“A dancing shape, an image gay, To haunt, to startle, and waylay.”
The town of Oakdale is at the present time a flourishing place,
inhabited principally by “suburbanites,” for it lies not very far
from New York; but the Reverend Austin Davis, who was the spiritual
guardian of most of them, had come to Oakdale some twenty and more
years ago, when it was only a little village, with a struggling
church which it was the task of the young clergyman to keep alive.
Perhaps the growth of the town had as much to do with his success as
his own efforts; but however that might have been he had received
his temporal reward some ten years later, in the shape of a fine
stone church, with a little parsonage beside it. He had lived there
ever since, alone with his one child,--for just after coming to
Oakdale he had married a daughter of one of the wealthy families of
the neighborhood, and been left a widower a year or two later.
A more unromantic and thoroughly busy man than Mr. Davis at the age
of forty-five, when this story begins, it would not have been easy
to find; but nevertheless people spoke of no less than two romances
that had been connected with his life. One of them had been his
early marriage, which had created a mild sensation, while the other
had come into his life even sooner, in fact on the very first day of
his arrival at Oakdale.
Mr. Davis could still bring back to his mind with perfect clearness
the first night he had spent in the little wooden cottage which he
had hired for his residence; how while busily unpacking his trunk
and trying to bring the disordered place into shape, he had opened
the door in answer to a knock and beheld a woman stagger in out of
the storm. She was a young girl, surely not yet out of her teens,
her pale and sunken face showing marks of refinement and of former
beauty. She carried in her arms a child of about a year's age, and
she dropped it upon the sofa and sank down beside it, half fainting
from exhaustion. The young clergyman's anxious inquiries having
succeeded in eliciting but incoherent replies, he had left the room
to procure some nourishment for the exhausted woman; it was upon his
return that the discovery of the romance alluded to was made, for
the woman had disappeared in the darkness and storm, and the baby
was still lying upon the sofa.
It was not altogether a pleasant romance, as is probably the case
with a good many romances in reality. Mr. Davis was destined to
retain for a long time a vivid recollection of the first night which
he spent in alternately feeding that baby with a spoon, and in
walking the floor with it; and also to remember the sly glances
which his parishioners only half hid from him when his unpleasant
plight was made known.
It happened that the poorhouse at Hilltown near by, to which the
infant would have gone if he had left it to the care of the county,
was at that time being “investigated,” with all that the name
implies when referring to public matters; the clergy of the
neighborhood being active in pushing the charges, Mr. Davis felt
that at present it would look best for him to provide for the child
himself. As the investigation came to nothing, the inducement was
made a permanent one; perhaps also the memory of the mother's wan
face had something to do with the matter. At any rate the young
clergyman, tho but scantily provided for himself, managed to spare
enough to engage a woman in the town to take care of the young
charge. Subsequently when Mr. Davis' wife died the woman became
Helen's nurse, and so it was that Arthur, as the baby boy had been
christened, became permanently adopted into the clergyman's little
family.
It had not been possible to keep from Arthur the secret of his
parentage, and the fact that it was known to all served to keep him
aloof from the other children of the town, and to drive him still
more to the confidence of Helen. One of the phrases which Mr. Davis
had caught from the mother's lips had been that the boy was a
“gentleman's son;” and Helen was wont to solace him by that
reminder. Perhaps the phrase, constantly repeated, had much to do
with the proud sensitiveness and the resolute independence which
soon manifested itself in the lad's character. He had scarcely
passed the age of twelve before, tho treated by Mr. Davis with the
love and kindness of a father, he astonished the good man by
declaring that he was old enough to take care of himself; and tho
Mr. Davis was better situated financially by that time, nothing that
he could say could alter the boy's quiet determination to leave
school and be independent, a resolution in which he was seconded by
Helen, a little miss of some nine years. The two children had talked
it over for months, as it appeared, and concluded that it was best
to sacrifice in the cause of honor the privilege of going to school
together, and of spending the long holidays roaming about the
country.
