George, I wish I could go with you," he said, and I had no doubt of his
sincerity. Then his tone changed. "We are in for trouble with Spain and
I must be on the job."
To this I replied, "If I really knew that war was coming, I'd give up my
trip, but I can't believe the Spaniards intend to fight, and this is my
last and best chance to see the Northwest."
In my notebook I find this entry: "Jan., 1898. Dined again last night
with Theodore Roosevelt, Assistant Secretary of the Navy, a man who is
likely to be much in the public eye during his life. A man of great
energy, of noble impulses, and of undoubted ability."
I do not put this forward as evidence of singular perception on my part,
for I imagine thousands were saying precisely the same thing. I merely
include it to prove that I was not entirely lacking in penetration.
Henry B. Fuller, who came along one day in January, proved a joy and
comfort to me. His attitude toward Washington amused me. Assuming the
air of a Cook tourist, he methodically, and meticulously explored the
city, bringing to me each night a detailed report of what he had seen.
His concise, humorous and self-derisive comment was literature of a
most delightful quality, and I repeatedly urged him to write of the
capital as he talked of it to me, but he professed to have lost his
desire to write, and though I did not believe this, I hated to hear him
say it, for I valued his satiric humor and his wide knowledge of life.
He was amazed when I told him of my plan to start, in April, for the
Yukon, and in answer to his question I said, "I need an expedition of
heroic sort to complete my education, and to wash the library dust out
of my brain."
In response to a cordial note, I called upon John Hay one morning. He
received me in a little room off the main hall of his house, whose
spaciousness made him seem diminutive. He struck me as a dapper man,
noticeably, but not offensively, self-satisfied. His fine black beard
was streaked with white, but his complexion was youthfully clear. Though
undersized he was compact and sturdy, and his voice was crisp, musical,
and decisive.
We talked of Grant, of whom he had many pleasing personal recollections,
and when a little later we went for a walk, he grew curiously wistful
and spoke of his youth in the West and of the simple life of his early
days in Washington with tenderness. It appeared that wealth and honor
had not made him happy. Doubtless this was only a mood, for in parting
he reassumed his smiling official pose.
A few days later as I entered my Hotel I confronted the tall figure and
somber, introspective face of General Longstreet whom I had visited a
year before at his home in Gainesville, Georgia. We conversed a few
moments, then shook hands and parted, but as he passed into the street I
followed him. From the door-step I watched him slowly making his
cautious way through throngs of lesser men (who gave no special heed to
him), and as I thought of the days when his dread name was second only
to Lee's in the fear and admiration of the North, I marveled at the
change in twenty years. Now he was a deaf, hesitant old man, sorrowful
of aspect, poor, dim-eyed, neglected, and alone.
"Swift are the changes of life, and especially of American life," I made
note. "Most people think of Longstreet as a dead man, yet there he
walks, the gray ghost of the Confederacy, silent, alone."
As spring came on and the end of my history of Grant drew near, my
longing for the open air, the forest and the trail, made proof-reading a
punishment. My eyes (weary of newspaper files and manuscripts) filled
with mountain pictures. Visioning my plunge into the wilderness with
keenest longing, I collected a kit of cooking utensils, a sleeping bag
and some pack saddles (which my friend, A. A. Anderson, had invented),
together with all information concerning British Columbia and the proper
time for hitting The Long Trail.
In showing my maps to Howells in New York, I casually remarked, "I shall
go in _here_, and come out _there_--over a thousand miles of Trail," and
as he looked at me in wonder, I had a sudden realization of what that
remark meant. A vision of myself, a minute, almost indistinguishable
insect--creeping hardily through an illimitable forest filled my
imagination, and a momentary awe fell upon me.
"How easy it would be to break a leg, or go down with my horse in an icy
river!" I thought. Nevertheless, I proceeded with my explanations, gayly
assuring Howells that it was only a magnificent outing, quoting to him
from certain circulars, passages of tempting descriptions in which
"splendid savannahs" and "herds of deer and caribou" were used with fine
effect.
In my secret heart I hoped to recapture some part of that Spirit of the
Sunset which my father had found and loved in Central Minnesota in
Fifty-eight. Deeper still, I had a hope of reenacting, in helpful
degree, the epic days of Forty-nine, when men found their painful way
up the Platte Canon, and over the Continental Divide to Oregon. "It is
my last chance to do a bit of real mountaineering, of going to school to
the valiant wilderness," I said, "and I can not afford to miss the
opportunity of winning a master's degree in hardihood."
That I suffered occasional moments of depression and doubt, the pages of
my diary bear witness. At a time when my stories were listed in half the
leading magazines, I gravely set down the facts of my situation. "In far
away Dakota my father is living alone on a bleak farm, cooking his own
food and caring for a dozen head of horses, while my mother, with
failing eyes and shortening steps, waits for him and for me in West
Salem with only an invalid sister-in-law to keep her company. In a very
real sense they are all depending upon me for help and guidance. I am
now the head of the house, and yet--here I sit planning a dangerous
adventure into Alaska at a time when I should be at home."
My throat ached with pity whenever I received a letter from my mother,
for she never failed to express a growing longing for her sons, neither
of whom could be with her. To do our chosen work a residence in the city
was necessary, and so it came about that all my victories, all my small
successes were shadowed by my mother's failing health and loneliness.
* * * * *
It remains to say that during all this time I had heard very little of
Miss Zulime Taft. No letters had passed between us, but I now learned
through her brother that she was planning to come home during the
summer, a fact which should have given me a thrill, but as more than
four years had passed since our meeting in Chicago, I merely wondered
whether her stay in Paris had greatly changed her character for the
better. "She will probably be more French than American when she
returns," I said to Lorado, when he spoke of her.
"Her letters do not sound that way," he answered. "She seems eager to
return, and says that she intends to work with me here in Chicago."
Early in March, I notified Babcock to meet me at Ashcroft in British
Columbia on April 15th. "We'll outfit there, and go in by way of
Quesnelle," I added, and with a mind filled with visions of splendid
streams, grassy valleys and glorious camps among eagle-haunted peaks, I
finished the final pages of my proof and started West, boyishly eager to
set forth upon the mighty circuit of my projected exploration.
"This is the end of my historical writing," I notified McClure. "I'm
going back to my fiction of the Middle Border."
On a radiant April morning I reached the homestead finding mother fairly
well, but greatly disturbed over my plan. "I don't like to have you go
exploring," she said. "It's dangerous. Why do you do it?"
Her voice, the look of her face, took away the spirit of my adventure. I
felt like giving it up, but with all arrangements definitely made I
could do nothing but go on. The weather was clear and warm, with an
odorous south wind drawing forth the leaves, and as I fell to work,
raking up the yard, the smell of unfolding blooms, the call of exultant
"high-holders" and the chirp of cheerful robins brought back with a
rush, all the sweet, associated memories of other springs and other
gardens, making my gold-seeking expedition seem not only chimerical, but
traitorous to my duties.
The hens were singing their cheerful, changeless song below the stable
wall; calves were bawling from the neighboring farm-yards and on the
mellow soil the shining, broadcast seeders were clattering to their
work, while over the greening hills a faint mist wavered, delicate as a
bride's veil. Was it not a kind of madness to exchange the security, the
peace, the comfort of this homestead, for the hardships of a trail whose
circuit could not be less than ten thousand miles, a journey which
offered possible injury and certain deprivation?
The thought which gave me most uneasiness was not my danger but the
knowledge that in leaving my mother to silently brood over the perils
which she naturally exaggerated, I was recreant to my pledge. Expression
was always elliptical with her; and I shall never know how keenly she
suffered during those days of preparation. Instead of acquiring a new
daughter, she seemed on the point of losing a son.
She grudged every moment of the hours which I spent in my study. There
was so little for her to do! She kept her chair during her waking hours
either on the porch overlooking the garden or in the kitchen supervising
the women at their work. Every slightest event was pitifully important
in her life. The passing of the railway trains, the milking of the cow,
the watering of the horses, the gathering of the eggs--these were
important events in her diary. My incessant journeyings, my distant
destinations lay far beyond her utmost imagining. To her my comings and
goings were as mysterious, as incalculable as the orbits of the moon,
and I think she must have sometimes questioned whether Hamlin Garland,
the historian, could possibly be the son for whom she had once knit
mittens and repaired kites.
If I had not been under contract, if I had not gone so far in
preparation and announcement that to quit would have been disgraceful, I
would have given up my trip on her account. "I am ashamed to turn back.
I must go on," I said. "I won't be gone long. I'll come out by way of
the Stickeen."
When the time came to say good-bye, she broke down utterly and I went
away with a painful constriction in my own throat, a lump which lasted
for hours. Not till on the second day as I saw droves of Canadian
antelope racing with the train, whilst flights of geese overhead gave
certain sign of the wilderness, did I regain my desire to explore the
valleys of the North. That lonely old woman on the porch of the
Homestead was never absent from my mind.
Promptly on the afternoon of my arrival at Ashcroft on the Canadian
Pacific Railway, Burton Babcock, wearing a sombrero and a suit of
corduroy, dropped from the eastbound train, a duffel bag in his right
hand, and a newly-invented camp-stove in the other. "Well, here I am,"
he said, with his characteristic chuckle.
Ready for the road, and with no regrets, no hesitancies, no fears, he
set to work getting our outfit together leaving me to gather what
information I could concerning the route which we had elected to
traverse.
It was hard for me to realize that this bent, bearded, grizzled
mountaineer was Burt Babcock, the slim companion of my Dry Run Prairie
boyhood--it was only in peculiar ways of laughter, and in a certain
familiar pucker of wrinkles about his eyes, that I traced the connecting
link. I must assume that he found in me something quite as
alien--perhaps more so, for my life in Boston and New York had given to
me habits of speech and of thought which obscured, no doubt, most of my
youthful characteristics.
