A SMALL DINNER AT MRS. OWEN'S
Professor Kelton announced that he had not finished his errands in town,
and begged to be excused from the drive which Mrs. Owen had planned.
"Very well, Andrew. Then I shall take your Sylvia for a longer drive
than I should expect you to survive. We'll go out and see how the wheat
looks."
In this new environment Sylvia was aware that despite his efforts to
appear gay her grandfather was not himself. She was quite sure that he
had not expected to spend the afternoon downtown, and she wondered what
was troubling him. The novelty of the drive, however, quickly won her to
the best of spirits. Mrs. Owen appeared ready for this adventure with
her tall figure wrapped in a linen "duster." Her hat was a practical
affair of straw, unadorned save by a black ribbon. As she drew on her
gloves in the _porte-cochère_ the old coachman held the heads of two
horses that were hitched to a smart road wagon. When her gloves had been
adjusted, Mrs. Owen surveyed the horses critically.
"Lift Pete's forefoot--the off one, Joe," she commanded, stepping down
into the asphalt court. "Um,--that's just what I thought. That new
blacksmith knows his business. That shoe's on straight. That other man
never did know anything. All right, Sylvia."
Mrs. Owen explained as the trim sorrels stepped off smartly toward the
north that they were Estabrook stock and that she had raised them
herself on her Kentucky farm, which she declared Sylvia must visit some
day. It was very pleasant to be driving in this way under a high blue
sky, beside a woman whose ways and interests were so unusual. The
spirited team held Mrs. Owen's attention, but she never allowed the
conversation to flag. Several times as they crossed car lines it seemed
to Sylvia that they missed being struck only by perilously narrow
margins. When they reached the creek they paused on the bridge to allow
the sorrels to rest, and Mrs. Owen indicated with her whip the line of
the new boulevard and recounted the history of the region.
At the State Fair grounds Mrs. Owen drove in, explaining that she wanted
to see what they were doing to the track. Sylvia noticed that the
employees they passed grinned at Mrs. Owen as though she were a familiar
acquaintance, and the superintendent came up and discussed horses and
the track changes with Mrs. Owen in a strange vocabulary. He listened
respectfully to what Mrs. Owen said and was impressed, Sylvia thought,
by her opinions. She referred to other tracks at Lexington and
Louisville as though they were, of course, something that everybody knew
about. The sun was hot, but Mrs. Owen did not seem to mind the heat a
particle. The superintendent looked the sorrels over carefully; they had
taken no end of ribbons at fairs and horse shows. Here was a team, Mrs.
Owen announced, that she was not afraid to show in Madison Square Garden
against any competitors in its class; and the superintendent admitted
that the Estabrooks were a fine stock. He nodded and kept repeating
"You're right," or "you're mighty right," to everything the old lady
said. It seemed to Sylvia that nobody would be likely to question or
gainsay any opinions Mrs. Owen might advance on the subject of horses.
She glanced over her shoulder as they were driving back toward the gate
and saw the superintendent looking after them.
"He's watching the team, ain't he, Sylvia? I thought I'd touch up his
envy a little. That man," continued Mrs. Owen, "really knows a horse
from an elephant. He's been trying to buy this team; but he hasn't bid
up high enough yet. It tickles me to think that some of those rich
fellows down in New York will pay me a good price when I send 'em down
there to the show. They need working; you can't do much with horses in
town; the asphalt plays smash with their feet. There's a good stretch of
pike out here and I'll show you what this team can do."
This promised demonstration was the least bit terrifying to Sylvia. Her
knowledge of horses was the slightest, and in reading of horse races she
had not imagined that there could be such a thrill in speeding along a
stretch of good road behind a pair of registered roadsters, the flower
of the Estabrook stock, driven by so intrepid and skillful a whip as
Mrs. Sally Owen.
"I guess that mile would worry the boys some," observed Mrs. Owen with
satisfaction as she brought the team to a walk.
This was wholly cryptic to Sylvia, but she was glad that Mrs. Owen was
not disappointed. As they loitered in a long shady lane Mrs. Owen made
it possible for Sylvia to talk of herself. Sally Owen was a wise woman,
who was considered a little rough and peculiar by some of her
townspeople, chiefly those later comers who did not understand the
conditions of life that had made such a character possible; but none had
ever questioned her kindness of heart. And in spite of her frank, direct
way of speech she was not deficient in tact. Sally Owen had an active
curiosity, but it was of the healthy sort that wastes no time on
trifling matters. She was curious about Sylvia, for Sylvia was a little
different from the young girls she knew. Quite naturally she was
comparing the slim, dark-eyed girl at her side with Marian Bassett.
Marian was altogether obvious; whereas Mrs. Owen felt the barriers of
reserve in Sylvia. Sylvia embodied questions in the Kelton family
history that she could not answer, though she had known Andrew Kelton
all his life, and remembered dimly his only daughter, who had
unaccountably vanished.
"Where do you go to school, Sylvia?" she asked.
"I don't go to school,--not to a real school,--but grandfather teaches
me; he has always taught me."
"And you are now about--how old?"
"Sixteen in October. I've been talking to grandfather about going to
college."
"They do send girls to college nowadays, don't they! We're beginning to
have some of these college women in our town here. I know some of 'em.
Let's see. What they say against colleges for women is that the girls
who go there learn too much, so that men are afraid to marry 'em. I
wonder how that is? But that's in favor of college, I think; don't you?"
Mrs. Owen answered her own question with a laugh; and having opened the
subject she went on to disclose her opinions further.
"I guess I'm too old to be one of these new women we're hearing so much
about. Even farming's got to be a science, and it keeps me hustling to
learn what the new words mean in the agricultural papers. I belong to a
generation of women who know how to sew rag carpets and make quilts and
stir soft soap in an iron kettle and darn socks; and I can still cure a
ham better than any Chicago factory does it," she added, raking a fly
from the back of the "off" sorrel with a neat turn of the whip. "And I
reckon I make 'em pay full price for my corn. Well, well; so you're
headed for college."
"I hope so," said Sylvia; "then after that I'm going to teach."
"Poor pay and hard work. I know lots of teachers; they're always having
nervous prostration. But you look healthy."
"Oh, I'm strong enough," replied Sylvia. "I think I should like
teaching."
"Marian was at Miss Waring's school last winter and I couldn't see what
she was interested in much but chasing to matinées. Are you crazy about
theatres?"
"Why, I've never been to one," Sylvia confessed.
"You're just as well off. Actors ain't what they used to be. When you
saw Edwin Booth in 'Hamlet' or Jefferson in 'Rip,' you saw acting. I
haven't been in any theatre since I saw Jefferson in the 'Rivals' the
last time he came round. There used to be a stock company at the
Metropolitan about war-time that beat any of these new actor folks. I'd
rather see a good circus any time than one of these singing pieces.
Sassafras tea and a circus every spring; I always take both."
Sylvia found these views on the drama wholly edifying. Circuses and
sassafras tea were within the range of her experience, and finding that
she had struck a point of contact, Mrs. Owen expressed her pity for any
child that did not enjoy a round of sassafras tea every spring.
Sassafras in the spring, and a few doses of quinine in the fall, to
eliminate the summer's possible accumulation of malaria, were all the
medicine that any good Hoosier needed, Mrs. Owen averred.
"I'm for all this new science, you understand that," Mrs. Owen
continued. "A good deal of it does seem to me mighty funny, but when
they tell me to boil drinking-water to kill the bugs in it, and show me
pictures of the bugs they take with the microscope, I don't snort just
because my grandfather didn't know about those things and lived to be
eighty-two and then died from being kicked by a colt. I go into the
kitchen and I say to Eliza, 'Bile the water, Liza; bile it twice.'
That's the kind of a new woman I am. But let's see; we were speaking of
Marian."
"I liked her very much; she's very nice and ever so interesting," said
Sylvia.
"Bless you, she's nice enough and pretty enough; but about this college
business. I always say that if it ain't in a colt the trainer can't put
it there. My niece--that's Mrs. Bassett, Marian's mother--wants Marian
to be an intellectual woman,--the kind that reads papers on the poets
before literary clubs. Mrs. Bassett runs a woman's club in Fraserville
and she's one of the lights in the Federation. They got me up to
Fraserville to speak to their club a few years ago. It's one of these
solemn clubs women have; awful literary and never get nearer home than
Doctor Johnson, who was nothing but a fat loafer anyhow. I told 'em
they'd better let me off; but they would have it and so I went up and
talked on ensilage. It was fall and I thought ensilage was seasonable
and they ought to know about it if they didn't. And they didn't, all
right."
Sylvia had been staring straight ahead across the backs of the team; she
was conscious suddenly that Mrs. Owen was looking at her fixedly, with
mirth kindling in her shrewd old eyes. Sylvia had no idea what ensilage
was, but she knew it must be something amusing or Mrs. Owen would not
have laughed so heartily.
"It was a good joke, wasn't it--talking to a literary club about silos.
I told 'em I'd come back and read my little piece on 'Winter Feeding,'
but they haven't called me yet."
They had driven across to Meridian Street, and Mrs. Owen sent the horses
into town at a comfortable trot. They traversed the new residential area
characterized by larger grounds and a higher average of architecture.
"That's Edward Thatcher's new house--the biggest one. They say it's
easier to pay for a castle like that out here than it is to keep a cook
so far away from Washington Street. I let go of ten acres right here in
the eighties; we used to think the town would stop at the creek," Mrs.
Owen explained, and then announced the dictum: "Keep land; mortgage if
you got to, but never sell; that's my motto."
It was nearly six when they reached home, and dinner was appointed for
seven. Mrs. Owen drove directly into the barn and gave minute
instructions as to the rubbing-down and feeding of the horses. In
addressing the negroes she imitated their own manner of speech. Sylvia
had noticed that Mrs. Owen did not always pronounce words in the same
way, but such variations are marked among our Southwestern people,
particularly where, as in Mrs. Owen's case, they have lived on both
sides of the Ohio River. Sometimes she said "hoss," unmistakably; and
here, and again when she said "bile" for "boil," it was obviously with
humorous intention. Except in long speeches she did not drawl; at times
she spoke rapidly, snapping off sentences abruptly. Her fashion of
referring to herself in the third person struck Sylvia as most amusing.
"Look here, you Joe, it's a nice way to treat yo' Mis' Sally, turning
out that wagon with the dash all scratched. Don' you think I'm blind
and can't tell when you boys dig a broom into a varnished buggy! Next
time I catch yo' doing that I'll send you down to Greene County to plow
co'n and yo'll not go to any more fancy hoss shows with me."
As she followed Mrs. Owen into the house Sylvia thought she heard
suppressed guffawing in the stable. Mrs. Owen must have heard it too.
"A worthless lot," she muttered; "I'm going to clean 'em all out some
day and try the Irish"; but Mrs. Sally Owen had often made this threat
without having the slightest intention of carrying it into effect.
Professor Kelton had just reached the house, and he seemed so hot and
tired that Sylvia was struck with pity for him. He insisted, however,
that he was perfectly well, but admitted that his errands had proved to
be more vexatious than he had expected.
"What kind of a time have you been having?" he asked as they went
upstairs together.
"Oh, the finest in the world! I'm sure I've learned a lot to-day--a
great many things I never dreamed about before."
"Horses?"
"I never knew before that there was anything to know about horses; but
Mrs. Owen knows all about them. And that team we drove behind is
wonderful; they move together perfectly and go like lightning when you
want them to."
"Well, I'm glad you've enjoyed yourself. You'd better put on your white
dress,--you brought one, didn't you? There will be company at dinner."
"Don't you scare that child about company, Andrew," said Mrs. Owen,
coming up behind them with the linen duster flung over her arm. "If you
haven't any white dress, Sylvia, that blue one's perfectly good and
proper."
She followed Sylvia to her room, continuing to reassure her. She even
shook out the gown, exclaiming, "Well, well" (Sylvia didn't know why),
and went out abruptly, instructing Sylvia to ring for the maid if she
needed help.
There were three other guests for dinner, and they were unlike any other
people that Sylvia had known. She was introduced first to Admiral
Martin, a retired officer of the Navy, who, having remained in the
service of his country to the retiring age, had just come home to live
in the capital of his native state. He was short and thick and talked in
a deep, growling voice exactly as admirals should. The suns and winds of
many seas had burned and scored his face, and a stubby mustache gave him
a belligerent aspect. He mopped his brow with a tremendous handkerchief
and when Mrs. Owen introduced Sylvia as Professor Kelton's granddaughter
he glared fiercely.
"Well, I declare, Andy, your granddaughter; well, I declare." He held
Sylvia's hand a moment and peered into her face. "I remember your mother
very well. Andy, I recall distinctly that you and your wife were at Old
Point in about the winter of '69 and your daughter was with you. So this
is your granddaughter? Well, I declare; I wish she was mine."
"I'm glad to see you, Sylvia," said Mrs. Martin, a shy, white-haired
little woman. "I remember that winter at Old Point. I was waiting for my
husband there. You look like your mother. It's really a very striking
resemblance. We were all so fond of Edna."
This was the first time that any one except her grandfather had ever
spoken to Sylvia of her mother, and the words of these strangers
thrilled her strangely and caused the tears to shine suddenly in her
eyes. It was all over in a moment, for Mrs. Martin, seeing Sylvia's
trembling lips, changed the subject quickly.
The last guest was just entering,--a tall trapper-like man who crossed
the room to Mrs. Owen with a long, curious stride. He had shaken hands
with Professor Kelton, and Mrs. Owen introduced him to the Martins, who
by reason of their long absences had never met him before.
"Mr. Ware, this is Sylvia Garrison," said Mrs. Owen.
Sylvia was given then as later to quick appraisements, and she liked the
Reverend John Ware on the instant. He did not look or act or talk in the
least like a minister. He was very dark, and his mustache was only
faintly sprinkled with gray. His hair still showed black at a distance,
though he was sixty-five. He had been, sometime earlier, the pastor of
the First Congregational Church, but after a sojourn in other fields had
retired to live among his old parishioners in the city which had loved
him best. It had been said of him in the days of his pastorate that he
drew the largest congregations and the smallest collections of any
preacher the community had ever known. But Ware was curiously unmindful
of criticism. He had fished and hunted, he had preached charity and
kindness, and when there was an unknown tramp to bury or some
unfortunate girl had yielded to despair, he had officiated at the
funeral, and, if need be, ridden to the cemetery on the hearse.
"I'm Mrs. Owen's neighbor, you know," he explained to Sylvia. "My family
have gone for the summer; I'm hanging on here till my Indian sends me a
postal that the fishing is right on the Nipigon. Nothing like getting
off the train somewhere and being met by an Indian with a paddle on his
shoulder. You can learn a lot from an Indian."
There were candles and flowers on the round table, and the dishes and
silver were Mrs. Owen's "company best," which was very good indeed. The
admiral and Professor Kelton sat at Mrs. Owen's right and left, and
Sylvia found herself between the minister and the admiral. The talk was
at once brisk and general. The admiral's voice boomed out tremendously
and when he laughed the glasses jingled. Every one was in the best of
spirits and Sylvia was relieved to find that her grandfather was
enjoying himself immensely. The admiral's jokes harked back to old
times, when he and Kelton were at the Naval Academy, or to their
adventures in the war. It was odd to hear Mrs. Owen and the admiral
calling her grandfather "Andrew" and "Andy"; no one else had ever done
that; and both men addressed Mrs. Owen as "Sally." At a moment when
Sylvia had begun to feel the least bit awkward at being the only silent
member of the company, the minister spoke to her. He had seemed at first
glance a stoical person; but his deep-set, brown eyes were bright with
good humor.
"These old sea dogs made a lot of history. I suppose you know a good
deal about the sea from your grandfather."
"Yes; but I've never seen the sea."
"I've crossed it once or twice and tramped England and Scotland. I
wanted to see Burns's country and the house at Chelsea where Carlyle
smoked his pipe. But I like our home folks best."
"Mr. Ware," growled the admiral, "a man told me the other day that you'd
served in the Army. I wish I'd had a chaplain like you in the Navy; I
might have been a different man."
Mrs. Owen glanced at Ware with a twinkle in her eyes.
"Afraid I'm going to be discovered," he remarked to Sylvia as he
buttered a bit of bread.
"Well, what part of the Army did you serve in?" demanded the admiral.
"Captain, Fifth New York Cavalry," replied the minister quietly,
shrugging his shoulders.
"Captain! You were a fighting man?" the admiral boomed.
"Sort of one. We had a good deal of fun one way or another. Four years
of it. Didn't begin fighting the Devil till afterward. How are things at
the college, Doctor Kelton?"
Ware thus characteristically turned the conversation from himself. It
was evident that he did not care to discuss his military experiences; in
a moment they were talking politics, in which he seemed greatly
interested.
"We've kept bosses out of this state pretty well," Professor Kelton was
saying, "but I can see one or two gentlemen on both sides of the fence
trying to play that game. I don't believe the people of Indiana will
submit to it. The bosses need big cities to prey on and we aren't big
enough for them to work in and hide in. We all live in the open and
we're mostly seasoned American stock who won't be driven like a lot of
foreign cattle. This city isn't a country town any longer, but it's
still American. I don't know of any boss here."
"Well, Sally, how about Mort Bassett?" asked the admiral. "I hope you
don't mind my speaking of him."
"Not in the slightest," Mrs. Owen replied. "The fact that Morton Bassett
married my niece doesn't make it necessary for me to approve of all he
does--and I don't. When I get a chance I give him the best licks I can.
He's a Democrat, but I'm not; neither am I a Republican. They're all
just as crooked as a dog's hind leg. I gave up when they beat Tilden out
of the presidency. Why, if I'd been Samuel Tilden I'd have moved into
the White House and dared 'em to throw me out. The Democratic Party
never did have any gumption!" she concluded vigorously.
"A sound idea, Sally," grumbled the admiral, "but it's not new."
"Bassett isn't a bad fellow," remarked Ware. "You can hardly call him a
boss in the usual sense of the term."
"Personally, he's certainly very agreeable," said Mrs. Martin. "You
remember, Mrs. Owen, I visited your niece the last time I was home and
I never saw a man more devoted to his family than Mr. Bassett."
"There's no complaint about that," Mrs. Owen assented. "And Morton's a
very intelligent man, too; you might even call him a student. I've been
sorry that he didn't keep to the law; but he's a moneymaker, and he's in
politics as a part of his business."
"I've wondered," said Professor Kelton, "just what he's aiming at. Most
of these men are ambitious to go high. He's a state senator, but there's
not much in that. He must see bigger game in the future. I don't know
him myself; but from what you hear of him he must be a man of force.
Weak men don't dominate political parties."
"This political game looks mighty queer to me," the admiral remarked.
"I've never voted in my life, but I guess I'll try it now they've put me
on the shelf. Do you vote, Mr. Ware?"
"Oh, yes! I'm one of these sentimentalists who tries to vote for the
best man. Naturally no man I ever vote for is elected."
"If I voted I should want to see the man first," Mrs. Owen averred. "I
should ask him how much he expected to make out of the job."
"You'd be a tartar in politics, Sally," said the admiral. "The Governor
told me the other day that when he hears that you're coming to the State
House to talk about the Woman's Reformatory,--or whatever it is you're
trustee of,--he crawls under the table. He says they were going to cut
down the Reformatory's appropriation last winter, but that you went to
the legislature and gave an example of lobbying that made the tough old
railroad campaigners green with envy."
"I reckon I did! I told the members of that committee that if they cut
that appropriation I'd go into their counties and spend every cent I've
got fighting 'em if they ever ran for office again. Joshua, fill the
glasses."
Sylvia was anxious to know the rest of the story.
"I hope they gave you the money, Mrs. Owen," she said.
Did they give it to me? Why, child, they raised it twenty thousand
dollars! I had to hold 'em down. Then Morton Bassett pulled it through
the senate for me. I told him if he didn't I'd cut his acquaintance."
"There's Ed Thatcher, too, if we're restricted to the Democratic camp,"
the minister was saying. "Thatcher has a fortune to use if he ever wants
to try for something big in politics, which doesn't seem likely."
"He has a family that can spend his money," said Mrs. Martin. "What
would he want with an office anyway? The governorship would bore him to
death."
"It might tickle him to go to the senate, particularly if he had a score
to clean up in connection with it," remarked Ware.
"Just what do you mean by that?" asked the admiral.
"Well," Ware replied, "he and Bassett are as thick as thieves just now
in business operations. If some day it came about that they didn't get
on so well,--if Bassett tried to drop him as they say he has sometimes
dropped men when he didn't have any more use for them,--then Thatcher's
sporting blood might assert itself. I should be sorry for Bassett if
that time came."
"Edward Thatcher knows a horse," interposed Mrs. Owen. "I like Edward
Thatcher."
"I've fished with Bassett," said the minister. "A good fisherman ought
to make a good politician; there's a lot, I guess, in knowing just how
to bait the hook, or where to drop the fly, and how to play your fish.
And Bassett is a man of surprising tastes. He's a book collector,--rare
editions and fine bindings and that sort of thing."
"Is it possible! The newspapers that abuse him never mention those
things, of course," said Mrs. Martin.
A brief restraint fell upon the company, as they realized suddenly that
they were discussing the husband of their hostess's niece, whom the
opposition press declared to be the most vicious character that had ever
appeared in the public life of the state. The minister had spoken well
of him; the others did not know him, or spoke cautiously; and Mrs. Owen
herself seemed, during Ware's last speech, to be a trifle restless. She
addressed some irrelevant remark to the admiral as they rose and
adjourned to the long side veranda where the men lighted cigars.
"I think I like this corner best," remarked Ware when the others had
disposed themselves. "Miss Sylvia, won't you sit by me?" She watched his
face as the match flamed to his cigar. It was deep-lined and rugged,
with high cheek bones, that showed plainly when he shut his jaws. It
occurred to Sylvia that but for his mustache his face would have been
almost typically Indian. She had seen somewhere a photograph of a Sioux
chief whose austere countenance was very like the minister's. Ware did
not fit into any of her preconceived ideas of the clerical office. Dr.
Wandless, the retired president of Madison College, was a minister, and
any one would have known it, for the fact was proclaimed by his dress
and manner; he might, in the most casual meeting on the campus, have
raised his hands in benediction without doing anything at all
extraordinary. Ware belonged to a strikingly different order, and Sylvia
did not understand him. He had been a soldier; and Sylvia could not
imagine Dr. Wandless in a cavalry charge. Ware flung the match-stick
away and settled himself comfortably into his chair. The others were
talking amongst themselves of old times, and Sylvia experienced a sense
of ease and security in the minister's company.
"Those people across there are talking of the Hoosiers that used to be,
and about the good folks who came into the wilderness and made Indiana a
commonwealth. I'm a pilgrim and a stranger comparatively speaking. I'm
not a Hoosier; are you?"
"No, Mr. Ware; I was born in New York City."
"Ho! I might have known there was some sort of tie between us. I was
born in New York myself--'way up in the Adirondack country. You've heard
of Old John Brown? My father's farm was only an hour's march from
Brown's place. I used to see the old man, and it wasn't my fault I
wasn't mixed up in some of his scrapes. Father caught me and took me
home--didn't see any reason why I should go off and get killed with a
crazy man. Didn't know Brown was going to be immortal."
"There must have been a good many people that didn't know it," Sylvia
responded.
She hoped that Ware would talk of himself and of the war; but in a
moment his thoughts took a new direction.
"Stars are fine to-night. It's a comfort to know they're up there all
the time. Know Matthew Arnold's poems? He says 'With joy the stars
perform their shining.' I like that. When I'm off camping the best fun
of it is lying by running water at night and looking at the stars. Odd,
though, I never knew the names of many of them; wouldn't know any if it
weren't for the dippers,--not sure of them as it is. There's the North
Star over there. Suppose your grandfather knows 'em all."
"I think he does," replied Sylvia. "He still lectures about them
sometimes."
"Wonder what that is, just across the farthest tip of that maple? It's
familiar, but I can't name it."
"That," said Sylvia, "is Cassiopeia."
"So? How many constellations do you know?"
Sylvia was silent a moment. She was not sure that it was polite to
disclose her knowledge of the subject to a man who had just confessed
his ignorance. She decided that anything beyond the most modest
admission would be unbecoming.
"I know several, or I think I do. This is June. That's the North Star
over the point of that tree, as you said, and above it is Ursa Minor,
and winding in and out between it and the Big Dipper is Draco. Then to
the east, higher up, are Cygnus, Lyra, and Aquila. And in the west--"
She paused, feeling that she had satisfied the amenities of conversation
with this gentleman who had so frankly stated his lack of knowledge.
Ware struck his knee with his hand and chuckled.
"I should say you do know a few! You've mentioned some I've always
wanted to get acquainted with. Now go back to Cygnus, the Swan. I like
the name of that one; I must be sure to remember it."
Politeness certainly demanded that Sylvia should answer; and now that
the minister plied her with questions, her own interest was aroused, and
she led him back and forth across the starry lanes, describing in the
most artless fashion her own method of remembering the names and
positions of the constellations. As their range of vision on the veranda
was circumscribed, Ware suggested that they step down upon the lawn to
get a wider sweep, a move which attracted the attention of the others.
"Sylvia, be careful of the wet. Josephus just moved the sprinkler and
that ground is soaked."
"Don't call attention to our feet; our heads are in the stars," answered
Ware. "I must tell the Indian boys on the Nipigon about this," he said
to Sylvia as they returned to the veranda. "I didn't know anybody knew
as much as you do. You make me ashamed of myself."
"You needn't be," laughed Sylvia. "Very likely most that I've told you
is wrong. I'm glad grandfather didn't hear me."
The admiral and Professor Kelton were launched upon a fresh exchange of
reminiscences and the return of Ware and Sylvia did not disturb them. It
seemed, however, that Ware was a famous story-teller, and when he had
lighted a fresh cigar he recounted a number of adventures, speaking in
his habitual, dry, matter-of-fact tone, and with curious unexpected
turns of phrase. Conversation in Indiana seems to drift into
story-telling inevitably. John Ware once read a paper before the
Indianapolis Literary Club to prove that this Hoosier trait was derived
from the South. He drew a species of ellipsoid of which the Ohio River
was the axis, sketching his line to include the Missouri of Mark Twain,
the Illinois of Lincoln, the Indiana of Eggleston and Riley, and the
Kentucky that so generously endowed these younger commonwealths. North
of the Ohio the anecdotal genius diminished, he declared, as one moved
toward the Great Lakes into a region where there had been an infusion of
population from New England and the Middle States. He suggested that the
early pioneers, having few books and no newspapers, had cultivated the
art of story-telling for their own entertainment and that the soldiers
returning from the Civil War had developed it further. Having made this
note of his thesis I hasten to run away from it. Let others, prone to
interminable debate, tear it to pieces if they must. This kind of social
intercourse, with its intimate talk, the references to famous public
characters, as though they were only human beings after all, the
anecdotal interchange, was wholly novel to Sylvia. She thought Ware's
stories much droller than the admiral's, and quite as good as her
grandfather's, which was a great concession.
The minister was beginning a new story. He knocked the ashes from his
cigar and threw out his arms with one of his odd, jerky gestures.
"There's a good deal of fun in living in the woods. Up in the
Adirondacks there was a lot for the boys to do when I was a youngster. I
liked winter better than summer; school was in winter, but when you had
the fun of fighting big drifts to get to it you didn't mind getting
licked after you got there. The silence of night in the woods, when the
snow is deep, the wind still, and the moon at full, is the solemnest
thing in the world. Not really of this world, I guess. Sometimes you can
hear a bough break under the weight of snow, with a report like a
cannon. The only thing finer than winter is spring. I don't mean lilac
time; but before that, the very earliest hint of the break-up. Used to
seem that there was something wild in me that wanted to be on the march
before there was a bud in sight. I'm a Northern animal some way; born in
December; always feel better in winter. I used to watch for the
northward flight of the game fowl--wanted to go with the birds. Too bad
they're killing them all off. Wild geese are getting mighty scarce;
geese always interested me. I once shot a gander in a Kankakee marsh
that had an Eskimo arrow in its breast. A friend of mine, distinguished
ethnologist, verified that; said he knew the tribe that made arrows of
that pattern. But I was going to say that one night,--must have been
when I was fourteen,--I had some fun with a bear . . ."
Sylvia did not hear the rest of the story. She had been sitting in the
shadow of the porch, with her lips apart, listening, wondering, during
this prelude. Ware's references to the North woods had touched lightly
some dim memory of her own; somewhere she had seen moon-flooded, snowy
woodlands where silence lay upon the world as soft as moonlight itself.
The picture drawn by the minister had been vivid enough; for a moment
her own memory of a similar winter landscape seemed equally clear; but
she realized with impatience that it faded quickly and became dim and
illusory, like a scene in an ill-lighted steropticon. To-night she felt
that a barrier lay between her and those years of her life that
antedated her coming to her grandfather's house by the college. It
troubled her, as such mirages of memory trouble all of us; but Ware
finished his story, and amid the laughter that followed Mrs. Martin
rose.
"Late hours, Sylvia," said Professor Kelton when they were alone. "It's
nearly eleven o'clock and time to turn in."