"You can get away from people, but you can't get away from moths."
It was Martha herself, carrying a great paper bag of camphor-balls and a
great roll of tarred paper, who announced this truth.
Rain was falling in torrents. Even the Poor Boy did not feel like going
out. He looked with a certain longing at the bag of camphor balls.
"Going to put the furs away?"
Martha said that she was.
Time was hanging heavily that morning. There was neither music in the
Poor Boy nor desire to read.
"I think--" he began, and was ashamed.
"You think?"
"Nothing."
"Out with it."
"Just that--well, you see, I've never done it--always had you. But I'm
thinking it must be rather fun to fold things carefully, and put them in
cedar chests, and sprinkle moth-balls over them, and tuck them in with
tar-paper."
"And you think wrong," said Martha. "It is no fun at all."
"Oh!" said the Poor Boy. "You're used to it. You've always done it. But
I haven't."
"No more," said Martha, "have you ever knit a comforter."
"I think that would be fun too," twinkled the Poor Boy; "a very little
comforter. I should use very thick worsted and make very big, loopy,
spready stitches. I think, if you don't mind, I'll put my own things
away for the summer."
Martha clutched the bag and the roll of paper tighter. Her jaws set.
"Don't be selfish, Martha."
Her jaws relaxed.
"What do I do first, Martha?"
"First you get all your things in one place. Then you brush them and
fold them. Then you lay them away in the chests."
The Poor Boy, in shirt-sleeves, was soon busily employed, making in the
centre of the living-room an enormous pile of winter furs and
woolens--coonskin coats, Shetland socks, stockings, oily Norfolk coats
and mackintoshes, sweaters, mittens, fur gloves, fur robes, steamer
rugs, toques, and mackinaws.
The great pile finished, he sorted his things into smaller piles: a pile
to be thrown away, a pile to be given away, a pile to be kept.
A doubtful garment was a mackinaw of dark gray splashed with blood-color
and black. It had seen better days, on the one hand; on the other, it
was sound, and he had always liked the coloring. He carried it to the
light and looked it over carefully.
What was there about an old lumberman's coat to bring a look of
bewildered wonder into the Poor Boy's eyes? And what particular memories
did he associate with the last time of wearing it?
He closed his eyes, frowned, thought, remembered.
"I wore this," he said to himself, "the time I went down to the sea, and
nearly died getting back. Then it was mislaid, when I wanted to wear it
again. Then spring came.... When I got back from the sea I thought I saw
Joy. I thought she ran, and that I ran after her. Then that she turned
and caught me as I fell.... I was wearing this coat. I haven't worn it
since."
With fingers that shook he unwound from the top button of the coat a
long, entangled hair, the color of old Domingo mahogany, which is either
more brown than red, or more red than brown. Nobody can swear which.
When Martha came to see how the Poor Boy was getting on with his
packing she was amused to find that he had tired of it. That his things
were all in a mess, nothing packed or protected from moths, and that he
himself was standing at a window looking out into the dark torrents of
rain. At his feet was an old mackinaw. Martha picked it up and folded
it.
"Shall I _resoom_ where you've left off?" she asked.
"Please! But be careful of that coat."
She began to bring order swiftly out of chaos.
"Martha!"
"Don't be stopping me now."
"What would you do if you knew that something that couldn't possibly be
true absolutely was true?"
"For that," said Martha bluntly, "I'd take two tablespoonfuls of
castor-oil."
"It is true," said the Poor Boy, "and it can't be."
He passed one hand in front of his face as if brushing a cobweb or--a
hair.
"A hot-water bag at the feet," Martha continued impetuously, "and
another on the pit of the stomick is a favored remedy with some."
"Martha...."
"What else?"
"Has your helper got reddish-brownish, brownish-reddish hair--the color
of the sideboards in the dining-room?"
"Well," said Martha, "she has and she hasn't. The first of every month
'tis that color or thereabouts; but be the twenty-ninth or thirtieth
'tis back to a good workin' gray."
"The day I got back from the sea," said the Poor Boy to himself, "was
about the twenty-ninth or the thirtieth. But still if I'm going to
believe what can't be true--I say, Martha, lend me a saucer of alcohol,
will you?"
Old Martha bustled off and returned with what he required. The Poor Boy
carried his chemical into the book-room and closed the door firmly, and
much to Martha's disappointment, she being anxious to know what was
toward in her darling's mind.
The Poor Boy placed the saucer of alcohol in the light, and dropped into
it the mahogany-colored hair; nothing happened. The hair itself
appeared brighter perhaps, but the crystal liquid was not discolored.
The Poor Boy devoted half an hour to the experiment. There was no
development.
"Not Ed Pinaud," he then said reverently, "dyed this hair, but the Lord
God."
He put it away in a safe place, just over his heart.
"Not," he said, "because it is hers, but because it is the same color.
And because there are stranger things in heaven and earth than ever any
man wotted of in his philosophy."
Martha knocked on the door.
"Come in, Martha."
"Just to tell you that it's stopped raining, and if ye'll not take oil
nor hot-water bags, the next best remedy for cobwebs in the brain is
exercise."
The Poor Boy was glad to get out.
He went straight to Lord Harrow's house and walked with Joy for
hours--up and down between the glorious roses on the terrace. The path
was wide. They could walk side by side without danger of touching each
other.
She was very grave that afternoon. So was he. It was hard that they
should love each other so much and not be allowed to talk about it or
hold hands. But the Poor Boy knew mighty well that if he touched her she
would vanish.
"There's comfort," thought the Poor Boy, "in loving a spirit--even if it
can never be quite the real thing. She will always be just as I see her
now, no older, untroubled, gentle, and dear."
[Illustration: "She will always be just as I see her now, no older,
untroubled, gentle and dear."]
He said poetry to her, and hummed songs. She dropped a rose that she was
carrying. He stooped to pick it up, remembered, and let it lie. They
looked into each other's eyes, very sadly.
He saw her mistily through tears. She vanished. Vanished the rose
garden, vanished Lord Harrow's house. And remained only a wild lake, an
open space in which he stood, and wild-woods, and beyond more woods and
hills and mountains.
To the west the forest was intolerably bright, as if it was burning. The
sun was going down.