Chapter II: Part 2

‘Wait a minute, Jane, I sort of want to tell you somethin’; ’taint anythin’ I should want you to repeat, but it’s somethin’ that sort of troubles me some. You see, Miss Hannah she’s always been good to me, and I shouldn’t want to say anythin’ to set folks a-talkin’; but Miss Hannah haint been exactly well for some weeks, and only the day before the fire she came to me and she says she thought ’twas about time she put that old trunk full of duds, the one she’s always kept in her closet, out of the way, and she guessed she’d have me burn it up. I thought ’twas most a pity to destroy the trunk--it was a real good one, and hadn’t never seen no travel to speak of--and so I said I’d take the things out and burn ’em; that seemed to trouble her, and she was real short with me. She said I was no better than all the other folks, that I was pryin’ round to see what she kep’ in it. I sort of soothed her, and then she said she’d been pestered most to death by folks always askin’ her about some old blue chintz, and about a little room; and she guessed that if she could put that trunk out of sight, mebby folks would mind their own business and let her have some peace. So when Maria was out to the garden for some stuff for dinner, Miss Hannah she got me to help her carry the trunk out of her room and put it in the hall-closet; it wan’t no kind of a place to keep it, but I thought it was better to humor her a mite, seein’ she was out of sorts.

‘In the middle of the night,’ continued Hiram, dropping his voice and looking round to see that nobody was coming up the walk, ‘in the middle of the night I smelt smoke, and thought right off that the barn must be a-burnin’, but I couldn’t see no light; then I heard a sort of smothered noise, and I suspicioned right off what was the matter. I run to Maria’s room and found her stumblin’ round in the dark--her room bein’ full of smoke she was sort of confused--and there was a turrible glare out in the hall. We found Miss Hannah out there wringin’ her hands and callin’ out: “Oh, the trunk will be burnt up, the trunk will be burnt up!” We couldn’t coax her to go away, and it did seem as she’d burn up in her tracks if I hadn’t just took her and carried her out. By that time the house was all blazin’, and, though the folks began to come, it wan’t no use--it had to go. Hannah she was all dressed, and I don’t believe she had been to bed.’

‘You don’t think she _set_ the house afire, Hiram?’

‘No, not a-meanin’ to; but what I think is that she felt lonesome without that trunk, and so she went down to the hall-closet when she thought we was asleep, and either she dropped her candle or else the things that hung in the closet caught fire, and she didn’t see it till ’t was too late, and then she was so fearful that the trunk would burn she wouldn’t go away.’

‘What was in the trunk?’

Hiram shuffled from one foot to the other, then hesitated a little, and said:

‘Jane, I’ve been comin’ to see you a good many years, most ever since we was young, and yet we haint never exactly spoke of gittin’ married till lately; but they aint so slow down in the city, and I guess Hannah sort of expected to git married to that sea-captain down to Salem. Anyways, whatever she kept in that trunk it came from Salem, and I _guess_ ’twas some stuff he gave her.’

‘You don’t say so, all these years!’

* * * * *

In Paris, Mrs. Grant, with her husband, sat over the breakfast coffee in their little parlor in the Hotel St. Romain. The window opened on the balcony overhanging the Rue St. Roch. From the narrow street below floated the cry, ‘_Les moules, les moules?_’ mingled with the clap, clap of the horses’ hoofs on the asphalt below. The _concierge_ sang as he swept the sidewalk before the door, and the newsboys cried, with their plaintive intonation, ‘_Le Figaro, Le Figaro! Le P’tit Journal!_’

‘Roger,’ said Mrs. Grant, ‘I had such a curious dream last night. I suppose I must have been asleep, but I seemed to be awake, when suddenly I saw Aunt Hannah standing at the foot of my bed, just between the two posts. She stood quite still, and her eyes were fixed on me with her peculiar expression of reserve, but also as if she had an intense desire to speak. I was just going to cry out, “Why, Aunt Hannah, is that you?” when suddenly I felt very passive, and as if a change was going on. The curtains of my bed moved back slowly, and I was again in that mysterious little room. I seemed to see either myself or my mother, I could not tell which it was, as a little girl, lying on the sofa; it was that same blue-chintz sofa I told you about; everything in the room was exactly as I remember seeing it when I was a child, even to the shell and the book on the shelf.

‘I can’t express to you how it was that I saw the little girl lying there; it was as if my mind was compelled by some other mind to see the little girl and the little room; and all the time I did not know whether it was my mother or myself as a child that I was looking at, and I could feel all the time my Aunt Hannah’s gray eyes, though I could not see her while the vision of the little room lasted.

