoring the indifferent shrugs +with which his questions were received.</p> + +<p>When the waiter had gone, Whitman leaned +across the table. “I call your hand,” he said. “I +hold a better one.”</p> + +<p>“If you have, we’d better wait. Then each of +us can enjoy his dinner in the pleasant belief that +it’s on the other fellow.”</p> + +<p>“All right,” agreed Whitman, with no very good +grace; and with well assumed indifference he applied +himself to his dinner.</p> + +<p>“Want a demi-tasse?” Radding asked, when the +end of the meal had at last been reached.</p> + +<p>“No, I don’t. Look here, Rad, if you think you +are teasing me, you are mistaken.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_23">[23]</span>“Teasing!” Radding protested. “Am I teasing? +You like coffee, don’t you?”</p> + +<p>For answer, Whitman held out his hand. +“Come on, Rad; what have you? Hand it over.”</p> + +<p>Radding searched his coat pockets. “By Jove,” +he muttered, “I must have forgotten it.”</p> + +<p>“No, you didn’t. Look again.”</p> + +<p>“Ah, here it is.”</p> + +<p>As Radding drew forth the letter, Whitman +caught a glimpse of the writing. “That’s not her +writing,” he said.</p> + +<p>“Whose writing?”</p> + +<p>“You know—Lady Valentine’s.”</p> + +<p>Radding feigned surprise. “Oh, no, I haven’t a +letter from ‘Henry.’”</p> + +<p>“The deuce you haven’t. Have you been stringing +me for the last half hour? Did you think I was +interested in your general correspondence?”</p> + +<p>“I thought you might like to see this letter, I +confess.” Radding’s tone conveyed a sense of injury. +“It can wait, however, for some other time.”</p> + +<p>“Of course I’m interested, old man, in anything +that interests you,” Whitman cried in quick contrition. +“Who’s the letter from? What’s it +about?”</p> + +<p>“It’s from Deep Harbor,” Radding remarked +casually, adjusting his glasses, “and it’s about—Henry.”</p> + +<p>Whitman’s interest instantly revived. “You old +fraud,” he said. “Give it to me. Honestly, you +ought to have a job operating a rack.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_24">[24]</span>“Here it is,” Radding said at last, passing the +letter across the table, deep-seated amusement hovering +in his eyes; and Whitman read:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> +<p class="right">“Deep Harbor, N. Y.    <br> +“Aug. 9th, 191—</p> + +<p>“Mr. James Radding,<br> +“Dear Sir:</p> + +<p>“In reply to your inquiry concerning identity +of one Henry Luffkin, will say that same has +resided in Deep Harbor for past fifty years; is +church member in good standing, engaged in +ferry business.</p> + +<p class="right"><span class="indentright">“Yours respectfully,</span><br> + +“<span class="smcap">W. L. Wilson</span>, Postmaster.”</p> +</div> + +<p>“Well,” Radding’s voice recalled Whitman from +the perusal of the letter. “It looks as if you paid +for the dinner.”</p> + +<p>“It does, does it?” Whitman retorted. “I’ve a +little evidence myself. I’ve been holding it back +until you produced yours.” Whitman reached into +his own pocket and drew out a second letter. +“This came yesterday,” he said. “I did a little +detective work myself. I’m not very proud of it, +either. If that little girl wants to go incognito”—</p> + +<p>“What girl?” Radding asked innocently.</p> + +<p>“What girl! My girl; Lady Valentine.”</p> + +<p>“Ah, I see.”</p> + +<p>“Here’s my letter. Listen to this, and tell me if +a ferryman, aged fifty, wrote it.” There was challenge +in the toss of Whitman’s red head.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_25">[25]</span>“What’s the prologue to this one?”</p> + +<p>“When I thanked her for the wristlets, I sent her +a box of candy and a box of cigars.”</p> + +<p>“That sounds promising. What was the result?”</p> + +<p>“This was the result;” and Whitman began to +read:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> +<p class="right">“Deep Harbor, N. Y.</p> + +<p>“Dear Editor of <i>Better Every Week</i>:</p> + +<p>“I’m very glad you liked the wristlets. Have +you really wished for them ever since you were a +boy?</p> + +<p>“I can’t half express to you how much I enjoyed +your candy. I never tasted anything more +delicious than those chocolates, especially the ones +with cocoanut inside. I feel like a person in a +story book with such a wonderful gift.</p> + +<p>“Thank you over and over again.</p> + +<p class="right"><span class="indentright">“Sincerely yours,</span><br> + +“<span class="smcap">Henry Luffkin</span>.</p> + +<p>“P. S. The cigars were perfectly lovely, too.”</p> +</div> + +<p>Radding chuckled appreciatively, while Whitman’s +smile was not wholly one of amusement. “Rad,” +he said, “does the man live who would call cigars +‘perfectly lovely’ or forget to mention them until +the postscript?”</p> + +<p>His friend’s amusement had not yet spent itself.</p> + +<p>“What are you laughing at?” Whitman demanded.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_26">[26]</span>“To think”—</p> + +<p>“To think what? Stop laughing.”</p> + +<p>“To think—to think,” gasped Radding, “you +should spend your good money—”</p> + +<p>“Yes; go on; I never begrudged money less.”</p> + +<p>“On a middle aged ferryman who happens to +have a sweet tooth.”</p> + +<p>Compassionate silence was the only answer Whitman +deigned to make.</p> + +<p>At last Radding controlled himself sufficiently to +say, “Well, it’s plain we shall have to call it a tie.... +The next step I suppose is to run up there and +make a personal investigation. Too bad that you +are going to that camp for your vacation. Engaged +a place there some time ago, didn’t you?”</p> + +<p>“Y-e-s, I’m off Monday.”</p> + +<p>“Well, it makes no difference especially. I can +get away myself in another week. I’ll hunt up +Deep Harbor in the ‘Blue Book,’ and run up there +in my machine. I won’t mind the jaunt in the +least.”</p> + +<p>“What are you going to do when you get there?” +Whitman demanded. “Nothing to make it embarrassing +for the girl, remember that.”</p> + +<p>“I’ll be careful. I expect to get a lot of fun out +of it. If the valentine poet proves to be the ferry +man, I’ll sail with him. If the poet proves to be a +girl, I’ll persuade her to sail with me.”</p> + +<p>“You will, will you? Pretty sure of yourself, +aren’t you, Rad?”</p> + +<p>“Yes,” Radding admitted, after thinking the matter +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_27">[27]</span>over for a few moments; “yes, I suppose that +I am; but you see, Caley, even though I’m hard on +forty I still enjoy girls. I have none of your +prejudice against them.”</p> + +<p>“So that’s it,” said Whitman dryly, and he pushed +back his chair from the table and rose decisively. +“I’m getting tired of this joint,” he said. “I think +I’ll take a walk. I don’t know when I’ve felt so +restless.”</p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_28">[28]</span> + +<h2 class="nobreak">CHAPTER IV</h2> +</div> + +<div class="blockquot"> +<p class="right">“Deep Harbor, N. Y.    <br> +“Aug. 16, 191—</p> + +<p>“Dear Rad:</p> + +<p>“Yes; stare as hard as you will, rub your eyes, +put on your glasses. The postmark of this letter +<i>is</i> Deep Harbor, and the illegible scrawl <i>is</i> that +of Caleb Whitman, editor and would-be novelist.</p> + +<p>“When we parted Saturday night I fully intended +to carry out my plan of going to the camp. +Indeed, on the following morning I bought my +ticket, seated myself in the car for Utica (which +was as far as I could go on the through train) +and tried to lose myself in contemplation of the +expected joys before me.</p> + +<p>“Then what happened? Why didn’t I get to +my destination? Why am I not at this very moment +sitting near a camp fire listening to the stories +of how-the-trout-got-away? I can’t entirely explain +it myself. The human mind is an intricate +piece of machinery, and you know my stupidity is +boundless when I am asked to explain the workings +of a machine. All I know is that the wheels +of the car had no sooner begun to grind under my +particular chair than the prospect of the weeks in +the camp affected me exactly like cold pan cakes.</p> + +<p>“However, there I sat, letting myself be borne +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_29">[29]</span>along nearer and nearer to the bacon, the cornmeal, +the old yarns, and the straw bed under the +canvas. When we reached Utica, I clambered +out, to wait for the jerk-water accommodation +that was to take me to the end of my journey. +It was hotter than a greenhouse in summer. I +made for the magazine stand, bought a copy of +our own sheet, just to see how it would strike me +coming off the news stand, and—I won’t blame +it to <i>Better Every Week</i>—I fell asleep. I was +awakened by the uniformed human megaphone +bawling out a train. Looking at my watch I saw +that it was time for my own old ice wagon to +start into the hills; so, seizing my bag, my gun, +my fishing tackle and a few other little trifles, I +ran to the tracks, just in time to see a train pulling +out.</p> + +<p>“‘You can make it,’ a passenger shouted, +stretching out a hand for my bag. So I ran, and +he stretched, until finally, with his help, I made +the step, bags and all.</p> + +<p>“‘Well,’ he said good-naturedly, ‘that was +something of a sprint;’ and together we made for +the smoking car. There we exchanged the usual +confidences as to politics and occupation. After +a while I told him my destination. He was +solemn faced. He stared at me contritely. +‘Partner,’ he said sorrowfully, ‘I’ve done you a +bad turn. I’ve h’isted you on the wrong train. +This here goes west. You’re headed for Jackson.’</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_30">[30]</span>“‘What’s Jackson like?’ I asked hopefully.</p> + +<p>“‘Jackson is a fust rate town—electric lights, +trolley car, cement sidewalks.’ He stared at me +uncertainly. ‘Don’t it make no difference to you +where you land?’</p> + +<p>“‘Not much,’ I said. ‘I’m on my vacation. +Is there anything to do at Jackson? Any water +there? Fishing, that sort of thing?’</p> + +<p>“‘Well, no, not at Jackson. But we are only +ten miles from the lake.’</p> + +<p>“‘What lake?’</p> + +<p>“‘What lake! Good Lord; don’t you know in +what direction you are going? Lake Ontario, of +course.’</p> + +<p>“Lake Ontario! You have no idea how cool +that sounded, Rad. I let my mind drift away +for a moment from the hot car, the stale old camp, +out, out over the miles of shining blue waters. It +sounded good to me.</p> + +<p>“‘Know any quiet place on the lake where I +can board for a week or two?’</p> + +<p>“‘Well, no place with <i>style</i>.’ (You see, Rad, +<i>he</i> was properly impressed by my general appearance. +He saw that I was a man of fashion—which +is more than you ever discovered). He +hesitated: ‘There’s awful good fishing and sailing +at Deep Harbor.’</p> + +<p>“Deep Harbor! If that innocent citizen had +discharged a cannon in my ear, I could not have +been more startled. ‘Deep Harbor! Deep Harbor! +Am I on the way to Deep Harbor? Of all +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_31">[31]</span>places on earth, that’s the one I want to go to +most.’</p> + +<p>“‘Well,’ he said, looking at me narrowly, as if +to detect signs of a disordered mind. ‘You’re +the fust I ever heard say that. Most people wants +to get away from there. It’s deader than—well, +deader than dead fish. It’s quieter than an +empty house. It’s more monotonous than an old +schooner when they ain’t no wind.’</p> + +<p>“‘How do you get there?’ was all I said for +answer.</p> + +<p>“‘You wait two hours in Jackson, and get the +dummy. You can’t count on it being on time, +either.’</p> + +<p>“‘I’ll wait,’ I said; and then, as the conductor +approached—he had been delayed by an argument +with a mother as to whether a boy of twelve +was over five—I said ‘Ticket for Jackson,’ and +all was settled.</p> + +<p>“Then Jackson and supper. It was very good, +too, served in a neat country hotel. Opposite me +was a young sergeant of the regulars (it seems +there’s a post somewhere in this locality), uncommonly +good looking and uncommonly entertaining, +so that the time passed very pleasantly before +we parted—I for the dummy, he for the army +daugherty, drawn by two splendid mules. I hope +we meet again.</p> + +<p>“Then Deep Harbor in the blackness of a summer +evening with just enough light for me to see +that the one village street of any pretension slopes +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_32">[32]</span>down to the water; that the town stands high on +the bluffs; and that it looks out over a great expanse +of water.</p> + +<p>“As for the hotel, it has the appearance of a +moulting bird. My ink is as thick as curdled +custard; my pen is as rusty as I am on the war of +1812 (one of the naval battles of that war was +fought in this harbor); and my table is as unsteady +as a ship without a center board. Not +very promising you say? I’m not so sure. I +look for adventure to-morrow. In the meantime,</p> + +<p class="right"><span class="indentright">“Yours for the quest,</span><br> + “<span class="smcap">Caley</span>.”</p> +</div> +<hr class="tiny"> +<div class="blockquot"> +<p class="right"> “Deep Harbor, N. Y.<br> +“Aug. 17, 191—</p> + +<p>“Dear Rad:</p> + +<p>“When I tell you that I have not only seen +Henry Luffkin, but that I have been talking to +him all this long sunny morning; that I have arranged +to board with him and his sister in a cottage +as white as the lake is blue, doubtless you +will think that the quest is over; that I cry ‘Nuff,’ +and that the dinner is on me.</p> + +<p>“Nothing of the kind. The chase has just begun. +For not even you, Radding, could suspect +Henry of writing verse, knitting wristlets or having +‘a good cry.’</p> + +<p>“I found him in the early morning unreefing +the sail of the ‘ferry’—a cat boat with a motor +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_33">[33]</span>attachment. He is a rugged, squarely built man +with an eye, honest and steady and very blue—as +sailor men’s eyes so often are, from long +gazing at sea, I suppose. Suspecting that he was +the ferryman of the postmaster’s report, I made +the sail with him—across the bay to a hamlet +that boasts a cheese factory.</p> + +<p>“Occasional, reluctant monosyllables, were all +I succeeded in drawing from Henry by my efforts +at conversation. I own I questioned him +shamelessly, veiling my curiosity by frank confidences +of my own. I was a writer, an editor, by +trade; was he interested in the modern periodical?</p> + +<p>“Only in <i>The Harbor</i>, a sailor’s weekly.</p> + +<p>“I supposed a seafaring man like him could +not understand what kept men at their pens.</p> + +<p>“No, he couldn’t. Thought it would be monotonous. +With sailing it was different. No two +days were alike.</p> + +<p>“Had he any children? A daughter, for instance?</p> + +<p>“No, he was a bachelor. His sister kept the +house. She to be sure was a great reader. When +the old post office was torn down, he had fetched +her over a wheelbarrow full of old newspapers, +and she wasn’t done reading them yet!</p> + +<p>“‘It’s the sister,’ I determined. But when +(the captain having admitted they had an extra +room) I went to inspect the cottage and made +Sister Abby’s acquaintance, I saw I would have to +drop that solution of our little mystery.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_34">[34]</span>“For Abby was a drab woman, with capable, +worn hands, whose conversation was limited to +the frequent repetition of ‘Well, for pity sakes!’ +and whose interest was divided between keeping +the white cottage white and tending a bed of +Johnny-jump-ups, neatly surrounded by variegated +pebbles.</p> + +<p>“‘This is a beautiful country,’ I said, as she +threw open my one window, neatly protected by +mosquito bar. ‘I don’t know of any place on the +coast with a finer view.’</p> + +<p>“‘For pity sakes!’ said Sister Abby.</p> + +<p>“‘They tell me the British fired a good many +balls into these old banks in 1812,’ I tried again, +undaunted.</p> + +<p>“‘They drunk from our well,’ said Abby, +pointing out to an open well in the sandy yard below.</p> + +<p>“‘I should think,’ said I, ‘that you would all +turn story writers in this country, with such a +background.’</p> + +<p>“‘For pity sakes!’ said Abby. ‘Who’d do the +work?’</p> + +<p>“‘Don’t any of the village ladies write?’</p> + +<p>“‘Yes, sir, all of ’em.’</p> + +<p>“‘<i>All</i> of them?’ This was more than I had +bargained for.</p> + +<p>“‘Some writes better hands than others, of +course.’</p> + +<p>“‘I meant fiction,’ I explained, ‘poems, stories, +that sort of thing.’</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_35">[35]</span>“‘For pity sakes,’ said Sister Abby.