woman quietly, and with a start the girl rose, stood meekly while a
checked apron was tied about her waist and received the moist,
shining ware from the plump hands without a word. She appeared to
have utterly forgotten Caroline.
After a few moments of rhythmical click and splash, a few journeys
from sink to dresser, the tension broke quietly and the air was
aware of it, as when a threatened thunderstorm goes by above and
dissipates in wind. Feeling this, Mrs. Winterpine began to talk
softly, half to herself it seemed, for her voice took on the tone
of one who is much alone and thinks aloud.
"All my life I've been crazy for travel. I used to read my geography
book till I wore it out nearly; the exports and the imports, you
know? And the pictures of those Arabian men with white turbans, and
the South Sea Islanders riding on surf boards--I can see 'em now.
There was a castle for Germany, with the moon behind it and the
Rhine--do you know 'Bingen on the Rhine'? I love the sound of that.
And the Black Forest! Think of it!"
She paused with a platter dripping in her hand, her eyes fixed; and
so strong was the compulsion of her vision that to Caroline, vibrant
as a wind harp to such suggestion, the splash of the water in the
tin was the very tinkle of Undine's mystic stream and _Kühleborn_,
that wicked uncle-brook dashed in cold floods over the belated
knight in the dark German wood!
"I dreamed once about an Indian temple," the woman went on, "and
you'd really think I'd been there, I saw it so plain. Fat priests
and that big idol that sits cross-legged, all made of brass, and
smiling; and such funny drums and pipes--creepy music. The heathens
brought wreaths and stretched out on their stomachs flat on the
ground. I'd read it somewhere, I guess. I could smell the flowers,
like pond lilies and honeysuckle."
She poured away the dish water, wiped the pan and began rinsing her
towels and cloths in a small wooden tub bound with tin. The girl
moved aimlessly about the room, fingering the worn furniture.
"That clock looks awfully old," she said abruptly, pausing before a
square high Dutch affair with a ridiculous picture of Mount Vernon,
wobbly-columned, let in at the bottom.
"Goodness, yes! That clock--why, that clock was a wedding present to
Lorenzo's great aunt Valeria--she was a Swedenborgian, I believe.
She used to have trances and she could tell you where things were
lost. That chair by the window was her mother's. It's made with
wooden nails, dowels, they call 'em."
"Did she live here, too?"
"Yes, indeed. The Winterpines are great hands to stay in one place.
And the way they come back to die! I'm half Winterpine myself--he
and I were second cousins--and I well remember Uncle Milton
Winterpine coming home from Java to die in his bed. He was a sailor,
and how I used to hang around and coax him to tell me what he'd
seen! I remember how he staggered into the house--Mother Winterpine
was living then.
"'Here, Esther, here's a fifty-pound sack of Old Gov'ment Javvy for
ye, green, and fit for the president's table as soon's it gits
ripe,' he says, 'and you won't have to nurse me long;' and we got
his boots off and helped him to bed. He never left it. He brought me
a parrot, that trip, sort of indigo color and pink. It used to set
me thinking of the hot countries and pineapples and natives, and
those tall trees with all the leaves on top--palms, I guess I mean.
It seems the stars are lower, there, and look bigger; did you ever
see the Southern Cross?"
"Oh, yes. It's like any other stars. The first officer on the P & O
line always asks me to come and see it. Then he proposes. J. G.
plays poker the whole trip. He can't lose. He says it's tiresome."
The strange dialogue went on for what might have been an hour. Far
ports and foreign streets, full sails and thronged inns, the
fountains of paved courts, the market squares of dark and vivid
nations, blossomed from the tongue of this chair-bound woman in her
farmhouse prison; and from the blind, unhappy voyager came halting,
telegraphic phrases: climate and train schedules and over-lavish
fees, miles and meals and petty miseries. No sunset had stained her
hurried way, no handed flowers from shy street children had
sweetened it. And ever and again she returned insistently to the
barnyard interests of the Winterpines!
"See here!" she burst out suddenly, "I'll tell you what I'll do! I
told J. G. that I wouldn't go another step with him--mascot or no
mascot. He wants to go over the Himalayas--to start next week--he
has an idea. But if you'll go, I'll take you! What do you say? My
guest, of course: it don't cost you a penny."
The woman turned utterly white. Where her knuckles gripped the arms
of the chair they showed a bluish tinge.
"Me? Me?" she whispered. Her eyes fell to her helpless knees.
"Oh, you needn't think of that at all," said Madeline. "I knew a man
who didn't _have_ any legs, even, that went round the world and up
the Pyramids. He had money."
The woman looked wildly about. Her eyes fell on Caroline and this
seemed to bring her into some sort of focus again; the color came
back to her face.
"That was lovely for you to think of, dear," she said, breathlessly
yet; "but--but--for a moment I forgot.... I--I didn't think of
Lorenzo!"
"Oh, we'll get a housekeeper for Lorenzo," Madeline said lightly;
"he'll do very well, won't he? One man can't be much to take care
of--you haven't any children?"
The easy, equal tone, the bright, dry impudence of this little air
plant, this rootless, aimless bubble skipping over the bottomless
deeps of life, brought the dazzled woman quickly to herself. She
looked compassionately at the girl.
"No," she said gravely, her hands unconsciously flying to her deep
breast; "we haven't any children. And he's not much to take care
of--for his wife. But he wouldn't care for a housekeeper."
"Oh!" her eyes fell uneasily. "Then we'll take him along!" She
recovered herself.
Mrs. Winterpine sent her chair with a swift push close to the girl
and laid one hand on her hot forehead, pushing back the thick hair.
"What a gen'rous little thing you are!" she cried wonderingly. "But
where were you brought up, child? Lorenzo can't jump and run off to
the Himalaya Mountains like that! It takes him a long time to make
up his mind. He--he don't care for travel, besides. He's a regular
Winterpine. And there's the stock. No. I guess I'll keep on doing my
traveling at home. That book you said you'd send...."
"I'll send a dozen--fifty!" the girl cried impulsively. "I'll bring
them up from New York to-morrow! I'll bring some pictures, too. The
Alps and Venice and the snapshots I took on the Nile! You seem to
know how they look, well enough!"
"Yes, I know, I know...." the woman repeated dreamily.
"Don't you want to go?" Madeline urged curiously.
Again Mrs. Winterpine turned white.
"Then why don't you?"
"Child, child!" cried she of the chair, "didn't I tell you he don't
care for travel? We can't do as we like in this world--we don't live
alone. We're placed. There's a hundred things.... Where were you
brought up?"
Madeline's face flushed a dark, heavy red. Her light confidence
drowned in it; she dropped her eyes.
"In the Klondike!" she said sullenly, "I told you."
A loud, whirring horn cut through the country quiet. A great rattle
of gear and chain stormed along the road.
"There's the machine!" the girl said sulkily; "I must go. It's
fifteen miles to Ogdenville, and a vile road. Good-by--I'll be up
with the books in a day or two."
She moved to the door.
"If I can't come--I change my mind awfully--I'll send them just the
same, and--and--" a curious sense of struggle, a visible effort at
thought for another, an attempt to grasp an alien point of view,
dawned in the defiant dark eyes--"I'll write to you from India, if
you want. Would you like it? I can take snap shots...."
"You're real gen'rous, dear," said her hostess, and wheeling quickly
to her, kissed her warmly.
She was gone in a cloud of dust. Caroline and the woman sat in
silence. At last Rose-Marie yawned pitifully and his mistress got up
with reluctance.
"Good-by, Mrs. Winterpine," she said soberly; "I have to go home.
They'll be anxious about me. But I'll come again."
"Do, my dear," said the other; "this'll be a wonderful summer for
me, with so much company. Wonderful. He'll be interested. But you
run right on: don't let the folks worry. I never had any children,
but I always had my heart set on a daughter. Good-by."
Caroline and the donkey walked slowly off toward the wood, which
cast cool shadows. They vanished into its depths, and Mrs.
Winterpine sat and watched them kindly from her chair, as one
watches off the traveler bound for far and golden countries.
"He'd have liked that young one," she said softly.
* * * * *
The following pages contain advertisements of a few of the
Macmillan novels.
NOVELS, ETC., BY "BARBARA"
(MABEL OSGOOD WRIGHT)
_Each, in decorated cloth binding, $1.50_
The Garden of a Commuter's Wife Illustrated
"Reading it is like having the entry into a home of the class that
is the proudest product of our land, a home where love of books and
love of nature go hand in hand with hearty, simple love of 'folks.'
... It is a charming book."--_The Interior_.
People of the Whirlpool Illustrated
"The whole book is delicious, with its wise and kindly humor, its
just perspective of the true values of things, its clever pen
pictures of people and customs, and its healthy optimism for the
great world in general."--_Philadelphia Evening Telegraph_.
The Woman Errant
"The book is worth reading. It will cause discussion. It is an
interesting fictional presentation of an important modern question,
treated with fascinating feminine adroitness."--Miss JEANNETTE
GILDER in the _Chicago Tribune_.
At the Sign of the Fox
"Her little pictures of country life are fragrant with a genuine
love of nature, and there is fun as genuine in her notes on rural
character."--_New York Tribune_.
The Garden, You and I
"This volume is simply the best she has yet put forth, and quite too
deliciously torturing to the reviewer, whose only garden is in
Spain.... The delightful humor which pervaded the earlier books, and
without which Barbara would not be Barbara, has lost nothing of its
poignancy."--_Congregationalist_.
The Open Window. Tales of the Months.
"A little vacation from the sophistication of the
commonplace."--_Argonaut_.
Poppea of the Post-Office
"A rainbow romance, ... tender yet bracing, cheerily stimulating ...
its genial entirety refreshes like a cooling shower."--_Chicago
Record-Herald_.
Princess Flower Hat _Just Ready_
A Comedy from the Perplexity Book of Barbara the Commuter's Wife.
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
Publishers 64-66 Fifth Avenue New York
* * * * *
BY ZONA GALE
Friendship Village
_Cloth, 12mo, $1.50_
"As charming as an April day, all showers and sunshine, and
sometimes both together, so that the delighted reader hardly knows
whether laughter or tears are fittest for his emotions.... This book
especially makes for higher thinking and better living and
emphasizes the existence of these virtues in lowly places as well as
high."--_New York Times_.
"The characters are like an orchestra, each instrument holding a
part of its own, all interwoven to a harmonious whole; an orchestra
of strings, be it added, for even the Proudfits' motor fails to
introduce a note of brass.... With the wholesome pungency of humor
that pervades it all, the book cannot fail to find a welcome."--_New
York Post_.
"There is not a trace of sarcasm or even grotesqueness; her
villagers are not caricatures; they are efficient, useful men and
women whose individualities have been crystallized into distinct
outlines by their limited environments and intimate relations. The
book is happily optimistic, presenting, indeed, the commonplaces of
narrow lives but breathing also the underlying spirit of poetry and
romance."--_Baltimore Sun_.
The Loves of Pelleas and Etarre
_Cloth, 12mo, $1.50_
"To all who know the hidden sources of human joy and have neither
grown old in cynicism nor gray in utilitarianism, Miss Gale's
charming love stories, full of fresh feeling and grace of style,
will be a draught from the fountain of youth."--_Outlook_.
"The achievement is unusual for delicacy, subtlety, and the ...
felicitous tenderness which brood over the book like a golden
autumnal haze which dims the outlines of common things and
beautifies them.... The story is indeed unique in this, that it is
an idyl for the aged--a romance of seventy."--_Chicago Tribune_.
"It is an ideal book for husband and wife to read aloud together....
Its picture of steadfast love in old age is the best kind of
idealism."--_Chicago Record Herald_.
PUBLISHED BY
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
64-66 Fifth Avenue, New York
* * * * *
Mr. JAMES LANE ALLEN'S NOVELS
_Each, cloth, 12mo, $1.50_
The Choir Invisible
_This can also be had in a special edition illustrated by Orson
Lowell, $2.50_
"One reads the story for the story's sake, and then re-reads the
book out of pure delight in its beauty. The story is American to the
very core.... Mr. Allen stands to-day in the front rank of American
novelists. _The Choir Invisible_ will solidify a reputation already
established and bring into clear light his rare gifts as an artist.
For this latest story is as genuine a work of art as has come from
an American hand."--HAMILTON MABIE in _The Outlook_.
The Reign of Law. A Tale of the Kentucky Hempfields
"Mr. Allen has a style as original and almost as perfectly finished
as Hawthorne's, and he has also Hawthorne's fondness for spiritual
suggestion that makes all his stories rich in the qualities that are
lacking in so many novels of the period.... If read in the right
way, it cannot fail to add to one's spiritual possessions."--_San
Francisco Chronicle_.
The Mettle of the Pasture
"It may be that _The Mettle of the Pasture_ will live and become a
part of our literature; it certainly will live far beyond the
allotted term of present-day fiction. Our principal concern is that
it is a notable novel, that it ranks high in the range of American
and English fiction, and that it is worth the reading, the
re-reading, and the continuous appreciation of those who care for
modern literature at its best."--By E. F. E. in the _Boston
Transcript_.
Summer in Arcady. A Tale of Nature _Cloth, $1.25_
"This story by James Lane Allen is one of the gems of the season. It
is artistic in its setting, realistic and true to nature and life in
its descriptions, dramatic, pathetic, tragic, in its incidents;
indeed, a veritable masterpiece that must become classic. It is
difficult to give an outline of the story; it is one of the stories
which do not outline; it must be read."--_Boston Daily Advertiser_.
_Shorter Stories_
The Blue Grass Region of Kentucky $1.50
Flute and Violin, and Other Kentucky Tales $1.50
The Bride of the Mistletoe $1.25
A Kentucky Cardinal. _Illustrated_ $1.00
Aftermath. A Sequel to "A Kentucky Cardinal" $1.00
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
PUBLISHERS, 64-66 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK
* * * * *
Mr. ROBERT HERRICK'S NOVELS
_Cloth, extra, gilt tops, each, $1.50_
The Gospel of Freedom
"A novel that may truly be called the greatest study of social life,
in a broad and very much up-to-date sense, that has ever been
contributed to American fiction."--_Chicago Inter-Ocean_.
The Web of Life
"It is strong in that it faithfully depicts many phases of American
life, and uses them to strengthen a web of fiction, which is most
artistically wrought out."--_Buffalo Express_.
The Real World
"The title of the book has a subtle intention. It indicates, and is
true to the verities in doing so, the strange dreamlike quality of
life to the man who has not yet fought his own battles, or come into
conscious possession of his will--only such battles bite into the
consciousness."--_Chicago Tribune_.
The Common Lot
"It grips the reader tremendously.... It is the drama of a human
soul the reader watches ... the finest study of human motive that
has appeared for many a day."--_The World To-day_.
The Memoirs of an American Citizen. Illustrated with about fifty
drawings by F. B. Masters.
"Mr. Herrick's book is a book among many, and he comes nearer to
reflecting a certain kind of recognizable, contemporaneous American
spirit than anybody has yet done."--_New York Times_.
"Intensely absorbing as a story, it is also a crisp, vigorous
document of startling significance. More than any other writer
to-day he is giving us _the_ American novel."--_New York Globe_.
Together
"Journeys end in lovers meeting," says the old saw; so all novels
used to end--in marriage. Yet Mr. Herrick's interesting new novel
only begins there; the best brief description of it is, indeed,--a
novel about married people for all who are married.
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
PUBLISHERS, 64-66 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK