"'Nother Dutchman."
"Where's Grant living, anyhow?"
"Farther up the Coolly."
"Well, then, I'd better get out here, hadn't I?"
"Oh, I'll drive ye up."
"No, I'd rather walk."
The sun had set, and the Coolly was getting dusk when Howard got out of
McTurg's carriage and set off up the winding lane toward his brother's
house. He walked slowly to absorb the coolness and fragrance and color
of the hour. The katydids sang a rhythmic song of welcome to him.
Fireflies were in the grass. A whippoorwill in the deep of the wood was
calling weirdly, and an occasional night-hawk, flying high, gave his
grating shriek, or hollow boom, suggestive and resounding.
He had been wonderfully successful, and yet had carried into his success
as a dramatic author as well as actor a certain puritanism that made him
a paradox to his fellows. He was one of those actors who are always in
luck, and the best of it was he kept and made use of his luck. Jovial as
he appeared, he was inflexible as granite against drink and tobacco. He
retained through it all a certain freshness of enjoyment that made him
one of the best companions in the profession; and now, as he walked on,
the hour and the place appealed to him with great power. It seemed to
sweep away the life that came between.
How close it all was to him, after all! In his restless life, surrounded
by the glare of electric lights, painted canvas, hot colors, creak of
machinery, mock trees, stones, and brooks, he had not lost, but gained,
appreciation for the coolness, quiet, and low tones, the shyness of the
wood and field.
In the farmhouse ahead of him a light was shining as he peered ahead,
and his heart gave another painful movement. His brother was awaiting
him there, and his mother, whom he had not seen for ten years and who
had lost the power to write. And when Grant wrote, which had been more
and more seldom of late, his letters had been cold and curt.
He began to feel that in the pleasure and excitement of his life he had
grown away from his mother and brother. Each summer he had said, "Well,
now, I'll go home this year, sure." But a new play to be produced, or a
new yachting trip, or a tour of Europe, had put the home-coming off; and
now it was with a distinct consciousness of neglect of duty that he
walked up to the fence and looked into the yard, where William had told
him his brother lived.
It was humble enough--a small white story-and-a-half structure, with a
wing set in the midst of a few locust-trees; a small drab-colored barn
with a sagging ridge-pole; a barnyard full of mud, in which a few cows
were standing, fighting the flies and waiting to be milked. An old man
was pumping water at the well; the pigs were squealing from a pen near
by; a child was crying.
Instantly the beautiful, peaceful valley was forgotten. A sickening
chill struck into Howard's soul as he looked at it all. In the dim light
he could see a figure milking a cow. Leaving his valise at the gate, he
entered and walked up to the old man, who had finished pumping and was
about to go to feed the hogs.
"Good-evening," Howard began. "Does Mr. Grant McLane live here?"
"Yes, sir, he does. He's right over there milkin'."
"I'll go over there an--"
"Don't b'lieve I would. It's darn muddy over there. It's been turrible
rainy. He'll be done in a minute, anyway."
"Very well; I'll wait."
As he waited, he could hear a woman's fretful voice and the impatient
jerk and jar of kitchen things, indicative of ill-temper or worry. The
longer he stood absorbing this farm-scene, with all its sordidness,
dullness, triviality, and its endless drudgeries, the lower his heart
sank. All the joy of the home-coming was gone, when the figure arose
from the cow and approached the gate, and put the pail of milk down on
the platform by the pump.
"Good-evening," said Howard, out of the dusk.