So the lad had served with childish dignity, first as an errand boy,
and then as a store clerk, always contributing his mite of “board”
to Mr. Davis' household expenses; meanwhile, possibly because he was
really “a gentleman's son,” and had inherited a taste for study, he
had made by himself about as much progress as if he had been at
school. Some years later, to the delight of Helen and Mr. Davis, he
had carried off a prize scholarship above the heads of the graduates
of the Hilltown High School, and still refusing all help, had gone
away to college, to support himself there while studying by such
work as he could find, knowing well that a true gentleman's son is
ashamed of nothing honest.
He spent his vacations at home, where he and Helen studied
together,--or such rather had been his hope; it was realized only
for the first year.
Helen had an aunt upon her mother's side, a woman of wealth and
social position, who owned a large country home near Oakdale, and
who was by no means inclined to view with the complacency of Mr.
Davis the idyllic friendship of the two young people. Mrs. Roberts,
or “Aunt Polly” as she was known to the family, had plans of her own
concerning the future of the beauty which she saw unfolding itself
at the Oakdale parsonage. She said nothing to Mr. Davis, for he,
being busy with theological works and charitable organizations, was
not considered a man from whom one might hope for proper ideas about
life. But with her own more practical husband she had frequently
discussed the danger, and the possible methods of warding it off.
To send Helen to a boarding school would have been of no use, for
the vacations were the times of danger; so it was that the trip
abroad was finally decided upon. Aunt Polly, having traveled
herself, had a wholesome regard for German culture, believing that
music and things of that sort were paying investments. It chanced,
also, that her own eldest daughter, who was a year older than Helen,
was about through with all that American teachers had to impart; and
so after much argument with Mr. Davis, it was finally arranged that
she and Helen should study in Germany together. Just when poor
Arthur was returning home with the sublime title of junior, his
dream of all things divine was carried off by Aunt Polly, and after
a summer spent in “doing” Europe, was installed in a girl's school
in Leipzig.
And now, three years having passed, Helen has left her cousin for
another year of travel, and returned home in all the glory of her
own springtime and of Nature's; which brings us to where we left
her, hurrying away to pay a duty call in the little settlement on
the hillside.
The visit had not been entirely a subterfuge, for Helen's father had
mentioned to her that the elderly person whom she had named to
Arthur was expecting to see her when she returned, and Helen had
been troubled by the thought that she would never have any peace
until she had paid that visit. It was by no means an agreeable one,
for old Mrs. Woodward was exceedingly dull, and Helen felt that she
was called upon to make war upon dullness. However, it had occurred
to her to get her task out of the way at once, while she felt that
she ought to leave Arthur.
The visit proved to be quite as depressing as she had expected, for
it is sad to have to record that Helen, however sensitive to the
streamlet and the flowers, had not the least sympathy in the world
for an old woman who had a very sharp chin, who stared at one
through two pairs of spectacles, and whose conversation was about
her own health and the dampness of the springtime, besides the
dreariest gossip about Oakdale's least interesting people. Perhaps
it might have occurred to the girl that it is very forlorn to have
nothing else to talk about, and that even old Mrs. Woodward might
have liked to hear about some of the things in the forest, or to
have been offered the lily and the marigold. Unfortunately, however,
Helen did not think about any of that, but only moved restlessly
about in her chair and gazed around the ugly room. Finally when she
could stand it no more, she sprang up between two of Mrs. Woodward's
longest sentences and remarked that it was very late and a long way
home, and that she would come again some time.
Then at last when she was out in the open air, she drew a deep
breath and fled away to the woods, wondering what could be God's
reason for such things. It was not until she was half way up the
hillside that she could feel that the wind, which blew now upon her
forehead, had quite swept away the depression which had settled upon
her. She drank in the odors which blew from the woods, and began
singing to herself again, and looking out for Arthur.
She was rather surprised not to see him at once, and still more
surprised when she came nearer and raised her voice to call him; for
she reached the forest and came to the place where she had left him
without a reply having come. She shouted his name again and again,
until at last, not without a half secret chagrin to have been so
quickly forgotten, she was obliged to set out for home alone.
“Perhaps he's gone on ahead,” she thought, quickening her pace.
For a time she watched anxiously, expecting to see his darkly clad
figure; but she soon wearied of continued failure, and because it
was her birthday, and because the brook was still at her side and
the beautiful forest still about her, she took to singing again, and
was quickly as happy and glorious as before, ceasing her caroling
and moderating her woodland pace only when she neared the town. She
passed down the main street of Oakdale, not quite without an
exulting consciousness that her walk had crowned her beauty and that
no one whom she saw was thinking about anything else; and so she
came to her home, to the dear old parsonage, with its spreading ivy
vines, and its two great elms.
When she had hurried up the steps and shut the door behind her,
Helen felt privileged again to be just as merry as she chose, for
she was even more at home here than in the woods; it seemed as if
everything were stretching out its arms to her to welcome her, and
to invite her to carry out her declared purpose of taking the reins
of government in her own hands.
Upon one side of the hallway was a parlor, and on the other side two
rooms, which Mr. Davis had used as a reception room and a study. The
parlor had never been opened, and Helen promised herself a jolly
time superintending the fixing up of that; on the other side she had
already taken possession of the front room, symbolically at any
rate, by having her piano moved in and her music unpacked, and a
case emptied for the books she had brought from Germany. To be sure,
on the other side was still a dreary wall of theological treatises
in funereal black, but Helen was not without hopes that continued
doses of cheerfulness might cure her father of such incomprehensible
habits, and obtain for her the permission to move the books to the
attic.
To start things in that direction the girl now danced gaily into the
study where her father was in the act of writing “thirdly,
brethren,” for his next day's sermon; and crying out merrily,
“Up, up my friend, and quit your books,
Or surely you'll grow double!”
she saluted her reverend father with the sweetest of kisses, and
then seated herself on the arm of his chair and gravely took his pen
out of his hand, and closed his inkstand. She turned over the
“thirdly, brethren,” without blotting it, and recited solemnly:
“One impulse from a vernal wood
May teach you more of man,
Of moral evil and of good.
Than all the sages can!”
And then she laughed the merriest of merry laughs and added, “Daddy,
dear, I am an impulse! And I want you to spare some time for me.”
“Yes, my love,” said Mr. Davis, smiling upon her, though groaning
inwardly for his lost ideas. “You are beautiful this morning, Helen.
What have you been doing?”
“I've had a glorious walk,” replied the girl, “and all kinds of
wonderful adventures; I've had a dance with the morning wind, and a
race of a mile or two with a brook, and I've sung duets with all the
flowers,--and here you are writing uninteresting things!”
“It's my sermon, Helen,” said Mr. Davis.
“I know it,” said Helen, gravely.
“But it must be done for to-morrow,” protested the other.
“Half your congregation is going to be so excited about two tallow
candles that it won't know what you preach about,” answered the
girl, swinging herself on the arm of the chair; “and I'm going to
sing for the other half, and so they won't care either. And besides,
Daddy, I've got news to tell you; you've no idea what a good girl
I've been.”
“How, my love?”
“I went to see Mrs. Woodward.”
“You didn't!”
“Yes; and it was just to show you how dutiful I'm going to be.
Daddy, I felt so sorry for the poor old lady; it is so beautiful to
know that one is doing good and bringing happiness into other
people's lives! I think I'll go and see her often, and carry her
something nice if you'll let me.”
Helen said all that as gravely as a judge; but Mr. Davis was
agreeing so delightedly that she feared she was carrying the joke
too far. She changed the subject quickly.
“Oh, Daddy!” she cried, “I forgot to tell you--I met a genius
to-day!”
“A genius?” inquired the other.
“Yes,” said Helen, “and I've been walking around with him all
morning out in the woods! Did you never hear that every place like
that has a genius?”
“Yes,” assented Mr. Davis, “but I don't understand your joke.”
“This was the genius of Hilltown High School,” laughed Helen.
“Oh, Arthur!”
“Yes; will you believe it, the dear boy had walked all the way from
there to see me; and he waited out by the old seat at the spring!”
“But where is he now?”
“I don't know,” said Helen. “It's very queer; I left him to go see
Mrs. Woodward. He didn't go with me,” she added, “I don't believe he
felt inclined to charity.”
“That is not like Arthur,” said the other.
“I'm going to take him in hand, as becomes a clergyman's daughter,”
said Helen demurely; “I'm going to be a model daughter, Daddy--just
you wait and see! I'll visit all your parishioners' lawn-parties
and five o'clock teas for you, and I'll play Handel's Largo and
Siegfried's Funeral March whenever you want to write sermons. Won't
you like that?”
“Perhaps,” said Mr. Davis, dubiously.
“Only I know you'll make blots when I come to the cymbals,” said
Helen; and she doubled up her fists and hummed the passage, and gave
so realistic an imitation of the cymbal-clashes in the great dirge
that it almost upset the chair. Afterwards she laughed one of her
merriest laughs and kissed her father on the forehead.
“I heard it at Baireuth,” she said, “and it was just fine! It made
your flesh creep all over you. And oh, Daddy, I brought home a
souvenir of Wagner's grave!”
“Did you?” asked Mr. Davis, who knew very little about Wagner.
“Yes,” said Helen, “just a pebble I picked up near it; and you ought
to have seen the custom-house officer at the dock yesterday when he
was going through my trunks. 'What's this, Miss?' he asked; I guess
he thought it was a diamond in the rough. 'Oh, that's from Wagner's
grave,' I said. And what do you think the wretch did?”
“I'm sure I don't know, my love.”
“He threw it back, saying it wasn't worth anything; I think he must
have been a Brahmsite.”
“It took the longest time going through all my treasures,” Helen
prattled on, after laughing at her own joke; “you know Aunt Polly
let us have everything we wanted, bless her heart!”
“I'm afraid Aunt Polly must have spoiled you,” said the other.
“She has,” laughed Helen; “I really think she must mean to make me
marry a rich husband, or else she'd never have left me at that great
rich school; Lucy and I were the 'star-boarders' you know, and we
just had everybody to spoil us. How in the world could you ever
manage to spare so much money, Daddy?”
“Oh, it was not so much,” said Mr. Davis; “things are cheaper
abroad.” (As a matter of fact, the grimly resolute Aunt Polly had
paid two-thirds of her niece's expenses secretly, besides
distributing pocket money with lavish generosity.)
“And you should see the wonderful dresses I've brought from Paris,”
Helen went on. “Oh, Daddy, I tell you I shall be glorious! Aunt
Polly's going to invite a lot of people at her house next week to
meet me, and I'm going to wear the reddest of red, red dresses, and
just shine like a lighthouse!”
“I'm afraid,” said the clergyman, surveying her with more pride than
was perhaps orthodox, “I'm afraid you'll find it hard to be
satisfied in this poor little home of ours.”
“Oh, that's all right,” said Helen; “I'll soon get used to it; and
besides, I've got plenty of things to fix it up with--if you'll only
get those dreadful theological works out of the front room! Daddy
dear, you can't imagine how hard it is to bring the Valkyries and
Niebelungs into a theological library.”
“I'll see what I can do, my love,” said Mr. Davis.
He was silent for a few moments, perhaps wondering vaguely whether
it was well that this commanding young lady should have everything
in the world she desired; Helen, who had her share of penetration,
probably divined the thought, for she made haste to change the
subject.
“By the way,” she laughed, “we got so interested in our chattering
that we forgot all about Arthur.”
“Sure enough,” exclaimed the other. “Pray where can he have gone?”
“I don't know,” Helen said; “it's strange. But poets are such queer
creatures!”
“Arthur is a very splendid creature,” said Mr. Davis. “You have no
idea, Helen, how hard he has labored since you have been away. He
carried off all the honors at college, and they say he has written
some good poetry. I don't know much about that, but the people who
know tell me so.”
“It would be gloriously romantic to know a great poet,” said Helen,
“and perhaps have him write poetry about you,--'Helen, thy beauty is
to me,' and 'Sweet Helen, make me immortal with a kiss,' and all
sorts of things like that! He's coming to live with us this summer
as usual, isn't he, Daddy?”
“I don't know,” said the other; “I presume he will. But where can he
have gone to-day?”
“He acted very queerly,” said the girl; and then suddenly a
delighted smile lit up her face. “Oh, Daddy,” she added, “do you
know, I think Arthur is in love!”
“In love!” gasped Mr. Davis.
“Yes, in love!”
“Pray, with whom?”
“I'm sure I can't imagine,” said Helen gravely; “but he seemed so
abstracted, and he seemed to have something to tell me. And then he
ran away!”
“That is very strange indeed,” remarked the other. “I shall have to
speak to him about it.”
“If he doesn't come back soon, I'll go to look for him,” said the
girl; “I'm not going to let the water nixies run off with my Arthur;
there are such things in that stream, because the song I was singing
about it says so.” And then she chanted as merrily as ever:
“Why speak I of a murmur?
No murmur can it be;
The Nixies they are singing
'Neath the wave their melody!”
“I will tell you what,” said Mr. Davis, rising from his chair as he
realized that the sermon had entirely vanished for the present. “You
may go part of the way with me, and we'll stop in to see the Vails.”
“The Vails!” gasped Helen. (Mr. Vail was the village dairyman, whose
farm lay on the outskirts of the town; the village dairyman's family
was not one that Helen cared to visit.)
“My love,” said Mr. Davis, “poor Mrs. Vail has been very ill, and
she has three little children, you know. You told me that you liked
to bring joy wherever you could.”
“Yes, but, Daddy,” protested Helen, “_those_ children are _dirty!_
Ugh! I saw them as I came by.”
“My love,” answered the other, “they are God's children none the
less; and we cannot always help such things.”
“But we _can_, Daddy; there is plenty of water in the world.”
“Yes, of course; but when the mother is ill, and the father in
trouble! For poor Mr. Vail has had no end of misfortune; he has no
resource but the little dairy, and three of his cows have been ill
this spring.”
And Helen's incorrigible mirth lighted up her face again. “Oh!” she
cried. “Is _that_ it! I saw him struggling away at the pump as I
came by; but I had no idea it was anything so serious!”
Mr. Davis looked grieved; Helen, when her first burst of glee had
passed, noticed it and changed her mood. She put her arms around her
father's neck and pressed her cheek against his.
“Daddy, dear,” she said coaxingly, “haven't I done charity enough
for one day? You will surfeit me at the start, and then I'll be just
as little fond of it as I was before. When I must let dirty children
climb all over me, I can dress for the occasion.”
“My dear,” pleaded Mr. Davis, “Godliness is placed before
Cleanliness.”
“Yes,” admitted Helen, “and of course it is right for you to
inculcate the greater virtue; but I'm only a girl, and you mustn't
expect sublimity from me. You don't want to turn me into a president
of sewing societies, like that dreadful Mrs. Dale!”
“Helen,” protested the other, helplessly, “I wish you would not
always refer to Mrs. Dale with that adjective; she is the best
helper I have.”
“Yes, Daddy,” said Helen, with the utmost solemnity; “when I have a
dreadful eagle nose like hers, perhaps I can preside over meetings
too. But I can't now.”
“I do not want you to, my love; but--”
“And if I have to cling by the weaker virtue of cleanliness just for
a little while, Daddy, you must not mind. I'll visit all your clean
parishioners for you,--parishioners like Aunt Polly!”
And before Mr. Davis could make another remark, the girl had skipped
into the other room to the piano; as her father went slowly out the
door, the echoes of the old house were laughing with the happy
melody of Purcell's--
Nymphs and shepherds, come a-way, come a-way,
Nymphs and shepherds, come a-way, come a-way, Come,
come, come, come a-way!