</p> + +<p>“I am sure she will make me comfortable and +forgive me anything but setting a sandy shoe on +her braided rugs. In the meantime I have taken +out my paper, sharpened my pencils and begun the +novel. It ought to be easy to write a sane novel +in such matter of fact surroundings—there’s +nothing about Captain Luffkin or Sister Abby to +give a romantic turn to my yarn.</p> + +<p class="right"><span class="indentright">“As ever,</span><br> + +“<span class="smcap">Caley</span>.”</p> + +</div> +<hr class="tiny"> +<div class="blockquot"> +<p class="right">“Deep Harbor, N. Y.    <br> + +“Aug. 20, 191—</p> + +<p>“Dear Rad:</p> + +<p>“Your letter, with its amazing conclusions, just +received. Honestly, old man, I don’t know what +has come over you. I used to think you were one +of the most astute judges of human nature I ever +knew, with more penetration and intuition than +any man of my acquaintance. And yet, in this +letter, open before me, you say, ‘I am convinced +that we were both wrong. Neither a pale faced +youth, nor a charming girl wrote the verse and +the letters. Abby wrote them!’ And to prove +that absurd assertion, you find proof of a poetical +temperament in Abby’s love of Johnny-jump-ups; +you find evidence of exquisite sensitiveness +in a nature that shrinks from the rough intruder +(otherwise me) and hides its real feelings and +aspirations in the single phrase, ‘For pity sakes;’ +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_36">[36]</span>and you find a sense of humor attested by the remark, +‘Yes, they all write; some writes better +hands than others.’ Really, Rad, I don’t know +what to make of you.</p> + +<p>“And yet I am no nearer proving who did write +those letters and knit my wristlets than I was +when I came. Surely it was none of the village +girls whom I met on my solitary walks, fresh and +comely as many of them are. Lady Valentine +wouldn’t nudge, nor giggle, nor stand and watch +the dummy come in, with her mouth wide open +like a slot machine.</p> + +<p>“You ask about the novel. It goes haltingly. +My hero is made of sawdust, and my girl—I +don’t know what ails her. Perhaps she is <i>too</i> +sane. I don’t like her, and neither does the hero.</p> + +<p> + “<span class="smcap">Caley.</span>” +</p> +</div> +<hr class="tiny"> +<div class="blockquot"> +<p class="right">“Deep Harbor, N. Y.    <br> + +“Aug. 22, 191—</p> + +<p>“Dear Rad:</p> + +<p>“Something has happened. I have a clue—very +slight, but a clue. I give it to you for what +it’s worth.</p> + +<p>“Yesterday the novel dragged. I can’t make +my sane hero very convincing. Sanity in love is +all very well in real life—I wish there were more +of it—but on paper it’s dull. I got discouraged +and nervous. The hens clucked too loud: Abby +said ‘For pity sakes’ once too often. Sometime +in the middle of the afternoon I picked up my +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_37">[37]</span>papers, stuck them in my pocket and went forth +in search of peace.</p> + +<p>“The bluffs which form the shores of the bay +are of a soft limestone. They look, from the +ferry, exactly like children’s slates piled neatly +one on top of the other. I walked along the narrow +beach for a mile or more, enjoying the quiet +and the smell of the water. Sometimes the beach +disappeared altogether, and then I clung to the +cliffs and crept along the rocks until I found another +footing. Well, when I had done this for +an hour, the beach suddenly came to such an abrupt +end that there was no hope of continuing +my walk unless I wanted to swim! Rather than +retrace my steps, I managed to pull myself up the +steep cliff—it was some fifty feet high—so it +was no easy task.</p> + +<p>“When I reached the summit, decidedly the +worse for the scramble, there, to my surprise, was +a most charming old brick mansion, the kind with +fire wings on the sides. I felt as if it were looking +at my untied cravat, my stained trousers and +my sandy shoes, in dignified surprise.</p> + +<p>“‘Hello,’ I said, ‘where did you come from?’ +But, the mansion making no answer except to +stare harder out of its eight eye-like windows that +faced the road, I approached it and stared over the +hedge by which it was surrounded. A flag stone +walk, sunken and worn, led through tall grass +to the loveliest old doorway you ever saw: a door +painted white, with a brass knocker, at the top of +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_38">[38]</span>long steps crowned by a small latticed porch; all +overgrown with some flowering vine, and looking +like a sweet face peering out of a poke bonnet.</p> + +<p>“There was something about the place that +said, ‘Nobody at home.’ Most of the shades were +drawn. The steps were littered with the leaves +which drifted from the vine every time a fresh +puff of wind came off the lake; so I made bold to +push open the gate, walk up the steps and pull the +bell, which jangled lonesomely through the silence.</p> + +<p>“Nobody came. I grew bolder and pressed +my nose to the slits of windows on either side of +the door and found myself looking directly into +a wide hall, hung with family portraits, furnished +in old mahogany. A delicately balustraded stairway +wound upward, hinting at bed chambers sweet +with lavender and orris. Through an open door +I caught a glimpse, a very small glimpse, of the +state room, papered with one of those old landscape +papers we sometimes see reproduced. I +have no doubt it’s been there since 1812, and that +the oriental figures in turbans, majestically ascending +and descending the broad steps, have seen +history made.</p> + +<p>“I wandered around to the rear of the place. +The grounds, some four acres I should say, are +all to the back, the mansion itself being comfortably +near the front gate.</p> + +<p>“A path led me through some funereal evergreens +into a thicket, at the far end of the garden, +near the road that runs past the rear; and here I +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_39">[39]</span>found a summer house, completely concealed in +the thicket. Inside there was a rustic table, and +a rough seat encircled the walls.</p> + +<p>“I seated myself as if I were the owner—I +wish I were—brushed off the leaves that covered +the table and began to revise my novel then and +there. I am going to have my heroine live in +that house and see if her surroundings won’t +humanize her. I am going to write every day until +somebody comes home and drives me out.</p> + +<p>“The clue! I almost forgot. On the rustic +table, among the leaves, I found a bit of cross-barred +paper, torn across, on which some one had +written in angular characters, ‘Dear Editor of +<i>Better Every Week</i>:’ I suppose you will argue, +Rad, that any one could have written those words—some +old lady who meant to subscribe for the +magazine, for instance. Think what you will. +As for me—well, I’ll tell you what I think when +I write again.</p> + +<p class="right"><span class="indentright">“Yours,</span><br> + +“<span class="smcap">Caley</span>.”</p> +</div> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_40">[40]</span> + +<h2 class="nobreak">CHAPTER V</h2> +</div> + +<p class="drop-cap">THREE days passed. Each afternoon Caleb +Whitman put his manuscript under his arm +and sought the garden. He skirted the curious +village in a wide circle, and came upon the red walls +of the mansion by the little used road that ran past +the rear of its grounds.</p> + +<p>The place was still deserted. He was free to +drink from the open well, to pick the grapes which +were ripening slowly on the untrimmed vines that +covered the long arbor stretching from the kitchen +door to the stile. Above all he was free to make use +of the woodland bower hidden securely in the far +corner. Here he spread his papers broadcast and +worked on his novel, heavily, laboriously, hour after +hour. Sometimes he paused to sigh, sometimes—to +listen.</p> + +<p>A bird chirped contentedly in a bush. A woodpecker +drummed on a tree. Insects whirred faintly +in the grass. The wind rustled in the woodbine +that covered the bower. Far in the distance a cock +sent forth his triumphant cry. And that was all—no +other sound of life—for three long summer +afternoons.</p> + +<p>It was natural, therefore, that Whitman should be +startled as he approached the house on the fourth +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_41">[41]</span>day, to see a huckster’s wagon standing near the stile. +As he hesitated whether to turn back, the huckster +came toward him down the arbor. “Know when +the folks are expected back?” he called, as he caught +sight of Whitman.</p> + +<p>“I do not,” answered Whitman; “I’m a stranger +here.” Then he put the question that he had hesitated +to put to the captain. “Who lives in this +beautiful old place?”</p> + +<p>“Old Miss Lowell.”</p> + +<p>“Old Miss—”</p> + +<p>“Yes, a maiden lady, Miss Roxana Lowell. +She’s our aristocracy about here. Brought up +proud, you might say. Been here pretty near as +long as the house—and that’s some time, I can tell +you.... You can’t use no huckleberries, I suppose, +if you are a stranger here?”</p> + +<p>“No,” Whitman smiled; and he waited to enter +the garden until the huckster had rattled down the +road and disappeared.</p> + +<p>“Miss Roxana Lowell,” he murmured, seating +himself at the table in the retreat. “That’s one on +both Rad and me.” And he began to write, impulsively.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> +<p>“Dear Rad:</p> + +<p>“Alas for Henry; alas for Lady Valentine; +alas for romance!”</p> +</div> + +<p>Then he pushed the paper away. “Old Miss +Lowell,” he repeated ironically, and lost himself in +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_42">[42]</span>reverie. Quite suddenly the garden seemed to him +the loneliest spot in the world. The bower where he +sat ceased to be a snug retreat; it became simply a +summer house, with unpainted, rotting latticed walls, +damp and a little cold.</p> + +<p>He took up a fresh sheet of paper and began—</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> +<p>“Dear Rad:</p> + +<p>“I’m coming back. This place has gotten on +my nerves. The novel won’t go”—</p> +</div> + +<p>Something snapped. He raised his head to listen. +Only silence, except for the whir of a thrush in the +woods, and the distant plaintive cry of a gull. +Again he bent over the paper.</p> + +<p>And then the branches of the low hanging trees +parted like a screen, the bows snapped back into +place, and a girl stood in the archway of the bower.</p> + +<p>“Who are you? What are you doing in my summer +house?”</p> + +<p>The voice was clear and sweet. Caleb Whitman +raised his head and looked into gray eyes with long +dark lashes, eyes that did not fall nor quiver, though +the color that flooded the girl’s cheeks and the quick +breathing that stirred her quaint muslin gown, attested +suppressed excitement. There was something +birdlike in the quick startled glance of her eyes, in +the poise of her vibrant little figure as she hovered at +the door ready for instant flight. Whitman sprang +to his feet.</p> + +<p>“Is this Miss Roxana Lowell?”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_43">[43]</span>“No, I’m just Nancy, her niece.”</p> + +<p>She waited for him to continue, a hand on either +side of the doorway barring all retreat.</p> + +<p>“I’m a summer visitor,” he hastened to explain. +“I am staying in the village. I found your house +deserted—I supposed for the summer—and I have +been making bold to bring my papers out here and +make use of your bower for a study. I’m going to +make bolder, and ask you—if it would be possible +for me to continue to come? Your garden is so +large—I’ve become so attached to it”—</p> + +<p>“Oh, I’m so sorry. For you see—you must go—this +instant, never to come back.”</p> + +<p>“Are you in earnest? Couldn’t we make some +arrangement? I can get letters, you know, to prove +I’m a respectable person—that sort of thing.”</p> + +<p>“You couldn’t get letters proving you weren’t a +man,” said Nancy, “and above all things a man is +what Aunt Roxana most abhors. She won’t have +one about the premises. She won’t let even a very +little boy come to weed the garden. She hires a +woman to cut the grass.”</p> + +<p>“And are men equally distasteful to you?”</p> + +<p>“I’ve never known any, except the village people; +and they’re quite old. But Aunt Roxana says that +men, especially young men, are the cause of all the +trouble in the world.... And they certainly have +been the cause of her trouble.”</p> + +<p>“We haven’t always made a good record for ourselves,” +Whitman confessed, smiling into the earnest +little face across the table. “But if one man would +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_44">[44]</span>promise, very solemnly, to try to the best of his +ability”—</p> + +<p>“It wouldn’t do any good. She wouldn’t believe +you,” the girl sighed.</p> + +<p>“Wouldn’t it melt her heart, ever so little, if I +went in and told her”—</p> + +<p>Nancy’s hands tightened on the arched doorway.</p> + +<p>“No,” she said fearfully, looking over her shoulder +in the direction of the house. “No, you +mustn’t ask her anything. If she knew you were +here, you would have to go—at once.”</p> + +<p>A smile quivered on Whitman’s lips.</p> + +<p>“Then I don’t have to go—at once?”</p> + +<p>Nancy sank provisionally onto the round seat that +circled the latticed house, and Caleb, after a moment, +seated himself also, on the far end.</p> + +<p>“You may stay—just long enough—to tell me +what you were doing here when I came.”</p> + +<p>“I was writing a novel.”</p> + +<p>“A novel”—</p> + +<p>“Yes, and I’ve been so bold as to put your house +and your garden in my story.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, if Aunt Roxana knew that!”</p> + +<p>“Would—it please her? It’s such a beautiful +old place, I really couldn’t help it.”</p> + +<p>“Please her! She dislikes novels almost as much +as men. If she knew there was a <i>man</i> in her +garden, writing a <i>novel</i>”—</p> + +<p>Nancy did not try to complete her sentence, leaving +it to Whitman to imagine the state of Aunt +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_45">[45]</span>Roxana’s mind under the double provocation. She +lightly touched one of the pages—</p> + +<p>“Perhaps, though, this is not a love story? It’s +love stories she dislikes most.”</p> + +<p>“This isn’t much of a love story,” the young man +explained eagerly, hoping to gain favor. He moved +a very little nearer, and took up the pages as if to +outline the plot. “You see, this novel endeavors to +deal truthfully with life,” he began.</p> + +<p>“Yes; that’s what Aunt Roxana thinks they fail +to do.”</p> + +<p>“My hero is a sane hero”—</p> + +<p>“A sane hero?” questioned Nancy. She had +propped her elbow on the table and supported her +chin in the cup of one pink palm. Her eyes, soft +and trusting, were fixed intently on the young man’s +face.</p> + +<p>“Yes,” continued Whitman, his mind wandering +from his hero to the way Nancy’s black, silky hair +grew about her white brow and waved over her little +ears. “A sensible chap,” he went on automatically, +“who doesn’t fall in love”—</p> + +<p>“Never—in his whole life?”</p> + +<p>Whitman stopped short. “I didn’t mean to have +him do so,” he said, doubtfully. “You see he picked +out his intended wife with his head”—</p> + +<p>“Like Aunt Roxana does her dresses,” mused +Nancy.</p> + +<p>“He didn’t think she was the most beautiful +woman in the world”—</p> + +<p>“Was she?”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_46">[46]</span>“No,” the author said gayly, with joyful recognition +of the fact.</p> + +<p>“What was she like?”</p> + +<p>“She was a great raw boned creature, that could +walk ten miles at a stretch and leap higher than any +girl in the gymnasium.”</p> + +<p>“That wasn’t quite genteel, was it?” Nancy +smiled, as if they must be of one accord on that point.</p> + +<p>“It wasn’t very attractive—someway.”</p> + +<p>“Were her clothes—pretty?”</p> + +<p>The gray eyes dropped to the skirt of her muslin +dress, the white hands played with a tiny brooch of +pearls at her throat.</p> + +<p>“She wore mostly a short skirt and a jumper, +and large loose shoes.”</p> + +<p>“Didn’t they make her feet look very large?”</p> + +<p>Whitman caught a glimpse of a small foot in a +black slipper with a peep of white stocking.</p> + +<p>“Yes,” he smiled, “they looked exactly like flat +boats.”</p> + +<p>“Was her hair pretty?” A delicate hand +smoothed back one soft lock at the nape of her +neck.</p> + +<p>“No, she wore it short—to save time for more +important things.”</p> + +<p>“What kind of things?”</p> + +<p>“I hadn’t gotten that far.”</p> + +<p>Whitman paused, in doubt. But the eager questions +continued.