half-way on his smallest finger, the ring she had taken warm and
flashing from her white hand and laid within his palm!
The sun low down in the west stole into the heart of the jewel and sent
its glory in a million multicoloured facets, piercing his soul with the
pain and the joy of his love. He cast himself down upon the grass where
she had sat, where, with his eyes closed and his lips upon the jewel she
had worn, he met his enemy and fought his battle out.
Wearied at last with the contest, he slept. The sun went down, the moon
made itself manifest once more, and when the night went coursing down
its way of silver, two jewels softly gleamed in its radiance, the one
upon his finger where he had pressed her ring, the other from the grass
beside him. With a curious wonder he put forth his hand to the second
and found it was the topaz set in the handle of her whip which she had
dropped and forgotten when they sat together and talked by the way. He
seized it eagerly now, and gathered it to him. It seemed almost a
message of comfort from her he loved. It was something tangible, this,
and the ring, to show him he had not dreamed her coming; she had been
real, and she had wanted him to tell her of his love, had said it would
make a difference all the rest of her life.
He remembered that somewhere he had read or heard a great man say that
to be worthy of a great love one must be able to do without it. Here
now, then, he would prove his love by doing without. He stood with
uplifted face, transfigured in the light of the brilliant night, with
the look of exalted self-surrender, but only his heart communed that
night, for there were no words on his dumb lips to express the fullness
of his abnegation.
Then forth upon his way he went, his battle fought, the stronger for it,
to be a staff for other men to lean upon.
X
HIS MOTHER
Deserts and mountains remain, duties crowd and press, hearts ache but
the world rushes on. The weeks that followed showed these two that a
great love is eternal.
Brownleigh did not try to put the thought of it out of his life, but
rather let it glorify the common round. Day after day passed and he went
from post to post, from hogan to mesa, and back to his shanty again,
always with the thought of her companionship, and found it sweet. Never
had he been less cheery when he met his friends, though there was a
quiet dignity, a tender reserve behind it all that a few discerning ones
perceived. They said at the Fort that he was losing flesh, but if so, he
was gaining muscle. His lean brown arms were never stronger, and his
fine strong face was never sad when any one was by. It was only in the
night-time alone upon the moonlit desert, or in his little quiet
dwelling place when he talked with his Father, and told all the
loneliness and heartache. His people found him more sympathetic, more
painstaking, more tireless than ever before, and the work prospered
under his hand.
The girl in the city deliberately set herself to forget.
The first few days after she left him had been a season of ecstatic joy
mingled with deep depression, as she alternately meditated upon the fact
of a great love, or faced its impossibility.
She had scorched Milton Hamar with her glance of aversion, and avoided
him constantly even in the face of protest from her family, until he had
made excuse and left the party at Pasadena. There, too, Aunt Maria had
relieved them of her annoying interference, and the return trip taken by
the southern route had been an unmolested time for meditation for the
girl. She became daily more and more dissatisfied with herself and her
useless, ornamental life. Some days she read the little book, and other
days she shut it away and tried to get back to her former life, telling
herself it was useless to attempt to change herself. She had found that
the little book gave her a deep unrest and a sense that life held
graver, sweeter things than just living to please one's self. She began
to long for home, and the summer round of gaieties, with which to fill
the emptiness of her heart.
As the summer advanced there was almost a recklessness sometimes about
the way she planned to have a good time every minute; yet in the quiet
of her own room there would always come back the yearning that had been
awakened in the desert and would not be silenced.
Sometimes when the memory of that great deep love she had heard
expressed for herself came over her, the bitter tears would come to her
eyes and one thought would throb through her consciousness: "Not worthy!
Not worthy!" He had not thought her fit to be his wife. Her father and
her world would think it quite otherwise. They would count him unworthy
to mate with her, an heiress, the pet of society; he a man who had given
up his life for a whim, a fad, a fanatical fancy! But she knew it was
not so. She knew him to be a man of all men. She knew it was true that
she was not such a woman as a man like that could fitly wed, and the
thought galled her constantly.
She tried to accustom herself to think of him as a pleasant experience,
a friend who might have been if circumstances with them both had been
different; she tried to tell herself that it was a passing fancy with
them which both would forget; and she tried with all her heart to
forget, even locking away the precious little book and trying to forget
it too.
And then, one day in late summer, she went with a motoring party through
New England; as frolicsome and giddy a party as could be found among New
York society transferred for the summer to the world of Nature. There
was to be a dance or a house party or something of the sort at the end
of the drive. Hazel scarcely knew, and cared less. She was becoming
utterly weary of her butterfly life.
The day was hot and dusty, Indian summer intensified. They had got out
of their way through a mistake of the chauffeur, and suddenly just on
the edge of a tiny quaint little village the car broke down and refused
to go on without a lengthy siege of coaxing and petting.
The members of the party, powdered with dust and in no very pleasant
frame of mind from the delay, took refuge at the village inn, an
old-time hostelry close to the roadside, with wide, brick-paved,
white-pillared piazza across the front, and a mysterious hedged garden
at the side. There were many plain wooden rockers neatly adorned with
white crash on the piazza, and one or two late summer boarders loitering
about with knitting work or book. The landlord brought cool tinkling
glasses of water and rich milk from the spring-house, and they dropped
into the chairs to wait while the men of the party gave assistance to
the chauffeur in patching up the car.
Hazel sank wearily into her chair and sipped the milk unhungrily. She
wished she had not come; wished the day were over, and that she might
have planned something more interesting; wished she had chosen different
people to be of her party; and idly watched a white hen with yellow kid
boots and a coral comb in her nicely groomed hair picking daintily about
the green under the oak trees that shaded the street. She listened to
the drone of the bees in the garden near by, the distant whetting of a
scythe, the monotonous whang of a steam thresher not far away, the happy
voices of children, and thought how empty a life in this village would
be; almost as dreary and uninteresting as living in a desert--and then
suddenly she caught a name and the pink flew into her cheeks and memory
set her heart athrob.
It was the landlord talking to a lingering summer boarder, a quiet,
gray-haired woman who sat reading at the end of the piazza.
"Well, Miss Norton, so you're goin' to leave us next week. Sorry to hear
it. Don't seem nat'ral 'thout you clear through October. Ca'c'late
you're comin' back to Granville in the spring?"
Granville! Granville! Where had she heard of Granville? Ah! She knew
instantly. It was his old home! His mother lived there! But then of
course it might have been another Granville. She wasn't even sure what
state they were in now, New Hampshire or Vermont. They had been wavering
about on the state line several times that day, and she never paid
attention to geography.
Then the landlord raised his voice again.
He was gazing across the road where a white colonial house, white-fenced
with pickets like clean sugar frosting, nestled in the luscious grass,
green and clean and fresh, and seeming utterly apart from the soil and
dust of the road, as if nothing wearisome could ever enter there.
Brightly there bloomed a border of late flowers, double asters, zinnias,
peonies, with a flame of scarlet poppies breaking into the smoke-like
blue of larkspurs and bachelor buttons, as it neared the house. Hazel
had not noticed it until now and she almost cried out with pleasure over
the splendour of colour.
"Wal," said the landlord chinking some loose coins in his capacious
pockets, "I reckon Mis' Brownleigh'll miss yeh 'bout as much as enny of
us. She lots on your comin' over to read to her. I've heerd her say as
how Amelia Ellen is a good nurse, but she never was much on the readin',
an' Amelia Ellen knows it too. Mis' Brownleigh she'll be powerful
lonesome fer yeh when yeh go. It's not so lively fur her tied to her bed
er her chair, even ef John does write to her reg'lur twicet a week."
And now Hazel noticed that on the covered veranda in front of the wing
of the house across the way there sat an old lady on a reclining wheeled
chair, and that another woman in a plain blue gown hovered near waiting
upon her. A luxuriant woodbine partly hid the chair, and the distance
was too great to see the face of the woman, but Hazel grew weak with
wonder and pleasure. She sat quite still trying to gather her forces
while the summer boarder expressed earnest regret at having to leave her
chosen summer abiding place so much earlier than usual. At last her
friends began to rally Hazel on her silence. She turned away annoyed,
and answered them crossly, following the landlord into the house and
questioning him eagerly. She had suddenly arrived at the conclusion that
she must see Mrs. Brownleigh and know if she looked like her son, and if
she was the kind of mother one would expect such a son to have. She felt
that in the sight might lie her emancipation from the bewitchment that
had bound her in its toils since her Western trip. She also secretly
hoped it might justify her dearest dreams of what his mother was like.
"Do you suppose that lady across the street would mind if I went over to
look at her beautiful flowers?" she burst in upon the astonished
landlord as he tipped his chair back with his feet on another and
prepared to browse over yesterday's paper for the third time that day.
He brought his chair down on its four legs with a thump and drew his hat
further over his forehead.
"Not a bit, not a bit, young lady. She's proud to show off her flowers.
They're one of the sights of Granville. Mis' Brownleigh loves to have
comp'ny. Jest go right over an' tell her I sent you. She'll tell you
all about 'em, an' like ez not she'll give you a bokay to take 'long.
She's real generous with 'em."
He tottered out to the door after her on his stiff rheumatic legs, and
suggested that the other young ladies might like to go along, but they
one and all declined, to Hazel's intense relief, and called their
ridicule after her as she picked her way across the dusty road and
opened the white gate into the peaceful scene beyond.
When she drew close to the side piazza she saw one of the most beautiful
faces she had ever looked upon. The features were delicate and
exquisitely modelled, aged by years and much suffering, yet lovely with
a peace that had permitted no fretting. An abundance of waving silken
hair white as driven snow was piled high upon her head against the snowy
pillow, and soft brown eyes made the girl's heart throb quickly with
their likeness to those other eyes that had once looked into hers.
She was dressed in a simple little muslin gown of white and gray with
white cloud-like finish at throat and wrists, and across the helpless
limbs was flung a light afghan of pink and gray wool. She made a sweet
picture as she lay and watched her approaching guest with a smile of
interest and welcome.
"The landlord said you would not mind if I came over to see your
flowers," Hazel said with a shy, half-frightened catch in her voice. Now
that she was here she was almost sorry she had come. It might not be his
mother at all, and what could she say anyway? Yet her first glimpse told
her that this was a mother to be proud of. "The most beautiful mother in
the world" he had called her, and surely this woman could be none other
than the one who had mothered such a son. Her highest ideals of
motherhood seemed realized as she gazed upon the peaceful face of the
invalid.
And then the voice! For the woman was speaking now, holding out a
lily-white hand to her and bidding her be seated in the Chinese willow
chair that stood close by the wheeled one; a great green silk cushion at
the back, and a large palm leaf fan on the table beside it.
"I am so pleased that you came over," Mrs. Brownleigh was saying. "I
have been wondering if some one wouldn't come to me. I keep my flowers
partly to attract my friends, for I can stand a great deal of company
since I'm all alone. You came in the big motor car that broke down,
didn't you? I've been watching the pretty girls over there, in their gay
ribbons and veils. They look like human flowers. Rest here and tell me
where you have come from and where you are going, while Amelia Ellen
picks you some flowers to take along. Afterwards you shall go among them
and see if there are any you like that she has missed. Amelia Ellen! Get
your basket and scissors and pick a great many flowers for this young
lady. It is getting late and they have not much longer to blossom. There
are three white buds on the rose-bush. Pick them all. I think they fit
your face, my dear. Now take off your hat and let me see your pretty
hair without its covering. I want to get your picture fixed in my heart
so I can look at you after you are gone."
And so quite simply they fell into easy talk about each other, the day,
the village, and the flowers.
"You see the little white church down the street? My husband was its
pastor for twenty years. I came to this house a bride, and our boy was
born here. Afterwards, when his father was taken away, I stayed right
here with the people who loved him. The boy was in college then, getting
ready to take up his father's work. I've stayed here ever since. I love
the people and they love me, and I couldn't very well be moved, you
know. My boy is out in Arizona, a home missionary!" She said it as
Abraham Lincoln's mother might have said: "My boy is president of the
United States!" Her face wore a kind of glory that bore a startling
resemblance to the man of the desert. Hazel marvelled greatly, and
understood what had made the son so great.
"I don't see how he could go and leave you alone!" she broke forth
almost bitterly. "I should think his duty was here with his mother!"
"Yes, I know," the mother smiled; "they do say that, some of them, but
it's because they don't understand. You see we gave John to God when he
was born, and it was our hope from the first that he would choose to be
a minister and a missionary. Of course John thought at first after his
father went away that he could not leave me, but I made him see that I
would be happier so. He wanted me to go with him, but I knew I should
only be a hindrance to the work, and it came to me that my part in the
work was to stay at home and let him go. It was all I had left to do
after I became an invalid. And I'm very comfortable. Amelia Ellen takes
care of me like a baby, and there are plenty of friends. My boy writes
me beautiful letters twice a week, and we have such nice talks about the
work. He's very like his father, and growing more so every day.
Perhaps," she faltered and fumbled under the pink and silver lap robe,
"perhaps you'd like to read a bit of one of his letters. I have it here.
It came yesterday and I've only read it twice. I don't let myself read
them too often because they have to last three days apiece at least.
Perhaps you'd read it aloud to me. I like to hear John's words aloud
sometimes and Amelia Ellen has never spent much time reading. She is
peculiar in her pronunciation. Do you mind reading it to me?"
She held a letter forth, written in a strong free hand, the same that
had signed the name John Chadwick Brownleigh in the little book. Hazel's
heart throbbed eagerly and her hand trembled as she reached it shyly
towards the letter. What a miracle was this! that his very letter was
being put into her hand, her whom he loved--to read! Was it possible?
Could there be a mistake? No, surely not. There could not be two John
Brownleighs, both missionaries to Arizona.
"Dear little Mother o' Mine:" it began, and plunged at once into the
breezy life of the Western country. He had been to a cattle round-up the
week before and he described it minutely in terse and vivid language,
with many a flash of wit, or graver touch of wisdom, and here and there
a boyish expression that showed him young at heart, and devoted to his
mother. He told of a visit he had paid to the Hopi Indians, their
strange villages, each like a gigantic house with many rooms, called a
pueblo, built on the edges of lofty crags or mesas and looking like huge
castles five or six hundred feet above the desert floor. He told of
Walpi, a village out on the end of a great promontory, its only access a
narrow neck of land less than a rod wide, with one little path worn more
than a foot deep in the solid rock by the feet of ten generations
passing over it, where now live about two hundred and thirty people in
one building. There were seven of these villages built on three mesas
that reach out from the northern desert like three great fingers,
Oraibi, the largest, having over a thousand people. He explained that
Spanish explorers found these Hopis in 1540, long before the pilgrims
landed at Plymouth Rock, and called the country Tusayan. Then he went
on to describe a remarkable meeting that had been held in which the
Indians had manifested deep interest in spiritual things, and had asked
many curious questions about life, death and the hereafter.
"You see, dear," said the mother, her eyes shining eagerly, "you see how
much they need him, and I'm glad I can give him. It makes me have a part
in the work."
Hazel turned back to the letter and went on reading to hide the tears
that were gathering in her own eyes as she looked upon the exalted face
of the mother.
There was a detailed account of a conference of missionaries, to attend
which the rider had ridden ninety miles on horseback; and at the close
there was an exquisite description of the spot where they had camped the
last night of their ride. She knew it from the first word almost, and
her heart beat so wildly she could hardly keep her voice steady to read:
"I stopped over night on the way home at a place I dearly love. There is
a great rock, shelving and overhanging, for shelter from any passing
storm, and quite near a charming green boudoir of cedars on three sides,
and rock on the fourth. An abundant water-hole makes camping easy for
me and Billy, and the stars overhead are good tapers. Here I build my
fire and boil the kettle, read my portion and lie down to watch the
heavens. Mother, I wish you knew how near to God one feels out in the
desert with the stars. Last night about three o'clock I woke to
replenish my fire and watch a while a great comet, the finest one for
many years. I would tell you about it but I've already made this letter
too long, and it's time Billy and I were on our way again. I love this
spot beside the big rock and often come back to it on my journeys;
perhaps because here I once camped with a dear friend and we had
pleasant converse together around our brushwood fire. It makes the
desert seem less lonely because I can sometimes fancy my friend still
reclining over on the other side of the fire in the light that plays
against the great rock. Well, little mother o' mine, I must close. Cheer
up, for it has been intimated to me that I may be sent East to General
Assembly in the spring, and then for three whole weeks with you! That
will be when the wild strawberries are out, and I shall carry you in my
arms and spread a couch for you on the strawberry hill behind the house,
and you shall pick some again with your own hands."
With a sudden catch in her throat like a sob the reading came to an end
and Hazel, her eyes bright with tears, handed the letter reverently back
to the mother whose face was bright with smiles.
"Isn't he a boy worth giving?" she asked as she folded the letter and
slipped it back under the pink and gray cover.
"He is a great gift," said Hazel in a low voice.
She was almost glad that Amelia Ellen came up with an armful of flowers
just then and she might bury her face in their freshness and hide the
tears that would not be stayed, and then before she had half admired
their beauty there was a loud "Honk-honk!" from the road, followed by a
more impatient one, and Hazel was made aware that she was being waited
for.
"I'm sorry you must go, dear," said the gentle woman. "I haven't seen so
beautiful a girl in years, and I'm sure you have a lovely heart, too. I
wish you could visit me again."
"I will come again some time if you will let me!" said the girl
impulsively, and then stooped and kissed the soft rose-leaf cheek, and
fled down the path trying to get control of her emotion before meeting
her companions.
Hazel was quiet all the rest of the way, and was rallied much upon her
solemnity. She pleaded a headache and closed her eyes, while each
heart-throb carried her back over the months and brought her again to
the little camp under the rock beneath the stars.
"He remembered still! He cared!" This was what her glad thoughts sang as
the car whirled on, and her gay companions forgot her and chattered of
their frivolities.
"How wonderful that I should find his mother!" she said again and again
to herself. Yet it was not so wonderful. He had told her the name of the
town, and she might have come here any time of her own accord. But it
was strange and beautiful that the accident had brought her straight to
the door of the house where he had been born and brought up! What a
beautiful, happy boyhood he must have had with a mother like that! Hazel
found herself thinking wistfully, out of the emptiness of her own
motherless girlhood. Yes, she would go back and see the sweet mother
some day; and she fell to planning how it could be.
XI
REFUGE
Milton Hamar had not troubled Hazel all summer. From time to time her
father mentioned him as being connected with business enterprises, and
it was openly spoken of now that a divorce had been granted him, and his
former wife was soon to marry again. All this, however, was most
distasteful to the girl to whom the slightest word about the man served
to bring up the hateful scene of the desert.
But early in the fall he appeared among them again, assuming his old
friendly attitude towards the whole family, dropping in to lunch or
dinner whenever it suited his fancy. He seemed to choose to forget what
had passed between Hazel and himself, to act as though it had not been,
and resumed his former playful attitude of extreme interest in the girl
of whom he had always been fond. Hazel, however, found a certain air of
proprietorship in his gaze, a too-open expression of his admiration
which was offensive. She could not forget, try as hard as she might for
her father's sake to forgive. She shrank away from the man's company,
avoided him whenever possible, and at last when he seemed to be almost
omnipresent, and growing every day more insistent in his attentions, she
cast about her for some absorbing interest which would take her out of
his sphere.
Then a strange fancy took her in its possession.
It was in the middle of the night when it came to her, where she had
been turning her luxurious pillow for two hours trying in vain to tempt
a drowsiness that would not come, and she arose at once and wrote a
brief and businesslike letter to the landlord of the little New
Hampshire inn where she had been delayed for a couple of hours in the
fall. In the morning, true to her impulsive nature, she besieged her
father until he gave his permission for her to take her maid and a quiet
elderly cousin of his and go away for a complete rest before the society
season began.