At first the road lay between fertile farms dotted with shocked wheat, covered with undulant seas of ripening oats, and forests of growing corn. The larks were trailing melody above the shorn and growing fields, the quail were ingathering beside the fences, and from the forests on graceful wings slipped the nighthawks and sailed and soared, dropping so low that the half moons formed by white spots on their spread wings showed plainly.
“Why is this country so different from the other side of the city?” asked the Girl.
“It is older,” replied the Harvester, “and it lies higher. This was settled and well cultivated when that was a swamp. But as a farming proposition, the money is in the lowland like your uncle’s. The crops raised there are enormous compared with the yield of these fields.”
“I see,” said she. “But this is much better to look at and the air is different. It lacks a soggy, depressing quality.”
“I don’t allow any air to surpass that of Medicine Woods,” said the Harvester, “by especial arrangement with the powers that be.”
Then they dipped into a little depression and arose to cross the railroad and then followed a longer valley that was ragged and unkempt compared with the road between cultivated fields. The Harvester was busy trying to plan what to do first, and how to do it most effectively, and working his brain to think if he had everything the Girl would require for her comfort; so he drove silently through the deepening shadows. She shuddered and awoke him suddenly. He glanced at her from the corner of his eye.
Her thoughts had gone on a journey, also, and the way had been rough, for her face wore a strained appearance. The hands lying bare in her lap were tightly gripped, so that the nails and knuckles appeared blue. The Harvester hastily cast around seeking for the cause of the transformation. A few minutes ago she had seemed at ease and comfortable, now she was close open panic. Nothing had been said that would disturb her. With brain alert he searched for the reason. Then it began to come to him. The unaccustomed silence and depression of the country might have been the beginning. Coming from the city and crowds of people to the gloomy valley with a man almost a stranger, going she knew not where, to conditions she knew not what, with the experiences of the day vivid before her. The black valley road was not prepossessing, with its border of green pools, through which grew swamp bushes and straggling vines. The Harvester looked carefully at the road, and ceased to marvel at the Girl. But he disliked to let her know he understood, so he gave one last glance at those gripped hands and casually held out the lines.
“Will you take these just a second?” he asked. “Don’t let them touch your dress. We must not lose of our load, because it’s mostly things that will make you more comfortable.”
He arose, and turning, pretended to see that everything was all right. Then he resumed his seat and drove on.
“I am a little ashamed of this stretch through here,” he said apologetically. “I could have managed to have it cleared and in better shape long ago, but in a way it yields a snug profit, and so far I’ve preferred the money. The land is not mine, but I could grub out this growth entirely, instead of taking only what I need.”
“Is there stuff here you use?” the Girl aroused herself to ask, and the Harvester saw the look of relief that crossed her face at the sound of his voice.
“Well I should say yes,” he laughed. “Those bushes, numerous everywhere, with the hanging yellow-green balls, those, in bark and root, go into fever medicines. They are not so much used now, but sometimes I have a call, and when I do, I pass the beds on my——on our land, and come down here and get what is needed. That bush,” he indicated with the whip, “blooms exquisitely in the spring. It is a relative of flowering dogwood, and the one of its many names I like best is silky cornel. Isn’t that pretty?”
“Yes,” she said, “it is beautiful.”
“I’ve planted some for you in a hedge along the driveway so next spring you can gather all you want. I think you’ll like the odour. The bark brings more than true dogwood. If I get a call from some house that uses it, I save mine and come down here. Around the edge are hop trees, and I realize something from them, and also the false and true bitter-sweet that run riot here. Both of them have pretty leaves, while the berries of the true hang all winter and the colour is gorgeous. I’ve set your hedge closely with them. When it has grown a few months it’s going to furnish flowers in the spring, a million different, wonderful leaves and berries in the summer, many fruits the birds love in the fall, and bright berries, queer seed pods, and nuts all winter.”
“You planted it for me?”
“Yes. I think it will be beautiful in a season or two; it isn’t so bad now. I hope it will call myriads of birds to keep you company. When you cross this stretch of road hereafter, don’t see fetid water and straggling bushes and vines; just say to yourself, this helps to fill orders!”
