_A picket frozen on duty--
A mother starved for her brood--
Socrates drinking the hemlock,
And Jesus on the rood.
And millions who, humble and nameless,
The straight hard pathway trod--
Some call it Consecration,
And others call it God_.
--WILLIAM HERBERT CARRUTH
“DR. FENNEBEN, I should like much to dismiss my classes for the
afternoon,” Professor Burgess said to the Dean in his study the next
day.
“Very well, Professor, I am afraid you are overworked with all my duties
added to yours here. But you don't look it,” Fenneben said, smiling.
Burgess was growing almost stalwart in this gracious climate.
“I am very well, Doctor. What a beautiful view this is.” He was looking
intently now at the Empire that had failed to interest him once.
“Yes; it is my inspiration. 'Each man's chimney is his golden
milestone,'” Fenneben quoted. “I've watched the smoke from many
chimneys up and down the Walnut Valley during my years here, and later
I've hunted out the people of each hearthstone and made friends with
them. So when I look away from my work here I see friendly tokens of
those I know out there.” He waved his hand toward the whole valley.
“And maybe, when they look up here and see the dome by day, or catch
our beacon light by night, they think of 'Funnybone,' too. It is well to
live close to the folks of your valley always.”
“You are a wonderful man, Doctor,” Burgess said.
“There are two 'milestones' I've never reached,” the Doctor went on.
“One is that place by the bend in the river. See the pigeons rising
above it now. I wonder if that strange white-haired woman ever came back
again. Elinor said she left Lagonda Ledge last summer.”
“Where's the other place?” Burgess would change the subject.
“It i's a little shaft of blue smoke from a wood fire rising above
those rocky places across the river. I've seen it so often, at irregular
times, that I've grown interested in it, but I have missed it since I
came back. It's like losing a friend. Every man has his vagaries. One of
mine is this friendship with the symbols of human homes.”
Burgess offered no comment in response. He could not see that the time
had come to tell Fenneben what Bond Saxon had confided to him about the
man below the smoke. So he left the hilltop and went down to the Saxon
House. He wanted to see Dennie, but found her father instead.
“That woman's left Pigeon Place again,” Saxon said. “Went early this
morning. It's freedom for me when I don't have to think of them two.
Thinking of myself is slavery enough.”
Burgess loitered aimlessly about the doorway for a while. It was a mild
afternoon, with no hint of winter, nor Christmas glitter of ice and snow
about it. Just a glorious finishing of an idyllic Kansas autumn rounding
out in the beauty of a sunshiny mid-December day. But to the man who
stood there, waiting for nothing at all, the day was a mockery. Behind
the fine scholarly face a storm was raging and there was only one friend
whom he could trust--Dennie.
“Let's go walking, you and me!”
Bug Buler put up one hand to Burgess, while he clutched a little red
ball in the other. Bug had an irresistible child voice and child touch,
and Burgess yielded to their leading. He had not realized until now
how lonely he was, and Bug was companionable by intuition and a stanch
little stroller.
North of town the river lay glistening between its vine-draped banks.
The two paused at the bend where Fenneben had been hurled almost to his
doom, and Burgess remembered the darkness, and the rain, and the limp
body he had held. He thought Fenneben was dead then, and even in that
moment he had felt a sense of disloyalty to Dennie as he realized that
he must think of Elinor entirely now. But why not? He had come to Kansas
for this very thinking. It must be his life purpose now.
Today Burgess began to wonder why Elinor must have a life of ease
provided for her and Dennie Saxon ask for nothing. Why should Joshua
Wream's conscience be his burden, too? Then he hated himself a little
more than ever, and duty and manly honor began their wrestle within him
again.
“Let's we go see the pigeons,” Bug suggested, tossing his ball in his
hands.
Burgess remembered what Bond had said of the woman's leaving. There
could be no harm in going inside, he thought. The leafless trees
and shrubbery revealed the neat little home that the summer foliage
concealed. Bug ran forward with childish curiosity and tiptoed up to a
low window, dropping his little red ball in his eagerness.
“Oh, tum! tum!” he cried. “Such a pretty picture frame and vase on the
table.”
He was nearly five years old now, but in his excitement he still used
baby language, as he pulled eagerly at Vincent Burgess' coat.
“It isn't nice to peep, Bug,” Burgess insisted, but he shaded his eyes
and glanced in to please the boy. He did not note the pretty gilt frame
nor the vase beside it on the table. But the face looking out of that
frame made him turn almost as cold and limp as Fenneben had been when
he was dragged from the river. Catching the little one by the hand he
hurried away.
At the gateway he lifted Bug in his arms.
He was not yet at ease with children.
“I dropped my ball,” Bug said. “Let me det it.”
“Oh, no; I'll get you another one. Don't go back,” Burgess urged. “Do
you know it is very rude to look into windows. Let's never tell anybody
we did it; nor ever, ever do it again. Will you remember?”
“Umph humph! I mean, yes, sir! I won't fornever do it again, nor tell
nobody.” Bug buttoned up his lips for a sphinx-like secrecy. “Nobody but
Dennie. And I may fordet it for her.”
“Yes, forget it, and we'll go away up the river and see other things.
Bug, what do you say when you want to keep from doing wrong?”
Bug looked up confidingly.
“I ist say, 'Dod, be merciless to me, a sinner'.”
“Why not merciful, Bug?”
“Tause! If He's merciful it's too easy and I'm no dooder,” Bug said,
wisely.
“Who told you the difference?” Burgess asked.
“Vic. He knows a lot. I wish I had my ball, but let's go up the river.”
“Out of the mouths of babes,” Burgess murmured and hugged the little one
close to him.
Victor Burleigh was in the little balcony of the dome late that
afternoon fixing a defective wiring. Through the open windows he could
see the skyline in every direction. The far-reaching gray prairie,
overhung by its dome of amethyst bordered round with opal and rimmed
with jasper, seemed in every blending tint and tone to call him back to
Norrie. The west bluff above the old Kickapoo Corral in the autumn, the
glen full of shadow-flecked light under the tender young April
leaves, the December landscape as it lay beyond Dr. Fenneben's study
windows--these belonged to Elinor. And all of them were blended in this
vision of inexpressible grandeur, unfolded to him now from the dome's
high vantage place.
“Twice Norrie has let me hold her in my arms and kiss her,” he mused.
“When I do that the third time it must be when there will be no remorse
to hound me afterward.” He looked down the winding Walnut toward the
whirlpool. “I'd rather swim that water than flounder here.”
The sound of footsteps on the rotunda stairs made him turn to see
Vincent Burgess just reaching the little balcony of the dome.
“I've come to have a word with you up here,” he said. “We met once
before in this rotunda.”
“Yes, down there in the arena,” Vic replied, recalling how like a beast
he had felt then. “I was a young hyena that day. Bug Buler came just
in time to save both of us. There is a comfort in feeling we can learn
something. I've needed books and college professors to temper me to
courtesy.”
It was the only apology Vic had ever offered to Burgess, who accepted it
as all that he deserved.
“We learn more from men than from books sometimes. I've learned from
them how courageous a man may be when the need for sacrifice comes. Sit
down, Burleigh, and let me tell you something.”
They sat down on the low seat beside the dome windows. Overhead gleamed
the message of high courage, _Ad Astra Per Aspera_. Below was the
artistic beauty of the rotunda, where the evening shadows were
deepening.
“We are higher than we were that other day. We care less for fighting as
we get farther up, maybe,” Burgess said, pleasantly.
“The only place to fight a man is in a cave, anyhow,” Burleigh replied,
looking at his brawny arms, nor dreaming how prophetic his words might
be.
“We don't belong to that class of men now, whatever our far off
ancestors may have been, but we are the sons of our fathers, Burleigh,
and it is left to the living to right the wrongs the dead have begun.”
Then, briefly, Vincent Burgess, A.B., Greek Professor from Harvard, told
to Vic Burleigh from a prairie claim out beyond the Walnut, a part of
what he had already told to Dennie Saxon, of the funds withheld from him
so long. Told it in general terms, however, not shielding his father
at all, but giving no hint that the first Victor Burleigh was his own
brother-in-law. And of the compact with Joshua Wream and of Norrie he
told nothing.
“Three days ago I did not know that you could be heir to this property,”
he concluded. “I've been interested in books and have left legal matters
to those who controlled them for me.”
He rose hastily, for Burleigh, saying nothing, was looking at him with
wide-open brown eyes that seemed to look straight into his soul.
“I can restore your property to you. I cannot change the past. You have
all the future in which to use it better than my father did, or I might
have done. Goodnight.”
He turned away and passed slowly down the rotunda stairs.
When he was gone Victor Burleigh turned to the open window of the
dome. He was not to blame that the beautiful earth under a magnificent
December sunset sky seemed all his own now.
“'If big, handsome Victor Burleigh had his corners knocked off and was
sandpapered down,'” he mused. “Well, what corners I haven't knocked off
myself have been knocked off for me and I've been sandpapered--Lord,
I've been sandpapered down all right. I'm at home on a carpet now. 'And
if he had money'.” Vic's face was triumphant. “It has come at last--the
money. And what of Elinor?”
The sacred memories of brief fleeting moments with her told him “what of
Elinor.”
“The barriers are down now. It is a glorious old world. I must hunt up
Trench and then--”
He closed the dome window, looked a moment at the brave Kansas motto,
radiant in the sunset light, and then, picking up his tools, he went
downstairs.
“Hello, Trench I he called as he reached the rotunda floor. I must see
you a minute.”
“Hello, you Angel-face! Case of necessity. Well, look a minute,” Trench
drawled. “But that's the limit, and twice as long as I'd care to see
you, although, I was hunting you. Funnybone wants to see you in there.”
Victor's eyes were glowing with a golden light as he entered Fenneben's
study, and the Dean noted the wonderful change from the big, awkward
fellow with a bulldog countenance to this self-poised gentleman whose
fine face it was a joy to see.
“I have a message for you, Burleigh. No hurry about it I was told, but
I am called away on important business and I must get it out of my mind.
An odd-looking fellow called at my door on the night I came home and
left a package for you. He said he had tried to find you and failed,
that he was a stranger here, and that you would understand the message
inside. He insisted on not giving this in any hurry, and as my coming
home has brought me a mass of things to consider, I have not been prompt
about it.”
Fenneben put a small package into Burleigh's hands.
“Examine it here, if you care to. You can fasten the door when you
leave. Goodby!” and he was gone.
Victor sat down and opened the package. Inside was a quaint little
silver pitcher, much ornamented, with the initial B embossed on the
smooth side.
“The lost pitcher--stolen the day my mother died--and I was warned never
to try to find who stole it.” He turned to the light of the west window.
“It is the very thing I found in the cave that night. The man who took
it may have been over there.” He glanced out of the window and saw a
thin twist of blue smoke rising above the ledges across the river.
“Who can have had it all this time, and why return it now?” he
questioned. As he turned the pitcher in his hands a paper fell out.
“The message inside!” He spread out the paper and read “the message
inside.”
Well for him that Dr. Fenneben had left him alone. The shining face and
eyes aglow changed suddenly to a white, hard countenance as he read this
message inside. It ran:
“Victor Burleigh. First, don't ever try to follow me. The day you do
I'll send you where I sent your father. No Burleigh can stay near me and
live. Now be wise.
“Second. You saved the baby I left in the old dugout. Before God I never
meant to kill it then. The thought of it has cursed my soul night and
day till I found out you had saved him.
“Third. The girl you want to marry--go and marry. Do anything, good or
bad, to destroy Burgess.
“Fourth. The money Burgess had is yours, only because I'm giving it to
you. It belongs to Bug Buler. He couldn't talk plain when you saved him.
He's not Bug Buler; he's Bug Burleigh, son of Victor Burleigh, heir to
V. B.'s money in the law. I've got all the proofs. You see why you can
have that money. Nobody will ever know but me. Don't hunt for me and
I'll never tell. TOM GRESH.”
The paper fell from Victor Burleigh's hands. The world, that ten minutes
ago was a rose-hued sunset land, was a dreary midnight waste now. The
one barrier between himself and Elinor had fallen only to rise up again.
Then came Satan into the game. “Nobody knew this but Gresh! Who had
saved Bug's life? Who had cared for him and would always care for him?
Why should Bug, little, loving Bug, come now to spoil his hopes? If Bug
knew he would be first to give it all to his beloved Vic.”
And then came Satan's ten strike. “No need to settle things now. Wait
and think it over.” And Vic decided in a blind way to think it over.
In the rotunda he met Trench, old Trench, slow of step but a lightning
calculator.
“Where are you going?” he exclaimed, as he saw Vic's face.
“I'm going to the whirlpool before I'm through,” Vic said, hoarsely.
Trench caught him in a powerful grip and shoved him to the foot of the
rotunda stairs.
“No,-you re-not-going-to-the-whirlpool,”' he said, slowly. “You're
going up to the top of the dome right against that _Ad Astra per Aspera_
business up there, and open the west window and look out at the world
the Lord made to heal hurt souls by looking at. And you are going to
stay up there until you have fought the thing out with yourself, and
come down like Moses did with the ten Commandments cut deep on the
tables of your stony old heart. If you don't, you'll not need to go to
old Lagonda's pool. By the holy saints, I'll take you there myself and
plunge you in just to rid the world of such a fool. You hear me! Now, go
on! And remember in your tussle that that big S cut over the old Sunrise
door out there stands for Service. That's what will make your name fit
you yet, Victor.”
Vic slowly climbed up to where an hour ago the sudden opportunity for
the fruition of his young life and hope had been brought to him. Lost
now, unless--Nobody would ever know and Bug could lose nothing. He
opened the west window and looked out at the Walnut Valley, dim and
shadowy now, and the silver prairies beyond it and the gorgeous crimson
tinted sky wherefrom the sun had slipped. And then and there, with his
face to the light, he wrestled with the black Apollyon of his soul. And
every minute the temptation grew to keep the funds “in trust,” and to
keep on caring for the boy he had cared for since babyhood. He clinched
his white teeth and the tiger light was in his eyes again as the longing
for Elinor's love overcame him. He pictured her as only one sunset
ago she had looked up into his eyes, her face transfigured with love's
sweetness, and he wished he might keep that picture forever. But,
somehow, between that face and his own, came the picture of little Bug
alone in the wretched dugout, reaching up baby arms to him for life and
safety; on his baby face a pleading trustfulness.
Victor unbuttoned his cuff and slipped up his sleeve to the scar on his
arm.
“Anybody can see the scar I put there when I cut out the poison,” he
said to himself, at last. “Nobody will see the scar on my soul, but I'll
cut out the poison just the same. I did not save that baby boy from the
rattlesnakes only to let him be crushed by the serpent in me. Trench was
right, the S over the doorway down there stands for Service as well
as for Sacrifice and Strife. Dr. Fenneben says they all enter into the
winning of a Master's Degree. Shall I ever get mine earned, I wonder?”
He looked once more at the west, all a soft purple, gray-veiled with
misty shadows, save over the place where the sun went out one shaft of
deepest rose hue tipped with golden flame was cleaving its way toward
the darkening zenith. Then he closed the window and went downstairs and
out into the beautiful December twilight.
In all Kansas in that evening hour no man breathed deeper of the sweet,
pure air, nor walked with firmer stride, than the man who had gone out
under the carved symbol of the college doorway, Victor Burleigh of the
junior class at Sunrise.
SUPREMACY
Make thyself free of Manhood's guild,
Pull down thy barns and greater build,
Pluck from the sunset's fruit of gold,
Glean from the heavens and ocean old,
From fireside lone and trampling street
Let thy life garner daily wheat,
The epic of a man rehearse,
Be something better than thy verse,
And thou shalt hear the life-blood flow
From farthest stars to grass-blades low.
--LOWELL