“I shouldn’t want you to wreck Bert’s domestic happiness,” said I, “but make the pie, just the same!”
I went into the south room, and sat at my desk answering some letters, while I waited for dinner. I could hear the rattle of dishes in the kitchen–the first of those humble domestic sounds which we associate with the word home. Through the house, too, and in to me, floated the aroma of bacon and of coffee, faintly, just detectable, mingled with the smell of earth under June rain, which drifted through an open window. Presently I heard the front door open very softly. As I guessed that Peter had his instructions in behaviour from his mother, I knew it must be Miss Goodwin. My pen poised suspended over the paper. I waited for her to enter the room, in a pleasant tingle of expectation. But she did not enter. Several minutes passed, and I got up to investigate, but there was no sign of her. The front door, however, stood ajar. Then Mrs. Pillig called “Dinner!”
I walked into my dining-room, and sat down at the table, which was covered with a new tablecloth and adorned with my new china. Beside my plate was the familiar, old-fashioned silver I had eaten with when a boy, and the sight of it thrilled me. Then I spied the centrepiece–a glass vase bearing three fresh iris buds from the brookside. Here was the secret, then, of the open door! Mrs. Pillig came in with the platter of eggs and bacon, and she, too, spied the flowers.
“Well, well, you’ve got yourself a bookay,” she said
“Well, well, you’ve got yourself a bookay,” she said
“Well, well, you’ve got yourself a bookay,” she said.
“Not I,” was my answer. “They just came. Mrs. Pillig, there’s a fairy lives in this house, a nice, thoughtful fairy, who does things like this. If you ever see her, don’t be frightened.”
Mrs. Pillig looked at me pityingly. “I’ll bring your toast and coffee now,” she said.
The coffee came in steaming, and it was good coffee, much better than Mrs. Bert’s. The eggs were good, too. But best of all was the centrepiece. She had come in so softly, and gone so quickly, and nobody had seen her! She had been present at my first meal in Twin Fires, after all, and so delicately present, just in the subtle fragrance of flowers and the warm token of thoughtfulness! My meal was a very happy one, happier even, perhaps, than it would have been had she sat opposite me in person. We are curious creatures, who can on occasion extract a sweeter pleasure from our dreams of others in loneliness than from their bodily presence. Mrs. Pillig fluttered in and out, to see if I was faring well, and though her service was not that of a trained waitress it sufficed to bring me dessert of some canned peaches, buried under my own richcream, and to remind me that my wants were solicitously cared for. Out on the porch I could see Peter playing with Buster and hear that ingratiating pup’s yelps of canine delight. Before me stood the purple iris blooms, with golden hearts just opening, their slender stems rising from the clear water in the vase, and spoke of her whose thought of me was so gracious, so delicately expressed, so warming to my heart. The spoon I held bore my mother’s initials, reminding me of my childhood, of that other home which death had broken up ten years before, since when I had called no place home save my study and bedroom high above the college Yard. I thought of the Yard–pleasantly, but without regrets. I looked through the window as my last spoonful of dessert was eaten, and saw the sky breaking into blue. I folded my new napkin, put it into the old silver ring which bore the word “John” on the side, failed utterly to note the absence of a finger-bowl, and rose from my first meal in Twin Fires.
“I have a home again,” said I, aloud; “I have a home again after ten years!”
Then I went up the road toward Bert’s.