</p> + +<p>“What did your lovers call each other?”</p> + +<p>“What do you mean?”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_47">[47]</span>“What names? Aunt Roxana always crossed +out the love names, with a black pencil, in my stories.”</p> + +<p>“He called her ‘Mary.’ She called him ‘John,’” +he admitted. Then he asked eagerly, “Do you like—love +names?”</p> + +<p>Nancy’s answer was indirect. “In the Song of +Songs,” she murmured dreamily, “the lovers called +each other ‘beloved’ and ‘he whom my soul loves;’ +and they said—but maybe you aren’t interested? +I don’t think King Solomon was a very sensible +lover”—</p> + +<p>“Yes, yes, I am interested. What did they call +each other?”</p> + +<p>The girl’s lashes veiled her bright eyes, the roses +sprang to her cheeks as she repeated the ardent +words softly, for the ear so near her own. “Solomon +said to the Shulamite, ‘As a lily among thorns, +so is my love among the daughters’”—</p> + +<p>“Yes,” murmured Whitman, his eyes on Nancy’s +face, and his heart, he did not pretend to explain +why, giving an extra beat.</p> + +<p>“And the Shulamite said of Solomon”—the girl +raised her lashes and spoke clearly, looking straight +ahead, “‘As the apple tree among the trees of the +wood, so is my beloved among the sons of men.’ +And I’ve always thought,” said Nancy, “that unless +a man felt that way about a girl, and a girl felt +that way about a man, it wasn’t love.”</p> + +<p>“Nor is it,” cried Whitman, with conviction. He +drew a long breath; then he deliberately took up +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_48">[48]</span>his papers and tore them straight through the +middle.</p> + +<p>“Oh,” said Nancy, “why did you do that?”</p> + +<p>“To mark the end,” said he, “once for all, of that +sane love story.”</p> + +<p>“Will you write another?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, if I may come here again to-morrow.”</p> + +<p>She hesitated as she rose. “I don’t know—”</p> + +<p>“Just once—for luck,” he urged.</p> + +<p>“Well—just once more.”</p> + +<p>“And you will come, too?”</p> + +<p>“If I do,” said Nancy, moving towards the door, +and looking back irresolutely over one shoulder, “it +will be just to tell you to go.”</p> + +<p>“Of course,” Whitman agreed. And then, as +she disappeared, he picked up the scattered papers +and stuffed them in his pocket.</p> + +<p>“There’s no doubt about it,” he whispered softly +as he left the garden; “I’ve found you, my little +Lady Valentine.”</p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_49">[49]</span> + +<h2 class="nobreak">CHAPTER VI</h2> +</div> + +<p class="drop-cap">THE Luffkins’ twelve o’clock dinner left Whitman +free to seek the bower the next day when +the sun was still high in the zenith. He told himself +that he went early in order to have a long afternoon +to devote to the revised version of his book—and +there were moments when he believed himself.</p> + +<p>When he reached the Lowell place, he slackened +his step and loitered by, letting his eyes roam boldly +over such portions of the grounds as he could +glimpse between the tall, untrimmed boughs of the +hedge. He had approached by the rear so that he +looked onto the comfortable kitchen porch, the vegetable +garden, Nancy’s flowers and the clothes line +where white fluttering garments proclaimed the family’s +return. At the turnstile he paused to peer +down the arbor’s leafy tunnel. Surely, a woman +moved toward the gate.</p> + +<p>“It’s Nancy,” he said, and waited.</p> + +<p>In another moment he saw his mistake. Though +erect as a poplar, the woman was no longer young. +Her carriage, straight and unyielding, was that of a +past generation.</p> + +<p>“It’s Aunt Roxana,” Whitman decided, and he +strolled on his way in some trepidation, just as the +old lady turned the stile and walked down the road +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_50">[50]</span>in the direction of the village, holding her gray skirts +just high enough to reveal congress gaiters and +white stockings.</p> + +<p>“Well,” the young man sighed, “if the angel with +flaming sword leaves Eden unguarded, I suppose no +one can blame Adam for stealing back”; and a moment +after, he found the break in the thicket he had +used the day before as an exit, and made his way to +the bower.</p> + +<p>He had half hoped to find Nancy awaiting him; +but the little retreat was empty. The sun played +through the woodbine, making patterns on the rustic +table and on the round seat where he and Nancy had +sat such a short time since. In its rays gleamed a +bit of folded paper, on the center of the table.</p> + +<p>“A note,” said the young man; and his heart sank +with foreboding even as his eager fingers reached +for it.</p> + +<p>“For the Man in the Garden,” the note was addressed. +Unfolding it, he read:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> +<p>“If you are in the garden, will you please go +away at once, or at least before three o’clock; for +at that hour I am coming out with my cross stitch—and +of course I can’t stay if you are there.</p> + +<p class="right">“<span class="smcap">Nancy Rose.</span>”</p> +</div> + +<p>Whitman’s laugh startled a curious sparrow. +“Nancy Rose,” he said, “if you’d ever had any +practice, I should say you were past mistress of the +art of flirting. Did you really think any son of +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_51">[51]</span>Adam would obey an order like that?” and he +folded the little note into his pocket book. As he +did so, he came upon the three letters, with the masculine +signature, which had so whetted his curiosity +less than a month past. Spreading them out before +him, he now compared the penmanship with that of +the note he had just found. Again he laughed and +shook his head. For all the writer’s determined +boldness on the pen’s downward stroke, the note and +the letters were unmistakably by the same hand.</p> + +<p>And then, while the minutes crawled toward the +promised hour of three, he read all the letters again, +trying to deduce the motive that had led the girl to +borrow the captain’s honest name.</p> + +<p>If Nancy had literary ambitions, he reasoned, she +would have deluged the magazine with further contributions, +once her little verses had been accepted. +If she had masqueraded for mere love of adventure, +she would have gained more by dropping the mask +once her letter had been answered. If she had only +wanted money for some girlish whim, why was such +secrecy necessary?</p> + +<p>He could not guess her motive, but whatever it +was, he determined to respect the innocent incognito +until Nancy herself should care to throw it aside. +In the meantime he would become her friend, he +decided; not a shadowy well wisher in the editorial +office of <i>Better Every Week</i>, pretending to age, but +a young friend such as he was sure she needed; such +as with care he might hope to become even in the +fortnight left him.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_52">[52]</span>He turned to his book. He had worked on the +new chapters all the evening before in the expectation +that he would have something to show two +bright eyes when they peeped through the trees.</p> + +<p>At last she came. Her reproachful, “Oh! you +stayed!” brought him back from the world of his +dreams. She was standing in the door irresolutely, +a little beaded reticule on her arm from which some +needlework protruded.</p> + +<p>“Is it three?” he said, with a poor feint of surprise.</p> + +<p>“Yes, it is three.”</p> + +<p>He pretended preoccupation. “I’m in a very important +place in the novel; would you mind very +much if I finished a paragraph, just a word or two +describing the new heroine, before I go away?”</p> + +<p>“N-o-o, not if you’ll make haste.”</p> + +<p>She stood patiently by the door, her black head +against the crimson vines. Whitman looked up.</p> + +<p>“Oh, if you won’t sit down and sew,” he said, +“just exactly as if I were not here, I shall feel too +guilty to linger. And I have just a word more—then +I’ll be off for good and all.”</p> + +<p>She dropped onto the seat. After a moment’s +hesitation he saw her fingers slide into the depths of +the reticule and bring forth a tiny square of linen. +A moment later bright cotton threads lay on her lap, +her needle pricked the pattern and drew the gay +strands through the cloth.</p> + +<p>The man at the table wrote on, more silent than +the afternoon.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_53">[53]</span>“Is she pretty?” asked Nancy.</p> + +<p>The writer pulled himself together, apparently +from deep abstraction.</p> + +<p>“Who?”</p> + +<p>“Your heroine.”</p> + +<p>“I don’t know. Ideas of beauty differ so radically.”</p> + +<p>He bent again over the table. Nancy selected a +long crimson thread.</p> + +<p>“Does she live in my house?”</p> + +<p>“Yes; you don’t mind?”</p> + +<p>“No, not if she’s not that bold jumping woman +you described yesterday.”</p> + +<p>“She’s not.”</p> + +<p>“I hate to disturb you; but naturally I feel interested—in +a girl that lives here.”</p> + +<p>“Yes?”</p> + +<p>“Would you mind telling me what color her eyes +are and what kind of hair she has, and if she’s +tall?”</p> + +<p>Whitman looked up and met the wistful eagerness +of Nancy’s eyes.</p> + +<p>“They’re gray,” he said, making a sudden decision, +“hazel gray. Her hair is black, black as the +black bird’s wing; and around her white neck and +around her little white ears it looks blacker still.”</p> + +<p>“I suppose she’s very tall,” ventured Nancy, +threading her needle with a long orange thread.</p> + +<p>“Not very. She’s small and piquant, quick in +her motions like a bird. If she should peep into this +summer house this minute you might easily take her +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_54">[54]</span>for a wood pecker, with her bright eyes, black head +and top knot of scarlet ribbon.”</p> + +<p>“Does she wear a red ribbon?” Nancy’s hand +strayed to her own dark hair. “These are berries, +rowan berries from the tree across the road.”</p> + +<p>The author courageously faced his mistake. +“This girl wears a red ribbon,” he said.</p> + +<p>He did not pretend to resume his writing; but, his +arms locked on the table before him, he leaned forward +watching Nancy sew.</p> + +<p>“Would you mind,” she said, after another pause, +“telling me a little about the hero? I feel interested +on account of the girl living in my house, you see.”</p> + +<p>“My hero is a little shadowy,” he confessed; “I +can’t seem to see him myself. I may sketch from +life—though I don’t allow myself to do that very +often—and give the heroine the best man I know.”</p> + +<p>“Who’s that?” she asked, looking up from her +work.</p> + +<p>“My chum, Jim Radding,” he said, with a reluctance +he could not quite fathom for making Radding +the hero.</p> + +<p>“What color hair has he?”</p> + +<p>Whitman laughed. “Rad isn’t much on hair. +It’s, let me see, brown, a little thin, but he brushes +it over the bald spots.”</p> + +<p>“Not bright like yours, then?”</p> + +<p>Again the young man laughed. “No, fortunately +for his own peace, he’s not cursed with a head +like a bon-fire.”</p> + +<p>“I think red hair is cheerful,” Nancy said judicially. +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_55">[55]</span>“I always notice that when any one with +red hair appears, interesting things begin to +happen.”</p> + +<p>“Do you?” he glowed. “Well, interesting +things begin to happen when Rad comes, too, for +he’s the best fellow in the world. You might not +think so to look at him; his eyes are sad and his +mouth droops at the corners a little when he’s quiet, +but it turns up into the funniest, driest kind of smile +when he begins to talk. You’d like Rad, there’s no +doubt about it.”</p> + +<p>“Umph, umph,” she said dubiously. “Umph, +umph, but I never did like a drooping mouth; they’re +like flags on a still day.”</p> + +<p>The young man’s own lips curved into a smile at +this announcement, so gay, so joyous that she might +well have likened it to a flag in the wind.</p> + +<p>“I’ll tell you,” he bargained, “as long as I’ve put +your house into my story, I don’t know why you +shouldn’t order a hero to suit yourself. What kind +of man do you prefer?”</p> + +<p>She considered his offer gravely, her eyes drifting +from her work to the face across the table. Then +she asked:</p> + +<p>“Could you make a hero who would take the +lonesomeness out of the world?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, I can make that kind of man,” was the +eager promise.</p> + +<p>“Out of everything?” Her voice was wistful, +as if warning him he might be promising more than +he would find it easy to perform.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_56">[56]</span>“Out of everything—for the girl who loved +him.”</p> + +<p>“Out of moonlight nights in this great empty +garden?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, even out of moonlight nights in Venice.”</p> + +<p>“Out of Sunday afternoons, when all the world +is asleep and the lake shines blue for miles and +miles?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, and out of long city streets, when the rain +comes down, and the lights of the boulevard shine +through the mist.”</p> + +<p>“Even out of frosty nights, when one looks out +of the long window up, up into the sky full of stars, +and then back into a great long room, with nobody +there but just Aunt, asleep by the Franklin stove?”</p> + +<p>“Yes,” said Whitman boldly, “for the man would +be there beside her, looking up into the stars, too, +and they’d stand close to the window so that the curtain +would fall behind them, and his arm would go +round her waist, and her head would find its place +on his shoulder, and they’d discover that the whole +wide universe isn’t lonely to lovers—”</p> + +<p>“Lovers!” exclaimed Nancy. “Is your hero going +to fall in love after all?”</p> + +<p>“Yes,” the author affirmed positively. “Yes, he +is. I’m not sure but he is going to fall madly in +love.”</p> + +<p>“What’s it like to be madly in love?” asked +Nancy with frank curiosity. “How does it differ +from friendship?”</p> + +<p>“There’s as much difference between love and +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_57">[57]</span>friendship,” began the young man, without hesitation, +“as there is between the waters of a fountain, +sparkling, leaping, breaking in the air, and rain +water standing in a barrel.”</p> + +<p>“That’s a very vivid contrast,” Nancy decided +after a moment’s consideration. “Could you tell +me anything more about love? You see, Aunt Roxana +holding the views she does, it is the only chance +I’m ever likely to have to learn.... Is there any +more to it?”</p> + +<p>“Yes,” Whitman asserted, losing himself in +thought for a few minutes before speaking, as if to +gather his material. “There’s a good deal more to +it. It’s funny, love is; it upsets all the accepted +standards.”</p> + +<p>“How?”</p> + +<p>“Well, it upsets all one ever learned about space, +at least as I see it.”</p> + +<p>“For instance?”</p> + +<p>“For instance, a mile isn’t always the same +length.”</p> + +<p>“Really?”</p> + +<p>“No. When it stands between a man and the +girl he loves, it’s much longer than when it lies +between the man and even his very best friend.”</p> + +<p>“That’s very curious,” mused Nancy.</p> + +<p>“Love does funnier things than that to Time,” +moralized the instructor, in a kind of growing surprise +at the discoveries he was making.</p> + +<p>“What does Love do to Time?”</p> + +<p>“The very same thing it does to space—it overthrows +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_58">[58]</span>all the old gauges. Sixty minutes spent with +even the best of friends is about ten times longer +than sixty minutes spent with the girl one’s been +longing to see since day break.”</p> + +<p>“How do you know all these things?” asked +Nancy suddenly.</p> + +<p>“How do I know them? Why, why”—the +young man flushed and hesitated. “Why, I don’t +know <i>how</i> I know them. I just dug them out of my +inner consciousness somewhere, I suppose. I didn’t +know I had such knowledge myself—an hour ago.”</p> + +<p>“An hour ago!” cried Nancy; and she rose to her +feet in alarm. “Aunt Roxana was to be back from +sewing circle at four. She will be looking for me. +It must be four now.” She peeped up at the sky, +through the trees that screened them from the house.</p> + +<p>Whitman looked at his watch. “By Jove!” he +cried. “It’s five!”</p> + +<p>“Five!” gasped Nancy, gathering up her needlework. +“Five! are you sure, Mr.—”</p> + +<p>“Caleb Whitman,” he supplied.</p> + +<p>“Five!” she said again; and then she laughed in +surprise. “Well, then, Mr. Caleb Whitman, it’s +not only with lovers that time runs fast, is it? for +these hours have run fast just for us.”