PINK PEARLS
People who like to dream geologic dreams of the figures and forms that
moved in the long night of ancient Chaos are fond of tracing out some
connection between the Hudson River and its neighbor, the woodland
winding Hackensack. Not much narrower than the Tiber, and certainly
wider than the little trickles that are left of the classic rivers of
Greece, it has little personality for the general inhabitants of New
York or New Jersey. Only to those who make friends of the hidden and
search out the obscure is revealed the romance of the little river.
The Hudson, grown conventional and well turned out, like a handsome
mother, accustomed to hotel life, has a daughter, always at her side,
yet elusive and wayward. These two, separated by mountain walls and
palisade doors and lovely stretches of dreaming hills, meadows and
road-crossed flats, have some common secret origin that they cannot
alter nor disguise.
The nobler river is, however, destined to become the Path of Commerce,
the trail of the great white Foot of Civilization, while the little
Hackensack, punctuated here and there with history of the Colonials
and with midnight escapes and sorties, winding by old sandstone houses
with ancient roofs, still keeps reticence, a lovely inaccessibility.
Screened by maples, green hemlocks and alders in some haunts, in
others she is a broad tranquil sheet of green crystal or a copper
sunset path that leads into vine-hung bowers or spreads out into bare
flats where the reeds rear tasseled heads.
Here the blue herons keep their silent vigils, the eagles have nests;
here the muskrats drag blue mussel shells along the mossy banks and
scatter the tiny pink pearls that sometimes reward hunters, who follow
the azure iridescence. The cardinal flower and blue gentian blaze their
quiet little trails along the sedges and Indian pipe glimmers in the
back thicket. Pitcher plant and sundew, a thousand tiny lanterns of
multi-colored berries, all the lush tenting and blossomy fragrance of
grapes and hazelnut, and a hundred secret water plants--these are the
things that go on living, where the birds bathe and the snakes lie
languid and the turtles meet for their boggy conferences.
Sard's plan was to make the trip up the Hackensack by themselves. After
lunch she stole out to the garage to find Colter, who was washing the
depot car.
"Anyone using this this afternoon?" Sard indicated the long black body.
The man paused. He shut off the hose. "I think not. Judge Bogart has
gone off with a friend for golf; Mr. Dunce took the roadster." There
were invariably long pauses between Colter's sentences. "You wish to
use it?"
"Yes." Sard thought a moment. "We want to join Mr. Dunstan's party up
the Hackensack. You spoke of having been up that stream once, and said
you knew where we could get a canoe. Would you, could you take us up?"
Squeezing out a sponge, Colter stood there without answering. He looked
at the dripping sponge so dazedly that Sard thought he had not heard.
"You know how to manage a canoe?" she asked. "We could get along with
one boat, going up-stream toward the big race above West Morris. Why,
Colter, what is the matter?"
"Going up-stream in a boat," repeated Colter thickly. "That's all over;
going up a woodland stream in a boat. No--coming down--with him--dead!"
The man did not look at her. "Where--where was it?" he asked. He stood
clenching his hands, his eyes staring; he turned, not seeing the girl,
though his deep fire-blue eyes burnt into hers. "Where was it?" he
asked tensely.
The thing was so strange in its utter irrelevance that Sard, though
she had seen him like this before, could hardly keep from rubbing her
eyes. As in a dream she saw Colter's hand go out; it was as if he tried
to push something away. "A boat," he muttered, "a boat and a stream
that was walled with vines. Wait--wait!" He breathed rapidly, his head
lifted as if he desperately tried to recall something; then he suddenly
turned his eyes on the girl, shook his head and groaned. He passed his
hand over his eyes and looked at her, smiling very gently.
"I couldn't get it," he said simply, half apologetically; "sometimes a
little of it comes in parts. Did I startle you?" he asked with a look
of concern.
"No--no----" she stammered. He had been like that the day she had found
him sitting with his feet in the gutter muttering to himself. She
waited with self-possession that surprised her, then asked quietly,
"Was it something you wanted to tell me, something that you remembered?"
The man looked at her, his eyes now clear and rational. "No," gently,
"I did not remember. You see that is my trouble, I do not know. I can
remember nothing, nothing connected, not even who I am."
"You do not know who you are?" asked the girl awed. "Isn't there a book
or a watch or something with your name?"
But he seemed not to hear her. He stood there lost in thought; finally,
with a sigh, he seemed to give it up and turned to her. "What time
shall I have the car around, Miss Bogart?"
"At four." The girl watched him for a moment and she said, "We wanted
you to go with us. We wanted you to take charge of the expedition." She
was a little uncertain.
"Certainly, Miss Sard." Colter said it gravely, cheerfully, with the
machine-like acquiescence of the trained gardener or chauffeur. Sard
turned and walked away, and he as quietly went back to his work, but
through the young being, in that strange phase of a woman's mind and
body that we call "intuition," went the baffling cadence of a man's
voice, a cadence of doubt, terror and then the patient and controlled,
"Very well, Miss Sard."
