ABOUT this time I wrote in my diary: “A man in love is an oaf. How awkward and lumbering he is in the presence of his Dulcinea. How undesirable and like a clod away from her. He is a churl to every one but the one woman. I have been out in the sun-splashed forest searching for rare specimens of the wood anemone for my wonder woman. My search absorbed my morning, and I quite forgot that I had promised Wanza to ride to town for flour for the weekly baking. I dreamed and mused the hours away among the basaltic boulders in a strange grove of twisted yews, where nereid green pools lie in little hollows and maiden hair springs up through the gold-brown moss carpet. This grove has long been a favorite of mine. It has a classical aspect; there is something about it that suggests a train of mythological conceptions. I feel sure that the great God Pan must be fashioning his flute among the rushes in the bed of the spring. In the wind’s sibilance I hear the skirl of the Pandean pipes. I recall the divine huntress, and summon up visions of Iris, the goddess of many colors.”
This morning the wood spaces were filled with visions of Haidee. She smiled at me from behind the clumps of bracken and huckleberry, her eyes beamed at me from the hearts of the flowers. The clouds were her garments, the blue sky her soul. As Dante walked dreaming of Beatrice so went I with Haidee ever before me.
Love is a rejuvenating precious thing. Even a hopeless love softens the fibres of one’s entire being, and straightens the warped soul of one. But I must not reach out toward Love! I must renounce. I must go on alone, like a battered, wrecked, drifting derelict. I have thought the blackest part of my life behind me. I have come to look forward too much. I have vented my heavy heart, and found solace in work and books. And now! I must live through the culminating sorrow. Is all my life to be one great renunciation? I find myself rebelling. I have been too much the helpless victim of circumstances. For me Ossa has been heaped on Pelion.
I have said, “If I can but avoid comparing my lot with what it might have been, I can be a man.” I have repeated: “I swear the earth shall surely be complete to him or her who shall be complete. The earth remains jagged and broken only to him or her who remains jagged and broken.” I have said all this to myself times innumerable. And now what shall I say to myself? I can scarcely whisper to myself, “Courage!” I am baffled, balked, stunned. Oh, what do I signify in the scheme of things! I am a bit of washed spindrift. Glad should I be to surrender the quick of being. If it were not for work!— Through labor only I come near to God, the master artizan, who labors tirelessly and marvelously.
After making this entry in my diary I gained an unexpected surcease from wearied thoughts. I went on with my life calmly enough, doing the things nearest to hand, eating three good meals a day as a man will, writing on my novel evenings, and sleeping normally, with Joey curled into a warm little ball at my side. In some strange way after my descent into Avernus I became tranquil in every pulse. After brooding over much I sat back, figuratively speaking, and thought of nothing, but the simple joy of being. Sunlight was pure gold, the dew silver, each twilight a benediction, each dawn a natal hymn. I managed so that I saw very little of Haidee, paying my respects to her once a day, and pleading work as an excuse if invited to linger in the shady Dingle where she sat with her work or a book. I contemplated sending Joey to school in the autumn, and a portion of each day I devoted to teaching the small lad spelling. His remarks concerning the rite were often pungent. He persevered to please me, but I could see that in his heart he pitied me for my zealous attempts on his behalf.
“When people can say things what’s the use of spelling?” he asked one day. He held his book upside down, his eyes fixed longingly on a skimming prismatic cloud of butterflies beyond the workshop door. “I can say God—what’s the good of spelling it?” I did not respond, and evidently anxious to convince me further, he added: “Yes. And one time once—oh, when I was teenty, Mr. David, I thought I saw him.”
“Do you think now that you saw him, Joey?” I questioned, half smiling.
“Well,” he replied slowly, as if pondering the matter, “I was sure then, Mr. David.”
“Where did you see the—er—person whom you believed to be God?” I asked.
“Did he speak to you, Joey?”
Joey looked at me slyly.
“Oh, Mr. David,” he whispered deprecatingly, “do you ’spose I’d ’spect him to—when I’m a worm?”
I went on with the lesson, vaguely wondering what sort of mind the lady who taught Joey at Sunday School was possessed of.
At the conclusion of the lesson, Joey observed: “Mrs. Olds says our cabin is full of de—deficiencies, Mr. David. What do de—deficiencies do?”
“Deficiencies let flies in, and permit mice to molest the flour barrel,—deficiencies make chimneys smoke, and floors creak.”
“Hm! Are de—deficiencies holes, Mr. David?”
“In a sense, lad.”
“Where’d be the fun, though,” my loyal lad cried out, “if there weren’t no holes in cabins. There’d be nothing to patch. An’ you’d never see a rat poke his cunning head through the wall cold nights when you sit by the fire. Pooh! I like de—deficiencies.”
That very day I went about setting what traps I had to catch the rodents that were destroying Mrs. Olds’ peace of mind. And I began the manufacture of others. I also mended the screen doors, and purchased a package of mosquito netting from Wanza’s cart, for the windows.
It was a curious ménage I captained. I found myself grinning from time to time as I took orders from Mrs. Olds. Although I was in love with Haidee, and although Joey was an entertaining companion, and although I found Mrs. Olds’ pessimism a curious study, it was to Wanza that I turned most frequently for comfort and advice during these trying days. We had many a rueful laugh together at Mrs. Olds’ expense.
“The whole thing with her, I do think,” Wanza said, one day, “is drawing her pay.”
But Wanza maligned her. Mrs. Olds was a rare nurse, conscientious to a fault. And she received little enough pay from the big man, I knew. Wanza had a cot in the cedar room now, and Mrs. Olds was able to rest the greater part of the night, as her patient’s condition improved.