</p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_59">[59]</span> + +<h2 class="nobreak">CHAPTER VII</h2> +</div> + +<p class="drop-cap">“I  PRESUME,” began Captain Luffkin in a confidential +rumble, addressing Caleb Whitman, +“that a young feller like you knows all there’s to +know about girls.”</p> + +<p>“It’s the last claim I should make for myself,” +his companion deprecated, smilingly.</p> + +<p>The Captain ruminated, his hand on the tiller, his +eyes straying from the face of his passenger to the +mark on the shore toward which he automatically +steered.</p> + +<p>“Knowed no end of ’em, I presume,” he continued, +after a pause.</p> + +<p>“Considerably fewer than that,” Whitman corrected.</p> + +<p>The Captain did not heed the denial. “What I’d +like to know,” he began again, puckering his brow +in a troubled frown, “is what makes ’em cry.”</p> + +<p>“Cry! Do girls cry?”</p> + +<p>“One I know does,” the Captain confided, lowering +his voice and looking uneasily over the water as +if he would guard his confidence even from the gulls. +“Cries her pretty eyes out,” he added for good +measure.</p> + +<p>“Tell me something about her.” Whitman’s +manner, in spite of himself, was indifferent; for his +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_60">[60]</span>thoughts were far from the good captain that afternoon, +circling instead about a leafy nook and a dark +haired girl, with a tempting mouth and a piquant +chin, whom with stern self denial he had not sought +for three interminable days.</p> + +<p>“Well,” the Captain began again, “I don’t want +to tell tales, but I suspect I’m responsible for one +girl’s tears.”</p> + +<p>“Really!” There was something so absurd in +the prospect of sentimental confidences from the +gruff old captain, that Whitman found it hard not +to smile. And yet one look into the weather-beaten +face and honest eyes opposite, sobered him. There +was a natural dignity in the ferryman’s manner that +made mockery impossible.</p> + +<p>“You see,” the Captain continued, “I’m one of +this girl’s few friends, having knowed her since she +was about so high.” (At this point, the Captain +measured off about six inches.) “Well, some time +back, I seed she was low in her mind, and well she +might be, for this town ain’t what it should be for +young folks these days. So one day when she come +to me and asked if she could borrow my name, receiving +a few letters addressed to Luffkin—”</p> + +<p>There was no question of the passenger’s interest +now. “Yes,” he prompted eagerly.</p> + +<p>“I was willing enough,” the Captain went on, +“for I knowed how strict she was held down and +hedged in, and how curious the postmaster was. +So, sez I, ‘Sure, get all the mail you want’; and I +give her a key to my box, No. 37.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_61">[61]</span>“Yes; and then?”</p> + +<p>“Well, her spirits come up, and nobody could be +gladder than I was. I saw she had something to interest +her, and, sez I, ‘That’s good.’ But suddenly +the wind shifted and another spell of bad weather +set in.”</p> + +<p>“Since when?” The young man’s hand trembled +as he rolled one of the cigarettes the Captain +scorned.</p> + +<p>“Well, I can’t say just when the trouble set in, +because I ain’t seen her until to-day.”</p> + +<p>“To-day?”</p> + +<p>“She crossed with me last trip. I presume she’s +waiting on the other side now to be fetched back. +She never lifted her pretty head from her arm all +the way over.”</p> + +<p>“Didn’t she!” The sole passenger’s voice was +husky with emotion. He looked straight out to sea, +wondering if Nancy’s fall in spirits could possibly +be coincident with the neglect his conscience had +dictated.</p> + +<p>“Now,” asked the Captain, loosening the main +sheet from the cleat, preparatory to going about, “to +come back to where we started, what makes her +cry?”</p> + +<p>“What’s your theory?” Whitman forced himself +to say, overcoming the temptation to tell the Captain +what he knew of Nancy.</p> + +<p>“I suspect a man,” said the Captain with energy.</p> + +<p>“A man?”</p> + +<p>“Yes; you know we’ve an army post some ten +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_62">[62]</span>miles from here, and I’ve been wondering if my little +girl hadn’t gotten in with one of them yellow +jackets. I’ve had several things to make me think +that might be so, and that he ain’t treating her right. +Why else would she want to get letters unbeknownst +to those that has her in charge?”</p> + +<p>“She might be attempting some business venture,” +Whitman suggested, “writing for a magazine, selling +drawings, something of that kind. Has she literary +ambitions?”</p> + +<p>“Not that I ever heard of. It strikes me natur’ +made her too pretty to be a lady writer.”</p> + +<p>“Does she lack for money?”</p> + +<p>The Captain considered the possibilities suggested +by this question. “It don’t seem likely,” he said. +“Old Miss Lowell is reputed well to do.”</p> + +<p>He brought the ferry about and made a neat landing +at the port called Fair View, where a group of +country folk waited. A quick glance showed Whitman +that Nancy was not among them; but just as +the Captain cast off for the return voyage, she ran +breathlessly down the pier.</p> + +<p>“Well,” said the Captain, sighting her at the same +moment that Whitman did. “Here’s my girl. I +was afraid she wasn’t coming.” And he held the +bobbing cat boat to the pier with one hairy hand +while Nancy clambered aboard.</p> + +<p>“I was delayed,” she explained confusedly, seating +herself between two substantial village women.</p> + +<p>If she saw Caleb Whitman, she made no sign of +recognition, unless a shy flutter of her eyelids in +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_63">[63]</span>his direction, and a cheek that grew a little rosier +could be called an acknowledgment of their former +meetings.</p> + +<p>The man who had denied himself a sight of her +for three long days let his eyes rest hungrily on the +little figure squeezed between the village women. +The Captain was right. She had been crying. +Could it be, Whitman wondered, that his avoidance +accounted for the change. The thought was so disturbing, +so deliciously disturbing, that he refrained +with difficulty from forcibly removing the stout protectors +on either side of Nancy and taking his place +beside her.</p> + +<p>Suddenly, as if he read Whitman’s thoughts, the +good old Captain spoke. “Nancy,” he said, +“would you mind setting on this side? The boat +don’t ride right.”</p> + +<p>The girl looked at him demurely, as the cat boat +stole steadily across the bay in the light summer +wind. “Wouldn’t you rather have somebody a little +heavier, Captain?” she teased; and her glance +suggested a fat woman with a basket.</p> + +<p>“You’re just the right weight,” the Captain affirmed +shamelessly; and he made room for her between +Whitman and himself. “Miss Rose,” he +said formally, when the change had been made, “let +me make you acquainted with Mr. Whitman. He’s +summering with me. Mr. Whitman, let me make +you acquainted with Miss Rose. She lives down +the road about a mile from the village, in a house +you may have noticed, built before the war. A +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_64">[64]</span>British ball took off part of the roof, didn’t it, +Nancy?”</p> + +<p>“Yes,” the girl nodded listlessly.</p> + +<p>“I’ve seen the house,” Whitman managed to say. +“I don’t wonder the British singled it out. I’ve +done the same thing myself.”</p> + +<p>“Did you like it?” Nancy asked.</p> + +<p>Whitman’s answer was prompt. “So much that +I haven’t been able to forget it for the past three +days.”</p> + +<p>Nancy did not answer but leaned over the gunwale, +letting one small hand drag in the water. +Whitman leaned towards her. “Nancy,” he whispered +under his breath, “is something wrong? +What’s the matter? Won’t you tell me? Don’t +you know I want to help you?”</p> + +<p>“Do you?” The luminous eyes that had been +fixed on the dancing water searched his face.</p> + +<p>“I do, indeed. You must know that.”</p> + +<p>“Then where have you been?”</p> + +<p>The words so innocently uttered, accompanied by +a glance from soft gray eyes where tears still lurked, +gave Whitman a thrill of joy. “Why, Nancy,” he +whispered ardently, “you yourself told me I was +not to come.”</p> + +<p>“I hadn’t finished telling you so,” said Nancy +tremulously.</p> + +<p>“Hadn’t you?” The man’s voice was very tender. +“I’ve only stayed away from a sense of duty. +I thought about you every hour of the day. I’ve +been trying to find some excuse to appear openly. +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_65">[65]</span>Isn’t there some way I can meet you with your aunt’s +consent?”</p> + +<p>She shook her head. “Not yet. Not unless I +can bring the Great Happiness to pass.”</p> + +<p>“The Great Happiness?” he questioned.</p> + +<p>“Yes.” She sighed. “It seems a long way off +to-day.”</p> + +<p>“Won’t you tell me what you mean?”</p> + +<p>“No. I can tell no one. It’s a secret. But once +it comes, everything will change.” She lifted her +eyes to the sky line, like a prophet who sees a vision.</p> + +<p>“Is the Great Happiness so much to you, +Nancy?” Whitman murmured, struck by the solemnity +of her manner.</p> + +<p>“It’s everything,” she said unsmilingly, turning +her earnest eyes to his. “It’s what I live for. +When I think it will never come, my heart is like +a stone. When I think it <i>will</i> come—and it must, +oh, it must—then my heart is like thistledown.”</p> + +<p>“Nancy,” Whitman said, “surely you will let +me help you to bring your joy to pass. Have you +any other friend to whom to turn?”</p> + +<p>“One other,” was the unexpected answer.</p> + +<p>“The Captain?”</p> + +<p>“No, not the Captain.”</p> + +<p>“Tell me who it is.” He did not know that the +emotion that welled in his breast was jealousy.</p> + +<p>“I can’t.”</p> + +<p>“Is it a man?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, it’s a man. The best man in the world, I +fancy.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_66">[66]</span>“Nancy, are you joking?”</p> + +<p>“No, just telling the truth.”</p> + +<p>Captain Luffkin’s supposition of a soldier at the +post, flashed across Whitman’s mind. “Does he +live near here?” he demanded.</p> + +<p>“Would you call New York near?”</p> + +<p>“He lives in New York, then?”</p> + +<p>“Yes.”</p> + +<p>“A man who lives in New York, who would do +more for you than I would.”</p> + +<p>“I didn’t say that.”</p> + +<p>“It amounted to the same thing.” Whitman +stared gloomily across the boat, scowling unconsciously +at the row of passengers opposite. “What’s +his name?”</p> + +<p>“I can’t tell you.”</p> + +<p>“You mean you don’t choose to tell me.”</p> + +<p>“I mean what I say.” Nancy was dimpling. +“I <i>can’t</i> tell you.”</p> + +<p>“Well,” he began after a moment’s stormy +thought, “it’s not my affair, but I have your welfare +at heart, Miss Rose” (Nancy started in surprise at +the formality of his address), “and so I can’t help +warning you against confiding in strange men. I +hope you understand the spirit in which I say +this.”</p> + +<p>“What spirit is it?” Nancy asked innocently.</p> + +<p>Caleb Whitman hesitated, checked for a moment +in his moralizing. Then he said with conviction, +“It’s the spirit of a big brother.”</p> + +<p>“Oh,” said Nancy.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_67">[67]</span>“You’re an inexperienced girl,” Whitman went +on.</p> + +<p>“Yes, I am.”</p> + +<p>“And so I’m going to be very bold indeed, and +ask you a few questions, which of course you need +not answer.”</p> + +<p>“Of course not,” Nancy disconcertingly agreed.</p> + +<p>“And yet—I hope you will answer.”</p> + +<p>“What’s the first question?”</p> + +<p>“Where did you meet this man from New +York?”</p> + +<p>“I’ve never really met him.”</p> + +<p>“Never really met him?”</p> + +<p>“No.”</p> + +<p>“Then how can you say that you know him?”</p> + +<p>“I know him from his letters—and his presents.”</p> + +<p>“Nancy!” Caleb Whitman cried aghast; and +then he added with conviction, “He’s a scoundrel. +New York is full of them. Did he see you somewhere +and force a correspondence upon you?”</p> + +<p>“No,” Nancy weighed the question. “I suppose +you would say I forced it on him,” she said.</p> + +<p>“For heaven’s sake, Nancy, tell me what you +mean. Speak low, one of those women opposite +is trying to hear what we are saying.”</p> + +<p>“I wrote to him first. He answered—very +kindly. I sent him a present. He sent me two.”</p> + +<p>“Nancy Rose, are you teasing me?”</p> + +<p>“I’m answering your question.”</p> + +<p>Whitman was silent a moment, racked by a +thousand fears. He forced his lips to ask one +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_68">[68]</span>more question. “What kind of a man is your +friend?”</p> + +<p>“He’s very old,” said Nancy, turning her candid +eyes to his; “that’s the only thing I’d like to change +about him.”</p> + +<p>“Old!” The young man by her side gave a +start of joyful recognition. He had forgotten the +past shadowy acquaintance with Nancy in the intoxication +of actual meeting. “Old, Nancy?” his +voice shook with eagerness.</p> + +<p>“Yes, old and fat, with chin whiskers, a white +waistcoat and a thick watch chain. Old and kind. +Don’t you think it’s safe to trust him?”</p> + +<p>“Yes,” said Whitman softly. “Yes, trust him, +Nancy. But promise me one thing.”</p> + +<p>“Well?”</p> + +<p>“Don’t make any other friend by correspondence.”</p> + +<p>“I won’t,” she promised sweetly. And the cat +boat having crept to the pier at Deep Harbor, she +followed in the wake of the other passengers, clambered +out the boat and disappeared down the street.</p> + +<p>“Well,” said the Captain as he and Whitman +were left alone, “wasn’t I right? Hadn’t she +been crying?”</p> + +<p>“Yes,” the young man admitted.</p> + +<p>“What I want to know,” the Captain continued, +“is who’s making her cry.”</p> + +<p>“You think it’s a person?”</p> + +<p>“I’m sure it is. Moreover, I think I’ve spotted +him.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_69">[69]</span>For a moment Whitman feared the Captain’s +glance, bent upon himself, was accusing. Then the +ferryman asked: “See any one loitering on the +bank across the water?”</p> + +<p>“No.”</p> + +<p>“Well, I did. And he was one of them yellow +jackets. As soon as he sighted the ferry he disappeared +into the trees. Notice the little girl was late +in getting aboard?”</p> + +<p>Unwillingly Whitman was forced to admit that +Nancy had been late, and flustered in her manner.</p> + +<p>“Well,” the Captain finished grimly, “I’ll bet you +dollars to doughnuts that the yellow jacket has +coaxed her over there to meet him, and what’s more +that it’s not the first time he’s done it.”</p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_70">[70]</span> + +<h2 class="nobreak">CHAPTER VIII</h2> +</div> + +<p class="drop-cap">“WELL,” said the Captain with heavy jocularity, +extending half a dozen letters to his +boarder, “when you get done reading that batch of +mail, you might give it to me for ballast.”</p> + +<p>From his seat on the Captain’s lawn Whitman +smiled, and taking out his knife he slit open the envelopes +one by one. The editor-in-chief assured +him everything was going well at the office. Radding +chid him for his silence and pretended to find +it ominous. A real estate broker wanted to sell +him some land. A man who owed him money asked +for more. An acquaintance announced his marriage.</p> + +<p>To Whitman mail had never been very interesting. +He had wondered sometimes at other men’s +eagerness for letters. With a yawn he opened the +last envelope. Then he started, and by the northern +twilight he read twice over the words that were +written in a familiar hand on cross-barred stationery.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> +<p class="right">“Deep Harbor, N. Y.</p> + +<p>“Dear Editor of <i>Better Every Week</i>:</p> + +<p>“In one of your kind and beautiful letters, you +told me that if you ever could be of service, I +was to call upon you. I am sure that you meant +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_71">[71]</span>what you said, and so I am turning to you for help +once more. Do you think there is any one in +New York who would be willing to give money +for the following articles (they are my very +own. I have the right to sell them):</p> + +<p>“One bridal veil of real lace, one hundred +years old.</p> + +<p>“One cameo pin; head of cherub.</p> + +<p>“One bracelet; chased gold. (Clasp broken.)</p> + +<p>“One man’s watch; hunting case; gold face; +won’t go any more, but might be repaired.