Kitabı oku: «Hempfield», sayfa 8

CHAPTER XIII
ANTHY TAKES COMMAND

Anthy was always late in reaching the office, if she came at all, on Monday mornings. It was one of the days when old Mrs. Parker came to help her, and it was necessary that the week be properly started in the household of the Doanes.

It is said of Goethe that he was prouder of his knowledge of the science of optics – which was mostly wrong – than he was of his poetry. Genius is often like that. It was so in the case of old Mrs. Parker, who considered herself incomparable as a cook (and once – this is town report – baked her spectacles in a custard pie), and held lightly her genius as a journalist. On any bright morning she could go out on her stoop, turn once or twice around, sniff the breezes, and tell you in voluminous language what her neighbours were going to have for dinner, with interesting digressions upon the character, social standing, and economic condition of each of them.

Though she often tried Anthy's orderly soul, she was as much of a feature of the household on certain days every week as the what-not in the corner of the parlour. She had been coming almost as long as Anthy could remember. For years she had amused, provoked, and tyrannized over Anthy's father, troubled his digestion with pies, and given him innumerable items for the Star. She was as good as any reporter.

On this particular autumn morning Mrs. Parker was unusually quiet, for her. She evidently had something on her mind. She had called upstairs only once:

"Anthy, where did you put the cinnamon?"

Now, Anthy, as usual, upon this intimation, for old Mrs. Parker never deigned to ask directly what she was to do, had come downstairs, and by an adroit, verbal passage-at-arms, in which both of them, I think, delighted, had diverted her intention of making pumpkin pies and centred her interest upon a less ambitious pudding. On this occasion Mrs. Parker did not even offer to tell the story suggested by the catchword "cinnamon," of how a certain Flora Peters – you know, the Peterses of Hawleyville, cousins of the Hewletts – had once used pepper for cinnamon in a pie.

Anthy was fond of these mornings at home, especially just such crispy autumn mornings as this one. She loved to go about busily, a white cap over her bright hair, the windows upstairs all wide open to the sunshine, the cool breezes blowing in. She loved to have the beds spread open, and the rugs up, and plenty to do. At such times, and often also in the spring when she was working in her garden, she would break into bits of song, just snatches here and there, or she would whistle. In these moments of unconscious activity one might catch fleeting glimpses of the hidden Anthy. I like, somehow, more than almost anything else, to think of her as I saw her, a very few times, on occasions like these.

One song, or part of a song, I once heard her sing in an unguarded moment, a bit of old ballad in a haunting minor key, springs at this moment so clear in my memory that I can hear the very cadences of her voice. I don't know where the words came from, or what the song was, nor yet the music of it:

 
"It is not for a false lover
That I go sad to see,
But it is for a weary life
Beneath the greenwood tree."
 

Bits of poetry were always coming to the surface with Anthy. I remember once, that very fall, as we were walking down the long lane homeward one Sunday afternoon from my farm, how Anthy, who had been silent for some time, suddenly made the whole world of that October day newly beautiful:

 
"The sweet, calm sunshine of October now
Warms the low spot; upon its grassy mould
The purple oak-leaf falls; the birchen bough
Drops its bright spoil like arrow heads of gold."
 

I remember looking at her rapt face as she repeated the words, and seeing the sunlight catch in her hair.

In some ways the Anthy, the real Anthy, of those days was only half awake. It is your unimaginative girl who sees in every dusty swain the possible hero of her heart; but she whose eyes are dazzled by the shining armour of a knight-o'-dreams comes reluctantly awake. It is so with some of the finest women: they step lightly through the years, with untouched hearts. There was a great deal of her father in Anthy, a great deal of the old New Englander, treasuring the best jealousy inside.

I think sometimes that women are far better natural executives and organizers than men. To keep a great household running smoothly, provisioned, cleaned, made sweet and cheerful always, and to do it incidentally as it were, with a hundred other activities filling her thoughts, is an accomplishment not sufficiently appreciated in this world. Anthy, like the true women of her race, had this capacity highly developed. She had a real genius for orderliness, which is the sanity, if not the religion, of everyday life.

"I will say this for Anthy Doane," old Mrs. Parker was accustomed to remark, "she is turrible particular."

