As the hart panteth by Hallie Erminie Rives - HTML preview

 

THE CHILD.

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CHAPTER I.

HE sat just outside the lofty doorway, that opened between the bare hall and front verandah. The great white columns held a wild clematis vine, the leaves of which almost concealed the bricks where the plaster had fallen off. Presently a child came out with a violin in her hand. She went up to him, and laying her full cheek against his shrunken one, caressed him. Her blue eyes that went black in an instant, from the pupils’ swift dilation, had the direct gaze of one knowing nothing of the world and never fearing to be misunderstood. She was slim yet strong; her waving hair that fell softly about her face was the color of sunburnt cornsilk, her skin ovalling from it, smooth and white, like a bursting magnolia bud.

“Grandpa, I can play ‘The Mocking Bird’ for you now.”

“Play it, God’s child; play it,” he said.

As she leaned against the column and began playing, his face, old and worn with many griefs, seemed, for a moment, rejuvenated by the spirit of his lost youth. His heart stirred strangely within him, and he was minded of another slim, little girl, who came down to the gate to meet him when the day was done in the long ago. She had the same glorious hair, and tender, fearless eyes and love for him. But that was more than forty years gone by and she was dead.

As the strains became fuller and sweeter, a bird began twittering, trilling among the leaves, imitating the sounds it heard.

“Listen. Do you hear that, Esther?” whispering, as he searched for a sight of the singer. “There it is. It’s a mocking bird,” he said, pointing to the young thing, as the fluting feathers on its throat stood out like the pipes of an organ. Its song, accompanying the tune, never ceased until the violin was tossed upon the bench and the child was in the old man’s arms.

“That was beautiful, beautiful!” His eyes were filled with tears of enthusiasm that fell upon her hair.

“Your mother used to play that, when she was young.” He spoke with the weight of profound emotion, that glowed in his eyes, and quivered on his lips.

“And did the bird sing with her?” a softer look coming upon the childish face.

“I don’t remember that it did, though she was always a friend to the birds that built their nests about us. She kept the boys from breaking them up or trapping them. Every spring they sang here in the trees. They seemed to know that she was looking after them. That must have been what she was born for. She was always watching over something or somebody.” He swallowed hard. “I can see her now, bending over her work, late at night, stitching away, with her fingers on those gray clothes for the boys in the army—your Uncle Billy and your father.”

“Was she little, then?” Esther inquired, while with one hand she clasped his wrist, and with the other stroked his brow.

“No. When the war broke out, she was just about to be married to your father, who had been appointed Captain under General Lee. She made a coat for him and quilted money in the collar. She had a way of doing things that nobody would have thought of. You remind me of her.” He folded his hands across his stick and was silent for a moment. “There is much about her life that I want you to know, and bear in mind, now that you are getting old enough to understand. She had great hopes for you, for your music. I’ve been thinking how proud she would be if she could know that you had got along well enough to be invited to play at the University—on commencement night at that. I ask nothing higher for you than that you make such a woman as your mother.”

They did not see the old negro, ragged to the skin, coming around the corner of the house, carrying his discolored straw hat in one hand and mopping his face on a faded cotton handkerchief.

 

CHAPTER II.

“G’MORNIN’, Marse Hardin.”

“Howdy, Sandy. Where did you come from? I thought you’d gone clear out of the country, for good.”

“Nor sir, nor sir. You jes’ let a nigger git a taste of dis here spring water, and he’s charmed, conjured, he kyant stay away if he do go. But I come back, dis time, to see my young marster—Marse Davy Pool.”

“How is he to-day?”

“He daid. Dat’s what I was sent to tell you. Dey guinter bury him up at de old place.”

“I am sorry to hear of his death, Sandy. He was the best one of the boys.”

“Dat’s so, sir; ’tain’t nobody guine to miss him like his mammy do. She’s told me to ax you for your hoss and buggy. She’s afeared of the boys’ hosses, dey keep such wild uns. Marse Davy sold his’n, dat was the onliest one she would ride behind. She said she wanted Marse Hardin Campbell’s. It was so trusty and gentlelike.”

“I was going to use it after dinner.” Mr. Campbell hesitated.

“Send it on, grandpa. Send it on.” Esther saw the inquiring look her grandfather turned upon her. “Something will turn up.”

“Suppose it shouldn’t; would you be disappointed?” he asked.

“I never count on being disappointed,” she responded, quickly.

“Ain’t she some kin to Miss Mary Campbell?” The negro’s face lighted as he asked the question.

“That’s her daughter, Miss Esther Powel.”

“It ’peared to me like I seed de favor in her face. Ev’ybody loved your mammy, honey. ’Twarn’ nobody that didn’t,” he said, turning to look again at Esther.

“The horse is in the pasture.” Mr. Campbell turned to the child. “Can’t you run and show him where the bridle is?” Bareheaded, she bounded down the steps, and motioned to the old negro to follow. She took the bridle and swung it over his arm. “Mind the foot log. Uncle Sandy, the hand rail has been washed away. The pasture is over the creek. There is Selam now, under the sweet gum tree.” She pointed. “You will find the harness in the carriage house here.”

She watched him go over the slope to the creek, then stood gazing about her in childish contemplation. It was nearly noon. The shadow straightening in the doorway indicated it.

Mr. Campbell looked and saw her. His heart warmed toward her comeliness; moreover she was sweet of nature and had a ready smile even for those who had not been kind to her. Suddenly she disappeared in the direction of the carriage house. She feared that her pony could not pull the heavy vehicle that alone was left to take her to the University. It taxed her strength to draw the heavy bar from across the carriage house door. She sprang backward, as she dropped it upon the ground; then went in to examine the carriage that had not been used since she was a baby, almost fifteen years before. The clumsy conveyance had small iron steps that let down—steps that her mother’s child feet had pressed in climbing to the seat. The wheels were so heavy and cumbersome that she shook her head doubtfully. The green satin lining was in shreds; the worn leather seats covered with tufts of hair, while here and there a dead leaf or twig was tangled in its coarse mesh. It had required a pair to draw it in those old days. She had forgotten that. The tongue was held up in its position above by a girder in the loft. Esther gave it a strong, hard pull; the tongue fell forward, and as she skipped out of its path the lumbering old carriage went rolling down the incline, and clouds of dust, as though indignant at being disturbed, sullenly rose and fell about her.

Old and dilapidated harness that hung down from the walls swayed slowly in the general commotion. Esther wiped the dust from her eyes and drew a long breath, looking defiantly at the result. She looked down. There, at her feet, lay a bird, fluttering beside its fallen nest. Her face lost its look of defiance.

“You poor, little thing,” bending down and cuddling it to the softness of her cheek. “Don’t die, please, don’t die!” she said, in dismay. “It will break my heart if I have killed you.” With tears streaming down her face she ran swiftly to the house.

“Grandpa, do something for it,” laying it in his hand. “Can you save it? It’s a mocking bird, too. I shook it out of the carriage.”

“They have nested there for years,” he said as he drew the wings gently through his fingers. “They are not broken,” he assured her.

“Are you sure it will live?” She was looking at him with frightened eyes.

“Live? Yes; and have a nest and young ones of its own next year. It is only stunned. Leave it in the parlor where it will be safe from the cats and it will be all right soon.”

A faint rumbling noise broke in upon their voices. They looked up to listen. It was like the sound of a wagon rolling. “Put it away, quick, and run to the creek to show them how to cross the ford.” They had kept close watch over the passers since the winter hauling had cut deep holes in the bed of the stream. It was a treacherous crossing. Closing the door upon her charge, Esther ran through the garden, the nearest way. She sped with the lithe agility of a young fawn, and before the newcomer was fairly into the stream she was there giving directions. The mountain stream ran fleet between its low banks, winding in haste through the valley. Tall sycamores, sentinels in silver armor, stood beside it on either hand.

 

CHAPTER III.

MR. CAMPBELL stood watching. Very soon the front gate opened and a boy came in, driving two white mules, with red tassels on their bridle bits. Amazement filled his eyes when he saw that it was a wagon load of coffins, and on the topmost one Esther sat smiling. As they drove up near the door, he went out to help her down.

“Didn’t I tell you something would turn up, grandpa; this wagon is going right by the University this evening.” She threw her arms about his neck; her laugh rang out in pure triumph. “Hitch your team, young man; a boy will come to take it out and feed it.” When they saw Esther again she was ready for her jaunt. Her violin was in its case; her fresh white organdie folded with as much care as she gave to anything—duty and care were unknown to her. Her visit to the University by such a conveyance would be the extreme limit of indulgence, yet she had no thought of being denied.

“I am ready,” she announced at table. Mr. Campbell burst into a laugh, half of annoyance, yet touched with the ring of true amusement.

“I really believe you would go.”

“I’d go on foot if necessary to keep my promise,” she answered quickly.

“How could the college folks know that Mr. David Pool had to be buried to-day when they printed my name on the programme?”

Watching her eyes, he caught their softness, their innocence, and knew that her eagerness was sincere.

“Let her go, Mr. Campbell, I’ll take good care of her.” The boy was a Rudd. Although he held a lowly position, he was not counted of the common people. Mr. Campbell had the old Virginia pride of race in him.

“I know you would.”

Esther looked steadily into his gray eyes and saw a relenting twinkle.

“Am I going?” Turning to her with a quiet smile: “Yes, you may go.” He could not see her disappointed when her heart was so determined. With a little cry of joy she brought her hands together. “I wish you could come along, grandpa. It will be such fun, and I wanted you to hear me to-night.” When the wagon came around Esther was helped up with her case and bundle. Her violin she held tenderly across her arm. Mr. Campbell went with them to close the gate.

“Good-bye; you will be in for me to-morrow.” Leaning down, she embraced his head. “Be sweet, God’s child,” he said, as they drove off. Esther kissed her hand to him, as he stood by the roadside looking after them. The cook, at the kitchen door, waved her dish rag for a frantic moment. The whirl of dust from the wheels soon clouded the view. The old man turned, and went slowly back to the house with a misty smile over his features.

A quaint, pathetic figure that, of Hardin Campbell, with his age, his poverty and the care of this child. Here had once been planter life in its carelessness and lavishness. It had been the home of friend and neighbor and the hospitable shelter of the transient guest. All the grand folk that came that way made this place headquarters in the days when Mr. Campbell was reckoned rich. But what he had lost in wealth he had more than gained in pride, and the child was brimming over with it. Generous, impetuous, enthusiastic, as she was, this wild young creature of nature, unhindered, venturesome and full of whims, would, he hoped, find pride her safeguard. He did not believe in curbing her. He guided, but did not limit her and tried to keep from her all warping influences. This was the way her mother had begun with her and he was only continuing her way for a while—it could not be very long before he would have to resign his charge. To whom—he did not know and could not bear to dwell upon the thought.

About the whole place there was evidence of departed glory. In the great white buildings which rose from the labyrinth of shrubbery like grim ghosts of the past; in the rows of cabins, formerly the dwellings of a horde of happy-hearted negroes, everywhere was evidence of the bygone prodigal days. The house, of colonial style, with its series of tall columns standing about the broad colonnade, was partially screened by the live oaks and was set some distance back from the big road. These encircling columns were built of brick, with a coating of plaster, once as white as the teeth of Uncle Simon, the plantation white-washer, who in former days would put an immaculate dress on them regularly once a month by means of an elevated step-ladder, but now Uncle Simon’s labors were done. The neglected columns were crumbling with age and sadly splotched with the red of exposed masonry. At one side of the verandah there spread the delicate green of the star-jassamine, with its miniature constellations flecking the background. Through the vista, leading to the house, from the big gate in front, flashed the crimson of a flowering-pear in full blossom. The blinds of the house that had once been green, were now hanging from their hinges, weather-stained, giving full view of a number of broken window panes, in one of which, on the second story, was perched a wren, whose energetic chattering over her nest hardby was the most decided indication of active life.

In the rear of the buildings stretched the cabins. To the right of them were the stables and the carriage house, with its weather vane of a flying steed on the top, but for years the most vigorous gales had failed to spur this steed to action and its tail, at one time proudly aflaunt to the breeze, had yielded to time and rust, and, like that of Tam o’Shanter’s mare, knew naught of direction. There was the dreary stillness of desolation over all things. But still a hospitable glow was in the summer sunshine and shone as well in the eyes of the old master.

Esther took off her hat when she got into the depths of the woods and drew out her violin. “I will amuse the boy,” she thought, “if I play to him,” for she had tired of talking against the rumbling of the wagon and its load. In his way, he appreciated her motive, for now and again he called back to her, awkwardly commending her, and urging her to continue. Near the spring they saw the negro washerwomen, with sleeves rolled to their shining shoulders, bending over their tubs; faded, limp skirts, bloused through apron belts, and dangled about their bare legs. A big wash kettle heaped with white linen stood to one side. Around it a fire was burning low for want of fuel.

“O—o—h! Yo’ Tagger, Tag-g-e-r; you’d better come on here, ef you know what’s good for you,” called one of the women with a long, resounding echo that drowned the answer of the small voice that said he was on his way. A troop of little niggers came to the roadside pulling a wagon load of brush and bark gathered through the woods. They looked back and spied Esther on the coffins. With a wild yell the children, load and all, tumbled over the embankment, rolling over each other in the dust, screaming, “Mammy! mammy!” at the top of their voices, scrambling to their feet and running with might and main down the road. As Esther drew up to the wash-place, the little fellows were clinging frantically to the knees of their mothers.

“It’s a little ha’nt blowin’ Gabel’s trumpet. Don’t let it ketch me! don’t let it ketch me!”

“In de name ob de Lawd!” said one of the women, seeing what had caused the fright; “ain’t you all got de sense you was born wid? Don’t you know Miss Esther Powel, Marse Hardin’s granddaughter?” The eyes of the pickaninnies were blinded by the wads of wet aprons they had covered them with, and the sound of the wheels filled them with terror. “Dry up!” The big dripping hand pounded on their heads. “Scuse ’em, Miss Esther, you’d think dese youngun’s been fotch up wid wild injun’s.”

“Tagger,” Esther called the boy, whose name, Montague, she had been responsible for. “Don’t you know me? I played for you to dance a jig for the young men who used to visit Will Curtis before he died. You haven’t forgotten that, have you?” Hearing her familiar voice, he slowly peeped out with scared eyes.

“You little monkey. Dip me some water out of the spring.” She saw a long, yellow gourd hanging from a striped bough above their heads. “I want a drink.” He sprang up and snatched the gourd, and before she could say more, he was holding it up to her, standing on his tiptoes, grinning, as the tears ran down and stained his dusty face.

“I am going to play at the University to-night,” she said, hanging back the gourd.

“You don’ say? One of dem ’Varsity gemmen’s coming out to see Marse Will’s folks next week.” Tagger’s mother lived with the Curtises, whose home was just beyond the spring. “I’ll be bound, you beat ’em all dar if you does play to-night,” she said when she saw they were leaving.

Bareheaded, Esther rode on, as long as the shade was over them, tying on her hat only when they got to the sunny way of the road. A man plowing in a cornfield, looked up as he stopped at the turn of the row. He gazed intently, rapping the line mechanically about his wrist.

“What is her grandpa thinking of?” seeing it was Esther, whom he knew. “But she’d a gone in spite of hell and high water.” With this aloud to himself, he drew his shirt sleeve across the sweat on his brow and trudged back down the row, relieved.

After two hours or more, through the heat, Esther was glad when at last she could see the end of her journey. The sunlight lay radiant upon the stretch of country famed for this honored institution of learning. Just before her, upon an eminence, spread the University buildings, the tall spires marking their profile on the sky. The sun’s rays shot up behind them its last warm flashes. Its heat had already dampened Esther’s hair, deepening the red tint of its waves against her temples. The campus was alive with students coming and going in every direction. The tenor of the glee club, in his striped sweater of the college colors, humming a popular air, walked leisurely across to where one fellow was sprawled on the ground, gazing at the wagon with an amused curiosity on his handsome face.

“By Jupiter! that’s a pretty child.” The tenor turned to look, as his friend spoke.

“Well, if that isn’t a caper! Wonder where she is bound?” Just then a pert freshman, standing in a group, gave a college yell. Then there was a chorus of rapturous cheers, in which most of them joined. Before the noise had subsided, the man on the grass had leaped to his feet, full of indignation, and dashed off toward the freshman.

“Silence! you fellows! Have you forgotten yourselves?” A few hisses were mingled with the applause that greeted him, but the freshman was quick to say at his elbow:

“I didn’t mean it for her.”

“How could she know that?” He walked away saying: “I’ll wager there is something out of the ordinary in that girl.”