‘It was some minutes before the scene began to fade, and it did so very gradually, just as it came: first, the roses and blue morning-glories on the paper began to waver and grow indistinct; then one object after another trembled and faded. It was exactly as if something outside of myself compelled me to see these things; and then, as the pressure of that other will was removed, the impression gradually disappeared. The last to go was the figure of the little girl, but she too faded; the bed-curtains seemed to evolve out of the walls of the room, and I was lying on my bed; but Aunt Hannah still stood between the foot-posts, with her eyes fixed on mine. Then came the impression that she could not speak, but that she wanted to convey some thought to me; and then these words came to me--not as if a voice spoke them, but as if they were being printed on my mind or consciousness:

‘“Margaret, you must not worry any more about the Little Room, it has no connection with you or your mother, and it never had any: it all belongs to me. I am sorry that my secret ever troubled anyone else; I tried to keep it to myself, but sometimes it would get out. There’ll never be any Little Room to trouble anybody else any more.”

‘All the time I was hearing these words I felt Aunt Hannah’s eyes; and then she began to move backward, slowly, and she seemed to vanish down a long, long distance, till I lost sight of her. The last thing I saw was her gray eyes fastened on my face. I awoke, and found myself sitting up, with my head bent forward, looking right between the foot-posts of the bed.’

‘Your Aunt Hannah seems to be more fond of travelling than she used to be. Paris is further from Titusville than Brooklyn,’ said Mr. Grant, lightly.

‘Oh, don’t, Roger, don’t! I think Aunt Hannah must be dead.’

MY GHOST OF A CHANCE.

‘Truly, a most fitting place for the Starvation Act,’ said the Author, as he laid a fresh supply of stationery on the table, ‘and a whole week to do it in, unless the story pans out well, which of course it won’t; I don’t suppose there’s a ghost of a chance of that.’

‘Here I am!’

‘Oh, there you are! yes, to be sure, so you are. And how do you do? I hope you will excuse my saying it, but aren’t you an uncommonly small ghost?’

‘Yes, I am slim; but I’ve seen smaller chances, and you know I am all the one you have got.’

‘Why, yes, as William has it, “A poor thing, but mine own.” Allow me to help you up on the table; there, how is that? Do you think you could sit on that cuff-box and rest your feet on the pen-wiper? I am afraid the table is rather bare and cold, and you don’t look very well. Is that comfortable?’

‘Oh, very, thank you;--and now you may begin.’

‘Yes, in a minute. I want to ask you first if you really are my only chance?’

‘Yes, absolutely your only one,’ said the small figure sitting on the box, with his hands resting on his knees. He was a clever-looking little ghost, eight or nine inches high, clean shaven, with his hair brushed back to hide an evidently increasing tendency to baldness--he was not in his first youth. He was plainly but neatly dressed, though his clothes looked a little shiny at the seams. His face was careworn and anxious in its expression, but attractive, and his manners were unobjectionable.

‘So you are my only chance, are you? May I ask where you came from?’

‘Oh, I am sent here from the “Bureau of Chances”; we have to go just wherever we are sent, you know; we haven’t any choice in the matter.’

‘Yes, of course, that stands to reason; I can readily understand no ghost of the slightest financial instinct would have chosen me to come to; I am all the more obliged for any chance at all, on any terms. It is very encouraging to have you sit there; I like it. I think I will try and do some work.’

‘Yes, I would,’ said the little Ghost, with alacrity.

The Author leaned back, and, clasping his hands behind his head, he fixed his eyes on the little Ghost, and began:

‘It is to be a story, you know--a romance. _She_ is to be the central figure--a splendid red-haired creature, with great instincts, primeval, untrained, capacious; she is to _devour_ the world; she can’t wait for experience; she hungers and thirsts for sensations; she is to _boom_ through the story--no lagging, no questioning; see?’

‘Yes,’ nodded the little Ghost.

‘And then,’ continued the Author, ‘she is to meet the hero; he is to be Tradition, Culture, Development, Conservatism; and there will be, so to speak, no one else in the world except these two forces, and the battle royal will be between these two.’

‘Yes,’ nodded the little Ghost.

‘I think I will write that out before I go any further with the plot.’

‘I would,’ said the little Ghost.

‘Well, here goes,’ said the Author, drawing himself up to the table.

He wrote for some hours; his pen moved ceaselessly over the pages, and from time to time he laid a sheet at the feet of the little Ghost. The clock struck twelve, the clock struck one; the Author’s hair fell lankly over his pale face; on and on went his pen. At two, he looked up and saw the little Ghost sitting, all alert, on the cuff-box, with his blue eyes wide open; he gave a bright little smile in answer to the Author’s glance.

‘Why bless me! I had clean forgotten you! aren’t you tired?’ said the Author.

‘Not in the least; I feel quite fresh.’

‘Upon my word, you look it; I believe you are going to be a tough little chap, and will see me through. And now where will you sleep?’

‘Why, here, anywhere--I am not particular.’

‘Aren’t you hungry? you haven’t had anything to eat since you came. By the way, what do you eat?’

‘Oh, I’m all right, don’t bother about me; I live very well on hope, and we are supposed to supply that ourselves.’

‘That’s extremely lucky for you; I haven’t had a scrap of hope for a month, and I’m afraid you’d starve if you depended on me.’

‘Thank you, that’s all right--good night.’