</p> + +<p>“One pink coral necklace. (I hate to sell this; +it’s perfectly beautiful.)</p> + +<p>“If you think there is a chance of getting +money for any of these things, I will send them +to you at once. I must have fifty dollars, and I +must have it soon.</p> + +<p class="right"><span class="indentright">“Very truly yours,</span><br> +“<span class="smcap">Henry B. Luffkin</span>.”</p> +</div> + +<p>As usual, the writer had not dated the letter, but +Whitman made out from the postmark that it had +reached New York some days ago. On the margin +his stenographer, Smith, had written: “This letter +has been to every one on the staff but you. No +one seems to know anything about the writer.” +Whitman winced. He did not fancy Nancy’s letters +making the rounds of the office. A moment +after, he left the Captain beneath the trees, engaged +in mending a net, and began to tramp up and down +the bluff, looking out over the waters as if the evening +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_72">[72]</span>breeze that rippled their wide expanse might +waft an idea to him for helping Nancy.</p> + +<p>At last he went into the cottage, and seating himself +beneath the oil lamp, he drew out paper and ink +and wrote his friend.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> +<p class="right">“Deep Harbor, N. Y.,    <br> +“Aug. 21, 191—</p> + +<p>“Dear Rad:</p> + +<p>“I have become interested in helping Henry +Luffkin dispose of some heirlooms. I can’t buy +them myself very well, and I want you to pretend +to be a dealer in antiques and buy them for me. +Write this letter for me, Rad, and write it at +once, enclosing fifty dollars in currency. Here’s +my check for the amount. ‘Henry Luffkin. +Dear Sir: The Editor of <i>Better Every Week</i> +has told me that you want to dispose of some old +lace and pieces of jewelry, of which he has given +me a description. I am a collector of antiques +and I am willing to pay fifty dollars for the lace, +the bracelet, the watch and the cameo. I am not +interested in coral. You may send your goods to +the following address.’ Then sign your own +name, Rad, and give your address.</p> + +<p>“I find this is an ideal spot for my vacation. +You will be glad to know that I am making good +progress with my novel, although it has taken a +more romantic turn that I had planned.</p> + +<p class="right"><span class="indentright">“Yours,</span><br> +“<span class="smcap">Caley</span>.”</p> +</div> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_73">[73]</span>The letter finished, Whitman turned to the Captain, +who was seated on the other side of the table, +lost in his weekly paper.</p> + +<p>“Captain,” he began, “I have been thinking about +what you told me concerning Miss Rose and her +mail.”</p> + +<p>The Captain looked furtively toward the kitchen, +where Sister Abby washed the evening dishes, and +Whitman lowered his voice.</p> + +<p>“If you get the mail and give her the letters,” he +continued, “you can surely tell the nature of her +correspondence.”</p> + +<p>The Captain shook his head. “No, I can’t,” he +said. “I give her an extra key to the box. She +gets there first and takes what’s coming to her and +leaves me the rest.”</p> + +<p>“Have you ever seen anything that made you suspicious?” +Whitman inquired.</p> + +<p>“Well,” said the Captain, “a check come once I +didn’t like the looks of; but she said it was prize +money she’d got in some kind of a contest, so I endorsed +it and said nothing.”</p> + +<p>“She’s an interesting girl. I wish I might get +better acquainted with her.” Whitman hoped his +manner was casual.</p> + +<p>“I wish you might,” said the Captain. “I’ve +kind of had it in mind from the first. I done what +I could for you the other day in the boat. Don’t +know as you seen through it or not.”</p> + +<p>Whitman repressed a smile. “How can I see +more of her?” he asked.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_74">[74]</span>“That’s hard to say. She don’t cross with me +more than once or twice a month. She goes to +church Sundays, but her aunt’s always with her. +Sometimes she sets in the graveyard with her sewing.”</p> + +<p>“The graveyard?”</p> + +<p>“Yes. Haven’t you passed it out on the wagon +road near her place? It’s pleasant there; quiet and +shady, and makes a change from the garden. You +ought to go out and see the monuments. Lots of +soldiers buried there, that fell in 1812. Summer +folks are always interested in the old stones, though +the new ones are a sight handsomer.”</p> + +<p>“A graveyard seems a strange place for a young +girl to sit,” Whitman mused.</p> + +<p>“Well, it’s one of the few places her aunt approves,” +the Captain chuckled, one eye on the paper; +“and when you come to think of it, a pretty girl is +mighty safe in the company of dead generals and +admirals who, even if they come to life, would be +kin to her.”</p> + +<p>Whitman smiled absently at the Captain’s jocularity. +“I’ll go to town and post this letter,” he +said. “I want to get it off to-night.”</p> + +<p>On his walk to the village, Caleb Whitman turned +Nancy’s latest letter over and over in his mind, trying +to reconcile his conception of her character with +her eager, insatiable desire for money. Sometimes +he told himself that the desire sprang merely from +the wish to gratify some girlish fancy. Again he +was half convinced that she was planning to run +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_75">[75]</span>away, to escape forever the tedium of life in the +garden; but her own words echoed in his heart, overturning +his fears. “I don’t want to escape,” she +had said. “I want to open the gate and let the +world in.” Was she in debt? The thought was +absurd. With her comfortable home, her guarded, +restricted circuit, she had small temptation and little +opportunity to incur obligations.</p> + +<p>“I give it up,” said Whitman to himself, at last. +“All I know is that I want for you what you want +for yourself, Nancy Rose, and that I’ll give it to +you, if it lies in my power to do so.”</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>“Want a lift?”</p> + +<p>Whitman started, and looked up through the dusk +to see the covered van of the army post which he +had learned to call a “daugherty.” A young man +in olive drab uniform on the front seat had drawn +four mules to a standstill and was good-naturedly +offering the pedestrian a seat.</p> + +<p>“Thank you,” Whitman answered, “but I’m only +going to the village to post this letter.”</p> + +<p>“Want me to take it to Jackson?” the soldier +asked obligingly. “It will make better time.”</p> + +<p>Whitman handed the letter over the high wheel. +“That’s awfully good of you.” Then he asked, +before the soldier had started the mules on their +way: “Haven’t we met before, somewhere?”</p> + +<p>The man in uniform, who was a dashing, well-built +fellow, looked uneasily at Caleb Whitman’s +upturned face, and muttered, “I think not.” Then, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_76">[76]</span>without another word, he put the letter in his pocket, +cut the mules lightly with his whip and drove on his +way.</p> + +<p>Lost in thought, Caleb Whitman looked after the +van for a long moment. “I have seen you,” he said +to himself, “though I can’t tell where, for the life +of me.” And he recalled again the ruddy face, the +gay, dark eyes, the splendid shoulders of the man in +the daugherty. “I don’t know so many army people +that I ought to confuse them,” he said to himself, +“and that particular chap is too good looking +to be easily forgotten. He didn’t fancy my claiming +acquaintance, however. High spirited chap,” +Whitman concluded. “I don’t wonder the ‘yellow +jackets,’ as the Captain calls them, play havoc with +the girls, if they’re all as good looking as he.”</p> + +<p>His excuse for the trip to the village gone, he retraced +his way back to the cottage, trying idly to +recall the identity of the man who drove the daugherty. +“I have it,” he said aloud, just as he reached +the cottage door. “You’re Sergeant Wilson, the +chap I ate supper with the night I got to Jackson.”</p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_77">[77]</span> + +<h2 class="nobreak">CHAPTER IX</h2> +</div> + +<p class="drop-cap">“CAN I sell you a ticket for the box sociable, +Mr. Whitman?” Sister Abby’s lack lustre +eyes shone with something akin to excitement as she +reached into the pocket of her apron and extended +a bit of cardboard.</p> + +<p>“A box sociable, Miss Abby? I don’t believe I +know what you mean; but you can sell me a ticket +to anything you’ll recommend.”</p> + +<p>The afternoon was fair, the sun shone on the +sparkling expanse of the lake below the bluffs, the +summer wind was fresh and sweet, the morning’s +work on the novel had gone well: Caleb Whitman, +on his way out of the Captain’s gate, listened to Miss +Abby’s plea with good-humored tolerance.</p> + +<p>“The money’s for a new carpet for the minister’s +study,” Abby explained further. “The tickets are +ten cents each. If you draw a good box, you’ll not +think they’re dear.”</p> + +<p>Whitman produced a dime with cheerful alacrity. +“But, Miss Abby,” he asked, “I don’t know yet +what I’m in for. Why do I draw a box and what +do I do with it when I get it?”</p> + +<p>Sister Abby stared at him. “Don’t you know +what a box sociable is, and you living in New York +City?”</p> + +<p>“No,” the young man confessed with becoming +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_78">[78]</span>humility, “they have almost everything in New +York, to be sure, but I don’t believe I ever went to +a box sociable.”</p> + +<p>“Well, they’re grand,” Sister Abby sighed in +pleasant retrospection. “We give one every year +on somebody’s lawn. There’s long tables under the +trees, and lanterns strung everywhere. I can’t tell +you how pretty it looks. Then every girl and +woman in the village brings a box with supper put +up for two.”</p> + +<p>“I see.”</p> + +<p>“Sam Tupman gets the boxes all together and +auctions them off. Some boxes fetches as much as +a dollar.”</p> + +<p>“Is it possible?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, the boys gets excited and bids kind of +reckless. When everybody has got a box, they open +them up and find the cards of the ladies who have +put up the lunches. Then each man finds his partner, +and her and him eats supper together.”</p> + +<p>“Well, that’s very interesting. I should think, +however, the custom of bidding in the dark, as one +might say, would bring all sorts of queer people together.”</p> + +<p>“Well, you might say it does,” admitted Sister +Abby; “but when a body is eating, he don’t care +much who his company happens to be. Then there’s +ways of getting around it, too. Nearly every girl +ties up her box in some special way and gives the +secret to somebody particular.”</p> + +<p>“Ah, I see, that makes a difference.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_79">[79]</span>“The girls ties their boxes with ribbons, and we +old folks mostly ties ours with twine. One year I +got kind of tired of string, and I tied up my box +with blue ribbon. Well, young Sammy Brown bid +for it and run the price up to seventy-five cents. +When he opened the box and found my name, he +looked real disappointed; but he got over it when he +tasted my crullers. You think you’d like to come, +don’t you?”</p> + +<p>“I wouldn’t miss it for a good deal.” Whitman’s +hand stole to the latch of the gate. The day +was fair and time was fleeting.</p> + +<p>“Going anywhere particular?”</p> + +<p>“Well,” Whitman hesitated, “I had thought of +going out to the old burying ground—to see the +head stones. The Captain said some of them were +quite historic.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, summer folks seem to care for them.” +Sister Abby’s manner had changed from expectancy +to mild disappointment.</p> + +<p>“Can I do anything for you, Miss Abby?”</p> + +<p>“No, nothing particular. I kind of hoped that +you’d stop at the post office and see if the lanterns +had come.”</p> + +<p>“Surely, I will.”</p> + +<p>“If they have, you might just drop in at the minister’s—the +sociable is to be there—and offer to +help him string them up. He’s kind of sawed off, +the minister is, and he can’t reach anything but the +low boughs on the trees.”</p> + +<p>“Surely, I’ll offer to string them up for him,” +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_80">[80]</span>Whitman promised. Then in order to keep the +afternoon free for possible adventure, he added: +“Late in the afternoon will do, I presume?”</p> + +<p>“Sure, if you’ve your mind set on seeing the +monuments.”</p> + +<p>“I should like to see them,” Whitman stoutly +averred. “You see my vacation is drawing to an +end, and every moment of it seems precious.” He +smiled back at the drab figure of Sister Abby. “I +won’t forget the lanterns,” he promised, and he +started down the road, his mind drifting from Sister +Abby and her affairs to the possibility of meeting +Nancy on the road.</p> + +<p>If Radding had followed instructions, the letter +for Nancy, alias Henry Luffkin (the pseudonym always +made Whitman smile) must lie in the post office +box by this time. He was determined not to +lose the pleasure of seeing Nancy’s joy.</p> + +<p>He did not know why he found all that concerned +Nancy Rose so engrossing. He only knew that her +first letter had diverted and amused him; that each +letter that followed had quickened his interest; and +that since he had met her face to face, his interest +had deepened into absorption.</p> + +<p>He had made up his mind to find her before the +close of this long bright day; and he recalled, one by +one, the clues to her possible haunts which the Captain +had let fall. It was not patriotic interest, but +the Captain’s hint that Nancy was often to be found +there, that led him to the ancient burying ground.</p> + +<p>It lay close to the Lowell place, on the other side +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_81">[81]</span>of the wagon road that ran from Deep Harbor past +the rear of the mansion. The young man could +already discern the arch of the wooden gate which +shut the sleeping soldiers from the world. And +then he saw what made his pulses leap. A woman +turned the Lowell stile, crossed the road and disappeared +among the trees in the graveyard. It was +Nancy, he concluded; and quickening his steps, he +entered the silent acres and looked about him. At +the far end of the quiet spot, he could see a woman’s +form bending over some flower beds.</p> + +<p>He strolled cautiously in that direction, saying to +himself that he must not startle Nancy. In the +hope that she would turn and see him before he was +forced to break in upon her solitude, he paused before +an old wooden monument, swaying uncertainly +on its base, and tried to decipher the inscription. +Suddenly, when he had gotten no further than, +“Killed in battle on these shores in 1813,” a voice +behind him asked: “Are you interested in the historic +past of our little town?”</p> + +<p>With a start, Caleb Whitman turned from the +battered inscription and faced—Aunt Roxana. +He knew her instantly by her erect carriage, her wide +skirt of stiff silk, her white stockings—she carried +her dress high to avoid the grass stains.</p> + +<p>Caleb Whitman raised his hat and smiled down +into Aunt Roxana’s face as fearlessly as he smiled +at Sister Abby and all the village world. “I am indeed,” +he said. “I was only wishing that I might +find some one to give me accurate information.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_82">[82]</span>The lady hesitated. Whitman had rightly +guessed that her vulnerable point was Deep Harbor’s +past. She unbent enough to say: “This +monument was erected over the graves of gallant +men who died in defense of these shores,” and she +repeated the inscription, even supplying the obliterated +words of the scriptural line.</p> + +<p>“My own people were all soldiers,” she vouchsafed, +“and did their part by giving their life blood +to save this nation.”</p> + +<p>The summer visitor had an inspiration. “Then +you must be one of the Lowell family,” he said. +“I’ve promised myself to see your stones. But of +course if I am intruding—”</p> + +<p>A flush of pleasure mingled with pride swept over +the good lady’s austere countenance.</p> + +<p>“You are quite welcome to view them,” she said. +“I am glad that I happen to be here to assist you in +your studies. The contemplation of the last resting +places of patriots must ever be an inspiration to +youth.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, indeed,” the pilgrim murmured, as the lady +led the way through the long grass to a line of time-worn +head stones, with inscriptions faint and illegible.