CALEB “OVERLOOKS A BET”
The ensuing fortnight was at once the longest and the shortest
fourteen days Conover had ever known. So far as his companionship with
Desirée was concerned, the hours had sped with bewildering haste. But,
otherwise, time had limped on leaden feet. The message of the hills was
not for him.
Green mountains, blue sky and bluer water. And the smell of balsam
that had grown to be dully irritating to him. His senses instinctively
strained for the roar of traffic, the stark hurry of men, the smell of
cities. Throughout the day the universal stillness of the wilds was
broken only by the occasional “tck-tck-tck” of launches. By night,
even this was absent; and as Desirée said, “God seemed very near.” But
the hush, the eternal calm of it all wore upon the Fighter’s nerves.
As well have expected the south wind to draw whispering melodies from
a barrel-organ as for the spell of the forest to lay its blesséd and
blessing hand on the brain of this Man of Cities.
At times he caught himself counting the days that remained, and there
was an impatient eagerness in the count. Then, ever, would come the
thought that each passing day brought him twenty-four hours nearer to
his parting from Desirée. And eagerness would give way to a sharp, if
undefined pain.
Another thing wore on him. To prevent Desirée from guessing at his
boredom he was forced to be always on guard. She had at first been
half-afraid he might not be sufficiently alive to the beauty of it all;
and had exhibited to him her adored woodland treasures with the wistful
pride of a child that shows an interested stranger its most cherished
toys.
To drive the latent wistfulness from her eyes, Conover had soon entered
effusively into the spirit of everything. And Desirée, usually so
mercilessly keen to note his every clumsy effort at deception, was
too happy nowadays to observe his enthusiasm’s mechanical tenor.
Hence, believing she had made a convert, she redoubled her efforts in
educating him up to the loveliness of the place. And, with the heroism
of a Regulus, he suffered himself to be educated.
At times of course he struck the wrong note. Once, for instance, at
sunset they paddled through the keel-wide sandbar channel from Raquette
into Eldon Lake and found themselves in an unrippled basin of black
water set in a circle of forest and “clearing.” The silence hung heavy
as velvet. It was the hush of a newborn, unknown world. The mystic
wonder of it all, beneath the setting sun, caught Desirée by the throat
and held her trembling,--speechless. Caleb, splashing time with his
oar, began to sing.
“Oh, _don’t_!” she breathed; as though protesting against sacrilege.
“Gee! Was I off the blamed key, again?” he asked.
“No, no,” she answered, the wonder-light dying from her face as the
spell dissolved. “It’s all right,” she went on, seeing his chagrin.
“It’s all right. I’m sorry I was cross. You were so busy with the boat
you didn’t get a chance to notice what a magic lake this is we’ve
come into; or you couldn’t have broken the charm. Look! Can’t you see
Siegfried running through the hemlocks, on his way to Mime’s cave? And
that band of dead gray tamaracks down there with the single flaming
maple in the foreground! Isn’t it like an army of tree-ghosts with the
red standard in its van?”
So she prattled on, seeking to keep him from seeing how he had jarred
upon her mood. But he knew, none the less. And he realized that there
were times, even on vacation, when one must be silent. But what those
times might be he could not guess. Nor did he dare ask.
When next day they climbed the Crags and looked down on the gleaming
lake with the scattered green of its islands, she looked at him in
eager expectation of his delight. He surveyed the lake in stony
silence. Then let his gaze run expressionless over the lines of
mountain ramparts far to southward that rose in ever higher swells
until the farthest was half lost in haze. No word did he speak. He felt
he was rising to the occasion. If one must not speak on Eldon Lake at
sunset it followed that one should be equally reticent on the Crags by
the brighter light of morning.
“Say something!” she commanded, keenly disappointed at his apathy.
“Noo York must be somewheres in a line with that biggest mountain over
there to the south,” he hazarded; glad to learn that the present was,
for some reason, not one of those mysterious speechless occasions.
In the evenings, as a rule, they went to the “open camp.” There in
the big three-sided log shed with its evergreen-lined walls and its
deep, blanket-covered floor of soft balsam boughs, a dozen or more
people were wont to congregate by night. In front of the shed blazed a
Homeric camp fire that tempered the mountain chilliness and made the
whole place light as day. The young people,--Desirée and Jack among
them,--usually spent the short evenings in singing and story-telling.
Caleb felt less at his ease here than anywhere else. For the young folk
talked a language of Youth, that he did not understand. The stories
he found somewhat mild, and the point of several of them he failed to
catch. A sense of strangeness prevented him from joining in the songs.
He had had no youth; save that which Desirée had imparted to him. And
he knew himself out of place among the carefree, jolly crowd. It made
him feel ponderous, aged, taciturn. The easy laughter of youth only
perplexed him. His sole joy during these open camp evenings was to lie
in a shadowed corner of the “lean-to” and watch the firelight play on
Desirée’s bright face; to hear her infectious laugh; to see how popular
she was among the youngsters of her own age. So long as she did not
seek to ease his boredom by dragging him into the talk, he was well
content to lie thus and drink the delight of her fresh loveliness. When
she made him talk, he straightway became pompously shy; and managed to
convey his sense of acute discomfort to everyone about him.
Altogether, the Adirondacks, for perhaps the first time since that
wonderland’s discovery, had found a visitor who did not speedily become
a worshipper.
* * * * *
“Receive news!” announced Desirée, one evening as she met Caleb on her
return from a conference with Mrs. Hawarden. “To-morrow’s my birthday.”
“Did you s’pose I’d forgot?” he asked in reproach,--“There’s two dates
I always manage to remember. One’s your birthday. The other’s the day
you’re comin’ back to Granite.”
“But _that_ isn’t the news,” she went on. “It’s only a running start
to get you ready for it. Mrs. Hawarden’s going to celebrate by the
gorgeousest picnic you ever heard of.”
“Last one we went on,” began Caleb, “I burnt two of my fingers; an’
there was sand in the lem’nade. But,” he broke off just in time, “it’ll
be great to go on another. Where’s it to be?”
“To Brown’s Tract pond. ’Way up at the head of Brown’s Tract Inlet. You
remember? The inlet that twists around like a snake that’s swallowed
a corkscrew? We’re going to spend the night. Just think of that! All
four of us. The guide is going up early in the morning to pitch the
two tents and get everything ready. And we’re to stramble along at
our leisure and get there about noon. Think! We’re actually to camp
overnight. I wish there were bears or catamounts or something, to come
not _too_ near and growl dreadfully. I’m going to take Rex along if
Mr. Bennett will let me. And--_isn’t_ it a nice way to wind up your
vacation? You’ll have plenty of time. We’ll be back here by noon next
day, and your train doesn’t go till night.”
“Let’s not talk about my going away,” he replied. “I thought I’d be
tickled to death to get back to the fight. But for the past two days
I’ve been tryin’ to frame up an excuse to myself that’d let me stay
longer.”
“Oh, why don’t you? Why _don’t_ you?” she cried, all eagerness. “I
stump you to! _Please_ stay!”
“Don’t, little girl!” he urged. “If I could stay with you an extra
hour, d’you s’pose I’d need to be begged to? It’ a case of _must_. I
got to be on deck day after to-morrow. That special session of the
Legislature I was tellin’ you about meets week after next. An’ I’ve got
to work like a dog till then to lick my crowd into line an’ frame up a
stiff enough defence against your friend, Blacarda. I’ll be as busy as
a one-armed paper-hanger that’s got hives.”
“But why?” she persisted. “You’ve been working away with both hands all
your life. You’re rich. What’s the use of all that money if you can’t
have some fun?”
“I get my fun in the winnin’. Not in the holdin’.”
“But you don’t even know how to rest. And now, just as I’m teaching
you, you run away. You could wait perfectly well, three weeks longer,
and then go back to Granite with us. Just think what a sumptuous time
we’d have here! I’m _very_ wise,” she coaxed. “Won’t you take my advice
and stay?”
“I’d take it in a minute if I could, girl,” he answered.
“Oh, dear! That means you won’t. Advice is something everybody asks,
everybody gives--and nobody takes. I _wish_ you’d stay. This has been
the beautifullest, happiest two weeks I ever spent.”
“Has it, honest, Dey?” he asked, his heavy face of a sudden alight.
“Honest? It’s been ’bout the only long stretch of happy time I c’n
remember.”
“Then why don’t you stay?” she demanded. “Can’t you see?”--
He hesitated.
“I’ve a good mind to,” he said at last.
She clapped her hands, then squeezed his arm as they swung down the
hill together.
“Yes,” he went on. “I b’lieve I’ll do it. It’d be fun to see what’d
happen if I was to cut loose from work for once. An’ you an’ me could
be together--”
“Would you lose so very much?” she asked doubtfully, in belated
concern.
“No more’n I could afford. Nowhere near so much as it’s worth to have
that extry time with you. My own Steeloid holdin’s are pretty well
covered. It won’t be _me_ that goes broke. I own my stock outright; an’
before the winter’s over I’ll get the bill declared unconstitootional.
That’ll bring the price up again. I c’n afford to let up on Blacarda
for once. I’m dead sure to get him later on the same game, as well as
on somethin’ else.”
“You say it won’t be _you_ who go broke,” she interposed. “Will anyone?
I mean if you don’t go back day after to-morrow.”
“Well,” grinned Caleb, “If Blacarda’s bill passes, our Steeloid
stock’ll will take a big tumble, of course. For those that owns it
outright that’ll be no great loss; ’cause it’ll rocket again as soon
as I sick one of my judges onto the bill’s constitootionality. But the
fellers I’ve tipped off to buy on margin--d’you understand all this
line of talk?--those fellers are plungin’ pretty deep, I hear, an’--”
“Will they lose much?”
“Some of ’em are li’ble to be ’bout wiped out, I guess. The el’gant
Amzi Nicholas Caine, f’r instance, an’ old Reuben Standish. He’ll go to
pot, _sure_. An’ Mr.--”
“You mean they went into this on your advice, and if you aren’t there
to stand by them they will be ruined?”
“Just ’bout that, I guess. Don’t blame _me_. They wasn’t ’bliged to
take my tips an’ I’m not responsible for ’em. Anyhow, they’ve made
enough off me this year to--”
“You must go back,” she declared. “I was very wrong. It just shows what
harm a fluff-brained girl can do by poking her fingers into business
she doesn’t understand. Why, Caleb” she added, with a startled awe: “If
you’d done as I asked, who knows how many families might have been made
horribly poor? And it would all have been my fault. You must go back.”
“But, Dey!” he protested, “You’re all off. It’s no affair of mine what
that gold-shirt crowd put their cash on. I don’t owe anything to ’em.
An’ if I can give you a good time by stayin’, the whole bunch of ’em
can hire a brass band an’ march to the poorhouse, for all I care. If
you say ‘stay’, I’ll stay.”
“I say you mustn’t,” she insisted, “And it was dear of you to be
willing to, for my sake. Anyway, I’ll see you again in three weeks.
That won’t be so very long.”
“No longer’n three years is gen’rally” grumbled Caleb; and the subject
dropped.
They were on their way to the pretty waterside building that served
the quadruple purpose of casino, store, post-office and boathouse, for
the Antlers. The arrival of the evening mail was one of the day’s two
great events; the other being the morning mail’s advent. The night had
a sting to its air; and the mail-time gathering was held in the lamplit
store instead of on the porch or dock. A tall clerk was busy sorting
letters and packages to eager groups of sweater-clad girls and to men
in cold-weather outing garb. Conover and Desirée, awaiting their turn,
leaned against the glass cases opposite the post-office counter and
watched the laughing, excited guests.
“What I can’t see” commented Caleb, “is why ev’rybody’s always in such
a sweat about their mail. What is there in it for anyone? To ev’ry
env’lope that’s got a check in it there’s three that has bills; an’ a
dozen with adv’tisements. To ev’ry letter that’s worth readin’ there’s
ten that’s stoopid or grouchy or makin’ a hard-luck touch. An’ as for
soov’nir postals--the only folks _they_ int’rest is those that sends
’em. People come up here to get away from the world they’ve been livin’
in. Yet they scramble for noospapers an’ letters from that same world,
like they was stranded on a desert island.--Here’s our chance.”
The crowd had thinned. Caleb and Desirée went forward to the mail
counter. For Conover there were a sheaf of letters in business
envelopes. He thrust them without a glance into the pocket of his tweed
coat. Desirée’s sole mail consisted of a long pasteboard box thickly
strewn with vari-colored stamps and bearing the gold-lettered legend of
a New York florist.
In a second her quick fingers had torn away the wrappings. As the box
was lifted, a whiff of warm fragrance rushed out; filling the room.
“Oh!” gasped Desirée, burying her face rapturously in a crimson nest
of American Beauty roses.
Then, her cheeks aglow and her eyes shining, she lifted her head and
faced Conover.
“_Thank_ you! Thank you _so much_!” she exclaimed. “It was perfectly
darling of you to remember my birthday so beautifully. And I love
American Beauties so. I might have known you would think of that. It’s
just like you. Smell them! What a dear, thoughtful blesséd old--”
She checked herself at sight of Conover’s blank expression. If her own
face had borrowed the flush of her armful of roses, Caleb had exacted
similar tribute from a whole wagonload of imaginary peonies.
“I’m--I’m sorry, Dey,” he blurted out at last, “But they ain’t from me.
I--, well, they must be from somebody who’s got more sense. I didn’t
think to get you anything at all. I didn’t ever know folks gave reg’lar
presents on birthdays.”
He stopped abruptly. For the fading of the happy light from Desirée’s
eyes had its usual effect of leaving him wordless and miserable.
The girl, embarrassed, fell to turning the flowers over in their long
box. She looked a little tired and her arrangement of the blossoms was
perfunctory. A card was dislodged from among stems and fell to the
floor. Caleb, picking it up, read Jack Hawarden’s name.
“The measly brat!” raged Conover, to himself. “He ain’t got a dollar
to his back; an’ yet he can bring off a grandstand play like this, an’
make her look like she was a kid seein’ her first Christmas Tree! An
now _I’ve_ made her look like she wanted to cry! Lord! If I don’t give
her a whole joolry store for Christmas, I’m a Chinaman!”
“Never mind, dear old boy!” she whispered, pressing close to his arm as
they turned to mount the hill on the way to the Hawarden Cottage, “I’ll
make _believe_ they’re from you and that will be every bit as nice as
if they really were. And you’ve done more lovely things for me than
everybody else put together. And I won’t have you looking pathetic.
_Stop_ it! Now, smile! Oh, what a squidgy, weak sort of a smile! It’s
all right, I tell you. I know you’d have given me _much_ lovelier roses
than these if you’d thought.”
“That’s just it!” he growled bitterly, “I _don’t_ think. I never think.
I guess you know I’d let ’em cut me up into city blocks if it’d make a
hit with you, Dey. But what good does that do? When it comes to bein’
on hand with the million dinky little stunts that women likes, I’m
always a mile away, somewhere, hoein’ corn. I wouldn’t blame you if
you--”
“Stop!” she cried, a break in her clear voice, “You shan’t talk that
way. Do you suppose all the presents in the world would have made me
half as happy as having you here, this two weeks? Would any present
have cost you one tenth the sacrifice of giving up your work for my
sake? And just now you offered to throw away thousands of dollars and
wreck half a dozen of people’s fortunes in order to please me by
staying longer at the Antlers. What more could _anyone_ do for me than
you do?”
“I don’t know,” he answered simply, “But some day I may find out. An’
when I do,--why, I’ll do it. You can gamble on that, you little girl.”