Chapter IX

I pr’ythee, pretty youth, let me be better acquainted with
thee.—_As You Like It_, iv, 1.

Kenneth started on his fishing expedition. The road which passed the Adams house wandered aimlessly off toward a woodland, and at the edge of this there was a brook. Here was shade, and fallen trees which offered particularly comfortable seats. As Miss Esther had said, there were no fish now. There had been one once—a very large one—which had been caught, but that was in the days when Miss Esther’s father used to fish there. This lack, however, did not cause the least worry to Kenneth. His mood was rather for the manner than the matter in hand. He wanted to fish—not to catch fish, and his mother’s pail, had there been nothing else available, would have suggested to him those essential ideas which are of the Waltonian impulse. He wanted to think, and there is nothing more subtly conducive to the reflective frame of mind than sitting on a log, dangling a fish-line in a brook. If one catches fish, then there is immediate business in hand which spoils a train of thought. Your true philosopher, therefore, desires no fish—he simply wants to sit and think. That is the secret of fishing, and Kenneth Westcott knew it.

Jean Richards, from behind the vines of her own veranda, had watched Kenneth’s departure from the Adams house and his subsequent progress toward the brook. “How absurd,” she thought, as she noted the rod and creel. “He can’t catch anything in that brook. I’ll go down and tell him so. I rather like those boys of Miss Esther’s. I think I’ll cultivate them—the brothers I mean; that lame lieutenant is a prig, I’m sure, but the Westcott boys seem quite worth while. Yes, I’ll go down there. He’ll be glad of somebody to amuse him when he finds he can’t catch any fish.”

Jean waited until she thought that Kenneth had had time to discover the fishlessness of the brook, and then leisurely proceeded along the same path he had taken.

She came upon him suddenly. Seated on the ground, his back against a fallen log, his hands clasped behind his head, and his fish-line trailing in the brook, Kenneth was staring vacantly toward the blue of the sky.

“Good gracious, how you scared me!” cried Jean. “I didn’t know you were here.”

“I’m going away in a minute,” he replied, as, after a disinterested glance at the intruder, he went on with his sky-gazing.

“Well, of _all_ things!” exclaimed Jean. “May I sit here until you go? I’m awfully tired.”

“Certainly, sit down if you like. It isn’t my log.”

Jean sat down. Kenneth continued to gaze at the sky.

“What are you doing?” she asked at last.

“Cleaning my automobile.”

“Papa has just got a new buggy,” said Jean, ingratiatingly.

“Has he?”

“My father is the manager of the Whitfield Flour and Feed Company.”

“Is he?”

“Yes, he is. He thinks I’m nice.”

“Does he?”

Jean rested her chin in her hand and regarded the young man steadily for some moments. “Do you know, I rather like you? Nobody ever talked to me like that before.”

“Do you like to be talked to that way?” Kenneth glanced critically at his fishing-rod, and moved his position a trifle.

“Yes; who are you, anyway?”

“You know my name.”

“Well, what are you, then?”

“I’m a fairy prince.”

“What are you doing?”

“I’m hunting a fairy princess.”

“How fortunate I happened along just now.”

Kenneth rose, picked up his rod, walked a little way and leaned it against a tree.

“Oh, are you going?” asked Jean. “Good-bye!”

“No, I’m not going. I’m coming back to sit on the log and talk to you; but I see an interruption approaching in the shape of two able-bodied men. One of them is our friend, Mr. Brewster.”

“And the other is Dr. Bushnell, the minister. Mr. Brewster is staying at his house.”

The two newcomers accepted the hospitality offered by the occupants of the log, Brewster throwing himself at full length on the grass, and Dr. Bushnell, carefully selecting an available place, seated himself with great dignity. “What a poetic spot,” he said. “It reminds me of that wonderful line of Mrs. Hemans’s, ‘Men may come and men may go, but I go on forever.’ That is a beautiful thought. It is well said that there are sermons in running brooks.”

“Why don’t you pick one out for next Sunday, Dr. Bushnell?” inquired Jean, with an air of seriousness.

“I think I will. I think I will. That is by no means a bad idea. I thank you, my dear young lady, for suggesting it to me. From a brook one may draw many—”

“Fish,” said Jean.

“Not from this brook,” said Kenneth. “I’ve been fishing all the morning and haven’t caught a thing.”

“I referred to sermons, not fish,” remarked Dr. Bushnell, mildly.

“Oh, I didn’t have any sermon bait.”

“And haven’t you really caught anything?” inquired Brewster.

