CHAPTER I_The Heart's Country

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THE HEART'S COUNTRY

MARY HEATON VORSE

WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY

ALICE BARBER STEPHENS

[Illustration]

BOSTON AND NEW YORK

HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY

The Riverside Press Cambridge

1914

_Published April 1914_

[Illustration: YOU MUST COME!

(p. 151)]

By Mary Heaton Vorse

THE HEART'S COUNTRY. Illustrated.

THE VERY LITTLE PERSON. Illustrated.

THE BREAKING IN OF A YACHTSMAN'S WIFE. Illustrated.

HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY

Boston and New York

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE

Prologue 1

I 5

II 17

III 24

IV 30

V 36

VI 43

VII 50

VIII 58

IX 68

X 85

XI 97

XII 112

XIII 119

XIV 128

XV 146

XVI 153

XVII 168

XVIII 187

XIX 195

XX 203

XXI 221

XXII 230

XXIII 248

XXIV 253

XXV 261

XXVI 276

XXVII 282

ILLUSTRATIONS

"You must come!" (page 151) _Frontispiece_

"I Hate your Society, anyway! I never did

want to be an Old Maid!" 40

"She is very lovely" 108

She towered above Ellen, an Avenging Fate 176

From drawings by Alice Barber Stephens.

THE HEART'S COUNTRY

PROLOGUE

The actors in this drama are dead, or else life has turned them into

such different beings that their transformation is hardly less than

that of death itself. Their thoughts are scattered to the winds, or

live, oddly changed, in the bodies of their children--the girl who

brought me the journals and packages of letters smiled up at me with

the flashing smile of Ellen.

This girl, with a gesture of the hand, opened for me the gates of the

past, and when she was gone I walked through them with beating heart,

back over the steep path of years. This little package of

long-forgotten papers which she had given me, and of whose contents

she was ignorant, were a strange legacy, for it was my own youth that

I found in them and the youth of Ellen.

As I went over the scrawled journals and through the packages of

letters, the land of memory blossomed for me and the tears that came

to my eyes thawed the ice of many years. Ellen herself had forgotten

her youth; she may not have remembered that in the bottom of an old

trunk she had left for me things which she could not bear to

destroy--for there they found them after her death with a letter

addressed to me. As I read on, it was as though I had before me the

broken pieces of her heart, and as I looked, my own childhood and even

my girlhood lived again.

I had often looked for my girlhood and had never found it. Those years

when women are in the making--that land of glamour--are the hardest

thing of all for grown-up people to understand. Nothing stays fixed

there, all the emotions are at their point of effervescence and their

charm is their evanescence. The very power of early youth is in the

violence of its changes; it is the era of chaos in the souls of

people; when they are in the making; when the crust is only forming,

and the fire may break forth at any moment; and when what seems most

secure and fixed trembles under the feet and disappears in some

new-made gulf of the emotions. Then, too, in our youth they teach us

such cruel things, we spend ourselves in trying to keep alive such

spent fires, and no one tells us that it is anything but noble to live

under the destructive tyranny of love. We have to find our way alone--

The thought came to me that I would try to write a sort of story of my

friend. And yet, although I had before me the picture of a heart in

the making, I have taken up my pen and laid it down again because it

is not a story which "marches." Its victories and defeats went on in

the quiet of Ellen's heart, but I have learned that this silent making

and marring of the hearts of women means the fate of all men forever.

I fancy that women will have another bar of judgment and that the

question asked us there will be: "Have you loved well? Were you small

and grudging and niggardly? Did you make of love a sorry barter, or

did you give with such a gesture as spring makes when it walks

blossoming across the land?" I do not think that old age often repents

the generosities of its youth; perhaps it is my own too careful

sowing that makes me wish to write the life of my friend, who asked

only to spend herself and her own sweetness with both reckless hands.

CHAPTER I

Ellen and her mother drove in a "shay" to take possession of the old

Scudder house, which had been vacant long enough to have a deserted

and haunted look. It was far back from the street and was sentineled

on either side by an uncompromising fir tree. Great vans, of the kind

used in that early day to move furniture from one town to another,

disgorged their contents on the young spring grass, and though Mildred

Dilloway and Janie Acres and I walked to the village store and back on

a half-dozen errands, we saw nothing of the new little girl that day;

but there remains in my mind the memory of her little mother, a

youthful, black-clad figure, moving helplessly, and it seemed at

random, among her household effects that squatted so forlornly in the

front yard and then started on their processional walk to the house,

impelled by the puissant force of Miss Sarah Grant.

Ellen's account of this time is as follows:--

"We are going to live by ourselves, though we can't afford it,

because we are ourselves, mamma says, and will really give less

trouble this way, though my aunt and uncle think not. 'I want

you to win your aunt and uncle,' she said to me. It will be so

much easier for me to win them if they don't know me too well.

That is one of her reasons for not living in the house with

them. 'They would find us so slack that we should become a thorn

in their flesh.' 'Couldn't we stop being slack?' I said. Mamma

looked at me, and after a long time she said, 'You and I, Ellen,

will always be slack inside. Material things don't interest us.'

My mother doesn't know me. I like some material things, like

ploughing. I said to her: 'Wouldn't _they_ be a thorn in _our_

flesh?' She tried not to smile, and said quite sternly: 'Ellen,

you must never think of your dear aunt and uncle in that way.'

If it is so, why shouldn't I think so, I wonder? As soon as I

saw them I knew what mother meant. They are very nice and I love

them, but they have never leaned over the gate to talk to

peddlers. A lost dog wouldn't be happy in their home. We have

never had any dogs but lost ones. And Aunt Sarah didn't like

Faro's name or his ways. I like Aunt Sarah. She says just what

she feels like saying. Mother doesn't. Mother says the things

she wants to feel like saying. I annoyed my Aunt Sarah by

forgetting to come home to help, and mother said, 'Oh, dear, why

did you need to go and read the Bible to that woman next door

when we were moving in, and I wanted your aunt to have a high

opinion of you?' I said, 'She had the rheumatism.' Aunt Sarah

said, 'Does she read with her knee; and how came you there

anyway, Ellen?' I said, 'By the back door, because I like back

doors and I hate going in front doors.' Aunt Sarah looked at me

very sharply and said, 'That child of yours, Emily, is just such

a child as I should expect you to have, reading the Bible to

strangers who have the rheumatism when a pair of willing hands

would have been useful at home.' The way she looked at me, I

knew deep inside she didn't really mind, so I suddenly kissed

her. Later mother said, 'Mercy! I would never have dared to kiss

your Aunt Sarah like that.' I told her I knew Aunt Sarah wanted

me to. 'How can you tell?' asked mother; but I always know

things like that. It makes me feel rather vain, and vanity is a

sin. My Uncle Ephraim is like a picture and so is the big house

they live in. I had a moment that mamma called 'flesh-pottish'

and longed to live there. 'That's just it, Ellen,' she said.

'They are like pictures, and you and I would be sure to injure

their lovely surfaces. We are not violent, but so careless.'"

After this arduous day I remember Miss Sarah popped down in my

grandmother's sitting-room. Said she: "I'm all out of breath." My

grandmother waited for further information. "I've been settling," Miss

Sarah informed her with that frankness that kept all the older ladies

in town in a state of twittering expectation. "I've been settling my

do-less sister and her do-less child." She spoke in some exasperation.

My grandmother allowed a long pause and said reflectively:--

"You'd make any one do-less, Sarah."

And, indeed, Miss Sarah Grant was one of those energetic ladies who

leave no place for the energies of others to expand. But here the wind

shifted and her irritation disappeared.

"Oh, my dear," she said, "it's too sad. Those children are as little

fit to take care of themselves and to live alone as young robins in

the nest."

"The Lord looks after such," said my grandmother.

"Well," replied Miss Sarah, with asperity, "you may be sure that after

what I've seen of this world I'm not going to leave it with the Lord."

She was on terms of familiarity with the Deity that even permitted

criticism of his ways. Then she said: "Send Roberta soon to see that

poor, fatherless Ellen of mine."

This my grandmother did, shortly afterwards, and I started forth on my

first visit to the "poor, fatherless Ellen" at the slow and elegant

gait of a hearse with plumes. We were not far removed from that period

when young ladies employed their leisure by limning lachrymose females

weeping over urns. We were therefore expectant of a certain pomp of

mourning; long, black draperies were the least we demanded. Ellen, I

learned, was in the apple orchard, and thither I bent my solemn

footsteps.

It was in full bloom, one tree after another looking like bridal

nosegays of some beneficent giant. All was quiet save for the droning

of honey-bees. Suddenly two inches above my head there burst forth the

roars of an infant of tender years. I looked up and there I beheld my

tragic heroine. Her dress was of blue, checked gingham, a piece of

which was caught on a twig of the apple tree and rent nearly in a

three-cornered tear. One stocking was coming down in a manner

unbecoming to any girl. Her hair was plaited in two neat little

"plats," as we used to call them, and tied tightly with meager

ribbons; but though I took these things in at a glance, that which

naturally most arrested my attention was the fact that Ellen cherished

to her bosom a large, red-headed infant, whom I immediately recognized

as being one of the brood of the prolific Sweeneys.

The child ceased roaring for a moment, upon which Ellen remarked to me

with grave self-composure:--

"How do you do? I suppose you have come to play with me, but my

brother and I can't come down for a moment until I have managed to get

my dress from that twig. Perhaps you could come up and undo it, or if

you could perhaps come and get him--"

"Your brother!" I cried. "That's one of the Sweeney children."

Ellen's eyes flashed. "It _is_ my brother," she insisted. "You can see

for yourself it's my brother. Would one have taken anything but one's

brother up a tree? I have to take care of him all the time."

Said I: "I've known the Sweeney boys all my life; there are seven of

them and the third but one biggest always takes care of the smallest.

There's one littler 'n this."

"Oh, there _is_!" said Ellen. Her brow darkened. "And I got up the

tree with this large, hulking thing in my arms--and goodness knows how

I ever did get up it!" She spoke with vigor and precision.

"Aha!" I cried, "you say yourself it's a Sweeney."

"I say nothing of the kind," rejoined Ellen. "This is my brother.

Come," she wheedled, "why won't you say it's my brother?"

I bit my lip; I wanted to go, for I was not used to being made game

of. Moreover, I disapproved of her present position extremely. There

was I, my mouth made up, so to speak, for a weeping-willow air,

lachrymose ringlets, dark-rimmed eyes, and black raiment, and I had

encountered fallen stockings, torn blue gingham, and the Sweeney baby,

and the whole of it together up a tree.

Ellen now looked down on me. Her generous mouth with its tip-tilted

corners--an exotic, lovable mouth, too large for beauty, but of a

remarkable texture and color--now drooped and her eyes filled,--filled

beautifully, and yet did not brim over. And for all the droop of the

mouth, the saddest little smile I have ever seen hovered about its

corners.

"Won't you _please_ say that this is my brother?" she pleaded.

Though I knew it was the Sweeney baby and though I knew she was

play-acting all of it, stubborn and downright child though I was,

something gripped my heart. Though I couldn't have then put it into

words, there was a wistfulness and a heart-hunger about her that

played a game with me. It was my first encounter and my first

overthrow.

"Have it your brother," said I in a surly fashion.

When we had got the baby down from the tree, Ellen finished me by

looking at me with her sincere, sweet eyes in which there was a hint

of tears, and saying softly: "Once I had a little brother who died."

That was all. She turned her face away; I turned my face away; our

hands met. It was as though she was explaining to me her insistence on

the Sweeney baby.

It was her look and this silent and averted hand-clasp that brought me

to my feet in a very torrent of feeling when Alec Yorke, an engaging

youth of eleven summers, came ramping through the orchard shouting:--

"Oh, you'll get it! You'll get it! Mrs. Sweeney's given Ted a good one

already--she's after you!"

It was not the gusto in his tone at her ultimate fate that irritated

me, but this taking away of Ellen's baby brother.

"Mrs. Sweeney's got nothing to do with this baby!" I cried. "It's

Ellen's brother!"

I bent down and picked up a stone and threw it at Alec. Ellen did the

same. In one second we had performed one of those amazing sleights of

hand that are so frequent and so disconcerting at this moment of

girlhood. A moment before we had been swimming along the upper levels

of sentiment and crossing the tender, heart-breaking line of the love

of women for little children; now our teary mistiness vanished and we

were back at the green-apple-hearted moment of childhood. That

afternoon I had already been a young lady with all the decorous

manners of eighteen; I had been no age,--just a woman whose heart is

touched with pity and affection; and now I was just stern, hard

twelve, and I threw a rock at my little friend, Alec Yorke. So did

Ellen.

Together, with hoots and pebbles, we drove the invading male from our

midst. Ellen, I remember, had a "Yip! Yip! Yip!" which was

blood-thirsty and derisive at once. She barked it out like a terrier

gone mad. I remember also her crying out in a ferocious agony of

desire: "Oh, if I get near you, won't I _spit_ on you!"

These were her first words to Alec. He said in later years that their

first meeting was indelibly engraven on his memory. He retreated over

the fence vanquished by superior force, but with his head well up and

his thumb to his gallantly tilted nose. Here Ellen turned to me, the

light of victory flashing from her eyes, which fought with my

interrogatory gaze, filled with tears again, and at last sought the

distance.

"_I never had a little brother_," she muttered thickly.

Anger surged over me and then died as quickly as it had come. Again

she had me. The quiver in her voice showed me what her sincerity had

cost her, and so did her next words:--

"I wanted one so always that I just had to make-believe."

Here one had the heart of truth, stripped of the spirit of

make-believe which it had clothed in quaint and absurd garments. Again

I squeezed Ellen's hand in mine.

I tell all these things in detail because this was so Ellen. She had

this dual nature which fought forever in her heart,--the passion for

make-believe and the fundamental need of telling the truth,--always to

herself, and often embarrassingly to those she loved.

She comments as follows on this episode, unconsciously showing me as

the young prig I was:--

"The moment Roberta picked up a rock to fight for my brother, I

knew I should have to tell her the truth. I saw right away how

good Roberta was. She has very lovely blue eyes and her hair is

so smooth and shiny that I don't believe she musses it when she

sleeps. She looked at me so straight and her eyes were so round

that it was very hard work to tell her that the Sweeney baby was

not my brother, but I gritted my teeth and did it. The rest was

easy on account of her soft heart."