He was of the fiber that commanded the respect of men at a glance.

“Andrews always turns up at the right time, you may count on that,” said one of the students as he watched him sauntering in the direction of the wagon, his eyes following the child. She was perched like a white winged bird of good omen on a funeral pyre. Only a nature adventurous to audacity would do such a thing as that. But he loved daring personalities, strong motives and even a misadventure, if it were a brave one.

 

CHAPTER IV.

GLENN ANDREWS was, by every gift of nature, a man. His sensitive, expressive face, his brown eyes glowing with a light that seemed to come from within, his clear and resolute bearing, all gave evidence of his sterling qualities. All through his college years he was known among his fellows as a dreamer. His was one of those aloof—almost morbidly solitary natures, to whom contact with the world would seem jarring and out of key. The boys had nicknamed him “Solitaire.” He had a womanly delicacy in morals, his sense of honor was as clean and bright as a soldier’s sword.

Those who knew him well loved him, and all of his school fellows sought for his notice, the more, perhaps, because he gave it rarely.

Whenever he played with them, it was as one who unconsciously granted a favor. He was looked upon as a man who would be a sharer in the talents of his race. This was his ambition. He had strong literary tastes and was a serious worker.

Often he champed at the bit through the slow routine of college life—the genius within him thirsting for action like a spirited horse, just in sound of the chase.

After the exercises that night, the pretty faces and scent of roses filled the chapel with light and fragrance. Everything was in warm confusion, congratulations blended with tender farewells and honest promises that youth was sure to break.

Glenn Andrews, with the dignity that went well with his cap and gown, was making his way out. The tenor touched him on the shoulder.

“What did you think of that violin solo?”

“Fine, my boy, fine! She played just before my turn, and she must have been my inspiration, for I was surprised to get the medal.”

“I’m jolly glad you got it anyhow.”

“Did you find out who she was?”

“Esther Powel. Her grandfather is a friend of Professor Stark. He did it to give her a chance.”

“Well she used it for all it was worth,” said Andrews.

 

CHAPTER V.

ESTHER was standing by the rim of a clear pool in the woods, gazing down into the water. Her big hat was weighted with cockle blooms that she had gathered in coming through the wheat. In this natural mirror she could see that a stem here was too long, another there was turned the wrong way to look well. With both hands to her head she was intent upon regulating the effect to please her eye. Turning her head first to one side, then another, she smiled at herself, impulsive, always in motion, quick as a wren. The water was so clear that one could see the last year’s leaves lying at its depths. It was deep and sloped toward the center. Inverted it would look like a mound where children are told that Indians are buried, when the one can think of no other excuse for its grave-like appearance. This pool went by the name of “Indian Well.” Esther had no thought but that she was alone, until she saw an image, a serious young face, reflected there, with soft, brown beard and hair, and deep eyes that wore a languid, meditating look. He stooped and dipped his curved hand into the surface and was raising it to his lips. Suddenly, instinctively, she bounded to his side, dashing the water from his hands before he could drink.

“Don’t you know there is fever in it?”

For a moment he looked at her in wonder.

“The fever,” he repeated, “what do you mean?”

“The germs of typhoid—I thought everybody knew that.”

“But you see I am not everybody,” he answered, laughing.

She looked at every feature of his face. “But didn’t you feel like it the other night?”

This surprised him so that he had not made an answer when she went on: “Everybody who has died of typhoid fever around here drank water out of ‘Indian Well.’ This is where they got the germ.”

“I was never here before. You are very good to warn me.” He looked at her and she seemed so sweet and beautiful as she stood there, between him and danger. Whether real or imagined, her motive was the same.

“Is your home near by?”

“I live with my grandpa in the white house on the road as you came up.”

“I didn’t come by the road; I came through by the wood-path from the Curtises. I’m spending the summer there. What a pity this lovely spot is poisoned, I am sorry; I might see you here again but for that. It makes a pretty tryst,” he said.

“Sorry? Why? You don’t know me.”

This pleased him. He had found a refreshing creature. At the outset he had thrilled at the prospect.

“Don’t I? You played once where I had the pleasure of hearing you. Your name is Esther—Esther Powel.”

“Yes, and I have seen your face before I saw it in the water. They called you ‘Glenn Andrews’ when they gave you the medal.”

She slowly looked him over from head to foot, and smiled as if in a trance of joy. It was all so wonderful, so strange—this hero’s coming.

“But I am still ahead. You will never see me win laurels again, perhaps, and I expect to hear you play many times.”

“Don’t be sure. It’s no use for me to play. People don’t seem to care whether they hear it or not. I play for myself, because the sounds from my violin seem to express what I feel.”

“But suppose I care?”

“Then I will play for you sometime, if we should meet again.”

“When could I get in your way?”

“Most any time.”

“Will you be home all summer?”

“Yes, and winter, too.” She laughed at his question.

“Let us sit down and rest a while together. I want to talk over the pleasure that is in store for me.”

Little did he think as she agreed, and they sat down on an old log, how much in later life and amidst different scenes, he was to lament that circumstance. “I have always loved the country. It is so true, so beautiful; I love it from the bottom of my heart.”

He lifted his face, drawing a deep breath; the air was clean and sweet with the scent of growing things.

“Everything is beautiful that’s natural,” she said, touching the beflowered hat. “I never even wear ‘bought’ flowers, because they are only make-believes. I hate anything that is not sure-enough.”

“It’s a pretty idea. I wondered where you found this.”

“Just made it.”

She seemed to have grasped a good deal for her years.

“I see you have learned a way of your own in your travels.”

“Travels! I’ve never been out of this valley, but I have grandpa and my mother and my dreams.”

“Your mother. I heard that your mother was dead,” he said, quietly.

“She isn’t as long as I am living,” was her answer.

Glenn Andrews looked at her. There was wisdom in the sentiment she expressed. All the childishness had passed out of her face.

He hesitated, astonished. “I believe that, in a sense,” he said. “It is my theory of fulfillment. What could spur us to higher destinies than the belief that we were carrying out the hopes, the aims of someone we loved—perpetuating their life through our own!”

“She wanted me to be a musician,” Esther began with a sudden dimness in her eyes. “She was one until she had rheumatism in her arms. I’ve strength and health to build on, something she lacked. My mother was an invalid all her life after I was born.”

“Health is the most priceless gift in this world.”

For a time he forgot it was near the dinner hour. He was caught by the witchery of the girl and the place.

He had expected to find nothing here but solitude and shade. The adventure had been a delightful surprise to him.

As they got up from the log: “I shall expect you to keep your promise about the music. Are you going my way?”

“No; mine is the opposite direction. I will play for you any time because you want to hear me. Good-bye.”

Glenn Andrews looked after her, as she went her way. Here was a study—a promise. All his life he had loved growth. Anything in the course of development delighted and inspired him. He struck off up the path that wound out of the woods into the field.

The scent of high summer was in the gold of the wheat. Running his hands lightly over the bearded sheaves he whistled an air that was to recall neither the genius that wrote it nor the hopes of his own work, but the face of Esther Powel and the friendship thus begun, of which he would never think lightly afterward.

 

CHAPTER VI.

THE Curtis home had an ample territory over which extended eight large rooms and as many half stories with dormer windows. The big mock oranges locked antlers across the path that led from the gate to the little square porch where the wood bees droned in and out of the nests they had bored in the wooden posts.

Mr. Curtis was a jovial man, round of face, short of stature, and given to hospitality. He had been all his days faithful to that laborious outdoor occupation—farming. In his old age the prosperous impression that everything made proved that he had filled his place to some account.

Glenn Andrews, who had been his son’s comrade in life, was an honored guest. His vacation, usually spent in travel, had been claimed by the lonely parents this time. He was promised all manner of recreations and indulgences. They hoped to send him back as hardy as an Indian, his white face and hands bronzed as the leaves in their turning. Broad hours and solitude. How welcome they were to him! His place was sacred in this house, and no one was allowed to disturb or criticise him. He had set apart a few hours each day for work. He could not devote all his vacation to rest and pleasure. It was not his nature. A memory of his strange, lonely boyhood came to him with vivid distinctness, and the absolute despair, he suffered at the possibility of never being able to achieve greatness in the world. He wanted to see good results in his life. The whole intensity of his spirit was bent on that one purpose. The world he would know, and the men that live in it. His mind was full of daring conceptions and ideals.

A wild grace permeated his personality, the strong and delightful charm which was to make him a conqueror.

