“‘For the moon never beams, without bringing me dreamsOf thebeautifulAnnabel Lee;And the stars never rise, but I feel the bright eyesOf thebeautifulAnnabel Lee;And so all the night-tide, I lie down by the sideOf my darling—my darling—my life and my brideIn her sepulcher there by the sea,In her tomb by the sounding sea.’The first lines,” said I, “are well-fitting. For you are like to the moon and stars, and they are like to you. You are with them in the shadow-way. And if youwere out by the sea in a gray stone sepulcher I should stay there near you, in the night-tide and the day-tide. You would be there—and my heart would set in your direction still.”“More than it had set before,” said my friend Annabel Lee. “For everything escheats to the sea at last. Those persons,” said my friend Annabel Lee, “who have measures of sorrow which can be joined with the sea are the most fortunate persons of all. Those measures of sorrow will serve them well and will stand them in good stead on days when all other things desert them. If a measure of sorrow is joined with the sea it belongs to the sea—and the sea is always there.“The sea,” said my friend Annabel Lee, “is like a letter from some one whom you have written to after a long silence, who you thought might be dead.“The sea is the measure of sorrow, andthe measure of sorrow is the sea. Having once had a measure of sorrow joined with the sea, your measure of sorrow will never be separated from the sea.“The measure of sorrow will sink all of its woe deep into the sea, and the sea will be of the same color with it. For a measure of sorrow is sufficient to color a great sea.“The sea will give to the measure of sorrow a bit of wild joy. There is no joy in the world like that of the sea—for there is enough in it to come out and touch all things in life, and life itself. And the wild joy will stop short only of a scene of death. If a life is joined with the sea, in spite of all the weariness, all the anguish, all the heavy-days of unrest, and all the futile struggling and wasting of nerves, there will yet be a wild joy in it all, and thrill after thrill of triumph in extreme moments.“Those measures of sorrow that are not joined with the sea must do for themselves.“And for these reasons, those persons who have measures of sorrow that can be joined with the sea are the most fortunate persons of all.”XVIIA LUTE WITH NO STRINGSTHE most astonishing thing about my friend Annabel Lee is that, young as she is, she seems except for some thing in the past to be absolutely in the present. She does not build up for herself things in the future. The future is a thing she looks upon with contempt. She has not a use for it—except perhaps to help form a bitter sentence of words.The present she finds before her, and she lifts it up and places it upon a table before her and opens it as if it were a book—a book with but two pages. She seems to find symbols and figures and faint suggestions upon these two pages from which she derives a multitude ofideas and fancies and material to make bitter sentences of words.It seems to interest her, and it interests me to rare degrees.She dwells upon the present.She talks of things in the present with inflections of voice that are in sharp contrast to the sentiments she utters. The while the expression of her face is inscrutable. Taken by and large, she is an inscrutable person. I wonder while I listen, does she herself believe these things?—or is she talking to amuse herself? But perforce I feel a vein of truth in each thing that she says. I look hard at her to discover signs of irony or insincerity—but I can but feel a vein of rancorous truth, or a vein of friendly truth, or a vein of ancient truth, or curious.Then, as she is talking and in the same moment I am wondering, I consider: What matters it whether or not any of itis true, or whether or not she believes it, or whether or not I can understand it—sincesheis saying it. Is she not an exquisite person telling me these things in her exquisite voice?She carries all before her in the world.For she and I make up a small world.If she be not brilliant in her talking, then that is because that set of sentences would be ruined by brilliancy.If she be not profound in her discoursing, then that is because her fancy at the time dwells in the light fantastic and would be ruined by profoundness.If she be not logical, that is because she is exquisite, which is quite beyond logic.Nevertheless, when she says what is simple and plain and stupid the look of her face is more than all the look of one saying brilliant things.And when she touches lightly uponone thin fancy and another the look of her lily face is above all things profound.And when her mood and its expression are most reckless of logic the look of her face is the model of one giving out platitudes in all open candor and reasonableness.I have been led by these looks of her face to see some varying visions of my friend Annabel Lee.One is a vision of her as a capable, elderly maiden aunt, one who stands ready in sickness and in health to do for me, and cooks little meat pies for me, and tells me when I’m spending too much money, and what to do for a cold.One is a vision of her as a playful child-companion who is with me in all my summer days, and shares all her quaint thoughts with me, and asks me countlessquestions and accepts my dictum as gospel.One is a vision of her as a sister—one of that kind who has the best of all things in life whilst I must take the poor things; one of the kind that is to be married to a count from over the seas, and I must work and hurry to get her frocks ready for the wedding—and then go back to live in a small, dead village all the days of my life.One is a vision of her as the quiet martyr-sister who comes at my call and retires at my bidding—and in this part my friend Annabel Lee walks with exceeding beauty.One is a vision of her as a strong elderly friend who stands between me and all icy blasts, who lays out my daily life, who quiets my foolish excitement with her calmness and wisdom.One is a vision of her as one who knowsno law, who leads me in strange highways and byways, and whose mind for me is a labyrinth wherein I walk in piteous confusion.One is a vision of her as an extremely wicked person whom I regard with fear, whom it behooves me to hate, but whom I love.One is a vision of her as a woman of any age who is, above all, uncompromising and unsympathetic. If I am joyous, she is placid; if I am heavy of heart, she is placid; if I am full of anticipation, she is placid; if I am in despair, she is placid.One is a vision of her as a shadow among shadows. She is not real, I say to myself. One day I shall awake and find her vanished—without pain and without “sadness of farewell,” and as if she had not been.One is a vision of her as one who is in the world and of the world, and like therest of the world. And when I contemplate her thus my thought is, the best thing of all is to be in the world and of the world, and like the rest of the world,—to have the quality of humanness, to know the world so well as to be able to select the best of its treasures, and to make useful that in it which is useless.But all these visions are vapory. There is not one of them that is my friend Annabel Lee. ’Tis the expressions of her lily face that give me these visions—not that which she says nor that which she does. In truth she is, in some way, like all the visions, but each is mingled so much with herself that the type is lost.And my friend Annabel Lee, though she sits with the book of the two pages open before her and seems much interested in all that she finds in it, has yet the look of one who, if any one asked to borrow the book from her, would close itquickly and give it up readily with no regret. And after she had given away the book, it seems as if she would pick up a flower from somewhere near, and twirl the stem in her thumb and finger, and glance out the window.Not that she has a contempt for the present as for the future, but that it seems she is not dependent on the book of the two pages for her thought of it.But also there is method in her contempt for the future. For she deigns to consider that the future becomes the present, as one day follows after another. But she touches it not in good faith until it is indeed the present.My friend Annabel Lee, times, sits playing upon a little, old lute.“The future,” said my friend Annabel Lee, “is like a lute with no strings. You cannot play upon such a lute and fill the long, long corridors in your brain withthe thin, sweet, meaningless music. You can but sit stupidly staring into the cavity and thinking how joyous will be the music that shall come forth some day, as from time to time your lute is strung with strings—whereas you might better at that moment go out into your garden and fill the cavity with tomatoes and make haste with them to market. And while you sit dreaming over your stringless lute, in your impatience you press upon the stops and press too much and too often, so that when at last your lute is strung the stops will not work right, but will stick fast in one position. And when your other hand touches the strings there will be horrible discord—always horrible discord.“I have never,” said my friend Annabel Lee, “yet seen any one dreaming over an unstrung lute who did not finger the stops.”Having said this, my friend AnnabelLee gazed out over my head at the flat, green Atlantic sea, and her hand went upon and about her lute-strings, and there came out music. And the stops worked right, like stops that had not been tampered with in the lute’s unstrung days.And the music that came out was like yellow wine to the head, and went not only into the corridors but into the towers as well, and low down by the moat and within and without the outer wall, and into the dungeon where had not been music before.XVIIIANOTHER VISION OF MY FRIEND ANNABEL LEEAND I have a vision of my friend Annabel Lee as a princess in a tall, tall castle by the side of the sea—a castle made of dull red granite that glows a gorgeous crimson in the light of the setting sun.And all day long there is no sign of life about the dull red castle, and also the winds are low and the blue water is very quiet. Far down the shore are only a few gulls flying, and wild ducks riding on the waves.There is nothing moving on the jagged rocks for miles about the red castle, but there are growing in crevices some wild green weeds that are full of fair sweetlife. And all day the sky is pale blue.The windows in the red castle are of thick, dark glass and are grated and mullioned and set about with iron. The look of these windows is rigid and bitter and it shuts out everything that is without.The battlements of the castle are high and narrow and fearsome-looking and dark and very sullen. Were I upon the battlements I would gladly plunge off from them down upon the rocks, some hundreds of feet, and be dashed to pieces—or into the deep sea. But below there is a turret and a belfry, but no bell, and the turret is a sheltered and safe retreat looking out upon all. One who had not been content before in the world might be at last content within the turret of this tall, red castle by the side of the sea.Away at the meeting of the sea and the sky there is a narrow line that is not pale blue like the sky nor dark blue like thesea, but is only pale thin air. And I look at it expecting to see—But in the bright daylight I never know what I expect to see in the line of thin air at the meeting of the pale and the dark.And so then all day everything is dead quiet, and my friend Annabel Lee is a princess inside the red castle.How fair a princess is my friend Annabel Lee!I fancy her in a beautiful white gown embroidered with gold threads. The gown is long and narrow and fits closely about the waist, and trails on the ground. And upon the left forefinger of the princess a great old silver ring set with an unpolished turquoise.The rooms inside the red castle are fit rooms for such a princess. They are dark and high and narrow, and are adorned with frescoes and wall-paintings, and the thick windows of dark glass shine withmarvelous, myriad coloring where the light shows through. Before some of the windows bits of cut glass are hung, and these catch the sunbeams and straightway countless rainbows fall upon the gown and the hands and the hair of the princess.When the sun sets a great bar of deep golden light falls from afar upon the red castle, and it becomes magnificent with crimson. The dark glass of the windows glows like old copper. The battlements are tipped with gold, and all is like a great flower that has but just bloomed.After the sun has set and the crimson has faded once more from the red castle, and the copper from the windows, and before the light of day has gone, the sea and the sky take on different shades and different meanings, and the gulls and the wild ducks come up from far down the shore, and the rocks echo with their wild noises. The sky is full of flying cloud-racksand the water rises high and has crests of white foam.But the line at the horizon looks still the same.Then the princess in her white gown opens a door high up in the tall castle and comes out under the turret. She comes forward to the railing and leans upon it with her fair chin resting in her hand.I see her there across a long stretch of dark water, her white frock gleaming in the pale light—so high up and all—and a multitude of thoughts come upon me.The princess looks at the thin line of sky opposite her, and looks so steadfastly that I turn my eyes from her and look there also.And now there are manifold scenes there.There is a scene of a knight going forth to do battle, with his black charger and his shining steel armor. And he wearsan orange plume in his helmet. His going is a