The Author slept heavily, all dressed as he was when he threw himself down on the bed. The little Ghost took off his necktie and his little boots, and, folding his coat carefully for a pillow, he too slept, after adjusting the pen-wiper for a coverlid. At six o’clock the little Ghost got up and rambled about the table for a while. He regulated the loose sheets of manuscript and counted the pages. He looked quite well in the morning light, and his step had the assurance and measured quality that comes only to the prosperous. He carried his left hand carelessly in his pocket, with his elbow slightly raised, after the manner of the man of the world. He began to be restless towards seven o’clock, and at half-past seven he took his breakfast, very sparingly, off of his stock of hope, evidently considering the possibility of a longer stay than he had anticipated when he first got up. At eight o’clock, his face was full of anxiety, and he had dropped his nonchalant air and had taken his hand out of his pocket. At nine, his head was bent, and he paced to and fro from the inkstand to the dictionary, with his hands clasped behind him. He looked old and feeble. At ten, he had a slight fainting turn and had to sit down on the cuff-box. His forehead was damp and he shivered; he was evidently deeply disturbed, and he was a pitiful little object to look at.

Then the Author awoke, and, sitting up, called out: ‘Why, great heavens! what is the matter, are you ill?’

‘Thank you, I do feel a little off this morning.’

‘Morning, is it? Why, I feel as if I had just dropped off; you haven’t been drinking my ink, have you? You are all blue around the gills?’

The little Ghost was offended, but he did not answer except by a reproachful look.

‘Oh, don’t play the lacrimoso role; I’ll be up in no time, and you must remember I wrote a pile last night; just hear me read some of it. Why, did I do all this? It reads better than I thought.’

‘Yes, it reads very well--_very well indeed_. I think I will go out and take a stroll, and lunch at the club, and not write any more till to-night; I do my best work at night.’

As the Author said this, he looked right at the Ghost; there was a feeling in the room that somebody was justifying himself, but the little Ghost said nothing. Then the Author made himself a cup of coffee and freshened himself up, all the time not looking at the little Ghost. Then he took his cane, and, going out, he nodded carelessly, and said:

‘Good-bye, old boy; I will be back in good time, don’t worry.’

All the way down the street the Author kept hearing the words: ‘I am all the chance you’ve got--I am all the chance you’ve got,--I am all the chance you’ve got.’

‘Hang it all,’ said he, ‘I might as well go back and grind; it will please the little chap, and it don’t matter to anyone else. I don’t suppose he is much of a critic--he’ll never know how bad the stuff is that I wrote last night.’

So back he went. When the door opened he was shocked to see his little Ghost of a chance apparently on the verge of dissolution. He lay across the dictionary, where he had evidently thrown himself in despair; his arm hung down over the edge of the book, and he was limp and almost like a lifeless thing. He smiled a wan but forgiving smile on the Author and then wearily composed himself, as if for death. The Author bent his head over the little Ghost to see if he was still breathing. The Ghost was alive, and he heard him whisper:

‘_Write, write, write!_’

Seizing his pen, the Author dashed ahead, hardly knowing what words came; he knew that write he must to save his dear little Ghost of a chance--his only little chance. By the time he had written one chapter the Ghost was up and strutting around the table like a little king, but the poor Author was in the depths of despair; he knew that every word he was writing was trash; that nobody, even the most philanthropic of editors, would ever take his story, and that starve he must. Still, the little Ghost improved; he grew stout, he grew rosy, he even seemed to be getting a fresh accession of yellow hair to cover his bald spot. At last the Author spoke:

‘Little _fiend_,’ said he, ‘you fatten on my despair; you are nourished on my misery; the vagaries of my tired brain are wine and bread to your morbid taste. Why should I drain my brain to feed you, you _pigmy_ of chance! you respectable little _vampire_! you masquerader in the form of “my chance,” “my only chance!” Away with you, vanish, wither, be gone! I will burn my words, even though you perish with the flame. I will not be saved by such a chance, if the price of my life be this unworthy work!’

And the Author thrust his manuscript into the fire. He turned, thinking to see the Ghost wither and die before him; but instead of that there was the queer little contradictory fellow dancing on the table. He danced, he capered, he looked fairly fat; in truth he began to puff with his exertions, and then he shouted out:

‘O you authors! O you strange creatures! You think you can kill me by burning your manuscript; why, you are feeding me, you are pampering me, and you yourself are improving in spite of yourself. Your chance is great, your chance is sure, you will _write_ now; you will be a success!’

And sure enough the next day the story was done. The Author went out with it, knowing it to be good; it was a go. The Author’s hand rested lightly in his trousers’ pocket, and he walked with the assurance of a prosperous man. As he came back, he said to himself:

‘Now, I am going to say to that little Ghost chap: “Here, half of this gold is yours, half is mine; remain with me, and we will be partners, share and share alike.”’

But when he went into the room, the fat little Ghost had gone back to the ‘Bureau of Chances,’ to be sent out again along with all the other little Ghost Chances. I recognized him the other day sleeping in the pigeonhole of the desk of a friend of mine.