That morning Glenn ate breakfast with the family by lamplight. He went back to his window afterwards and watched the sun rise. At this season of the year the beauty of Virginia was at its height. He delighted from the first in the splendid scenery and moody weather.

A haze of purple mist was lifting slowly from the mountains between whose heart the valleys lay. The view was fresh with the lusty color of midsummer. Exquisite perfumes, breath of young corn and cut clover, came to him and grew sharper and sweeter as the dawn opened wide. In nature he could see the warm heart of life, tender, strong and true. In the distance stretched the wheat fields studded over with yellow shocks, waiting for harvest-time. Later, as Glenn Andrews passed out on his way to the woods, he saw the lengthening of the table, the unusual hurry among the servants, which was a sign that he was to have dinner that day in a harvest home. Wheat threshing time was on. This lover of the sun, of long, wandering strolls, took the way he had not been. It did not concern him much which way he took to solitude. Wherever they met they made friends—he and solitude. They were so much alike. Their sympathies were so much akin. Both were full of deep nature, dignity and intense self-possession; they could not but find comforting good-fellowship. With solitude he could almost hear the voice of God, hear it speaking, between him and his hopes. Returning, he stopped at “Indian Well.” A long time he sat there, face to face with his own heart and brain. He made notes at times in a small book, which he kept always with him. The class poet and editor of the college magazine had a right to drop into rhyme whenever he felt like it, even though the indulgence might never be known to the world. Glenn Andrews took out his second cigar, drew a whiff of its scent and put it back in his pocket. In his self-denial there was the compensation of looking forward. He smoked it that afternoon over his work. The sun was striking aslant and was not far from setting. Here was a broad hint to hurry if he cared to see them harvesting. The engine sent its shrill whistling call for “wheat” as he leaned over the fence. Dressed in a hunting suit of brown tweed with tan boots laced from the ankle to the knee, his broad hat pulled forward to shade his eyes, Glenn Andrews attracted notice. The field was alive with toilers moving easily, swiftly, leaning in a hundred graceful inclinations; some were loading their wagons, lifting and loosening their shocks with a thrust of their pitch-forks, others unloading them beside the thresher, clipping the twine that bound the bundles and making a moving bridge of beaten gold as they fed it. The heated engineer, with his oil-can, stood at the head of the monstrous steam horse that had never lost its mysterious power to charm the negro.

Tagger often stopped to stare and wonder. The machinery belt, smooth and glittering like a broad satin ribbon, industriously turning on great wheels, made him dance, barefooted over the stubble, to the music of its motion. Little imps, such as he, counted this day of the year a holiday high above all others they had ever known.

The mule that was driven with a long lasso under the straw as it fell had a half-dozen or more children to pull every time it went to the stack. In spite of the dust and the chaff that covered their heads and half stifled them, they gave a wild dart and leaped upon the heap as it was hauled away. Sometimes the wind took a whirl and scattered the straw, niggers and all broadcast along the field. Glenn Andrews’ heart beat lightly, the air thrilled with sounds, the music of the harvesters and the hum of the thresher. There is nothing like life under the open heaven, he knew. Glenn was a gypsy by nature.

“How is it turning out?” he asked, coming up to Mr. Curtis, who was counting the loaded wagons that were filled with sacks of wheat, starting off to be stored.

“Very good; the yield is something like sixteen bushels to the acre. I’ll have about eighteen hundred altogether.” Glenn Andrews looked up and saw a figure coming across the stubble—one that stood out in delicate relief, slimmer, shapelier than the rest. She was all in white; Mr. Curtis saw her, too.

“Here comes the fly-up-the-creek,” he said. “She looks like a hearse horse with all those elder blooms on her head.” His speech had no touch of spitefulness.

“I like her way; she is as wild and lawless as the wind, and as free.” Glenn Andrews never thought or spoke of Esther without defense.

“Yes, and as sprightly as they make ’em,” Mr. Curtis began. “She never went to school a day in her life. Her mother taught her, and her grandpa reads to her. But play the fiddle—she can play it to beat the band. She just took it up first. She could catch any tune. A teacher came along about two years ago who knew a little about the fiddle. Mr. Campbell is very poor now. He let the lady board with him to give Esther lessons while she was teaching in the district. She would not practice, they say, but you never saw anybody learn like she did without it.”

“What a pity she hasn’t a chance to keep on.”

“Yes, but she never will. The old man is failing; I don’t know what’s to become of her when he’s gone. He worries over not being able to give her a musical education. You’d never think it, he is so quiet about it.”

“Has she no near relatives who would take her and help her to get a start?”

“Only one, a nephew of the old man, but he married a plain, common woman. His marriage was a shock to the family. If his was made in heaven, as some folks believe in, I say the Lord had a grudge against him. He started out with fine prospects, but he’s had a lot of trouble. It looks like some folks can’t have anything but trouble and children. He has a family of six. He ain’t more than thirty.”

Glenn took a deep breath.

“With such a weight as that it is no wonder he is sore. I wish the child did have some way to escape such a future. With a talent like hers she could rise above the minor cares. The world already has enough ill-paid drudges.”

With this he left Mr. Curtis to meet Esther.

“Can you show us anything prettier than this in your cities?” she asked. Looking about her she thought it made the hardiest, happiest scene in the world.

“No, I could only show you something different—new; to the average mind it is unaccustomedness that charms. I like this because it is new.” The world he had known seemed immeasurably far off to them as they stood together there. Everything about her touched him. Her true, simple nature, her strong, pure devotion to her own ideals.

“You haven’t played for me yet.”

As he heard the engine blowing off the steam, he knew they were rounding up; its work was done.

“No, and you didn’t want to hear me as much as you made out; you forgot,” she said.

“I would like to hear you this minute.”

“Then come with me home.”

“But look at me: my face—my hands—these boots.”

Esther looked at him quickly. “You are vain.” Slipping her hand in his, she gently pulled him a little way. “Oh, come on, what do you suppose I care about dust. We have soap and water.”

He let her have her way, and allowed himself to be led.

The sun hung low in the sky as they started off, and was just dropping behind the mountains when they reached the house. Faint zones of pink and pearl flushed up, and everything was quickened—glorified by the softening light.

“I’ve got a picture in my scrap book that looks like you.” Esther stared Glenn Andrews full in the face as she spoke. “It is a picture of Christ.”

 

CHAPTER VII.

“I LIKE you in those high boots.” Esther put her foot on the tip of one of them as she spoke.

“It was not so much vanity, as respect for your grandfather, that made me want to appear at my best when I met him.”

“You see, he didn’t notice them. Why should you care, anyhow, if I liked them.”

There was a certain charm in her contempt for risks and consequences. A waiter was brought out clinking with glasses.

“This will not only prove your welcome, Mr. Andrews, but aid your digestion as well,” Mr. Campbell said, as he came out of the hall to join them.

Andrews filled his glass that yielded fragrance and soft fire. He touched it to his lips. “This is excellent. Is it some of your own make?”

“The grapes came from my vineyard.”

“I helped to make it—I strained it,” Esther interrupted, “but I never tasted any in my life.” Mr. Campbell laid his hand on her head.

“This is to you—to your art.” Glenn Andrews motioned to her, lifted his glass and sipped the wine, slowly realizing it was beautiful to every sense. Esther stole into the parlor, and was playing her violin before they knew it. They followed her in. It was an old-time parlor with black, carved furniture, a slender legged center table, polished as smooth as a mirror, holding a china vase of curious design, in which leaned one long stemmed rose, as red as the wine that had made their hearts large and soft. The walls were almost hidden by family portraits that reached from the ceiling to the floor, set in deep tarnished gilt frames. The carpet had a shred of tracery suggesting a design—it might have been only a shadow of gorgeous wreaths that had been worn away by dear feet that had long gone—the whole faint impression still hallowed by their tread.

Esther loved her violin irregularly. This was a time when she really needed it. They went in very quietly, hoping not to interrupt her. The soft, tremulous tones that she had not meant to give, showed that she was excited, unnerved. Just as Glenn was about to utter an apology for the confusion, his face became serious and silent. He was peculiarly sensitive to the influence of the violin. He was conscious of a dreamy exaltation, and the awakening of a new enthusiasm. The music had burst into a wild, passionate tenderness, as though she was daringly investing all her dreams with life-throbbing human life—the tone fairly voicing the longing of her soul.