“I am perfectly tolerant of it now,” she said. “You make everything different. I will come with you and help collect the roots and barks you want. Which bush did you say relieved the poor souls scorching with fever?”
The Harvester drew on the lines, Betsy swerved to the edge of the road, and he leaned and broke a branch.
“This one,” he answered. “Buttonbush, because those balls resemble round buttons. Aren’t they peculiar? See how waxy and gracefully cut and set the leaves are. Go on, Betsy, get us home before night. We appear our best early in the morning, when the sun tops Medicine Woods and begins to light us up, and in the evening, just when she drops behind Onabasha back there, and strikes us with a few level rays. Will you take the lines until I open this gate?”
She laid the twig in her lap on the white gloves and took the lines. As the gate swung wide, Betsy walked through and stopped at the usual place.
“Now my girl,” said the Harvester, “cross yourself, lean back, and take your ease. This side that gate you are at home. From here on belongs to us.”
“To you, you mean,” said the Girl.
“To us, I mean,” declared the Harvester. “Don’t you know that the ‘worldly goods bestowal’ clause in a marriage ceremony is a partial reality. It doesn’t give you ‘all my worldly goods,’ but it gives you one third. Which will you take, the hill, lake, marsh, or a part of all of them.”
“Oh, is there water?”
“Did I forget to mention that I was formerly sole owner and proprietor of the lake of Lost Loons, also a brook of Singing Water, and many cold springs. The lake covers about one third of our land, and my neighbours would allow me ditch outlet to the river, but they say I’m too lazy to take it.”
“Lazy! Do they mean drain your lake into the river?”
“They do,” said the Harvester, “and make the bed into a cornfield.”
“But you wouldn’t?”
She turned to him with confidence.
“I haven’t so far, but of course, when you see it, if you would prefer it in a corn——Let’s play a game! Turn your head in this direction,” he indicated with the whip, “close your eyes, and open them when I say ready.”
“All right!”
“Now!” said the Harvester.
“Oh,” cried the Girl. “Stop! Please stop!”
They were at the foot of a small levee that ran to the bridge crossing Singing Water. On the left lay the valley through which the stream swept from its hurried rush down the hill, a marshy thicket of vines, shrubs, and bushes, the banks impassable with water growth. Everywhere flamed foxfire and cardinal flower, thousands of wild tiger lilies lifted gorgeous orange-red trumpets, beside pearl-white turtle head and moon daisies, while all the creek bank was a coral line with the first opening bloom of big pink mallows. Rank jewel flower poured gold from dainty cornucopias and lavender beard-tongue offered honey to a million bumbling bees; water smart-weed spread a glowing pink background, and twining amber dodder topped the marsh in lacy mist with its delicate white bloom. Straight before them a white-sanded road climbed to the bridge and up a gentle hill between the young hedge of small trees and bushes, where again flowers and bright colours rioted and led to the cabin yet invisible. On the right, the hill, crowned with gigantic forest trees, sloped to the lake; midway the building stood, and from it, among scattering trees all the way to the water’s edge, were immense beds of vivid colour. Like a scarf of gold flung across the face of earth waved the misty saffron, and beside the road running down the hill, in a sunny, open space arose tree-like specimens of thrifty magenta pokeberry. Down the hill crept the masses of colour, changing from dry soil to water growth.
High around the blue-green surface of the lake waved lacy heads of wild rice, lower cat-tails, bulrushes, and marsh grasses; arrowhead lilies lifted spines of pearly bloom, while yellow water lilies and blue water hyacinths intermingled; here and there grew a pink stretch of water smartweed and the dangling gold of jewel flower. Over the water, bordering the edge, starry faces of white pond lilies floated. Blue flags waved graceful leaves, willows grew in clumps, and vines clambered everywhere.
Among the growth of the lake shore, duck, coot, and grebe voices commingled in the last chattering hastened splash of securing supper before bedtime; crying killdeers crossed the water, and overhead the nighthawks massed in circling companies. Betsy climbed the hill and at every step the Girl cried, “Slower! please go slower!” With wide eyes she stared around her.
“WHY DIDN’T YOU TELL ME IT WOULD BE LIKE THIS?” she demanded in awed tones.
“Have I had opportunity to describe much of anything?” asked the Harvester. “Besides, I was born and reared here, and while it has been a garden of bloom for the past six years only, it always has been a picture; but one forgets to say much about a sight seen every day and that requires the work this does.”
“That white mist down there, what is it?” she marvelled.
“Pearls grown by the Almighty,” answered the Harvester. “Flowers that I hope you will love. They are like you. Tall and slender, graceful, pearl white and pearl pure——those are the arrowhead Lilies.”
“And the wonderful purplish-red there on the bank? Oh, I could kneel and pray before colour like that!’
“Pokeberry!” said the Harvester. “Roots bring five cents a pound. Good blood purifier.”
“Man!” cried the Girl. “How can you? I’m not going to ask what another colour is. I’ll just worship what I like in silence.”
“Will you forgive me if I tell you what a woman whose judgment I respect says about that colour?”
“Perhaps!”
“She says, ‘God proves that He loves it best of all the tints in His workshop by using it first and most sparingly.’ Now are you going to punish me by keeping silent?”
“I couldn’t if I tried.” Just then they came upon the bridge crossing Singing Water, and there was a long view of its border, rippling bed, and marshy banks; while on the other hand the lake resembled a richly incrusted sapphire.
“Is the house close?”
“Just a few rods, at the turn of the drive.”
“Please help me down. I want to remain here a while. I don’t care what else there is to see. Nothing can equal this. I wish I could bring down a bed and sleep here. I’d like to have a table, and draw and paint. I understand now what you mean about the designs you mentioned. Why, there must be thousands! I can’t go on. I never saw anything so appealing in all my life.”
Now the Harvester’s mother had designed that bridge and he had built it with much care. From bark-covered railings to solid oak floor and comfortable benches running along the sides it was intended to be a part of the landscape.
“I’ll send Belshazzar to the cabin with the wagon,” he said, “so you can see better.”
“But you must not!” she cried. “I can’t walk. I wouldn’t soil these beautiful shoes for anything.”
“Why don’t you change them?” inquired the Harvester.
“I am afraid I forgot everything I had,” said the Girl.
“There are shoes somewhere in this load. I thought of them in getting other things for you, but I had no idea as to size, and so I told that clerk to-day when she got your measure to put in every kind you’d need.”
“You are horribly extravagant,” she said. “But if you have them here, perhaps I could use one pair.”
The Harvester mounted the wagon and hunted until he found a large box, and opening it on the bench he disclosed almost every variety of shoe, walking shoe and slipper, a girl ever owned, as well as sandals and high overshoes.
“For pity sake!” cried the Girl. “Cover that box! You frighten me. You’ll never get them paid for. You must take them straight back.”
“Never take anything back,” said the Harvester. “‘Be sure you are right, then go ahead,’ is my motto. Now I know these are your correct size and that for differing occasions you will want just such shoes as other girls have, and here they are. Simple as life! I think these will serve because they are for street wear, yet they are white inside.”
He produced a pair of canvas walking shoes and kneeling before her held out his hand.
When he had finished, he loaded the box on the wagon, gave the hitching strap to Belshazzar, and told him to lead Betsy to the cabin and hold her until he came. Then he turned to the Girl.
“Now,” he said, “look as long as you choose. But remember that the law gives you part of this and your lover, which same am I, gives you the remainder, so you are privileged to come here at any hour as often as you please. If you miss anything this evening, you have all time to come in which to re-examine it.”
“I’d like to live right here on this bridge,” she said. “I wish it had a roof.”
“Roof it to-morrow,” offered the Harvester. “Simple matter of a few pillars already cut, joists joined, and some slab shingles left from the cabin. Anything else your ladyship can suggest?”
“That you be sensible.”
“I was born that way,” explained the Harvester, “and I’ve cultivated the faculty until I’ve developed real genius. Talking of sense, there never was a proper marriage in which the man didn’t give the woman a present. You seem likely to be more appreciative of this bridge than anything else I have, so right here and now would be the appropriate place to offer you my wedding gift. I didn’t have much time, but I couldn’t have found anything more suitable if I’d taken a year.”
He held out a small, white velvet case.
“Doesn’t that look as if it were made for a bride?” he asked.
“It does,” answered the Girl. “But I can’t take it. You are not doing right. Marrying as we did, you never can believe that I love you; maybe it won’t ever happen that I do. I have no right to accept gifts and expensive clothing from you. In the first place, if the love you ask never comes, there is no possible way in which I can repay you. In the second, these things you are offering are not suitable for life and work in the woods. In the third, I think you are being extravagant, and I couldn’t forgive myself if I allowed that.”
“You divide your statements like a preacher, don’t you?” asked the Harvester ingenuously. “Now sit thee here and gaze on the placid lake and quiet your troubled spirit, while I demolish your ‘perfectly good’ arguments. In the first place, you are now my wife, and you have a right to take anything I offer, if you care for it or can use it in any manner. In the second, you must recognize a difference in our positions. What seems nothing to you means all the world to me, and you are less than human if you deprive me of the joy of expressing feelings I am in honour bound to keep in my heart, by these little material offerings. In the third place, I inherited over six hundred acres of land and water, please observe the water——it is now in evidence on your left. All my life I have been taught to be frugal, economical, and to work. All I’ve earned either has gone back into land, into the bank, or into books, very plain food, and such clothing as you now see me wearing. Just the value of this place as it stands, with its big trees, its drug crops yielding all the year round, would be difficult to estimate; and I don’t mind telling you that on the top of that hill there is a gold mine, and it’s mine——ours since four o’clock.”
“A gold mine!”
“Acres and acres of wild ginseng, seven years of age and ready to harvest. Do you remember what your few pounds brought?”
“Why it’s worth thousands!”
“Exactly! For your peace of mind I might add that all I have done or got is paid for, except what I bought to-day, and I will write a check for that as soon as the bill is made out. My bank account never will feel it Truly, Ruth, I am not doing or going to do anything extravagant. I can’t afford to give you diamond necklaces, yachts, and trips to Europe; but you can have the contents of this box and a motor boat on the lake, a horse and carriage, and a trip——say to New York perfectly well. Please take it.”
“I wish you wouldn’t ask me. I would be happier not to.”
“Yes, but I do ask you,” persisted the Harvester. “You are not the only one to be considered. I have some rights also, and I’m not so self-effacing that I won’t insist upon them. From your standpoint I am almost a stranger. You have spent no time considering me in near relations; I realize that. You feel as if you were driven here for a refuge, and that is true. I said to Belshazzar one day that I must remember that you had no dream, and had spent no time loving me, and I do I know how this wedding seems to you, but it’s going to mean something different and better soon, please God. I can see your side; now suppose you take a look at mine. I did have a dream, it was my dream, and beyond the sum of any delight I ever conceived. On the strength of it I rebuilt my home and remodelled these premises. Then I saw you, and from that day I worked early and late. I lost you and I never stopped until I found you; and I would have courted and won you, but the fates intervened and here you are! So it’s my delight to court and win you now. If you knew the difference between having a dream that stirred the least fibre of your being and facing the world in a demand for realization of it, and then finding what you coveted in the palm of your hand, as it were, you would know what is in my heart, and why expression of some kind is necessary to me just now, and why I’ll explode if it is denied. It will lower the tension, if you will accept this as a matter of fact; as if you rather expected and liked it, if you can.”
The Harvester set his finger on the spring.
“Don’t!” she said. “I’ll never have the courage if you do. Give it to me in the case, and let me open it. Despite your unanswerable arguments, I am quite sure that is the only way in which I can take it.”
The Harvester gave her the box.
“My wedding gift!” she exclaimed, more to herself than to him. “Why should I be the buffet of all the unkind fates kept in store for a girl my whole life, and then suddenly be offered home, beautiful gifts, and wonderful loving kindness by a stranger?”
The Harvester ran his fingers through his crisp hair, pulled it into a peak, stepped to the seat and sitting on the railing, he lifted his elbows, tilted his head, and began a motley outpouring of half-spoken, half-whistled trills and imploring cries. There was enough similarity that the Girl instantly recognized the red bird. Out of breath the Harvester dropped to the seat beside her.
“And don’t you keep forgetting it!” he cried. “Now open that box and put on the trinket; because I want to take you to the cabin when the sun falls level on the drive.”
She opened the case, exposing a thread of gold that appeared too slender for the weight of an exquisite pendant, set with shimmering pearls.
“If you will look down there,” the Harvester pointed over the railing to the arrowhead lilies touched with the fading light, “you will see that they are similar.”
“They are!” cried the Girl. “How lovely! Which is more beautiful I do not know. And you won’t like it if I say I must not.”
She held the open case toward the Harvester.
“‘Possession is nine points in the law,’” he quoted. “You have taken it already and it is in your hands; now make the gift perfect for me by putting it on and saying nothing more.”
“My wedding gift!” repeated the Girl. Slowly she lifted the beautiful ornament and held it in the light. “I’m so glad you just force me to take it,” she said. “Any half-normal girl would be delighted. I do accept it. And what’s more, I am going to keep and wear it and my ring at suitable times all my life, in memory of what you have done to be kind to me on this awful day.”
“Thank you!” said the Harvester. “That is a flash of the proper spirit. Allow me to put it on you.”
“No!” said the Girl. “Not yet! After a while! I want to hold it in my hands, where I can see it!”
“Now there is one other thing,” said the Harvester.
“If I had known for any length of time that this day was coming and bringing you, as most men know when a girl is to be given into their care, I could have made it different. As it is, I’ve done the best I knew. All your after life I hope you will believe this: Just that if you missed anything to-day that would have made it easier for you or more pleasant, the reason was because of my ignorance of women and the conventions, and lack of time. I want you to know and to feel that in my heart those vows I took were real. This is undoubtedly all the marrying I will ever want to do. I am old-fashioned in my ways, and deeply imbued with the spirit of the woods, and that means unending evolution along the same lines.
“To me you are my revered and beloved wife, my mate now; and I am sure nothing will make me feel any different. This is the day of my marriage to the only woman I ever have thought of wedding, and to me it is joy unspeakable. With other men such a day ends differently from the close of this with me. Because I have done and will continue to do the level best I know for you, this oration is the prologue to asking you for one gift to me from you, a wedding gift. I don’t want it unless you can bestow it ungrudgingly, and truly want me to have it. If you can, I will have all from this day I hope for at the hands of fate. May I have the gift I ask of you, Ruth?”
She lifted startled eyes to his face.
“Tell me what it is?” she breathed.
“It may seem much to you,” said the Harvester; “to me it appears only a gracious act, from a wonderful woman, if you will give me freely, one real kiss. I’ve never had one, save from a Dream Girl, Ruth, and you will have to make yours pretty good if it is anything like hers. You are woman enough to know that most men crush their brides in their arms and take a thousand. I’ll put my hands behind me and never move a muscle, and I won’t ask for more, if you will crown my wedding day with only one touch of your lips. Will you kiss me just once, Ruth?”
The Girl lifted a piteous face down which big tears suddenly rolled.
“Oh Man, you shame me!” she cried. “What kind of a heart have I that it fails to respond to such a plea? Have I been overworked and starved so long there is no feeling in me? I don’t understand why I don’t take you in my arms and kiss you a hundred times, but you see I don’t. It doesn’t seem as if I ever could.”
“Never mind,” said the Harvester gently. “It was only a fancy of mine, bred from my dream and unreasonable, perhaps. I am sorry I mentioned it. The sun is on the stoop now; I want you to enter your home in its light. Come!”
He half lifted her from the bench. “I am going to help you up the drive as I used to assist mother,” he said, fighting to keep his voice natural. “Clasp your hands before you and draw your elbows to your sides. Now let me take one in each palm, and you will scoot up this drive as if you were on wheels.”
“But I don’t want to ‘scoot’,” she said unsteadily. “I must go slowly and not miss anything.”
“On the contrary, you don’t want to do any such thing——you should leave most of it for to-morrow.”
“I had forgotten there would be any to-morrow. It seems as if the day would end it and set me adrift again.”
“You are going to awake in the gold room with the sun shining on your face in the morning, and it’s going to keep on all your life. Now if you’ve got a smile in your anatomy, bring it to the surface, for just beyond this tree lies happiness for you.”
His voice was clear and steady now, his confidence something contagious. There was a lovely smile on her face as she looked at him, and stepped into the line of light crossing the driveway; and then she stopped and cried, “Oh lovely! Lovely! Lovely!” over and over. Then maybe the Harvester was not glad he had planned, worked unceasingly, and builded as well as he knew.