Miss Goodwin was not there. She had gone for a walk. Disappointed, I went back to my farm, and resolved to clean up the path through the pines, to surprise her. The grove was dripping wet, the brook high, and when I had stacked up the slash from as far as the tamarack swamp, I brought down some old planks from the house and made a walk with them over the wet corner. There was scarcely any slash in the open border of pines along the south wall, so that I had time to smooth with a rake the path on between the vegetables and the hayfield well back toward the house, mow it out with a scythe across the little slope of neglected grass just west of the house, where I was going some day to plant more orchard and place my chicken houses, and finally bring it down sharp through the group of pines by the road just northwest of the woodshed (evidently planted there for a windbreak), ending it up at the driveway which led in to the vegetable garden, around the end of the shed. Then I put up my tools, and walked back proudly around the circle. The path practically encompassed ten acres, so that itmade quite a respectable stroll. First, it led west through the small group of pines, then south along the wall by the potato field, where I glimpsed the rows of sprouting plants, and beyond them the lone pine and the acres of Bert’s farm and the far hills up the valley. Then it led by the hayfield wall, on the right a tangle of wild roses and other wallside flowers and weeds, on the left the neat rows of my vegetables, with the peas already brushed. At the end of the farm it turned east, between two rows of pine trunks like a natural cloister, and finally entered the tamarack swamp, and then the hush and silence of the pine grove, where the brook ran along in its mossy bed and you might have been miles from any house. It emerged into the maples where Twin Fires was visible, spick and span with new white paint and green shutters, above its orchard. I was very proud of that path, of its length, its charm, its variety, its spontaneous character. It seemed to me then, and it has never ceased to seem, better than any extended acres of formal garden planting, more truly representative of the natural landscape of our country, and so in a truer sense a real garden. There are spots along that brook now where I have sown ferns and wild flowers from the deep woods, brought home, like the trilliums, in a grapevine basket, spots which for sheer exquisiteness of shadowed water and shy bloom and delicate green beat any formal bed you ever dreamed. I have even cleared out three treesto let the morning sun fall on a little pool by the brook, and into that place I have succeeded in transplanting a cardinal flower, which looks at its own reflection in the still water below, across the pool from a blue vervain. Just one cardinal flower–that is all–under a shaft of sunlight in the woods. But it is, I like to think, what Hiroshige would most enjoy.
However, I am running ahead of my story. Returning to the house, I went up to my new chamber, where my striped Navajo blanket (a gift from a New Mexican undergraduate who had been in one of my courses and entertained an inexplicable regard for me, possibly because I persuaded him that he was not destined for a literary career) was spread on the floor, my old college bed was clean with fresh linen, and my college shingles hung on the walls, a pleasant reminder of those strange social ambitions which mean so much to youth. Through my west window streamed in the sunset. I peeled off my clothes and dove into my brand new and quite too expensive porcelain bath tub–a luxury Bert’s house did not possess. Then I got into my good clothes and a starched collar, more for the now novel sensation than anything else, ate my supper, and in the warm June evening walked up the road.
Bert and his wife were in the front sitting-room. I could see them beneath the hanging lamp. The girl was walking idly up and down before the house. Outof range of the open window I took her hand and gave it a little pressure. “For the centrepiece,” said I. “You sat opposite me at my first meal, bless you!”
“Did I?” she answered. “What are you talking about?” She smiled it off, but I knew that she was pleased at my pleasure.
Then I led the way into the parlour. “Hear, ye; hear, ye; hear, ye!” I cried. “To-morrow night at seven a housewarming dinner-party will be given at Twin Fires. The guests will be Mrs. Bert Temple, her lesser fraction, and Miss Stella Goodwin.”
“Land o’ Goshen!” said Mrs. Bert. “I ain’t got no fit clothes.”
Bert and I roared. “They’re all alike,” cried Bert to me. “You ain’t got no fit clothes, neither, hev you, Miss Goodwin?”
“Of course not,” she laughed. “But I expect to go.”
“Well, I ain’t got no swaller tail myself,” said Bert. “But I expect to go. We’ll jest leave the old lady ter home.”
“Will you, now?” said she. “Do you s’pose I’d lose a chance to see how Mrs. Pillig’s feedin’ our friend? Not much!”
“Seven o’clock, then!” I called, as I went back down the road, to light my old student’s lamp again at last, and labour in my own house in the quiet evening, the time of day the Lord appointed for mental toil. As Idrew near, the form of Buster emerged from the shed, barking savagely, his bark changing to whimpers of joy as I spoke his name. He pleaded to come into the house with me, so I let him come, and all the evening he lay on the rug beside my chair, while I worked. Now and then I leaned to stroke his head, whereupon he would roll over on his back, raise his four paws into the air, and present his white belly to be scratched. When I stopped, he would roll back with a grunt of profound satisfaction, bat one eye at me affectionately, and go to sleep again.
“Buster,” said I, “hanged if I don’t like you.”
His great tail spanked the rug.
The house seemed oddly more companionable for his presence. Yes, I did like him–I who had thought I hated dogs! I put him to bed at eleven, in the woodshed, and bade him good-night aloud.