IN GRANADA.

‘Pepita,’ said I, ‘do tell me a story.’

‘Señora Maria Madalena, would you like to hear about Seraphita? She was born in Granada. That was one hundred years ago.

‘She was born in a high place; her mother was of a great family, and her father was great too, but he was very wild, and Seraphita was the prettiest thing that ever was born in Granada; everybody said so, and her mother used to think that the sun rose on the east side of her little bed, and set on the west.

‘The days ran merrily, and the father felt so happy that he went all the time to the bull-fights, and threw even money, yes, not only cigars but real money, to the torreadors. And all was beautiful till Seraphita was four months old; then she died. She had been very ill, so ill that her father did not go to the bull-fights for one whole week, and he paid for a great ceremony in the church, and everybody said, “Now Seraphita will get well,” for he had paid more than one hundred pieces of gold for prayers. But Seraphita died, and her mother had so much heart-grief that she lost her wits. For one whole day she sat, cold and still, without a tear, and then she cried aloud and began to tear out handfuls of her smooth black hair, and it was a great pity, for her hair was black and long, and glistened like satin--she was called the Satin-haired. But she forgot how beautiful she was, and she would not eat anything, or even sleep.

‘Two nights after Seraphita died, and was lying as white and beautiful as an angel, with wax candles at her head and feet and with a white flower in her hand, her mother went quietly into the room, and sent the old nurse, who was watching over Seraphita, away. Then she closed the door and threw herself on her knees, and prayed so hard that her prayers could not get up to Heaven, for they were more like curses than prayers,--and, Señora Maria Madalena, it is not good to pray like that; one must not send up prayers that are not fit to go to Heaven, for then Saint Peter shuts the gates of Heaven, and the prayers go wandering up and down in the great spaces of air, where there is no one to answer them.

‘The Devil, who is everywhere but in Heaven, came to her and asked, with a very sweet voice--for he can use any voice he likes--“What is it that Seraphita’s mother is praying for?”

‘“I want my child back; I want her in my arms that are so empty, and my heart that aches so.”

‘And then the Devil told her--I do not know exactly how he told her, but he made her know that he could give Seraphita back to her, just as she had been, with her rosy cheeks, and her black eyes, and her pretty black hair which was going to be like her mother’s; he could do this, only he could not give her soul back--she must be always without a soul.

‘And Seraphita’s mother talked with the Devil, for her wits were gone and she did not know right from wrong; and she promised him anything if he would only give her baby back to her again, even without any soul. And the Devil very politely said he did not want anything to be given to him; he was glad to give the child back, so long as she did not ask for the soul.

‘And then, while the mother looked at Seraphita, the pink came into the baby’s cheeks and she smiled; and then, because her joy was so great, the mother cried out loud, and her voice could be heard way down in the street. Then everybody came running in to see what was the matter; and the father was so happy he carried Seraphita again to the church and they had another ceremony, and this time he paid even more gold, and there was a great _festa_ in Granada.

‘You see, nobody but the mother knew that only Seraphita’s body was there, that she hadn’t any soul and never could have one; only the mother knew, and she could not be happy.

‘She grew very thin, and her smooth satin hair turned white on top, just where the Devil had laid his hand; so she wore a veil, even in the house, and she hid her eyes as if she was afraid, and she prayed day and night. Nobody knew what she prayed, because she did not dare to tell even her husband.

‘Bye and bye she grew so afraid and sad, because Seraphita somehow didn’t seem to her any more like her own child; she was like a beautiful wax doll; but she was not wax, and she looked just like herself to everybody else; only to her mother she seemed strange, and she could not get the warm love back into her heart, even though she pressed Seraphita to her bosom night and day.

‘The little baby grew in spite of that, and she grew prettier and prettier all the time. Everybody loved her except her mother, and that was just what the Devil wanted.

‘The day Seraphita was one year old her mother could not bear it any longer, and she went to her priest and confessed to him all about it; and then very soon she died, because she had kept her secret so long it had just burned her heart out.

‘After that--no one knew how it happened--but pretty soon everybody began to whisper and look queerly at Seraphita when the nurse carried her into the street; and her father seemed troubled, and he talked with the priest and wanted to pay some more money to the Church; but they wouldn’t have any more ceremonies for Seraphita, and the priests tried to make the people stop talking; what they said was “_nonsense_.” But it was not nonsense, and so they went on talking among themselves; and they would take their own children out of the way when Seraphita was old enough to play about.

‘So she grew up all alone except for her father and her nurse and the priest who went to live in the house--which showed that the Church thought there was something in it, else why should a priest go and live in the house?

‘One day, when Seraphita was out walking, she came across some little boys who were stoning a black kitten to kill it--for everybody knows that black cats belong to the Devil. And Seraphita ran right in among the flying stones, and not one of them hit her, for the Devil held his hand between her and the stones, and she caught up the Devil’s kitten and hugged it tight, while the stones fell at her feet, and the boys cried out, “Devil’s brat! Devil’s cat!”’