“Only a fairy princess,” said Jean.

“And that without any bait,” retorted Kenneth.

“Oh, I knew he wouldn’t catch any fish, so I came down to amuse him. We were playing fairy prince and princess.”

“Was this log your castle?” asked Brewster, interestedly.

“No, indeed,” replied Jean. “I think the fairy prince was going to build a real air-castle, with moats and dungeons and things.”

“I don’t think that kind of a castle would suit you,” said Kenneth.

“What kind would suit me?” asked Jean.

“A more modern one,” said Brewster. “A brownstone front on Fifth Avenue, for instance.”

“That would suit me exactly,” she replied, “but it isn’t a castle.”

“Wouldn’t you rather be suited exactly than to have a castle?” said Brewster, quizzically.

“Yes, I would,” said Jean, honestly. “Helen is the one for the castle. You know Miss Fairbanks,—you met her yesterday. She has set her heart upon a real castle with turrets and drawbridges and moats.”

“She ought to have it, too,” said Brewster. “She would grace it perfectly.”

“I am grieved to learn,” said Dr. Bushnell, “that Miss Helen has set her heart on anything so far beyond her reach. It seems to me not only the height of folly, but almost a sin to aspire to something that one may never hope to gain.”

“‘Ah, but a man’s reach should exceed his grasp,
Or what’s a heaven for?’”

quoted Brewster.

“Heaven, my dear sir, is quite another matter. We may all hope to attain that blessed state.”

“True,” said Brewster, in such a bland tone of acquiescence that Jean giggled.

“It is not a matter for flippancy,” said Dr. Bushnell, with his most ministerial air. “Ambition, rightly directed, and not having its source in a prideful desire for vainglory, is admirable and praiseworthy in all. But ambition that is selfish and based on a desire for vulgar ostentation and display—”

“Helen Fairbanks is not vulgar or ostentatious,” broke in Jean. “She doesn’t want a castle for show. What she wants and what she ought to have is the sort of thing represented by a moated castle. She would fit right into a picture of that kind, and she knows it, and so, naturally, she longs intensely for it. But she isn’t miserable over it.”

“Of course,” said Brewster; “I have only met Miss Fairbanks once, and she certainly gives a stranger the impression of the Haughty Princess. One would hardly imagine her longing intensely for anything.”

“That’s only because you don’t know her,” said Jean. “Her likes and dislikes are extreme. It is not the material castle that she cares for, either. It is simply that she wants to realize her tremendous ideals.”

“Just as I said,” interposed Dr. Bushnell. “Her ideals are so tremendous that I fear they can never be realized, and therefore I say that it is wrong for her to hold them. It is better to be like you, my dear young lady—contented with your lot and cherishing no overweening ambitions.”

“Is that so?” said Kenneth, with much interest. “Do I really see before me an absolutely contented individual?”

“You do not!” said Jean, indignantly, as if content were a thing to be ashamed of. “I have fully as many ideals as Helen, though they are quite different ones.”

“What is the chief one?” asked Kenneth; “a fairy prince?”

“No, indeed; I have dozens of fairy princes who await but my nod. My chief desire this morning is for a white chiffon parasol and a maltese kitten.”

“They are not exactly in line with the ideals you attribute to Miss Fairbanks,” said Brewster.

“No,” said Dr. Bushnell, “but they are within the possibilities, and so show a more admirable trait of character, in that your desires are subservient to your probable attainments. Yours is a disposition to be envied.”

“I’ll tell Helen that,” said Jean. “I would like to have her envy me. It would be such a pleasant change.”

“Why, do you envy her?” asked Kenneth.

“I do, indeed. She is so beautiful and stately, and so great-hearted under her apparent calm indifference, and so unswerving in her aims, and so—so fond of kittens.”

“But you are that,” said Kenneth.

“Yes, but the kittens are fond of her in return—that’s Helen.”

“If Miss Helen would confine her ambitions to kittens,” said Dr. Bushnell, “it would be so much wiser and better for her. She is a dear girl, but it occasions me much serious thought when I observe her mistaken tendencies. Does it not seem to you, Mr. Brewster—I ask you now in a general way—does it not seem to you that our extravagant desires, which in the very nature of things are impossible of fulfillment, should be curbed—nay, should be rooted out by the kind hand of friendly counsel?”

“I am sorry that I do not agree with you, Dr. Bushnell,” replied Brewster, “but I’m afraid I must confess to a deep sympathy with Miss Fairbanks, for I myself am a victim of unattainable and often even incomprehensible ideals.”