</p> + +<p>“This,” she said, “was my great uncle, who died +in service. This, my grandfather. This a more +distant kinsman, who died of wounds,” and so on +and on she read the names, giving the man by her +side, in many a touching anecdote, the history of the +past, when Deep Harbor had been glowing with life +and high enterprise.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_83">[83]</span>“You have had many soldiers in your family,” +Whitman said, his eyes searching the road for some +glimpse of Nancy.</p> + +<p>The lady’s head tossed high. “Yes,” she said +proudly, “we have done our part.” She sighed. +“As a child I could not forgive myself for being +born a girl.”</p> + +<p>“I see.” Whitman was quick to catch her meaning. +“You would have liked to have been a general.”</p> + +<p>“Or an admiral,” she said gravely. “Our men +fought by sea as well as by land.”</p> + +<p>She led the way toward the gate, and Whitman +followed meekly in her train. There was something +in the stately lady’s devotion to the past that touched +his imagination. For her sake, he could almost have +wished that Nancy might have been of the sex out +of which generals and admirals are made.</p> + +<p>And then, at that very moment, Nancy tripped +across the road and entered the gate, a little poke +bonnet shading her eyes, a funny pair of old fashioned +mits, that displayed her pink finger tips, drawn +over her hands and arms.</p> + +<p>“Aunt,” she called; and then, seeing Whitman, +she stopped short, the color sweeping her face to the +rim of the poke hat.</p> + +<p>Miss Roxana ignored the girl’s surprise. As if +it had been an every-day occurrence for her to stroll +through the graveyard with a good-looking young +man in flannels, she said with her unbroken dignity: +“This young man is interested in Deep Harbor’s +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_84">[84]</span>past. I have been reading and explaining the inscriptions.”</p> + +<p>Her manner said as plainly as words, “The interview +is over.” And Whitman, surmising that there +was nothing to be gained by lingering, lifted his hat +and wandered a step or two in another direction, +making a feint of further study of the old head +stones.</p> + +<p>“You are going to the village?” he heard Aunt +Roxana question Nancy.</p> + +<p>“Yes.”</p> + +<p>“Have you the list of commodities to be purchased?”</p> + +<p>“I think so.”</p> + +<p>“Read it.” Aunt Roxana might have been one of +the sleeping generals of her line, issuing military +commands.</p> + +<p>“‘Three pounds of sugar,’” Nancy obediently +began; “‘pound of coffee, pound of tea—’”</p> + +<p>“Half a pound,” corrected Aunt Roxana.</p> + +<p>“‘Go to library. Get copy of Bunyan’s “Holy +War.”’” Nancy looked up. “That’s all.”</p> + +<p>“The ribbon,” Aunt Roxana prompted.</p> + +<p>“Oh, yes, the ribbon. What color did you tell +the minister it would be this year?” The girl’s tone +was listless.</p> + +<p>“Seal brown. I thought it a decorous shade, +that would not attract unseemly attention.”</p> + +<p>“I hate seal brown,” said Nancy wilfully. “Why +can’t I have a bright color, cherry red?”</p> + +<p>“Seal brown,” repeated Aunt Roxana, unmoved. +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_85">[85]</span>“A yard and a half ought to be a great sufficiency.”</p> + +<p>At this point Whitman gave up the hope that +Aunt Roxana would go her way. With a slight +bow, therefore, he passed the two ladies, and slowly +returned to the village, hoping that Nancy would +soon overtake him.</p> + +<p>“A passing traveller,” he heard Aunt Roxana explain +to her niece, as he made his retreat, “commendably +interested in his country’s history.”</p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_86">[86]</span> + +<h2 class="nobreak">CHAPTER X</h2> +</div> + +<p class="drop-cap">STROLL as slowly as he would, stop as often as +he dared, Caleb Whitman reached the village +streets without being overtaken by Nancy. Aunt +Roxana had decided to keep her at home, he concluded +rebelliously, and he remembered with concern +how soon he was due in New York.</p> + +<p>As he passed the post office, he remembered his +promise to Sister Abby to ask for the package of +Chinese lanterns. Upon entering the building, he +found that the distribution of a late mail was in +progress, so that he was obliged to await the completion +of that work before he could hope for attention. +With interest that bordered on excitement, he +watched the Captain’s box, and drew a breath of +relief when a letter on the granite gray paper Radding +affected was thrust into the pigeon hole.</p> + +<p>A moment later the postmaster appeared at the +delivery window and Whitman remembered to ask +for his own mail as well as for the lanterns. The +single letter the postmaster produced was enclosed in +a granite gray envelope like the one that awaited +Nancy.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> +<p class="right">“New York, Sept. 1, 191—</p> + +<p>“Dear Caley:” (Rad had written in his small, crabbed hand)</p> + +<p>“I have sent the fifty per instructions. I hate +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_87">[87]</span>to take the Captain’s bracelet and cameo pin from +him. I am sure they were becoming or you +wouldn’t be so philanthropic.</p> + +<p class="right"><span class="indentright">“Yours,</span><br> + +“<span class="smcap">Rad</span>.”</p> +</div> + +<p>The note made the reader laugh in spite of himself. +“That letter is like Rad,” he said to himself. +“I’d give a good deal to know if he followed my +instructions about writing to Nancy.”</p> + +<p>“Here are the lanterns you were asking for,” the +postmaster reminded him, and pushed a clumsy +bundle out the little window.</p> + +<p>“I’ll take them to the minister’s and be rid of +them,” Whitman concluded; and, leaving the post +office, he went slowly down the one business street, +peering into the grocer’s, the milliner’s, the store of +small wares, in search of a shopper in a poke bonnet. +So far she was still nowhere in sight.</p> + +<p>It was not until after he had left the bundle at +the minister’s that he remembered that Nancy had +been bidden to go to the library. Where was it? +He looked in vain down the long shady street, sloping +to the wharfs. He searched his memory. +“Where’s the library?” he finally asked a solitary +passer-by.</p> + +<p>The woman pointed to the church. “There,” she +said, and plodded on her way. “The church?” +Whitman called after her. “The tower,” she said.</p> + +<p>The church did indeed boast a tower, and upon +approach Whitman saw that a sign on the door announced +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_88">[88]</span>that the library was open Tuesday and +Thursday afternoons. He determined to wait here +for Nancy. From the windows in the church’s +square tower he could sweep half the countryside. +He entered eagerly, and following the directions of +a painted arrow, ran up a winding stair. At the +top of the first flight he paused at the door of a +small room stacked with books. An attendant rose +as he entered.</p> + +<p>“I’m a stranger in Deep Harbor—” he began.</p> + +<p>“Boarding with the Captain,” she supplied glibly.</p> + +<p>“Yes,” Whitman admitted, wondering if anything +above the earth or under the waters of the earth was +hidden from the inhabitants of a small village.</p> + +<p>“Look around and make yourself at home,” the +attendant looked up from her crocheting to say.</p> + +<p>It occurred to the visitor that this would not take +long to do, as the tower room was only some ten feet +square.</p> + +<p>“Any book you want particular?” the attendant +asked.</p> + +<p>“No, I just came to make a general survey.”</p> + +<p>“Like to go upstairs?”</p> + +<p>“Upstairs?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, the library goes on up the tower; next floor +is Religion and Non-Fiction; top floor Juvenile.”</p> + +<p>“I’d like to look over the religious books,” said +Whitman.</p> + +<p>This pious desire sprang from a sudden recollection +of the book Aunt Roxana had put on Nancy’s +list.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_89">[89]</span>“Shall I go with you?” the attendant asked, as +the visitor started up the second flight.</p> + +<p>“No, indeed, I just want to look about a bit. I +fancy there’s a fine view up higher?”</p> + +<p>“I suppose there is,” the girl conceded indifferently. +“You can see out as far as the cemetery, +and all over the town.”</p> + +<p>As these were the points of interest to Whitman, +he quickly ascended another flight of stairs and stationed +himself in the window. As the girl had +promised, his view commanded the country side. +He looked down on the beautiful little village, with +its white spires and gray roofs peeping through the +trees. He identified the Captain’s cottage on its +lonely bluff. He found the chimney of the mansion +where Nancy lived. Dear old town, steeped in memories! +He had grown to love it. There was a +charm in the sagging wharfs, in the sleepy street +bordered with little stores with diamond paned shop +windows.</p> + +<p>Abruptly his revery ended. A little figure in a +poke bonnet, whose presence lent enchantment to +every corner of the town, had just come out of the +post office. She was hastening down the street, a +basket on her arm, walking rapidly in the direction +of the tower. A few minutes later Whitman +heard her step on the stair. Evidently she knew the +library sufficiently well to come directly to the shelves +where the religious books were stacked, for she did +not pause on the floor below.</p> + +<p>“Oh,” she said, breathlessly, appearing in the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_90">[90]</span>doorway and discovering the young man, “I thought +there was no one here.”</p> + +<p>The man in the window seat arose. “I’ll go, +Nancy, if you want to be alone.”</p> + +<p>“No,” she said, after a momentary pause, “I +don’t mind; but go on reading, please. I want to +look over a letter.”</p> + +<p>She took a hat pin from her bonnet and slit open +a gray envelope as she spoke. Caleb Whitman did +not raise his eyes from his book.</p> + +<p>“Oh!” cried Nancy, after a long moment, as if +she were smothering, “oh!” and again, “oh!”</p> + +<p>Whitman sprang from his seat and hurried to her +side. The face she lifted to his was bathed in tears. +She let them fall quite openly as she pressed the +letter to her breast.</p> + +<p>“What’s the matter, dearest?” Whitman cried, +unconscious of using the endearing term. “Tell me +Nancy, has something hurt you?”</p> + +<p>His hands clenched. If Radding had played false, +he would not be forgiven in a hurry.</p> + +<p>“Matter!” she sobbed. “I’m just smothering +with joy, that’s all.”</p> + +<p>She let him seize her hand, without protest, her +pink fingers curling around his, her overflowing eyes +on his eager face.</p> + +<p>“If you are happy, Nancy,” he pleaded, “why do +you cry?”</p> + +<p>He stooped over her trembling little form, and +taking out a generous sized handkerchief, he wiped +her eyes as if she had been a child.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_91">[91]</span>“I don’t know,” she sobbed on a long, uneven +breath. “Don’t you ever cry when you are +happy?” An uncertain smile broke through her +tears. “April is the happiest month of all, and she +cries all the time.”</p> + +<p>He laughed his delight in her fancy. “Is it the +Great Happiness, Nancy?”</p> + +<p>“It’s the key to it,” she said. “Everything is +going to begin now, for me and for those I love.”</p> + +<p>“I’m so glad, so glad,” he glowed, his warm hand +enclosing hers. “Will it mean anything for me, +Nancy, or am I quite on the outside?”</p> + +<p>Two eyes like stars were raised to his. “The +gate of the garden will open,” she said.</p> + +<p>“When it does, Nancy, may I be the first to enter?”</p> + +<p>“I want you to be,” she murmured....</p> + +<p>“Get what you wanted, Miss Rose?” The voice +was that of the attendant at the bottom of the stairs. +Nancy dried her eyes.</p> + +<p>“I forget what I came for,” she whispered to +Whitman in consternation.</p> + +<p>“‘Bunyan’s Holy War,’” he prompted, and he +found the volume on the shelf and gave it into +Nancy’s keeping before the head of the attendant +had more than appeared at the top step of the +stairs.</p> + +<p>“Yes,” said Nancy, handing over the heavy +volume for registration, “I’ve found it.”</p> + +<p>“Going to the box social?” the girl asked, stamping +Nancy’s card.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_92">[92]</span>“Yes.” Nancy stole a glance at the summer +visitor, fumbling among the book shelves.</p> + +<p>“That’s good,” said the attendant. “I hope for +your sake the minister doesn’t draw your box again. +It’s awful dull for you to eat with him every year.”</p> + +<p>“He’ll always draw my box,” said Nancy in a +clear, sweet voice.</p> + +<p>“How’s that?”</p> + +<p>“Because Aunt ties it up herself, and tells him the +color of the ribbon. It’s the only way she’ll let me +go. She says she couldn’t consider leaving it to +chance.”</p> + +<p>“I see,” said the girl.</p> + +<p>“Good-bye,” said Nancy, with a glance so tender, +a face so suffused with joy that it was like an April +sun.</p> + +<p>“Going straight home?” the attendant called +after her.</p> + +<p>“No,” said Nancy; and her voice rang clear. +“I’ve another errand to do first. I have to get some +seal brown ribbon at the store.”</p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_93">[93]</span> + +<h2 class="nobreak">CHAPTER XI</h2> +</div> + +<p class="drop-cap">“HOW much for this box, gentlemen?” Sam +Tupman begged, from his stand on a packing +case. “Ten cents!” the auctioneer reproached. +“I’m ashamed of you, Jim Lyman. There’s more +than ten cents’ worth of butter on the bread. +Twenty-five? That’s better. Don’t insult the +young lady who put up this box. Thirty-five? +Come, thirty-five. That’s right, Henshaw. A fellow +with a mouth as large as yours ought to pay +thirty-five cents for looking at a box like this.”</p> + +<p>The laughter that rolled up from the village people +who had gathered on the minister’s lawn added +to the fun at the grinning country boy’s expense. +The bidding mounted. It soared. A box, tied with +flaming orange, was knocked down to the boy with +the large mouth for <i>sixty cents</i>! The minister’s carpet +began to assume reality.</p> + +<p>From his seat under the trees, Caleb Whitman +laughed and enjoyed the fun with the others. It +seemed to him that nothing the city offered could +compare with this little village fête for pure and +innocent enjoyment. The spirit of neighborliness +everywhere manifested, the tingling excitement of +the young people in the auction, the hearty enjoyment +the country found in Sam Tupman’s humor, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_94">[94]</span>all gave to the simple entertainment an air, or so the +man from the city thought, as wholesome as the +breeze that came in exhilarating puffs from the blue +waters of Ontario. He thought of New York, with +its chill indifference and hard worldliness with profound +distaste.</p> + +<p>And then from his seat under the bobbing lanterns +which he had helped to suspend from the splendid +old maple trees, he turned his eyes again to Nancy, +who sat with the neighbors to whom Aunt Roxana +had entrusted her, persons whose dress and manner +proclaimed for them special distinction in the community. +At each successive meeting he had told +himself that Nancy’s beauty and charm had reached +their height. But never before had he seen her with +her eyes shining with ecstasy, her cheeks flying banners +of joy, her girlish throat encircled by a coral +necklace, her happy face peeping from beneath a +white lace hat, with a rose tucked beneath the brim. +It was plainly Nancy’s gala hat, and Nancy’s gala +day.</p> + +<p>The Captain, looking very spruce in his black Sunday +suit, his white collar, dazzlingly polished, scraping +his ears, leaned toward his summer boarder. +“The boxes are going fast; you’d better begin bidding +unless you want to go hungry,” he warned.</p> + +<p>“I’ve got my eye on one.”</p> + +<p>Whitman’s assurance made the Captain chuckle. +“Don’t need no looking after by me,” he said; and +he settled back to enjoy the fun of Sam Tupman’s +antics.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_95">[95]</span>The auction was coming to a close. Most of the +men present were balancing generous boxes on their +knees, awaiting the signal to open them, to search +for the packers’ names.</p> + +<p>Sam Tupman looked at the minister, a fat, short, +benevolent little man of sixty years, in a rusty coat. +Then he picked up a box from among the few left +on the table, a box that looked as if it had once contained +five pounds of candy, wrapped neatly in white +tissue paper, bound sedately with seal brown ribbon; +but, alas for Aunt Roxana’s decorum, with a big +moss rose thrust coquettishly through the bow.