NORT AND ANTHY
It was on this night, after the last copy of the edition had been
disposed of, that Nort walked home for the first time with Anthy. He
carried it off perfectly. When she was ready to go--I remember just how
she looked, her slight firm figure pausing with hand on the door, the
flush of excitement and interest still in her face.
"Good-night, everybody," she was saying.
"Well, we've printed a paper this week, anyhow," said Nort.
Anthy laughed: she had a fine clear laugh, not loud, but sweet, the
kind of a laugh one remembers long afterward.
"Hold on, Miss Doane," said Nort, starting up suddenly, as if the
thought had just occurred to him, "I'm going with you."
He jumped for his coat. Anthy remained, still without moving, at the
door. I chanced to glance at Fergus and saw him bite down on his pipe--
I saw the scowl that darkened his face.
So they went out together. A moment later I went out, too, and as I
crossed the street on my way toward home I heard Anthy's voice through
the night air, no words, just the inflection I had come to know so well,
and then Nort's laugh. I stopped and looked back at the printing-office,
half hidden in the shadows of its garden. A dim light still burned in
the window. I saw Fergus come out and look down the street in the
direction that Nort and Anthy had gone, look thus for some time, and go
in again. And so I turned again homeward for my lonely walk under the
stars.
Life has been good to me, and as I look back upon it no one thing seems
more precious than the thought that I have been much trusted with deep
things in the lives of other men and women. Next to living great things
for one's self (we learn by and by to put that aside) it is wonderful to
be _lived through_. It is wonderful to know a human soul, and ask
nothing of it, nothing at all, save its utter confidence.
I know what took place that night when Nort first walked home with Anthy
almost as well as though I had been with them. And I know how Fergus
felt, Fergus who had known Anthy's father, who had seen Anthy grow up
from a slim, eager, somewhat dreamy child to the woman she was now.
What do you suppose Nort and Anthy talked about? About themselves? Not a
bit of it! They began by talking about the _Star_ and the poems they had
just printed and how Hempfield would like them. And Nort, taking fire
from the spontaneous combustion of his own ideas, began to talk as only
Nort can talk. He painted a renewed country journalism in glowing
language--a powerful engine of public opinion emanating from the country
and expressing the mind, the heart, the very soul, of the people of the
land. (Nort had never before in his life spent two consecutive months
in the country!) Great writers should contribute to its columns--yes, by
George, great poets, too!--statesmen would consult its opinions, and its
editor (and deep down inside Nort saw himself with incomparable
vividness as that very editor), its editor would sway the destinies of
the nation. As he talked he began to swing his arms, he increased his
pace until he was a step or two ahead of Anthy, walking so quickly at
times that she could scarcely keep up with him. Apparently he forgot
that she was there--only he didn't quite. Apparently he was talking
impersonally to the tree tops and the south wind and the stars--only he
wasn't, really. When they came to the gate of Anthy's home, Nort walked
straight past it and did not discover for a moment or two that Anthy had
stopped.
When he came back Anthy was standing, a dim figure, in the gateway.
"Well," he said, "I've been doing all the talking----"
Anthy's low laugh sounded clear in the night air.
"Your picture of a reconstructed country newspaper is irresistible!"
"It could be done!" said Nort. "It could be done right here in
Hempfield. Brains and energy will count anywhere, Miss Doane. Why, we
could make the Hempfield _Star_ one of the most quoted journals in
America--or in the world!"
They stood silent for a moment there at the gate. Nort was not looking
at Anthy, or thought he was not, but long afterward he had only to close
his eyes, and the whole scene came back to him: the dim old house rising
among its trees, the wide sky and the stars overhead, and the slight
figure of Anthy there in the gateway. And the very odour and feel of the
night----
Anthy was turning to walk up the pathway.
"One week more," said Nort.
"One week more," responded Anthy.
Now there is nothing either mystical or poetical about any one of these
three words-one--week--more--or about all of them together, and yet Nort
once repeated them for me as though they had some peculiar or esoteric
significance. They merely meant that there was another week before Ed
Smith returned. A week is enough for youth!
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