brave thing. He is in the rising of his youth and strength. And for this reason I—and the princess on the turret—can see him falling gloriously in a fierce battle, with death in his veins, and the charger wandering off with no rider into the night. And the princess looks with envy upon one who can go forth and fall in battle.There is a scene of a young woman in a small room working hard and persistently by a dim light at some exquisitely fine needlework upon an immense linen oblong. And her shoulders are bent and her eyes are strained and her hands are weary and her nerves shattered and crying out. But she does not leave off her work. She and her work are like an ant carrying away a desert grain by grain, and like one miserable person building up a pyramid, and like one counting all thestars. One does not know whose is the linen or why she works, or whether money will be given her for it. But one may know that verily she will have her reward. Such people working like that in small rooms, and all, with wearied nerves, always have their reward. And the princess on the turret looked out at the woman as if she with her linen and her needle were the fortunate one.There is a scene of French Canadians cutting hay and raking it early in the summer afternoon—women and men. The day is so beautifully hot and the perfume of the grass is so sweet that a tall red castle by the side of the sea is the dreariest place of all. The princess looks out from her turret with desolate purple eyes. She looks at the ring upon her forefinger—and together with her I wonder why all people were not made French Canadians making hay in the fields. Over theirheads is the air of the green French Canadian country; under their feet is the soft French Canadian hay. And they have appetites for their food.There is a scene of a child playing in the mud under a green willow. She has a large pewter spoon to dip up great lumps of mud, and she takes up the lumps in her two hands and pats them and shapes them and lays them down in rows on a shingle. Water runs down through the meadow near by where she sits and she dips it up also in the spoon to thin out the mud. The rows of mud-cakes on the shingle are very neat and arranged with infinite care. The princess forgets to envy the child and her mud-cakes in the interest she takes in the making of them. Her face and her purple eyes even take on an indefinite look of contentment in that she is in the same world with so fit a thing.Having looked long at the visions the princess takes her eyes from the line of thin sky and looks down into the tumbled dark water.When all is seen, says the princess, there is nothing better than wild, dark water that is too vast to be measured and that is good for a thousand of years, and that contains yet as good fish as ever came out of it. It gives up pink shells upon the sand in the kindness of its heart, and it sends wild whistling gales up to the pinnacles of my red castle to sing for me and to tell me many stories. And it has wild winds wandering in and upon the high walls and caves along its rugged coast—and if I knew not that they were winds I would surely think them the voices of sea-maids singing—high, thin, piercing voices mingled with the sound of long, washing waves. And it gives out dreary lonesome cries—a loon calling in the nightmists a mile away, and wild geese honking—so that I know there are things in it and upon it a hundred times wilder and lonesomer than I. And it sends good ships driving against these great rocks, and dashes them to pieces, and human beings go down with them to rest for a thousand of years in the depths, so that I know it loves human beings well, and has need of them. In the forenoon of a day in July it melts my heart with its glad, warm sunshine and dazzles my eyes and fills me with comfort—and I know that life is a safe thing. When all is seen, says the princess, there is nothing better.Thus I have a vision of my friend Annabel Lee as a princess in a tall, red castle by the side of the sea.But neither is this my friend Annabel Lee. For she is more fascinating still, and her castle is even taller, and a deeper red—and more than all she is herself.XIXTHE ART OF CONTEMPLATIONYESTERDAY my friend Annabel Lee and I sat comfortably opposite each other at a small table, eating our luncheon. She was very fair and good-natured—and we had tiny broiled fish, and some tea with slices of lemon in it, and bread, and green lettuce sprinkled over with vinegar and oil and red pepper, and two mugs of ale.“Food is a lovely thing, don’t you think?” said I.“One of the best ever invented,” said my friend Annabel Lee. “Have you considered howmuchwould be gone from life if there were no food, and if we had not to eat three times every day?”“Yes, I’ve considered it,” I replied, “and it’s a pleasure that never palls.”“It is so much more than pleasure,” said my friend Annabel Lee. “It is a necessity and an art and a relaxation and an unburdening—and, dear me, it brings one up to the level of kings or of the beasts that perish.“I have fancied,” said my friend Annabel Lee, “a deal table set three times every day under a beautiful yew-tree in a far country. The yew-tree would be in a pasture where cattle are grazing, and always when I sat eating at the deal table the cows would stand about watching me. Sometimes on the deal table there would be brown bread and honey; sometimes there would be salt and cantaloupe; sometimes there would be lettuce with vinegar and pepper and oil; sometimes there would be whole-wheat bread and curds and cream in a brown earthen dish;sometimes there would be walnuts and figs; sometimes there would be two little broiled fish; sometimes there would be peaches; sometimes there would be flat white biscuits and squares of brown fudge; sometimes there would be bread and cheese; sometimes there would be olives and Scotch bannocks; sometimes there would be a blue delft pot of chocolate and an egg; sometimes there would be tea and scones; sometimes there would be plum-cake; sometimes there would be bread and radishes; sometimes there would be wine and olives; sometimes there would be a strawberry tart.“I should live over the hill from the yew-tree, and I should come there to eat at seven o’clock in the morning, and at one in the afternoon, and at seven in the evening. And meanwhile I should be busy at some work so that my eating would be as if I had earned it.”“What sort of work would you do?” I asked.“I might wash fine bits of lace,” said my friend Annabel Lee, “and lay them out upon a sunny grass-plot to bleach and dry. Or I might pick berries and take them to market. Or I might sit in a doorway making baskets—I should make beautiful little baskets. Or I might care for a small garden, or a flock of geese—to feed them with grains and keep them from straying away. ‘So many hours must I tend my flock, so many hours must I sport myself, so many hours must I contemplate’—I should do all these things while tending my flock, and I should tend my flock well. I should do all my work well, so that the food on the deal table, under the yew-tree, would taste as if it had been earned.“But would it not be strange,” said my friend Annabel Lee, eating daintily oflettuce and fish, “after I had had this way of living in a country of always-summer for six months or seven months—oh, I should grow vastly weary of it! And not only should I grow weary of the garden or the geese or the baskets, and the deal table under the yew-tree, but I should grow weary of everything the fair green world could anyway offer. In the so many hours that I should contemplate I should arrive at this: there can be nothing better in the way of living than caring for a garden or a flock of geese, and going up a hill to a yew-tree to eat three times every day—nothing, if I do my work faithfully. So then when the gray dawn should break some morning and I should awaken and find an aching at my heart, I should know that the best had failed me, and I should see the Vast Weariness with me. ‘Hast thou found me out, oh, mine enemy!’ would run over and over in mymind. And all that day the tending of the flocks would be a hard thing, and the apples on the deal table under the yew-tree would turn to dust in my mouth.”My friend Annabel Lee laid down her small silver fork, and placed her hands one upon another on her knee, and sat silent.Oh, she was a beautiful, brilliant person sitting there! I wondered hazily as I watched her how much of the day’s gold sunshine she made up for me, and how much would vanish were she to vanish.Presently she talked again.“Much depends,” said my friend Annabel Lee, “upon the amount of contemplation that one does in one’s way of living, and upon how one’s contemplation runs. Contemplation is a thing that does a great deal of mischief. But I daresay that when it as an art is made perfect it is a rare good thing and a neat, obedient servant, and knows exactly when to enter themind and when to leave it. And whosoever may have it, thus brought to a state of perfection, is a most fortunate possessor and must need go bravely down the world.“Perhaps, now,” said my friend Annabel Lee, “when one is a goose-girl and goes to eat at a deal table under a green yew-tree, one should contemplate only kings in gilded palaces. One should begin at the beginning of a king’s life, it may be, and follow it step by step through heaviness and strife until one sees, in one’s vivid goose-girl fancy, the king at last tottering and white-haired and forsaken toward his lonely grave.“Or else one should contemplate the life of a laborer who must eat husks all his days, and is not worthy of his hire, and goes from bad to worse and becomes a beggar.“Or else one should contemplate the being of a sweet maid whose life is a fair, round, rose garden, and the thorns safely hidden and the stems pruned, and all. And one should likewise follow her step by step to her grave, or, if one so fancies, to the culmination of all happiness and success.“For the idea is that in all one’s contemplation, when one is a goose-girl, one should contemplate anything and everything except the being and condition of a goose-girl.“But a better idea still,” said my friend Annabel Lee, “would be to not contemplate at all, you know, but eat the radishes and other things, under the yew-tree, and rejoice.“At any rate,” said my friend Annabel Lee, “we need not contemplatenow—what with these two little fishes and these green, crisp leaves.”She picked up her small silver fork again and went to eating lettuce.And presently we both lifted our mugs of good ale and drank to that which would be a better idea still.XXCONCERNING LITTLE WILLY KAATENSTEINIHAD one day given my friend Annabel Lee the bare outline of the facts in a case, and I asked her if she would kindly make a story from it and tell it me.So my friend Annabel Lee told me a little story that also runs in my mind, someway, in measure and rhythm.“There lived in a town in Montana,” said my friend Annabel Lee, “not very long ago, in a quiet street, a family of that sort of persons which is called Jewish. And it is so short a time ago that they are there yet.“Their name was Kaatenstein.“There was Mrs. Kaatenstein and Mr. Kaatenstein and the four young children,Harry Kaatenstein and Leah Kaatenstein and Jenny Kaatenstein and little Willy Kaatenstein.“And there was the hired girl whose name was Emma.“And there was Uncle Will, Mrs. Kaatenstein’s brother, who lived with them.“Mrs. Kaatenstein was short and dark and sometimes quite cross, and she always put up fruit in its season, with the help of the hired girl, and the kitchen was then very warm.“And Mr. Kaatenstein was also dark, but was a tall, slim man, and was kind and fond of the children, especially the two little girls. Mrs. Kaatenstein was fond of the children also, but mostly fond of the two boys.“And Harry Kaatenstein was much like his mother, only he was not so dark, and he was ten years old.“And Leah Kaatenstein was ten yearsold also—the two were twins—and she had an eye for strict economy, and wore plain gingham frocks, and had a long dark braid of hair, and played with very homely dolls.“And Jenny Kaatenstein was seven years old and was most uncommonly fat, and was rarely seen without a bit of unleavened bread in her hand—for the children were allowed to have all that they wanted of unleavened bread. They did not want very much of it, except Jenny. And they all preferred to eat leavened bread spread with butter and sprinkled with sugar—but they couldn’t have as much as they wanted of that.“And little Willy Kaatenstein was only four and pronounced all his words correctly and seemed sometimes possessed of the wisdom of the serpent. He had very curly hair, and it seemed an unwritten law that whenever a grown-up ladypassed by and saw the children playing on the walk in front of their house she must stop and exclaim what a pretty boy little Willy was and ask him for one of his curls. Whereat little Willy would stare up into the grown-up lady’s face in a most disconcerting fashion and perhaps ask her for one ofhercurls. Or if the groceryman or the butcher would stop on his way to the kitchen and ask little Willy what was his name and how old was he, little Willy would answer with surprising promptness, and directly would ask the groceryman or the butcher what washisname and how old washe.“And Emma, the hired girl, was raw-boned and big-fisted and frightfully cold-blooded and unsympathetic. And she had a sister who came to see her and sat in the hot kitchen talking, while Emma pared potatoes or scrubbed the floor. The sister’s name was Juley, and she sometimesbrought strange, green candy to the children, which their mother never allowed them to eat. And sometimes Juley brought them chewing-gum, which they were not allowed to chew.“And Uncle Will was a short, stout man, with a face that was nearly always flushed. He seemed fond of beer. There were a great many cases of beer in the cellar which belonged to Uncle Will. And there were cases full of beer-bottles that had all been emptied, and the children would have liked to sell the bottles, but they were not allowed to sell bottles. Uncle Will was also fond of little Willy, and on summer evenings when he and Mr. Kaatenstein were at home, and after they had eaten dinner, Uncle Will might have been heard inviting little Willy, in his hoarse, facetious voice, to come and have a glass of beer with him. And when little Willy, with his short curls and hissmall white suit, would come and just taste of the beer and would make a wry mouth and shed a few abortive tears over its bitterness, Uncle Will would laugh very heartily and jovially indeed.“Mrs. Kaatenstein had a great many ducks and geese in the back-yard and spent much time among them, fattening them to eat and fussing over them, in the forenoons. So the children never played there in the forenoon.“There were a great number of things that the Kaatenstein children were not allowed to do—the things they were allowed to do were as nothing by comparison, and the things they were allowed to do were, for the most part, things they did not care about.“They had each a square iron bank in which were ever so many silver quarters and dimes and half-dollars and nickels and gold pieces, too, for they were aJewish family. Their father and their Uncle Will kept dropping coins into the little slits in the tops of the banks from time to time, and friends of the family would also kindly contribute, and their uncles and aunts would send money for that purpose all the way from Cincinnati. So there was wealth in these banks, but the children were not allowed to have any of it. And they were never given any money ‘to throw away buying things,’ as their mother said, except a nickel once in a long while—one nickel for the four of them.“And there were toys that their father and mother and Uncle Will had bought for them, and others that were sent by the uncles and aunts in Cincinnati, but they were never allowed to play with them. The toys were kept in a large black-walnut bureau in their mother’s bed-room. There was a small, tinkling piano that Leah Kaatenstein’s Aunt Barbarahad sent to her, or that had been sent to her parents in trust for her. And there was a little engine, that would run on a track, which had once been given to Harry Kaatenstein. And there was an immense wax doll which had fallen to Jenny Kaatenstein’s lot. And little Willy Kaatenstein was the reputed owner of a small mechanical circus with tiny wooden acrobats and horses and a musical box beneath the platform. And there were other toys of all kinds; for the relatives in Cincinnati had been lavish. But the children were not allowed to make use of them, so they languished in the black-walnut bureau.“And Harry Kaatenstein had a fine gold watch that his mother had given him, but he was not allowed to wear it or even look at it. It was kept in a jewel-case in her bed-room.“And Leah Kaatenstein had a fine goldwatch that her grandmother in Cincinnati had sent, but she was not allowed to wear it or even look at it. It was kept in her mother’s jewel-case.“And Jenny Kaatenstein had a fine gold watch that her aunt Rebecca had sent, but she was not allowed to wear it or even look at it. It was kept in her mother’s jewel-case.“And little Willy Kaatenstein had a fine gold watch that Uncle Will had bought for him—and Uncle Will, who was a privileged character in the house, would sometimes take little Willy’s watch from Mrs. Kaatenstein’s jewel-case and give it to little Willy to wear in the evening when the family was gathered in the dining-room. And Uncle Will would drink his beer and ask little Willy what time was it. But before Mrs. Kaatenstein put little Willy to bed she replaced the watch carefully in the jewel-case.“The children had a great many such possessions, but what they really had to play with was a small, much-battered wagon which they put to many uses in the course of a day. Sometimes it was a fire-engine, and sometimes a hose-cart, and sometimes a motor-car, and sometimes a carriage, and sometimes an ambulance, and sometimes a go-cart for Leah Kaatenstein’s homely dolls (which by some strange chance were hers to do with as she would—they were not of excessive value), and sometimes for a patrol wagon, and sometimes for a water-cart. They had also a little rocking chair with which they played house on the porch. Both the chair and the wagon were much overworked and were most pathetic in appearance. The children often grew weary of playing always with these two things and languished for other amusement. Sometimes Leah Kaatenstein subsided into therocking chair with her homely dolls in her lap and talked to them seriously, telling them many things which would be of use to them all their lives and instilling into them strict rules of economy. And sometimes Harry Kaatenstein sat on the lowest step of the porch with the nozzle of the long, rubber hose, which was attached to the faucet at the side of the house, and with which Mr. Kaatenstein or Uncle Will watered the grass in the evening. The children were not allowed to water the grass, but there was usually water enough trickling from the hose for Harry Kaatenstein to make little whirlpools on the steps, which he did, causing loss of life among bugs of divers kinds. And sometimes Jenny Kaatenstein, with her inevitable bit of unleavened bread, sat on the top step, moon-faced and pudgy, resting from her labors. And sometimes little Willy Kaatenstein climbed up and satupon the post at the bottom of the stoop and kicked it viciously with his heels. He often sat there kicking, as could be plainly seen by the dents in the post.“One warm day the Kaatenstein children were thus languishing after having played hard with the wagon, and Emma was ironing in the kitchen. Their mother was away for the afternoon and the children had a delightful sense of freedom, even with the grim, big-fisted Emma in charge. Only they wished they had a nickel. Harry Kaatenstein said that if they had a nickel he should certainly go down to Grove’s, a block and a half away, and purchase some brown and white cookies. At which little Willy Kaatenstein and Jenny Kaatenstein—more especially Jenny Kaatenstein—smacked their lips, and Leah Kaatenstein sighed and remarked that Harry’s extravagance was very discouraging.“Presently, wonderful to relate, Emma appeared around the corner, from the kitchen, with four thick slices of bread-and-butter slightly sprinkled with sugar, and the children gazed very eagerly in her direction. Jenny Kaatenstein dropped her piece of unleavened bread and half-started to meet Emma, but thought better of it, knowing Emma’s ways. Emma distributed the slices of bread, and fastened little Willy Kaatenstein’s hat on more firmly with the elastic under his chin, and informed the children that if they knew what was good for themselves they would not get into any mischief whileshehad charge of them. Then she went back to her ironing.“The children were delighted with their bread-and-butter, and their imagination played lightly about it.“‘My bread-and-butter’s raspberry ice-cream,’ said Harry Kaatenstein.“‘Mybread-and-butter’schoc’lateice-cream,’ said Leah Kaatenstein, waxing genial.“‘Mybread-and-butter’svanillaice-cream,’ said Jenny Kaatenstein.“But little Willy Kaatenstein said never a word, for his bread-and-butter seemed very good to himasbread-and-butter.“Their bread-and-butter someway put new life into them and made them more fully awake to the fact that their mother was away for the afternoon. After all, they were not afraid of any one but their mother, and she being gone, should they not enjoy life for once?“When they had finished eating they had a brilliant idea.“‘I’m going to shake a nickel out of my bank,’ said Harry Kaatenstein.“‘I’mgoing to shake a nickel out ofmybank,’ said Leah Kaatenstein, in surprising luxury of spirit.“‘I’mgoing to shake a nickel out ofmybank,’ said Jenny Kaatenstein.“And little Willy Kaatenstein said never a word, but ran at the first inkling of the idea immediately to the dining-room where the four banks were standing, on the mantel above the fire-place, and pushed up a chair and took down his own green bank. And then he slid back the little piece of iron that was just under the slot in the top of the bank, and shook, shook, shook, with very little noise, and lo, not a nickel but a five-dollar gold coin rolled out on the floor!“And then Harry Kaatenstein and Leah Kaatenstein and Jenny Kaatenstein rushed in and seized their banks and began shaking, shaking with muchclank,clankof silver and gold against iron—for was not their mother far from them?—whilst little Willy Kaatenstein stood by with his gold piece clasped tight in hishand. Even his young intelligence knew its marvelous value, and he thought it wise not to reveal his treasure to Leah Kaatenstein’s horrified gaze.“‘I’m going down to Grove’s and buy gum-drops with my nickel,’ said Harry Kaatenstein, pounding and shaking, but never a nickel appeared for the reason that he had forgotten the little iron slide, which only once in a while fell away from under the slot and never at the right time.“‘I’mgoing down to Grove’s and buy a long licorice pipe withmynickel,’ said Leah Kaatenstein—a long licorice pipe was the very most she could get for her money—also shaking and pounding fruitlessly, for she too had forgotten the little iron slide.“‘I’mgoing down to Grove’s and buy some cookies withmynickel,’ said Jenny Kaatenstein, likewise pounding andshaking and forgetting the little iron slide.“And little Willy Kaatenstein said never a word, but when he had learned what to buy with his money he ran out of the front door and down the street to Grove’s on the corner.“Now when Harry Kaatenstein and Leah Kaatenstein and Jenny Kaatenstein considered and rejoiced over the absence of their mother, they forgot at the same time to consider and fear the perilous nearness of Emma ironing in the kitchen—the kitchen being next to the dining-room.“Suddenly while they were in the midst of their work and were shaking and pounding away for dear life, unconscious of all else, the door leading into the kitchen was pushed open with ominous quiet and the head of Emma appeared. It was an unprepossessing head at alltimes, and it was a dangerous-looking head at that moment.“Harry Kaatenstein and Leah Kaatenstein and Jenny Kaatenstein perceived this vision at once, and an appalling silence like the tomb followed the clamor that had been.“‘So this is what you’re up to, you young limbs!’ said Emma, and swooped down and pounced upon them before they could possibly escape, though they had made for the door with very creditable speed. Emma held them with one hand while she picked up the banks with the other. She remarked, in unmeasured terms, upon the condition of the waxed dining-room floor, upon the vicious qualities of some children whom she mentioned by name, upon what would happen to them when their mother came home, and upon what was going to happen to them right away.“And she led them upstairs to their mother’s bed-room and, after shaking them well, locked them in and went downstairs, carrying the key with her.“Meanwhile little Willy Kaatenstein had gone upon his interesting errand at Grove’s on the corner.“He went into the shop and stood before a glittering glass case of things.“‘And what’ll it be for Master Kaatenstein to-day?’ said the man behind the glittering case.“‘I want gum-drops and licorice pipes and cookies—and some watermelons,’ said little Willy Kaatenstein and laid the shining gold coin before the grocer’s astonished eyes, for the grocer had expected to see the Kaatenstein semi-occasional nickel—nothing more or less.“‘Is this yours, Master Kaatenstein?’said the grocer, eyeing the coin with suspicion.“‘Of course it’s mine,’ said little Willy Kaatenstein, impatiently. ‘And I want the things right away.’“‘Well, I supposeit’sall right, my boy,’ said the grocer. ‘If it isn’t,oneof us’ll have to suffer, I guess. Now, what did you say you wanted?’“Little Willy Kaatenstein repeated his order, and added other items.“‘Now, Master Kaatenstein,’ said the grocer, ‘you never will be able to carry all that. That’ll make a pile of stuff. Better run back and get your little wagon’—for he knew the Kaatenstein wagon, having often placed in it a paper of sugar or a sack of salt or three tins of something according to Mrs. Kaatenstein’s order—for the children to draw home.“So little Willy Kaatenstein ran back and got the little wagon from the frontyard, and the man loaded the things into it. ‘Must be going to have a picnic,’ he observed.“There was certainly a pile of stuff. There were long licorice pipes enough in the wagon to surfeit the appetites of the four Kaatensteins for many a day, and the name of the gum-drops was legion. And there were two watermelons, and cookies enough to satisfy even Jenny Kaatenstein’s capacious desire. Also there were nuts and some dyspeptic-looking pies, and a great many little dogs and cats and elephants made of a very tough kind of candy which all the Kaatenstein children thought perfectly lovely. Also there were figs in boxes and chocolate-drops and red and white sticks of candy, flavored with peppermint fit to make one’s mouth water. And all these things were in surprising quantity and made so heavy a load that little Willy Kaatenstein washard put to it to drag it up the street. But little Willy Kaatenstein had strong little arms and he and the wagon made slow and sure progress back to the Kaatenstein home. The grocer stood out in front of his shop gazing after the boy and the boy’s wagon and the wagon’s contents with a puzzled and somewhat dubious smile.