Something of tradition in the girl tried to drown it. Dismayed, she
realized how this thing possessed her, how this voice rang in her
physical being, "Very well, Miss Sard." She drew herself up. Was
she, then, a woman of birth, a girl of two years' college training
to be affected by the mere voice of a vagabond, a tramp, an unshaven
ne'er-do-well?
As the two girls got into their camping things, Sard outlined the
afternoon's programme. "And I want to suggest--let's see what you
think--I don't suppose we should treat Colter quite like a common
person; well, one can see that he's not exactly a man of all work."
Minga pinned back the flap of her scarlet tam-o'-shanter. "It would
be improper to treat him otherwise," Minga decided with what for her
was rather austere decision. "He isn't common exactly, but queer, and
that's worse; Sard," went on Minga with an air of superiority, "I don't
see how you could have picked him up like that and carted him in your
nice clean car to that boarding-house place; Dunce says you all but
helped carry him and gave directions and all--Ugh--and then lied to
your father, pretending all this about a common workman."
Sard's face darkened. "I didn't lie," she said in a low voice. "I
picked him up because I had seen him there sitting, hour after hour,
with that queer dazed look, so wretched, shaken and awful. I'll admit
he looked dreadful, but somehow his eyes didn't look dirty; something
that was awfully clean spoke through all his wretchedness, and when I
heard him tell those stupid policemen that he 'couldn't remember,' his
voice got to me--got to me----" Sard restlessly wandered about the room
unable to express what she meant. "I suddenly felt that I, well, I knew
him, and," announced the girl defiantly, "I've somehow felt that way
ever since. I just knew. I admit it's queer, Minga."
"It's queer, all right," Minga said succinctly, "and so are you." She
stuck her scarf inside her boyish little jacket and struck an attitude
in her boots and knickerbockers.
"Fluffy Fiddlestick, the film heroine, is now going to give the
Hackensack the once-over," she announced. "Talk about screen stuff; all
this that you say about this tramp man, Sard, is worse than any screen
story I ever saw, and you so demure! It isn't lying, but it's letting
things lie for you; you got that bank person at Morris to suggest
Colter to Judgie. Does Aunt Reely know you're responsible for his being
here? A regular Gentleman John, and nobody but you in the secret."
Minga, with quite an injured air, picked up her wrist-watch and
fastened it on; she eyed herself in the mirror. "Do I need lipstick,
no? Would the turtles appreciate red lips?"
"Well, you do know he's not a common man?" Sard asked, obstinately.
"Mercy, I don't know anything," retreated Minga easily. "Now, how do we
get by Auntie's bower in these knickers?"
As they slipped together down the back stairs, Sard chuckled. "The
funny part of it is Aunt Reely is reconciled to knickers; so is that
queer Mrs. Spoyd. You see, they know that the English countesses
and princesses wear them, and they sit studying all the different
women's knickers in the fashion sheets and secretly wonder if they
couldn't wear them themselves. I heard Mrs. Spoyd say, dreamingly,
'Well, my dearrrrr, I suppose we shall soon have stylish Stouts in
the--er--camping trousers also,' and Aunt Reely sighed, 'We must try to
adapt ourselves.' They are getting to be very popular!"
The girls went giggling down the steps and out the kitchen way, Sard
glancing at the kitchen clock. "We ought to be able to get up-stream
before Dunce and his party; they're starting way down-stream back
of Spencerville. I'm going to embark above the West Morris station;
here's supper and the tea basket, and I've told Maggie and Dora to have
something hot in case we come in late."
It was like college days, like bacon bats and beach parties and
Saturday hikes, and the girls' spirits rose. They bowed brightly to
Colter, appearing with the depot car. In some way the man, clean and
shaven, long limbed, clad neatly in faded old shirt and khaki trousers
with dark tie carefully tied, was not a disagreeable figure as he
gathered up the luncheon things and thermos bottles and waited for
Sard's signal. The girl herself took the wheel, and Minga perched
beside her. The novelty of the thing worked on the restless mind of
the girl under the scarlet tam-o'-shanter. "Wait till Cinny sees
this," Minga murmured nervously, "and--and Gertrude! How'll they take
the Colter addition to a party--he really looks all right, doesn't he?
Those queer clothes set right, and his hair is brushed back like other
people's, and his hands look good and kind, somehow. How old do you
suppose he is?" she whispered. "About twice as old as Dunce?"
"Hush!" Sard turned a sharp corner carefully. "About thirty-seven,
maybe forty." The eyes of both the girls widened at this antique
possibility, but Sard remembered that there had been a professor at
college who had seemed like a boy, almost as young as Dunce, and he was
thirty-five.
There was a curious lift in Sard's head, in her eyes a flying look of
adventure; her figure, light, alert, sat at the steering gear with
a look of power and repose; her wistful profile had lines that were
resolute and composed, as if waiting for some stuff of life on which
to try their power; all about her in the windy press of their speed
was the buoyant look of physical action, green trees, brown vital
roads like veins full of the blood of Wanderlust and adventure; like
them, the girl was ardent, fresh, a thing pure and intense as fire,
yet sober and clean as water. In her belted coat and rough hat and the
flying strands of hair, she drove in confident direction, over the damp
woodland roads, over the swamps and bridges of the Morris turnpike,
a very figure of Advance, so thought a man, who stood to let them
pass, then let his arm fly up in hasty flourish. "Winged Victory!" he
breathed.
"Hello!" Watts' hand flew to his hat and he waved it; then as the
girls, with friendly greeting, slowed down, he turned back to parley.
"Hold up your hands," he ordered gruffly. "Give me your wristwatches;
no quarter."
It was all part of their feeling of quest and adventure, and they liked
the tall lawyer for the little highway gesture as he stood there,
his face lined with dust and sunburn, his costume showing rents and
wrinkles of cross-country walking. The two wideawake faces smiled at
him as he glanced tentatively at the gray-clad figure at the back of
the car, but there was no introduction, though the lawyer paused for
it. The man sitting there did not turn, but had a quiet position of
relaxation. Sard reddened slightly.
"We're off on a lark," they explained. "Have you seen Dunce and his
gang? We hope we've stolen a march on them; we're further up the river,
we think."
"Going for some of those little pink pearls," explained Minga, "and we
want to get ahead of 'em."
Shipman's amused eyes ran over the outfit. The excited girls, the
silent man with tea basket and the thermos bottles; he looked
sympathetic.
"Little pink pearls?" eyeing Minga teasingly, "are you going to pick
them off the trees, or take them out of the turtles' mouths? How much
food have you there, anything substantial?"
"Loads," they assured him; "we're stocked up for the Bible multitude;
we have loaves and fishes and everything."
Still the older man hesitated. It was a little audacious, but he tried
his luck at playing "young."
"Take me with you?" glancing at the averted face of Colter and
questioningly raising his eyebrows.
The two girls accepted his self-invitation gaily. "Take you, won't we
though? We need another man." Sard glanced back at the figure in the
back. "This is Colter, whom we brought to help us with the boat and all
that; he knows the Hackensack."
Watts Shipman nodded in his usual friendly way, and Minga, wide-eyed,
observed that Colter's recognition was of the same order, a quiet,
courteous friendliness. The little figure in the scarlet cap leaned
eagerly toward the famous lawyer. Shipman and Minga seemed on
surprisingly good terms. Purposely the lawyer kept any memory of their
last encounter out of his manner and eyes.
"Do you really know where the pink pearls are?"
For answer Watts, standing in the road, took a little phial from his
pocket and displayed it. On a bed of cotton were four or five tiny seed
pearls of cream color and soft rose. The two girls opened their eyes
with delight.
"Goodness," the worldly Minga was impressed. "Why don't Tiffany or
somebody come up and get these? There might be a fortune in the
Hackensack."
"They've had men up here," interposed Colter quietly, "but there wasn't
enough in it for them."
The party turned and looked at him questioningly; Colter took the
phial Shipman handed him. "You see, they never grow very large," he
explained, examining a pearl that rolled into his hand. "There is some
substance lacking, but whatever it is, the reason isn't known, I think."
"Just the same, it will be fun to hunt for them." Shipman was as eager
as a boy. "I have an extra skiff at that little house you see by the
bridge up yonder; suppose I bring that; we can have a flotilla," he
nodded to Colter, who nodded back.
"Surely," he agreed.
The voice, courteous of inflection, assured in enunciation, arrested
the lawyer's attention as it had arrested Sard's. As the girls slipped
to the ground, moving about the car, captivating in their trim camping
costumes, the lawyer, his eye taking in their assured grace, the lithe
precision of their movements, swept a curious eye over their companion.
The newly-shaven chin, the dark red hair brushed back and hands with
nails that had once been well-shaped and cared for, mystified him with
the sense of hidden identity, and yet he got no sense of purposeful
concealment. Somehow the man seemed like a person who moved in a
dream; what he said and did was done automatically, as if the Self had
no abiding interest in his activities. The lawyer was conscious of a
certain sense of mystery as he turned to assist with the tea basket and
things.
"Can I help?"
"Thanks, if you'll bear a hand with those bottles." As Shipman grasped
the things held out to him he looked for a moment full into the other's
eyes, eyes that met his quite quietly, too, but with an awful look of
question.
"I am a gentleman," said those eyes--"do you know me, have you ever
seen me--_who am I?"_