</p> + +<p>“How much?” said Sam Tupman, omitting his +usual raillery.</p> + +<p>The minister murmured: “Twenty-five cents.”</p> + +<p>“Fifty,” said Whitman promptly.</p> + +<p>The auctioneer hesitated. The minister put on his +glasses and looked his flock over to see whence the +voice of the interloper came. “Fifty-five,” he said +at last, with careful deliberation. The Captain +shook with inward laughter. “Go it,” he challenged +Whitman admiringly.</p> + +<p>“Seventy-five,” said the stranger within the gates.</p> + +<p>“Eighty,” said the minister.</p> + +<p>“One dollar!” Whitman’s voice rang out.</p> + +<p>The auctioneer paused. “Parson,” he cried +above the laughter, “if you’d auctioned as long as I +have, you’d know when to quit by the ring in the +other fellow’s voice. That boy ain’t got onto his +real wind yet.”</p> + +<p>“A dollar ten,” said the minister firmly.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_96">[96]</span>“Two dollars,” from Whitman.</p> + +<p>The minister wiped his forehead. “You’re right, +Sam,” he called good-naturedly. “I can’t tire him +out; but I gave him a run for his money.”</p> + +<p>The worldly phrase from the guileless little minister +caused a rumble of laughter from his flock, that +died only to rise again.</p> + +<p>“Well,” sighed Miss Abby, leaning toward Whitman, +“there ain’t been such excitement in Deep +Harbor in many a day. I hope you got a good box. +I meant to give you a hint about mine.”</p> + +<p>Ten minutes later the tables were spread. The +young people as well as the elderly folk (age far outnumbered +youth in the old town) opened the boxes +and found their partners’ names.</p> + +<p>Caleb Whitman left his seat with the Luffkins and +crossed the lawn. “Come, Nancy,” he said.</p> + +<p>The friends to whom she had been entrusted had +wandered away, leaving her for the moment alone. +With an adorable readiness, quite unlike the giggling +reluctance the village girls were feigning, Nancy +arose.</p> + +<p>“Oh,” she reproached the young man, her lips +parting in a smile. “How did you dare?”</p> + +<p>“They told me to bid on a box.” Whitman +laughed down into her upturned face. “If it happened +to be yours—” His gesture implied that +such being the case, he was not to blame.</p> + +<p>“I did not tell you the color of the ribbon, did +I?” She waited anxiously for his answer, as if to +gather assurance for future defense.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_97">[97]</span>“Certainly not,” he affirmed unblushingly, leading +her to a seat between two maple trees.</p> + +<p>“But,” Nancy persisted, “how did you know that +it was my box, if you didn’t know the color of my +ribbon? You haven’t opened it to find my name.”</p> + +<p>Whitman’s answer was ready. “I knew it by the +sign of the rose,” he said, taking the flower from +the box, to pin it on his coat. “It’s your symbol, +Nancy—a moss rose in an old fashioned garden.”</p> + +<p>When they were seated on the board seat Nancy +opened her box revealing a loaf of almond cake +(made with orange flower wine) and piles of little +sandwiches, tied bewitchingly with cherry colored +ribbons.</p> + +<p>“I’m sorry for the minister,” the man beside her +said, making one mouthful of a little square of bread +and butter, “he’ll miss the cherry ribbons.”</p> + +<p>“He’s never had them,” Nancy replied quickly; +and then she blushed.</p> + +<p>“Were they—for me, Nancy?”</p> + +<p>“For the highest bidder,” said Nancy. Aunt +Roxana’s lessons in discretion had not been in vain. +Then she added, anxiously: “Those sandwiches +look very small, some way, for your mouth.”</p> + +<p>“They were measured for a rose bud,” he replied, +looking straight at two red lips.</p> + +<p>“The minister never said things like that.”</p> + +<p>“Perhaps he did not dare.”</p> + +<p>“No,” Nancy decided judicially. “I think it was +because he was too busy eating bread and butter. +On the way home, though, he sometimes paid me the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_98">[98]</span>compliment of telling me I was a good girl, and a +comfort to my Aunt.”</p> + +<p>“On the way home? Has it been his custom to +take you home?”</p> + +<p>She sighed and nodded.</p> + +<p>“He’s not going to do it, to-night. You’re going +with me.”</p> + +<p>She looked her longing. Then she sighed again. +“No, it would never do.”</p> + +<p>“Yes,” he pleaded.</p> + +<p>She hesitated, catching her breath. “Then we +must start early—before nine,” she decided.</p> + +<p>“Well,” he conceded, wondering if the earlier +hour would appease Aunt Roxana’s disapproval.</p> + +<p>“What are you going to say to the minister?”</p> + +<p>“I’ll trust to inspiration. It’s never hard to persuade +a fat man to sit still. I’ll tell him that the +privilege of taking you home goes with the box.”</p> + +<p>He picked up the cover, which had served him for +a plate. “Hello,” he said, “a New York candy +box.”</p> + +<p>“Yes,” said Nancy. “The old man with gray +whiskers, of whom I told you, sent me the candy. +It was a wonderful box. A revelation in candy, +after peppermint sticks in paper bags. I have +thought of New York ever since as a splendid box +of bon bons, each layer more wonderful than the +last. Is it like that?”</p> + +<p>The city which had seemed so distasteful a moment +before, assumed brighter form with Nancy’s +words. He thought suddenly of all the treasures +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_99">[99]</span>of art gathered there, of the shops and the play +houses, the ships on the river, the gayety of the +avenue; and he began to tell Nancy of the side of +New York that was indeed like a candy box, lined +with paper lace, all ready, should she come there, for +the pinch of her golden tongs.</p> + +<p>“And you will come, Nancy?” he pleaded as the +shadows lengthened.</p> + +<p>“Maybe,” she promised. “Anything seems possible—now.” +And then she asked, quite suddenly, +“Didn’t you once mention a man named Radding to +me?”</p> + +<p>“Perhaps,” he said, startled.</p> + +<p>“Who is he?”</p> + +<p>“There are dozens of people of that name in New +York. The one I know is a scholar and a gentleman.”</p> + +<p>“What does he do for his living?”</p> + +<p>“He writes a little and lives on his income.”</p> + +<p>“Ah!” Her sigh was one of relief.</p> + +<p>“Do you write, Nancy? I should think you +might, with that pretty fancy of yours.” He waited +expectantly, hoping for her confession of the authorship +of the poem.</p> + +<p>She shook her head. “No. I feel things, but +I don’t draw them, or sing them, or write them.”</p> + +<p>The long northern twilight grew dimmer. Black +night set in. Some one lighted the lanterns, which +bobbed from the high branches where Whitman had +strung them, like huge fire flies among the trees. A +vast content with the present, an eager expectancy of +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_100">[100]</span>the future, flooded his being. Life was a spring of +living water, to which he pressed his lips.</p> + +<p>“Come,” said Nancy suddenly. “We must start. +I did not know it was so late. Time had wings, to-night.”</p> + +<p>When Whitman begged for the privilege of taking +Nancy home the minister demurred. “You are +a stranger to Miss Roxana,” he said.</p> + +<p>“I spent all yesterday afternoon with her,” Whitman +argued.</p> + +<p>“Well,” the minister gave in, “if she says +anything, send her to me. If she never finds it out, +let it be on my conscience.” He patted Nancy on +the shoulder and gave his fat little hand to Whitman +in farewell. “It was good of you,” he said, his eyes +twinkling, “to bid so generously this evening in +order to help the church.”</p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_101">[101]</span> + +<h2 class="nobreak">CHAPTER XII</h2> +</div> + +<p class="drop-cap">THE walk home, down the long country road, +under the summer stars, was at an end. +Nancy paused decisively at the stile. “Good night,” +she said. “I can find my way in alone.”</p> + +<p>“I don’t like to leave you, Nancy, for that great +black, shuttered house to swallow up.”</p> + +<p>“I’m used to it, Mr. Whitman.”</p> + +<p>“What will you tell Aunt Roxana about to-night?”</p> + +<p>“I’ll tell her—” the Cupid’s bow arched over the +white, even teeth.</p> + +<p>“Yes,” eagerly, his hand retaining hers.</p> + +<p>“That miles aren’t always the same length; that +the walk to the village to buy brown ribbon is much +longer than the walk back in the evening after the +ribbon has been untied.”</p> + +<p>“Ah, Nancy.”</p> + +<p>But she had darted from him, to run fleetly toward +the house, like a Cinderella who hears the strike of +the clock. He watched the shadowy form disappear +into the deep blackness of the tunneled arbor, +hoping to learn through the sound of her great door +key in the lock or the flicker of her candle at some +window, that she was safe within the lonely dwelling. +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_102">[102]</span>No such signal came to him, but still he lingered +at the gate, his thoughts tumultuous.</p> + +<p>To return to the village fête without Nancy, after +those wonderful moments together, beneath the old +trees, seemed impossible—an anti-climax to an +evening that had mounted steadily in significance and +enjoyment. How much they had found to say to +one another. How much they had left unsaid. He +was haunted by the thought that in spite of the long, +uninterrupted tête-à-tête, he had let Nancy go without +telling her something of the utmost importance. +What was it? He searched his memory. Ah, at +last he knew. Sweet and disturbing, for the first +time the truth swept over him. He wanted to tell +Nancy that—he loved her.</p> + +<p>His mind leaped to their next meeting, only to be +stunned by the thought that his last days in the old +town might yield him no opportunity to pour out to +Nancy the new and amazing discovery. Against +such a possibility his will beat with stubborn resistance, +as he pondered the question of how to bring +about a tryst. A penciled note, written by the light +of a match, and left in the bower, might catch her +eye, with slight risk of being found by any one +else. He would take that chance; and, having so +decided, he strolled down the road until he came to +the corner of the hedge that surrounded the estate +where the latticed summer house rose black among +the shrubbery. In order to leave no betraying footsteps +in Aunt Roxana’s realm, he planned to enter +by the break in the thicket.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_103">[103]</span>The trees sighed and creaked as he bent his head +to creep under their branches. The woodbine that +draped Nancy’s bower rustled ominously. The +night, under the overhanging boughs of the trees, +among the tangle of syringa and lilacs, was an unbroken +sheet of black. Suddenly Whitman paused, +and looked again. From within the summer house’s +inky interior a tiny spark of fire pricked the darkness +with an intermittent glow. No man could mistake +that light. Whitman stopped short. “A man +in the bower,” he said to himself, even before the +odor of tobacco mingled with the garden scents. A +moment after, a burnt out cigarette was flung carelessly +through the brush. A man came to the door +and whistled a faint bugle call, softly, persistently. +Even in the dim light of stars his service hat, his +tight blouse and his high leggins gave to his silhouette +a distinctive outline not to be mistaken for that of a +civilian.</p> + +<p>Caleb Whitman could not have taken a step without +betraying his presence. Uncertain what course +to pursue, torn with vague fears, he waited. The +stone nymph with the broken arm was not more +silent than he.</p> + +<p>Again the guarded whistle fluted through the +silence.</p> + +<p>“I’m coming,” cried a sweet voice, down the +gravel path. And now Whitman could not have +moved had he wished. His feet, his hands, his very +tongue in his parched mouth, seemed paralyzed with +foreboding.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_104">[104]</span>The boughs overhanging the path parted wide and +Nancy’s white form flashed into the grassy plot +before the bower.</p> + +<p>“Is that you, Bob?” The voice was gay with +expectation.</p> + +<p>“Yes. A pretty time you’ve kept me waiting. I +was just about to give you up.”</p> + +<p>Whitman’s hands clenched at the easy nonchalance +of that reply, and then his fingers loosened lifelessly; +for the girl he loved had tripped toward the waiting +soldier and flung her arms about his neck.</p> + +<p>“Oh, Bob, Bob, precious,” her voice came to the +man who watched. “I’m so happy. Did you get +my note?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, I got it, Nance; that’s why I’m here. +Don’t break my ribs even if you are glad to see +me.”</p> + +<p>A primitive instinct to grapple with a man who +treated Nancy’s love with that easy tolerance swept +over Whitman.</p> + +<p>“What kept you so late?” The soldier lighted +another cigarette. By the glow of the match Whitman +recognized the handsome face of Sergeant Wilson +with sickening certainty.</p> + +<p>“I came home promptly, Bob,” Nancy explained; +“but some one who came with me lingered at the +gate. I did not dare come out to you until I was +sure he had gone.”</p> + +<p>“Well, now I’m here, what do you want? I gave +up a jolly good game of pool to come.”</p> + +<p>The tone was one of affectionate indulgence, with +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_105">[105]</span>no hint of a lover’s rapture. Its assurance struck a +chill to Whitman’s heart.</p> + +<p>“I wanted to tell you, Bob, that we can send +old Goldstein about his business. Your trouble is +over. I have the money.”</p> + +<p>“You haven’t!” The soldier seized something +which Nancy took from her bosom, felt it, then drew +her to him with one strong arm, kissed her soundly, +and said: “All I can say is that you’re a brick. +How did you do it? Appeal to the Czarina?”</p> + +<p>“No, that would have spoiled everything. I did +it in my own way. I’ll tell you how some day. +Now go, or you’ll be late.”</p> + +<p>“Let me go then.” The tone was bantering, but +Whitman winced. “I’ll not forget what you’ve +done, Nance. I’ll make you proud of me yet. +That’s the only way I can repay you.”</p> + +<p>“I’ve always known you would, Bob,” she said, +sealing the promise with a kiss.</p> + +<p>“Good-bye, kid. I’ll be late for ‘check’ if I +don’t skip.”</p> + +<p>He strode toward the path that led to the stile, +with Nancy in his wake. Whitman waited until he +heard the sergeant’s gay whistle well down the road +before he moved. Then he staggered into the +bower, and bowed his head on his arms over the +rustic table, his brain whirling with agonizing, discordant +thoughts. How long he sat there he could +not remember; nor how long it took him to stumble +blindly back to the village, silent and sleeping, and +out the country road to the Captain’s cottage.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_106">[106]</span>At his step in the house, Miss Abby appeared at +her door. “Well,” she said, “Henry and I thought +you must have got drowned. I couldn’t sleep for +thinking of you.” She held a candle aloft and +peered from her room at Whitman, whose step was +already on the stair.</p> + +<p>“What time does the first train leave for New +York to-morrow, Miss Abby?” he asked heavily.</p> + +<p>“There’s none until night, unless you want to go +over to Fairview with Brother Henry on his first +trip and catch the interurban to Adams.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, I’ll do that. Something has come up to +shorten my vacation. I’m going back to work as +quick as I can.”</p> + +<p>Miss Abby stared. “Well, for pity’s sakes,” she +said.</p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_107">[107]</span> + +<h2 class="nobreak">CHAPTER XIII</h2> +</div> + +<p class="drop-cap">THE fourteenth of February had come. The +windows of candy shops were stacked high +with heart shaped boxes. The girls behind the +counters of sweets took orders with lightning rapidity. +The florists were hurrying off bouquets of violets +and roses which must be delivered before the day +died, without fail. Little boys tip-toed up steps, +rang bells and ran away, leaving embossed envelopes +on the stoops. From the news stands <i>Better Every +Week</i>, in its new dress, cried to the world in bold, +black letters that the Valentine Special was on the +market. From its cover, Cupid in a biplane winged +a world with his arrows.