“Little Willy Kaatenstein proceeded into his front yard with the wagon and around to the back on the side of the house where the kitchen door was not. He dragged the wagon quietly on to the farther end of the back yard and opened the gate of the pen made of laths, where Mrs. Kaatenstein’s ducks and geese were kept. He drew the wagon in and back behind the duck-house, and left it.“Then little Willy Kaatenstein closed the lath gate and ran to find Harry Kaatenstein and Leah Kaatenstein and JennyKaatenstein and invite them to the feast.“But they were nowhere to be found. He hunted about in the house and out of doors, but there was no sign of them, and for some reason he thought he would not ask Emma questions touching on their whereabouts.“So having hunted for his relatives all that he thought best, little Willy Kaatenstein could but go out on the highways and byways and call in the lame, the halt, and the blind. Accordingly he slipped through the fence and went back into the alley-way to the house immediately behind his own, in search of Bill and Katy Kelly, two Irish friends of the Kaatenstein children—with whom they were not allowed to play. Bill and Katy Kelly, to be sure, were neither lame nor halt nor blind, but were very sound in limb and constitution, and were extremely responsive to little Willy Kaatenstein’s invitationto come to the feast. Feasts were things that Bill and Katy Kelly reveled in—when they had opportunity.“So in company with little Willy Kaatenstein—he in his curls and his white suit, and the two in very dingy raiment—they hied them through the fence to the feast. They reached the duck-yard without being seen by Emma, the arch-enemy, and found the little wagon safe, and the ducks and geese staring and peering and stretching their necks at it and its contents with much curiosity.“This curiosity, on the part of the fowls, must have changed to amazement when they beheld the attack made on the wagon and the strange things in the way of eating that followed.“How Bill and Katy Kelly did eat and how they reveled! And little Willy Kaatenstein literally waded in gum-drops and long licorice pipes. They began thefeast with pie; from pie they went at figs; from figs they transferred to the tough little animals; and from that to cookies; and from cookies to long licorice pipes. Then they stopped eating consecutively and went at the entire feast hap-hazard.“They ate fast and furiously for several minutes.“Then the first ardor of the feast subsided, and little Willy Kaatenstein, for one, seemed to lose all interest not only in feasts but in the world at large. He sat back upon a box, which contained a duck sitting on twelve eggs, and looked at the ground with the air of one who has someway lost his perspective.“Bill and Katy Kelly still ate, but more, it seemed, from a sense of duty to themselves than from appetite, and presently their eating became desultory, and they began to throw remnants of the feast tothe fowls. These at first gazed askance at the extraordinary food thus lavished upon them—but finally went at it madly, as if they, too, reveled in feasts.“Mrs. Kaatenstein’s face must need have been a study could she have seen her cherished ducks and geese stuffing their crops with licorice pipes and gum-drops.“But Mrs. Kaatenstein was out for the afternoon.“While these things were happening in her duck-yard, no less interesting ones were taking place up-stairs in her bed-room, where Harry Kaatenstein and Leah Kaatenstein and Jenny Kaatenstein were prisoners of Emma.“At first they merely sat on the window-seat and discussed the several untoward things that they wished would happen to Emma. Having hanged, drawn and quartered that liberal-proportionedlady until they could no more, they felt better. Then they looked over their mother’s room in search of amusement, with the result that the black-walnut bureau, containing the toys with which they were not allowed to play, was made to give forth the wealth of its treasures. The floor of Mrs. Kaatenstein’s bed-room presented a motley appearance. Jenny Kaatenstein even forgot to miss her bit of unleavened bread in her excitement over the fact that she actually was holding her own huge wax doll in her lap. And the circus and the steam-engine and the tinkling piano and the tea-sets and the barking dogs and the picture books and the manifold other things were at last put to those uses for which they had been destined. And they even went to the jewel-case and got out their watches.“But Harry Kaatenstein and LeahKaatenstein and Jenny Kaatenstein, though they were pleasantly excited, were yet highly uneasy in their minds. They knew they had yet to render up payment for the day’sbusiness.——“The rest of the tale is obvious enough,” said my friend Annabel Lee, laughing gently and changing her tone.“But please tell it,” said I, with much eagerness.“Well, then,” said my friend AnnabelLee:—“The afternoon waned, and Mrs. Kaatenstein came home. She heard unusual noises in her beloved duck-yard, and fled thither, as fast as her goodly proportions would allow.“Her eyes met a sight which was maddening to them.“They beheld little Willy Kaatenstein, looking decidedly pale and puffy, sitting weakly on a box containing a setting-duck—and the two objectionable Kelly children actually at that moment feeding her choicest goose with gum-drops. Scattered all about the once neat duck yard was rubbish in frightful variety, and a half-dozen of her tiny ducklings were busy at an atrocious watermelon. Certainly no one but those Irish young ones could have brought in so much litter. It did not take Bill and Katy Kelly long to gather that they were not wanted there. Mrs. Kaatenstein quite quenched, for the time, their fondness for feasts. As they went, she ordered them to take their vile belongings with them, which they were willing enough to do—as much of them as they could carry. They bestowed an apprehensive glance on little Willy Kaatenstein—but little Willy Kaatenstein’s face was only pale, puffy and very passive. Having dispersed the Kellys, Mrs. Kaatenstein led her son into the house andstopped in the kitchen to demand of Emma why she allowed such things to happen, and ordered her to go at once and clean out the duck-yard. Emma obeyed, first giving up Mrs. Kaatenstein’s bed-room key and explaining her own possession of it.“Then Mrs. Kaatenstein, after doctoring little Willy Kaatenstein’s poor little stomach and laying him neatly out on a sofa in a cool, dark room, went on to her own room, whence proceeded unusual noises. Unlocking and opening the door, a sight the like of which she had not of late years known overwhelmed her spirit.“The short, dead silence that followed her appearance on the threshhold was but emphasized by the merry tinkling of the gay little circus which had been wound up and would not stop, even under the dark influence of impendingtragedy.——“Well,” said my friend Annabel Lee, “the case of Harry Kaatenstein and Leah Kaatenstein and Jenny Kaatenstein was attended to by their mother. She whipped them all soundly and sent them to bed.“But as for little Willy Kaatenstein—not looking in the least pale or puffy, he sat that evening, after dinner, on Uncle Will’s lap, wearing his own fine gold watch out of the jewel-case, and being continually invited to have a glass of beer.“But in the kitchen, Emma was telling Juley that though she had once thought a great deal of little Willy Kaatenstein she now honestly believed him to be the very worst one of thefour.——“That story,” said my friend Annabel Lee, “was very tiresome. You shouldn’t ask me to tell you stories.”“I am sorry if it tired you,” I said. “But the story was entirely fascinating. It wasexactlylike the Kaatensteins. And you, telling a story of the Kaatensteins, are delicately, oh, delicately incongruous!”“Wereyouever at a feast in the Kaatenstein duck-yard?” said my friend Annabel Lee.“Yes, indeed,” said I, “along with Bill and Katy Kelly, at the age of eleven. And I have seen every toy in the black-walnut bureau.”“Andwhich would you,” said my friend Annabel Lee, “to be at a feast with the Kaatensteins at the age of eleven, or here, now, with me?”“When all’s said,” said I, “here with you, now, by far.”“’Tis very good of you,” said my friend Annabel Lee, and looked at me with her purple eyes.XXIA BOND OF SYMPATHYHAVING told me stories, my friend Annabel Lee demanded that I should write a bit of verse to read to her.My verse is rather rotten verse, and I told her so. She replied that the fact of its being rotten had but little to do with the matter, that most verse was rotten, anyway, and usually the more rotten the better it suited the reader.She was in that mood.So I wrote some lines and read them to her—there was nothing else to do. She had been kind in telling me stories, though probably she told them because it amused her. When I finished reading, she said that the verse was not rotten atall. She, for her part, would call it not yet quite ripe.“That’s theverse,” said my friend Annabel Lee. “As for the meaning of the words in it, that betrays many things. The most vivid thing it betrays is your age. It shows that you have passed over the period of nineteen and have arrived at exactly one-and-twenty. And therefore it is a triumphant bit of verse.“Don’t you know,” said my friend Annabel Lee, “how much verse there is thrown upon the world that meansnothingwhatsoever? And so when one does happen upon a bit of it that tells even the smallest thing, like the height of the writer, or the color of his hair, then one feels repaid.“And your verse tells still other things,” said my friend Annabel Lee. “One is that you still think, as we’ve agreed oncebefore, of that which will one day open wondrously for you.”“I did not agree to that, you know,” said I.“Well, then, I agreed to it for both of us,” said my friend Annabel Lee. “And your verse betrays that so plainly that one is led to feel that there are persons who grow more hopeful with each bit of darkness that comes to them. If your life were all fire and sunshine you would write very different verse. And if it told anything at all it would tell that while you looked forward to still more fire and sunshine, you would somehow know you were not really to have any more, but that it would grow less and less in the years, and by the time you were an old lady, and still not nearly ready to die, it would give out entirely.”“That would be by the law of compensation,” said I. “And it would requirea great deal of fire and sunshine in her early life to compensate any one who had grown into an old lady and had run out of it.”“So it would,” said my friend Annabel Lee. “Now, when you grow old—though you will never be that which is called an old lady—you will be quite mellow. And probably the less you have to be mellow over, the mellower you will be.”“I don’t wish to be that way,” said I. “I think that kind of person is pitiful, living year after year.”“You’ll not be pitiful,” said my friend Annabel Lee. “You can not be mellow and pitiful at the same time. It may be that to be mellow is the best thing, and the most comfortable. It maybe that people struggle through a long life with but one object in their minds—to be mellow in their old age. This verse certainlysounds as ifyouwere looking forward to it.”“I can’t see that it sounds that way, at all,” said I.“Of course you can’t,” said my friend Annabel Lee. “You wrote the verse, and you are but you.”“And what are some of the other things that it betrays?” I inquired.“It betrays,” said my friend Annabel Lee, “that you are better in detail than you are in the entire. And if that is true of you in one thing it is true of you in everything. I daresay your friends find things in you that they like extremely, but you in the entire they look upon as something that has much to acquire.”“Not myfriends?” said I.“Yes, yourfriends,” said my friend Annabel Lee.“That is a bitter thing for a verse toshow,” I made answer, “and a bitter thing to have in my mind.”“Well, and aren’t you wise enough to prefer the bitter things to the sweet things?” said my friend Annabel Lee. “For every sweet thing that you have in your mind, it is yours to pay a mighty bitter price. Whereas the bitter things are valuable possessions. And if it is true about your friends, of course you wish to know it.”“No,” said I, “I don’t wish to know it.”“But, at least,” said my friend Annabel Lee, with a wonderful softening of her voice into something that was sincere and enchanting, “believe what I told you about it, for in that case you and I have that good gift—a bond of sympathy. For if I had friends, of that kind, they would look upon me as something with much to acquire, very sure. But don’t,” said my friend Annabel Lee, hastily, “consider thebond of sympathy a sweet thing—remember the mighty bitter price.”“I will believe what you said about the friends,” said I—“and it is bitter enough to purge my soul for a time. The bond of sympathy is not a sweet thing, anyway. I don’t expect to have to pay for it— And it brings a feeling of restfulness.—”“A bond of sympathy,” said my friend Annabel Lee, “comes already paid for. It does very well. It is not sweet—it tastes more like a cigarette or an olive.“About the verse”—said my friend Annabel Lee.“Please let’s not talk about that any more,” said I.“Whatever you like,” said my friend Annabel Lee.And we talked of George Sand and her books.But, anyway, this was my bit of unripe verse:
“‘For the moon never beams, without bringing me dreamsOf thebeautifulAnnabel Lee;And the stars never rise, but I feel the bright eyesOf thebeautifulAnnabel Lee;And so all the night-tide, I lie down by the sideOf my darling—my darling—my life and my brideIn her sepulcher there by the sea,In her tomb by the sounding sea.’
“‘For the moon never beams, without bringing me dreamsOf thebeautifulAnnabel Lee;And the stars never rise, but I feel the bright eyesOf thebeautifulAnnabel Lee;And so all the night-tide, I lie down by the sideOf my darling—my darling—my life and my brideIn her sepulcher there by the sea,In her tomb by the sounding sea.’
“‘For the moon never beams, without bringing me dreamsOf thebeautifulAnnabel Lee;And the stars never rise, but I feel the bright eyesOf thebeautifulAnnabel Lee;And so all the night-tide, I lie down by the sideOf my darling—my darling—my life and my brideIn her sepulcher there by the sea,In her tomb by the sounding sea.’
The first lines,” said I, “are well-fitting. For you are like to the moon and stars, and they are like to you. You are with them in the shadow-way. And if youwere out by the sea in a gray stone sepulcher I should stay there near you, in the night-tide and the day-tide. You would be there—and my heart would set in your direction still.”
“More than it had set before,” said my friend Annabel Lee. “For everything escheats to the sea at last. Those persons,” said my friend Annabel Lee, “who have measures of sorrow which can be joined with the sea are the most fortunate persons of all. Those measures of sorrow will serve them well and will stand them in good stead on days when all other things desert them. If a measure of sorrow is joined with the sea it belongs to the sea—and the sea is always there.
“The sea,” said my friend Annabel Lee, “is like a letter from some one whom you have written to after a long silence, who you thought might be dead.
“The sea is the measure of sorrow, andthe measure of sorrow is the sea. Having once had a measure of sorrow joined with the sea, your measure of sorrow will never be separated from the sea.
“The measure of sorrow will sink all of its woe deep into the sea, and the sea will be of the same color with it. For a measure of sorrow is sufficient to color a great sea.
“The sea will give to the measure of sorrow a bit of wild joy. There is no joy in the world like that of the sea—for there is enough in it to come out and touch all things in life, and life itself. And the wild joy will stop short only of a scene of death. If a life is joined with the sea, in spite of all the weariness, all the anguish, all the heavy-days of unrest, and all the futile struggling and wasting of nerves, there will yet be a wild joy in it all, and thrill after thrill of triumph in extreme moments.
“Those measures of sorrow that are not joined with the sea must do for themselves.
“And for these reasons, those persons who have measures of sorrow that can be joined with the sea are the most fortunate persons of all.”
THE most astonishing thing about my friend Annabel Lee is that, young as she is, she seems except for some thing in the past to be absolutely in the present. She does not build up for herself things in the future. The future is a thing she looks upon with contempt. She has not a use for it—except perhaps to help form a bitter sentence of words.
The present she finds before her, and she lifts it up and places it upon a table before her and opens it as if it were a book—a book with but two pages. She seems to find symbols and figures and faint suggestions upon these two pages from which she derives a multitude ofideas and fancies and material to make bitter sentences of words.
It seems to interest her, and it interests me to rare degrees.
She dwells upon the present.
She talks of things in the present with inflections of voice that are in sharp contrast to the sentiments she utters. The while the expression of her face is inscrutable. Taken by and large, she is an inscrutable person. I wonder while I listen, does she herself believe these things?—or is she talking to amuse herself? But perforce I feel a vein of truth in each thing that she says. I look hard at her to discover signs of irony or insincerity—but I can but feel a vein of rancorous truth, or a vein of friendly truth, or a vein of ancient truth, or curious.
Then, as she is talking and in the same moment I am wondering, I consider: What matters it whether or not any of itis true, or whether or not she believes it, or whether or not I can understand it—sincesheis saying it. Is she not an exquisite person telling me these things in her exquisite voice?
She carries all before her in the world.
For she and I make up a small world.
If she be not brilliant in her talking, then that is because that set of sentences would be ruined by brilliancy.
If she be not profound in her discoursing, then that is because her fancy at the time dwells in the light fantastic and would be ruined by profoundness.
If she be not logical, that is because she is exquisite, which is quite beyond logic.
Nevertheless, when she says what is simple and plain and stupid the look of her face is more than all the look of one saying brilliant things.
And when she touches lightly uponone thin fancy and another the look of her lily face is above all things profound.
And when her mood and its expression are most reckless of logic the look of her face is the model of one giving out platitudes in all open candor and reasonableness.
I have been led by these looks of her face to see some varying visions of my friend Annabel Lee.
One is a vision of her as a capable, elderly maiden aunt, one who stands ready in sickness and in health to do for me, and cooks little meat pies for me, and tells me when I’m spending too much money, and what to do for a cold.
One is a vision of her as a playful child-companion who is with me in all my summer days, and shares all her quaint thoughts with me, and asks me countlessquestions and accepts my dictum as gospel.
One is a vision of her as a sister—one of that kind who has the best of all things in life whilst I must take the poor things; one of the kind that is to be married to a count from over the seas, and I must work and hurry to get her frocks ready for the wedding—and then go back to live in a small, dead village all the days of my life.
One is a vision of her as the quiet martyr-sister who comes at my call and retires at my bidding—and in this part my friend Annabel Lee walks with exceeding beauty.
One is a vision of her as a strong elderly friend who stands between me and all icy blasts, who lays out my daily life, who quiets my foolish excitement with her calmness and wisdom.
One is a vision of her as one who knowsno law, who leads me in strange highways and byways, and whose mind for me is a labyrinth wherein I walk in piteous confusion.
One is a vision of her as an extremely wicked person whom I regard with fear, whom it behooves me to hate, but whom I love.
One is a vision of her as a woman of any age who is, above all, uncompromising and unsympathetic. If I am joyous, she is placid; if I am heavy of heart, she is placid; if I am full of anticipation, she is placid; if I am in despair, she is placid.
One is a vision of her as a shadow among shadows. She is not real, I say to myself. One day I shall awake and find her vanished—without pain and without “sadness of farewell,” and as if she had not been.
One is a vision of her as one who is in the world and of the world, and like therest of the world. And when I contemplate her thus my thought is, the best thing of all is to be in the world and of the world, and like the rest of the world,—to have the quality of humanness, to know the world so well as to be able to select the best of its treasures, and to make useful that in it which is useless.
But all these visions are vapory. There is not one of them that is my friend Annabel Lee. ’Tis the expressions of her lily face that give me these visions—not that which she says nor that which she does. In truth she is, in some way, like all the visions, but each is mingled so much with herself that the type is lost.
And my friend Annabel Lee, though she sits with the book of the two pages open before her and seems much interested in all that she finds in it, has yet the look of one who, if any one asked to borrow the book from her, would close itquickly and give it up readily with no regret. And after she had given away the book, it seems as if she would pick up a flower from somewhere near, and twirl the stem in her thumb and finger, and glance out the window.
Not that she has a contempt for the present as for the future, but that it seems she is not dependent on the book of the two pages for her thought of it.
But also there is method in her contempt for the future. For she deigns to consider that the future becomes the present, as one day follows after another. But she touches it not in good faith until it is indeed the present.
My friend Annabel Lee, times, sits playing upon a little, old lute.
“The future,” said my friend Annabel Lee, “is like a lute with no strings. You cannot play upon such a lute and fill the long, long corridors in your brain withthe thin, sweet, meaningless music. You can but sit stupidly staring into the cavity and thinking how joyous will be the music that shall come forth some day, as from time to time your lute is strung with strings—whereas you might better at that moment go out into your garden and fill the cavity with tomatoes and make haste with them to market. And while you sit dreaming over your stringless lute, in your impatience you press upon the stops and press too much and too often, so that when at last your lute is strung the stops will not work right, but will stick fast in one position. And when your other hand touches the strings there will be horrible discord—always horrible discord.
“I have never,” said my friend Annabel Lee, “yet seen any one dreaming over an unstrung lute who did not finger the stops.”
Having said this, my friend AnnabelLee gazed out over my head at the flat, green Atlantic sea, and her hand went upon and about her lute-strings, and there came out music. And the stops worked right, like stops that had not been tampered with in the lute’s unstrung days.
And the music that came out was like yellow wine to the head, and went not only into the corridors but into the towers as well, and low down by the moat and within and without the outer wall, and into the dungeon where had not been music before.
AND I have a vision of my friend Annabel Lee as a princess in a tall, tall castle by the side of the sea—a castle made of dull red granite that glows a gorgeous crimson in the light of the setting sun.
And all day long there is no sign of life about the dull red castle, and also the winds are low and the blue water is very quiet. Far down the shore are only a few gulls flying, and wild ducks riding on the waves.
There is nothing moving on the jagged rocks for miles about the red castle, but there are growing in crevices some wild green weeds that are full of fair sweetlife. And all day the sky is pale blue.
The windows in the red castle are of thick, dark glass and are grated and mullioned and set about with iron. The look of these windows is rigid and bitter and it shuts out everything that is without.
The battlements of the castle are high and narrow and fearsome-looking and dark and very sullen. Were I upon the battlements I would gladly plunge off from them down upon the rocks, some hundreds of feet, and be dashed to pieces—or into the deep sea. But below there is a turret and a belfry, but no bell, and the turret is a sheltered and safe retreat looking out upon all. One who had not been content before in the world might be at last content within the turret of this tall, red castle by the side of the sea.
Away at the meeting of the sea and the sky there is a narrow line that is not pale blue like the sky nor dark blue like thesea, but is only pale thin air. And I look at it expecting to see—But in the bright daylight I never know what I expect to see in the line of thin air at the meeting of the pale and the dark.
And so then all day everything is dead quiet, and my friend Annabel Lee is a princess inside the red castle.
How fair a princess is my friend Annabel Lee!
I fancy her in a beautiful white gown embroidered with gold threads. The gown is long and narrow and fits closely about the waist, and trails on the ground. And upon the left forefinger of the princess a great old silver ring set with an unpolished turquoise.
The rooms inside the red castle are fit rooms for such a princess. They are dark and high and narrow, and are adorned with frescoes and wall-paintings, and the thick windows of dark glass shine withmarvelous, myriad coloring where the light shows through. Before some of the windows bits of cut glass are hung, and these catch the sunbeams and straightway countless rainbows fall upon the gown and the hands and the hair of the princess.
When the sun sets a great bar of deep golden light falls from afar upon the red castle, and it becomes magnificent with crimson. The dark glass of the windows glows like old copper. The battlements are tipped with gold, and all is like a great flower that has but just bloomed.
After the sun has set and the crimson has faded once more from the red castle, and the copper from the windows, and before the light of day has gone, the sea and the sky take on different shades and different meanings, and the gulls and the wild ducks come up from far down the shore, and the rocks echo with their wild noises. The sky is full of flying cloud-racksand the water rises high and has crests of white foam.
But the line at the horizon looks still the same.
Then the princess in her white gown opens a door high up in the tall castle and comes out under the turret. She comes forward to the railing and leans upon it with her fair chin resting in her hand.
I see her there across a long stretch of dark water, her white frock gleaming in the pale light—so high up and all—and a multitude of thoughts come upon me.
The princess looks at the thin line of sky opposite her, and looks so steadfastly that I turn my eyes from her and look there also.
And now there are manifold scenes there.
There is a scene of a knight going forth to do battle, with his black charger and his shining steel armor. And he wearsan orange plume in his helmet. His going is a brave thing. He is in the rising of his youth and strength. And for this reason I—and the princess on the turret—can see him falling gloriously in a fierce battle, with death in his veins, and the charger wandering off with no rider into the night. And the princess looks with envy upon one who can go forth and fall in battle.