‘Pepita,’ said I, ‘she seems to me to have been a very nice, soft-hearted little girl.’

‘Oh, no! Señora Maria Madalena, you see black cats belong to the Devil, and if she had had any soul she couldn’t have taken one in her arms.

‘She carried it home, and she used to feed it, and she had to hide it away, because, of course, nobody wanted to have a Devil’s cat around, and the cat would run and jump into Seraphita’s arms whenever she came near; but it would fly like mad, and its hair would all stand on end, when anyone else came around, which shows--does it not?--that something was wrong. And another thing showed that all was not right with Seraphita: the priest began to teach her, and she learned faster than any child should. There was an evil spirit that whispered the words into her ear, so that she did not have to study.

‘She had power over horses, too, and if she just put her lips to a horse’s ear he would turn and rub his nose on her face. You see, horses have no souls, and they knew that Seraphita hadn’t any.

‘And, besides that, she always looked very old and grave when anybody was near; but when she was alone in the fields or in the woods she would laugh out loud, and they could hear her talk with the birds, for she knew bird-language; and she would lean over the water and talk to herself, or to the fishes. Oh, it was true, she had no soul!’

‘Well, what became of her?’ I asked, as Pepita paused, to emphasize her statement.

‘She grew up so beautiful that strangers would stop in the street and look at her as she passed; but, of course, everybody soon found out all about her, and then they would not look at her--at least they would not look her in the eye, unless they had a charm on.’

‘Do you mean that she had the “evil eye”?’

‘Oh, yes! why, she could make anyone have bad luck just by looking at them, and she could make flowers grow and blossom, and be more colors than any other flowers. She knew she had the “evil eye,” for she never went anywhere, or visited the sick or the poor, though she had plenty of money. She used to send the priest with food or clothes. You see, _she_ knew.’

‘And what became of poor little Seraphita?’

‘Why, you see, when she was about twenty years old she was very ill again, and she lay in a trance for three days. The doctors wouldn’t go near her, and her own old nurse had died, and they couldn’t get anyone to take care of her, till finally the priest sent to the convent for one of the Sisters. She was a very good woman, and she went to the house, and, creeping on her hands and knees, so that the Devil could not get hold of her, she went right into the room and prayed all night. Her prayers went straight up to Heaven; and she prayed that Seraphita might die, and that before she died her soul should be given back to her.

‘And, Señora Maria Madalena, just as the sky began to grow pink in the east, and the white mist blew across the vega, and the birds began to call, what do you think happened?

‘A beautiful white dove flew into the window and alighted on Seraphita’s breast, and, laying its bill close to her mouth, it breathed a soul into her, and then the dove just vanished, and Seraphita was dead.

‘Then, because God had been good to him, and had given Seraphita a soul again, her father built an orphan asylum and called it after her, “The Seraphita”; and you can see it over there, with the sun shining on it--it looks like gold.’

‘It is a pretty story, Pepita; but do _you_ believe she had no soul?’

‘The Señora knows I am English on my father’s side, but my mother was Spanish.’

‘So you are half Spanish, and _half_ believe it; is that so, Pepita?’

‘Yes, Señora.’

THE VOICE.

He saw her first on a Wednesday in May. She was sitting on the back door-step, doing nothing but just watching him plow. It looked as if that was what she was doing, so he tried to seem a little more unconscious than he had, when he really was unconscious, and every time he turned at the end of the furrow he glanced up at her from under his soft felt hat, which he wore pulled low over his eyes. She sat still, and he plowed ten furrows; the field was small; the apple-trees were in blossom, but the air was cool. He thought she would go in soon, but she sat with her hands idly in her lap. He had never seen a girl sit still for so long before; what was she waiting for? It seemed as if she wanted to speak to him, but that could not be. Who was she, anyhow? He didn’t know anybody lived in the house; they must have moved in very lately, maybe yesterday, and maybe she really did want to ask him something; perhaps they hadn’t brought any potatoes with them--could she want to ask him if he had any to sell? Perhaps she was lonesome; but a boy couldn’t go and talk to a girl just because she looked lonesome. How slim she was, and she didn’t look a bit like the Legget girls, who lived in the white house at the Crossing. How pretty the house looked with someone in it; he liked a brown house best anyway; it was a pity his mother had taken a notion to paint their own house white--it never had been the same to him since then.

Now the girl, whoever she was, was going in. No, she was just standing up to see him better; how queer! She was more slender than he first had thought, and foreign-looking, too, with black hair and eyes, and her hair was braided in two long braids--it made her look young; how old was she, anyway? He had plowed now till he was almost opposite to her door, and only three apple-trees distant. If she sat there till he plowed to the corner of her garden he would say ‘Good-afternoon.’

He plowed till he was within two furrows of the corner. He had not looked up at the end of the last furrow, and now he was turning again towards her. She was gone.

Thursday, he carried out the potatoes to plant. It was warmer than yesterday, and the south wind was blowing off the apple-blossoms. They fell from her garden into the furrows on his land, and he dropped the potatoes into pink and white rifts.