As I talked with some of the more thoughtful and conscientious citizens
of the town, I found them taking a very serious view of the trip we were
about to undertake. "It is a mighty long, hard road," they said, "and a
lot of men are going to find it a test of endurance. Nobody knows
anything about the trail after you leave Quesnelle. You want to go with
a good outfit, prepared for two months of hardship."
In view of this warning I was especially slow about buying ponies. "I
want the best and gentlest beasts obtainable," I said to Burton. "I am
especially desirous of a trustworthy riding horse."
That evening, as I was standing on the hotel porch, my attention was
attracted to a man mounted on a spirited gray horse, riding up the
street toward the hotel. There was something so noble in the proud arch
of this horse's neck, something so powerful in the fling of his hooves
that I exclaimed to the landlord, "_There_ is the kind of saddle-horse I
am looking for! I wonder if by any chance he is for sale?"
The landlord smiled. "He is. I sent word to the owner and he has come on
purpose to see you. You can have the animal if you want him bad enough."
The rider drew rein and the landlord introduced me as the man who was in
need of a mount. Each moment my desire to own the horse deepened, but I
was afraid to show even approval. "How much do you want for him?" I
asked indifferently.
"Well, stranger, I must have fifty dollars for this horse. There is a
strain of Arabian in him, and he is a trained cow-pony besides."
Fifty dollars for an animal like that! It was like giving him away. I
was at once suspicious. "There must be some trick about him. He is
locoed or something," I remarked to my partner.
We could find nothing wrong, however, and at last I passed over a fifty
dollar bill and led the horse away.
Each moment increased my joy and pride in that dapple-gray gelding.
Undoubtedly there was Arabian blood in his veins. He had a thoroughbred
look. He listened to every word I spoke to him. He followed me as
cheerfully and as readily as a dog. He let me feel his ears (which a
locoed horse will not do) and at a touch of my hand made room for me in
his stall. In all ways he seemed exactly the horse I had been looking
for, and I began to think of my long ride over the mountains with
confidence.
To put the final touch to my security, the owner as he was leaving the
hotel said to me, with a note of sadness in his voice, "I hate to see
that horse take the long trail. Treat him well, partner."
Three days later, mounted on my stately gray "Ladrone," I led my little
pack-train out of Ashcroft, bound for Teslin Lake, some twelve hundred
miles to the Northwest. It was a lovely spring afternoon, and as I rode
I made some rhymes to express my feeling of exultation.
I mount and mount toward the sky,
The eagle's heart is mine.
I ride to put the clouds below
Where silver lakelets shine.
The roaring streams wax white with snow,
The granite peaks draw near,
The blue sky widens, violets grow,
The air is frosty clear.
And so from cliff to cliff I rise,
The eagle's heart is mine;
Above me, ever-broadening skies--
Below, the river's shine.
The next day as we were going down a steep slope, one of the pack horses
bolted and ran round Ladrone entangling me in the lead rope. When I came
to myself I was under my horse, saddle and all, and Ladrone was looking
down at me in wonder. The tremendous strain on the rope had pulled me
saddle and all under his belly, and had he been the ordinary cayuse he
would have kicked me to shreds. To my astonishment and deep gratitude he
remained perfectly quiet while I scrambled out from under his feet and
put the saddle in place.
My partner, white with excitement, drew near. "I thought you were a
goner," he said, huskily. "That horse of yours is a wonder."
As I thought of the look in that gray pony's brown eyes whilst I lay,
helpless beneath him, my heart warmed with gratitude and affection. "Old
boy," I said, as I patted his neck, "I will never leave _you_ to starve
and freeze in the far north. If you carry me through to Telegraph Creek,
I will see that you are comfortable for the remaining years of your
life."
I mention this incident for the reason that it had far-reaching
consequences--as the reader will discover.
In _The Trail of the Goldseekers_, I have told in detail my story of our
expedition. Suffice it to say, at this point, that we were seventy-nine
days in the wilderness, that we were eaten by flies and mosquitoes, that
we traveled in the rain, camped in the rain, packed our saddles in the
rain. We toiled through marshes, slopped across miles of tundra, swam
our horses through roaring glacial streams and dug them out of
bog-holes. For more than two hundred miles we walked in order to lighten
the loads of our weakened animals, and when we reached Glenora we were
both past-masters of the art of camping through a wilderness. No one
could tell us anything about packing, bushing in a slough or managing a
pack-train. We were master-trailers!
Burton, though a year or two older than I, proved an invincible
explorer, tireless, uncomplaining and imperturbable. In all our harsh
experiences, throughout all our eighty days of struggle with mud, rocks,
insects, rain, hunger and cold, he never for one moment lost his
courage. Kind to our beasts, defiant of the weather, undismayed by any
hardship, he kept the trail. He never once lifted his voice in anger.
His endurance of my moods was heroic.
Assuming more than half of the physical labor he loyally said, "You are
the boss, the historian of this expedition. You are the proprietor. I am
only the hired-man."
Such service could not be bought. It sprang from a friendship which had
begun twenty-eight years before, an attachment deep as our lives which
could not be broken.
On the seventy-ninth day, ragged, swarthy, bearded like Forty-niners,
with only a handful of flour and a lump of bacon left in our kit we came
down to the Third Fork of the Stickeen River, without a flake of gold to
show for our "panning" the sands along our way. My diaries state that
for more than thirty days of this journey it rained, and as I look back
upon our three weeks in the Skeena valley I shiver with a kind of
retrospective terror. At one time it looked as though we must leave all
our horses in that gloomy forest. Ladrone lost the proud arch of his
neck and the light lift of his small feet. He could no longer carry me
up the steeps and his ribs showed pitifully.
At Glenora, in beautiful sunny weather, we camped for two weeks in
blissful leisure while our horses recovered their strength and courage.
We were all hungry for the sun. For hours we lay on the grass soaking
our hides full of light and heat, discussing gravely but at our ease,
the situation.
Our plan had been to pack through to Teslin Lake, build a raft there and
float down the Hotalinqua into the Yukon and so on to Dawson City, but
at Glenora I found a letter from my mother waiting for me, a pitiful
plea for me to "hurry back," and as we were belated a month or more, and
as winter comes early in those latitudes, I decided to turn over the
entire outfit to Babcock and start homeward by way of Fort Wrangell.
"I can't afford to spend the winter on the Yukon," I said to Burton. "My
mother is not well and is asking for me. I will keep Ladrone--I am going
to take him home with me--but the remainder of the outfit is yours. If
you decide to go on to Teslin--which I advise against--you will need a
thousand pounds of food and this I will purchase for you.--It is hard
to quit the trail. I feel as if running a pack-train were the main
business of my life and that I am deserting my job in going out, but
that is what I must do."
The last Hudson Bay trading steamer was due at about this time and I
decided to take passage to Fort Wrangell with Ladrone, who was almost as
fat and handsome as ever. Two weeks of delicious grass had done wonders
for him. I knew that every horse driven through to Teslin Lake would be
turned out to freeze and starve at the end of the trail, and I could not
think of abandoning my brave pony to such a fate. He had borne me over
mud, rocks and streams. He had starved and shivered for me, and now he
was to travel with me back to a more amiable climate at least. "I could
never look my readers in the face if I left him up here," I explained to
my partners who knew that I intended to make a book of my experiences.
* * * * *
It was a sad moment for my partner as for me when I led my horse down to
the steamer. Ladrone seemed to realize that he was leaving his comrades
of the trail for he called to them anxiously, again and again. He had
led them for the last time. When the cry "HYak KILpy" came next day he
would not be there!
Having seen him safely stowed below deck I returned to the trail for a
final word with Burton.
There he stood, on the dock, brown with camp-fire smoke, worn and
weather beaten, his tireless hands folded behind his back, a remote,
dreaming, melancholy look in his fearless eyes. His limp sombrero rested
grotesquely awry upon his shaggy head, his trousers bulged awkwardly at
the knees--but he was a warrior! Thin and worn and lame he was about to
set forth single-handedly on a journey whose circuit would carry him far
within the Arctic Circle.
The boat began to move. "Good luck, Old Man," I called.
"Good Luck!" he huskily responded. "My love to the folks."
I never saw him again.
I went to Wrangell, and while camped there waiting for a boat to take me
back to the States I heard of a "strike" at Atlin, somewhere back of
Skaguay. I decided to join this rush, and so, leaving my horse to
pasture in the lush grass of the hill-side, I took steamer for the
north. Again I outfitted, this time at Skaguay. I crossed the famous
White Pass. I reached Atlin City. I took a claim.
A month later I returned to Wrangell, picked up Ladrone, shipped with
him to Seattle and so ceased to be a goldseeker.
In Seattle my wonder and affection for Ladrone increased. He had never
seen a big town before, or heard a street car, or met a switching
engine, and yet he followed me through the city like a trustworthy dog,
his nose pressed against my shoulder as if he knew I would protect him.
At the door of the freight car which I had chartered, he hesitated, but
only for an instant. At the word of command he walked the narrow plank
into the dark interior and there I left him with food and water, billed
for St. Paul where I expected to meet him and transfer him to a car for
West Salem. It all seemed very foolish to some people and my only
explanation was suggested by a brake-man who said, "He's a runnin'
horse, ain't he?"
"Yes, he's valuable. Take good care of him. He is Arabian."
CHAPTER SIX
The Return of the Artist
After an absence of five months I returned to La Crosse just in time to
eat Old Settlers Dinner with my mother at the County Fair, quite as I
used to do in the "early days" of Iowa. It was the customary annual
round-up of the pioneers, a time of haunting, sweetly-sad recollections,
and all the speeches were filled with allusions to the days when deer on
the hills and grouse in the meadows gave zest to life upon the farms.
How peaceful, how secure, how abundant my native valley appeared to me,
after those gloomy toilsome months in the cold, green forests of British
Columbia--and how incredible my story must have seemed to my mother as I
told her of my journey eastward by boat and train, bringing my saddle
horse across four thousand miles of wood and wave, in order that he
might spend his final years with me in the oat-filled, sheltered valley
of Neshonoc. "His courage and faithfulness made it impossible for me to
leave him up there," I explained.
