THE END OF A GREAT SEARCH
"Abiding love! Those humans who know it, become an essential part of
nature's scheme."--_The Murmuring Pine_.
Lydia returned to her college work the Monday after the Junior Prom, a
little thinner, and her color not quite so bright as usual, but in a
most cheerful frame of mind. She was feeling, somehow, a new sense of
maturity and contentment. Even tales of the wonders of the Prom did
not disturb her much. She made up her lost classroom work, then took
on an extra course in English Essayists with Professor Willis, just to
satisfy her general sense of superiority to the ordinary temptations
that should have disturbed a young female with fifteen idle dollars in
her pocket!
Kent was devoting a good deal of attention to Lydia but this did not
prevent his taking Margery about. He was, he explained to Lydia, so
sorry for her!
"You don't have to explain to me," protested Lydia. "I want you to go
with all the girls you like. I intend to see all I want of as many men
as care to see me. I told you this was my playtime."
Kent's reply to this was a non-committal grunt.
It was late in May that he told Lydia what John Levine had finally
accomplished, in his silent months of work in Washington. The morning
after he told Lydia, Lake City was ringing with the news. The Indians
on the reservation were to be removed bodily to a reservation in the
Southwest. The reservation was then to be thrown open to white
settlement.
"What will poor Charlie Jackson say?" were Lydia's first words.
Kent shrugged his shoulders. "Poor old scout! He'll have to make a
new start in the West. But isn't it glorious news, Lyd! The land
reverts to the Government and the Land Office opens it, just as in
pioneer days. Everybody who's title's in question now can reenter
under settlement laws. Isn't Levine a wizard! Why don't you say
something, Lydia?"
"I don't know what to say," said Lydia. "I'm sick at heart for the
Indians. But I'm glad that the awful temptation of the pines is going
to be taken away from Lake City. Though how good can come out of a
wrong, I'm not sure. I don't understand Mr. Levine. Oh, dear! It's
all wrong. When do the Indians go?"
"The last of June. It's funny, Lydia, that you don't have more
sympathy with my work," replied Kent, gloomily.
"Oh, Kent!" cried Lydia, "I want to believe that everything you do is
right but something's the matter with my mind, I seem to have to decide
matters of right and wrong for myself. When will Mr. Levine come home?"
"Next month. Well, there's one consolation. You've always been crazy
about Levine and you don't approve of him, either."
Lydia flushed. "Oh, I don't say that I don't approve of him. I just
don't understand him. Maybe he really believes the end justifies the
means."
"Huh! Isn't that just what I believe?" demanded Kent. He looked at
her so happily, his boyish eyes so appealing, his square chin so
belligerent, that Lydia suddenly laughed and gave his ear a tweak.
"Poor old vanity! Did he want all the ladies to adore him? Well, they
do, so cheer up!"
Kent grinned. "Lyd, you're a goose and a good old pal! Hang it, I'm
glad you've got brain enough to stick to your own opinions!"
On a Sunday afternoon, late in June, John Levine turned in at the gate
as casually as though he had left but the day before. Lydia was
inspecting the garden with her father, when she heard Adam bark and
whine a welcome to some one.
"Oh, there he is, Daddy!" she cried, and she dashed down the rows of
young peas, her white skirts fluttering, both hands extended.
John seized her hands and for a moment the two stood smiling and
looking into each other's face. Except that he was grayer, Levine was
unchanged. He broke the silence to say, "Well! Well! young Lydia, you
are grown up. I don't see how you manage to look so grown up, when
your face remains unchanged."
"It's my hair," said Lydia, "and my skirts."
"Of course," growled Amos, "I realize that I count only as Lydia's
father. Still I think you ought to recognize me, anyhow."
The two men clasped hands. "Well, Amos?"
"It's been a long time between drinks, John."
"I know it, Amos, but my chore's done. Now, I'll stay home and enjoy
life. Lydia, is it too hot for waffles and coffee, for supper? Lord,
I've dreamed of those old days and of this meeting for nine months."
"It's not too hot for anything on earth you can ask for," returned
Lydia, beginning to roll up her sleeves. "I'll go right in and start
them now."
John looked after her, at the lengthened skirts, at the gold braids
wrapped round her head. "She doesn't change except in size, thank
God," he said.
"Oh, she gets prettier," said Amos, carelessly. "She's sort of grown
up to her mouth, and the way she wears her hair shows the fine set of
her head. She's improved a lot."
"She has _not_! Amos, you never did appreciate her. She couldn't be
any more charming now than she was as a kiddie."
Amos put an affectionate hand on his friend's shoulder. "You always
were an old fool, John. Come up and peel your coat, then take a look
at the garden. There's Lizzie, dying to speak to you."
Levine looked around the living-room, complacently. "Jove, isn't it
fine! Most homelike place in America. Lydia's been fixing up the old
mahogany, eh?"
"Yes! One of the professors told her it was O. K., so she got a book
out of the library on old furniture and now we are contented and
strictly up to date. These damned rugs though, I can't get her to tack
'em down. They're just like so many rags on the floor! I never had a
chance to tell you what she did to my mahogany arm chair, did I?"
He retailed the story of Willis' first call and John roared though he
murmured, "Poor kiddie," as he did so.
"She's given me over to my sins, though, lately," Amos went on, with
the faint twinkle in his eyes that Lydia had inherited. "She brought
me up by hand, for a long time, hid my pipes, wanted me to manicure my
nails, wouldn't let me eat in my shirt sleeves or drink my coffee out
of the saucer. But her friend, Willis, likes me, as is,--so she's let
me backslide without a murmur."
Amos paused and looked out at the shimmering lake. "John, I wish I had
five daughters. There's nothing like 'em in the world."
Levine did not answer for a moment, while his gaze followed Amos' out
over the familiar outline of blue water and far green hills.
"Sometimes, Amos," he muttered, finally, "I feel as if my whole life
had been wasted."
It was an extraordinarily pleasant supper. John and Amos, in their
shirt sleeves, ate waffles till Lydia declared that both the batter and
her strength were exhausted. Indians were not mentioned. Levine was
in a reminiscent mood and told stories of his boyhood on a Northern
Vermont farm and old Lizzie for the first time in Lydia's remembrance
told of some of the beaux she had had when her father was the richest
farmer round Lake City.
After the dishes were washed, Levine asked Lydia to stroll up the road
with him while Amos did his evening chores. It was dusk when they
turned out the gate to the road, Lydia clinging to John's arm. A June
dusk, with the fresh smell of the lake mingling with the heavy scent of
syringa and alder bloom, and of all the world of leafage at the high
tide of freshness. June dusk, with the steady croak of frogs from the
meadows and the faint call of whippoorwills from the woods.
John put a long, hard hand over the small thin one on his arm. "Have
you missed me, young Lydia?" he asked.
"Yes," she answered, "especially as you never came near us after the
hearing."
"How could I come?" asked the man, simply. "You had weighed me and
found me wanting. There was nothing for me to do but to go ahead and
finish my job, as I still saw the right of it. Have you forgiven me,
Lydia?"
"It wasn't a matter between you and me," replied the girl, slowly. "It
was between you and your conscience and if your conscience approves,
what's the use of asking me to forgive you?"
"Because, I can't stand not having your approval," said Levine.
They strolled on in silence, while Lydia considered her reply. "No
matter if the destroying of the Indians were right, that wouldn't
exonerate the whites for having been cruel and crooked in doing it.
People will always remember it of us."
Levine gave a laugh that had no mirth in it. "Lord, who'll say the New
England spirit is dead! You're as cold in judging me as one of your
ancestors was when he sentenced a witch to be burned."
"Oh, no!" cried Lydia. "Dear John Levine, I couldn't be cold to you.
Nothing could make me love you less. And you yourself told me to be
true to myself."
John sighed, then said abruptly, "Let's never discuss it again. What
are you reading now, Lydia?"
"English essayists and Emerson. I'm crazy about Emerson. He seems so
much more human than Leigh Hunt and De Quincey and the rest of them.
Maybe it's because he's an American, so I understand him better. I
think I like Compensation and Friendship the best so far. I learned
one thing from Friendship to quote to you. It's like you and me."
With both hands clasping his arm, her sweet face upturned to his in the
dusk, and with the rich notes in her voice that were reminiscent of
little Patience, she quoted:
"'Friendship--that select and sacred relationship that is a kind of
absolute and which even leaves the language of love suspicious and
common so much is this purer; and nothing is so much divine.'"
John stopped and taking Lydia's face in both his hands, he exclaimed
huskily. "Oh, my dear, this is my real welcome home! Oh, Lydia,
Lydia, if you were ten years older and I were ten years younger--"
Lydia laughed. "Then we'd travel--to all the happy places of the
world. We must turn back. Daddy'll be waiting."
Levine turned obediently, saying as he did so, "Just one thing more,
then the year's absence will be spanned. How does the Great Search go
on? Do you ever have bad dreams at night, now?"
"Sometimes," replied Lydia. "Just the other night I woke up with the
old fear and then--it was very curious--I heard the lap-lapping of the
lake, and the little murmur of the wind in the pine and the frogs
cheeping and the steady chirp of the crickets, and, Mr. Levine, the
queerest sense of comfort came to me. I can't put it into words.
Somehow it was as if Something behind all those little voices spoke to
me and told me things were--were right."
"Lydia," said Levine, quickly, "you've struck the right trail. I'll
follow it with you. What a long way you've come alone, little girl.
Give me your hand, dear. I like to feel it on my arm. Oh, Lydia!
Lydia!"
"What are you two mooning about," said Amos' voice, as he loomed on
them through the dusk.
"Enterprises of great pith and moment," replied Levine. "Got any
tobacco with you, Amos?"
"No! We'd better go in the house, anyhow. The mosquitoes will eat us
up. Lydia, Margery's looking for you."
And as far as Lydia was concerned, the evening was ended.
Levine was very busy with the details of the Indian removal for the
next week or two. The exodus was accomplished in a business-like
manner. A steady line of busses brought the Indians from the
reservation to the outskirts of Lake City, where rough barracks had
been erected to care for the government wards while they were being
concentrated. The state militia was on guard here, at intervals along
the road and upon the reservation. There were some disturbances on the
reservation, but for the most part, the Indians were dazed and
unprotesting. Before the concentration began, the precaution was taken
of sending Charlie Jackson under guard to the new reservation in the
Southwest. Lydia had never seen him after her day at the hearing. She
always was to carry in her memory, his handsome bronze face, too early
marked with lines of despair, as she saw it while she uttered her
protest to the commissioners. And it was a hauntingly sad memory to
carry.
She went with Billy to see the embarking of the Indians in the special
trains provided for them. The streets along the line of march were
lined with whites, silent but triumphant. It was a beautiful day,
clear and hot. Two by two, the Indians moved along the fine old
elm-shadowed streets, old Wolf at the head, shambling and decrepit, but
with his splendid old head held high. Two by two, in utter silence,
their moccasined feet soundless, old Indians in buckskins, and young
Indians in store clothes, then squaws, in calico "mother-hubbards,"
great bundles strapped to their backs, and children in their arms or
clinging to their skirts. A long, slow moving line, in a silence that
even the children did not break.
It took until well in the evening to get the pathetic exiles into the
trains. Lydia did not stay after dark. Profoundly depressed, she made
Billy take her home.
In the evening she sat with her Emerson open before her, but with her
unseeing eyes fastened on the open door. It was a little after nine
when the chug-chug of Kent's car stopped at the gate and in a moment
Kent, white faced, appeared in the door.
"John Levine's been shot. He wants Lydia!"
Without a sound Lydia started after Kent down the path, Amos following.
Kent packed them into the little car and started back toward town at
breakneck speed.
"How bad off is he?" asked Amos.
"Can't live," answered Kent.
Still Lydia made no sound though Amos held her firmly in the vain
attempt to still her trembling.
"How'd it happen?" Amos' voice broke a little.
"That damned sister of Charlie Jackson and old Susie both took a shot
at him, just as the last car-load was finished. The police and the
militia got 'em right off. Shot 'em all to pieces. It looked as
though there'd be a wholesale fight for a minute but the militia closed
in and the last train got off."
"Where is John?" asked Amos.
"In Doc Fulton's office. They can't move him."
No one spoke again. Kent brought the automobile up with a bang before
the doctor's house and Lydia, followed closely by the two men, ran up
to the door, through the outer office to the inner, where a nurse and
Doc Fulton stood beside a cot.
Levine lay with his face turned toward the door. When he saw Lydia he
smiled faintly. She was quite calm, except for her trembling. She
walked quickly to his side and took his hand.
"Looks like I was going to start traveling alone, young Lydia," he said
feebly. "I just wanted to tell you--that Great Search--is ending all
right--don't worry--"
"I won't," said Lydia.
"Only I hate to go alone--my mother--gimme something, Doc."
The doctor held a glass to his lips. After a moment, Levine said
again, "My mother used to hold me--" his voice trailed off and Lydia
said suddenly, "You mean you want me to comfort you like I used to
comfort little Patience?"
"Yes! Yes!" whispered Levine. "It's going to sleep alone I----
Mother--"
Lydia knelt and sliding her arm under Levine's neck, she pulled his
head over gently to rest on her shoulder. Then she began with infinite
softness the little songs she had not uttered for so many years.
"'Wreathe me no gaudy chaplet;
Make it from simple flowers
Plucked from the lowly valleys
After the summer showers.'"
"'Sweet and low, sweet and low, wind of the western sea . . .'"
"'I've reached the land of corn and wine
And all its riches surely mine.
I've reached that heavenly, shining shore
My heaven, my home, for evermore.'"
Suddenly the nurse shifted John's head and Doc Fulton lifted Lydia to
her feet. "Take her home, Amos," he said.
John Levine had finished the Great Search.
Curiously enough, nothing could have done so much toward reinstating
Lake City in the good opinion of the country at large as did Levine's
tragic death. There was felt to be a divine justice in the manner of
his taking off that partook largely of the nature of atonement. He had
led the whites in the despoiling of the Indians. For this the Indians
had killed him.
That a white life extinguished for a tribe destroyed might not be full
compensation in the eyes of that Larger Justice which, after all, rules
the Universe, did not seriously influence the reaction of public
opinion toward thinking better of Lake City. And John Levine, known in
life as an Indian Graft politician, became in his death a Statesman of
far vision.
Levine's will was not found at first. Distant cousins in Vermont would
be his heirs, if indeed after his estate was settled, it was found that
there was left anything to inherit.
Kent for a month or so after the tragedy was extremely busy helping to
disentangle Levine's complicated real estate holdings. It was found
that he held heavily mortgaged second growth timber lands in the
northern part of the State and Kent spent a month superintending a
re-survey of them. He was very much broken up by Levine's death, and
welcomed the heavy work.
In spite of Lydia's deep affection for Levine, she did not feel his
death as much as Amos did. For after all, Lydia was young, gloriously
young, and with a forward-turned face. Amos had lost in John his only
real friend, the only human being who in some ways had helped to fill
in the hopeless gap left by his wife's death. And Amos, though still a
young man, kept his face turned backward.
After her first wild grief had expended itself, Lydia found that, after
all, Levine's tragic death had not surprised her. She realized that
ever since she had known Charlie Jackson, she had been vaguely haunted
by a fear of just such an ending.
July slipped into a breathless, dusty August. Lydia worked very hard,
making herself tasks when necessary work was done. She put up fruit.
She worked in the garden. She took up the dining-room carpet and oiled
the floor and made rugs. After she had had her swim in the late
afternoon, she would take up her old position on the front doorstep, to
sew or read or to dream with her eyes on the pine.
How silently, how broodingly it had stood there, month in, month out,
year after year! What did it feel, Lydia wondered, now that the
Indians were gone? Was it glad that Levine had been punished?
Billy, trundling up the dusty road from the law office on his bicycle,
late each afternoon, would stop for a moment or two. Since the
tragedy, not a day had gone by that Lydia had not seen him.
"The drought is something frightful," he said to Lydia one afternoon in
late August, wiping the sweat and dust from his face. "This is the
ninth week without rain. The corn is ruined. I never knew anything
like this and Dad says he hasn't either."
"Our garden died weeks ago," said Lydia, listlessly.
Billy looked at her keenly. "Are you feeling any more cheerful, Lyd?"
Lydia turned her gaze from the burning brown meadows to Billy's tanned,
rugged face.
"I shall always have a gap in my life, where he went out," she said,
slowly. "I shall never get over missing him. Oh, he was so dear to
me! And yet, Billy, it isn't at all like little Patience's death. He
didn't depend on me and I didn't live with him so that everything
doesn't cry his absence to me. And I've got more resources than I had
then--"
She laid her hand on the open book in her lap.
"What're you reading?" asked Billy.
"Emerson--Compensation. Listen, Billy--'We cannot part with our
friends. We cannot let our angels go. We do not see that they only go
out that archangels may come in.'
"And so," Lydia's voice trembled, but she went on bravely, "I'm trying
to understand--trying to see how I can make something good come out of
his poor lost life. Somehow I feel as if that were my job. And--and
the idea helps me. Oh, my dear John Levine!"
Billy cleared his throat. "Let's see that passage, Lyd." He took the
book and read on: "'The death of a dear friend--wife, lover,
brother--terminates an epoch of infancy or of youth that was waiting to
be closed, breaks up a wonted occupation or style of living and allows
the formation of new ones more friendly to the growth of character.'"
The two young people sat staring at the distant hills.
"Don't you see," Lydia burst out, "that I've got to do something, be
something, to make all the loss and trouble of my life worth while?"
"I understand," answered Billy. "What are you going to do?"
"I'm not quite sure, yet," replied Lydia, "but I'll tell you as soon as
I've made up my mind. Billy, ask your father to come over this
evening. Dad is so desperately blue."
Billy rose to go. "One thing I will tell you, Billy," Lydia went on,
"I'm going to take the short dairy course this winter, besides my other
work."
Billy looked at the sweet, resolute face curiously, then he chuckled.
"Whenever you deign to unravel the workings of the mystery you call
your mind, I'll be crazy to listen," he said.
Early in September, John Levine's will was found. He had left his
entire property, unconditionally, to Lydia.
Amos, at first, was frantic with delight. Lydia was appalled.
"All my life," she half sobbed to her father, "I've been fighting to
get away from Indian lands. And Mr. Levine knew how I felt. Oh, how
could he do this to me!"
"Don't talk like a fool, Lydia!" roared Amos.
Lydia turned to Kent, who was sitting on the back steps with them. He
leaned over and patted her hand.
"Why worry about it, Lyd? Your father and I'll look out for it all."
"Do I _have_ to keep it?" asked Lydia, tensely. "Will the law make me?"
"I should say not! You can give it to me, if you want to," laughed
Kent.
"But don't you see how I feel?" cried Lydia. "Don't you see that all
John Levine's lands up there are haunted by death--his own--and all the
starving Indians? Oh, why did he do this to me!"
"I suppose you feel the same way about the cottage," said Amos,
sarcastically.
"I don't either," contradicted Lydia. "I'm as happy as I can be that
we've got that. But all the rest! I won't have it, I tell you! I'd
rather be poverty stricken all my life."
"Well, don't worry too much about that," said Kent. "Dave Marshall
thinks there won't be anything left after the estate is settled, but
the Indian lands."
"Oh, Kent, you aren't having anything to do with Dave Marshall, are
you?" exclaimed Lydia.
Kent flushed a little. "Well, his advice can't hurt me. If it's bad,
I don't have to take it. You ought to go out and see his farm, Lydia.
They're getting the house all fitted with modern conveniences. Dave's
going to make a model stock farm."
"Bought with money earned by the Last Chance!" said Lydia.
"You can't be so darned squeamish about where a man gets his money
these days, Lyd. Of course, there was no excuse for the Last Chance.
But Dave's done what he could about it."
Lydia made no reply and Kent looked at her quizzically. "A New England
conscience must be something awful to own, eh, Lyd?"
Lydia chuckled. "It's pretty bad," she admitted, then she went on
soberly, "but I won't take those Indian lands."
"You can give them to me," reiterated Kent, cheerfully.
"She'll keep them," said Amos, shortly, "or Lydia and I'll have our
first real row."
"Well, save up the fight till the estate's settled," said Kent,
soothingly. "And then you'll know what you're fighting about. That
will take some months."
Lydia sighed with relief. And again Kent laughed. "Oh, Lyd! You
haven't any idea how funny you are! Come to, old lady! This is the
twentieth century! And twentieth century business ethics don't belong
to town meeting days. The best fellow gets the boodle!"
"Then Dave Marshall is the best fellow in our community, I suppose,"
said Lydia.
"Oh, Gee, Lyd! After all, he's Margery's father!"
Lydia looked at Kent thoughtfully. Since the day under the willows, he
had not made love to her, yet she had the feeling that Kent was devoted
to her and she wondered sometimes why he liked to spend as much time
with Margery as with herself. Then she gave herself a mental shake.
"I'm going to tell you right now, that until I _have_ to I'm not going
to worry. I'm going to try to be happy in my senior year."