</p> + +<p>“Looks pretty good, doesn’t it?” Radding suggested +to the young editor, as they paused for a +fleeting moment in the subway to ask the girl behind +the news stand how the edition was going.</p> + +<p>“Yes, Rad, it does. I worked hard on it. +Funny, isn’t it, that I should have edited a valentine +number, when I have neither sent nor received a +valentine in my life?”</p> + +<p>“How did that happen?” asked Radding, as they +found seats in the train.</p> + +<p>“You know my boyhood. An orphan on my +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_108">[108]</span>uncle’s farm, small chance I had of receiving or +sending sentimental offerings.”</p> + +<p>“Caley,” said Radding whimsically, “say the +word and I’ll send you a tribute to-day. Which +shall it be,—violets or mixed chocolates?”</p> + +<p>Radding’s foolery made Whitman smile at his +own expense. “The new magazine is valentine +enough for me, Rad,” he said; “I’m feeling pretty +good over it.”</p> + +<p>He suddenly noticed that a man beside him was +lost in the pages of the number. “Funny, isn’t it, +Rad,” he whispered, indicating the reader, “that +a bullet headed chap like that likes sentiment as well +as a girl? I never get over it.”</p> + +<p>At this moment, the man took out his knife and +cut something from a column of the magazine, which +he folded into his bill case before he flung the +“Special” down and left the car. Whitman +reached for the paper.</p> + +<p>“I’m curious to see what caught his fancy,” he +said.</p> + +<p>“Yes,” Rad drawled, “when a writer’s stuff gets +into vest pockets and shopping bags, an editor had +better hold onto him.”</p> + +<p>He watched with interest as Whitman turned the +pages to see what was missing.</p> + +<p>“What was it?” he asked, as Whitman gazed at +the hole the knife had made.</p> + +<p>“Nothing.” The words came stiffly. “Just”—Whitman +turned his eyes heavily toward his friend. +“Just Nancy’s poem. You know,—Lady Valentine.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_109">[109]</span>He looked steadily in front of him for a long moment, +without a word.</p> + +<p>Radding watched him narrowly. It was the first +time either of them had mentioned the girl in Deep +Harbor since that day last September when Whitman +had come back, looking worn and haggard. “Don’t +chaff me, Rad, please. I can’t stand it,” was all he +had said in response to his friend’s badinage over +his unexpected return. And Radding had respected +that request. The subject had been dropped. Now, +however, Radding seized the chance to say something +that had long been in his mind.</p> + +<p>“Caley,” he began gently, “I haven’t had a +chance to tell you that I felt pretty bad over the outcome +of our fun. I’ve never ceased to blame myself +for fanning your interest in that girl; for teasing you +to go up there.”</p> + +<p>“You didn’t know—You thought it was the +Captain who wrote the letters.”</p> + +<p>Radding shook his head. “No, I didn’t. I can’t +excuse myself that way.”</p> + +<p>“Then why—”</p> + +<p>“I wanted to get you out of the bachelor’s rut you +were falling into from my bad example.”</p> + +<p>“It wouldn’t have made any difference, Rad. I’d +have gone anyway. I was taken with her from the +first.”</p> + +<p>“Are you sure,” Radding began carefully, “that +there was no mistake? Are you sure that she didn’t +feel the same way about you?”</p> + +<p>Whitman’s laugh was bitter. “I’m certain,” he +said.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_110">[110]</span>“Did she tell you so? Forgive my persistence.”</p> + +<p>“She didn’t have to. There was—another +man.”</p> + +<p>“How do you know?”</p> + +<p>“I learned it accidentally.”</p> + +<p>“Have you ever heard from her since?”</p> + +<p>“Early in the year I had a letter from Luffkin—the +real Luffkin—corroborating all my fears. A +week ago, I had one from her, asking me not to publish +her poem, written as usual under the Captain’s +name. The poem was already in press and had to +go through, of course. I wrote a line telling her so, +and that’s the end of it all.”</p> + +<p>“Let me see the Captain’s letter some time, if you +haven’t destroyed it,” Radding suggested.</p> + +<p>Whitman promptly produced it from his pocket. +“I saved it,” he said, “to keep me from indulging in +any more foolish hopes.”</p> + +<p>Rad pinched on his glasses and read:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> +<p class="right">“Deep Harbor, N. Y.    <br> + “Jan. 3, 191—</p> + +<p>“Friend Whitman:</p> + +<p>“Concerning suspicions I had last summer of +a certain party, would say all come out well long +since, as you have probably heard. My girl kept +her secret well, and Aunt was about struck dead +when the sergeant walked in on her and told her +that he’d got a commission. Aunt’s head was +pretty high before. Now, I’m thinking, it won’t +never come down no more. With a lieutenant in +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_111">[111]</span>the family, things are settling back like they used +to be.</p> + +<p>“Hoping this finds you in health.</p> + +<p class="right"><span class="indentright">“Respectfully,</span><br> +“<span class="smcap">Henry B. Luffkin</span>.”</p> +</div> + +<p>“Was the sergeant the fellow?” asked Radding, +when he had come to the Captain’s carefully lettered +signature.</p> + +<p>Whitman nodded, his face set.</p> + +<p>Further comment was impossible, for at this moment +the train pulled into Radding’s station.</p> + +<p>“Wait for me at your office,” he said, as he rose. +“I’ll be there about five.”</p> + +<p>“It’s a half holiday,” Whitman reminded him.</p> + +<p>“Better yet. Make it two, then. We’ll do something +together.” And Radding was gone.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>It was a quarter after two by the office clock. +Whitman was about to close his desk and give Radding +up, when the janitor, a draggled individual with +the discouraged slant of a worn out broom, appeared +in the door and croaked: “Party outside asking for +a Mr. Radding. There’s no such person here, is +there?”</p> + +<p>“He’ll be here any minute,” Whitman replied. +“Show the visitor in. I’ll talk to him.”</p> + +<p>The janitor ambled down the long hall in the direction +of the waiting room. Whitman once more took +up the proofs of his novel, which he had laid aside +preparatory to leaving. The visitor’s coming gave +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_112">[112]</span>him fresh hope that Radding would finally appear. +Engrossed in his work, Whitman had forgotten the +invitation he had sent by the janitor, when he was +aroused by a timid knock on the door. It was followed, +upon his giving permission to enter, by the +turning of the knob, the soft rustle of a woman’s +garments, and an exclamation that was stifled almost +before it escaped.</p> + +<p>The young man raised his eyes. In the doorway +stood a girl, in a fur hat and sable furs upon which +the snow had frozen in glistening crystals. At the +sight of Whitman, her face blanched beneath her +veil.</p> + +<p>“Nancy!” Whitman breathed, doubting the evidence +of his eyes.</p> + +<p>It was some moments before she attempted to +speak. Then her lips moved stiffly:</p> + +<p>“Who are you?” she said. “Why are you +here?”</p> + +<p>Whitman got to his feet. He did not move +toward her, but steadying himself by a hand that +found his desk, he spoke, the length of the room +between them:</p> + +<p>“I’m the Editor of <i>Better Every Week</i>, Nancy.”</p> + +<p>“You deceived me, then. If I’d known—”</p> + +<p>The young man finished the sentence for her, bitterly:</p> + +<p>“You mean if you’d known that, you wouldn’t +have come?”</p> + +<p>“No, I would not have come.”</p> + +<p>“Are you sorry, Nancy, to find me here?”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_113">[113]</span>“I’m sorry that the old man in whom you let me +believe is not a reality. I liked to think that I had +a friend.”</p> + +<p>“You surely know that I am your friend, Nancy; +a thousand fold more sincerely your friend than he +could ever have been—had he existed. I was your +friend from the beginning. I am your friend now.”</p> + +<p>To these protestations she made no answer.</p> + +<p>“If Mr. Radding is not here,” she said at last, +with an effort to control her voice, “I think that I +must go.”</p> + +<p>The dignity inherited from a long line of gentlewomen +showed in the slight inclination of her head +in his direction.</p> + +<p>“He’ll be here,” Whitman promised, recklessly, +feeling anything was more bearable than her going. +“What did you want of him, Nancy?”</p> + +<p>“I wanted to buy back some heirlooms I sold +him when I was in trouble. Bob won’t hear of +anything else, now that our necessity is over.”</p> + +<p>“Is Bob—Sergeant Wilson?”</p> + +<p>“He was; but the War Department has allowed +him to change his name.”</p> + +<p>“Is he with you?”</p> + +<p>“Yes. He came to get measured for some new +uniforms, and I came with him. He’s to call here +for me and take me back to the hotel.”</p> + +<p>“Nancy,” Whitman pleaded, looking down at her +averted eyes, “tell me, are you happy? I can bear +anything if you are.”</p> + +<p>“I have everything to make me happy,” Nancy +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_114">[114]</span>evaded him. “Aunt Roxana is radiant.” She +smiled faintly. “She is going to give a ball to the +whole regiment. She is so happy she has even forgiven +me about the poem.”</p> + +<p>“The poem?”</p> + +<p>“The one you bought.”</p> + +<p>“What was there to forgive?”</p> + +<p>“It was her heart’s secret. She had written it +when she was a girl like me. I did not know that, +of course, when I sent it to you. I found it in a +secret drawer. I thought some one long dead had +written it.”</p> + +<p>It was Whitman’s turn to be silent. When he +spoke his voice trembled. “You can’t realize, +Nancy, what it means to me to learn that those +verses were not yours. I seem to have lost my last +illusion.”</p> + +<p>“You mean it was wicked to sell them? That’s +what Aunt said until she learned what I wanted to +do with the money.”</p> + +<p>“Of course I don’t mean any such thing,” Whitman +protested, indignantly. “I mean that I loved +to think that it was your heart that waited there +‘Like violets under snow.’”</p> + +<p>Nancy shook her head. “I didn’t write them, +but I loved them. They taught me something that +has helped me to go on.”</p> + +<p>“What did they teach you, Nancy?”</p> + +<p>“They taught me that love is always answered +by love, at last. Aunt Roxana never had a lover, +but Bob came, and filled her heart. Perhaps,” the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_115">[115]</span>sweet voice quavered, “it will be Bob’s son who will +fill mine.”</p> + +<p>Whitman’s voice was so tense it sounded hard.</p> + +<p>“Nancy,” he said sternly, “did you marry without +loving?”</p> + +<p>“Marry!” A deep flush swept the pale cheeks, +to the brim of the little fur hat. “I am not married.”</p> + +<p>“Not yet?”</p> + +<p>“Certainly not.”</p> + +<p>“But you have a lover?”</p> + +<p>The ghost of the old Nancy flickered in her uncertain +smile. “I’m not sure,” she breathed.</p> + +<p>“Please don’t tease me, Nancy.” A hot hand +locked over hers. “Once for all, tell me who it was +that came to you in the bower, that you kissed, that +you let clasp you in his arms.”</p> + +<p>“Why, Mr. Whitman,” she laughed on a long +sobbing breath, while one little hand stole contritely +into his. “Didn’t you know? That was Bob, my +brother.”</p> + +<p>“Your brother!”</p> + +<p>Without waiting for another word; without asking +where he stood in her affections, Whitman gathered +the slight figure, muffled in furs, tight within his +arms. He kissed the beautiful eyes until they +laughed up at him once more. He kissed the cheeks +until they bloomed. He kissed the mouth until the +Cupid’s bow arched in its old, playful smile.</p> + +<p>“Why, Caleb,” she gasped between his kisses, +“didn’t you really know?”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_116">[116]</span>“Know! Did you suppose if I had known I +should have left Deep Harbor without one word, +after that last night together? What did you think +of me, Nancy? What could you have thought of +me?”</p> + +<p>The dark head drooped against his shoulder, as if +glad to be at rest. “At first I thought all that Aunt +had said of men was true. Then I found the moss +rose I had given you, in the bower. I knew you +must have seen me meet Bob, and I thought you +could not have understood. And so, the moment the +secret was out and Bob had his commission, I asked +Captain Luffkin to write you—and still you did not +come. Didn’t you get the letter?”</p> + +<p>“Get the letter!” roared Whitman. “Of course +I got the letter. It destroyed the last spark of hope +within me. The blundering old walrus! He never +once mentioned your relationship to the sergeant. +If he steered a boat with no more skill than he +writes letters, he’d be aground in five minutes.”</p> + +<p>Nancy laughed softly. “It’s all over now,” she +sighed contentedly. “My troubles and yours have +vanished, as well as Bob’s.”</p> + +<p>“Did Bob have such heavy troubles, dear?”</p> + +<p>“Yes; I forgot you didn’t know. They explain +everything. You see, Bob had been in the Academy—West +Point, you know—but something happened, +and they—dismissed him.”</p> + +<p>“That was hard, wasn’t it, Sweetheart?”</p> + +<p>“Aunt Roxana wrote him a terrible letter, and +told him that he had disgraced his forefathers; that +he must never enter our gate again.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_117">[117]</span>“Poor chap! Pretty rough on him, wasn’t it?”</p> + +<p>“I used to think so, but it made a man of him. +He enlisted in the ranks under the name of Wilson, +and won his commission the very year his class graduated. +In all that time Aunt Roxana had not heard +one word of his whereabouts. I alone knew the +secret. Oh! If you had seen her the day when +Bob threw open the garden gate and strode up the +walk with his head as high as hers, the straps on his +shoulders.”</p> + +<p>“She was pleased, was she, darling?”</p> + +<p>“Pleased!” Nancy ejaculated, smiling. “She’s +never talked of anything else since. She’s never +looked at another person. And to think,” she sighed +reminiscently, “how near he came to failing. If it +hadn’t been for your buying my poem and your telling +Mr. Radding, the collector, about my things, +Bob might never have got his commission.”</p> + +<p>“What had that to do with it, my own?”</p> + +<p>“Ah, you don’t know. There was an old debt +from Academy days that had to be paid. A cruel +creature named Goldstein found out that Bob was +in the ranks, and he threatened to tell the commanding +officer the whole story, unless he was paid. It +was life or death with us at that crucial time, to get +the money. Bob raised all that he could—”</p> + +<p>“Then my little general took a hand.”</p> + +<p>“What sweet things you always say.” Her cheek +caressed his sleeve. “I missed you so when you +went away. It was winter in the garden and winter +in my heart.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_118">[118]</span>“It’s spring now, beloved, forever and forever.”</p> + +<p>A discreet knock on the wall of the corridor, well +outside the open door, caused Nancy to retreat from +Whitman’s arms and hurriedly put her hat to rights.</p> + +<p>“Yes?” shouted Whitman fiercely, peering out +to find the intruder.</p> + +<p>The janitor coughed and smiled apologetically, +“Sorry to interrupt you, Mr. Whitman, but this +note just came for you.”</p> + +<p>Whitman opened it, while his arm again drew +Nancy close.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> +<p>“Dear Caley:” (He read)</p> + +<p>“I hope the ‘Valentine’ I ventured to send +met with your approval. I’m afraid the dinner +is on me, after all. I have ordered covers laid for +four at Delmonico’s at eight. I insist that the +sergeant come, to keep me company.</p> + +<p>“‘If her name is Mary, call her Mary; if she +was christened Susan, call her Susan.’</p> + +<p class="right"><span class="indentright">“As ever,</span><br> + +“<span class="smcap">Rad</span>.”</p> +</div> + +<p>“What does he mean?” asked Nancy, reading the +note from the shelter of her lover’s arm.</p> + +<p>“He’ll tell you at dinner, Rose of the World, in +his own whimsical way.”</p> + +<p class="center">THE END</p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> +<div class="transnote"> +<p class="ph1">TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:</p> + +<p>Perceived typographical errors have been corrected.</p> + +<p>Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been standardized.</p> +</div></div> +<div style='text-align:center'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78169 ***</div> +</body> +</html> |