The cabin of large, peeled, golden oak logs, oiled to preserve them, nestled like a big mushroom on the side of the hill. Above and behind the building the trees arose in a green setting. The roof was stained to their shades. The wide veranda was enclosed in screening, over which wonderful vines climbed in places, and round it grew ferns and deep-wood plants. Inside hung big baskets of wild growth; there was a wide swinging seat, with a back rest, supported by heavy chains. There were chairs and a table of bent saplings and hickory withes. Two full stories the building arose, and the western sun warmed it almost to orange-yellow, while the graceful vines crept toward the roof.
The Girl looked at the rapidly rising hedge on each side of her, at the white floor of the drive, and long and long at the cabin.
“You did all this since February?” she asked.
“Even to transforming the landscape,” answered the Harvester.
“Oh I wish it was not coming night!” she cried. “I don’t want the dark to come, until you have told me the name of every tree and shrub of that wonderful hedge, and every plant and vine of the veranda; and oh I want to follow up the driveway and see that beautiful little creek—listen to it chuckle and laugh! Is it always glad like that? See the ferns and things that grow on the other side of it! Why there are big beds of them. And lilies of the valley by the acre! What is that yellow around the corner?”
“Never mind that now,” said the Harvester, guiding her up the steps, along the gravelled walk to the screen that he opened, and over a flood of gold light she crossed the veranda, and entered the door.
“Now here it appears bare,” said the Harvester, “because I didn’t know what should go on the walls or what rugs to get or about the windows. The table, chairs, and couch I made myself with some help from a carpenter. They are solid black walnut and will age finely.”
“They are beautiful,” said the Girl, softly touching the shining table top with her fingers. “Please put the necklace on me now, I have to use my eyes and hands for other things.”
She held out the box and the Harvester lifted the pendant and clasped the chain around her neck. She glanced at the lustrous pearls and then the fingers of one hand softly closed over them. She went through the long, wide living-room, examining the chairs and mantel, stopping to touch and exclaim over its array of half-finished candlesticks. At the door of his room she paused. “And this?” she questioned.
“Mine,” said the Harvester, turning the knob. “I’ll give you one peep to satisfy your curiosity, and show you the location of the bridge over which you came to me in my dream. All the remainder is yours. I reserve only this.”
“Will the ‘goblins git me’ if I come here?”
“Not goblins, but a man alive; so heed your warning. After you have seen it, keep away.”
The floor was cement, three of the walls heavy screening with mosquito wire inside, the roof slab shingled. On the inner wall was a bookcase, below it a desk, at one side a gun cabinet, at the other a bath in a small alcove beside a closet. The room contained two chairs like those of the veranda, and the bed was a low oak couch covered with a thick mattress of hemlock twigs, topped with sweet fern, on which the sun shone all day. On a chair at the foot were spread some white sheets, a blanket, and an oilcloth. The sun beat in, the wind drifted through, and one lying on the couch could see down the bright hill, and sweep the lake to the opposite bank without lifting the head. The Harvester drew the Girl to the bedside.
“Now straight in a line from here,” he said, “across the lake to that big, scraggy oak, every clear night the moon builds a bridge of molten gold, and once you walked it, my girl, and came straight to me, alone and unafraid; and you were gracious and lovely beyond anything a man ever dreamed of before. I’ll have that to think of to-night. Now come see the dining-room, kitchen, and hand-made sunshine.”
He led her into what had been the front room of the old cabin, now a large, long dining-room having on each side wide windows with deep seats. The fireplace backwall was against that of the living-room, but here the mantel was bare. All the wood-work, chairs, the dining table, cupboards, and carving table were golden oak. Only a few rugs and furnishings and a woman’s touch were required to make it an unusual and beautiful room. The kitchen was shining with a white hard-wood floor, white wood-work, and pale green walls. It was a light, airy, sanitary place, supplied with a pump, sink, hot and cold water faucets, refrigerator, and every modern convenience possible to the country.
Then the Harvester almost carried the Girl up the stairs and showed her three large sleeping rooms, empty and bare save for some packing cases.
“I didn’t know about these, so I didn’t do anything. When you fin