How often have we been astonished to see gentlewomen (I like the good old word) torn from the harbour of sheltered lives and serenely navigating their ships on the stormiest seas, but without real cause for our astonishment, for they have merely applied in a wider field that genius for command and organization which they have long cultivated in their households. We may yet come to look upon many of the functions of government as only a larger kind of housekeeping, and find that we cannot afford to dispense longer with the executive genius of women in all those activities which deal with the comforts of human kind. (It's true, Harriet.)

Mrs. Parker, as I have said, having something on her mind, was in condition of unstable equilibrium.

"When you was little, Anthy," she began finally, "I used to tell you to put on your rubbers when you went out in the rain, and to take your umbrella to school, and not forget your 'rithmetic. Didn't I, Anthy?"

"Why, yes, Margaret." Anthy was much mystified.

Old Mrs. Parker paused: "Well, I don't approve of this Norton Carr."

Anthy laughed. "Why, what's the matter with Norton Carr?"

Old Mrs. Parker closed her lips and wagged her head with a world of dark significance.

"What is it, Margaret?"

Mrs. Parker lowered her voice.

"He stimmylates," she said.

It was about the worst she could have said about poor Nort, except one thing – in Hempfield.

Anthy tried to draw her out still further, but not another word would she say. A long time afterward, when Anthy told me of this incident (how I have coveted the knowledge of every least thing in the lives of Nort and Anthy!), when she told me, she said reflectively: "I can't tell you how those words hurt me."

And then came the surprising telephone call from the old Captain, with the news that he had discharged Ed Smith!

It was characteristic of Anthy that when she put down the telephone receiver she was laughing. The tone of the Captain's voice and the picture she had of him, dramatically discharging Ed, were irresistible. But it was only for a moment, and the old problem of the Star leaped at her again. In the letters to Lincoln here in my desk I find that she referred to it repeatedly: "Ed Smith will not get on much longer with our vagabond, who isn't really a vagabond at all; and as for Uncle Newt, it seems to me that he grows more difficult every day. What shall I do?"

Now that the crisis was here, she was very quiet about it. When she had put on her hat she stepped for a moment into the quiet, old-fashioned living-room, where her desk was, and the fireplace before which she and her father had sat together for so many, many evenings, and the picture of Lincoln over the mantel. She had not changed it in the least particular since her father's death, and it had always a soothing effect upon her: the picture of her mother, the familiar, well-thumbed books which her father had delighted in, the very chair where he loved to sit. She did not feel bold or confident, but the moment in the old room gave her a curious sense of calmness, as though there were something strong and sure back of her. She glanced up quickly at the countenance of Mr. Lincoln, and turned and went out of the house.

The explosion at the office had been followed by a dead calm. We were all awaiting the arrival of Anthy. After all, she was the owner of the Star. What would she do?

I saw Ed Smith glancing surreptitiously out of the window, and even the old Captain, in spite of his jauntiness, seemed ill at ease. Only Fergus remained undisturbed. That Scotchman continued working steadily at the cases.

"You took it coolly, Fergus," I said to him in a low voice.

"Got to print a paper this week," he observed.

I verily believe if we had all deserted our jobs Fergus would have brought out the Star as usual on Wednesday, a little curtailed, perhaps, but on the dot.

Anthy came in looking perfectly calm. Ed Smith jumped from his seat at once.

"See here, Miss Doane," he began excitedly, "what right has the Captain to discharge me?"

The old Captain had arisen, too, and very formidable he looked. But my eyes were on Anthy. She stepped over to her uncle's side. She had a deep affection for this old uncle of hers. "Look out for your Uncle Newt," her father had said in the letter she found after his death. She put her arm through his, drew him toward her, and looking up at him, smiled a little.

"What right has the Captain to discharge me?" demanded Ed Smith.

"No right at all," she said.

"There!" exclaimed Ed, exultantly.

"But I have the right," said Anthy, "if I choose to exert it."

There was a curious finality in her voice – calmness and finality. The old Captain was frowning, but Anthy held him close by the arm. A moment of silence followed. I suppose we must, indeed, have been an absurd group of men standing there helplessly, for Anthy surveyed us with a swift glance.

"What are you all so serious about?" she asked.

While we were awkwardly bestirring ourselves, Anthy took off her hat, just as usual, put on her apron, just as usual. It was the natural-born genius of Anthy to have the orderly wheels of life running again. And presently, standing near the Captain's littered desk, she exclaimed:

"At last, at last, Uncle Newt, you've written your editorial on Roosevelt!"

She picked up the manuscript.

"Yes, Anthy," rumbled the Captain, "I have written my convictions about the Colonel. It was a duty I had."

The Captain was not yet placated, but there was no resisting Anthy very long. "David will never be satisfied until he hears it," she said. She looked over the pages. "Have you said exactly what you think, Uncle?"

"Exactly," said the Captain; "I could not do less. But I wanted Nort to hear it."

"Well, where is Mr. Carr?" asked Anthy, looking about in surprise.

For a moment no one said a word. And then Ed Smith spoke:

"We've simply got to cut down expenses. I hired Carr when I thought we needed a cheap man to help Fergus – and now I've let him go."

For a moment Anthy stood silent, and just a little rigid, I thought. But it was only for a moment.

"We were going to have Uncle's editorial, weren't we? Mr. Carr can see it later."

She was now in complete command. She got the Captain down into his chair and put the manuscript in his hand. He cleared his throat, threw back his head, pleased in spite of himself.

"It was a hard duty, but here it is," he said, and began reading in a resonant voice:

"We have hesitated long and considered deeply before expressing the views of the Star upon the recent sad apostasy of Theodore Roosevelt. We loved him like a son. We gloried in him as in an older brother. We followed that bright figure (in a manner of speaking) when he fought on the bloody slopes of San Juan, we were with him when he marched homeward in his hour of triumph to the plaudits of a grateful nation – "

The Captain narrated vividly how the Star had stood staunchly with that peerless leader through every campaign. And then his voice changed suddenly, he drew a deep breath.

"But we are with him no longer. We know him now no more – "

He mourned him as a son gone astray, as a follower after vain gods. I remember just how Nort looked when he read this part of the editorial some time afterward, glancing up quickly. "Isn't it great! Doesn't it make you think of old King David: 'Oh, my son Absalom, my son, my son Absalom!'"

But the editorial was not all mournful. It closed with a triumphant note. There was no present call to be discouraged about the nation or the Grand Old Party. Leaders might come and go, but the party of Lincoln, the party of Grant, the party of Garfield, with undiminished lustre, would march ever onward to victory.

"The Star," he writes, "will remain faithful to its allegiance. The Star is old-line Republican, Cooper Union Republican – the unchanging Republicanism of the great-souled McKinley and of Theodore Roosevelt – before his apostasy."

It was wonderful! No editorial ever published in the Hempfield Star or, so far as I could learn, in any paper in the county, was ever as widely copied throughout the country as this one – copied, indeed, by some editors who did not know or love the old Captain as we did.

After such a stormy morning it was wonderful to see how quickly the troubled atmosphere of the Star began to clear. Four rather sheepish-looking men began to work with a complete show of absorption, while Anthy acted as though nothing had happened.

But there was one thing still on her mind. When I started for home, toward noon, she followed me out on the little porch.

"David," she said, "I want to speak to you."

She hesitated.

"I want you to find Norton Carr."

She laid her hand on my arm. "He hasn't been quite fairly treated."

She smiled, and looked at me wistfully. "We've got to keep the Star going somehow, haven't we?"

CHAPTER XIV
WE BEGIN THE SUBJUGATION OF NORT

Here is a curious and interesting thing often to be noted by any man who looks around him, that we human creatures are all made up into uneven and restless bundles – family bundles, church bundles, political-party bundles, and a thousand amusing kinds of business bundles. It will also be observed that a very large part of us, nearly all of us who are old and most of us who are women, are struggling as hard as ever we can (and without a bit of humour) to hold our small bundles together, while others are struggling with equal ferocity to burst out of their bundles and make new ones. And so on endlessly!

If you see any one particular specimen in any one particular bundle who is making himself obnoxious by wriggling and squirming and twisting with an utter disregard for the sensibilities of the bundle-binders, you may conclude that he is affected by the most mysterious influence, or power, or malady – whatever you care to call it – with which we small human beings have to grapple. I mean that he is growing. When you come to think of it, the most incalculable power in the life of men is the power of growth. If you could tell when any given human being was through growing, you could tell what to do with him; but you never can. Some men are ripe at twenty-five, and some are still adding power and knowledge at eighty. It is not inheritance, nor environment, nor wealth, nor position, that measures the difference between human beings, but rather the mysterious faculty of continued growth which resides within them. It is growth that causes the tragedies of this world – and the comedies – and the sheer beauty of life. Here are a husband and wife bound together in the commonest of bundles: one stops growing, the other keeps on growing; consult almost any play, novel, poem, newspaper, or scandalous gossip, for the results. Consider the restless bundle of nations called Europe, one of which recently began to grow tremendously, began to squirm about in the bundle, began to demand room and air. What an almighty pother this has caused! What an altogether serious business for the bundle-binders!

These observations may seem to lead entirely around the celebrated barn of Robin Hood, but if you follow them patiently you will find that they bring you back at last (by way of Europe) to the dilapidated door of the quiet old printing-office of the Star of Hempfield. If you venture inside you will discover, besides a cat and a canary, one of the most interesting bundles of human beings I know anything about.

And one specimen in this bundle, as you may already suspect, has developed a prodigious power of squirming and wriggling, and otherwise making the bundle-binders of the Star uncomfortable. I refer to Norton Carr.

The world, of course, is in a secret conspiracy against youth and growth. Any man who dares to be young, or to grow, or to be original, must expect to have the world set upon him and pound him unmercifully – and if that doesn't finish him off, then the world clings desperately to his coat tails, resolved that if it cannot stop him entirely it will at least go along with him and make travelling as difficult as possible. This latter process is what a friend of mine illuminatively calls the "drag of mediocrity."

But this punching and pounding is mostly good for youth and originality – good if it doesn't kill – for it proves the strength of youth, tests faith and enthusiasm, and measures surely the power of originality. And as for the provoking drag upon their coat tails, youth and originality should reflect that this is the only way by which mediocrity ever gets ahead!

As I look back upon the history of the Star it seems to me it is a record of Nort's wild plunges within our bundle, and our equally wild efforts to keep him disciplined. I say "our" efforts, but I would, of course, except Ed Smith. Ed had a narrow vision of what that bundle called the Star should be. He wanted it no larger than he was, so that he could dominate it comfortably, and when Nort became obstreperous, he simply cut the familiar cord which bound Nort into the bundle: to wit, his wages. Ed had the very common idea that the only really important relationships between human beings are determined by monetary payments, which can be put on or put off at will. But the fact is that we are bound together in a thousand ways not set down in the books on scientific management. For example, if that rascal of a Norton Carr had not been so interesting to us all, had not so worked his way into the hearts of us, I should never have gone hurrying after him (at Anthy's suggestion) on that November day. And it might – who knows – have been better in dollars and cents for the Star, if I had not hurried. No, as an old friend of mine in Hempfield, Howieson, the shoemaker (a wise man), often remarks: "They say business is business. Well, I say business ain't business if it's all business." Business grows not as it eliminates talent or youth, however prickly or irritating to work with, but by making itself big enough to use all kinds of human beings.

I recall yet the strange thrill I had when I left the printing-office that day to search for Nort. It had given me an indescribable pleasure to have Anthy ask me to help (her "we" lingered long in my thoughts – lingers still), and I had, moreover, the feeling that it depended somewhat on me to help bind together the now fiercely antagonistic elements of the Star.

It may appear absurd to some who think that only those things are great which are big and noisy, that anything so apparently unimportant should stir a man as these events stirred me; but the longer I live the more doubtful I am of the distinction between the times and the things upon which the world places the tags "Important" and "Unimportant."

As I set forth I remember how very beautiful the streets of Hempfield looked to me.

"Have you seen Norton Carr?" I asked here, and, "Have you seen Norton Carr?" I asked there – tracing him from lair to lair, and friend to friend, and thus found myself tramping out along the lower road that leads toward the west and the river. He had sent a telegram, I found in the course of my inquiry, which added a dash of mystery to my quest and stirred in me a curious sense of anxiety.

The very feeling of that dull day, etched deep in my memory by the acid of emotion, comes vividly back to me. There had been no snow, and the fields were brown and bare – dead trees, dead hedges of hazel and cherry, crows flying heavily overhead with melancholy cries, and upon the hills beyond the river dull clouds hanging like widows' weeds: a brooding day.

At every turn I looked for Nort and, thus looking, came to the bridge. It was the same spot, the same bridge, where, some years before, the Scotch preacher and I, driving late one evening, looked anxiously for the girl Anna. I can see her yet, wading there in the dark water, her skirts all floating about her, hugging her child to her breast and crying piteously, "I don't dare, oh, I don't dare, but I must, I must!" Of all that I have told elsewhere.

I stopped a moment and looked down into the water where it reflected the dark mood of the day, and then turned along the road that runs between the alders of the river edge and the beeches and oaks of the hill. It was the way Nort and I had taken more than once, talking great talk. I thought I might find him there.

And there, indeed, I did find him – and know how some old chivalric knight must have felt when at last he overtook the quarry which was to be the guerdon of his lady.

"I shall take him back a captive," I said to myself.

Nort was sitting under a beech tree, looking out upon the cold river. A veritable picture of desolation! He was whistling in a low monotone, a way he had. Poor Nort! Life had opened the door of ambition for him, just a crack, and he had caught glimpses of the glory within, only to have the door slammed in his face. If he had walked upon cerulean heights on Sunday he was grovelling in the depths on Monday. It was all as plain to me as I approached him as if it had been written in a book.

"Hello, Nort," said I.

He started from his place and looked around at me.

"Hello, David," said he carelessly. "What brings you here?"

"You do," said I.

"I do!"

"Yes, I'm about to take you back to Hempfield. The Star finds difficulty in twinkling without you."

I told him what Anthy had said, and of what I felt to be a new effort to control the policies of the Star. But Nort slowly shook his head.

"No, David. This is the end. I have finished with Hempfield."

I wish I could convey the air of resigned determination that was in his words; also the cynicism. Pooh! If Hempfield didn't want him, Hempfield could go hang. He was at the age when he thought he could get away from life. He had not learned that the only way to get on with life is not to get out of it, but to get into it.

He told me that he had wired for money to go home; he drew his brows down in a hard scowl and stared out over the river.

"I've stopped fooling with life," said he tragically.

I could have laughed at him, and yet, somehow, I loved him. It was a great moment in his life. I sat down by him under the beech.

"I'm going to be free," said Nort. "I'm going to do things yet in this world."

"Free of what, Nort?" I asked.

"Ed Smith – for one thing."

"Have you thought that wherever you go you will be meeting Ed Smiths?"

He did not reply.

"I'm sorry," I said, "that you've surrendered."

"Surrendered?" He winced as though I had cut him.

"Yes, surrendered. Haven't you sent for money? Haven't you given up? Aren't you trying to run away?"

Nort jumped from his place.

"No!" he shouted. "Ed Smith discharged me. I would rather cut off my right hand than work in the same county with him again."

"So you have balked at the first hurdle – and are going to run away!"

I have thought often since then of that perilous moment, of how much in Nort's future life turned upon it.

Nort's eyes, usually so blue and smiling, grew as black as night.

"What do you mean?" he asked.

"I mean just what I said" – I looked him in the eye – "you are running away before the battle begins."

For a moment I thought I had lost him, and my heart began to sink within me, and then – it was beautiful – he stepped impulsively toward me:

"Well, what do you think I should do, anyway?"

"Nort," I said, "only yesterday you were enthusiastic over the idea of getting the truth about Hempfield, of publishing a really great country newspaper."

"What an ass I was!"

"Wrong!" I said.

"David," he cut in petulantly, "I don't get what you mean."

"I'll tell you, Nort: The greatest joy in this world to a man like you is the joy of new ideas, of wonderful plans – Now, isn't it?"

"Yes. I certainly thought for a few days last week that I had found the pot at the end of the rainbow."

"It was only the rainbow, Nort: if you want the pot you've got to dig for it."

"What do you mean?"

"You think that you can stop with enthusiastic dreams and vast ideas. But no vision and no idea is worth a copper cent unless it is brought down to earth, patiently harnessed, painfully trained, and set to work. There is a beautiful analogy that comes often to my mind. We conceive an idea, as a child is conceived, in a transport of joy; but after that there are long months of growth in the close dark warmth of the soul, to which every part of one's personality must contribute, and then there is the painful hour of travail when at last the idea is given to the world. It is a process that cannot be hurried nor borne without suffering. And the punishment of those who stop with the joy of conception, thinking they can skim the delight of life and avoid its pain, is the same in the intellectual and spiritual spheres as it is in the physical – barrenness, Nort, and finally a terrible sense of failure and of loneliness."

I said it with all my soul, as I believe it. When I stopped, Nort did not at once respond, but stood looking off across the river, winding a twig of alder about his finger. Suddenly he looked around at me, smiling:

"I'm every kind of a fool there is, David."

I confess it, my heart gave a bound of triumph. And it seemed to me at that moment that I loved Nort like a son, the son I have never had. I could not help slipping my arm through his, and thus we walked slowly together down the road.

"But Ed Smith – " he expostulated presently.

"Nort," I said, "you aren't the only person in this world, although you are inclined to think so. There are Ed Smiths everywhere – and old Captains and David Graysons – and you may travel where you like and you'll find just about such people as you find at Hempfield, and they'll treat you just about as you deserve. Ed Smith is the test of you, Nort, and of your enthusiasms. You've got to reconcile your ideas with corned beef and cabbage, Nort, for corned beef and cabbage is."

I have been ashamed sometimes since when I think how vaingloriously I preached to Nort that day (after having got him down), for I have never believed much in preaching. It usually grows so serious that I want to laugh – but I could not have helped it that November afternoon.

I see two men, just at evening of a dull day, walking slowly along the road toward Hempfield, two gray figures, half indistinguishable against the barren hillsides. All about them the dead fields and the hedges, and above them the wintry gray of the sky, and crows lifting and calling. Knowing well what is in the hot hearts of those two men – the visions, the love, the pain, the hope, yes, and the evil – I swear I shall never again think of any life as common or unclean. I shall never look to the exceptional events of life for the truth of life.

The two men I see are friend and friend, very near together, father and son almost; and you would scarcely think it, but if you look closely and with that Eye which is within the eye you will see that they have just been called to the colours and are going forth to the Great War. You will catch the glint on the scabbards of the swords they carry; you will see the look of courage on the face of the young recruit, and the look, too, on the face of the old reservist. In the distance they see the fortress of Hempfield with its redoubts and entanglements. They are setting forth to take Hempfield, at any cost – their Captain commands it.

Near the town of Hempfield, as you approach it from the west, the road skirts a little hill. As we drew nearer I saw some one walking upon the road. A woman. She was stepping forth firmly, her figure cut in strong and simple lines against the sky, her head thrown back, showing the clear contour of her throat and the firm chin. A light scarf, caught in the wind, floated behind. Suddenly I felt Nort seize my arm, and exclaim in low, tense voice:

"Anthy!"

I thought his hand trembled a little, but it may have been my own arm. I remember hearing our steps ring cold on the iron earth, and I had a strange sense of the high things of life.

She had not seen us. She was walking with one hand lifted to her breast, the fingers just touching her dress, in a way she sometimes had. I shall not forget the swift, half-startled glance from her dark and glowing eyes when she saw us, nor the smile which suddenly lighted her face.

I suppose all of us were charged at that moment with a high voltage of emotion. I know that Anthy, walking thus with her hand raised, was deep in the troubled problems of the Star. I know well what was in the heart of Nort, and I know the vain thoughts I was thinking; and yet we three stood there in the gray of the evening looking at one another and exchanging at first only a few commonplace words.

Presently Anthy turned to Nort with the direct way she had, and said to him lightly, smiling a little:

"I hope you will not desert the Star. We must make it go – all of us together."

Nort said not a word, but looked Anthy in the eyes. When we moved onward again, however, his mood seemed utterly changed. He walked quickly and began to talk volubly – Jiminy! If they'd let themselves go! Greatest opportunity in New England! National reputation – I could scarcely believe that this was the same Nort I had found only an hour before moping by the river.

As we came into Hempfield the lights had begun to come out in the houses; a belated farmer in his lumber wagon rattled down the street. Men were going into the post office, for it was the hour of the evening mail; we had a whiff, at the corner, of the good common odour of cooking supper. So we stopped at the gate of the printing-office, and looked at each other, and felt abashed, did not know quite what to say, and were about to part awkwardly without saying anything when Nort seized me suddenly by the arm and rushed me into the office.