It was infinitely touching, infinitely tender. A quick flush went up to his forehead and died out again, as the music trembled into stillness, and she lowered the violin, exhausted.

“You must be very proud of her,” Glenn turned to the old man, “I think she has a future.”

“She ought to have a chance for it,” said Mr. Campbell. A glance from Esther’s flushed face to the suddenly compressed lips of her grandfather made Glenn understand that that was as near to complaint as he ever came. He might have been impatient in his days of strength, but on the coming of adversity this proud man had learned to wait in silence. He seldom breathed a syllable of the sorrow he bore on account of his hands being tied.

“Practice is half the battle; you ought to spend hours at it every day,” Glenn said to Esther as she tossed her head.

“I don’t ever expect to study under anyone again. What’s the use going half way when I know I can never go the other half?”

“But you will if you only have belief in yourself.”

Mr. Campbell was delighted as he listened. Here was someone interested in his little girl. He trusted a kindliness so genuine, an interest so evidently sincere.

A child’s soul is easily impressed, responsive to the first panorama that passes before it. Mr. Campbell hoped Glenn Andrews would come again.

 

CHAPTER VIII.

THE next few weeks for Esther were transitions between content and longing. The trees of the woodland, that had been her playfellow, now had a rival. Of Glenn Andrews she had made a hero, a king. She regarded him as a being to inspire wonder and mystery.

His simplest word or gesture spoke directly to the heart.

They took sweet wood rambles together. He had already begun to realize that all solitary pleasures were selfish.

He rather looked forward to their meetings, although he did not let her think they meant much to him.

“When do you want to see me again?” was usually his parting question. If she said “to-morrow,” he could not come until the next day, or later. To her it seemed that he took a pride in finding out when she most wanted to see him—only to stay away at that particular time. He held himself aloof—gave her room to expand. Hers was a nature artistic to a painful degree—a nature nobly expansive.

But within the limit of the country, amid entirely commonplace people, her power of artistic perception had been of little value—rather a burden than a delight.

One day, after she had urged Glenn Andrews to go with her to where they would have a pretty view of a mountain waterfall, he had refused, and she had gone alone. It was a long stroll, but she was thirsting to see it. She resented his refusal, and so had gone alone. Glenn watched her out of sight, then went back to his writing. He was doing some of his strongest and most vigorous work.

Esther reached the mountain side, and stood a little way back to keep the spray from wetting her dress. The breath of it was refreshing. She took a pride in the mighty roar of the falls.

Its voice sounded so strong, so real. Its commanding majesty held her. She repeated a name, its echo was drowned. Flowers, ferns, great rocks, everything in its track was treated to the same reckless inconsideration. Only the mist rose higher and higher as though it would regain the height it lost when the waters made the mighty leap, and dashed its very heart to pieces on the stones below.

How she gloried in the daring of the mist. It was so light, and thin, and quiet, but in its very silence there seemed to be strength.

It was gaining slowly, but she cheered it as she saw it ascending, her eyes gleaming with excitement as she watched it. “I know you’d like to slide down the falls.” A hand was laid upon her shoulder.

“I’d rather go up with the mist,” she answered Glenn Andrews, as though she was neither surprised nor pleased by his sudden arrival.

“I got through my work earlier than I expected,” he began. “When they told me how far it was, I thought it would be too late for you to come home alone.”

If he expected her to thank him for the consideration, he was disappointed. The wind that the falls generated had blown some of the waves of her hair across her face. She carelessly brushed it back with her hands. A strand of rebellious hair, that seemed unmanageable, she pulled out and threw away.

“Stop that.” Glenn tapped her fingers lightly. “Haven’t I told you not to do that? It’s a crime to ill use such hair as yours.”

Esther obeyed him, but could not resist the impulse to say: “You may look like Christ, but you can act like the devil.”

She saw him drop his head and walk a few steps away.

“You might as well have come on with me if you were coming anyhow.”

He did not look at her.

“I told you I would come, if you would wait until to-morrow. It was a poem for you I wanted to finish.”

Esther went to his side, penitent; the act had lost its sharp outlines to her.

“The words that you said someone would set to music for me?”

“Yes.”

“Let me see them, won’t you?”

“Certainly not.”

“Oh, do; I’m wild to read them.” Her eyes lost their unconcern as she pleaded.

“You know I am in earnest when I say that you will not have that pleasure. What’s the use teasing?”

He was drumming on a rock with his boot heel, as he leaned against a shrub. The stream that caught the waterfall laughed and lathered over its rocks as it flowed beside them. They were of the most delicate tintings, pale lavenders, green, and pink and blue. Glenn Andrews was gazing at them.

“Did you ever see such pretty shades as the rocks of mountain regions take on? I’ve often wondered what caused their coloring.”

With an aggrieved air, Esther allowed the drift of interest to turn at his bidding.

“I supposed rocks were alike the world over.”

“That’s because you only know your own beautiful ones; some day you’ll see the ugly ones; then you needn’t bother to wonder what made them so. Just kick them out of the way and forget them.”

“Is that what you do?”

“Yes, when they are not too big for me.”

“I don’t like the hurt, when I stump my toe on these pretty ones. It teaches me to go around all I can. The jagged ones that I meet some day needn’t think of being disturbed, if I can get around them.”

“But sometimes they block the road, what then?”

“I’d get somebody to help me over.”

“I hope you will have that good luck all your days, Esther.”

Glenn Andrews’ voice had a minor sweetness. The thought of contrasting her vagrant childhood with the world she must one day know, was singularly pathetic to him.

Stooping, he picked up a rock and cast it across the waters.

“Yes,” she said; “I was always lucky, that’s how grandpa came to call me ‘God’s child.’”

“We’d better go now; it must be a good three mile walk.” Glenn Andrews took particular care to note her mood as they went along, the wild charm of her unstudied grace, the vibrating delight of life. How much happier she was than if she had had her way.

 

CHAPTER IX.

IT was the next Saturday before Glenn went again to see Esther. Mr. Campbell entertained him on the verandah. He sat some time, expecting every minute to see Esther come bounding out. Her grandfather looked so worn when he came that Glenn felt it a sort of imposition to allow him to talk long. Although their topic was of deep interest, his shriveled features seemed to smooth out as Glenn told him how rapidly Esther had advanced that summer.

“It is remarkable,” he said, “how she can take a piece and master it by herself. What she most needs is encouragement; some one to keep her interested and stimulated.”

“I had hoped to let her have lessons under the professor at the University this year. It had been my calculation a long time until she was taken sick with fever.” The haggard look came back to his face. “The doctor fears it will go into typhoid.”

“You don’t mean that Esther is sick now?” Glenn stammered.

“She took to her bed the same evening she came back from the falls and hasn’t been up since.”

“I didn’t know a word of it. I should have been over if I had known. I should have come at once to see if I could do anything to help either of you.”

Glenn’s steady mouth trembled. A tumult of memories crowded upon him. He thought of the Indian Well, where their lives first came together. Suppose she had breathed in the germs that day when she tried to protect him.

“Let me stay and help you nurse her, Mr. Campbell, you look tired and need rest. I am so strong and I have no ties to call me away.”

“You are very kind;” the rest was left unspoken, for a hand was laid on his arm. Mr. Campbell made his expression excuse his absence as he turned and followed the negro girl.

Presently when he came back Glenn got up hastily.

“Is she worse?”

“No, she wanted to know if it was not your voice that she heard.”

“May I see her, if it is not asking too much?”

His face was full of sorrow as the old man bowed and led the way. “She wanted to see you.”

Esther’s eyes were closed; her head lay deep in the pillow, the waves of her hair flowing back from the whiteness of her face. “Esther,” he whispered very softly. She opened her eyes and her lips broke in a smile. He held out both hands toward her and caught hers in their double grasp, looking down in her face.

“How are you? I didn’t know until this minute that you were not well. I came to take you to the one place we’ve never been,” he told her.

“I thought maybe you had come to help me over the rock.” She smiled faintly.

“Well, be very quiet; don’t worry about anything; we’ll do all that for you. You know you promised to play the piece you learned last week for me. Let’s see, it was to be at the spring; that was as close as we dared venture to Indian Well, where we met.”

“Don’t give me out.” Her voice was weak and low. “I expect to do that for your farewell; you must get back to college in time.”

“How do you know but that I had rather be detained; don’t run any risk.” This seemed to please her.

“Is this better than the other life—the life among your friends?”

“This is sweeter, for I am looking forward to a lifetime with the world.” She smiled and turned her head to rest it from the one position she had kept too long.