There is a scene of a young woman in a small room working hard and persistently by a dim light at some exquisitely fine needlework upon an immense linen oblong. And her shoulders are bent and her eyes are strained and her hands are weary and her nerves shattered and crying out. But she does not leave off her work. She and her work are like an ant carrying away a desert grain by grain, and like one miserable person building up a pyramid, and like one counting all thestars. One does not know whose is the linen or why she works, or whether money will be given her for it. But one may know that verily she will have her reward. Such people working like that in small rooms, and all, with wearied nerves, always have their reward. And the princess on the turret looked out at the woman as if she with her linen and her needle were the fortunate one.
There is a scene of French Canadians cutting hay and raking it early in the summer afternoon—women and men. The day is so beautifully hot and the perfume of the grass is so sweet that a tall red castle by the side of the sea is the dreariest place of all. The princess looks out from her turret with desolate purple eyes. She looks at the ring upon her forefinger—and together with her I wonder why all people were not made French Canadians making hay in the fields. Over theirheads is the air of the green French Canadian country; under their feet is the soft French Canadian hay. And they have appetites for their food.
There is a scene of a child playing in the mud under a green willow. She has a large pewter spoon to dip up great lumps of mud, and she takes up the lumps in her two hands and pats them and shapes them and lays them down in rows on a shingle. Water runs down through the meadow near by where she sits and she dips it up also in the spoon to thin out the mud. The rows of mud-cakes on the shingle are very neat and arranged with infinite care. The princess forgets to envy the child and her mud-cakes in the interest she takes in the making of them. Her face and her purple eyes even take on an indefinite look of contentment in that she is in the same world with so fit a thing.
Having looked long at the visions the princess takes her eyes from the line of thin sky and looks down into the tumbled dark water.
When all is seen, says the princess, there is nothing better than wild, dark water that is too vast to be measured and that is good for a thousand of years, and that contains yet as good fish as ever came out of it. It gives up pink shells upon the sand in the kindness of its heart, and it sends wild whistling gales up to the pinnacles of my red castle to sing for me and to tell me many stories. And it has wild winds wandering in and upon the high walls and caves along its rugged coast—and if I knew not that they were winds I would surely think them the voices of sea-maids singing—high, thin, piercing voices mingled with the sound of long, washing waves. And it gives out dreary lonesome cries—a loon calling in the nightmists a mile away, and wild geese honking—so that I know there are things in it and upon it a hundred times wilder and lonesomer than I. And it sends good ships driving against these great rocks, and dashes them to pieces, and human beings go down with them to rest for a thousand of years in the depths, so that I know it loves human beings well, and has need of them. In the forenoon of a day in July it melts my heart with its glad, warm sunshine and dazzles my eyes and fills me with comfort—and I know that life is a safe thing. When all is seen, says the princess, there is nothing better.
Thus I have a vision of my friend Annabel Lee as a princess in a tall, red castle by the side of the sea.
But neither is this my friend Annabel Lee. For she is more fascinating still, and her castle is even taller, and a deeper red—and more than all she is herself.
YESTERDAY my friend Annabel Lee and I sat comfortably opposite each other at a small table, eating our luncheon. She was very fair and good-natured—and we had tiny broiled fish, and some tea with slices of lemon in it, and bread, and green lettuce sprinkled over with vinegar and oil and red pepper, and two mugs of ale.
“Food is a lovely thing, don’t you think?” said I.
“One of the best ever invented,” said my friend Annabel Lee. “Have you considered howmuchwould be gone from life if there were no food, and if we had not to eat three times every day?”
“Yes, I’ve considered it,” I replied, “and it’s a pleasure that never palls.”
“It is so much more than pleasure,” said my friend Annabel Lee. “It is a necessity and an art and a relaxation and an unburdening—and, dear me, it brings one up to the level of kings or of the beasts that perish.
“I have fancied,” said my friend Annabel Lee, “a deal table set three times every day under a beautiful yew-tree in a far country. The yew-tree would be in a pasture where cattle are grazing, and always when I sat eating at the deal table the cows would stand about watching me. Sometimes on the deal table there would be brown bread and honey; sometimes there would be salt and cantaloupe; sometimes there would be lettuce with vinegar and pepper and oil; sometimes there would be whole-wheat bread and curds and cream in a brown earthen dish;sometimes there would be walnuts and figs; sometimes there would be two little broiled fish; sometimes there would be peaches; sometimes there would be flat white biscuits and squares of brown fudge; sometimes there would be bread and cheese; sometimes there would be olives and Scotch bannocks; sometimes there would be a blue delft pot of chocolate and an egg; sometimes there would be tea and scones; sometimes there would be plum-cake; sometimes there would be bread and radishes; sometimes there would be wine and olives; sometimes there would be a strawberry tart.
“I should live over the hill from the yew-tree, and I should come there to eat at seven o’clock in the morning, and at one in the afternoon, and at seven in the evening. And meanwhile I should be busy at some work so that my eating would be as if I had earned it.”
“What sort of work would you do?” I asked.
“I might wash fine bits of lace,” said my friend Annabel Lee, “and lay them out upon a sunny grass-plot to bleach and dry. Or I might pick berries and take them to market. Or I might sit in a doorway making baskets—I should make beautiful little baskets. Or I might care for a small garden, or a flock of geese—to feed them with grains and keep them from straying away. ‘So many hours must I tend my flock, so many hours must I sport myself, so many hours must I contemplate’—I should do all these things while tending my flock, and I should tend my flock well. I should do all my work well, so that the food on the deal table, under the yew-tree, would taste as if it had been earned.
“But would it not be strange,” said my friend Annabel Lee, eating daintily oflettuce and fish, “after I had had this way of living in a country of always-summer for six months or seven months—oh, I should grow vastly weary of it! And not only should I grow weary of the garden or the geese or the baskets, and the deal table under the yew-tree, but I should grow weary of everything the fair green world could anyway offer. In the so many hours that I should contemplate I should arrive at this: there can be nothing better in the way of living than caring for a garden or a flock of geese, and going up a hill to a yew-tree to eat three times every day—nothing, if I do my work faithfully. So then when the gray dawn should break some morning and I should awaken and find an aching at my heart, I should know that the best had failed me, and I should see the Vast Weariness with me. ‘Hast thou found me out, oh, mine enemy!’ would run over and over in mymind. And all that day the tending of the flocks would be a hard thing, and the apples on the deal table under the yew-tree would turn to dust in my mouth.”
My friend Annabel Lee laid down her small silver fork, and placed her hands one upon another on her knee, and sat silent.
Oh, she was a beautiful, brilliant person sitting there! I wondered hazily as I watched her how much of the day’s gold sunshine she made up for me, and how much would vanish were she to vanish.
Presently she talked again.
“Much depends,” said my friend Annabel Lee, “upon the amount of contemplation that one does in one’s way of living, and upon how one’s contemplation runs. Contemplation is a thing that does a great deal of mischief. But I daresay that when it as an art is made perfect it is a rare good thing and a neat, obedient servant, and knows exactly when to enter themind and when to leave it. And whosoever may have it, thus brought to a state of perfection, is a most fortunate possessor and must need go bravely down the world.
“Perhaps, now,” said my friend Annabel Lee, “when one is a goose-girl and goes to eat at a deal table under a green yew-tree, one should contemplate only kings in gilded palaces. One should begin at the beginning of a king’s life, it may be, and follow it step by step through heaviness and strife until one sees, in one’s vivid goose-girl fancy, the king at last tottering and white-haired and forsaken toward his lonely grave.
“Or else one should contemplate the life of a laborer who must eat husks all his days, and is not worthy of his hire, and goes from bad to worse and becomes a beggar.
“Or else one should contemplate the being of a sweet maid whose life is a fair, round, rose garden, and the thorns safely hidden and the stems pruned, and all. And one should likewise follow her step by step to her grave, or, if one so fancies, to the culmination of all happiness and success.
“For the idea is that in all one’s contemplation, when one is a goose-girl, one should contemplate anything and everything except the being and condition of a goose-girl.
“But a better idea still,” said my friend Annabel Lee, “would be to not contemplate at all, you know, but eat the radishes and other things, under the yew-tree, and rejoice.
“At any rate,” said my friend Annabel Lee, “we need not contemplatenow—what with these two little fishes and these green, crisp leaves.”
She picked up her small silver fork again and went to eating lettuce.
And presently we both lifted our mugs of good ale and drank to that which would be a better idea still.
IHAD one day given my friend Annabel Lee the bare outline of the facts in a case, and I asked her if she would kindly make a story from it and tell it me.
So my friend Annabel Lee told me a little story that also runs in my mind, someway, in measure and rhythm.
“There lived in a town in Montana,” said my friend Annabel Lee, “not very long ago, in a quiet street, a family of that sort of persons which is called Jewish. And it is so short a time ago that they are there yet.
“Their name was Kaatenstein.
“There was Mrs. Kaatenstein and Mr. Kaatenstein and the four young children,Harry Kaatenstein and Leah Kaatenstein and Jenny Kaatenstein and little Willy Kaatenstein.
“And there was the hired girl whose name was Emma.
“And there was Uncle Will, Mrs. Kaatenstein’s brother, who lived with them.
“Mrs. Kaatenstein was short and dark and sometimes quite cross, and she always put up fruit in its season, with the help of the hired girl, and the kitchen was then very warm.
“And Mr. Kaatenstein was also dark, but was a tall, slim man, and was kind and fond of the children, especially the two little girls. Mrs. Kaatenstein was fond of the children also, but mostly fond of the two boys.
“And Harry Kaatenstein was much like his mother, only he was not so dark, and he was ten years old.
“And Leah Kaatenstein was ten yearsold also—the two were twins—and she had an eye for strict economy, and wore plain gingham frocks, and had a long dark braid of hair, and played with very homely dolls.
“And Jenny Kaatenstein was seven years old and was most uncommonly fat, and was rarely seen without a bit of unleavened bread in her hand—for the children were allowed to have all that they wanted of unleavened bread. They did not want very much of it, except Jenny. And they all preferred to eat leavened bread spread with butter and sprinkled with sugar—but they couldn’t have as much as they wanted of that.
“And little Willy Kaatenstein was only four and pronounced all his words correctly and seemed sometimes possessed of the wisdom of the serpent. He had very curly hair, and it seemed an unwritten law that whenever a grown-up ladypassed by and saw the children playing on the walk in front of their house she must stop and exclaim what a pretty boy little Willy was and ask him for one of his curls. Whereat little Willy would stare up into the grown-up lady’s face in a most disconcerting fashion and perhaps ask her for one ofhercurls. Or if the groceryman or the butcher would stop on his way to the kitchen and ask little Willy what was his name and how old was he, little Willy would answer with surprising promptness, and directly would ask the groceryman or the butcher what washisname and how old washe.
“And Emma, the hired girl, was raw-boned and big-fisted and frightfully cold-blooded and unsympathetic. And she had a sister who came to see her and sat in the hot kitchen talking, while Emma pared potatoes or scrubbed the floor. The sister’s name was Juley, and she sometimesbrought strange, green candy to the children, which their mother never allowed them to eat. And sometimes Juley brought them chewing-gum, which they were not allowed to chew.
“And Uncle Will was a short, stout man, with a face that was nearly always flushed. He seemed fond of beer. There were a great many cases of beer in the cellar which belonged to Uncle Will. And there were cases full of beer-bottles that had all been emptied, and the children would have liked to sell the bottles, but they were not allowed to sell bottles. Uncle Will was also fond of little Willy, and on summer evenings when he and Mr. Kaatenstein were at home, and after they had eaten dinner, Uncle Will might have been heard inviting little Willy, in his hoarse, facetious voice, to come and have a glass of beer with him. And when little Willy, with his short curls and hissmall white suit, would come and just taste of the beer and would make a wry mouth and shed a few abortive tears over its bitterness, Uncle Will would laugh very heartily and jovially indeed.