He looked almost every minute to see her come out of the door.

The house was very still, and they had not taken the boards down that had been nailed over the pantry windows to keep the storms from breaking the glass, and there were no curtains up. They couldn’t have been there long. Probably there was nobody but her and her mother, and they would have to wait for some neighbor to come in and help them take those boards down, and start the pump working. He would wash up after supper, and go over there. He could help them a lot before dark.

He would ask his mother to send over something to eat while they were getting settled. The neighbors always did that when folks moved into the neighborhood.

She was standing at the door now. It was certain she was older than he first thought--she must be seventeen, or even older; he would be nineteen in October.

She certainly wanted to speak to him; she didn’t exactly beckon to him, but she sort of waited as if she expected him to come. He laid the bag of potatoes down and vaulted over the fence. He stumbled awkwardly as he landed, and that was so ridiculous. She had a pretty, bright smile when he looked up after brushing off the soft dirt from his knees; it wasn’t a mocking smile either, only such a happy smile, as if she knew he would come. He stepped over the narrow bed of rhubarb, between the currant bushes, and then she was gone. Probably she had gone to call her mother. He waited a whole minute or more on the steps. Yes, she could have seen him quite well from there, better than he had seen her, because the sun had been in his eyes, and she was sitting in the shade.

She did not come out, and so he pushed the door open a little wider--she had left it almost half open. The hallway was dark at first, and it was not furnished. There was not even a mat at the door.

Why didn’t she come back? It was so still he could almost hear his heart beat, and besides he was a little embarrassed. He couldn’t go away, and he didn’t know exactly what to do.

He knocked on the open door. The sound went all over the house, and the dust where it had been disturbed was making the sunbeam in the kitchen beyond look like a regular golden beam. No one answered, but he heard a footstep in the sitting-room; he walked in; there was no one there; he grew curious, and his embarrassment wore off, for the girl was evidently more shy than he.

He went through the living-room. There was no furniture there either, but there were lots of flying dust particles, so that somebody had evidently just been through. He opened the door into the kitchen; nobody was there, but the stairs creaked ever so slightly. She was going up-stairs. He went swiftly into the hall, but could see no one. He walked clumsily up-stairs; how much more noise he made than she had. They would probably have a rag carpet on them later. Who were they anyway, and why did she run away from him?

The rooms up-stairs were connected by doors. He followed the footsteps from one room to another. At the end of the back one, which had a sloping roof on one side, there were very narrow stairs which led to the attic. The door at the foot of the stairs closed right before him. He was angry, and spoke up:

‘Does anyone here want to speak to me?’

There was no answer, and again he seemed to hear his own heart-beats.

He stood quite still, wondering whether to go away or to follow the footsteps, which he heard faintly overhead.

He followed the footsteps; the stairs were steep, and opened into the middle of the long garret, and nobody was in sight. But the agitated dust danced in the sunbeam which streamed way across the room. It was very clean up there--no lumber of any sort, no old furniture, no old trunks, no old papers or such litter--and it was as quiet as death. His heart beat now with excitement, not embarrassment. His quick eye saw that there was no other room, and that there was no place to hide except behind the chimney that ran through the front part and up through the roof. He walked over to it. It seemed a long walk, it was so quiet and queer, and he felt as if he were being watched.

There was no one behind the chimney. He went all around it.

Now he felt quite himself again. He had been a fool, or else asleep, and he put his foot on the first stair, saying aloud ‘Good-bye,’ which meant ‘good-bye to my foolishness.’

A timid voice said, ‘Oh, don’t go!’

He stood with his lips parted, his damp hair clinging to his forehead where his cap had pressed it, his head bent forward to listen, every nerve tingling.

‘Where are you?’ he asked.

‘Close beside you, here at your right hand.’

‘I don’t see you.’

‘No, you can’t see me now.’

‘Why can’t I see you?’

‘Oh, I don’t know,’ the voice sighed.

‘Was that you I saw yesterday on the steps?’

‘Yes, I was watching you plow, and I wanted to speak to you.’

‘I knew it, and that is why I came in. Can’t I see you?’

Again the sigh blew across his face.

‘What do you mean by my not being able to see you?’

‘_Can_ you see me?’

‘No, not now; but I saw you at the door, before you came up here.’

‘But you could not hear me then.’

‘I hear you now.’

‘Yes, but you do not see me.’

‘Can’t you be seen and heard too at the same time?’

Again a soft piteous sigh.

‘I want to know who you are, and why you can’t be seen and heard too.’

‘I don’t know.’

‘I must go now, if you won’t let me see you.’

‘Oh, don’t go!’

He stood irresolute; he was not one bit frightened, only he was aching to see her of the voice, and to know who she was. Then he asked:

‘Can’t I _ever_ see you again?’

‘Oh, yes!’ said the voice, and it seemed to vibrate all around him, a dancing voice full of joy and hope.

He smiled with it, and then there was laughter all around him, moving here and there gaily.

‘I want to see you now.’

‘Then I can’t talk with you any more.’

‘Never mind, let me see you.’

A sigh, a soft moaning sound, a rustle as of garments, and she stood before him.

He had not been embarrassed by the voice, but now his heart began to beat, and he said, quite as he had meant to when he first went into the house:

‘Is there anything I can do to help you settle?’

That was an absurd thing to say to this slim, wistful girl, who stood looking at him. It was the natural boy asserting itself against the unknown, the unexpected.

Then he turned his head and looked into her eyes. They were the sweetest eyes he had ever seen. He had never before looked deep into any human eyes.

Then, home and circumstances, field and world, all became to him a dream, and only this maiden without a voice, this voice floating into empty air, became to him his world.

Outside, the apple-blossoms floated down from her trees to his land, the potatoes lay unplanted. Vainly that night the cows waited for his hand to milk them. The real had become the shadow; he was in a new world. Illusive voice! vanishing shape to deal with!

Within, a wild delicious hope that he, he might at last unite voice and shape.

So from the plough-boy is the poet born.

THE SCARF.

It is interesting to see a man handle delicate fabrics. The mind involuntarily estimates the strength of the man in its superabundance, comparing it to the task. The contrast makes it picturesque.

Mark watched his friend Rob as he sat drawing the thin, Eastern-looking scarf through his hands; his hands were good to look at--firm and shapely. The scarf was sheer, almost of the texture of a cobweb; it was white, with an ivory tint where the folds gave it substance. It clung now and then to his hand, or yielded reluctantly as he drew it from his sleeve where it had floated.

There was silence in the room, emphasized by the restless throbbing of the city below. The sails out on the bay dipped and courtesied in the fresh evening wind, and the ripples flushed red under the slanting sun.

‘Rob,’ said the older man, ‘all the same, I don’t like it; it isn’t like you.’

‘I am sorry you don’t like it, and it _is_ like me,’ said the other, slowly. ‘I have always counted acts as the man. How would you construe it if I said: “Your acts I like, but I don’t like you”? That isn’t reasonable.’

‘You are splitting hairs, and I can’t match you at that. What I mean in plain English is, that I don’t see why your finding a scarf should necessitate or excuse you for breaking an engagement.’

‘I didn’t find the scarf; it found me. And I didn’t break the engagement; an engagement, to my thinking, is not breakable; breaking suggests force; an engagement dissolves. What is it but the outward wording of an inward state of mind existing between two mutually attracted people? the state of mind being changed--lo!--pff!’

‘You exasperate me beyond words, Rob, with your this and your that, all of it as thin as your scarf; and, what is worse, you do not seem to feel the gravity of it all, not in the least. You say in August, “Mark, congratulate me, I am the happiest man alive; I am going to be married.” In October you say, “Mark, I am a subject for congratulation, I am a disengaged man.”

‘As a friend of both yours and Mabel’s, I ask why, and you answer by holding up that miserable, dangling scarf, and say: “This is why; I found this, and I am going across the water to find the owner.”’

‘Excuse me, but I said “This scarf found me”--therein lies a great difference.’

‘It is all so trivial I wouldn’t forgive any man living but you.’

‘Thank you.’

The scarf, floated by the breeze, caught on Rob’s shoulder; he drew it slowly down; it lengthened out with the gentle strain and fell in a misty heap to his knee.

‘Do put that cussed thing away,’ said Mark, irritably, ‘and tell me, if you are ever going to, where it came from.’

‘I can tell you that better when I have found out myself.’

‘Who is she?’

‘She is a slender woman, neither dark nor light; her hair is fluffy--not crimped; her eyes are red-brown in some lights, and she wears soft raiment.’

‘When did you meet her?’

‘I haven’t met her yet.’

‘And what about Mabel?’

‘Oh, she is all right,’ said Rob, optimistically. ‘What I liked about her at first is exactly what I like now--she is so sensible; you can’t tell how sensible she is, Mark. She says I am preoccupied, and she doesn’t think I am earnest. She is right; I am not what she calls earnest.’

‘You told her about the scarf, of course?’

‘No, that wouldn’t interest her. Now, tenement houses are in her line. If I had invested in a tenement house she would have found me no end interesting; but this kind of a thing isn’t appreciated by her; she isn’t in it.’

‘I call it puerile and ridiculous,’ said Mark, hotly.

‘I don’t think you are quite right, then. What kind of a fabric should you take it to be?’

Mark took it in his hand. Whatever he did, he did sincerely and with care. He held the scarf up to the light; he bent his head over it and scrutinized it through his glasses; then he sniffed at it to see if it had any perfume, and stretched the meshes to see if it were hand-woven. At last he said:

‘I don’t think I know anything about it. It is made of wool, not silk; it is all delicate as a cobweb, but it does not call to my mind any stuff I ever saw. I should say it might have come from the East, possibly from India or even from Greece--Milesian wool.’

‘Yes, Milesian wool--it must be that,’ said Rob, enthusiastically.