“It will be a year before the world can get you; I am glad you have decided to take another degree, although you seem to know enough already.”

“I know enough to realize just how little I do know, but the special course along lines that I am going to make my lifework is all that I shall try to master yet. Everything has its turns; I’ll learn it all in time, I hope.”

“And then you’ll be great.”

“More likely dead.”

“Most great people are.” Her lips suddenly quivered.

“You take it slow. I couldn’t bear to think of your dying.”

“You are talking too much now. You and your grandpa take a rest. You both need it.”

“He must be tired after five nights and days, but you are company. We can’t both leave you at once.”

“I’ll play host now; go to sleep. I’ll be with you all the time.”

“Grandpa, lie down over there on the lounge.”

When he had humored her she cuddled down contentedly and went to sleep.

With a ministering tenderness, Glenn kept watch over her.

Typhoid fever was full of terrors to him. He hoped that her fever was only due to the cold she had taken at the falls.

It was very penetrating. He had ached a little afterward and thought it was from being saturated with the dampness that day. Suppose the fear in her case was true. All that beautiful hair would have to be shaved off. He jealously resented this, caressing her hair as he looked at it. The doctor came later and said her condition was better and that she would be out in a few days.

Glenn drew a breath of relief. He would stay during those few days.

 

CHAPTER X.

SWINGING her violin case by the handle, Esther started off through the cornfield, stopping now and again to pull a spray of morning glories that wreathed around the stalks to the tips of their tassels. By the time she got in sight of the Curtis house there were many of these branches trailing over her. It was still early. The heavy dew had dampened the dust on her shoes. She tried to brush it off with the leaves she had gathered, then bunching the blossoms of bright color together she fastened them on her breast.

Just as she walked up Tagger was seated on the steps of the back porch, getting Glenn Andrews’ boots in order for him. “Let me have the brush a minute.” Esther took the brush, leaned over and cleaned the mud off of her own shoes. Then she took up one of the boots and began to polish it. A thrill of delight leaped through her at the thought. She was working for him. When she put it down the boot looked fresher and glossier than it could ever look under Tagger’s care. There was a sniffling sound and Esther looked behind her. Tagger stood scouring in his eyes with his shining fists, his small body quivering with sobs.

“What’s the matter with you?”

“You’ll git my money,” he said through his gasps.

“Well, for heaven’s sake! you little scamp, I don’t want your nickel.”

“’Tain’t no nickel,” he blurted out. “He gimme a quarter for turnin’ de cartwheel and standin’ on my head. Dat warn’t work; dat was play.”

Esther’s voice echoed through the halls. When she stopped laughing, she said: “You poor little mite, I hope he will give you the half of his kingdom. Here, take the brush and earn your fortune.”

As Tagger took up the other boot, to finish it, Esther unclasped the bunch of morning glories and tied them at the top of the one she had polished. Seeing nothing of Glenn, and passing a word with Mrs. Curtis who was busy in the dining room, she went out to the flower garden. About her in riotous health and beauty grew flowers that gave no evidence of care. There was a suggestion of wilfulness everywhere. The sun had not been up long. It was splashing its rays in the face of the great, slumbering mountains like spray on the face of a sluggard. Glenn walked up behind Esther as she bent over a white rosebush in the heyday of its blooming.

“You did not waste time waiting for me. This is worth seeing. Don’t you think so?”

As her face raised to his, how pure and radiant it looked. The purity was heightened by the flush.

“Oh, if I could only do to them as I want to.” She stretched her arms and brought them together with a sigh. “I’d like to hold them close and love them as hard as I could; then I’d be satisfied.”

“You’d crush them, break their stems and pay the penalty of indulgence by pricking those arms of yours by the wretched little briars hidden under the beauty that you would spoil,” he said, sharply.

He wanted her to see a lesson in this.

“That’s the way with life,” he said, watching her break off one of the buds which she put in his coat.

“Come on. You have got enough. I must leave by two o’clock.”

“I’ve been ready longer than you—my violin is on the porch. We can go by there to get it.”

At the start Glenn saw that Esther looked very radiant, but suddenly the look of exaltation faded from her face. He did not understand her mood.

Generally she enjoyed what he recalled to her, visible or invisible, with the most exquisite feeling. He dearly loved that trait in her. This was not one of her receptive moods. She did not seem to know when they got to the spring.

He indulged in an indolent sprawl upon the grass, and she dropped down on the roots of a tree by his side. He was an ideal lounger. That was sufficient contentment for awhile. He was trying to think it out without asking her.

“What’s the matter?” he said at last. “Have I hurt you—displeased you?” That passive gentleness of manner was rarely changed. “Won’t you tell me?” He placed his hand softly over hers that lay on the ground. Her lashes, delicate in their tinting, beat together, struggling to catch the tears that tried to overflow. She pulled away her hand and started to rise. The child’s heart was almost breaking and the rebellious tears that came, hot and fast, were dashed away by little, mad hands.

“Oh, Esther, have I hurt you? Don’t, don’t! I’d rather you would strike me—anything but that.” He sprang to his feet and bent over her. “Are you disappointed in me. Have you found too many flaws? Is it because I must go away?” His soft, sad eyes regarded her uneasily. “If I am the cause, haven’t I a right to know?”

“You oughtn’t to have to be told,” she said, with shamed frankness, when she could command her voice.

“If I had meant to, I wouldn’t; that is my justification.”

He touched her hair. “Come, this isn’t you—I always liked that straightforward way of yours. Don’t spoil our last day. Tell me, what’s the matter?”

“That’s what stings—you not only thought little enough of them to throw them away; you forgot it.”

There was a complaining note in her voice. It was less anger than grief she felt. Her head had the plaintive droop of a spoiled child asking consolation.

“Do you mean the flowers on my boot; is that all?” Slipping one hand in his pocket and pulling out a few, bruised, draggled morning glories. An expression of joy flashed over her wet face. A faint, amused gleam shot into his serious eyes.

“Tagger used them for a handle, and I thought their condition decided in favor of pressing rather than wearing. I saved the pieces you see.”

“They were all the color of my dreams—I couldn’t help but think that was the way they would go some day.”

“If I can help it, they won’t.”

Taking out a notebook he dropped the flowers between its leaves. Her girlish illusions were dear to him. He wouldn’t destroy one of them.

“Here, let me get your violin. Play for me, while I smoke.”

She took it from him, and he began smoking, as she played for him the piece he had asked her to learn. He could see the confidence she had gained in herself. Patience was all that she lacked.

“There is yet another one I want you to learn for me.”

“What’s the use? I may never see you again. I don’t know that I’ll worry with it.”

The thought of his going away met with resentment in her. She did not like to picture life with his companionship withdrawn.

“Fiddledee humbug! I expect to see you again lots of times. Maybe I’ll spend Christmas day with the Curtises. I might come over awhile at that time if you would ask me. I am not going home just for a day. New York State is too far.”

“I couldn’t divide you, I want the whole day or nothing.” Esther leaned her elbow on the violin case.

“I remember the first time I was ever offered a piece of a whole thing. I was a very little girl. I had a china plate that I always used at my place at table, and one day a boy broke it in halves and mended it. It had tiny green dots shaped like a fence row around it, and I noticed one place where the dots didn’t fit, and then I saw where they had pasted it together. A little chip of it was gone. It nearly broke my heart. They all said it was as good as new, but they couldn’t make me see it in that way. What do you suppose I did?”

“There is no telling.”

“It had been the pride of my life, but I took that plate out, and broke it in pieces and strewed them down the road to cut his feet when he came by from school.”

“Suppose the feet of others had got the punishment?”

“I wasn’t old enough to reason that out then.”

“Some people would have been sore enough and revengeful enough not to care if they had. I have known such instances, but I can understand that your plate would never be the same to you with a part of it gone. I don’t like anything incomplete myself.”

“Give me the whole day—I want you all the time.”

“If you will promise me to learn every piece of music that I ask you to, I will.”

“You haven’t told the Curtises yet that you were coming?”

“No.”

“Well,” her voice was merry, “that’s a bargain.”

Glenn Andrews looked at his watch.

“Great Scott! ten minutes to two. I must go.”

They stood for a moment hand in hand. Not a sound could be heard save the water lisping in the spring. He touched her hair. “Beautiful hair!” he half whispered. “If it had been cut off, when you came so near having the fever, I should have asked you to give me a curl.”

His veins throbbed with tenderness—between these two there was a tie nearer than blood—the tie of comradeship. One couldn’t think of relations more subtle or pure.

“Give me your knife,” she said.

Glenn raised her face, touching her chin gently with the tips of his fingers.

“No, no,” he said. “It is much prettier where it is. I wouldn’t let you cut one off.”

She turned and closed her violin case with a snap.

 

CHAPTER XI.

WHEN he had gone, Esther went back to the woods. The thought of his coming with the Christmas time kept her nature alive and glowing. Her interest in music became more absorbing than ever. She practiced for hours at a stretch. This exceptional interest was a triumph that had given the old grandfather a steadier balance of mind, when during these years he had tried to fill her mother’s place, nurturing, encouraging the possibilities that lay in this young soul, ennobling, inspiring a deeper meaning to life. Glenn Andrews had helped him. He appreciated that. They saw him occasionally when they went in to her lessons. Esther seemed to realize that Mr. Campbell was making a sacrifice for her sake and every week the professor could see the forward step she had made.

The college monthly came to her regularly now. It always had poems or stories by Glenn Andrews. All these she preserved. There was a sort of reverence in her care of them. They were a part of him—his creations. In the satisfaction derived from them, she became more impatient as to her own imperfections. The ripe, rich beauty of autumn trailed by in all its glory without the love it once had from her. Her walks became less frequent. She felt a relief when the snow first fell. Snow always suggested Christmas. She kept such close watch that the calendar was not needed to tell her when it was near. In the innocence of her heart, she pictured Glenn Andrews watching the hours go by with the same impetuous eagerness—he who had gone back to his old solitary life, as though nothing had dropped in for a moment to change it.

It was Christmas. A light snow lay over the valley.

Esther wrapped a hood close about her head and walked back and forth on the verandah. A low wind among the white boughs made a lullaby for her longing.

The nearer the realization, the more impatient she grew.

At last the sound of wheels, and the brisk stepping of horses charmed her heart—he was coming. She heard the sound of his voice as there was a halt at the gate.

“Oh, it’s you, is it, Mr. Glenn?”

“Who else did you expect?” asked Glenn Andrews, stretching out his hand cordially to greet her, enjoying the dignity she tried to assume. He had speculated as to how she would meet him.

The fire roaring up the wide chimney was sweeter than music to him. It had been a cold ride. They were so glad to see him, Glenn thought it was the next best thing to going home.

“Get up close and warm yourself.” Esther shivered at the thought of his being cold.

“Let me have your coat, Mr. Glenn.”

“No, it’s too heavy; I’ll lay it over here.” Folding it he threw it across a divan and drew his chair up to the fire.

Esther leaned on the edge of the mantle, looking at him. The wind had blown in her hair, it lashed about her face, and with the old careless gesture she tossed it back, impatiently.

“Have you been pulling that hair out again?” said Glenn, with a sort of proprietary right.

“No, but I’ve been cutting it off.”

“You haven’t!” These words held the heat of indignation.

“If you don’t believe it, I’ll prove it.”

She stepped over to him as she drew something from her belt and pressed it in his hand.

“You know Christmas never came to you from me before.” Just at that minute Mr. Campbell came in. He settled himself in his own rocking chair with a sigh of relief, as though he were hypnotized by the warmth of the room. He talked on and on, selecting topics upon which neither seemed to have an idea. Esther had made her a lot of pillows out of some old silk dresses of quaint patterns, and as she sat amongst them, she was almost afraid to breathe lest she split them. They smelled very strongly of tobacco, having been so long packed away in its leaves.

Glenn Andrews felt something soft and slim between his fingers, but it puzzled him to know what the texture was. He was restless with curiosity.

Esther enjoyed his perplexity with quiet amusement, and was sorry when after a great while her grandfather thought out for himself that young folks enjoyed themselves better alone.

Glenn turned slyly to see him close the door after him.

It was very interesting, this expectancy; he felt something as he did when a child he had lain awake all night waiting for Santa Claus to come.

His heart would leap with impatience at every sound. The old chimney, drawing its heated breath to keep his little body warm, had added to his irritation. It seemed to him that the wind could cut more antics then than a circus pony cavorting for his feed.

In its sound he constantly fancied he could hear the coming of that old false ideal that had been the first to fall, but it had not fallen until many a little prayer had been answered and many a young dream been realized. Such ideals leave their imprint upon the mind. The memory of the joy it gave softens and purifies the heart before it awakens.

Glenn Andrews leaned over and opened his hand to the light; it was a watch chain, made of Esther’s hair.

“That slide was on a chain my mother wore,” she said.

The sentiment of it made him feel that he stood at the white sanctity of her soul with its opening and unfathomable depths.

He raised the chain to his lips and kissed it affectionately. He could not have thanked her in words. He realized that:

“Sentiment that is real is not acquired—it flows into the veins like the breath of the sea waves, completely freshening every sense with its presence.”

Glenn took up his overcoat and brought out a music roll with her name mounted in silver.

“It is full and you are to learn it all. That’s the agreement.” He laid it open before her.

“The very hardest that you could find.”

“Just what you need.”

Esther hummed a bar here and there as she turned the pages. She was in an ecstasy of content. A lilting joyousness of Glenn Andrews’ presence was in everything she did and said.

They lingered over the Christmas dinner. Mr. Campbell told yarns of the olden times when he was a boy on that holiday. He took his pleasure in their company at the table, and afterwards left them alone again.

They made an exceptionably cozy picture, sitting together in front of the wood fire. It was beautiful to see the snow outside, falling in tiny siftings, displaced by the snow birds’ restless stirring.

Glenn and Esther were so comfortable. How could it be winter out there. He smoked and she read him selections from his own poems—the ones she liked best. He had no idea she could read so well—it must have been her reading them that made them sound better than he had ever thought them before. There was a slow unfolding of her woman nature as he watched her. It was almost imperceptible, yet so much surer than a sudden burst.

“You’ll keep on with your lessons?” he asked.

“After this year grandpa won’t be able to afford it.”

“But it will never do for you to stop now. I was talking with the professor the other day about your art. He is interested in it. He wants to study English; maybe he would exchange—if you could teach him. Do you think you could?”

“What! I a teacher?” She clasped her hands involuntarily. “But suppose he’d let me try?”

“I’ll see if he will.”

“Oh, will you, sure enough?” She was now seated closer by Glenn, listening with an absorbing interest.

“When will I know?”

“There is a lot of time between now and next September. You’ll finish out this year, of course.”

“Oh, yes, except when the weather is too bad for grandpa. He’s getting old, you know.”

Glenn could see how he was failing.

It was about dusk when the buggy drove away from the front steps. The parting was cordial and yet it seemed to lack something for both. Perhaps grandpa’s being there complicated the situation. Whatever it was, in both their hearts there seemed something lacking.

 

CHAPTER XII.

THE coming of June brought an end to college life for Glenn Andrews. He had had a letter a few days before, deciding an important question—in fact, the question of the greatest importance to him just then. While he was waiting for Esther he read it over again:

“New York City.

“My dear Andrews—Of course I hadn’t forgotten my promise nor my interest in you. It seems a lifetime since I stood in those priestly looking robes on that old stage waiting to receive my discharge and hustle or go hungry. You were at the foot then. I remember you; a solemn-faced chap, but mightily in earnest. I am glad that you are at the head, and ready for the fight—the thick of it. I always knew that was the kind of metal you were made of, so it does me good to be able to give you a boost. You are to be associate editor of the magazine—give up most of your freedom and take an editor’s chair.

“You may come right on. I wonder what you will be like after all these years since we cavorted over that campus. Yours fraternally,

“Richmond Briarley.”

What did Glenn care for slavery? His love for his profession would even up scores. Going among strangers had no depressing effect upon him. He was singularly fitted for that kind of thing. He believed that every soul should be alone a part of its existence, away from the sight, the touch of affection, and seek deeper self acquaintance and understanding. This was how he came to cultivate his passion to know and be something.

Now he was going to try his hand—his life was to be full of interest and effort, and all the training he had given to his faculties were to be exercised and tested. Esther joined him presently to go for their last ramble.

“You are to lead the way anywhere. I am with you to-day,” he said.

Glenn felt a subtle sadness at leaving her. This human study had been most interesting to him, nor would it be the least of his regrets for what must be given up. The others were finished, he had reached the last page.

During the stroll, Glenn told her that the professor had agreed to make the exchange he spoke of at Christmas.