“Mrs. Kaatenstein had a great many ducks and geese in the back-yard and spent much time among them, fattening them to eat and fussing over them, in the forenoons. So the children never played there in the forenoon.
“There were a great number of things that the Kaatenstein children were not allowed to do—the things they were allowed to do were as nothing by comparison, and the things they were allowed to do were, for the most part, things they did not care about.
“They had each a square iron bank in which were ever so many silver quarters and dimes and half-dollars and nickels and gold pieces, too, for they were aJewish family. Their father and their Uncle Will kept dropping coins into the little slits in the tops of the banks from time to time, and friends of the family would also kindly contribute, and their uncles and aunts would send money for that purpose all the way from Cincinnati. So there was wealth in these banks, but the children were not allowed to have any of it. And they were never given any money ‘to throw away buying things,’ as their mother said, except a nickel once in a long while—one nickel for the four of them.
“And there were toys that their father and mother and Uncle Will had bought for them, and others that were sent by the uncles and aunts in Cincinnati, but they were never allowed to play with them. The toys were kept in a large black-walnut bureau in their mother’s bed-room. There was a small, tinkling piano that Leah Kaatenstein’s Aunt Barbarahad sent to her, or that had been sent to her parents in trust for her. And there was a little engine, that would run on a track, which had once been given to Harry Kaatenstein. And there was an immense wax doll which had fallen to Jenny Kaatenstein’s lot. And little Willy Kaatenstein was the reputed owner of a small mechanical circus with tiny wooden acrobats and horses and a musical box beneath the platform. And there were other toys of all kinds; for the relatives in Cincinnati had been lavish. But the children were not allowed to make use of them, so they languished in the black-walnut bureau.
“And Harry Kaatenstein had a fine gold watch that his mother had given him, but he was not allowed to wear it or even look at it. It was kept in a jewel-case in her bed-room.
“And Leah Kaatenstein had a fine goldwatch that her grandmother in Cincinnati had sent, but she was not allowed to wear it or even look at it. It was kept in her mother’s jewel-case.
“And Jenny Kaatenstein had a fine gold watch that her aunt Rebecca had sent, but she was not allowed to wear it or even look at it. It was kept in her mother’s jewel-case.
“And little Willy Kaatenstein had a fine gold watch that Uncle Will had bought for him—and Uncle Will, who was a privileged character in the house, would sometimes take little Willy’s watch from Mrs. Kaatenstein’s jewel-case and give it to little Willy to wear in the evening when the family was gathered in the dining-room. And Uncle Will would drink his beer and ask little Willy what time was it. But before Mrs. Kaatenstein put little Willy to bed she replaced the watch carefully in the jewel-case.
“The children had a great many such possessions, but what they really had to play with was a small, much-battered wagon which they put to many uses in the course of a day. Sometimes it was a fire-engine, and sometimes a hose-cart, and sometimes a motor-car, and sometimes a carriage, and sometimes an ambulance, and sometimes a go-cart for Leah Kaatenstein’s homely dolls (which by some strange chance were hers to do with as she would—they were not of excessive value), and sometimes for a patrol wagon, and sometimes for a water-cart. They had also a little rocking chair with which they played house on the porch. Both the chair and the wagon were much overworked and were most pathetic in appearance. The children often grew weary of playing always with these two things and languished for other amusement. Sometimes Leah Kaatenstein subsided into therocking chair with her homely dolls in her lap and talked to them seriously, telling them many things which would be of use to them all their lives and instilling into them strict rules of economy. And sometimes Harry Kaatenstein sat on the lowest step of the porch with the nozzle of the long, rubber hose, which was attached to the faucet at the side of the house, and with which Mr. Kaatenstein or Uncle Will watered the grass in the evening. The children were not allowed to water the grass, but there was usually water enough trickling from the hose for Harry Kaatenstein to make little whirlpools on the steps, which he did, causing loss of life among bugs of divers kinds. And sometimes Jenny Kaatenstein, with her inevitable bit of unleavened bread, sat on the top step, moon-faced and pudgy, resting from her labors. And sometimes little Willy Kaatenstein climbed up and satupon the post at the bottom of the stoop and kicked it viciously with his heels. He often sat there kicking, as could be plainly seen by the dents in the post.
“One warm day the Kaatenstein children were thus languishing after having played hard with the wagon, and Emma was ironing in the kitchen. Their mother was away for the afternoon and the children had a delightful sense of freedom, even with the grim, big-fisted Emma in charge. Only they wished they had a nickel. Harry Kaatenstein said that if they had a nickel he should certainly go down to Grove’s, a block and a half away, and purchase some brown and white cookies. At which little Willy Kaatenstein and Jenny Kaatenstein—more especially Jenny Kaatenstein—smacked their lips, and Leah Kaatenstein sighed and remarked that Harry’s extravagance was very discouraging.
“Presently, wonderful to relate, Emma appeared around the corner, from the kitchen, with four thick slices of bread-and-butter slightly sprinkled with sugar, and the children gazed very eagerly in her direction. Jenny Kaatenstein dropped her piece of unleavened bread and half-started to meet Emma, but thought better of it, knowing Emma’s ways. Emma distributed the slices of bread, and fastened little Willy Kaatenstein’s hat on more firmly with the elastic under his chin, and informed the children that if they knew what was good for themselves they would not get into any mischief whileshehad charge of them. Then she went back to her ironing.
“The children were delighted with their bread-and-butter, and their imagination played lightly about it.
“‘My bread-and-butter’s raspberry ice-cream,’ said Harry Kaatenstein.
“‘Mybread-and-butter’schoc’lateice-cream,’ said Leah Kaatenstein, waxing genial.
“‘Mybread-and-butter’svanillaice-cream,’ said Jenny Kaatenstein.
“But little Willy Kaatenstein said never a word, for his bread-and-butter seemed very good to himasbread-and-butter.
“Their bread-and-butter someway put new life into them and made them more fully awake to the fact that their mother was away for the afternoon. After all, they were not afraid of any one but their mother, and she being gone, should they not enjoy life for once?
“When they had finished eating they had a brilliant idea.
“‘I’m going to shake a nickel out of my bank,’ said Harry Kaatenstein.
“‘I’mgoing to shake a nickel out ofmybank,’ said Leah Kaatenstein, in surprising luxury of spirit.
“‘I’mgoing to shake a nickel out ofmybank,’ said Jenny Kaatenstein.
“And little Willy Kaatenstein said never a word, but ran at the first inkling of the idea immediately to the dining-room where the four banks were standing, on the mantel above the fire-place, and pushed up a chair and took down his own green bank. And then he slid back the little piece of iron that was just under the slot in the top of the bank, and shook, shook, shook, with very little noise, and lo, not a nickel but a five-dollar gold coin rolled out on the floor!
“And then Harry Kaatenstein and Leah Kaatenstein and Jenny Kaatenstein rushed in and seized their banks and began shaking, shaking with muchclank,clankof silver and gold against iron—for was not their mother far from them?—whilst little Willy Kaatenstein stood by with his gold piece clasped tight in hishand. Even his young intelligence knew its marvelous value, and he thought it wise not to reveal his treasure to Leah Kaatenstein’s horrified gaze.
“‘I’m going down to Grove’s and buy gum-drops with my nickel,’ said Harry Kaatenstein, pounding and shaking, but never a nickel appeared for the reason that he had forgotten the little iron slide, which only once in a while fell away from under the slot and never at the right time.
“‘I’mgoing down to Grove’s and buy a long licorice pipe withmynickel,’ said Leah Kaatenstein—a long licorice pipe was the very most she could get for her money—also shaking and pounding fruitlessly, for she too had forgotten the little iron slide.
“‘I’mgoing down to Grove’s and buy some cookies withmynickel,’ said Jenny Kaatenstein, likewise pounding andshaking and forgetting the little iron slide.
“And little Willy Kaatenstein said never a word, but when he had learned what to buy with his money he ran out of the front door and down the street to Grove’s on the corner.
“Now when Harry Kaatenstein and Leah Kaatenstein and Jenny Kaatenstein considered and rejoiced over the absence of their mother, they forgot at the same time to consider and fear the perilous nearness of Emma ironing in the kitchen—the kitchen being next to the dining-room.
“Suddenly while they were in the midst of their work and were shaking and pounding away for dear life, unconscious of all else, the door leading into the kitchen was pushed open with ominous quiet and the head of Emma appeared. It was an unprepossessing head at alltimes, and it was a dangerous-looking head at that moment.
“Harry Kaatenstein and Leah Kaatenstein and Jenny Kaatenstein perceived this vision at once, and an appalling silence like the tomb followed the clamor that had been.
“‘So this is what you’re up to, you young limbs!’ said Emma, and swooped down and pounced upon them before they could possibly escape, though they had made for the door with very creditable speed. Emma held them with one hand while she picked up the banks with the other. She remarked, in unmeasured terms, upon the condition of the waxed dining-room floor, upon the vicious qualities of some children whom she mentioned by name, upon what would happen to them when their mother came home, and upon what was going to happen to them right away.
“And she led them upstairs to their mother’s bed-room and, after shaking them well, locked them in and went downstairs, carrying the key with her.
“Meanwhile little Willy Kaatenstein had gone upon his interesting errand at Grove’s on the corner.
“He went into the shop and stood before a glittering glass case of things.
“‘And what’ll it be for Master Kaatenstein to-day?’ said the man behind the glittering case.
“‘I want gum-drops and licorice pipes and cookies—and some watermelons,’ said little Willy Kaatenstein and laid the shining gold coin before the grocer’s astonished eyes, for the grocer had expected to see the Kaatenstein semi-occasional nickel—nothing more or less.
“‘Is this yours, Master Kaatenstein?’said the grocer, eyeing the coin with suspicion.
“‘Of course it’s mine,’ said little Willy Kaatenstein, impatiently. ‘And I want the things right away.’
“‘Well, I supposeit’sall right, my boy,’ said the grocer. ‘If it isn’t,oneof us’ll have to suffer, I guess. Now, what did you say you wanted?’
“Little Willy Kaatenstein repeated his order, and added other items.
“‘Now, Master Kaatenstein,’ said the grocer, ‘you never will be able to carry all that. That’ll make a pile of stuff. Better run back and get your little wagon’—for he knew the Kaatenstein wagon, having often placed in it a paper of sugar or a sack of salt or three tins of something according to Mrs. Kaatenstein’s order—for the children to draw home.
“So little Willy Kaatenstein ran back and got the little wagon from the frontyard, and the man loaded the things into it. ‘Must be going to have a picnic,’ he observed.
“There was certainly a pile of stuff. There were long licorice pipes enough in the wagon to surfeit the appetites of the four Kaatensteins for many a day, and the name of the gum-drops was legion. And there were two watermelons, and cookies enough to satisfy even Jenny Kaatenstein’s capacious desire. Also there were nuts and some dyspeptic-looking pies, and a great many little dogs and cats and elephants made of a very tough kind of candy which all the Kaatenstein children thought perfectly lovely. Also there were figs in boxes and chocolate-drops and red and white sticks of candy, flavored with peppermint fit to make one’s mouth water. And all these things were in surprising quantity and made so heavy a load that little Willy Kaatenstein washard put to it to drag it up the street. But little Willy Kaatenstein had strong little arms and he and the wagon made slow and sure progress back to the Kaatenstein home. The grocer stood out in front of his shop gazing after the boy and the boy’s wagon and the wagon’s contents with a puzzled and somewhat dubious smile.