He had arrived on the train which preceded me, and was still in the car.
At the urgent request of my Uncle Frank I unloaded him, saddled him, and
rode him down to the fair-ground, wearing my travel-scarred sombrero, my
faded trailer's suit and my leggings, a mild exhibition of vanity which
I trust the reader will overlook, for in doing this I not only gave keen
joy to my relatives, but furnished another "Feature" to the show.
My friend, Samuel McKee, the Presbyterian minister in the village, being
from Kentucky, came nearer to understanding the value of my horse than
any other spectator. "I don't wonder you brought him back," he said,
after careful study. "He is a beauty. There's a strain of Arabian in
him."
My mother's joy over my safe return was quite as wordless as her sorrow
at our parting (in April) had been. To have me close beside her, to lay
her hand upon my arm, filled her with inexpressible content. She could
not imagine the hundredth part of the hardships I had endured, and I
made no special effort to enlighten her--I merely said, "You needn't
worry, mother, one such experience is enough. I shall never leave you
for so many months again," and I meant it.
With a shy smile and a hesitant voice, she reverted to a subject which
was of increasing interest to her. "What about my new daughter? When am
I to see her? I hope now you'll begin to think of a wife. First thing
you know you'll be too old."
My reply was vaguely jocular. "Be patient a little while longer. I shall
seriously set to work and see what I can find for you by way of a
daughter-in-law."
"Choose a nice one," she persisted. "One that will like the old
house--and me. Don't get one who will be too stylish to live here with
us."
In this enterprise I was not as confident as I appeared, for the problem
was not simple. "The girl who can consent to be my wife must needs have
a generous heart and a broad mind, to understand (and share) the humble
conditions of my life, and to tolerate the simple, old-fashioned notions
of my people. It will not be easy," I acknowledged. "I can not afford to
make a mistake--one that will bring grief and not happiness to the
homestead and its mistress."
However, I decided to let that worry stand over. "Sufficient unto the
day is the evil thereof," was a saying which my father often
repeated--and yet I was nearing the dead line! I was thirty-eight.
That first night of my return to the valley was of such rich and tender
beauty that all the suffering, the hardships of my exploration were
forgotten. The moon was at its full, and while the crickets and the
katydids sang in unison, the hills dreamed in the misty distance like
vast, peaceful, patient, crouching animals. The wheat and corn burdened
the warm wind with messages of safely-garnered harvests, and my mind,
reacting to the serenity, the peace, the opulence of it all, was at
rest. The dark swamps of the Bulkley, the poisonous plants of the
Skeena, the endless ice-cold marshes of the high country, the stinging
insects of the tundra, and the hurtling clouds of the White Pass, all
seemed events of another and more austere planet.
On the day following the fair, just as I was stripping my coat and
rolling my sleeves to help my father fence in a pasture for Ladrone, a
neighbor came along bringing a package from the post office. It was a
book, a copy of my _Life of Grant_, the first I had seen; and, as I
opened it I laughed, for I bore little resemblance to a cloistered
historian at the moment. My face was the color of a worn saddle; my
fingers resembled hooks of bronze, and my feet carried huge, hob-nail
shoes. "What would Dr. Brander Matthews, Colonel Church and Howells, who
had warmly commended the book, think of me at this moment?" I asked
myself.
Father was interested, of course, but he was not one to permit a
literary interest to interfere with a very important job. "Bring that
spade," commanded he, and putting my history on top of a post, I set to
work, digging another hole, rejoicing in my strength, for at that time I
weighed one hundred and eighty pounds, all bone and muscle. So much the
trail had done for me.
I had broadened my palms to the cinch and the axe--I had laid my breast
to the rain.
Nothing physical appalled me, and no labor really wearied me.
Oh, the wealth of that day's sunlight, the opulence of those nearby
fields--the beauty of those warmly-misted hills! In the evening, as I
mounted Ladrone and rode him down the lane, I had no desire to share
Burton's perilous journey down the Hotalinqua.
As my mother's excitement over my return passed away, her condition was
disturbing to me. She was walking less and less and I began at once to
consider a course of treatment which might help her. At my aunt's
suggestion I wrote to a physician in Madison whose sanitarium she had
found helpful, and as my brother chanced to be playing in Milwaukee, I
induced mother to go with me to visit him. She consented quite readily
for she was eager to see him in a real theater and a real play.
We took lodging in one of the leading hotels, which seemed very splendid
to her and that night she saw Franklin on the stage as one of "the three
Dromios" in a farce called "Incog," a piece which made her laugh till
she was almost breathless.
Next day we took her shopping. That is to say she went along with us a
helpless victim, while we purchased for her a hat and cloak, at an
expense which seemed to her almost criminal. They were in truth very
plain garments, and comparatively inexpensive, but her tender heart
overflowed with pride of her sons and a guilty joy in their
extravagance. Many times afterward I experienced, as I do at this
moment, a sharp pang of regret that I did not insist on a better cloak,
a more beautiful hat. I only hope she understood!
In this way, or some other way, I bribed her to go with me to Madison,
to the Sanitarium. "You must not run home," I said to her. "Make a fair
trial of the Institution."
To this she uttered no reply and as she did not appear homesick or
depressed, I prepared to leave, with a feeling that she was in good
hands, and that her health would be greatly benefited by the regimen. "I
must go to the city and look up that new daughter," I said to her in
excuse for deserting her, and this made her entirely willing to let me
go.
Chicago brilliantly illuminated, was filled with the spirit of the Peace
Jubilee, as I entered it. State Street, grandly impressive under the
sweep of a raw east wind, was gay with banners and sparkling with
looping thousands of electric lights, but I hurried at once to my study
on Elm Street. In half an hour I was deep in my correspondence. The
Telegraph Trail was a million miles away, New York and its publishers
claimed my full attention once again.
* * * * *
At two o'clock next day I entered Taft's studio, where I received many
cordial congratulations on my return. "I can't understand why you went,"
Lorado said, and when, at the close of the afternoon, Browne, his
brother-in-law, invited me to dinner, saying, "You'll find Miss Zulime
Taft there," I accepted. Although in some doubt about Miss Taft's desire
to meet me, I was curious to know what four years of Paris had done for
her.
Browne explained that she was going to take up some sort of work in
Chicago. "She's had enough of the Old World for the present."
As he let us into the hall of his West Side apartment, I caught a
momentary glimpse of a young woman seated in the living room, busily
sewing. She rose calmly, though a little surprised at our invasion, and
with her rising, spools of thread and bits of cloth fell away from her
with comic effect, although her expression remained loftily serene.
"Hello, sister Zuhl," called Browne. "Here is an old-time friend of
yours."
As she greeted me with entire self-possession I hardly recognized her
relationship to the pale, self-possessed art-student, with whom I had
held unprofitable argument some four years before. She was much more
mature and in better health than when I last saw her. She carried
herself with dignity, and her gown, graceful of line and rich in color,
fitted her beautifully.
With no allusion to our former differences she was kind enough to say
that she had been a delighted reader of my stories in the magazines, and
that she approved of America. "I've come back to stay," she said, and we
all applauded her statement.
As the evening deepened I perceived that her long stay in England and in
France had done a great deal for Zulime Taft. She was not only well
informed in art matters, she conversed easily and tactfully, and her
accent was refined without being affected. As we settled into our seats
around the dinner table, I was glad to find her opposite me.
She had met many interesting and distinguished people, both in London
and on the Continent, and she brought to our little circle that night
the latest word in French art. Indeed, her comment was so entertaining,
and so valuable, that I was quite converted to her brother's judgment
concerning her term of exile: "Whether you go on with your sculpture or
not," he said, "those four years of Europe have done more for you than a
college course."
She represented everything antithetic to the trail and the farm. She
knew little of New England and nothing of the Mountain West. In many
ways she was entirely alien to my life and yet--or rather because of
that--she interested me. Filled with theories concerning
art--enthusiasms with which the "American Colony" in Paris was aflame,
she stated them clearly, forcibly and with humor. Her temper in argument
was admirable and no man had occasion to talk down at her--as Browne,
who was a good deal of a conservative, openly acknowledged.
She was all for "technique," it appeared. "What America needs more than
subject is skill, knowledge of how to paint," she declared. "Anything
can be made beautiful by the artist's brush."
At the close of a most delightful evening Fuller and I took our
departure together, and we were hardly out of the door before he began
to express open, almost unrestrained admiration of Zulime Taft. "She's a
very remarkable girl," he said. "She will prove a most valuable addition
to our circle."
"Yes," I admitted with judicial poise, "she is very intelligent."
"Intelligent!" he indignantly retorted. "She's a beauty. She's a prize.
Go in and win."
Although I did not decide at that moment to go in and win, I was
profoundly affected by his words. Without knowing anything more about
her than these two meetings gave me, I took it for granted--quite
without warrant, that Fuller had learned from Lorado that she was not
committed to any one. It was fatuous in me but on this assumption I
acted.
By reference to letters and other records I find that I dined at the
Browne's on the slightest provocation. I suspect I did so without any
invitation at all, for while Miss Taft did not betray keen interest in
me she did not precisely discourage me. I sought her company as often as
possible without calling especial attention to my action, and as she
gave no hint of being friendlier with any other man, I went cheerily,
blindly along.
One afternoon as I was taking tea at one of the great houses of the Lake
Shore Drive, she came into the room with the easy grace of one
habituated to meeting people of wealth and distinction. Neither arrogant
nor humble, her self-respecting composure fairly sealed her conquest so
far as I was concerned.
The group of artists surrounding Taft had formed an informal Saturday
night club, which met in a "Camp Supper," and in these jolly, intimate
evenings Miss Taft and her sister, Mrs. Browne, were guiding spirits.
