|HENNION and Camilla were married in the fall when the maple leaves were
turning yellow and red. It may be that Camilla thought of herself as
one consenting with humility to enter a quiet gateway, the shelter of
a garden whose walks and borders she knew; and it may be that she was
mistaken and found it a strange garden with many an herb of grace, and
many an old-fashioned perennial as fairly embroidered as any that grow
in Arcadia; for when one has found that the birth of one of the common
flowers and hardy perennials comes as wonderfully out of the deeps
as the birth of a new day, it may be that one understands heaven even
better than when floating in Arcadia among its morning islands.
She could never truly have a working share in Dick's working life. She
could sympathise with its efforts and achievements, but never walk even
with him along that road. He would come to her tired, asking for home
and rest, but never sick of soul, asking for healing, nor troubled and
confused, asking for help. It was not his nature. One must take the
measure of one's destiny and find happiness therein. After all,
when that is found, it is found to be a quite measureless thing; and
therefore the place where it is found must be a spacious place after
all, a high-roofed and wide-walled habitation.
Who is so rich in happiness as to have any to throw away? We are beggars
rather than choosers in that commodity. And Time, who is represented
with his hourglass for measuring, his scythe for destruction, his
forelock for the grasp of the vigilant, except for his title of Father
Time, has been given no symbol definitely pointing to that kindness of
his as of a good shepherd, that medicinal touch as of a wise physician,
that curious untangling of tangled skeins as of a patient weaver, that
solution of improbable equations as of a profound algebraist. But yet a
little while, and let the winds freshen the air and the waters go their
clean rounds again, and lo! he has shepherded us home from the desert,
and comforted us in new garments, and turned our minus into plus by a
judicious shifting across the equation. Shall we not give him his crook,
his medicine case and license to practise, his loom, his stylus and
tablets, and by oracle declare him “the Wisest,” and build him a temple,
and consult his auspices, and be no more petulant if he nurtures other
seeds than those of our planting, the slow, old-fashioned, silent
gardener? We know no oracle but Time, yet we are always harking after
another. He is a fluent, dusky, imperturbable person, resembling the
Muscadine River. He goes on forever, and yet remains. His answers are
Delphic and ambiguous. Alas! he tends to drown enthusiasm. Who is the
wisest? “The one who knows that he knows nothing,” quoth your cynic
oracle. What is justice? “A solemn lady, but with so bandaged eyes that
she cannot see the impish capers of her scales.” What is happiness? As
to that he answers more kindly. “In the main,” he says, “happiness is a
hardy perennial.”
The “observer of decades,” who came to Port Argent some years later,
found it proud of its parks, its boulevard, and railroad stations, its
new court house, and jail, and manual training school; proud of its
rapid growth, and indignant at the inadequacy of the national census.
He was shown the new streets, and driven through suburbs where lately
pasture and cornfields had been. He found Port Argent still in the main
electric, ungainly, and full of growing pains, its problem of municipal
government still inaccurately solved, the system not so satisfactory
a structure as the railroad bridge below the boathouses, built by Dick
Hennion for the North Shore Railroad. In shop and street and office
the tide of its life was pouring on, and its citizens held singular
language. Its sparrows were twittering in the maples, bustling,
quarrelling, yet not permanently interested in either the sins or the
wrongs of their neighbours, but going tolerantly to sleep at night.
Here and there a bluebird was singing apart its plaintive, unfinished
“Lulu-lu.”
He inquired of one of Port Argent's citizens for news, and heard that
the “Independent Reformers” had won an election sometime back; that they
were out again now, and inclined to be vituperative among themselves;
that Port Argent was again led by Marve Wood's ring, which was not such
a distressing ring as it might be. Hennion was not in it now. No, but
he was suspected of carrying weight still in the party councils, which
perhaps accounted for the “ring's” not being so distressing as it might
be.
“He did more than he talked about,” said the garrulous citizen. “But
speaking of talkers, there was a man here once named Aidee. You've heard
of him. He's getting celebrated. Well, I'm a business man, and stick to
my times. But I read Aidee's books. It's a good thing to do that much.”
The observer of decades left the garrulous citizen, and went down Lower
Bank Street. He noted the shapeless, indifferent mass and contour of the
buildings on the river-front, the litter of the wharves, the lounging
black barges beside them, the rumble of traffic on the bridge and in
distant streets, the dusky, gliding river lapping the stone piers and
wooden piles, and going on forever while men come and go. He thought how
the stone piers would sometime waste and fall, and the Muscadine would
still go on, turbid and unperturbed.
“Adaptability seems the great test of permanence,” he thought. “Whatever
is rigid is fragile.”
In front of the Champney house he stopped and looked up past the lawn
and saw old Henry Champney, sitting in a wicker chair that was planted
on the gravel walk. He was leaning forward, his chin on his cane, and
gazing absorbed at his two grandchildren at his feet, a brown-haired
child and a dark-haired baby. They were digging holes in the gravel with
iron spoons.
What with the street, the railway, and the river, it might almost
be said that from the Champney lawns one watched the world go by,
clattering, rolling, puffing, travelling these its three concurrent
highways. But Henry Champney seemed to take no interest now in this
world's triple highways, nor to hear their clamour, but only cared now
to watch the dark-haired baby, and listen to the little cooing voices.
THE END