“Little Willy Kaatenstein proceeded into his front yard with the wagon and around to the back on the side of the house where the kitchen door was not. He dragged the wagon quietly on to the farther end of the back yard and opened the gate of the pen made of laths, where Mrs. Kaatenstein’s ducks and geese were kept. He drew the wagon in and back behind the duck-house, and left it.
“Then little Willy Kaatenstein closed the lath gate and ran to find Harry Kaatenstein and Leah Kaatenstein and JennyKaatenstein and invite them to the feast.
“But they were nowhere to be found. He hunted about in the house and out of doors, but there was no sign of them, and for some reason he thought he would not ask Emma questions touching on their whereabouts.
“So having hunted for his relatives all that he thought best, little Willy Kaatenstein could but go out on the highways and byways and call in the lame, the halt, and the blind. Accordingly he slipped through the fence and went back into the alley-way to the house immediately behind his own, in search of Bill and Katy Kelly, two Irish friends of the Kaatenstein children—with whom they were not allowed to play. Bill and Katy Kelly, to be sure, were neither lame nor halt nor blind, but were very sound in limb and constitution, and were extremely responsive to little Willy Kaatenstein’s invitationto come to the feast. Feasts were things that Bill and Katy Kelly reveled in—when they had opportunity.
“So in company with little Willy Kaatenstein—he in his curls and his white suit, and the two in very dingy raiment—they hied them through the fence to the feast. They reached the duck-yard without being seen by Emma, the arch-enemy, and found the little wagon safe, and the ducks and geese staring and peering and stretching their necks at it and its contents with much curiosity.
“This curiosity, on the part of the fowls, must have changed to amazement when they beheld the attack made on the wagon and the strange things in the way of eating that followed.
“How Bill and Katy Kelly did eat and how they reveled! And little Willy Kaatenstein literally waded in gum-drops and long licorice pipes. They began thefeast with pie; from pie they went at figs; from figs they transferred to the tough little animals; and from that to cookies; and from cookies to long licorice pipes. Then they stopped eating consecutively and went at the entire feast hap-hazard.
“They ate fast and furiously for several minutes.
“Then the first ardor of the feast subsided, and little Willy Kaatenstein, for one, seemed to lose all interest not only in feasts but in the world at large. He sat back upon a box, which contained a duck sitting on twelve eggs, and looked at the ground with the air of one who has someway lost his perspective.
“Bill and Katy Kelly still ate, but more, it seemed, from a sense of duty to themselves than from appetite, and presently their eating became desultory, and they began to throw remnants of the feast tothe fowls. These at first gazed askance at the extraordinary food thus lavished upon them—but finally went at it madly, as if they, too, reveled in feasts.
“Mrs. Kaatenstein’s face must need have been a study could she have seen her cherished ducks and geese stuffing their crops with licorice pipes and gum-drops.
“But Mrs. Kaatenstein was out for the afternoon.
“While these things were happening in her duck-yard, no less interesting ones were taking place up-stairs in her bed-room, where Harry Kaatenstein and Leah Kaatenstein and Jenny Kaatenstein were prisoners of Emma.
“At first they merely sat on the window-seat and discussed the several untoward things that they wished would happen to Emma. Having hanged, drawn and quartered that liberal-proportionedlady until they could no more, they felt better. Then they looked over their mother’s room in search of amusement, with the result that the black-walnut bureau, containing the toys with which they were not allowed to play, was made to give forth the wealth of its treasures. The floor of Mrs. Kaatenstein’s bed-room presented a motley appearance. Jenny Kaatenstein even forgot to miss her bit of unleavened bread in her excitement over the fact that she actually was holding her own huge wax doll in her lap. And the circus and the steam-engine and the tinkling piano and the tea-sets and the barking dogs and the picture books and the manifold other things were at last put to those uses for which they had been destined. And they even went to the jewel-case and got out their watches.
“But Harry Kaatenstein and LeahKaatenstein and Jenny Kaatenstein, though they were pleasantly excited, were yet highly uneasy in their minds. They knew they had yet to render up payment for the day’sbusiness.——
“The rest of the tale is obvious enough,” said my friend Annabel Lee, laughing gently and changing her tone.
“But please tell it,” said I, with much eagerness.
“Well, then,” said my friend AnnabelLee:—
“The afternoon waned, and Mrs. Kaatenstein came home. She heard unusual noises in her beloved duck-yard, and fled thither, as fast as her goodly proportions would allow.
“Her eyes met a sight which was maddening to them.
“They beheld little Willy Kaatenstein, looking decidedly pale and puffy, sitting weakly on a box containing a setting-duck—and the two objectionable Kelly children actually at that moment feeding her choicest goose with gum-drops. Scattered all about the once neat duck yard was rubbish in frightful variety, and a half-dozen of her tiny ducklings were busy at an atrocious watermelon. Certainly no one but those Irish young ones could have brought in so much litter. It did not take Bill and Katy Kelly long to gather that they were not wanted there. Mrs. Kaatenstein quite quenched, for the time, their fondness for feasts. As they went, she ordered them to take their vile belongings with them, which they were willing enough to do—as much of them as they could carry. They bestowed an apprehensive glance on little Willy Kaatenstein—but little Willy Kaatenstein’s face was only pale, puffy and very passive. Having dispersed the Kellys, Mrs. Kaatenstein led her son into the house andstopped in the kitchen to demand of Emma why she allowed such things to happen, and ordered her to go at once and clean out the duck-yard. Emma obeyed, first giving up Mrs. Kaatenstein’s bed-room key and explaining her own possession of it.
“Then Mrs. Kaatenstein, after doctoring little Willy Kaatenstein’s poor little stomach and laying him neatly out on a sofa in a cool, dark room, went on to her own room, whence proceeded unusual noises. Unlocking and opening the door, a sight the like of which she had not of late years known overwhelmed her spirit.
“The short, dead silence that followed her appearance on the threshhold was but emphasized by the merry tinkling of the gay little circus which had been wound up and would not stop, even under the dark influence of impendingtragedy.——
“Well,” said my friend Annabel Lee, “the case of Harry Kaatenstein and Leah Kaatenstein and Jenny Kaatenstein was attended to by their mother. She whipped them all soundly and sent them to bed.
“But as for little Willy Kaatenstein—not looking in the least pale or puffy, he sat that evening, after dinner, on Uncle Will’s lap, wearing his own fine gold watch out of the jewel-case, and being continually invited to have a glass of beer.
“But in the kitchen, Emma was telling Juley that though she had once thought a great deal of little Willy Kaatenstein she now honestly believed him to be the very worst one of thefour.——
“That story,” said my friend Annabel Lee, “was very tiresome. You shouldn’t ask me to tell you stories.”
“I am sorry if it tired you,” I said. “But the story was entirely fascinating. It wasexactlylike the Kaatensteins. And you, telling a story of the Kaatensteins, are delicately, oh, delicately incongruous!”
“Wereyouever at a feast in the Kaatenstein duck-yard?” said my friend Annabel Lee.
“Yes, indeed,” said I, “along with Bill and Katy Kelly, at the age of eleven. And I have seen every toy in the black-walnut bureau.”
“Andwhich would you,” said my friend Annabel Lee, “to be at a feast with the Kaatensteins at the age of eleven, or here, now, with me?”
“When all’s said,” said I, “here with you, now, by far.”
“’Tis very good of you,” said my friend Annabel Lee, and looked at me with her purple eyes.
HAVING told me stories, my friend Annabel Lee demanded that I should write a bit of verse to read to her.
My verse is rather rotten verse, and I told her so. She replied that the fact of its being rotten had but little to do with the matter, that most verse was rotten, anyway, and usually the more rotten the better it suited the reader.
She was in that mood.
So I wrote some lines and read them to her—there was nothing else to do. She had been kind in telling me stories, though probably she told them because it amused her. When I finished reading, she said that the verse was not rotten atall. She, for her part, would call it not yet quite ripe.
“That’s theverse,” said my friend Annabel Lee. “As for the meaning of the words in it, that betrays many things. The most vivid thing it betrays is your age. It shows that you have passed over the period of nineteen and have arrived at exactly one-and-twenty. And therefore it is a triumphant bit of verse.
“Don’t you know,” said my friend Annabel Lee, “how much verse there is thrown upon the world that meansnothingwhatsoever? And so when one does happen upon a bit of it that tells even the smallest thing, like the height of the writer, or the color of his hair, then one feels repaid.
“And your verse tells still other things,” said my friend Annabel Lee. “One is that you still think, as we’ve agreed oncebefore, of that which will one day open wondrously for you.”
“I did not agree to that, you know,” said I.
“Well, then, I agreed to it for both of us,” said my friend Annabel Lee. “And your verse betrays that so plainly that one is led to feel that there are persons who grow more hopeful with each bit of darkness that comes to them. If your life were all fire and sunshine you would write very different verse. And if it told anything at all it would tell that while you looked forward to still more fire and sunshine, you would somehow know you were not really to have any more, but that it would grow less and less in the years, and by the time you were an old lady, and still not nearly ready to die, it would give out entirely.”
“That would be by the law of compensation,” said I. “And it would requirea great deal of fire and sunshine in her early life to compensate any one who had grown into an old lady and had run out of it.”
“So it would,” said my friend Annabel Lee. “Now, when you grow old—though you will never be that which is called an old lady—you will be quite mellow. And probably the less you have to be mellow over, the mellower you will be.”
“I don’t wish to be that way,” said I. “I think that kind of person is pitiful, living year after year.”
“You’ll not be pitiful,” said my friend Annabel Lee. “You can not be mellow and pitiful at the same time. It may be that to be mellow is the best thing, and the most comfortable. It maybe that people struggle through a long life with but one object in their minds—to be mellow in their old age. This verse certainlysounds as ifyouwere looking forward to it.”
“I can’t see that it sounds that way, at all,” said I.
“Of course you can’t,” said my friend Annabel Lee. “You wrote the verse, and you are but you.”
“And what are some of the other things that it betrays?” I inquired.
“It betrays,” said my friend Annabel Lee, “that you are better in detail than you are in the entire. And if that is true of you in one thing it is true of you in everything. I daresay your friends find things in you that they like extremely, but you in the entire they look upon as something that has much to acquire.”
“Not myfriends?” said I.
“Yes, yourfriends,” said my friend Annabel Lee.
“That is a bitter thing for a verse toshow,” I made answer, “and a bitter thing to have in my mind.”
“Well, and aren’t you wise enough to prefer the bitter things to the sweet things?” said my friend Annabel Lee. “For every sweet thing that you have in your mind, it is yours to pay a mighty bitter price. Whereas the bitter things are valuable possessions. And if it is true about your friends, of course you wish to know it.”
“No,” said I, “I don’t wish to know it.”
“But, at least,” said my friend Annabel Lee, with a wonderful softening of her voice into something that was sincere and enchanting, “believe what I told you about it, for in that case you and I have that good gift—a bond of sympathy. For if I had friends, of that kind, they would look upon me as something with much to acquire, very sure. But don’t,” said my friend Annabel Lee, hastily, “consider thebond of sympathy a sweet thing—remember the mighty bitter price.”
“I will believe what you said about the friends,” said I—“and it is bitter enough to purge my soul for a time. The bond of sympathy is not a sweet thing, anyway. I don’t expect to have to pay for it— And it brings a feeling of restfulness.—”
“A bond of sympathy,” said my friend Annabel Lee, “comes already paid for. It does very well. It is not sweet—it tastes more like a cigarette or an olive.
“About the verse”—said my friend Annabel Lee.
“Please let’s not talk about that any more,” said I.
“Whatever you like,” said my friend Annabel Lee.
And we talked of George Sand and her books.
But, anyway, this was my bit of unripe verse: