IV

For many days it appeared as if the Poor Boy's entire efforts were

directed into an attempt to sleep off his troubles. Experience was like

a drug of which he could not rid himself; he waked, tried to read, tried

to walk, tried to enjoy looking out over the valley, and soon gave it

up, and threw himself on his bed, or on the big lounge in the

living-room. And these days, of course, so the pendulum swings, were

followed by days and nights in which he could not sleep at all.

But old Martha was not worried, though she pretended to be. It was

natural that having slept too much he should now sleep too little. She

prescribed exercise and usefulness. One day she made him wash all the

dishes, and prune all the rose-vines, and tie them in readiness for

straw jackets when winter should set in, and she made him split wood in

the cellar, and after dinner she made him go to the piano and play Irish

music for her until the sweat stood out on his forehead. Then she

ordered him under a cold shower, and when he was in bed she pulled up a

chair, and told him the longest and dullest story she knew--"The Banshee

of Kilmanogg." And behold he slept, and was wakened by birds in the ivy

who were talking over their plans for going south for the winter.

The Poor Boy opened his rested eyes and listened to the birds. There

were some who intended to travel by the seaboard air-line, others by the

midland air-line; for the most part they were going to Florida and the

Gulf States for the cold months; but a certain robin and his wife,

tempted by the memory of crumbs and suet which a wise and wonderful old

lady always put out for them, had determined to winter at Aiken in the

holly-tree that stood by the old lady's window. There were comparisons

of resorts and disputes about them.

In the party were young birds who had never been south at all. And a

certain old bachelor bird amused himself very heartily at the expense of

these. He did not dwell upon the beauty of the journey that was before

them, but upon its inconveniences, its dangers, and its horrors.

"The midland route would be all right," he said, "if it weren't for the

farmers' boys with their long guns and the--ever see a cat, Bub?"

"No," twittered Bub nervously. "Don't expect to. _I'm_ for the

seaboard."

"That would be sense," said the old bachelor, "if it weren't for the

Statue of Liberty."

"The what?"

"It's a big light--you never know just what it is, because when you fly

into it to see, it breaks your neck and all the other worthless bones in

your body."

"I'm not agoing to fly into any light."

"You _think_ you won't," said the bachelor ominously. "But first your

brains will scatter figuratively, and then--literally. Too bad!--too

bad!"

All the young birds shuddered.

"Those big snakes in the South are rather nasty things, too," continued

the bachelor bird. "I'm used to them, of course, and I've proved dozens

of times that there's no such thing as hypnotism; but the effect of a

snake's eye on very young and inexperienced birds is inconceivable, and

not to be reconciled to the Darwinian theory or Mendel's law. What

between snakes, hawks, and women's hats, the life of a bird--"

"Isn't what it used to be."

The bachelor turned upon his interrupter and scowled.

"On the contrary," he said, "it's _exactly_ what it used to be. And

that's the--ahem--of it! Pardon me, ladies."

"When do you start?" he was asked.

"Not for a week," he answered pompously. "I have several little odds and

ends to look into first--" And right in the midst of his speech the call

of the South hit him in the middle, you may say. It always does hit a

bird like that, and it is contagious like girls fainting in a factory.

The cynical bachelor flew suddenly to the tipmost top of a tree, and

poured forth the whole of his heart and soul in a song of the South.

"I've got to go--I've got to go," he sang:

"For it's there that I must be,

Where the flower of the pomegranate blazes

In the top of the pomegranate tree.

"And as for the dangers of travel,

I'd laugh--if I hadn't to sing.

For a gale is a silly old zephyr

And a bird is a wonderful thing,

A wonderful, wonderful, wonderful, wonderful, wonderful, wonderful

thing."

Two more verses he sang at the top of his lungs, broke off short with a

shrill cry of joy, and took wing.

Then the south-sickness spread, and even the young birds flew to the

tops of trees, and defied gales, snakes, the Statue of Liberty, the boy

with the gun, and the female (you wouldn't call her a woman) with the

untrimmed hat. And away they flew, in ones and twos, until there were

only a few left. One of these hopped on the window-sill in full view,

and told the Poor Boy to get up.

"Don't be setting such an example of sloth," she said, and squeaked at

her own temerity and flew away.

The Poor Boy leaped from bed, and flung his pajamas afar, and rushed for

cold water.

The shower fell heavily with wondrous iciness, and the Poor Boy sang

aloud and praised God, who had once more returned him the gift of seeing

and hearing. At breakfast he told Martha, and with the utmost gravity

repeated to her everything that the birds had said--for _him_.

V

The power of imagining returned to him slowly. There were whole days

when his inner eyes and ears remained obstinately blind and deaf. When a

"Primrose by the river's brim

A yellow primrose was to him,

And it was nothing more"

(only there were no primroses at this season); when the southing birds

in the ivy outside his window only made noises and were a nuisance; and

when the burden of his thoughts was one long "done for--done for--done

for." It was the affection of many people that he missed most, and the

faith that so many people had had in him--shattered forever. But he

missed their voices, too, and their faces; the cheerful sounds of

"talking at once"; the massing of fresh, lovely gowns, the scintillation

of jewels, the smell of gardenias, the music of violins, hidden by

screens of palms and bay-trees.

What had he done to deserve exile and ostracism? He asked himself that

question thousands of times. He knew, of course, what he was believed to

have done, but he was in search of some committed sin, to account for

his having been punished for one that had only been circumstantially

alleged. And in the whole memory that he had of his life and acts he

could not find an answer. Every life is full of little sins, but of

major ones the Poor Boy had no recollection.

On the days when his imagination was "no good" he had the face of one

who is worried over something important that has been lost and that can

not be found. And, indeed, the gift was of tremendous importance to him,

and he knew it. It was the weapon with which he must fight off insanity;

the tongs with which he must snatch from the fires of experience

whatever bright fragments of life were not yet consumed.

Now this imagination of the Poor Boy's was not a servant that came and

went at command, but a master. He could not say to himself, "now I will

lie back upon the wings of my imagination and fly a pleasant hour"--or

rather he could say just that if he liked, but nothing would happen. It

was he who served; he was an abode in which his imagination might lodge

whenever it so pleased, and whence it might also fare forth. In the old

days it had found lodgment in the Poor Boy's head decidedly comfortable,

and had made long stays; but since society had wreaked its vengeance

upon him, it seemed as if his head, as a dwelling-place, had lost its

comforts and advantages.

His imagination was not of the kind which makes for literature or music.

It could not, in other words, shake itself clear of experience, and

journey into the unknown and the untried. It was not creative, but it

was of a quality so intense and vivid as to wage, sometimes, successful

disputes with the tangible and the real. Its action was a kind of

dreaming of dreams, whose direction and outcome lay within the option of

the dreamer.

Old Martha found him one day sitting on the kitchen steps with his feet

in the first snow of the winter. But the Poor Boy was really at Palm

Beach with a car-load of his friends, and he was not at all cold, he

thanked her, but hot--positively hot.

Notwithstanding, she ordered a change of shoes and socks, and listened

at his door half a dozen times that night for sounds of incipient cold.

The old woman's mirror told her that she was getting thin, that the work

she had undertaken was too hard for her, and sometimes when the men

drove in from the village with supplies (and the Poor Boy hid himself)

she blarneyed them into lending a hand here and there. For a good joke

sweetened with a little base flattery she got coals carried now and

then, or heavy pieces of furniture moved when she was house-cleaning;

but to the Poor Boy's constant appeals that she bring into the house a

permanent helper she turned a deaf ear. As a matter of fact, having

lived the best part of her life for the Poor Boy, she proposed, if

possible, to die for him.

But when ("on top of the thinness," as he put it) she caught a heavy

cold, he took the matter in dispute wholly out of her jurisdiction.

The cold having run its course and gone its way, he appeared to her one

morning dressed for the winter woods. He had on moccasins and many

thicknesses of woolens; he carried a knapsack and a light axe. He laid

these on the kitchen table, and went into the cellar, where his long

skis had passed the summer. He brought them, turning the corner of the

cellar stairs with difficulty, back to the kitchen, and began to examine

the straps with which they are adjusted to the feet. He asked for a

little oil with which to dress the leather. She brought him oil in a

saucer.

He dressed the straps of his skis and talked, more to himself than to

her.

"Killing is bad, but in case I do actually run out of food I'd better

take a rifle. I suppose the sleeping-bag will keep me warm, still I'd

take along an extra blanket if it weren't so heavy. I'm not as fit as I

used to be. Seems to me this compass acted queerly the last time I used

it. Didn't I tell you once, Martha, about getting lost up here because a

compass played me tricks? There were people to find me that time--but

what's the odds? I can't get lost twice on my own acres. And what's the

odds if I do?--"

Old Martha couldn't stand it any longer.

"Is it for fun you're scaring me out of my wits, young man?"

"_Scaring_ you, Martha?" His face was innocent of any guile.

"Where do you think you're going, and when do you think you're comin'

back--and me all alone in the house?"

Now his eyes gleamed way down in their brown depths with a spark apiece

of malice.

"I don't know where I'm going," he said, "but I know that I'm not coming

back until a little bird tells me that you have hired some one to help

you with the housework."

She was furious.

"Faith, then," she said, "you'll not come back till Doom's Day."

He concluded his preparations in silence, and carried his skis outdoors

to put them on.

"I say, Martha," he called, "hand me my pack and things, will you?"

"I will not."

He laughed, and managed, with more laughter and some peril, to come up

the steps and into the kitchen on his skis.

He adjusted the pack to his shoulder, put on his mittens, and took up

his rifle and his axe. Malice still gleamed in his eyes.

He went out as he had entered, but with more difficulty and peril. He

crossed the kitchen-yard with long, easy strides.

But Martha was running after him, bareheaded. She lost a carpet slipper

in the deep snow.

"Only come back, darlint"--she fought against tears--"and I'll fill the

house with helpers from attic to cellar."

"One," said the Poor Boy judicially, "will do. The nearest employment

bureau will be in Quebec. Isn't there somebody in the village?"

"In the village! In Quebec!"

[Illustration: "Only come back, darlint"--she fought against tears--"and

I'll fill the house with helpers from attic to cellar."]

Her indignation was tremendous.

"This side of New York there's not a gentleman's servant to be had,"

said she, "and but few there. I'll have to go meself."

"Couldn't you write?"

"Full well you know that I can only make me mark, and never the twicet

alike."

"Well," said the Poor Boy, "the change will do you good, and I'll camp

out in the house instead of in the woods till you come back. It will be

easier, and ever so much safer."

The next day, looking very grand in her furs and feathers, old Martha

started for New York. As the man from the village drove her through the

woods to the little railroad station the tears froze on her veil.