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[Illustration: "_Yes, surrendered. Haven't you sent for money? Haven't
you given up? Aren't you trying to run away?_"]
HEMPFIELD
_A Novel_
By
DAVID GRAYSON
Author of
"Adventures in Contentment," "Adventures in
Friendship," "The Friendly Road"
[Illustration]
_Illustrated by Thomas Fogarty_
GARDEN CITY
NEW YORK
DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY
1915
_Copyright, 1915, by_
DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. I Discover the Printing-office 3
II. I Step Boldly into the Story 23
III. Anthy 37
IV. Enter Mr. Ed Smith 51
V. Nort 71
VI. A Man to Help Fergus 83
VII. Phaeton Drives the Chariot of the _Star_ 101
VIII. Nort and Anthy 118
IX. A Letter to Lincoln 123
X. The Wonderful Day 133
XI. In Which Great Plans Are Evolved, and There Is a
Surprising Event 151
XII. The Explosion 171
XIII. Anthy Takes Command 190
XIV. We Begin the Subjugation of Nort 204
XV. I Get Better Acquainted with Anthy 222
XVI. The Old Captain Comes into His Own 228
XVII. In Which Certain Deep Matters of the Heart Are Presented 236
XVIII. Nort Sniffs 240
XIX. Fergus's Favourite Poem 250
XX. The Celebration 260
XXI. Starlight 270
XXII. Fergus and Nort 275
XXIII. The Battle 289
XXIV. Two Letters 300
XXV. The Flying machine 305
XXVI. The Return of the Prodigal 312
XXVII. Fergus MacGregor Goes to the Hills 321
[Illustration]
ILLUSTRATIONS
"Yes, surrendered. Haven't you sent for money? Haven't you
given up? Aren't you trying to run away?" _Frontispiece in color_
Ed's innocent suggestion of a house-cleaning was taken by
Fergus as a deadly affront 68
John Bass's blacksmith shop 76
He pictured himself sitting in the quiet study of the
minister, looking sad, sad ... 78
What a thing is youth! That sunny morning in Hempfield Nort
thought that he was drinking the uttermost dregs of life--and
yet, somehow, he was able to stand a little aside and enjoy
it all 80
"Well!" exclaimed Nort, drawing a long breath, "I never
imagined it would feel so good to be orfunts" 104
She turned around quickly--but there was no one there to see 128
After that she opened her heart more and more to me--a little
here, a little there 224
"David, I saw a face looking in at that window" 286
_Illustrations in Text_
PAGE
It sat there in its garden and watched with mild interest the
hasty world go by 11
A very lonely little girl, sitting at a certain place on the
third step from the bottom of the stairs 40
The home of her girlhood seemed dreadfully shabby, small, and
old-fashioned 42
I soon found that every one else in the office, Anthy
included, had begun to be interested in Nort 91
"I tell you, Miss Doane," said Nort, explosively, "the only
way to make a success of the _Star_ is to publish the truth
about Hempfield----" 169
"Practical!" he exploded. "You are a blackguard, sir! You are
a scoundrel, sir!" 185
The old Captain was perfect. He was a very pattern of
gallantry 268
"Toys! Mere circus tricks to take in fools!" 310
"I couldn't stay away another minute. I had to know what the
old Captain said and did when the flying machine came to
Hempfield" 314
Fergus stuck his small battered volume of Robert Burns's
poems in his pocket--and going out of the back door struck
out for the hills 332
HEMPFIELD
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
CHAPTER I
I DISCOVER THE PRINTING-OFFICE
For years my sister Harriet and I confined our relationships with the
neighbouring town of Hempfield to the Biblical "yea, yea" and "nay,
nay," not knowing how much we missed, and used its friendly people as
one might use an inanimate plough or an insensate rolling-pin, as mere
implements or adjuncts in the provision of food or clothing for our
needs.
It came only gradually alive for us. As the years passed the utilitarian
stranger with whom we traded became an acquaintance, and the
acquaintance a friend. Here and there a man or a woman stepped out of
the background, as it were, of a dim picture, and became a living being.
One of the first was the old gunsmith of whom I have already written.
Another was Doctor North--though he really lived outside the town--whom
we came to know late in his career. He was one of the great unknown men
of this country; he lives yet in many lives, a sort of immortality which
comes only to those who have learned the greatest art of all arts, the
art of life. The Scotch preacher, whom we have loved as we love few
human beings, was also in reality a part of the town, though we always
felt that he belonged to our own particular neighbourhood. He was ever a
friend to all men, town or country.
It has always been something of a mystery to me, when I think of it, how
I happened for so long to miss knowing more about old Captain Doane, and
MacGregor, that roseate Scotchman. It is easier to understand why I
never knew Anthy, for she was much away from Hempfield in the years just
after I came here; and as for Norton Carr and Ed Smith, they did not
come until some time afterward.
I shall later celebrate Nort's arrival in Hempfield--and may petition
the selectmen to set up a monument upon the spot of this precious soil
where he first set a shaky foot.
I lived before I knew Anthy and Nort and MacGregor and the old Captain,
but sometimes I wonder how I lived. When we let new friends into our
lives we become permanently enlarged, and marvel that we could ever have
lived in a smaller world.
So I came to know Hempfield, and all those stories--humorous, tragic,
exciting, bitter, sorrowful--which thrive so lustily in every small
town. As we treasure finally those books which are not, after all,
concerned with clapping finite conclusions to infinite events, but are
content to be beautiful as they go (as truth is beautiful), so I love
the living stories of Hempfield, nor care deeply whether they are at
Chapter I, or in the midst of the climax, or whether they are tapering
toward a Gothic-lettered "Finis." Only I have never once come across any
Hempfield story that can be said to have reached a final page. Every
Hempfield story I know has been like a stone dropped in the puddle of
life, with ripples that grow ever wider with the years. And I esteem it
the best thing in my life that I have had a part in some of those
stories: that a few people, perhaps, are different, as I am different,
because I passed that way.
How well I remember the evening when my eye was first caught by the
twinkle of that luminary, the Hempfield _Star_, with which afterward I
was to become so intimately acquainted. It came to me like a fresh
breeze on a sultry day, or a new man in the town road. It was a
paragraph in the editorial page, headed with a single word printed in
robust black type:
FUDGE
At that time I had been "taking in" the _Star_ (as they say here) for
only a few weeks, and had seen little in it that made it appear
different from any other weekly newspaper. I am ashamed to say that I
had entertained a good-humoured tolerance, mingled with contempt, for
country newspapers. They seemed to me the apotheosis of the little, the
palladium of the uninteresting. It did not occur to me that anything
possessed of such tenacity of life as the country newspaper must have a
real meaning and perform a genuine function in our civilization. In this
roaring age of efficiency we do not long support any institution that
does not set its claws deep into our common life--and hang on.
I began to take the _Star_ as a sort of concession, arguing with myself
that it would at least give me the weekly price of eggs and potatoes;
and, besides, Harriet always wants to know regularly where the Ladies'
Literary Society is to hold its meetings.
You cannot imagine my surprise and interest then, when I came abruptly
upon that explosive, black-typed "Fudge" in the middle of the _Star_. I
have always had a fondness for the word. It is like a breath of fresh
air in a stuffy library, and any man who can say "Fudge" in a big, round
voice has something in him. He's got views and a personality, even
though the views may be crooked and the personality prickly.
With what joy I read that paragraph--and cut it from the paper, and have
it yet in my golden treasury. This is it:
FUDGE
A fellow named Wright, who lives out in Ohio, says he can
fly. Mr. Wright is wrong. If the Lord had intended human
beings to fly He would have grown wings on us. He made birds
for the air, and fish for the sea, and men to walk on two
legs. It is a common characteristic of flying-machine
inventors and Democrats that they are not satisfied with
the doings of the Lord, but must be turning the world
topsy-turvy. Mr. Wright of Ohio should peruse the historic
story of Darius Green and his flying machine. If memory
serves us right Darius bumped his head, and afterward lived
a sensible life. The _Star_ would commend the example of Mr.
Green to Mr. Wright--and the Democrats.
Harriet heard me laughing, and called from the other room:
"David, what _are_ you laughing at?"
"Why, a new judge in Israel"--and I read the paragraph aloud with the
keenest delight.
"But I thought Mr. Wright _could_ fly!" said my sister doubtfully.
"Well, he can," said I, "only this writer is a Republican."
She was silent for a moment, standing there in the doorway while I
watched with interest the gathering question.
"But I don't see why a Republican--if he _can_ fly----"
"Harriet," I began rather oratorically, "this is a very interesting and
amusing world we live in, and it is fortunate that we do not all believe
everything we see or hear--at any rate, I'd like to meet the man who
wrote that paragraph. I feel certain that he is one of the everlasting
rocks of New England."
It was this amusing little incident, rather than the really serious
purpose that lay back of it, that sent me at last to Hempfield. I kept
thinking about the man of the paragraph as I went about my work,
chuckling in the cow stable or pausing when I was putting down the hay.
I imagined him an old fellow with gray chin whiskers, a pair of
spectacles set low on his nose, and a frown between his eyes.
"How he does despise Democrats!" I said to myself.
And yet--our instinct for the compensatory view being irresistible--a
pretty good old chap! I thought I should like him, somehow.
One early morning in May, the spring having opened with rare splendour,
I hitched up the mare and drove to town. Ostensibly I was going for a
few ears of seed corn, a new tooth for my cultivator, and a ham for
Harriet--so is the spirit bound down to the mundane--but in reality I
was looking for the man who could say "Fudge" with such bluff assurance.
It was a wonderful spring morning, and I did not in the least know as I
drove the old mare in the town road, with all the familiar hills and
trees about me, that I was going into a new country, fairer by far than
ours, where the clouds are higher than they are here, and the grass is
greener, where all the men grow taller and the women more beautiful.
I asked Nort once, long afterward, if he could remember the first
impression he had when he came to Hempfield and saw the printing-office.
Nort frowned, as though thinking hard, and made a characteristic reply:
"I don't rightly remember," said he, "of having any first impression,
until I saw Anthy."
But I will not be hurried even to my meeting with Anthy; for I have a
very vivid first impression of the printing-office as it sat like a
contemplative old gentleman in its ancient and shabby garden.
First we see things with our eyes, see them flat like pictures in a
book, and that isn't really sight at all. Then some day we see them with
the heart, or the soul, or the spirit-- I'm not certain just what it is
that really sees, but it is something warm and strong and light inside
of us--and that is the true sight.
I had driven the streets of Hempfield for years, and gone in at the
grocery stores, made a familiar resort of the gunsmith shop, and
visited the post office, but had never really seen the printing-office
at all.
[Illustration: It sat there in its garden and watched with mild interest
the hasty world go by]
Like most things or people really worth knowing, the printing-office is
of a retiring disposition. It is an old building, once a dwelling-house,
which stands somewhat back from the street, with a quaint old garden
around it. An ancient picket fence, nicked and whittled by a generation
or so of boys who should have known better, guards its privacy. At the
tip of the low cornice is a weatherbeaten bird house, a miniature Greek
Parthenon, where the wrens built their nests. Larger and more
progressive business buildings had crowded up to the street lines on
both sides of it, and yet it managed to preserve somehow an air of
ancient gentility. The gate sagged on its hinges, the chimney had lost a
brick or two, but it sat there in its garden and watched with mild
interest the hasty world go by.
I wondered, that morning, why the peculiar air of the place had never
before touched me. I paused a moment, looking in at it with such a
feeling of expectancy as I cannot well describe. I did not know what
adventure might there befall me. At any moment I half expected to see my
imagined old fellow appear on the doorstep and cry out, half ironically,
half explosively:
"Fudge!" Upon which, undoubtedly, I should have disappeared into thin
air.
There being no sign of life, for it was still very early in the morning,
I opened the gate and went in. Over the front door stretched a
weatherbeaten sign bearing these words in large letters:
THE HEMPFIELD STAR
Under this name there was a line of smaller lettering, so faded that one
could not easily read it from the street. But as I stood now at the
doorway and looked up I could make it out--and it came to me, I cannot
tell with what charm, like the far-off echo of ancient laughter:
_Hitch Your Wagon to the Star_
Below this legend in fresher paint, bearing indeed the evidence of
repainting, for many are the vicissitudes of a country newspaper, was
the name of the firm:
Doane & Doane
I went up the steps to the little porch and looked in at the doorway. I
shall never forget the odour of printer's ink which came warmly to my
nostrils, the never-to-be-forgotten odour of printer's ink, sweeter than
the spices of Araby, more alluring than attar of roses!... It was a
long, low room, with pasted pictures on the walls, a row of dingy cases
at one side, the press at the farther end, the stones near it, and a
cutting machine with its arm raised aloft as though to command
attention. The editor's desk in the corner was heaped so high with books
and papers and magazines and pamphlets that another single one added to
the pile would certainly have produced an avalanche--and ended
ignominiously in the capacious wastebasket.
For all its dinginess and its picturesque disorder there was something
infinitely beguiling about the room. In the front window stood a row of
potted geraniums, very thrifty, and there was a yellow canary in a cage,
and the editor's ancient chair (one lame leg bandaged with string) was
occupied by an old fat gray cat, curled up on a cushion and comfortably
asleep. A light breeze came in at one of the windows, fingered a leaf of
the calendar to make sure that it was really spring again, and went out
blithely at the other window.
I liked it: I liked it all.
"There is a fine woman around this shop somewhere," I said to myself,
"or else a very fine man."
My vision of the daring paragrapher who could say "Fudge" with such
virgin enthusiasm instantly shifted. I saw him now as something of a
poet--still old, but with a pleasing beard (none of your common chin
whiskers) and rarely fine eyes, a man who could care for flowers in the
window and keep the cat from the canary.
At that instant my eyes were smitten with stark reality, my imagination
wrecked upon the reef of fact. I saw Fergus MacGregor.
Fergus is one of those men who should always be seen for the first time:
after you begin to know him, you can't rightly appreciate him.
He was sitting away back in the corner of the room, by his favourite
window, tipped back in his chair, with one heel hooked over a rung, the
other leg playing loose in space, sadly reading the "Adventures of Tom
Sawyer" which he considers the greatest book in the world--next to
Robert Burns's poems.
Fergus has always been good for me. He is all facts, like roast beef, or
asparagus, or a wheel in a rut. It is almost impossible to idealize
Fergus: he has freckles and red hair on his hands. When Fergus first
came to Hempfield, one of our good old Yankee citizens, who had never
seen much of foreigners and therefore considered them all immoral, said
he never had liked Frenchmen.
Whenever I am soaring aloft, as I think I am too likely to do, I have to
be very firm in the wings, else the sight of Fergus MacGregor, with his
red hair, his scorched face, and his angular wiry frame, will bring me
straight down to earth. He brought me down the first morning I laid eyes
on him. As I stood there in the printing-office, looking about me,
Fergus glanced up from the "Adventures of Tom Sawyer" and said:
"Wull?"
I can't tell you what worlds of solid reality were packed into that
single word. At once all my imaginings came tumbling about me. What,
after all, had I come for? Why was I in this absurd printing-office?
What wild-goose chase was I on? I should really be at home planting
potatoes. Potatoes, cows, corn, cash--surely there were no other
realities in life! For an instant the visions of the fields died within
me, and I felt sick and weak. You will understand--if you understand.
I thought, as I stood there stupidly, that this was indeed the man who
would say "Fudge!" to all the world.
I groped in a wandering mind for some adequate way of escape, and it
occurred to me presently that I could order a thousand envelopes, with
my name printed in the corner, and bring him to terms. No, I'd order
_five_ thousand--and utterly obliterate him!
"Wull?" said Fergus.
If it had not been for this second "Wull?" I might have gone back to my
immemorial existence and never have brought my new vision to the hard
test of life, never have known Anthy, never have felt the glory of a new
earth.
But with that second "Wull?" which was even more devastating than the
first, I felt something electric, warm, strong, stinging through me. I
had a curious sense of high happiness, and before I knew it I was
saying:
"After all, men _do_ fly!"
I laugh still when I remember how Fergus MacGregor looked at me. For a
long moment he said nothing as eloquently as ever I heard it said. I
began to feel the humour of the situation (humour is the fellow that
always waits just around the corner until the danger is past), but I
said in all seriousness:
"I'm looking for the man who wrote an editorial last week headed
'Fudge.' He doesn't appear to approve of flying machines."
Fergus had not stirred by so much as the fraction of an inch. He looked
at me for another instant and then paid me, if I had known it, a most
surprising compliment. He smiled. His face slowly cracked open--I can
express it no other way--and remained cracked for the space of two
seconds, and returned to its usual condition. Fergus's smile is one of
the wonders of nature.
"What ye going to do?" asked Fergus. "Thrash the editor?"
"No," said I, "convert him."
Fergus slowly shook his head.
"Ye can't," said he.
"I've already begun," said I.
Fergus looked me over for a moment, and smiled again, this time winding
up with a snort or a cough, which started to be a laugh, but stopped
away down somewhere inside of him.
"Ye think I wrote it?"
"Well," said I, "you look perfectly capable of it."
I was just beginning to enjoy thoroughly this give and take of
conversation, which of all sports in the world is certainly the most
fascinating, when I heard steps behind me and, turning half around, saw
Anthy for the first time.
"There's the editor," said Fergus. "Ask her yourself."
She came down the room toward me with a quick, businesslike step. She
wore a little round straw hat with a plain band. She had a sprig of
lilac on her coat, and looked at me directly--like a man. She had very
clear blue eyes.
I have thought of this meeting a thousand times since--in the light of
all that followed--and this is literally all I saw. I was not especially
impressed in any way, except perhaps with a feeling of wonder that this
was the person in authority, really the editor.
I have tried to recall every instant of that meeting, and cannot
remember that I thought of her either as young or as a woman. Perhaps
the excitement and amusement of my talk with Fergus served to prevent a
more vivid first impression. I speak of this reaction because all my
life, whenever I have met a woman--I have been much alone--I have had a
curious sense of being with some one a little higher or better than I
am, to whom I should bow, or to whom I should present something, or with
whom I should joke. With whom I should not, after all, be quite natural!
I wonder if this is at all an ordinary experience with men? I wonder if
any one will understand me when I say that there has always seemed to me
something not quite proper in talking to a woman directly, seriously,
without reservation, as to a man? But I record it here as a curious fact
that I met Anthy that morning just as I would have met a man--as one
human being facing another.
"I am the editor," she said crisply, but with good humour.
"Well," I said, "I'm afraid I'm on a rather unusual and unbusinesslike
errand."
She did not help me.
"Last week I read an editorial in your paper which
amused--interested--me very much. It was headed 'Fudge,' The writer
plainly doesn't believe either in flying machines or in Democrats."
I heard Fergus bark behind me.
"He's going to thrash the writer," said Fergus.
Anthy glanced swiftly across at Fergus. It occurred to me in a flash:
"Why, _she_ wrote it!"
The sudden thought of the chin whiskers I had fastened upon the
imaginary writer was too much for me, and I laughed outright.
"Well," said I, "I shall not attempt any extreme measures until I try,
at least, to convert her."
I saw now that I had said something really amusing, for Fergus barked
twice behind me and Anthy broke into the liveliest laughter.
"You don't really think I wrote it?" she inquired in the roundest
astonishment, with one hand on her breast.
"I should certainly be very well repaid for my visit," said I, "if I
thought you did."
"Won't that amuse the Captain!" she exclaimed.
"So the Captain wrote it," I said, not knowing in the least who the
Captain was. "Tell me, has he chin whiskers?"
"Why?" asked Anthy.
"Well, when I read that editorial," I said, beginning again to enjoy the
give and take of the conversation, "I imagined the sort of man who must
have written it: chin whiskers, spectacles low on his nose, very severe
on all young things."
Anthy looked at Fergus.
"And does he by any chance"--I inquired in as serious a manner as I
could command, "I mean, of course, when he is angry--kick the cat?"
At this Fergus came down with a bang on all four legs of his chair, and
we all laughed together.
"Say," said Fergus, "I don't know who ye are, but ye're all right!"
And that was the way I came first to the printing-office.
[Illustration]