“Now you are to promise me that you will keep up your art. Don’t let circumstances overwhelm you.”

“I couldn’t keep from trying to go on, if I wanted to, but when you get away you’ll forget about me.”

“I don’t think I shall.”

He was very calm. No matter what he thought or felt, he didn’t intend to drop a word that might disquiet her mind or disturb their tranquil sense of comradeship.

“I expect you to do something some day. You’ll not stay buried down here all your life. You were not born for oblivion.”

“I am afraid you will be disappointed in me. But I’ll do my best.”

She looked down, pulling at the moss on the log.

His going so far away was her first great sorrow.

“I don’t believe I would though if I didn’t have next summer to look forward to; you said you would try to come back then.”

With her simplicity and daring directness she added. “Take good care of yourself, Mr. Glenn, for all the world couldn’t fill your place in my heart.”

“You think that now, Esther. You seem to see something complete in our friendship. It is all you want. A day will come when you’ll understand that it is not satisfying. The mist of morning is on the hills, and hides the outlines of the landscape; you can see but a little way. After awhile it will gradually lift, and give you a clearer and broader view.”

She shook her head.

“I know you can’t see it now. The ripening of your nature will show you the good fruit, and of how little use it was to cry over the pretty petals when it dropped its bloom.”

She looked at him, her lips parting as she slowly grasped the drift of his words.

“Patience and faith are what you must have.”

“The patience I would have to borrow, or steal, for I never did have any of my own.”

It was going to be the hardest lesson for her to learn.

She took the knife he was toying with, and asked suddenly:

“Put your foot up a minute.”

He was wondering what she would do.

“I’m going to leave something for you to remember me by.”

She began carefully to etch a sentence across the upper part of the leather.

“Bear harder, cut it—that little scratching won’t last—as long as you are putting it there.”

His eyes rested on her hair, that lay like a crown on her bowed head.

Slowly she cut each letter. “Don’t look until I get through.”

The fine, sharp blade was doing its work well; there was just one more word. She made a slip and the keen point plunged through. “Oh, did that touch you?” Suddenly withdrawing it she saw the blood leap out and run down his boot leg. Her eyes opened wide; the despair in them was enough to move him.

“Oh, Mr. Glenn, what have I done to you?”

“It’s only a pin scratch; don’t think of it.” He tried to console and reassure her.

She began unwinding the soft mull tie she wore. “I know you’ll bleed to death if we can’t stop it.”

He had taken his boot off. With tender, trembling fingers she was binding the cloth to his leg, winding it around again and again, trying to wrap out the sight of the blood.

It was no use, in a second the red stain would radiate over the white surface.

“What shall I do! oh, forgive me, forgive me!”

She knelt down and pressed his knee in her arms and bent over it with tears, the incense of her love mingling with self-reproach. Her penitence was pathetic.

He regarded her grief with compassionate softness. This came near disarming his resolve. He wanted to take her in his arms as he had never done in his life. As she held the wound close, he resisted the impulse to flinch.

“I’m all right, don’t you worry.”

He read the line on the boot.

“I wouldn’t take anything for that. It will sweeten the absence, and I hope this scratch will make a scar that I may wear all my life to remember you by.”

“I’ll never forgive myself for it—never!”

“Don’t say that. It’s a little thing after all. See, I walk all right. Let’s go home.” Putting one hand on her shoulder they started off, Esther watching every step he took with fear and alarm.

“Are you telling the truth. Don’t it hurt you to walk?”

Turning his face away, he bit his lips.

“Not much, you know there is always a little soreness, no matter how slight the cut.”

He wouldn’t tell that the knee was a very dangerous place to receive a wound.

All the way the joint was stiffening and getting more painful. His face beamed in the effort to conceal his suffering. When they reached the steps he leaned his head against a column; he was wearied and felt that he could bear no more.

“Come, lie down; I’ll fix the bed for you and find grandpa,” she urged.

“No, come back; I’ll sit here on the step awhile. I must be going soon.”

Dear little heart, he would never while he lived forget her.

“How can you go, hurt as you are?”

“Sit down here by me, I have but a few minutes with you. I ordered my horse for five o’clock.”

Without further resistance she took the seat. She had not forgotten that his will was the only one she ever met stronger than her own.

“Forgive me?” looking up to him, she asked.

“Don’t use that word between us.” He gathered her hands in his own, partly for fear she might touch his knee. Soon his horse came around.

“Poor cripple,” Esther said with a caressing accent, stretching her hand toward his knee, as he mounted. Then she pressed her hands hard against her eyelids as he said good-bye. When she looked up again he was gone. She stood sighing as if her soul would leave her body, as he rode on at a gallop, outlined against the far blue of the hills.

 

CHAPTER XIII.

THE first shock of Glenn Andrews’ absence was a bitter trial to Esther, who grieved unreasoningly. His going seemed like the end of the world. It was over, those rare, dear days of smiles and tears, of trifling quarrels and sweet reconciliations. She wondered how she had ever thought the sky was so blue, the grass so green.

Through all of her desolation, however, ran the thought that he wished nothing so much as for her to advance in her art.

Would she let the first rock block her way? Youth can forget its grief. She was so unconsciously true to him, that before she scarcely realized it, she was back at work, harder than ever. She began teaching the kind old German musician English to pay for her instructions.

Heart, brain and soul she gave to her art, not all for its sake nor hers, but for the man that was the world’s best type to her.

The devotion with which she had worshipped him was for the time transferred to the violin that became the absorbing and crowning ambition of her life.

Glenn had been gone nearly a year. The summer, instead of bringing him, brought a disappointment.

He wrote her:

“Fate or Providence has put in its oar to the exclusion of my own interesting plans. I didn’t dare really hope that I should see you this summer, even while I planned the trip. Providence would never be so kind as that. I am ordered to Athens to do some special work for our magazine. They have been unearthing some more wonderful curiosities there. This is the last note I write before going abroad, for I sail early to-morrow morning. How much easier it is to learn things than to unlearn them. I used to think differently at college. Very many times, more than I will admit to myself, I have closed my eyes and tried to imagine that I should open them upon yours, gazing disapprovingly at my ‘steenth’ cocktail. Many times I have been glad when I opened them that it was not so—at others I have been a little sorry. There is a deliciousness about your not being with me which is quite a new sensation. I shall never again pity the old Flagellants. I know now that there was a certain ecstasy of pleasure for them which we have taken too little account of. There is a pleasure in not writing to you, too; I am writing now because I know if I don’t I shall not hear again from you, and I confess that I don’t want my flagellation to take that shape. You were growing when I left you. Have you stopped? Don’t stop thinking—don’t stop striving—don’t stop hoping. You have no lack of imagination, inspiration, but you need the cold, cruel leaven of fact. Your symphony needs less harp and more violin. The Jews are clinging to their old ideals. The Gentiles crucified it, and have a living gospel. Let them die if they won’t live without nursing. You don’t want them. (I mean the ideals—not the Jews this time—metaphors always proved too much for me.) And finally don’t preach to others as I am doing to you. It’s a bad habit and never does any good. But remember that there are a few misguided and dreamy creatures who think you may do something one of these days if you ever get your eyes rubbed open wide enough.

“Glenn Andrews.”

For the next year his habitual haunts would know him no more. He would combine with his trip a while in Paris. Casting aside all obligation he entered into the spirit of the life about him. Paris, with all its dangers, all its charms, the extraordinary influence of that congenial life, touched him with a glowing heat of inspiration. He revelled in his hopes—in his dreams. Here he would write something worthy of him. His nature was rich in the vivid impressions, intense feelings and fine thoughts which make life full of real meaning and significance. Here he saw many sides of it—much of it was meaningless and distasteful, and repelled all of his finer senses, but “it is in experience that one sees all that is most vile and all that is most beautiful.” This was an excellent opportunity. All the while he was maturing—beginning to have a more tolerant knowledge of his fellow man. His heart was kindlier—the weight of his judgment lighter.

Half the world away, Esther was sorrowing for him—the memory of the disappointment he had caused touched deep fibres in her that ached and ached and ached. Besides this, she could see her old grandfather growing feebler with the setting of every sun. His small stock of vitality was slipping away.

He knew that the stalk was withered, and soon must fall, yet he tried to face the truth in smiling silence. Sometimes—when he thought of the hands that had so longed to have control of his child—the anguish in him overflowed. They would soon have her in their grasp.