‘You are not in earnest when you tell me you do not know anything more about it than I do?’

‘I am in earnest, but I can’t say exactly that; and yet I know nothing about the scarf except how it came to me; you would call me practical, sane--not a dreamer?’

‘Not a dreamer, if by that you mean that you are sufficiently on the earth to know how to live; but you are a mixture. I saw an old tinker yesterday--a tinker and umbrella-mender combined--a little gray tramp of a fellow, about sixty years old, stubby beard, dirty, self-possessed, master of himself and of the world so far as he was concerned in it, with an optimistic vein in spite of some hard luck, and with the most beautiful clear eyes I ever saw. He was a wanderer--a traveller, I might say. He had seen the greater part of America, and understood it, too, and he had seen it all on foot or by means of stolen car-rides. He fairly made me long to travel, with his tales of Colorado; he was immensely interesting. I talked with him for over an hour while he mended my umbrella and put a new ferule on my cane; and all the time, while I was listening to him, I was thinking: “Now, here is my friend Rob, just as he would have been without the mixture”--the mixture being, of course, your scholarly tastes and your money, half-tinker and half-student. I have no doubt but the tinker had tastes, too, but he hadn’t the money.’

‘I like the picture of your tinker.’

‘Yes, you do, that is the trouble; and it’s the tinker part of you that breaks an engagement for a scarf.’

‘What would you have me do--tell Mabel that I am earnest and interesting, and beg her to marry a tinker?’

‘No, I fancy the thing is better as it is; but I hope the scholar will have his chance some day. You are thirty?’

‘Thirty and one.’

‘Some study, much travel; a little business--not enough for an anchor; wit in one pocket, wisdom late in coming--name, Robert Dudley.’

‘And till now a friend of Mark’s.’

‘Always that.’

Rob folded the scarf slowly. It clung to his fingers; it caught wherever chance blew it; it was fluttered against his face while he carefully squared the corners together and patiently rolled its misty length into pocket size.

‘Mabel,’ he said, meditatively and impartially, ‘is much too good for me; she is moral, without being morbid; she is dignified, without being stiff; she is generous, but not weak. She reads people as she reads books. At first she thought I, as a book, was interesting, that I had an ethical flavor; but she found I was only a sort of art for art’s sake literature, and she laid me down. I did not interest her more. She has no sense of humor, and it never occurred to her that her one chance of cultivating it was to marry me. Now _she_ will be different.’

‘Yes, she will, and some day I shall discover, under a tinker’s garb, my old friend Bob, mending umbrellas for a living, the mixture having lost its savor and the money gone.’

‘I have never heard you stick so to a simile--it seems to please you. I like your tinker idea, but I deny the outcome.’

‘Well, good-bye. I am sorry for it all.’

‘No need for that; Mabel is rid of her tinker--_so_ far, so good; the rest “lies on the knees of the Gods.”’

‘As you will. Good-bye; I will see you off on Saturday.’

A moment later, Rob spoke sharply over the balustrade:

‘One minute more; come back, I want a last word. Sit there, will you, just where I sat; no, don’t move the chair, let it face the table. Now lean your hands on your chin, so; now look up--what do you see?’

‘What do I see? I see myself--a portion of myself--in the glass.’

‘Hitch the chair this way, so that you can see your full face--now?’

‘Well, what of it?’

‘Tell me exactly what you see, in every detail.’

Rob had darkened the room and lit the gas; it was burning just in front and over Mark’s head, lighting up his face and shoulders, but leaving the room dark behind him.

‘What do I see? I see my face and head, my collar and tie, and my shoulders, and my arms down to the elbows, and of course the table where they rest.’

‘What do you see behind you?’

‘I see--I seem to see the wall or door, I can’t tell exactly which, it is dark behind there.’

‘Can you see the pictures on the wall?’

‘Yes, by canting my head slightly, I see a frame. I can’t tell what the picture is, though; I am near-sighted at best.’

‘Yes, I know. I don’t want that picture to come into your range of vision; hold your head straight.’

‘Then I see nothing but myself,’ said Mark, turning round to see what really was behind him, and why he was put through these tactics. There was nothing behind him. Rob stood at the side of the table; but now he sat down, and said:

‘I want your attention and your friendliest belief in what I am going to tell you. I am quite in earnest, and I assume that you will credit every word I say. The interpretation you give it will be your own--I shall not combat it; but up to the point when you can consider it as a whole, I want you to hold your judgment in suspense.’

The two men sat facing each other, Rob’s face being animated by his resolve to put his thought into words, to weigh his problem in the scales of an alien mind, to try and see himself and his idea through other eyes than his own. Mark’s face was quiet, attentive, and delicate in its expression of suspended judgment. He was a man who held friendship as a sacred obligation, and was ready to meet a demand with single-minded generosity.

‘A month ago,’ said Rob, slowly weighing each word, ‘I came home from Mabel’s. We had come to an understanding as to the time for our wedding.’

Mark moved restlessly, and shaded his eyes with his hand.