The next day Mrs. Pillig was nervously busy with preparations for the feast. The ice man came, and the butcher. I worked half the day at my manuscripts, and half cleaning up the last of my orchard slash, mowing the neglected grass with a scythe, and trimming the grass between the house and the road with a lawn mower. I also edged the path to the kitchen door. Every few moments I looked up the road toward Bert’s, but no figure drew near with saucily tilted nose. There was only Buster, trotting hither and yon in every part of the landscape, and, at half-past three, the chunkyform of Peter coming home from the Slab City school. I set Peter to work for an hour sawing wood.
“But I gotter study,” he said.
“What?” said I.
“Spellin’,” said Peter.
“All right,” said I, “I’ll ask you words while you saw.”
He gave me his book which I held open on the lawnmower handle, and every time the machine came to his end of the strip of lawn I asked him a new word. Then I’d mow back again, and he’d make another cut of apple bough, and then we’d have a fresh word.
“This lends an extremely educational aspect to agricultural toil, Peter,” said I.
“Yes, sir,” said he.
Peter had his lesson learned and I had the lawn mowed by five o’clock. I devoted the next hour to my correspondence, and then went up to make myself ready for the feast. For some reason I went into the spare room at the front of the house, and glancing from the window saw Miss Stella stealing up through the orchard, her hands full of flowers. I watched cautiously. She peeped into the east window, saw that the coast was clear, and I heard the front door gently opened. I tiptoed to the head of the stairs, and listened. She was in the south room. Presently I heard voices.
“Sh,” she was cautioning, evidently to Mrs. Pillig. A second later I heard Buster bark his “stranger-coming!” bark by the kitchen door. When I camedownstairs, there were fresh flowers beneath the Hiroshiges, a bowl of them on the piano, and a centrepiece in the dining-room. I smiled.
“That fairy’s been here again,” said Mrs. Pillig slyly. “Gave me quite a start.”
Promptly at seven my guests arrived, and I ushered them with great ceremony into the south room, where Mrs. Bert gazed around with unfeigned delight, and cried, “Well, land o’ Goshen, to think this was them two old stuffy rooms of Milt’s, with nothin’ in ’em but a bed and a cracked pitcher! Hev you read all them books, young man?”
“Not quite all,” I laughed, as I opened the chimney cupboard to the left of my west fireplace.
“Lucky you read what you did before you began ter run a farm,” said Bert.
I now brought forth from the cupboard a bottle of my choicest Bourbon and four glasses. The ladies consented to the tiniest sip, but, “There’s nothin’ stingy about me!” said Bert. “Here’s to yer, Mr. Upton, and to yer house!”
We set our glasses down just as Mrs. Pillig announced dinner. On the way across the hall I managed to touch the girl’s hand once more. “For the second centrepiece, dear fairy,” I whispered.
Bert was in rare form that evening, and kept us in gales of merriment. Mrs. Pillig brought the soup and meat with anxious gravity, set the courses on the table,and then stopped to chat with Mrs. Temple, or to listen to Bert’s stories. She amused me almost as much as Bert did. Bert and his wife weren’t company to her, and the impersonal attitude of a servant was quite impossible for her. It was a family party with the waitress included. Miss Goodwin and I exchanged glances of amusement across the table.
Then came the lemon pie.
“Now there’s a pie!” said Mrs. Pillig, setting it proudly before me.
I picked up my mother’s old silver pie knife and carefully sank it down through the two-inch mass of puffy brown méringue spangled with golden drops, the under layer of lemon-yellow body, and finally the flaky, marvellously dry and tender bottom crust.
“Mrs. Pillig,” said I, “pie is right!”
“Marthy,” said Bert, smacking his lips over the first mouthful, “if you could make a pie like this, you’d be perfect.”
“The creation of a pie like this,” said I, “transcends the achievements of Praxiteles.”
“If I could make a pie like this,” said Miss Goodwin, “I should resign from the dictionary and open a bakeshop.”
Mrs. Pillig stood in the doorway, her thin, worried face wreathed in smiles. Under her elbow I saw Peter peeping through, less curious concerning us, I fancied, than the fate of the pie.
“You lose, Peter,” I called. “There ain’t going to be no core.”
At the sound of my voice Buster came squeezing into the room, and put his forepaws in my lap. Then he went around the table greeting everybody, and ended by nestling his nose against Miss Goodwin’s knee. I slid back my chair, supremely content. Bert slid back his. I reached to the mantel for a box of cigars and passed one to Bert, along with a candle, for I had no lamp in the dining-room as yet, nor any candles for the table. That was a little detail we had forgotten. Bert bit off the end, and puffed contentedly.
“That’s some seegar,” he said. “Better’n I’m used ter. Speakin’ o’ seegars, though, reminds me o’ old Jedge Perkins, when he went to Williams College. They used ter what yer call haze in them days, an’ the soph’mores, they come into the young Jedge’s room to smoke him out, an’ they give him a dollar an’ told him to go buy pipes an’ terbacker; so he went out an’ come back with ninety-nine clay pipes an’ a penny’s worth o’ terbacker, an’ it pleased the soph’mores so they let him off. ’Least, that’s what the Jedge said.”
We rose and went back into the south room, followed by Buster. Bert was puffing his cigar with deep delight, and sank into the depths of a Morris chair, stretching out his feet. “Say, Marthy, why don’t we hev a chair like this?” he said.
“’Cause you can’t stay awake in a straight one,” she replied.
Mrs. Bert wandered about the room inspecting my books and pictures like a curious child. Miss Stella and I watched them both for a moment, exchanging a happy smile that meant volumes.
“I’m so glad you invited them,” she whispered.
“I’m so glad you are here, too, though,” I whispered back. “I can’t think of my housewarming now, without you.”
She coloured rosily, and moved to the piano, where, by some right instinct, she began to play Stephen Foster.
“’Old Kentucky Home!’ By jinks, Marthy, do yer hear thet? Remember how I courted you, with the Salem Cadet Band a-playin’ thet tune out on the bandstand, an’ us in the shadder of a lilac bush?”
Martha Temple blushed like a girl. “Hush up, Bert,” she laughed. But she went over and sat on the arm of the Morris chair beside him, and I saw his big, brown, calloused hand steal about her waist. My own instinct was to go to the piano, and I followed it, bending over the player and whispering close to her ear:
“You’ve touched a chord in their hearts,” I said, “that you couldn’t have reached with Bach or Mozart. Don’t stop.”
“The old dears,” she whispered back. “I’ll give them ’The Old Folks at Home.’”
She did, holding the last chord open till the sounddied away in the heart of the piano, and the room was still. Then suddenly she slipped into “The Camptown Races,” and Bert, with a loud shout of delight, began to beat out the rhythm on Martha’s ample hip, for his arm was still about her.
“By cricky,” he cried. “I bet thet tune beats any o’ these new-fangled turkey trots! Speakin’ o’ turkey trots, Marthy, you and me ain’t been to a dance in a year. We mus’ go ter the next one.”
“Do you like to dance?” asked Miss Goodwin, coming over to the settle.
“Wal, now, when I was young, I was some hand at the lancers,” he laughed. “Used ter drive over ter Orville in a big sleigh full o’ hay, an’ hev a dance an’ oyster stew to the hotel thar. Sarah Pillig wuz some tripper in them days, too.”
“Ah, ha!” said I, “now I see why Mrs. Temple was so anxious to come to-night!”
“Stuff!” said that amiable woman.
The girl was looking into the ashes on the hearth. “Sleigh rides!” she said. “I suppose you all go jingling about the lovely country in sleighs all winter! Do you know, I never had a sleigh ride in my life?”
“No!” cried Bert. “Don’t seem possible. Speakin’ o’ sleighs, did I ever tell you about old Deacon Temple, my great uncle? He used ter hev a story he sprung on anybody who’d listen. Cricky, how he did welcome a stranger ter town! ’Cordin’ ter this story, he wuzonce drivin’ along on a fine crust, when his old hoss run away, an’ run, an’ run, an’ finally upset the sleigh over a wall into a hayfield whar they was mowin’, an’ he fell in a haycock an’ didn’t hurt himself at all. Then the stranger would say: ’But how could they be mowin’ in Massachusetts in sleighin’ time?’ and the Deacon would answer: ’They wa’n’t. The old mare run so far she run into Rhode Island.’”
Mrs. Temple rose. “Bert, you come home,” she said, “before you think of any more o’ them old ones.”
“Oh, jest the woodchuck,” Bert pleaded.
Miss Stella and I insisted on the woodchuck, so Bert sank back luxuriously, and narrated the tale. It had happened, it seems, to his grandfather and this same brother, the Deacon, when they were boys. “The old place wuz down by the river,” said Bert, “an’ there was a pesky ’chuck they couldn’t shoot ner trap, he wuz so smart, who hed a burrow near the bank. So one day grandad seen him go in, an’ he called the Deacon, an’ the two of ’em sot out ter drown the critter. They lugged water in pails, takin’ turns watchin’ and luggin’, for two hours, dumpin’ it into the hole till she was nigh full up. Then they got too tuckered ter tote any more, an’ sat down behind a bush ter rest. Pretty soon they seen the old woodchuck’s head poke up. He looked around, careful like, but didn’t see the boys behind the bush, so he come all the way out and what do you think he done?”
“Tell us!” cried Miss Stella, leaning forward, her eyes twinkling.
“He went down ter the river an’ took a drink,” said Bert.
“Won’t you copy the wisdom of the woodchuck?” I asked, when the laugh had subsided.
Bert nodded slyly and I opened my chimney cupboard again.
“It’s agin all laws,” said Bert, pointing a thumb toward his wife, “but it ain’t every day we hev a noo neighbour in these parts. Here’s to yer, once more!”
The four of us walked up the road in merry mood, and the older folk left the girl and me on the porch. She held the door open, as if to go in after them, but I pleaded that the lovely June night was young. “And so are we,” I added.
She looked at me a moment, through the dusk, and then came out on the stoop. We moved across the dewy lawn to a bench beneath the sycamore that guarded the house, and sat down. Neither of us spoke for a long moment. Then I said abruptly: “You’ve only come to my house wearing a fairy cap of invisibility, since I moved in–till to-night. Won’t you come to-morrow and walk through the pines? I’ve cleared all the slash out for you, and put planks in the swamp. The thrush won’t sing for me alone.”
“Yes, I’ll come–for the last time,” she said softly.
“Why for the last time?” I cried.
“Because I’m going back to the I’s, or the J’s, on the day after,” she answered.
“Oh, no, no, you mustn’t!” I exclaimed. “You must stay here with the jays. Why, you’re not strong enough, and New York will be horribly hot, and you haven’t seen the phlox in bloom yet round the sundial, and you’ve got to tell me where to plant the perennials, when I sow them, and–and–well, you just mustn’t go.”
She smiled wistfully. “Pronunciation is more important for me than perennials, if not so pleasant,” she said. “I shall think of Twin Fires often, though, in–in the heat.”
“They’ll arrest you if you try to wade in Central Park,” said I.
She laughed softly, lifting the corners of her eyes to mine.
“Anyhow,” I maintained, “you are not well enough to go back. You are just beginning to get strong again. It’s folly, that’s what it is!”
“Strong! Why, my hands are as calloused as yours,” she laughed, “and about as tanned.”
“Let me feel,” I demanded.
She hesitated a second, and then put out her hand. I took it in mine, and touched the palm. Then my fingers closed over it, and I held it in silence, while through the soft June night the music of far frogs came to us, and the song of crickets in the grass. She did not attempt to withdraw it for a long moment. The nightnoises, the night odours in the warm dark, wrapped us about, as we sat close together on the bench. I turned my face to hers, and saw that she was softly weeping. Strange tears were very close to my own eyes. But I did not speak. The hand slipped out of mine. She rose, and we moved to the door.
“The path to-morrow, at twilight,” I whispered.
She nodded, not trusting to speech, and suddenly she was gone.
I walked down the road to Twin Fires in a dream, yet curiously aware of the rhythmic throb, the swell and diminuendo, of the crickets’ elfin chime.
All that next June day I worked in my garden, in a dream, my hands performing their tasks mechanically. I ran the wheel hoe between the rows of newly planted raspberries and blackberries, to mulch the soil, without consciousness of the future fruit which was supposed to delight me.
Avoiding Mike, who would have insisted on conversing had I worked near him, I next went down to the brook below the orchard, armed with a rake, brush scythe, and axe, and located the spot on the stone wall which exactly faced my front door. I marked it with a stake, and thinned out the ash-leaved maples which grew like a fringe between the wall and the brook, so that the best ones could spread into more attractive trees, and so that a semicircular space was also cleared which could surround the pool, as it were, and in which I could place a bench, up against the foliage, to face the door of the house. From the door you would look over the pool to the bench. From the bench you would look over the pool and up the slope through the orchard to the house entrance. After I had the bench sitecorrectly located, I saw that the four flower beds which Miss Goodwin and I had made were at least four feet out of centre, and would all have to be moved. But that was too much of a task for my present mood. I left them as they were, and busied myself with rooting out undeniable weeds and carting off the slash and rubbish.
My mind was not on the task. Over and over I was asking myself the question, “Do I love her? What permanence is there in a spring passion, amid gardens and thrush songs, for a girl who caresses the sympathies by her naïve delight in the novelty of country life? How much of my feeling for herispassion, and how much is sympathy, even pity?”
Over and over I turned these questions, while my hands worked mechanically. And over and over, too, I will be honest and admit, the selfish incrustations of bachelor habits imposed their opposition to the thought of union. I had bought the farm to be my own lord and master; here I was to work, to create masterpieces of literature, to plan gardens, to play golf, to smoke all over the house, to toil all night and sleep all day if I so desired, to wear soft shirts and never dress for dinner, to maintain my own habits, my own individuality, undisturbed. What had been so pleasant, so tinglingly pleasant, for a day, a week–the presence of the girl in the garden, in the house, the rustle of her skirt, the sound of her fingers on the keys–wouldit be always pleasant? What if one wished to escape from it, and there were no escape? Passions pall; life, work, ambitions, the need of solitude for creation, the individual soul, go on.
“All of which means,” I thought, laying down my brush scythe and gazing into the brook, “that I am not sure of myself. And if I am not sure of myself, do I really love her? And if I am not sure of that, I must wait.”
That resolution, the first definite thing my mind had laid hold on, came to me as the sun was sinking toward the west. I went to the house, changed my clothes, and hastened up the road to meet her, curiously eager for a man in doubt.
She was coming out of the door as I crossed the bit of lawn, dressed not in the working clothes which she had worn on our gardening days, but all in white, with a lavender ribbon at her throat. She smiled at me brightly and ran down the steps.
“Go to New York–but see Twin Fires first,” she laughed. “I’m all ready for the tour.”
I had not quite expected so much lightness of heart from her, and I was a little piqued, perhaps, as I answered, “You don’t seem very sorry that you are seeing it for the last time.”
She smiled into my face. “All pleasant things have to end,” she said, “so why be glum about it?”
“Do they have to end?” said I.
“In my experience, always,” she nodded.
I was silent. My resolution, which I confess had wavered a little when she came through the doorway, was fixed again. Just the light banter in her tone had done it. We walked down the road, and went first around the house to take a look at the lawn and rose trellis. The young grass was already a frail green from the house to the roses, the flowers around the white sundial pedestal, while not yet in bloom, showed a mass of low foliage, the nasturtiums were already trying to cling, with the aid of strings, to the bird bath (which I had forgotten to fill), and the rose trellis, coloured green by the painters before they departed, was even now hidden slightly at the base by the vines of the new roses.
“There,” said I, pointing to it, “is the child of your brain, your aqueduct of roses, which you refuse to see in blossom.”
“The child of my hands, too; don’t forget that!” she laughed.
“Ofourhands,” I corrected.
“The ghost of Rome in roses,” she said, half to herself. “It will be very lovely another year, when the vines have covered it.”
“And it will be then, I trust,” said I, “rather less like ’the rose of beauty on the brow of chaos.’ The lawn will look like a lawn by then, and possibly I shall have achieved a sundial plate.”
“Possibly you will,” said she, with a suspicious twinkle. “And possibly you’ll have remembered to fill your bird bath.”
She turned abruptly into the house and emerged with a pitcher of water, tiptoeing over the frail, new grass to the bath, which she filled to the brim, pouring the remainder upon the vines at the base.
“My last activity shall be for the birds,” she smiled, as she came back with the pitcher. As if in gratitude, a bird came winging out of the orchard behind her, and dipped his breast and bill in the water.
“The darling!” I heard her exclaim, under her breath.
We took the pitcher inside, and I saw her glance at the flowers in the vases. “I ought to get you some fresh ones,” she said.
“No,” I answered. “Those shall stay a long while, in memory of the good fairy. Now I will show you my house. You have never seen my house above the first story.”
“It isn’t proper,” she laughed. “I shouldn’t be even here, in the south room.”
“But you have been here many times.”
Again she laughed. “Stupid! But Mrs. Pillig wasn’t here then!”
“Oh!” said I, a light dawning on my masculine stupidity, “I begin to realize the paradoxes of propriety. And now I see at last why I shouldn’t have asked you to pick the paint for the dining-room–when I did.”
Her eyes narrowed, and she looked into my face with sudden gravity. “I wonder if you do understand?” she answered. Slowly a half-wistful smile crept into the corners of her mouth, and she shook her head. “No, you don’t; you don’t at all.”
Then her old laugh came bubbling up. “I suspect Mrs. Pillig is more of an authority on pies than propriety,” she said in a cautious voice, “and, besides, I’m going away to-morrow, and, besides, I don’t care anyway. Lead on.”
We went up the uncarpeted front stairs, into the square upper hall which was lighted by an east window over the front door. I showed her first the spare room on the northeast corner, which connected with the bath, and then the second front chamber opposite, which was not yet furnished even with a bed. Then we entered my chamber, where the western sun was streaming in. She stood in the door a second, looking about, and then advanced and surveyed the bed.
“The bedclothes aren’t tucked in right,” she said.
“I know it,” I answered sadly. “I have to fix them myself every night. Mrs. Pillig is better on pies.”
The girl leaned over and remade my monastic white cot, giving the pillow a final pat to smooth it. Then she inspected the shingles and old photographs on the walls, turning from an undergraduate picture of me, in a group, to scan my face, and shaking her head.
“What’s the matter?” I asked. “Don’t tell me I’m getting bald.”
“No, not bald,” she answered, “but your eyes don’t see visions as they did then.”
I looked at her, startled a little. “What makes you say that?” I asked.
“Forgive me,” she replied quickly. “I meant nothing.”
“You meant what you said,” I answered, moving close to her, “and it is true. It is true of all men, and all women, in a way–of all save the chosen few who are the poets and seers. ’Shades of the prison house begin to close’–you know that shadow, too, I guess. I have no picture of you when you were younger. No–you are still the poet; you see aqueducts of roses. So you think I’m prosy now!”
“I didn’t say that,” she answered, very low.
“One vision I’ve seen,” I went on, “one vision, lately. It was–it was––”
I broke abruptly off, remembering suddenly my resolve.
“Come,” said I, “and I’ll show you Mrs. Pillig’s quarters.”
She followed in silence, and peeped with me into the chambers in the ell, smiling a little as she saw Peter’s clothes scattered on the floor and bed. Then, still in silence, and with the golden light of afternoon streaming across the slopes of my farm, we entered the pines by thewoodshed, and followed the new path along by the potato field and the pasture wall, pausing here and there to gather the first wild rose buds, and turning down through the cloister at the south.
As we slipped into the corner of the tamarack swamp my heart was beating high, my pulses racing with the recollection of all the tense moments in that grove ahead, since first I met her there. I know not with what feelings she entered. It was plain now even to me that she was masking them in a mood of lightness. She danced ahead over the new plank walk, and laughed back at me over her shoulder as she disappeared into the pines. A second later I found her sitting on the stone I had placed by the pool.
She looked up out of the corners of her eyes. “I should think this would be a good place to wade,” she said.
“So it might,” said I. “Do you want to try it?”
“Do you want to run along to the turn by the road and wait?” The eyes still mocked me.
“No,” said I.
She shook her head sadly. “And I did so want to wade,” she sighed.
“Really?” I asked.
“Really, yes. I won’t have a chance again for–oh, never, maybe.”
“Then of course I’ll go ahead.” I stepped over the brook, out of sight. A moment later I heard a softsplashing of the water, and a voice called, “I’m only six now. Oh, it’s such fun–and so cold!”
I made no reply. In fancy I could see her white feet in the water, her face tipped up in the shadows, her eyes large with delight. How sweet she was, how desirable! I stood lost in a rosy reverie, when suddenly I felt her beside me, and turned to meet her smile.
“How you like the brook,” I said.
“How I love it!” she exclaimed. “Don’t think me silly, but it really says secret things to me.”
“Such secrets as the stream told to Rossetti?” I asked.
She looked away. “I said secret things,” she answered.
We moved on, around the bend by the road where the little picture of far hills came into view, and back into the dusk of the thickest pines. At the second crossing of the brook, I took her hand to steady her over the slippery stones, and when we were across, the mood and memories of the place had their way with us, and our hands did not unclasp. We walked on so together to the spot where we first had met, and where first the thrush had sounded for us his elfin clarion. There we stopped and listened, but there was no sound save the whisper of the pines.
“The pines sound like soft midnight surf on the shore,” she whispered.
“I want the thrush,” I whispered back. “I want the thrush!”
“Yes,” she said, raising her eyes to mine, “oh, yes!”
