"EACH IN HIS OWN COIN"
With the New Year had descended upon John Flint an obsessing and
tormenting spirit which made him by fits and starts moody, depressed,
nervous, restless, or wholly silent and abstracted. I have known him
to come in just before dawn, snatch a few hours' sleep, and be off
again before day had well set in, though he must already have been far
afield, for Kerry heeled him with lagging legs and hanging head. Or he
would shut himself up, and refusing himself to all callers, fall into
a cold fury of concentrated effort, sitting at his table hour after
hour, tireless, absorbed, accomplishing a week's overdue work in a day
and a night. Often his light burned all night through. Some of the
most notable papers bearing his name, and research work of
far-reaching significance, came from that workroom then--as if lumps
of ambergris had been tossed out of a whirlpool.
All this time, too, he was working in conjunction with the Washington
Bureau, experimenting with remedies for the boll-weevil, and fighting
the plague of the cattle-tick. This, and the other outside work in
which he was so immensely interested, could not be allowed to hang
fire. Like many another, he found himself for his salvation caught in
the great human net he himself had helped to spin. It was not only
the country people who held him. Gradually, as he passed to and from
on his way among them, and became acquainted with their children,
there had sprung up a most curious sort of understanding between the
Butterfly Man on the one side, and the half-articulate foreigners in
the factory and the sly secretive mill-workers on the other.
People I had never been able to get at humanly, people who resisted
even Madame, not only chose to open their doors but their mouths, to
Meester Fleent. Uncouth fumbling men, slip-shod women, dirty-faced
children, were never dumb and suspicious or wholly untruthful and
evasive, where the Butterfly Man was concerned. He was one to whom
might be told, without shame, fear, or compunction, the plain, blunt,
terrible truth. _He understood._
"I wish you'd look up Petronovich's boy, father," he might tell me,
or, "Madame, have a woman-talk with Lovena Smith's girl at the mills,
will you? Lovena's a fool, and that girl's up against things." And we
went, and wondered, afterwards, what particularly tender guardian
angels kept close company with our Butterfly Man.
Then occurred the great event which put Meester Fleent in a place
apart in the estimation of all Appleboro, forever settled his status
among the mill-hands and the "hickeys," and incidentally settled a
tormenting doubt of himself in his own mind. I mean the settling of
the score against Big Jan.
Half-Russian Jan was to the Poles what a padrone too often is to the
Italian laborers, a creature who herded them together and mercilessly
worked them for the profit of others, and incidentally his own, an
exacting tyrant against whose will it was useless to rebel. He had a
little timid wife with red eyes--perhaps because she cried so much
over the annual baby which just as annually died. He made a good deal
of money, but the dark Slav passion for whisky forced him to spend
what he earned, and this increased a naturally sullen temper. He was
the thorn in the Parish side; that we could do so little for the Poles
was due in a large measure to Jan's stubborn hindering.
His people lived in terror of him. When they displeased him he beat
them. It was not a light beating, and once or twice we had in the
Guest Rooms nursed its victims back into some semblance of humanity.
But what could we do? Jan was so efficient a foreman that Inglesby's
power was always behind him. So when Jan chose to get very drunk, and
sang long, monotonous songs, particularly when he sang through his
teeth, lugubriously:
"_Yeszeze Polska nie Zginela
Poki my Zygemy_ ..."
men and women trembled. Poland might not be lost, but somebody's skin
always paid for that song.
In passing one morning--it was a holiday--through the Poles' quarters,
an unpleasant enough stretch which other folks religiously avoided,
the Butterfly Man heard shrieks coming from Michael Karski's back
yard. It was Michael's wife and children who screamed.
"It is the Boss who beats Michael, Meester Fleent," a man volunteered.
"The Boss, he is much drunk. Karski's woman, she did not like the ways
of him in her house, and Michael said, 'I will to send for the
police.' So Big Jan beats Michael, and Michael's woman, she hollers
like hell."
John Flint knew inoffensive, timid Michael; he knew his broad-bosomed,
patient, cowlike wife, and he liked the brood of shockheaded
youngsters who plodded along patient in old clothes, bare-footed, and
with scanty enough food. He had made a corn-cob doll for the littlest
girl and a cigar-box wagon with spool wheels for the littlest boy.
Perhaps that is why he turned and went with the rest to Michael's yard
where Big Jan was knocking Michael about like a ten-pin, grunting
through his teeth: "Now! Sen' for those policemens, you!"
Michael was no pretty thing to look upon, for Jan was in an uglier
mood than usual, and Michael had greatly displeased him; therefore it
was Michael's turn to pay. Nobody interfered, for every one was
horribly afraid Big Jan would turn upon _him_. Besides, was not he the
Boss, and could he not say Go, and then must not a man go, short of
pay, and with his wife and children crying? Of a verity!
The Butterfly Man slipped off his knapsack and laid his net aside.
Then he pushed his way through the scared onlookers.
"Meester Fleent! For God's love, save my man, Meester Flint!"
Michael's wife Katya screamed at him.
By way of answer Meester Fleent very deliberately handed her his
eye-glasses. Then one saw that his eyes, slitted in his head, were
cold and bright as a snake's; his chin thrust forward, and in his red
beard his lips made a straight line like a clean knife-cut. Two
bright red spots had jumped into his tanned cheeks. His lean hands
balled.
He said no word; but the crumpled thing that was Michael was of a
sudden plucked bodily out of Big Jan's hands and thrust into the
waiting woman's. The astonished Boss found himself confronting a pale
and formidable face with a pair of eyes like glinting sword-blades.
Kerry had followed his master, and was now close to his side. For the
moment Flint had forgotten him. But Big Jan's evil eyes caught sight
of him. He knew the Butterfly Man's dog very well. He snickered. A
huge foot shot out, there was a howl of anguish and astonishment, and
Kerry went flying through the air as if shot from a catapult.
"So!" Jan grunted like a satisfied hog, "I feex _you_ like that in one
meenute, me."
The red jumped from John Flint's cheeks to his eyes, and stayed there.
Why, this hulking brute had hurt _Kerry!_ His breath exhaled in a
whistling sigh. He seemed to coil himself together; with a tiger-leap
he launched himself at the great hulk before him. It went down. It had
to.
I know every detail of that historic fight. Is it not written large in
the Book of the Deeds of Appleboro, and have I not heard it by word of
mouth from many a raving eye-witness? Does not Dr. Walter Westmoreland
lick his lips over it unto this day?
A long groaning sigh went up from the onlookers. Meester Fleent was a
great and a good man; but he was a crippled man. Death was very close
to him.
Big Jan was not too drunk to fight savagely, but he was in a most
horrible rage, and this weakened him. He meant to kill this impudent
fellow who had taken Michael away from him before he had half-finished
with him. But first he would break every bone in the crippled man's
body, take him in his hands and break his back over one knee as one
does a slat. A man with one leg to balk him, Big Jan? That called for
a killing. Jan had no faintest idea he might not be able to make good
this pleasant intention.
It was a stupendous fight, a Homeric fight, a fight against odds,
which has become a town tradition. If Jan was formidable, a veritable
bison, his opponent was no cringing workman scared out of his wits and
too timid to defend himself. John Flint knew his own weakness, knew
what he could expect at Jan's hands, and it made him cool, collected,
wary, and deadly. He was no more the mild-mannered, soft-spoken
Butterfly Man, but another and a more primal creature, fighting for
his life. Big Jan, indeed, fancied he had nobody but the Butterfly Man
to deal with; as a matter of fact he was tackling Slippy McGee.
Skilled, watchful, dangerous, that old training saved him. Every time
Jan came to his feet, roaring, thrashing his arms like flails, making
head-long, bull-like rushes, the Butterfly Man managed to send him
sprawling again. Then he himself caught one well-aimed blow, and went
staggering; but before slow-moving and raging Jan could follow up his
advantage, with a lightning-like quickness the Butterfly Man made a
battering ram of his head, caught Jan in the pit of the stomach, and
even as he fell Jan went down, too, and went down underneath.
Desperately, fighting like a fiend, John Flint kept him down. And
presently using every wrestler's trick that he knew, and bringing to
bear every ounce of his saved and superb strength, in a most orderly,
businesslike, cold-blooded manner he proceeded to pound Big Jan into
pulp. The devil that had been chained these seven years was a-loose at
last, rampant, fully aroused, and not easily satisfied. Besides, had
not Jan most brutally and wantonly tried to kill Kerry!
If it was a well deserved it was none the less a most drastic
punishment, and when it was over Big Jan lay still. He would lie prone
for many a day, and he would carry marks of it to his grave.
When the tousled victor, with a reeling head, an eye fast closing, and
a puffed and swollen lip, staggered upright and stood swaying on his
feet, he found himself surrounded by a great quiet ring of men and
women who regarded him with eyes of wonder and amaze. He was
superhuman; he had accomplished the impossible; paid the dreaded Boss
in his own coin, yea, given him full measure to the running over
thereof! No man of all the men Jan had beaten in his time had received
such as Jan himself had gotten at this man's hands to-day. The reign
of the Boss was over: and the conqueror was a crippled man! A great
sighing breath of sheer worshipful admiration went up; they were too
profoundly moved to cheer him; they could only stand and stare. When
they wished, reverently, to help him, he waved them aside.
"Where's my dog?" he demanded thickly through his swollen lips.
"Where's Kerry? If he's dead--" he cast upon fallen Jan a menacing
glare.
"Your dog's in bed with the baby, and Ma's give him milk with brandy
in it, and he drank it and growled at her, and the boys is holding
him down now to keep him from coming out to you, and he ain't much
hurt nohow," squealed one of Michael's big-eyed children.
John Flint, stretching his arms above his head, drew in a great
gulping mouthful of air, exhaled it, and laughed a deepchested,
satisfied laugh, for all he was staggering like a drunken man. Here
Michael's wife Katya came puffing out of her house like a traction
engine--such was the shape in which nature formed her--and falling on
her knees, caught his hand to her vast bosom, weeping like the
overflowing of a river and blubbering uncouth sounds.
"Get up, you crazy woman!" snarled John Flint, his face going
brick-red. "Stop licking my hand, and get up!" Although he did not
know it, Katya symbolized the mental attitude of every laborer in
Appleboro toward him from that hour.
"Here's Doctor Westmoreland! And here comes the po-lice!" yelled a
boy, joyous with excitement.
Westmoreland cast one by no means sympathetic glance at the wreck on
the ground, and his big arms went about John Flint; his fingers flew
over him like an apprehensive father's.
"What's all this? Who's been fighting here, you people?" demanded the
town marshal's brisk voice. "Big Jan? And--good Lord! _Mister Flint!_"
His eyes bulged. He looked from Big Jan on the ground to the Butterfly
Man under Westmoreland's hands, with an almost ludicrous astonishment.
"I'm sure sorry, Mr. Flint, if I have to give you a little trouble for
awhile, but--"
"But you'll be considerably sorrier if you do it," said Dr. Walter
Westmoreland savagely. "You take that hulk over there to the jail,
until I have time to see him. I can't have him sent home to his wife
in that shape. And look here, Marshal: Jan got exactly what he
deserved; it's been coming to him this long time. If Inglesby's bunch
tries to take a hand in this, _I'll_ try to make Appleboro too hot to
hold somebody. Understand?"
The marshal was a wise enough man, and he understood. Inglesby's pet
foreman had been all but killed, and Inglesby would be furiously
angry. But--Mr. Flint had done it, and behind Mr. Flint were powers
perhaps as potent as Inglesby's. One thing more may have influenced
the marshal: The hitherto timid and apathetic people had merged into a
compact and ominous ring around the Butterfly Man and the doctor. A
shrill murmur arose, like the wind in the trees presaging a storm.
There would be riot in staid Appleboro if one were so foolish as to
lay a detaining hand upon John Flint this day. More yet, the beloved
Westmoreland himself would probably begin it. Never had the marshal
seen Westmoreland look so big and so raging.
"All right, Doctor," said he, hastily backing off. "I reckon you're
man enough to handle this."
Some proud worshiper brought Mr. Flint his hat, knapsack, and net, and
the mountainous Katya insisted upon tenderly placing his glasses upon
his nose--upside down. Westmoreland used to say afterward that for a
moment he feared Flint was going to bite her hand! Then man and dog
were placed in the doctor's car and hurried home to my mother; who
made no comment, but put both in the larger Guest Room, the whimpering
dog on a comfort at the foot of his master's bed. Kerry had a broken
rib, but outside of this he was not injured. He would be out and all
right again in a week, Westmoreland assured his anxious master.
"Oh, you _man_, you!" crowed Westmoreland. "John, John, if anything
were needed to make me love you, this would clinch it! Prying open
nature's fist, John, having butterflies bear your name, working hand
in glove with your government, boosting boys, writing books, are all
of them fine big grand things. But if along with them one's man enough
to stand up, John, with the odds against him, and punish a bully and a
scoundrel, the only way a bully and a scoundrel can feel punishment,
that's a heart-stirring thing, John! It gets to the core of my heart.
It isn't so much the fight itself, it's being able to take care of
oneself and others when one has to. Yes, yes, yes. A fight like that
is worth a million dollars to the man who wins it!"
Westmoreland may be president of the Peace League, and tell us that
force is all wrong. Nevertheless, his great-grandmother was born in
Tipperary.
We kept the Butterfly Man indoors for a week, while Westmoreland
doctored a viciously black eye and sewed up his lip. Morning and
afternoon Appleboro called, and left tribute of fruit and flowers.
"Gad, suh, he behaved like one of Stonewall Jackson's men!" said Major
Cartwright, pridefully. "No yellow in _him_; he's one of _us_!"
At nights came the Polish folks, and these people whom he had once
despised because they "hadn't got sense enough to talk American," he
now received with a complete and friendly understanding.
"I just come by and see how you make to feel, Meester."
"Oh, I feel fine, Joe, thank you."
There would be an interval of absolute silence, which, did not seem to
embarrass either visited or visitor. Then:
"Baby better now?" Meester would ask, interestedly.
"That beeg doctor, he oil heem an' make heem well all right."
After awhile: "I mebbe go now, Meester."
"Good-night," said the host, briefly.
At the door the Pole would turn, and look back, with the wistfully
animal look of the Under Dog.
"Those cheeldren, they make to get you the leetle bug. You mebbe like
that, Meester, yes? They make to get you plenty much bug, those
cheeldren. We _all_ make to get you the bug, Meester, thank you."
"That's mighty nice of you folks." Then one felt the note in the quiet
voice which explained his hold upon people.
"Hell, no. We _like_ to do that for you, Meester. Thank you." And
closing the door gently after him, he would slink off.
"They don't need to be so allfired grateful," said John Flint frankly.
"Parson, I'm the guy to be grateful. I got a whole heap more out of
that shindy than a black eye and a pretty mouth. I was bluemolding for
a man-tussle, and that scrap set me up again. You see--I wasn't sure
of myself any more, and it was souring on my stomach. Now I know I
haven't lost out, I feel like a white man. Yep, it gives a fellow the
holiday-heart to be dead sure he's plenty able to use his fists if
he's got to. Westmoreland's right about that."
I was discreetly silent. God forgive me, in my heart I also was most
sinfully glad my Butterfly Man could and would use his fists when he
had to. I do not believe in peace at any price. I know very well that
wrong must be conquered before right can prevail. But I shouldn't have
been so set up!
"Here," said he one morning. "Ask Madame to give this to Jan's wife.
And say, beg her for heaven's sake to buy some salve for her eyelids,
will you?" "This" was a small roll of bills. "I owe it to Jan," he
explained, with his twistiest smile.
Westmoreland's skill removed all outward marks of the fray, and the
Butterfly Man went his usual way; but although he had laid at rest one
cruel doubt, he was still in deep waters. Because of his stress his
clothes had begun to hang loosely upon him.
Now the naturalist who knows anything at all of those deep mysterious
well-springs underlying his great profession, understands that he is a
'prentice hand learning his trade in the workshop of the Almighty;
wherein "_the invisible things of Him from the creation of the world
are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made_." As
Paul on a time reminded the Romans.
Wherefore I who had learned somewhat from the Little Peoples now
applied what they had taught me, and when I saw my man grow restless,
move about aimlessly, withdraw into himself and become as one blind
and dumb and unhearing, I understood he was facing a change, making
ready to project himself into some larger phase of existence as yet in
the womb of the future. So I did not question what wind drove him
forth before it like a lost leaf. The loving silent companionship of
red Kerry, the friendly faces of young children to whom he was kind,
the eyes of poor men and women looking to him for help, these were
better for him now than I.
But my mother was not a naturalist, and she was provoked with John
Flint. He ate irregularly, he slept as it pleased God. He was "running
wild" again. This displeased her, particularly as Appleboro had at her
instigation included Mr. John Flint in its most exclusive list, and
there were invitations she was determined he should accept. She had
put her hand to the social plow in his behalf, and she had no faintest
notion of withdrawing it. Once fairly aroused, Madame had that
able-bodied will heaven seems to have lavished so plenteously upon
small women: In recompense, I dare say, for lack of size.
Therefore Mr. Flint duteously appeared at intervals among the elect,
and appeared even to advantage. And my mother remarked, complacently,
that blood will tell: he had the air! He was not expected to dance,
but he was a superb cardplayer. He never told jokes, and so avoided
deadly repetition. He had in a large measure that virtue the Chinese
extol--the virtue of allowing others to save their faces in peace. Was
it any wonder Mr. Flint's social position was soon solidly
established?
He played the game as my mother forced it upon him, though at times, I
think, it bored and chafed him sorely. What chafed him even more
sorely was the unprecedented interest many young ladies--and some old
enough to know better--suddenly evinced in entomology.
Mr. Flint almost overnight developed a savage cunning in eluding the
seekers of entomological lore. One might suppose a single man would
rejoice to see his drab workroom swarm with these brightly-colored
fluttering human butterflies; he bore their visits as visitations,
displaying the chastened resignation Job probably showed toward the
latest ultra-sized carbuncle.
"Cheer up!" urged Laurence, who was watching this turn of affairs with
unfeeling mirth. "The worst is yet to come. These are only the
chickens: wait until the hens get on your trail!"
"Mr. Flint," said Mary Virginia one afternoon, rubbing salt into his
smarting wounds, "Mr. Flint, I am so glad all the girls like you so
much. You fascinate them. They say you are such a profoundly clever
and interesting man, Mr. Flint! Why, some of those girls are perfectly
demented about you!"
"Demented," said he, darkly, "is the right word for them when it comes
down to fussing about _me_." Now Laurence had just caught him in his
rooms, and, declaring that he looked overworked and pale, had dragged
him forcibly outside on the porch, where we were now sitting. Mary
Virginia, in a white skirt, sport coat, and a white felt hat which
made her entrancingly pretty, had been visiting my mother and now
strolled over to John Flint's, after her old fashion.
"I feel like making the greatest sort of a fuss about you myself," she
said honestly. "Anyhow, I'm mighty glad girls like you. It's a good
sign."
"If they do--though God knows I can't see why--I'm obliged to them,
seeing it pleases _you_!" said Flint, without, however, showing much
gratitude in eyes or voice. "To tell you the truth, it looks to me at
times as if they were wished on me."
Mary Virginia tried to look horrified, and giggled instead.
"If I could only make any of them understand anything!" said the
Butterfly Man desperately, "but I can't. If only they really wanted to
know, I'd be more than glad to teach them. But they don't. I show them
and show them and tell them and tell them, over and over and over
again, and the same thing five minutes later, and they haven't even
listened! They don't care. What do they take up my time and say they
like my butterflies for, when they don't like them at all and don't
want to know anything about them? That's what gets me!"
Laurence winked at Mary Virginia, shamelessly.
"Bugs!" said he, inelegantly. "That's what's intended to get you, you
old duffer!"
"Mr. Flint," said Mary Virginia, with dancing eyes. "I don't blame
those girls one single solitary bit for wanting to know all
about--butterflies."
"But they don't want to know, I tell you!" Mr. Flint's voice rose
querulously.
"My dear creature, I'd be stuck on you myself if I were a girl," said
Laurence sweetly. "Padre, prepare yourself to say, 'Bless you, my
children!' I see this innocent's finish." And he began to sing, in a
lackadaisical manner, through his nose:
"Now you're married you must obey,
You must be true to all you say,
Live together all your life--"
No answering smile came to John Flint's lips. He made no reply to the
light banter, but stiffened, and stared ahead of him with a set face
and eyes into which crept an expression of anguish. Mary Virginia,
with a quick glance, laid her hand on his arm.
"Don't mind Laurence and me, we're a pair of sillies. You and the
Padre are too good to put up with us the way you do," she said,
coaxingly. "And--we girls do like you, Mr. Flint, whether we're wished
on you or not."
That seductive "we" in that golden voice routed him, horse and foot.
He looked at the small hand on his arm, and his glance went swiftly to
the sweet and innocent eyes looking at him with such frank
friendliness.
"It's better than I deserve," he said, gently enough. "And it isn't
I'm not grateful to the rest of them for liking me,--if they do. It's
that I want to box their ears when they pretend to like my insects,
and don't."
"Being a gentleman has its drawbacks," said I, tentatively.
"Believe _me_!" he spoke with great feeling. "It's nothing short of
doing a life-stretch!"
The boy and girl laughed gaily. When he spoke thus it added to his
unique charm. So profoundly were they impressed with what he had
become, that even what he had been, as they remembered it, increased
their respect and affection. That past formed for him a somber
background, full of half-lights and shadows, against which he stood
out with the revealing intensity of a Rembrandt portrait.
"What I came over to tell you, is that Madame says you're to stay home
this evening, Mr. Flint," said Mary Virginia, comfortably. "I'm
spending the night with Madame, you're to know, and we're planning a
nice folksy informal sort of a time; and you're to be home."
"Orders from headquarters," commented Laurence.
"All right," agreed the Butterfly Man, briefly.
Mary Virginia shook out her white skirts, and patted her black hair
into even more distractingly pretty disorder.
"I've got to get back to the office--mean case I'm working on,"
complained Laurence. "Mary Virginia, walk a little way with me, won't
you? Do, child! It will sweeten all my afternoon and make my work
easier."
"You haven't grown up a bit--thank goodness!" said Mary Virginia. But
she went with him.
The Butterfly Man looked after them speculatively.
"Mrs. Eustis," he remarked, "is an ambitious sort of a lady, isn't
she? Thinks in millions for her daughter, expects her to make a great
match and all that. Miss Sally Ruth told me she'd heard Mrs. Eustis
tried once or twice to pull off a match to suit herself, but Miss Mary
Virginia wouldn't stand for it."
"Why, naturally, Mrs. Eustis would like to see the child well settled
in life," said I.
"Oh, you don't have to be a Christian _all_ the time," said he calmly.
"I know Mrs. Eustis, too. She talked to me for an hour and a half
without stopping, one night last week. See here, parson: Inglesby's
got a roll that outweighs his record. Suppose he wants to settle down
and reform--with a young wife to help him do it--wouldn't it be a real
Christian job to lady's-aid him?"
I eyed him askance.
"Now there's Laurence," went on the Butterfly Man, speculatively.
"Laurence is making plenty of trouble, but not so much money. No, Mrs.
Eustis wouldn't faint at the notion of Inglesby, but she'd keel over
like a perfect lady at the bare thought of Laurence."
"I don't see," said I, crossly, "why she should be called upon to
faint for either of them. Inglesby's--Inglesby. That makes him
impossible. As for the boy, why, he rocked that child in her cradle."
"That didn't keep either of them from growing up a man and a woman.
Looks to me as if they were beginning to find it out, parson."
I considered his idea, and found it so eminently right, proper, and
beautiful, that I smiled over it. "It would be ideal," I admitted.
"Her mother wouldn't agree with you, though her father might," he said
dryly. And he asked:
"Ever had a hunch?"
"A presentiment, you mean?"
"No; a hunch. Well, I've got one. I've got a hunch there's trouble
ahead for that girl."
This seemed so improbable, in the light of her fortunate days, that I
smiled cheerfully.
"Well, if there should be,--here are you and I to stand by."
"Sure," said he, laconically, "that's all we're here for--to stand
by."
Although it was January, the weather was again springlike. All day the
air was like a golden wine, drenched in a golden sun. All day in the
cedars' dark and vivid green the little wax-wings flew in and out, and
everywhere the blackberry bramble that "would grace the parlors of
heaven" was unfolding its crisp red leaves and white buds; and all the
roads and woods were gay with the scarlet berries of the casida, which
the robins love. And the nights were clear and still and starry,
nights of a beauty so vital one sensed it as something alive.
Because Mary Virginia was to spend that night at the Parish House,
Mrs. Eustis having been called away and the house for once free of
guests, my mother had seized the occasion to call about her the youth
in which her soul delighted. To-night she was as rosy and bright-eyed
as any one of her girl-friends. She beamed when she saw the old rooms
alive and alight with fresh and laughing faces and blithe figures.
There was Laurence, with that note in his voice, that light in his
eyes, that glow and glory upon him, which youth alone knows; and
Dabney, with his black hair, as usual, on end, and his intelligent
eyes twinkling behind his glasses; and Claire Dexter, colored like a
pearl set in a cluster of laughing girls; and Mary Virginia, all in
white, so beautiful that she brought a mist to the eyes that watched
her. All the other gay and charming figures seemed but attendants for
this supremer loveliness, snow-white, rose-red, ebony-black, like the
queen's child in the fairy-tale.
The Butterfly Man had obediently put in his appearance. With the
effect which a really strong character produces, he was like an
insistent deep undernote that dominates and gives meaning to a lighter
and merrier melody. All this bright life surged, never away from, but
always toward and around him. Youth claimed him, shared itself with
him, gave him lavishly of its best, because he fascinated and ensnared
its fresh imagination. Though he should live to be a thousand it would
ever pay homage to some nameless magic quality of spirit which was
his.
"Are you writing something new? Have you found another butterfly?"
asked the young things, full of interest and respect.
Well, he _had_ promised a certain paper by a certain time, though what
people could find to like so much in what he had to say about his
insects--
"Because," said Dabney, "you create in us a new feeling for them.
They're living things with a right to their lives, and you show us
what wonderful little lives most of them are. You bring them close to
us in a way that doesn't disgust us. I guess, Butterfly Man, the truth
is you've found a new way of preaching the old gospel of One Father
and one life; and the common sense of common folks understands what
you mean, thanks you for it, likes you for it, and--asks you to tell
us some more."
"Whenever a real teacher appears, always the common people hear him
gladly," said I, reflectively.
"Only," said Mary Virginia, quickly, "when the teacher himself is just
as uncommon as he can be, Padre." She smiled at John Flint with a
sincerity that honored him.
He stood abashed and silent before this naïve appreciation. It was at
once his greatest happiness and his deepest pain--that open admiration
of these clean-souled youngsters.
When he had gone, I too slipped away, for the still white night
outside called me. I went around to that favorite retreat of mine, the
battered seat shut in among spireas and syringas. I like to say my
rosary out of doors. The beads slipping through my fingers soothed me
with their monotonous insistent petition. Prayer brought me closer to
the heart of the soft and shining night, and the big still stars.
_They shall perish, but thou shalt endure; yea, all of them
shall wax old as a garment; as a vesture shalt thou change
them, and they shall be changed; but thou art the same and
thy years shall have no end_.
The surety of the beautiful words brought the great overshadowing
Presence near me. And I fell into a half-revery, in which the
hailmarys wove themselves in and out, like threads in a pattern.
Dreamily enough, I heard the youthful guests depart, in a gale of
laughter and flute-like goodnights. And I noted, too, that no light as
yet shone in the Butterfly Man's rooms. Well--he would hurl himself
into the work to-morrow, probably, and clear it up in an hour or two.
He was like that.
My retreat was just off the path, and near the little gate between our
grounds and Judge Mayne's. Thus, though I was completely hidden by the
screening bushes and the shadow of the holly tree as well, I could
plainly see the two who presently came down the bright open path. Of
late it had given me a curious sense of comfort to see Laurence with
Mary Virginia, and, I reflected, he had been her shadow recently. I
liked that. His strength seemed to shield her from Hunter's ambiguous
smile, from Inglesby's thoughts, even from her own mother's ambition.
I could see my girl's dear dark head outlined with a circle of
moonlight as with a halo, and it barely reached my tall boy's
shoulder. Her hand lay lightly on his arm, and he bent toward her,
bringing his close-cropped brown head nearer hers. I couldn't have
risen or spoken then, without interrupting them. I merely glanced out
at them, smilingly, with my rosary in my finger.
I reached the end of a decade: "_As it was in the beginning, is now,
and ever shall be_--"
They stopped at the gate, and fell silent for a space, the girl with
her darling face uplifted. The fleecy wrap she wore fell about her
slim shoulders in long lines, glinting with silver. She did not give
the effect of remoteness, but of being near and dear and desirable and
beautiful. The boy, looking upon her with his heart in his eyes, drew
nearer.
"Mary Virginia," said he, eagerly and huskily and passionately and
timidly and hopefully and despairingly, "Mary Virginia, are you going
to marry anybody?"
Mary Virginia came back from the stars in the night sky to the stars
in the young man's eyes. "Why, yes, I hope I am," said she lightly
enough, but one saw she had been startled. "What a funny boy you are,
Laurence, to be sure! You don't expect me to remain a spinster, do
you?"
"You are going to be married?" This time despair was uppermost.
"I most certainly am!" said Mary Virginia stoutly. "Why, I confided
_that_ to you years and years and years ago! Don't you remember I
always insisted he should have golden hair, and sea-blue eyes, and a
classic brow, and a beautiful willingness to go away somewhere and die
of a broken heart if I ordered him to?"
"Who is it?"
"Who is who?" she parried provokingly.
"The chap you're going to marry?"
Mary Virginia appeared to reflect deeply and anxiously. She put out a
foot, with the eternal feminine gesture, and dug a neat little hole in
the graveled walk with her satin toe.
"Laurence," said she. "I'm going to tell you the truth. The truth is,
Laurence, that I simply hate to have to tell you the truth."
"Mary Virginia!" he stammered wretchedly. "You hate to have to tell
_me_ the truth? Oh, my dear, why? Why?"
"Because."
"But because why?"
"Because," said the dear hussy, demurely, "I don't know."
Laurence's arms fell to his sides, helplessly; he craned his neck and
stared.
"Mary Virginia!" said he, in a breathless whisper.
Mary Virginia nodded. "It's really none of your business, you know,"
she explained sweetly; "but as you've asked me, why, I'll tell you.
That same question plagues and fascinates me, too, Laurence. Why, just
consider! Here's a whole big, big world full of men--tall men, short
men, lean men, fat men, silly men, wise men, ugly men, handsome men,
sad men, glad men, good men, bad men, rich men, poor men,--oh, all
sorts and kinds and conditions and complexions of men: any one of whom
I might wake up some day and find myself married to: and I don't know
which one! It delights and terrifies and fascinates and amuses and
puzzles me when I begin to think about it. Here I've got to marry
Somebody and I don't know any more than Adam's housecat who and where
that Somebody is, and he might pop from around the corner at me, any
minute! It makes the thing so much more interesting, so much more like
a big risky game of guess, when you don't know, don't you think?"
"No: it makes you miserable," said Laurence, briefly.
"But I'm not miserable at all!"
"You're not, because you don't have to be. But I am!"
"You? Why, Laurence! Why should _you_ be miserable?" Her voice lost
its blithe lightness; it was a little faint. She said hastily, without
waiting for his reply: "I guess I'd better run in. It was silly of me
to walk to the gate with you at this hour. I think Madame's calling
me. Goodnight, Laurence."
"No, you don't," said he. "And it wasn't silly of you to come, either;
it was dear and delightful, and I prayed the Lord to put the notion
into your darling head, and He did it. And now you're here you don't
budge from this spot until you've heard what I've got to say.
"Mary Virginia, I reckon you're just about the most beautiful girl in
the world. You've been run after and courted and flattered and
followed until it was enough to turn any girl's head, and it would
have turned any girl's head but yours. You could say to almost any man
alive, Come, and he'd come--oh, yes, he'd come quick. You've got the
earth to pick and choose from--but I'm asking you to pick and choose
_me_. I haven't got as much to offer you as I shall have some of these
days, but I've got me myself, body and brain and heart and soul,
sound to the core, and all of me yours, and I think that counts most,
if you care as I do. Mary Virginia, will you marry me?"
"Oh, but, Laurence! Why--Laurence--I--indeed, I didn't know--I didn't
think--" stammered the girl. "At least, I didn't dream you cared--like
that."
"Didn't you? Well, all I can say is, you've been mighty blind, then.
For I do care. I guess I've always cared like that, only, somehow,
it's taken this one short winter to drive home what I'd been learning
all my life?" said he, soberly. "I reckon I've been just like other
fool-boys, Mary Virginia. That is, I spooned a bit around every good
looking girl I ran up against, but I soon found out it wasn't the real
thing, and I quit. Something in me knew all along I belonged to
somebody else. To you. I believe now--Mary Virginia, I believe with
all my heart--that I cared for you when you were squalling in your
cradle."
"Oh! ... Did I squall, really?"
"_Squall?_ Sometimes it was tummy and sometimes it was temper. Between
them you yelled like a Comanche," said this astonishing lover.
Mary Virginia tilted her head back, adorably.
"It was very, very noble of you to mind me--under the circumstances,"
she conceded, graciously.
"Believe me, it was," agreed Laurence. "I didn't know it, of course,
but even at that tender age my fate was upon me, for I _liked_ to mind
you. Even the bawling didn't daunt me, and I adored you when you
resembled a squab. Yes, I was in love with you then. I'm in love with
you now. My girl, my own girl, I'll go out of this world and into the
next one loving you."
"Then why," she asked reproachfully, "haven't you said so?"
"Why haven't I said what?"
"Why, you know. That you--loved me, Laurence." Her rich voice had sunk
to a whisper.
"Good Lord, haven't I been saying it?"
"No, you haven't! You've been merely asking me to marry you. But you
haven't said a word about loving me, until this very minute!"
"But you must know perfectly well that I'm crazy about you, Mary
Virginia!" said the boy, and his voice trembled with bewilderment as
well as passion. "How in heaven's name could I help being crazy about
you? Why, from the beginning of things, there's never been anybody
else, but just you. I never even pretended to care for anybody else.
No, there's nobody but you. Not for me. You're everything and all,
where I'm concerned. And--please, please look up, beautiful, and tell
me the truth: look at me, Mary Virginia!"
The white-clad figure moved a hair's breadth nearer; the uplifted
lovely face was very close.
"Do I really mean that to you, Laurence? All that, really and truly?"
she asked, wistfully.
"Yes! And more. And more!"
"I'll be the unhappiest girl in the world: I'll be the most miserable
woman alive--if you ever change your mind, Laurence," said she.
There was a quivering pause. Then:
"You care?" asked the boy, almost breathlessly. "Mary Virginia, you
care?" He laid his hands upon her shoulders and bent to search the
alluring face.
"Laurence!" said Mary Virginia, with a tremulous, half-tearful laugh,
"Laurence, it's taken this one short winter to teach me, too. And--you
were mistaken, utterly mistaken about those symptoms of mine. It
wasn't tummy, Laurence. And it wasn't temper. I think--I am sure--that
what I was trying so hard to squall to you in my cradle was--that I
cared, Laurence."
The young man's arms closed about her, and I saw the young mouths
meet. I saw more than that: I saw other figures steal out into the
moonlight and stand thus entwined, and one was the ghost of what once
was I. That other, lost Armand De Rancé, looked at me wistfully with
his clear eyes; and I was very, very sorry for him, as one may be
poignantly sorry for the innocent, beautiful dead. My hand tightened
on my beads, and the feel of my cassock upon me, as a uniform,
steadied and sustained me.
Those two had drawn back a little into the shadows as if the night had
reached out its arms to them. Such a night belonged to such as these;
they invest it, lend it meaning, give it intelligible speech. As for
me, I was an old priest in an old cassock, with all his fond and
foolish old heart melting in his breast. Youth alone is eternal and
immortal. And as for love, it is of God.
"_As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without
end, Amen_." I had finished the decade. And then as one awakes from a
trance I rose softly and as softly crept back to the Parish House,
happy and at peace, because I had seen that which makes the morning
stars rejoice when they sing together.
"Armand," said my mother, sleepily, "is that you, dear? I must have
been nodding in my chair. Mary Virginia's just walked to the gate with
Laurence."
"My goodness," said she, half an hour later. "What on earth can that
child mean? Hadn't you better call her in, Armand?"
"No," said I, decidedly.
Laurence brought her back presently. There must have been something
electrical in the atmosphere, for my mother of a sudden sat bolt
upright in her chair. Women are like that. That is one of the reasons
why men are so afraid of them.
"Padre, and p'tite Madame," began Laurence, "you've been like a father
and mother to me--and--and--"
"And we thought you ought to know," said Mary Virginia.
"My children!" cried my mother, ecstatically, "it is the wish of my
heart! Always have I prayed our good God to let this happen--and you
see?"
"But it's a great secret: it's not to be _breathed_, yet," said Mary
Virginia.
"Except, of course, my father--" began Laurence.
"And the Butterfly Man," I added, firmly. Well knowing none of us
could keep such news from _him_.
"As for me," said my mother, gloriously reckless, "I shall open one of
the two bottles of our great-grandfather's wine!" The last time that
wine had been opened was the day I was ordained. "Armand, go and bring
John Flint."
When I reached his rooms Kerry was whining over a huddled form on the
porch steps. John Flint lay prone, his arms outstretched, horribly
suggestive of one crucified. At my step he struggled upright. I had my
arms about him in another moment.
"Are you hurt? sick? John, John, my son, what is it? What is it?"
"No, no, I'm all right. I--was just a little shaky for the minute.
There, there, don't you be scared, father." But his voice shook, and
the hand I held was icy cold.
"My son, my dear son, what is wrong with you?"
He controlled himself with a great effort. "Oh, I've been a little off
my feed of late, father, that's all. See, I'm perfectly all right,
now." And he squared his shoulders and tried to speak in his natural
voice.
"My mother wanted you to come over for a few minutes, there's
something you're to know. But if you don't feel well enough--"
He seemed to brace himself. "Maybe I know it already. However, I'm
quite able to walk over and hear--anything I'm to be told," he said,
composedly.
In the lighted parlor his face showed up pale and worn, and his eyes
hollow. But his smile was ready, his voice steady, and the hand which
received the wine Mary Virginia herself brought him, did not tremble.
"It is to our great, great happiness we wish you to drink, old
friend," said Laurence. Intoxicated with his new joy, glowing,
shining, the boy was magnificent.
The Butterfly Man turned and looked at him; steadily, deliberately, a
long, searching, critical look, as if measuring him by a new standard.
Laurence stood the test. Then the man's eyes came back to the girl,
rose-colored, radiant, star-eyed, and lingered upon her. He arose, and
held up the glass in which our old wine seemed to leap upward in
little amber-colored flames.
"You'll understand," said the Butterfly Man, "that I haven't the
words handy to my tongue to say what's in my heart. I reckon I'd have
to be God for awhile, to make all I wish for you two come true." There
was in look and tone and manner something so sweet and reverent that
we were touched and astonished.
When my mother had peremptorily sent Laurence home to the judge, and
carried Mary Virginia off to talk the rest of the night through, I
went back to his rooms with John Flint, in spite of the lateness of
the hour: for I was uneasy about him.
I think my nearness soothed him. For with that boyish diffident
gesture of his he reached over presently and held me by the sleeve.
"Parson," he asked, abruptly, "is a man born with a whole soul, or
just a sort of shut-up seed of one? Is one given him free, or has he
got to earn and pay for one before he gets it, parson? I want to
know."
"We all want to know that, John Flint. And the West says Yes, and the
East, No."
"I've been reading a bit," said he, slowly and thoughtfully. "I wanted
to hear what both sides had to say. Paul is pretty plain, on his side
of the fence. But, parson, some chaps that talk as if they knew quite
as much as Paul does, say you don't get anything in this universe for
nothing; you have to pay for what you get. As near as I can figure it
out, you land here with a chance to earn yourself. You can quit or you
can go on--it's all up to you. If you're a sport and play the game
straight, why, you stand to win yourself a water-tight fire-proof
soul. Because, you see, you've earned and paid for it, parson. That
sounded like good sense to me. Looked to me as if I was sort of doing
it myself. But when I began to go deeper into the thing, why, I got
stuck. For I can't deny I'd been doing it more because I had to than
because I wanted to. But--which-ever way it is, I'm paying! Oh, yes,
I'm paying!"
"Ah, but so is everybody else, my son," said I, sadly. "... each in
his own coin. ... But after all isn't oneself worth while, whatever
the cost?"
"I don't know," said he. "That's where I'm stuck. Is the whole show a
skin game or is it worth while? But, parson, whatever it is, you pay a
hell of a price when you buy yourself on the instalment plan, believe
me!" his voice broke, as if on a suppressed groan. "If I could get it
over and done with, pay for my damned little soul in one big gob, I
wouldn't mind. But to have to buy what I'm buying, to have to pay what
I'm paying--"
"You are ill," said I, deeply concerned. "I was afraid of this."
He laughed, more like a croak.
"Sure I'm sick. I'm sick to the core of me, but you and Westmoreland
can't dose me. Nobody can do anything for me, I have to do it myself
or go under. That's part of paying on the instalment plan, too,
parson."
"I don't think I exactly understand--"
"No, you wouldn't. _You_ paid in a lump sum, you see. And you got what
you got. Whatever it was that got _you_, parson, got the best of the
bargain." His voice softened.
"You are talking in parables," said I, severely.
"But I'm not paying in parables, parson. I'm paying in _me_," said he,
grimly. And he laughed again, a laugh of sheer stark misery that
raised a chill echo in my heart. His hand crept back to my sleeve.
"I--can't always can the squeal," he whispered.
"If only I could help you!" I grieved.
"You do," said he, quickly. "You do, by being you. I hang on to you,
parson. And say, look here! Don't you think I'm such a hog I can't
find time to be glad other folks are happy even if I'm not. If there's
one thing that could make me feel any sort of way good, it's to know
those two who were made for each other have found it out. It sort of
makes it look as if some things do come right, even if others are
rotten wrong. I'm glad till it hurts me. I'd like you to believe
that."
"I do believe it. And, my son! if you can find time to be glad of
others' happiness, without envy, why, you're bound to come right,
because you're sound at the core."
"You reckon I'm worth my price, then, parson?"
"I reckon you're worth your price, whatever it is. I don't worry about
you, John Flint."
And somehow, I did not. I left him with Kerry's head on his knee. His
hand was humanly warm again, and the voice in which he told me
goodnight was bravely steady. He sat erect in his doorway, fronting
the night like a soldier on guard. If he were buying his soul on the
instalment plan I was sure he would be able to meet the payments,
whatever they were, as they fell due.