Being included in this group I acknowledged these parties to be the most
delightful events of my life in Chicago. They appeared a bit of Bohemia,
"transmogrified" to suit our conditions, and they made the city seem
less like a drab expanse of desolate materialism.
Sometimes a great geologist would help to make the coffee, while an
architect carved the turkey; and sometimes banker Hutchinson was
permitted to aid in distributing plates and spoons, but always Zulime
Taft was one of the hostesses, and no one added more to the distinction
and the charm of the company. She was never out of character, never at a
loss in an effort to entertain her guests, and yet she did this so
effectively that her absence was instantly felt--I, at least, always
resented the action of those wealthy guests who occasionally hurried
away with her to the Thomas Concert at eight-fifteen. My mood was all
the more bitter for the reason that I could not afford to take her there
myself. To ask her to sit in the gallery was disgraceful, and seats in
the balcony were not only expensive, but almost impossible to get. They
were all sold, in advance, for the season. For all these reasons I
frequently watched her departure with a sense of defeat.
Israel Zangwill, who came to town at about this time to lecture, was
brought to one of our suppers and proved to be of the true artist
spirit. During his stay in the city Taft made a quick sketch of him,
catching most admirably the characteristics of his homely face! He was a
quaint yet powerful personality, witty and wise, and genial, and made
friends wherever he went.
Meanwhile, notwithstanding many pleasant meetings with Miss
Taft--perhaps because of them--I had my moments of gloomy introspection
wherein I cast up accounts in order to determine what I had gained by
my six months' vacation in the wilderness. First of all I had become a
master trailer--so much was assured, but this acquirement did not
promise to be of any practical benefit to me except possibly in the way
of a lecture tour. Broadening my hand to the cinch and the axe did not
make me any more attractive as a suitor and certainly did not add
anything to my capital.
My outing had cost me twice what I had calculated upon, and, thus far, I
had only syndicated a few letters and a handful of poems. The book which
I had in mind to write was still a mass of notes. My horse, whose
transportation and tariff had cost me a thousand dollars, was of little
use to me, although I hoped to get back a part of his cost by means of a
story. My lecture on "The Joys of the Trail" promised to be moderately
successful, and yet with all these things conjoined I did not see myself
earning enough to warrant me in asking Zulime Taft or any woman to be
the daughter which my mother was so eagerly awaiting.
It was a time of halting, of transition for me. For six years--even
while writing my story of Ulysses Grant I had been absorbing the
mountain west in the growing desire to put it into fiction, and now with
a burden of Klondike material to be disposed of, I was subconsciously at
work upon a story of the plains and the Rocky Mountain foothills. In
short, as a cattleman would say, I was "milling" in the midst of a wide
landscape.
I should have gone on to New York at once, but with the alluring
associations of Taft's studio, I lingered on through November and
December, excusing myself by saying that I could work out my problem
better in my own room on Elm Street than in a hotel in New York, and as
a matter of fact I did succeed in writing several chapters of the
Colorado novel which I called _The Eagle's Heart_.
At last, late in December, I bundled my manuscripts together and set
out for the East. Perhaps this decision was hastened by some editorial
suggestion--at any rate I arrived, for I find in my diary the record of
a luncheon with Brander Matthews who said he liked my Grant book,--a
verdict which heartened me wonderfully. I believed it to be a good book
then, as I do now, but it was not selling as well as we had confidently
expected it to do and my publishers had lost interest in it.
The reason for the failure of this book was simple. The war with Spain
had thrust between the readers of my generation and the Civil War, new
commanders, new slogans and new heroes. To this later younger public
"General Grant" meant _Frederick_ Grant, and all hats were off to Dewey,
Wood and Roosevelt. "You are precisely two years late with your story of
the Great Commander," I was told, and this I was free to acknowledge.
There is an old proverb which had several times exactly described my
situation and which described it then. "It is always darkest just before
dawn," proved to be true of this particular period of discouragement,
for one day while at The Players, Brett, the head of Macmillans, came up
to me and said, "Why don't you let me take over your _Main Traveled
Roads_, _Prairie Folks_, and _Rose of Dutcher's Coolly_? I will do this
provided you will write two new books for me, one to be called _Boy Life
on the Prairie_ and the other a Klondike book based on your experiences
in the North."
This offer cleared my sky. It not only gave direction to my pen--it
roused my hopes of having a home of my own, for Brett's offer involved
the advance of several thousand dollars in royalty. I began to think of
marriage in a more definite way. My case was not so hopeless after all.
Perhaps Zulime Taft----
Taking a room on Twenty-fifth street I set to work with eager intensity
to get these five books in shape for the Macmillan press, and in two
weeks I had carefully revised _Rose_ and was hard at work on the record
of my story of the Northwest which I called _The Trail of the Gold
Seekers_. I was done with "milling." I was headed straight for a home.
In calling upon Howells soon after my arrival I referred to our last
meeting wherein I had lightly remarked (putting my finger on the map),
"I shall go in here at Quesnelle and come out there, on the Stickeen,"
and said, "I am now able to report. I did it. In spite of all the
chances for failure I carried out my program."
He asked about the dangers I had undergone, and I replied by saying, "A
trailer meets his dangers and difficulties one by one. In the mass they
are appalling but singly they are surmountable. We took each mile as it
came."
"What do you intend to do with your experiences?" he asked.
"I don't know, but I _think_ they will take the form of a chronicle, a
kind of diary, wherein each chapter will be called a camp. Camp One,
Camp Two, and the like."
"That sounds original and promising," he said, and with his
encouragement I set to work.
Israel Zangwill was often in the city and we met frequently during
January and February. I recall taking him to see Howells whom he greatly
admired but had never met. They made a singularly interesting contrast
of East and West. Howells was serious, almost sad for some reason,
unassuming, self-unconscious and yet masterly in every word. Zangwill on
the contrary overflowed with humor, emitting a shower of epigrams
concerning America and the things he liked and disliked, and soon had
Howells smiling with pleased interest.
As we were leaving the house Zangwill remarked in a musing tone, "What
fine humility, or rather modesty. I can't imagine any other man of
Howells' eminence taking that tone."
Kipling had just returned to America, and I went at once to call upon
him. I had not seen him since the dinner which he gave to Riley and me
in the early Nineties, and I was in doubt as to his attitude toward the
States. I found him in a very happy mood, surrounded by callers. In the
years of his absence the American public had learned to place a very
high value on his work and thousands of his readers were eager to do him
honor.
"They come in a perfect stream," he said, and there was a note of
surprise as well as of pleasure in his voice.
He inquired of Riley and Howells and other of our mutual friends, making
it plain that he held us all in his affections. I mention his youth, his
happiness, his joy with special emphasis for he was stricken with
pneumonia a few days later and came so near death that only the most
skillful nursing was able to bring him back to health. For two nights
his life was despaired of, and when he recovered consciousness it was
only to learn that one of his children had died while he himself was at
lowest ebb. It was a most tragic reversal of fortune but it had this
compensation, it called forth such a flood of sympathy on the part of
his public that the daily press carried hourly bulletins of his
conditions. It was as if a great ruler were in danger.
On Saturday the eleventh of February, I attended a meeting (the first
meeting) of the National Institute of Arts and Letters. Charles Dudley
Warner presided, but Howells was the chief figure. Owen Wister, Robert
Underwood Johnson, Augustus Thomas and Bronson Howard took an active
part. Warner appointed Thomas and me as a committee to outline a
Constitution and By-laws, and I set down in my diary this comment, "Only
a few men were out and these few were chilled by a cold room but
nevertheless, this meeting is likely to have far-reaching
consequences."
In these months of my stay in New York I had a very busy and profitable
time with Howells, Burroughs, Stedman, Matthews, Herne and their like as
neighbors but after all, my home was in the West, and many times each
day my mind went back to my mother waiting in the snow-covered little
village thirteen hundred miles away. As I had established her in
Wisconsin to be near me, it seemed a little like desertion to be
spending the winter in the East.
My thoughts often returned to the friendly circle in Taft's studio, and
late in February I was keenly interested in a letter from Lorado in
which he informed me that Wallace Heckman, Attorney for The Art
Institute, had offered to give the land to found a summer colony of
artists and literary folk on the East bank of Rock River about one
hundred miles west of Chicago. "You are to be one of the trustees,"
Lorado wrote, "and as soon as you get back, Mr. Heckman wants to take us
all out to look at the site for the proposed camp."
My return to Chicago on the first day of March landed me in the midst of
a bleak period of raw winds, filthy slush and all-pervading grime--but
with hopes which my new contract with Macmillans had inspired I defied
the weather. I rejoined Lorado's circle at once in the expectation of
meeting his sister, and in this I was not disappointed.
Lorado referred at once to Heckman's offer to deed to our group a tract
of land. "He wants you to be one of the trustees and has invited us all
to go out at once and inspect the site."
Upon learning that Miss Taft was to be one of the members of the colony
I accepted the trusteeship very readily. With three thousand dollars
advance royalty in sight, I began to imagine myself establishing a
little home somewhere in or near Chicago, and the idea of an
inexpensive summer camp such as my artist friends had in mind, appealed
to me strongly.
Alas for my secret hopes!--Whether on this tour of inspection or a few
days later I cannot now be sure, but certainly close upon this date
Lorado (moved by some confiding remark concerning my interest in his
sister Zulime) explained to me with an air of embarrassment that I must
not travel any farther in that direction. "Sister Zuhl came back from
Paris not to paint or model but to be married. She is definitely
committed to another man." He finally, bluntly said.
This was a bitter defeat. Although one takes such blows better at
thirty-nine than at nineteen, one doesn't lightly say "Oh, well--such is
life!" I was in truth disheartened. All my domestic plans fell with a
crash. My interest in the colony cooled. The camp suppers lost their
charm.
It is only fair to me to say that Miss Taft had never indicated in any
way that she was mortgaged to another, and no one--so far as I could
see, was more in her favor than I, hence I was not entirely to blame in
the case. My inferences were logical. So far as her words and actions
were concerned I was justified in my hope that she might consent.
However, regarding Lorado's warning as final I turned to another and
wholly different investment of the cash with which my new contract had
embarrassed me. I decided to go to England.
For several years my friends in London had been suggesting that I visit
them and I had a longing to do so. I wanted to see Barrie, Shaw, Hardy,
Besant, and other of my kindly correspondents and this seemed my best
time to make the journey.
_Rose of Dutcher's Coolly_ had won for me many English friends. Henry
James had reviewed it, Barrie had written to me in praise of it and
Stead had republished it in a cheap edition which had gained a wide
circle of readers. "In going abroad now I shall be going among friends,"
I said to Fuller who was my confidant, as usual.
Henry James in a long and intimate letter had said, "It is high time for
you to visit England. I shall take great pleasure in having you for a
week-end here at Old Rye"--and a re-reading of this letter tipped the
scale. I took the train for Wisconsin to see my mother and prepare her
for my immediate trip to London.
Dear soul! She was doubly deeply disappointed, for I not only failed to
bring assurance of a new daughter, I came with an avowal of desertion in
my mouth. Pathetically counting on my spending the summer with her, she
must now be told that I was about to sail for the Old World!
It was not a happy home-coming. I acknowledged myself to be a base,
unfilial, selfish wretch, "and yet--if I am ever to see London now is my
time. Each year my mother will be older, feebler. The sooner I make the
crossing the safer for us all. Furthermore I am no longer young--and
just now with Barrie, Shaw, Zangwill, Doyle and Henry James, England
will be hospitable to me. The London Macmillans are to bring out my
books and so----"
Mother consented at last, tearfully, begging me not to stay long and to
write often, to which I replied, "You may count on me in July. I shall
only be gone three months--four at the outside. I shall send Frank to
stay with you--and I shall write every day."
Just before coming to West Salem (with a feeling of guilt in my heart) I
had purchased a mechanical piano in the hope that it would cheer her
lonely hours, and as this instrument had arrived I unboxed it and set it
up in the music room, eager to please the old folks to whom it was an
amazing contrivance.
It was on Sunday and Uncle Will came in together with several of the
neighbors, and while I manipulated the stops and worked the pedals, they
all sat in silence, marveling at the cunning of the mechanism rather
than enjoying "The Ride of the Valkyries." However as I played some
simpler things, a song of MacDowells, a study by Grieg, my Uncle's head
bowed, and on his face came that somber brooding look which recalled to
me the moods of David, his younger brother, whose violin had meant so
much to me when as a boy, I lay before the fire and listened with sweet
Celtic melancholy to the wailing of its strings.
Something in these northern melodies sank deep into my mother's
inherited memories, also, and her eyes were wide and still with inward
vision, but my Aunt Susan said, "That's a fine invention, but I'd rather
hear you sing," and in this judgment Maria concurred. "It's grand," she
admitted, "but 'tain't like the human voice."
In the end I put the machine back in the corner and sang for them, some
of the familiar songs. The instrument was surprising and new and
wonderful but it did not touch the hearts of my auditors like "Minnie
Minturn" and "The Palace of the King."
On the day following I set the date of my departure and at the end of my
announcement mother sat in silence, her face clouded with pain, her eyes
looking away into space. She had nothing to say in opposition, not a
word--she only said, "If you're going I guess the quicker you start the
better."
CHAPTER SEVEN
London and Evening Dress
Confession must now be made on a personal matter of capital importance.
Up to my thirty-ninth year I had never worn a swallow-tail evening coat,
and the question of conforming to a growing sartorial custom was
becoming, each day, of more acute concern to my friends as well as to
myself.
My first realization of the differences which the lack of evening dress
can make in a man's career, came upon me clearly during the social stir
of the Columbian Exposition, for throughout my ten years' stay in Boston
I had accepted (with serene unconsciousness of the incongruity of my
action) the paradoxical theory that a "Prince Albert frock coat" was the
proper holiday or ceremonial garment of an American democrat. The
claw-hammer suit was to me, as to my fellow artist, "the livery of
privilege" worn only by monopolistic brigands and the poor parasites who
fawned upon and served them, whereas the double-breasted black coat,
royal, as its name denoted, was associated in my mind with judges,
professors, senators and doctors of divinity.
It was, moreover, a dignified and logical garment. It clothed with equal
charity a man's stomach and his stern. Generous of its skirts, which
went far to conceal wrinkled trousers, it could be worn with a light tie
at a formal dinner or with a dark tie at a studio tea, and was equally
appropriate at a funeral or a wedding. For all these several reasons it
remained the uniform of professional men throughout the Middle Border.
From my earliest childhood it had been my ideal of manly elegance. Even
in New York I had kept pretty close to the social level where it was
still accepted.
The World's Fair in '93, however, had not only brought to Chicago many
of the discriminating social customs of the East, but also many
distinguished guests from the old world to whom dress was a formal,
almost sacred routine. To meet these noble aliens, we, the artists and
writers of the city, were occasionally invited; and the question "Shall
we conform" became ever more pressing in its demand for final
settlement. One by one my fellows had deserted from the ranks and were
reported as rubbing shoulders with plutocrats in their great
dining-rooms or escorting ladies into gilded reception parlors, wearing
garments which had no relationship to learning, or art, or law, as I had
been taught to believe. Lorado Taft, Oliver Dennett Grover, and even
Henry Fuller had gone over to the shining majority, leaving me almost
alone in stubborn support of the cylindrical coat.
To surrender was made very difficult for me by Eugene Field, who had
publicly celebrated me as "the sturdy opponent of the swallow-tail
suit," and yet he himself,--though still outwardly faithful--had been
heard to say, "I may be forced to wear the damned thing _yet_."
In all this I felt the wind of social change. That I stood at the
parting of the ways was plain to me. To continue on my present line of
march would be to have as exemplars Walt Whitman, Joaquin Miller, John
Burroughs and other illustrious non-conformists to whom long beards,
easy collars, and short coats were natural and becoming. To take the
other road was to follow Lowell and Stedman and Howells. To shorten my
beard--or remove it altogether,--to wear a standing collar, and attached
cuffs--to abandon my western wide-rimmed hat--these and many other
"reforms" were involved in my decision. Do you wonder that I hesitated?
That I was being left out of many delightful dinners and receptions had
been painfully evident to me for several years, but the consideration
which had most weight with me, at this time, was expressed by one of my
friends who bluntly declared that all the desirable young women of my
acquaintance not only adored men in evening dress but ridiculed those of
us who went about at all hours of the day and night in "solemn, shiny,
black frocks." I perceived that unless I paid a little more attention to
tailors and barbers and haberdashers my chances for bringing a new
daughter to my mother were dishearteningly remote. Secretly alarmed and
meditating a shameful surrender, I was held in check by the thought of
the highly involved system of buttons, ties, gloves, hats, and shoes
with which I would be called upon to wrestle.
Zangwill, to whom I confided my perplexity, bluntly advised me to
conform. "In truth," said he, "the steel pen suit is the most democratic
of garments. It renders the poor author indistinguishable from the
millionaire."
As usual I referred the problem to Howells. After explaining that I had
in mind a plan to visit England I said, "Every one but John Burroughs
says I must get into the swallow-tail coat; and I will confess that even
here in New York I am often embarrassed by finding myself the only man
in a frock suit at a dinner."
Howells smiled and with delightful humor and that precision of phrase
which made him my joy and my despair, answered, "My dear fellow, why
don't you make your proposed visit to England, buy your evening suit
there and on your return to Chicago plead the inexorability of English
social usages?"
He had pointed the way out. "By George, I'll do just that," I declared,
vastly elated.
In this account of my hesitations I am _still_ the historian. In stating
my case I am stating the perplexities of thousands of my fellow
citizens of the Middle Border. It has its humorous phases--this reversal
of social habit in me, but it also has wide significance. My surrender
was coincident with similar changes of thought in millions of other
young men throughout the West. It was but another indication that the
customs of the Border were fading to a memory, and that Western society,
which had long been dominated by the stately figures of the minister and
the judge, was on its way to adopt the manners and customs of the
openly-derided but secretly admired "four hundred."
Having decided on my sailing date I asked Howells for a few letters of
introduction to English authors.
He surprised me by saying, "I have very few acquaintances in England but
I will do what I can for you."
At the moment of embarkation I disappointed myself by remaining quite
calm. Even when the great ship began to heave and snort and slide away
from the wharf I experienced no thrill--it was not till an hour or two
later, as I stood on the forward deck, watching the sun go down over the
tumbling spread of water, which had something of the majesty I had known
in the prairies, that I became exalted. The vast expanse seemed
strangely like an appalling desert and lifting my eyes to the cloudy
horizon line I could almost imagine myself back on the rocks of Walpi
overlooking the Navajo reservation.
In a letter to my mother I gave the story of my trip. "Feeling a bit
queer along about nine o'clock I went to my state room.--When I came on
deck the next time, my eyes rested upon the green hills of Ireland!--I
am certain the ship's restaurant realized the highest possible profit in
my case for I remember but two meals, one as we were leaving Sandy Hook,
the other as we signaled Queenstown. It may be that I imbibed a bowl of
soup in the interim,--I certainly swallowed a great many doses of
several kinds of medicine. The ship's doctor declared me to be the
worst sailor he had even known in all his thirty years' experience,--so
much of distinction I may definitely claim."
In the dark hours of that interminable week, I went over my trail into
the Skeena Valley during the previous May, with retrospective delight.
In contrast to these endless days of lonely misery in my ship bed those
weeks of rain and mud and mosquitoes became a joyous outing. So far from
giving any thought to problems of dress or social intercourse I was only
interested in reaching land--any land.
"In two minutes after I landed at Liverpool I was perfectly well," I
wrote to my mother. "The touch of solid earth under my feet instantly
restored my sanity. My desire to live returned. In an hour I was aboard
one of the quaint little coaches of the Midland Express and on my way to
London.
"Lush meadows, flecked with fat red cattle feeding beside slow streams;
broad lawns rising to wooded hills, on which many-towered gray buildings
rose; sudden thick-walled towns; factories, winding streams, noble
trees, and finally a yellow mist and London!
"I am at a small inn, near the Terminal Hotel. I ate my dinner last
night surrounded by English people. With brain still pulsing with the
motion of the sea, I went to my bed, rejoicing to feel around me the
solid stone walls of this small but ancient hotel."
After a long walk in search of my publishers I was repaid by finding
several letters awaiting me, and among them was one from Zangwill, who
wrote, "Come at once to my house. I have a message for you."
His address was almost as quaint in my ear as that of Sir Walter Besant,
which was Frognals End--or something like it, but I found it at last on
the way to 'Ampstead 'Eath. The house was a modest one but his study was
made cheery by a real fire of "coals," and many books.
He greeted me heartily and said, "I have an invitation for you to the
Authors' Society Dinner which comes next week. It will be what you would
call 'a big round-up' and you can't afford to miss it. You must go at
once and order that evening suit."
The idea of the dinner allured me but I shuffled, "Can't I go as I am?"
"Certainly not. It is a full-dress affair."
I argued, "But George Bernard Shaw is reported to be without the dress
suit."
"Yes," admitted Zangwill, "Shaw goes everywhere in tweeds, but then he
is Shaw, and can afford to do as he pleases. You will not see him at
this dinner. He seldom goes to such functions."
With a shudder I plunged. "I'll do it! If I must surrender, let it be on
a grand occasion like this. I am in your hands."
Zangwill was highly amused. "We will go at once. That suit must be ready
for the dinner which comes on Thursday. There's not a moment to spare.
The cow-boy must be tamed."
My hesitation may seem comical to my reader as it did to Zangwill, but I
really stood in deep dread of the change. The thought of bulging shirt
fronts, standing collars, varnished shoes and white ties appalled me.
With especial hatred and timidity I approached the cylindrical hat,
which was so wide a departure from my sombrero.--Nevertheless decision
had been taken out of my hands! With wry face I followed my guide.
In most unholy glee Zangwill stood looking on whilst I was being
measured. "This is the beginning of your moral debacle," said he. "What
will they say of you in Wisconsin, when they hear of your appearance at
an English dinner wearing 'the livery of the oppressor'?"
I made no reply to these questions, but I felt like the traitor he
reported me to be.
However, being in so far I decided to go clean through. I bought a white
tie, some high collars, two pairs of gloves and a folding opera hat. I
could not bring myself to the point of wearing a high hat in the day
time (that was almost too much of a change from my broad brim), although
my Prince Albert Frock, which I wore morning, noon, and night, was in
conformity with English custom. Even the clerks were so attired.
Meanwhile, Zangwill's study was the only warm place in London--so far as
I knew. His glowing fire of hard coal was a powerful lure, and I was
often there, reacting to the warmth of his rug like a chilled insect. On
his hearth I thawed into something like good humor, and with his
knowledge of American steam heat he was fitted to understand my vocal
delight.
From my Strand hotel I set out each morning, riding about the city on
the tops of buses and in this way soon got "the lay of the land." I was
able to find Piccadilly Circus, Trafalgar Square, the Houses of
Parliament, and a few other landmarks of this character. I spent a week
or more, roaming about the old city, searching out, as most Americans
do, the literary, the historic. I wanted to see the Tower, "The Cheshire
Cheese," and the Law Courts of the Temple. The modern London, which was
almost as ugly as Chicago, did not interest me at all.
Between "try-ons" of the new suit I began to meet the men I was most
interested in. I lunched with James Barrie and called upon Bret Harte,
Sir Walter Besant and Thomas Hardy. Bernard Shaw wrote asking me to
Hindhead for a week-end, and Conan Doyle invited me to see a cricket
match with him--but all these events were subordinate to the authors'
dinner and the accursed suit in which I was about to lose my identity.
"My shirt will 'buckle,' my shoes will hurt my feet, my tie will slip up
over my collar--I shall take cold in my chest----" (As a hardened
diner-out I look back with wonder and a certain incredulity on that
uneasy week.)
These were a few of the fears I entertained, but on the fateful
night--an hour before the time to start out, I assumed the whole
"outfit" and viewed myself as best I could in my half-length mirror and
was gratified to note that I resembled almost any other brown-bearded
man of forty. I couldn't see my feet and legs in the glass, but my
patent leather shoes were illustrious. I began to think I might pull
through without accident.
Zangwill with a mischievous grin on his face, met me at the door of the
hotel at seven, and conducted me to the reception hall which was already
filled with a throng of most distinguished guests running from Sir
Walter Besant, the president of the Authors' Society, to Lord Rosebery,
who was to be one of the speakers. Zangwill, who seemed to be known of
everybody, kept me in hand, introducing me to many of the writers, and
kind Sir Walter said, "As an American over-seas member your seat is at
the speakers' table"--an honor which I accepted with a swift realization
that it was made possible by the new coat and vest I presented to the
world.
Zangwill parted with me, smilingly. "I am but one of lower orders," said
he, "but I shall have an eye to you during dinner."
My left-hand neighbor at the table was a short, gray, gloomy individual
whose name I failed to catch, but the man on my right was Henry Norman,
of the _London Chronicle_, and after we had established friendly
relations I leaned to him and whispered, "Who is the self-absorbed,
gloomy chieftain on my left?"
"That," said he, "is Henry M. Stanley."
"What!" I exclaimed, "not Henry M. Stanley of Africa?"
"Yes, Stanley of Uganda."
It seemed a pity to sit in silence beside this great explorer, who had
been one of my boyish heroes, and I decided to break the ice of his
reserve in some way. Turning to him suddenly I asked, "Sir Henry, how do
you pronounce the name of that poisonous African fly--is it Teetsie or
Tettsie?"
He brightened up at once. I was not so great a bore as he feared. After
he had given me a great deal of information about this fly, and the
sleeping sickness, I asked him what he thought of the future of the
continent, to which he responded with growing geniality. We were off!
After a proper interval I volunteered some valuable data concerning the
mosquitoes and flies I had encountered on my recent trip into the
wilderness of British Columbia. He became interested in me. "Oh! You've
been to the Klondike!"
This quite broke down his wall. Thereafter he listened respectfully to
all that I could tell him of the black flies, the huge caribou flies,
the orange-colored flies, and the mosquitoes who worked in two shifts
(the little gray ones in hot sunlight, the big black ones at night), and
by the time the speaking began we were on the friendliest terms. "What a
bore these orators are!" I said, and in this judgment he instantly
agreed.
Sitting there in the faces of hundreds of English authors, I achieved a
peaceful satisfaction with my outfit. A sense of being entirely
inconspicuous, a realization that I was committed to convention,
produced in me an air of perfect ease. By conforming I had become as
much a part of the scene as Sir Walter or the waiter who shifted my
plates and filled my glass. "Zangwill is right," I said, "the clawhammer
coat is in truth the most democratic of garments."
It pleased me also to dwell upon the fact that the moment of my
capitulation had been made glorious by a meeting with Stanley and Hardy
and Barrie, and that the dinner which marked this most important change
in lifelong habits of dress was appropriately notable. That several
hundred of the best known men and women of England had witnessed my
fall softened the shock, and when--on the way out--Zangwill nudged my
elbow and said, "Cow-boy, you wore 'em to the manner born," I smiled in
lofty disregard of future comment. I faced Chicago and New York with
serene and confident composure.
Although I carried this suit with me to Bernard Shaw's (on a week-end
visit), I was not called upon to wear it, for he met me in snuff-colored
knickerbockers and did not change to any other suit during my stay.
Sunday dinner at Conan Doyle's was a midday meal, and Barrie and Hardy
and other of my literary friends I met at teas or luncheons. I took my
newly-acquired uniform to Paris but as my meetings with my French
friends were either teas or lunches, it so happened that--eager as I was
to display it I did not put this suit on till after I reached home. My
first appearance in it was in the nature of a masquerade, my second was
by way of a joke to please my mother.
Knowing that she had never seen a man in evening dress I arrayed myself,
one night, as if for a banquet, and suddenly descended upon her with
intent to surprise and amuse her. I surprised her but I did not make her
laugh in the way I had expected. On the contrary she surveyed me with a
look of pride and then quietly remarked, "I like you in it. I wouldn't
mind if you dressed that way every day."
This finished my opposition to the swallow-tail coat. If my mother, the
daughter of a pioneer, a woman of the farm, accepted it as something
appropriate to her son, its ultimate acceptance by all America was
inevitable. Thereafter I lay in wait for an opportunity to display
myself in all my London finery.
* * * * *
Two months later as I was mounting the central staircase of the Chicago
Art Institute, on my way to the Annual Reception, I met two of my fellow
republicans in Prince Albert Frock suits. At sight of me they started
with surprise--surprise and sorrow--exclaiming, "Look at Hamlin
Garland!" Assuming an expression of patrician ease, I replied, "Oh, yes,
I have conformed. In London one _must_ conform, you know.--The English
are quite inexorable in all matters of dress, you understand."
Howells, when I saw him next, smilingly listened to my tale and heartily
approved of my action, but Burroughs regarded it as a weak surrender. "A
silk hat and steel-pen coat on a Whitman Democrat," he said, "seems like
a make-believe," which, in a sense, it was.
CHAPTER EIGHT
The Choice of the New Daughter
Although my mother met me each morning with a happy smile, she walked
with slower movement, and in studying her closely, after three months'
absence, I perceived unwelcome change. She was not as alert mentally or
physically as when I went away. A mysterious veil had fallen between her
wistful spirit and the outer world. Her vision was dimmer and her spirit
at times withdrawn, remote. She laughed in response to my jesting, but
there was an absent-minded sweetness in her smile, a tremulous quality
in her voice which disturbed me.
Her joy in my return, so accusing in its tenderness, led me to declare
that I would never again leave her, not even for a month. "You may count
on me hereafter," I said to her. "I'm going to quit traveling and settle
down near you."
"I hope you mean it this time," she replied soberly, and her words stung
for I recalled the many times I had disappointed her.
With a mass of work and correspondence waiting my hand I went from my
breakfast to my study. My forenoons thereafter were spent at my desk,
but with the understanding that if she got lonesome, mother was
privileged to interrupt, and it often happened that along about eleven I
would hear a softly-opened stair-door and then a call,--a timid call as
if she feared to disturb me--"Haven't you done enough? Can't you come
now?" There was no resisting this appeal. Dropping my pen, I went below
and gave the rest of my day to her.
We possessed an ancient low-hung "Surrey," a vehicle admirably fitted
for an invalid, and in this conveyance with a stout mare as motive power
we often drove away into the country of a pleasant afternoon, sometimes
into Gill's Coulee, sometimes to Onalaska.
On these excursions my mother rode in silence, busied with the past.
Each hill, each stream had its tender association. Once as we were
crossing the Kinney Hill she said, "We used to pick plums along that
creek." Or again as we were driving toward Mindora, she said, "When
McEldowney built that house we thought it a palace."
She loved to visit her brother William's farm, and to ride past the old
McClintock house in which my father had courted her. Her expression at
such times was sweetly sorrowful. The past appeared so happy, so secure,
her present so precarious, so full of pain. She sensed the mystery, the
tragedy of human life, but was unable to express her conceptions,--and I
was of no value as a comforter. I could only jest with a bitter sense of
helplessness.
On other days, when she was not well enough to drive, I pushed her about
the village in a wheeled chair, which I had bought at the World's Fair.
In this way she was able to make return calls upon such of her neighbors
as were adjacent to side-walks. She was always in my thought,--only when
Franklin took her in charge was it possible for me to concentrate on the
story which I had begun before going abroad, and in which I hoped to
embody some of the experiences of my trip. _Boy Life on the Prairie_ was
also still incomplete, and occasionally I put aside _The Hustler_, as I
called my fiction, in order to recover and record some farm custom, some
pioneer incident which my mother or my brother brought to my mind as we
talked of early days in Iowa.
The story (which Gilder afterward called _Her Mountain Lover_) galloped
along quite in the spirit of humorous extravaganza with which it had
been conceived, and I thoroughly enjoyed doing it for the reason that in
it I was able to relive some of the noblest moments of my explorations
of Colorado's peaks and streams. It was an expression of my indebtedness
to the High Country.
I made the mistake, however, of not using the actual names of
localities. Just why I shuffled the names of trails and towns and
valleys so recklessly, I cannot now explain, for there was abundant
literary precedent for their proper and exact use. Perhaps I resented
the prosaic sound of "Sneffles" and "Montrose Junction." Anyhow,
whatever my motive, I covered my tracks so well that it was impossible
even for a resident to follow me. In _The Eagle's Heart_ I was equally
elusive, but as only part of that book referred to the High Country the
lack of definite nomenclature did not greatly matter.
Personally I like _Her Mountain Lover_, which is still in print, and for
the benefit of the possible reader of it, I will explain that the "Wagon
Wheel Gap" of the story is Ouray, and that the Grizzly Bear Trail leads
off the stage road to Red Mountain.
Our red raspberries were just coming into fruit, and a few strawberries
remained on the vines, therefore it happened that during the season we
had a short-cake with cream and sugar almost every night for
supper,--and such short-cakes!--piping hot, buttered, smothered in
berries. I fear they were not very healthful either for my mother or for
her sons, but as short-cakes were an immemorial delicacy in our home I
could not bring myself to forbid them.
Mother insisted on them all the more firmly when I told her that the
English knew nothing of short-cake or our kind of pies, and then, more
to amuse her than for any other reason, I told of a visit to my English
publisher and of my bragging about her short-cake so shamelessly that
he had finally declared: "I am coming to Chicago next year, and I shall
journey all the way to West Salem just to test your mother's
short-cake."
This made her chuckle. "Let him come," she said confidently. "We'll feed
him on it."
Notwithstanding her reaction to my jesting, my anxiety concerning her
deepened. The long periods of silence into which she fell alarmed me,
and at times, as she sat alone, I detected on her face an expression of
pain which was like that of one in despair. When I questioned her, she
could not define the cause of her distress, but I feared it came from
some weakening of her heart.
She was failing,--that was all too evident to me--failing faster than
her years warranted, and then (just as I was becoming a little
reassured) she came to me one morning, with both her hands outstretched,
as if feeling her way, her face white, her eyes wide and deep and dark
with terror. "I can't see! I can't see!" she wailed.
With a sense of impending tragedy I took her in my arms and led her to a
chair. "Don't worry, mother!" was all I could say. "It will pass soon.
Keep perfectly quiet."
Under the influence of my words she gradually lost her fear, and by the
time the doctor arrived she was quite calm and could see--a
little--though in a strange way.
In answer to his question she replied with a pitiful little smile, "Yes,
I can see you, but only in pieces. I can only see a part of your
face,--the rest of you is all black."
This reply seemed to relieve the doctor's mind. His face lighted up. "I
understand! Don't worry a mite. You will be all right in a few minutes.
It is only a temporary nerve disturbance."
This proved to be true, and as her lips resumed their placid sweetness
my courage came back. In a few hours she was able to see quite clearly,
or at least as clearly as was normal to her age. Nevertheless I accepted
this attack as a distinct and sinister warning. It not only emphasized
her dependence upon me, it made me very definitely aware of what would
happen to our household if she were to become a helpless invalid. Her
need of a larger bed-chamber, with a connecting bathroom was imperative.
"I know you will both suffer from the noise and confusion of the
building," I said to my aunt, "but I am going to enlarge mother's room
and put in water and plumbing. If she should be sick in that small
bedroom it would be horrible."
Up to this time our homestead had remained simply a roomy farmhouse on
the edge of a village. I now decided that it should have the
conveniences of a suburban cottage, and to this end I made plans for a
new dining-room, a new porch, and a bath-room.
Mother was appalled at the audacity of my designs. She wanted the larger
chamber, of course, but my scheme for putting in running water appealed
to her as something almost criminally extravagant. She was troubled,
too, by the thought of the noise, the dirt, the change which were
necessary accompaniments of the plan.
I did my best to reassure her. "It won't take long, mother, and as for
the expense, you just let _me_ walk the floor."
She said no more, realizing, no doubt, that I could not be turned aside
from my purpose.
There were no bathrooms in West Salem in 1899--the plumber was still the
tinner, and when the news of my ambitious designs got abroad it created
almost as much comment as my brother's tennis court had roused some five
years earlier. As a force making toward things high-fi-lutin, if not
actually un-American, I was again discussed. Some said, "I can't
understand how Hamlin makes all his money." Others remarked, "Easy come,
easy go!" Something unaccountable lay in the scheme of my life. It was
illogical, if not actually illegal.
"How can he go skittering about all over the world in this way?" asked
William McEldowney, and Sam McKinley said to my mother, "I swear, I
don't see how you and Dick ever raised such a boy. He's a
'sport,'--that's what he is, a freak." To all of which mother answered
only with a silent laugh.
The carpenters came, together with a crew of stonemasons, and the old
kitchen began to move southward, giving place for the foundations of the
new dining-room. By the end of the week, the lawn was littered with
material and tools, and the frame-work was enclosed.
My mother, in her anxiety to justify the enormous outlay said, "Well,
anyhow, these improvements are not entirely for me, they will make the
house all the nicer for my New Daughter when she comes."
"That's true," I answered, "I hadn't thought of that."
"It's _time_ you thought of it. You're almost forty years old," she
replied with humorous emphasis, then she added, "I begin to think I
never _will_ see your wife."
"Just you wait," I jestingly replied. "The case is not so hopeless as
you think--I have just received a letter which gives me a 'prospect.'"
I said this merely to divert her, but she seized upon my remark with
alarming seriousness. "Read me the letter. Where does she live?--Tell me
all about her."
Being in so far I thought it could do no harm to go a little farther. I
described (still in bantering mood) my first meeting with Zulime Taft
more than five years before. I pictured her as she looked to me then,
and as she afterward appeared when I met her a second time in the home
of her sister in Chicago. "I admit that I was greatly impressed by her,"
I went on, "but just when I had begun to hope for a better
understanding, her brother Lorado chilled me with the information that
she was about to be claimed by another man. To be honest about it,
mother, I am not sure that she is interested in me even now; although
one of her friends has just written me to say that Lorado was mistaken,
and that Zulime is not engaged to any one. I am going down to visit some
friends at the camp to test the truth of this; but don't say a word
about it, for my information may be wrong."
My warning went for nothing! My confession was too exciting to be kept a
secret, and soon several of mother's most intimate friends had heard of
my expedition, and in their minds, as in hers, my early marriage was
assured. Did not the proof of it lie in the fact that I was pushing my
building with desperate haste? Was this not done in order to make room
for my bride?--No other reason was sufficient to account for the
astounding improvements which I had planned, and which were going
forward with magical rapidity.
Of course no one could convince my mother that her son's "attractions"
might not prove sufficiently strong to make his "prospect" a
possibility, for to her I was not only a distinguished author, but a
"Good provider," something which outweighed literary attainment in a
home like ours.
She could not or would not speak of the girl as "Miss Taft," but
insisted upon calling her "Zuleema," and her mind was filled with plans
for making her at home.
Privately I was more concerned than I cared to show, and I would be
giving a false impression if I made light of my feeling at this time. I
spoke to mother jestingly in order to prevent her from building her
hopes on an unstable foundation.
In the midst of my busiest day I received a letter from my good friends,
Wallace and Tillie Heckman, and though I was but a clumsy farmer in all
affairs of the heart, I perceived enough of hidden meaning in their
invitation to visit Eagle's Nest, to give me pause even in the welter
of my plumbing. I replied at once accepting their hospitality, and on
Saturday took the train for Oregon to stay over Sunday at least.
Squire Heckman was good enough to meet me at the train, and as he drove
me up the hill to "Ganymede," which was his summer home, he said, "You
will breakfast with us, and as it is our custom to dine at the Camp on
Sunday we will take you with us and introduce you to the campers,
although most of them are known to you."
Mrs. Heckman, who was cordial in her welcome, informed me at breakfast
that Miss Taft was the volunteer stewardess of the Camp. "She is
expecting us to bring you to dinner to-day."
"As one of the Trustees of the Foundation, a tour of inspection is a
duty," I replied.
There was a faint smile on Mrs. Heckman's demure lips, but Wallace,
astute lawyer that he was, presented the bland face of a poker player.
Without a direct word being spoken I was made to understand that Miss
Taft was not indifferent to my coming, and when at half-past eleven we
started for Eagle's Nest I had a sense of committing myself to a
perilous campaign.
A walk of half a mile through a thick grove of oaks brought us out upon
a lovely, grassy knoll, which rose two hundred feet or more above the
Rock River, and from which a pleasing view of the valley opened to the
north as well as to the south. The camp consisted of a small kitchen
cabin, a dining tent, a group of cabins, and one or two rude studios to
which the joyous off-hand manners of the Fine Arts Building had been
transferred. It was in fact a sylvan settlement of city dwellers--a
colony of artists, writers and teachers out for a summer vacation.
[Illustration: Miss Zulime Taft, acting as volunteer housekeeper for the
colony, had charge of the long rude table under the tent-fly to which
the campers assembled with the appetites of harvest hands and the gayety
of uncalculating youth.]
In holiday mood Browne, Taft, and Clarkson greeted me warmly, upbraiding
me, however, for having so long neglected my official duties as trustee.
"We need your counsel."
Mrs. Heckman, laconic, quizzical, walked about "the reservation" with
me, and in her smiling eyes I detected a kind of gentle amusement with
her unconventional neighbors. She said nothing then (or at any time)
which could be interpreted as criticism, but a merry little quirk in the
corner of her lip instructed me.
Miss Taft was not visible. "As house-keeper she is busy with
preparations for dinner," Mrs. Heckman explained, and so I concealed my
disappointment as best I could.
At last at one o'clock, Lorado, as Chief of the tribe, gave the signal
for the feast by striking a huge iron bar with a hammer, a sound which
brought the campers from every direction, clamoring for food, and when
all were seated at the dining table beneath a strip of canvas, some one
asked, "Where's Zuhl?"
Browne answered with blunt humor, "Primping! She's gone to smooth her
ruffled plumage."
A cry arose, "Here she comes!" and Spencer Fiske the classical scholar
of the camp with fervent admiration exclaimed "By Jove--a veritable
Diana!"
Browne started the Toreador's song, and all began to beat upon the
tables with their spoons in rhythmical clamor. Turning my head I
perceived the handsome figure of a girl moving with calm and stately
dignity across the little lawn toward the table. She was bareheaded, and
wore a short-sleeved, collarless gown of summer design, but she carried
herself with a leisurely and careless grace which made evident the fact
that she was accustomed to these moments of uproar. As she neared the
tent, however, I detected a faint flicker of amusement in the lines
about her mouth.
This entrance so dramatic and so lovely was precisely the kind of
picture to produce on my mind a deeply influencing impression. I thought
her at the moment one of the most gracious and admirable women of my
world, a union of European culture and the homely grace of the prairie.
She greeted me with a pleasant word, and took a seat opposite, making no
reply to the jocular comment of her boarders. It was evident that she
was not only accustomed to demonstrations of this sort, but considered
them a necessary part of her stewardship, an office which was entirely
without salary--and scantily repaid in honor.
No complaints about the scarcity of butter, or questions concerning the
proportions of milk in the cream jug, had power to draw her into
defensive explanation. At last her tormentors unable to stampede her by
noise, or plague her by petitions, subsided into silence or turned to
other matters, and we all settled down to an abundant and very jolly
dinner.
It was because the camp loved Zulime Taft that they could carry on in
this way. It was all studio _blague_, and she knew it and offered no
defense of her economies.
Most of the artists and writers in the camp were already known to me.
They were all of small income, some of them were almost as poor as I,
and welcomed a method by which they were able to spend a summer
comfortably and inexpensively. A common kitchen, and an old white horse
and wagon also owned collectively, made it possible to offer board at
four dollars per week!
The Heckman home, which the campers called "the Castle," or "The Manor
House," a long, two-story building of stone which stood on the southern
end of the Bluff, overlooked what had once been Black Hawk's Happy
Hunting Ground. It was not in any sense a chateau, but it pleased
Wallace Heckman's artist-tenants to call it so, and by contrast with
their cook-house it did, indeed, possess something like grandeur.
Furthermore "the Lord of the Manor" added to the majesty of his position
by owning and driving a coach (this was before the day of the
automobile), and at times those of his tenants most highly in favor,
were invited to a seat on this stately vehicle.
"Lady" Heckman possessed a piano, another evidence of wealth, and the
pleasantest part of my recollections of this particular visit concerns
the evenings I spent with her in singing "Belle Mahone" and "Lily Dale,"
while Lorado and his sisters sat in the corner and listened--at least I
infer that they listened--now that I grow more clear in my mind I recall
that Tillie Heckman did not sing, she only played for me; and my
conviction is that I sang very well. I may be mistaken in this for (at
times) I detected Wallace Heckman addressing a jocose remark to Miss
Taft when he should have been giving his undivided attention to my song.
Miss Taft was accused of having a keen relish for the fare at Castle
Heckman, and in this relish I shared so frankly that when Tillie invited
me to stay on indefinitely, and Wallace suggested that I might make the
little pavilion on the lawn serve as my study, I yielded. "Work on the
homestead must wait," I wrote to my mother. "Important business here
demands my attention."
Zulime Taft appeared pleased when I announced my acceptance of the
Heckman hospitality, and Wallace immediately offered me the use of his
saddle horses and his carriage, and when he said, "Miss Taft loves to
ride," I was convinced not only of his friendly interest but of his
hearty cooeperation. Furthermore as Mrs. Heckman often kept Miss Taft for
supper, I had the pleasant task of walking back to camp with her.
In some way (I never understood precisely how) the campers, one and all,
obtained the notion that I was significantly interested in Miss Taft;
but, as I was proceeding with extraordinary caution, wearing the bland
expression of a Cheyenne chieftain, I could not imagine any one
discovering in my action anything more than a frank liking, a natural
friendship between the sister of my artist comrade and myself.
It is true I could not entirely conceal the fact that I preferred her
company to that of any other of the girls, but there was nothing
remarkable in that--nevertheless, the whole camp, as I learned afterward
(long afterward), was not only aware of my intentions but, behind my
back, almost under my nose, was betting on my chances. Wagers were being
offered and taken, day by day, as to whether I would win or lose!
Fortunately, nothing of this disgraceful business reached me. I was
serenely unconscious of it all.
Demure as Tillie Heckman looked, slyly humorous as she occasionally
showed herself to be, she was a woman of understanding, and from her I
derived distinct encouragement. She not only indicated her sympathy; she
conveyed to me her belief that I had a fair chance to win. I am not
sure, but I think it was from her that I received the final statement
that Miss Taft was entirely free. However, this did not clear me from
other alarms, for on Friday night the train brought Henry Fuller and
several young men visitors who were all quite willing to walk and talk
with Miss Taft. It was only during the midweek that I, as the only
unmarried man in camp, felt entirely secure.
Henry Fuller stayed on after the others went back to the city, and I
would have been deeply disturbed by Zulime's keen interest in him, had I
not been fully informed of their relationship, which was entirely that
of intellectual camaraderie. Fuller was not merely a resolved bachelor;
he was joyously and openly opposed to any form of domesticity. He loved
his freedom beyond all else. The Stewardess knew this and revelled in
his wit, sharing my delight in his bitter ironies. His verbal
inhumanities gave her joy, because she didn't believe in them. They were
all "literature" to her.
The weather was glorious September, and as my writing was going forward,
my companionship ideal, and my mother's letters most cheerful, I
abandoned myself, as I had not done in twenty years, to a complete
enjoyment of life. Golden days! Halcyon days! Far and sweet and serene
they seem as I look back upon them from the present--days to review with
wistful regret that I did not more fully employ them in the way of
youth, for alas! my mornings were spent in writing when they should have
been given to walking with my sweetheart; yet even as I worked I had a
sense of her nearness, and the knowledge that the shimmering summer
landscape was waiting for me just outside my door, comforted me.
However, I was not wholly neglectful of my opportunities. My afternoons
were given over to walking or riding with her, and our evenings were
spent in long and quiet excursions on the river or sitting with the
artists in the light of a bonfire on the edge of the bluff, talking and
singing.
The more I knew of Miss Taft the more her versatility amazed me. She
could paint, she could model, she could cook and she could sew. As
Stewardess, she took charge of the marketing, and when the kitchen fell
into a flutter, her masterly taste and skill brought order--and a
delicious dinner--out of chaos. It remains to say that, in addition to
all these, her intellectual activities, she held her own in the fierce
discussions (concerning Art) which broke out at the table or raged like
whirlwinds on the moonlit bluff--discussions which centered around such
questions as these: "Can a blue shadow painting ever be restful?" "Is
Local Color essential to fiction?" I particularly admired the Stewardess
in these moments of controversy, for she never lost her temper or her
point of view.
Incredibly sweet and peaceful that week appears as I view it across the
gulf which the World War has thrust between that year and this.