And then, as we waited, our eyes meeting, suddenly he sang, far off across the tamaracks, one perfect call, and silence again. Her face was a glimmering radiance in the dusk. Her hand was warm in mine. Slowly my face sank toward hers, and our lips met–met for an instant when we were not masters of ourselves, when the bird song and the whispering pines wrought their pagan spell upon us.
Another instant, and she stood away from me, one hand over her mouth, one hand on her panting breast, and fright in her eyes. Then, as suddenly, she laughed. It was hardly a nervous laugh. It welled up with the familiar gurgle from her throat.
“John Upton,” she said, “you are a bad man. That wasn’t what the thrush said at all.”
“I misunderstood,” said I, recovering more slowly, and astounded by her mood.
“I’ll not reproach you, since I, a philologist, misunderstood for a second myself,” she responded. “Hark!”
There was a sudden sound of steps and crackling twigs in the grove behind us, and Buster emerged up the path, hot on our scent. He made a dab with his tongue at my hand, and then fell upon Miss Goodwin. She sank to her knees and began to caress him, very quickly, so that I could not see her face.
“Stella,” said I, “Buster has made a friend of you. That’s always a great compliment from a dog.”
She kept her face buried in his neck an instant longer, and then her eyes lifted to mine. “Yes–John,” she said. “And now I must go home to pack my trunk.”
“Let me drive you to the station in the morning,” said I, as we emerged from the grove, in this sudden strange, calm intimacy, when no word had been spoken, and I, at least, was quite in the dark as to her feelings.
She shook her head. “No, I go too early for you. You–you mustn’t try to see me.”
For just a second her voice wavered. She stopped for a last look at Twin Fires. “Nice house, nice garden, nice brook,” she said, and added, with a little smile, “nice rose trellis.” Then we walked up the road, and at Bert’s door she put out her hand.
“Good-bye,” she said.
“Good-bye,” I answered.
Her eyes looked frankly into mine. There was nothing there but smiling friendship. The fingers did not tremble in my grasp.
“I shall write,” said I, controlling my voice with difficulty, “and send you pictures of the garden.”
“Yes, do.”
She was gone. I walked slowly back to my dwelling. I had kept my resolution. Yet how strangely I had kept it! What did it mean? Had I been strong? No. Had she made me keep it? Who could say? All had been so sudden–the kiss, her springing away, her abrupt, astonishing laughter. But she had notreproached me, she had not been righteously angry, nor, still less, absurd. She had thought it, perhaps, but the mood of the place and hour, and understood. That was fine, generous! Few women, I thought, would be capable of it. Stella! How pleasant it had been to say the name! Then the memory of her kiss came over me like a wave, and my supper stood neglected, and all that evening I sat staring idly at my manuscripts and stroking Buster’s head.
Yes, I had kept my resolution–and felt like a fool, a happy, hopeless fool!
I shall not here recount the events on the farm during the weeks which followed Miss Stella’s departure. They did not particularly interest me. My whole psychological make-up had been violently shaken, the centres of attention had been shifted, and I was constantly struggling for a readjustment which did not come. The post-office appealed to me more than the peas, and I laboured harder over my photographs of the sundial beds than over the beds themselves. I sent for a ray filter and a wide-angle lens, spending hours in experiment and covering a plank in front of the south door with printing frames.
I had written to her the day after she had departed, but no reply came for a week, and then only a brief little note, telling me it was hot in town and conveying her regards to the roses. I, too, waited a week–though it was hard–and then answered, sending some photographs, one of them a snapshot of a bird on the edge of the bath, one of them of Buster sitting on his hind legs. Again she answered briefly, merrily,conveying her especial regards to Buster, but ending with a plaintive little postscript about the heat.
I sat, the evening after this letter arrived, in my big, cool room, with Buster beside me, and thought of her down there in the swelter of town. I wanted to answer her letter, and wanted to answer it tenderly. I was lonely in my great, cool room; I was unspeakably lonely.
Suddenly it occurred to me that this was the evening of Class Day. The Yard was full of lanterns, of music, of shimmering dresses, of pretty faces, of young men in mortar boards and gowns. I might have been sitting in the deep window recess of my old room above the Yard, drinking in the scene with the pleasant impersonal wistfulness of an older man in the presence of happy youth. But I wasn’t. I was sitting here alone with Buster, thinking of a poor girl in a hot, lonely New York lodging-house. I pulled my pad toward me and wrote her a letter. It read: