CHAPTER V.
Estherwas standing by the rim of a clear pool in the woods, gazing down into the water. Her big hat was weighted with cockle blooms that she had gathered in coming through the wheat. In this natural mirror she could see that a stem here was too long, another there was turned the wrong way to look well. With both hands to her head she was intent upon regulating the effect to please her eye. Turning her head first to one side, then another, she smiled at herself, impulsive, always in motion, quick as a wren. The water was so clear that one could see the last year’s leaves lying at its depths. It was deep and sloped toward the center. Inverted it would look like a mound where children are toldthat Indians are buried, when the one can think of no other excuse for its grave-like appearance. This pool went by the name of “Indian Well.” Esther had no thought but that she was alone, until she saw an image, a serious young face, reflected there, with soft, brown beard and hair, and deep eyes that wore a languid, meditating look. He stooped and dipped his curved hand into the surface and was raising it to his lips. Suddenly, instinctively, she bounded to his side, dashing the water from his hands before he could drink.
“Don’t you know there is fever in it?”
For a moment he looked at her in wonder.
“The fever,” he repeated, “what do you mean?”
“The germs of typhoid—I thought everybody knew that.”
“But you see I am not everybody,” he answered, laughing.
She looked at every feature of his face. “But didn’t you feel like it the other night?”
This surprised him so that he had not made an answer when she went on: “Everybody who has died of typhoid fever around here drank water out of ‘Indian Well.’ This is where they got the germ.”
“I was never here before. You are very good to warn me.” He looked at her and she seemed so sweet and beautiful as she stood there, between him and danger. Whether real or imagined, her motive was the same.
“Is your home near by?”
“I live with my grandpa in the white house on the road as you came up.”
“I didn’t come by the road; I came through by the wood-path from the Curtises. I’m spending the summer there. What a pity this lovely spot is poisoned, I am sorry; I might see you here again but for that. It makes a pretty tryst,” he said.
“Sorry? Why? You don’t know me.”
This pleased him. He had found a refreshingcreature. At the outset he had thrilled at the prospect.
“Don’t I? You played once where I had the pleasure of hearing you. Your name is Esther—Esther Powel.”
“Yes, and I have seen your face before I saw it in the water. They called you ‘Glenn Andrews’ when they gave you the medal.”
She slowly looked him over from head to foot, and smiled as if in a trance of joy. It was all so wonderful, so strange—this hero’s coming.
“But I am still ahead. You will never see me win laurels again, perhaps, and I expect to hear you play many times.”
“Don’t be sure. It’s no use for me to play. People don’t seem to care whether they hear it or not. I play for myself, because the sounds from my violin seem to express what I feel.”
“But suppose I care?”
“Then I will play for you sometime, if we should meet again.”
“When could I get in your way?”
“Most any time.”
“Will you be home all summer?”
“Yes, and winter, too.” She laughed at his question.
“Let us sit down and rest a while together. I want to talk over the pleasure that is in store for me.”
Little did he think as she agreed, and they sat down on an old log, how much in later life and amidst different scenes, he was to lament that circumstance. “I have always loved the country. It is so true, so beautiful; I love it from the bottom of my heart.”
He lifted his face, drawing a deep breath; the air was clean and sweet with the scent of growing things.
“Everything is beautiful that’s natural,” she said, touching the beflowered hat. “I never even wear ‘bought’ flowers, because they are only make-believes. I hate anything that is not sure-enough.”
“It’s a pretty idea. I wondered where you found this.”
“Just made it.”
She seemed to have grasped a good deal for her years.
“I see you have learned a way of your own in your travels.”
“Travels! I’ve never been out of this valley, but I have grandpa and my mother and my dreams.”
“Your mother. I heard that your mother was dead,” he said, quietly.
“She isn’t as long as I am living,” was her answer.
Glenn Andrews looked at her. There was wisdom in the sentiment she expressed. All the childishness had passed out of her face.
He hesitated, astonished. “I believe that, in a sense,” he said. “It is my theory of fulfillment. What could spur us to higher destinies than the belief that we were carrying out the hopes, theaims of someone we loved—perpetuating their life through our own!”
“She wanted me to be a musician,” Esther began with a sudden dimness in her eyes. “She was one until she had rheumatism in her arms. I’ve strength and health to build on, something she lacked. My mother was an invalid all her life after I was born.”
“Health is the most priceless gift in this world.”
For a time he forgot it was near the dinner hour. He was caught by the witchery of the girl and the place.
He had expected to find nothing here but solitude and shade. The adventure had been a delightful surprise to him.
As they got up from the log: “I shall expect you to keep your promise about the music. Are you going my way?”
“No; mine is the opposite direction. I will play for you any time because you want to hear me. Good-bye.”
Glenn Andrews looked after her, as she went her way. Here was a study—a promise. All his life he had loved growth. Anything in the course of development delighted and inspired him. He struck off up the path that wound out of the woods into the field.
The scent of high summer was in the gold of the wheat. Running his hands lightly over the bearded sheaves he whistled an air that was to recall neither the genius that wrote it nor the hopes of his own work, but the face of Esther Powel and the friendship thus begun, of which he would never think lightly afterward.