Grant spent his Sunday forenoon in an exhaustive house-cleaning
campaign. Bachelor life on the farm is not conducive to domestic
delicacy, and although Grant had never abandoned the fundamentals he had
allowed his interpretation of essential cleanliness to become somewhat
liberal. The result was that the day of rest usually confronted him
with a considerable array of unwashed pots and pans and other culinary
utensils. To-day, while the tawny autumn hills seemed to fairly heave
and sigh with contentment under a splendor of opalescent sunshine, he
scoured the contents of his kitchen until they shone; washed the floor;
shook the rugs from the living-room and swept the corners, even behind
the gramophone; cleared the ashes from the hearth and generally set his
house in order, for was not she to call upon him that evening on her
way to town, and was not little Wilson--he of the high adventures with
teddy-bear and knife and pig--to spend the night with him?
When he was able to view his handiwork with a feeling that even feminine
eyes would find nothing to offend, Grant did an unwonted thing. He
unlocked the whim-room and opened the windows that the fresh air might
play through the silent chamber. To the west the mountains looked down
in sombre placidity as they had looked down every bright autumn morning
since the dawn of time, their shoulders bathed in purple mist and their
snow-crowned summits shining in the sun. For a long time Grant stood
drinking in the scene; the fertile valley lying with its square farms
like a checker-board of the gods, with its round little lakes beating
back the white sunshine like coins from the currency of the Creator; the
ruddy copper-colored patches of ripe wheat, and drowsy herds motionless
upon the receding hills; the blue-green ribbon of river with its yellow
fringes of cottonwood and bluffs of forbidding spruce, and behind and
over all the silent, majestic mountains. It was a sight to make the soul
of man rise up and say, “I know I stand on the heights of the Eternal!”
Then as his eyes followed the course of the river Grant picked out a
column of thin blue smoke, and knew that Zen was cooking her Sunday
dinner.
The thought turned him to his dusting of the whim-room, and afterwards
to his own kitchen. When he had lunched and dressed he took a stroll
over the hills, thinking a great deal, but finding no answer. On his
return he descried the familiar figure of Linder in a semi-recumbent
position on the porch, and Linder’s well-worn car in the yard.
“How goes it, Linder?” he said, cheerily, as he came up. “Is the Big
Idea going to fructify?”
“The Big Idea seems to be all right. You planned it well.”
“Thanks. But is it going to be self-supporting--I mean in the matter of
motive power. Would it run if you and I and Murdoch were wiped out?”
“Everything must have a head.”
“Democracy must find its own head--must grow it out of the materials
supplied. If it doesn’t do that it’s a failure, and the Big Idea will
end in being the Big Fizzle. That’s why I’m leaving it so severely
alone--I want to see which way it’s headed.”
“I could suggest another reason,” said Linder, pointedly.
“Another reason for what?”
“For your leaving it so severely alone.”
“What are you driving at?” demanded Grant, somewhat petulantly. “You are
in a taciturn mood to-day, Linder.”
“Perhaps I am, Grant, and if so it comes from wondering how a man with
as much brains as you have can be such a damned fool upon occasion.”
“Drop the riddles, Linder. Let me have it in the face.”
“It’s just like this, Grant, old boy,” said Linder, getting up and
putting his hand on his friend’s shoulder, “I feel that I still have an
interest in the chap who saved all of me except what this empty sleeve
stands for, and it’s that interest which makes me speak about something
which you may say is none of my business. I was out here Monday night to
see you, and you were not at home. I came out again Wednesday, and you
were not at home. I came last night and you were not at home, and had
not come back at midnight. Your horses were in the barn; you were not
far away.”
“Why didn’t you telephone me?”
“If I hadn’t cared more for you than I do for my job and the Big Idea
thrown in I could have settled it that way. But, Grant, I do.”
“I believe you. But why this sudden worry over me? I was merely spending
the evening at a neighbor’s.”
“Yes--at Transley’s. Transley was in town, and Mrs. Transley is--not
responsible--where you are concerned.”
“Linder!”
“I saw it all that night at dinner there. Some things are plain to
everyone--except those most involved. Now it’s not my job to say to you
what’s right and wrong, but the way it looks to me is this: what’s the
use of setting up a new code of morality about money which concerns,
after all, only some of us, if you’re going to knock down those things
which concern all of us?”
Grant regarded his foreman for some time without answering. “I
appreciate your frankness, Linder,” he said at length. “Your friendship,
which I can never question, gives you that privilege. Man to man, I’m
going to be equally frank with you. To begin with, I suppose you will
admit that Y.D.’s daughter is a strong character, a woman quite capable
of directing her own affairs?”
“The stronger the engine the bigger the smash if there’s a wreck.”
“It’s not a case of wrecking; it’s a case of trying to save something
out of the wreck. Convention, Linder, is a torture-monger; it binds men
and women to the stake of propriety and bids them smile while it snuffs
out all the soul that’s in them. We have pitted ourselves against
convention in economic affairs; shall we not--”
“No! It was pure unselfishness which led you into the Big Idea. That
isn’t what’s leading you now.”
“Well, let me put it another way. Transley is a clever man of affairs.
He knows how to accomplish his ends. He applied the methods--somewhat
modified for the occasion--of a landshark in winning his wife. He makes
a great appearance of unselfishness, but in reality he is selfish to the
core. He lavishes money on her to satisfy his own vanity, but as for her
finer nature, the real Zen, her soul if you like--he doesn’t even know
she has one. He obtained possession by false pretences. Which is the
more moral thing--to leave him in possession, or to throw him out?
Didn’t you yourself hear him say that men who are worth their salt take
what they want?”
“Since when did you let him set YOUR standards?”
“That’s hardly fair.”
“I think it is. I think, too, that you are arguing against your own
convictions. Well, I’ve had my say. I deliberately came out to-day
without Murdoch so that I might have it. You would be quite justified
in firing me for what I’ve done. But now I’m through, and no matter what
may happen, remember, Linder will never have suspected anything.”
“That’s like you, old chap. We’ll drop it at that, but I must explain
that Zen is going to town to-night to meet Transley, and is leaving the
boy with me. It is an event in my young life, and I have house-cleaned
for it appropriately. Come inside and admire my handiwork.”
Linder admired as he was directed, and then the two men fell into a
discussion of business matters. Eventually Grant cooked supper, and just
as they had finished Mrs. Transley drove up in her motor.
“Here we are!” she cried, cheerily. “Glad to see you, Mr. Linder. Wilson
has his teddy-bear and his knife and his pyjamas, and is a little put
out, I think, that I wouldn’t let him bring the pig.”
“I shall try and make up the deficiency,” said Grant, smiling broadly,
as the boy climbed to his shoulder. “Won’t you come in? Linder, among
his other accomplishments learned in France, is an excellent chaperon.”
“Thank you, no; I must get along. I shall call early in the morning, so
that you will not be delayed on Wilson’s account.”
“No need of that; he can ride to the field with me on Prince. He is a
great help with the plowing.”
“I’m sure.” She stepped up to Grant and drew the boy’s face down to
hers. “Good-bye, dear; be a good boy,” she whispered, and Wilson waved
kisses to her as the motor sped down the road.
Linder took his departure soon after, and Grant was surprised to find
himself almost embarrassed in the presence of his little guest.
The embarrassment, however, was all on his side. Wilson was greatly
interested in the strange things in the house, and investigated them
with the romantic thoroughness of his years. Grant placed a collection
of war trophies that had no more fight in them at the child’s disposal,
and he played about until it was time to go to bed.
Where to start on the bedtime preparations was a puzzle, but Wilson
himself came to Grant’s aid with explicit instructions about buttons and
pins. Grant fervently hoped the boy would be able to reverse the process
in the morning, otherwise--
Suddenly, with a little dexterous movement, the child divested himself
of all his clothing, and rushed into a far corner.
“You have to catch me now,” he shouted in high glee. “One, two--”
Evidently it was a game, and Grant entered into the spirit of it,
finally running Wilson to earth on the farthest corner of the kitchen
table. To adjust the pyjamas was, as Grant confessed, a bigger job than
harnessing a four-horse team, but at length it was completed.
“You must hear my prayer, Uncle Man-on-the-Hill,” said the boy. “You
have to sit down in a chair.”
Grant sat down and with a strange mixture of emotions drew the little
chap between his knees as he listened to the long-forgotten prattle.
He felt his fingers running through Wilson’s hair as other fingers, now
long, long turned to dust, had once run through his....
At the third line the boy stopped. “You have to tell me now,” he
prompted.
“But I can’t, Willie; I have forgotten.”
“Huh, you don’t know much,” the child commented, and glibly quoted the
remaining lines. “And God bless Daddy and Mamma and teddy-bear and Uncle
Man-on-the-Hill and the pig. Amen,” he concluded, accompanying the last
word with a jump which landed him fairly in Grant’s lap. His little
arms went up about his friend’s neck, and his little soft cheek rested
against a tanned and weather-beaten one. Slowly Grant’s arms closed
about the warm, lithe body and pressed it to his in a new passion,
strange and holy. Then he led him to the whim-room, turned down the
white sheets in which no form had ever lain and placed the boy between
them, snuggled his teddy down by his side and set his knife properly
in view upon the dresser. And then he leaned down again and kissed the
little face, and whispered, “Good night, little boy; God keep you safe
to-night, and always.” And suddenly Grant realized that he had been
praying....
He withdrew softly, and only partly closed the door; then he chose a
seat where he could see the little figure lying peacefully on the white
bed. The last shafts of the setting sun were falling in amber wedges
across the room. He picked up a book, thinking to read, but he could not
keep his attention on the page; he found his mind wandering back into
the long-forgotten chambers of its beginning, conjuring up from the
faint recollections of infancy visions of the mother he had hardly
known.... After a while he tip-toed to the whim-room door and found that
Wilson, with his arms firmly clasped about his teddy-bear, was deep in
the sleep of childhood.
“The dear little chap,” he murmured. “I must watch by him to-night. It
would be unspeakable if anything should happen him while he is under my
care.”
He felt a sense of warmth, almost a smothering sensation, and raised his
hand to his forehead. It came down covered with perspiration.
“It’s amazingly close,” he said, and walked to one of the French windows
opening to the west. The sun had gone down, and a brooding darkness lay
over all the valley, but far up in the sky he could trace the outline of
a cloud. Above, the stars shone with an unwonted brightness, but below
all was a bank of blue-black darkness. The air was intensely still; in
the silence he could hear the wash of the river. Grant reflected that
never before had he heard the wash of the river at that distance.
“Looks like a storm,” he commented, casually, and suddenly felt
something tighten about his heart. The storms of the foothill country,
which occasionally sweep out of the mountains and down the valleys on
the shortest notice, had no terror for him; he had sat on horseback
under an oilskin slicker through the worst of them; but to-night!
Even as he watched, the distant glare of lightning threw the heaving
proportions of the thundercloud into sharp relief.
He turned to his chair, but found himself pacing the living-room with
an altogether inexplicable nervousness. He had held the line many a bad
night at the Front while Death spat out of the darkness on every hand;
he had smoked in the faces of his men to cover his own fear and to shame
them out of theirs; he had run the whole gamut of the emotion of the
trenches, but tonight something more awesome than any engine of man was
gathering its forces in the deep valleys. He shook himself to throw off
the morbidness that was settling upon him; he laughed, and the echo came
back haunting from the silent corners of the house. Then he lit a lamp
and set it, burning low, in the whim-room, and noted that the boy slept
on, all unconcerned.
“Damn Linder, anyway!” he exclaimed presently. “I believe he shook me
up more than I realized. He charged me with insincerity; me, who have
always made sincerity my special virtue.... Well, there may be something
in it.”
A faint, indistinct growling, as of the grinding of mighty rocks, came
down from the distances.
“The storm will be nothing,” he assured himself. “A gust of wind; a
spatter of rain; perhaps a dash of hail; then, of a sudden, a sky
so calm and peaceful one would wonder how it ever could have been
disturbed.” Even as he spoke the house shivered in every timber as the
gale struck it and went whining by.
He rushed to the whim-room, but found the boy still sleeping soundly. “I
must stay up,” he reasoned with himself; “I must be on hand in case he
should be frightened.”
Suddenly it occurred to Grant that, quite apart from his love for
Wilson, if anything should happen the child in his house a very
difficult situation would be created. Transley would demand
explanations--explanations which would be hard to make. Why was Wilson
there at all? Why was he not at home with Sarah? Sarah away from home!
Why had Zen kept that a secret?... How long had this thing been going
on, anyway? Grant feared neither Transley nor any other man, and yet
there was something akin to fear in his heart as he thought of these
possibilities. He would be held accountable--doubly accountable--if
anything happened the child. Even though it were something quite beyond
his control; lightning, for example--
The gale subsided as quickly as it had come, and the sudden silence
which followed was even more awesome. It lasted only for a moment; a
flash of lightning lit up every corner of the house, bursting like white
fire from every wall and ceiling. Grant rushed to the whim-room and was
standing over the child when the crash of thunder came upon them. The
boy stirred gently, smiled, and settled back to his sleep.
Grant drew the blinds in the whim-room, and went out to draw them in
the living-room, but the sight across the valley was of a majesty so
terrific that it held him fascinated. The play of the lightning was
incessant, and with every flash the little lakes shot back their white
reflection, and distant farm window-panes seemed heliographing to each
other through the night. As yet there was no rain, but a dense wall of
cloud pressed down from the west, and the farther hills were hidden even
in the brightest flashes.
Turning from the windows, Grant left the blinds open. “Only cowardice
would close them,” he muttered to himself, “and surely, in addition to
the other qualities Linder has attributed to me, I am not a coward. If
it were not for Willie I could stand and enjoy it.”
Presently rain began to fall; a few scattered drops at first, then
thicker, harder, until the roof and windows rattled and shook with
their force. The wind, which had gone down so suddenly, sprang up again,
buffeting the house as it rushed by with the storm. Grant stood in the
whim-room, in the dim light of the lamp turned low, and watched the
steady breathing of his little guest with as much anxiety as if some
dread disease threatened him. For the first time in his life there came
into Grant’s consciousness some sense of the price which parents pay in
the rearing of little children. He thought of all the hours of sickness,
of all the childish hurts and dangers, and suddenly he found himself
thinking of his father with a tenderness which was strange and new to
him. Doubtless under even that stern veneer of business interest had
beat a heart which, many a time, had tightened in the grip of fear for
young Dennison.
As the night wore on the storm, instead of spending itself quickly
as Grant had expected, continued unabated, but his nervous tension
gradually relaxed, and when at length Wilson was awakened by an
exceptionally loud clap of thunder he took the boy in his arms and
soothed his little fears as a mother might have done. They sat for
a long while in a big chair in the living-room, and exchanged such
confidences as a man may with a child of five. After the lad had dropped
back into sleep Grant still sat with him in his arms, thinking....
And what he thought was this: He was a long while framing the exact
thought; he tried to beat it back in a dozen ways, but it circled around
him, gradually closed in upon him and forced its acceptance. “Linder
called me a fool, and he was right. He might have called me a coward,
and again he would have been right. Linder was right.”
Some way it seemed easy to reach that conclusion while this little
sleeping form lay in his arms. Perhaps it had quickened into life that
ennobling spirit of parenthood which is all sacrifice and love and
self-renunciation. The ends which seemed so all-desirable a few hours
ago now seemed sordid and mean and unimportant. Reaching out for some
means of self-justification Grant turned to the Big Idea; that was his;
that was big and generous and noble. But after all, was it his? The idea
had come in upon him from some outside source--as perhaps all ideas
do; struck him like a bullet; swept him along. He was merely the agency
employed in putting it into effect. It had cost him nothing. He was
doing that for society. Now was the time to do something that would
cost; to lay his hand upon the prize and then relinquish it--for the
sake of Wilson Transley!
“And by God I’ll do it!” he exclaimed, springing to his feet. He carried
the child back to his bed, and then turned again to watch the storm
through the windows. It seemed to be subsiding; the lightning, although
still almost continuous, was not so near. The air was cooling off and
the rain was falling more steadily, without the gusts and splatters
which marked the storm in its early stages. And as he looked out over
the black valley, lighted again and again by the glare of heaven’s
artillery, Grant became conscious of a deep, mysterious sense of peace.
It was as though his soul, like the elements about him, caught in a
paroxysm of elemental passion, had been swept clean and pure in the fire
of its own upheaval.
“What little incidents turn our lives!” he thought. “That boy; in some
strange way he has been the means of bringing me to see things as they
are--which not even Linder could do. The mind has to be fertilized for
the thought, or it can’t think it. He brought the necessary influence to
bear. It was like the night at Murdoch’s house, the night when the Big
Idea was born. Surely I owe that to Murdoch, and his wife, and Phyllis
Bruce.”
The name of Phyllis Bruce came to him with almost a shock. He had been
so occupied with his farm and with Zen that he had thought but little of
her of late. As he turned the matter over in his mind now he felt that
he had used Phyllis rather shabbily. He recalled having told Murdoch to
send for her, but that was purely a business transaction. Yet he felt
that he had never entirely forgotten her, and he was surprised to find
how tenderly the memory of her welled up within him. Zen’s vision had
been clearer than his; she had recognized in Phyllis Bruce a party to
his life’s drama. “The second choice may be really the first,” she had
said.
Grant lit a cigar and sat down to smoke and think. The matter of Phyllis
needed prompt settlement. It afforded a means to burn his bridges
behind him, and Grant felt that it would be just as well to cut off all
possibility of retreat. Fortunately the situation was one that could be
explained--to Phyllis. He had come out West again to be sure of himself;
he was sure now; would she be his wife? He had never thought that line
out to a conclusion before, but now it proved a subject very delightful
to contemplate.
He had told himself, back in those days in the East, that it would not
be fair to marry Phyllis Bruce while his heart was another’s. He had
believed that then; now he knew the real reason was that he had allowed
himself to hope, against all reason, that Zen Transley might yet be his.
He had harbored an unworthy desire, and called it a virtue. Well--the
die was cast. He had definitely given Zen up. He would tell Phyllis
everything.... That is, everything she needed to know.
It would be best to settle it at once--the sooner the better. He went
to his desk and took out a telegraph blank. He addressed it to Phyllis,
pondered a minute in a great hush in the storm, and wrote,
“I am sure now. May I come? Dennison.”
This done he turned to the telephone, hurrying as one who fears for the
duration of his good resolutions. It was a chance if the line was not
out of business, but he lifted the receiver and listened to the thump of
his heart as he waited.
Presently came a voice as calm and still as though it spoke from another
world, “Number?”
He gave the number of Linder’s rooms in town; it was likely Linder had
remained in town, but it was a question whether the telephone bell would
waken him. He had recollections of Linder as a sound sleeper. But even
as this possibility entered his mind he heard Linder’s phlegmatic voice
in his ear.
“Oh, Linder! I’m so glad I got you. Rush this message to Phyllis
Bruce.... Linder?... Linder!”
There was no answer. Nothing but a hollow, empty sound on the wire, as
though it led merely into the universe in general. He tried to call the
operator, but without success. The wire was down.
He turned from it with a sense of acute impatience. Was this an omen of
obstacles to bar him now from Phyllis Bruce? He had a wild thought of
saddling a horse and riding to town, but at that moment the storm came
down afresh. Besides, there was the boy.
Suddenly came a quick knock at the door; the handle turned, and a
drenched, hatless figure, with disheveled, wet hair, and white, drawn
face burst in upon him. It was Zen Transley.