Claude Mullen. Of late he has been coming too often. He has been
writing to me too often. He appears to be losing control of himself.
Things cannot go on as they are and they must not get worse. What I
could not foresee is his determination to hold _me_ responsible for
his being in love with me! He insists that _I_ encouraged him and am
now unfair--_me_ unfair! Of course I have _never_ encouraged his
visits; out of simple goodness of heart I have _tolerated_ them. Now
the reward of my _kindness_ is that he holds me responsible and
guilty. He is trying, in other words, to take advantage of my
_sympathy_ for him. I _do_ feel sorry for him!
I have not been cruel enough to dismiss him. His last letter is
enclosed: it will give you some idea----!
Can you advise me what to do? I have always relied upon _your_
judgment in everything.
Faithfully yours,
POLLY.
BEN DOOLITTLE TO POLLY BOLES
[Penciled in Court Room]
_June 24th._
DEAR POLLY:
Certainly I can advise you. My advice is: tell him to take a cab and
drive straight to the nearest institution for the weak-minded, engage
a room, lock himself in and pray God to give him some sense. Tell
him to stay secluded there until that prayer is answered. The
Almighty himself couldn't answer his prayer until after his death,
and by that time he'd be out of the way anyhow and you wouldn't mind.
I return his funeral oration unread, since I did not wish to attract
attention to myself as moved to tears in open court.
BEN.
BEN DOOLITTLE TO POLLY BOLES
[Evening of the same day]
POLLY, DEAREST, MOST FAITHFUL OF WOMEN:
This is a night I have long waited for and worked for.
You have understood why during these years I have never asked you to
set a day for our marriage. It has been a long, hard struggle, for
me coming here poor, to make a living and a practice and a name. You
know I have had as my goal not a living for one but a living for
two--and for more than two--for our little ones. When I married you,
I meant to rescue you from the Franklin Flats, all flats.
But with these two hands of mine I have laid hold of the affairs of
this world and shaken them until they have heeded me and my strength.
I have won, I am independent, I am my own man and my own master, and
I am ready to be your husband as through it all I have been your
lover.
Name the day when I can be both.
Yet the day must be distant: I am to leave this firm and establish my
own and I want that done first. Some months must yet pass. Any day
of next Spring, then--so far away but nearer than any other Spring
during these impatient years.
Polly, constant one, I am your constant lover,
BEN DOOLITTLE.
Roses to you.
POLLY BOLES TO BEN DOOLITTLE
_June 24._
Oh, BEN, BEN, BEN!
My heart answers you. It leaps forward to the day. I have set the
day in my heart and sealed it on my lips. Come and break that seal.
To-night I shall tear two of the rosebuds apart and mingle their
petals on my pillow.
POLLY.
BEN DOOLITTLE TO POLLY BOLES
_June 26._
It occurs to me that our engagement might furnish you the means of
getting rid of your prostrated nerve specialist. Write him to come
to see you: tell him you have some joyful news that must be imparted
at once. When he arrives announce to him that you have named the day
of your marriage to me. To _me_, tell him! Then let him take
himself off. You say he complains that all this is getting on his
nerves. Anything that could sit on his nerves would be a mighty
small animal.
BEN.
POLLY BOLES TO BEN DOOLITTLE
_June 27._
Our engagement has only made him more determined. He persists in
visiting me. His loyalty is touching. Suppose the next time he
comes I arrange for you to come. Your meeting him here might have
the desired effect.
POLLY BOLES.
BEN DOOLITTLE TO POLLY BOLES
_June 28._
It would certainly have the desired effect, but perhaps not exactly
the effect he desires. Madam, would you wish to see the nerve
filaments of your fond specialist scattered over your carpet as his
life's deplorable arcana? No, Polly, not that!
Make this suggestion to him: that in order to give him a chance to be
near you--but not too near--you do offer him for the first year after
our marriage--only one year, mind you--you do offer him, with my
consent and at a good salary, the position of our furnace-man, since
he so loves to warm himself with our fires. It would enable him to
keep up his habit of getting down on his knees and puffing for you.
BEN.
BEN DOOLITTLE TO POLLY BOLES
_July 14._
DEAR POLLY:
It occurs to me just at the moment that not for some days have I
heard you speak of your racked--or wrecked--nerve specialist. Has he
learned to control his microscopic attachment? Has he found an
antidote for the bacillus of his anaemic love?
Polly, my woman, if he is still bothering you, let me know at once.
It has been my joy hitherto to share your troubles; henceforth it is
my privilege to take them on two uncrushable shoulders.
At the drop of your hat I'll even meet him in your flat any night you
say, and we'll all compete for the consequences.
I. s. y. s. r. r. (You have long since learned what that means.)
Your man,
BEN D.
POLLY BOLES TO BEN DOOLITTLE
_July 15._
DEAREST BEN:
You need not give another thought to Dr. Mullen. He does not annoy
me any more. He can drop finally out of our correspondence.
Not an hour these days but my thoughts hover about you. Never so
vividly as now does there rise before me the whole picture of our
past--of all these years together. And I am ever thinking of the day
to which we both look forward as the one on which our paths promise
to blend and our lives are pledged to meet.
Your devoted
POLLY.
BEVERLEY SANDS TO JUDD & JUDD
_July 16._
DEAR SIRS:
Yesterday while walking along the street I found my attention most
favourably drawn to the appearance of your business establishment: to
the tubs of plants at the entrance, the vines and flowers in the
windows, and the classic Italian statuary properly mildewed.
Therefore I venture to write.
Do you know anything about ferns, especially Kentucky ferns? Do you
ever collect them and ship them? I wish to place an order for some
Kentucky ferns to be sent to England. I had a list of those I
desired, but this has been mislaid, and I should have to rely upon
the shipper to make, out of his knowledge, a collection that would
represent the best of the Kentucky flora. Could you do this?
One more question, and you will please reply clearly and honestly. I
notice that your firm speak of themselves as landscape architects.
This leads me to inquire whether you have ever had any connection
with Botany. You may not understand the question and you are not
required to understand it: I simply request you to answer it.
Very truly yours,
BEVERLEY SANDS.
JUDD & JUDD TO BEVERLEY SANDS
_July 17._
DEAR SIR:
Your esteemed favour to hand. We gather and ship ferns and other
plants, subject to order, to any address, native or foreign, with the
least possible delay, and we shall be pleased to execute any
commission which you may entrust to us.
With reference to your other inquiry, we ask leave to state that we
have never had the slightest connection with any other concern doing
business in the city under the firm-name of Botany. We do not even
find them in the telephone directory.
Awaiting your courteous order, we are
Very truly yours,
JUDD & JUDD.
Per Q.
BEVERLEY SANDS TO "JUDD & JUDD, PER Q."
_July 18._
DEAR SIRS:
I am greatly pleased to hear that you have no connection with any
other house doing business under the firm-name of Botany, and I
accordingly feel willing to risk giving you the following order: That
you will make a collection of the most highly prized varieties of
Kentucky ferns and ship them, expenses prepaid, to this address,
namely: Mr. Edward Blackthorne, King Alfred's Wood, Warwickshire,
England.
As a guaranty of good faith and as the means to simplify matters
without further correspondence, I take pleasure in enclosing my
cheque for $25.
You will please advise me when the ferns are ready to be shipped, as
I wish to come down and see to it myself that they actually do get
off.
Very truly yours,
BEVERLEY SANDS.
CLARA LOUISE CHAMBERLAIN TO BEVERLEY SANDS
_Seminole, North Carolina,
July 18._
DEAR SIR:
I met with the melancholy misfortune a few weeks ago of losing my
great father. Since his death I have been slowly going over his
papers. He left a large mass of them in disorder, for his was too
active a mind to pause long enough to put things in order.
In a bundle of notes I have come across a letter to him from Burns &
Bruce with the list of ferns in it that they sent him and that had
been misplaced. My dear father was a very absent-minded scholar, as
is natural. He had penciled a query regarding one of the ferns on
the list, and I suppose, while looking up the doubtful point, he had
laid the list down to pursue some other idea that suddenly attracted
him and then forgot what he had been doing. My father worked over
many ideas and moved with perfect ease from one to another, being
equally at home with everything great--a mental giant.
I send the list back to you that it may remind you what a trouble and
affliction you have been. Do not acknowledge the receipt of it, for
I do not wish to hear from you.
CLARA LOUISE CHAMBERLAIN.
BEVERLEY SANDS TO JUDD & JUDD
_July 21._
DEAR SIRS:
I wish to take up immediately my commission placed a few days ago. I
referred in my first letter to a mislaid list of ferns. This has
just turned up and is herewith enclosed, and I now wish you to make a
collection of the ferns called for on this list.
Please advise me at once whether you will do this.
Very truly yours,
BEVERLEY SANDS.
JUDD & JUDD TO BEVERLEY SANDS
_July 22._
DEAR SIR:
Your letter to hand, with the list of ferns enclosed. We shall be
pleased to cancel the original order, part of which we advise you had
already been filled. It does not comprise the plants called for on
the list.
This will involve some slight additional expense, and if agreeable,
we shall be pleased to have you enclose your cheque for the slight
extra amount as per enclosed bill.
Very truly yours,
JUDD & JUDD.
BEVERLEY SANDS TO JUDD & JUDD
_July 23._
DEAR SIRS:
I have your letter and I take the greatest possible pleasure in
enclosing my cheque to cover the additional expense, as you kindly
suggest.
Very truly yours,
BEVERLEY SANDS.
BEVERLEY SANDS TO BEN DOOLITTLE
_October 30._
DEAR BEN:
They are gone! They're off! They have weighed anchor! They have
sailed; they have departed!
I went down and watched the steamer out of sight. Packed around me
at the end of the pier were people, waving hats and handkerchiefs,
some laughing, some with tears on their cheeks, some with farewells
quivering on their dumb mouths. But everybody forgot his joy or his
trouble to look at me: I out-waved, out-shouted them all. An old New
York Harbour gull, which is the last creature in the world to be
surprised at anything, flew up and glanced at me with a jaded eye.
I have felt ever since as if the steamer's anchor had been taken from
around my neck. I have become as human cork which no storm, no
leaden weight, could ever sink. Come what will to me now from
Nature's unkinder powers! Let my next pair of shoes be made of
briers, my next waistcoat of rag weed! Fasten every morning around
my neck a collar of the scaly-bark hickory! See to it that my
undershirts be made of the honey-locust! For olives serve me green
persimmons; if I must be poulticed, swab me in poultices of pawpaws!
But for the rest of my days may the Maker of the world in His
occasional benevolence save me from the things on it that look frail
and harmless like ferns.
Come up to dinner! Come, all there is of you! We'll open the
friendly door of some friendly place and I'll dine you on everything
commensurate with your simplicity. I'll open a magnum or a
magnissimum. I'll open a new subway and roll down into it for joy.
They are gone to him, his emblems of fidelity. I don't care what he
does with them. They will for the rest of his days admonish him that
in his letter to me he sinned against the highest law of his own
gloriously endowed nature:
_Le Génie Oblige_
Accept this phrase, framed by me for your pilgrim's script of wayside
French sayings. Accept it and translate it to mean that he who has
genius, no matter what the world may do to him, no matter what ruin
Nature may work in him, that he who has genius, is under obligation
so long as he lives to do nothing mean and to do nothing meanly.
BEVERLEY.
ANNE RAEBURN TO EDWARD BLACKTHORNE IN ITALY
_King Alfred's Wood,
Warwickshire, England,
November 30._
MY DEAR MR. BLACKTHORNE:
I continue my chronicles of an English country-place during the
absence of its master, with the hope that the reading of the
chronicles may cause him to hasten his return.
An amusing, perhaps a rather grave, matter passed under my
observation yesterday. The afternoon was clear and mild and I had
taken my work out into the garden. From where I sat I could see
Hodge at work with his spade some distance away. Quite
unconsciously, I suppose, I lifted my eyes at intervals to look
toward him, for by degrees I became aware that Hodge at intervals was
looking toward me. I noticed that he was red in the face, which is
always a sign of his anger; apparently he wavered as to whether he
should or should not do a debatable thing. Finally lifting his spade
high and bringing it down with such force that he sent it deep into
the mould where it stood upright, he started toward me.
You know how, as he approaches anyone, he loosens his cap from his
forehead and scrapes the back of his neck with the back of his thumb.
As he stood before me he did this now. Then he made the following
announcement in the voice of an aggrieved bully:
"The _Scolopendium vulgare_ put up two new shoots after he went away,
mum. Bishop's crooks he calls 'em, mum."
I replied that I was glad to hear the ferns were thrifty. He,
jerking his thumb toward the fern bank, added still more resentfully:
"The _Adiantum nigrum_ put up some, mum."
I replied that I should announce to you the good news.
Plainly this was not what he had come to tell me, for he stood
embarrassed but not budging, his eyes blazing with a kind of stupid
fury. At last he brought out his trouble.
It seems that one day last week a hamper of ferns arrived for you
from New York, with only the names of the shippers, charges prepaid.
I was not at home, having that day gone to the Vicar's with some
marmalade; so Hodge took it upon himself to receive the hamper. By
his confession he unwrapped the package and discovering the contents
to be a collection of fern-roots, with the list of the Latin names
attached, he re-wrapped them and re-shipped them to the forwarding
agents--charges to be collected in New York.
This is now Hodge's plight: he is uncertain whether the plants were
some you had ordered, or were a gift to you from some friend, or
merely a gratuitous advertisement by an American nurseryman. Whether
yours or another's, of much value to you or none, he resolved that
they should not enter the garden. There was no place for them in the
garden without there being a place for their Latin names in his head,
and his head would hold no more. At least his temper is the same
that has incited all English rebellion: human nature need not stand
for it!
The skies are wistful some days with blue that is always brushed over
by clouds: England's same still blue beyond her changing vapours.
The evenings are cosy with lamps and November fires and with new
books that no hand opens. A few late flowers still bloom, loyal to
youth in a world that asks of them now only their old age. The birds
sit silent with ruffled feathers and look sturdy and established on
the bare shrubs: liberals in spring, conservatives in autumn, wise in
season. The larger trees strip their summer flippancies from them
garment by garment and stand in their noble nakedness, a challenge to
the cold.
The dogs began to wait for you the day you left. They wait still,
resolved at any cost to show that they can be patient; that is,
well-bred. The one of them who has the higher intelligence! The
other evening I filled and lighted your pipe and held it out to him
as I have often seen you do. He struck the floor softly with the tip
of his tail and smiled with his eyes very tenderly at me, as saying:
"You want to see whether I remember that _he_ did that; of course I
remember." Then, with a sudden suspicion that he was possibly being
very stupid, with quick, gruff bark he ran out of the room to make
sure. Back he came, his face in broad silent laughter at himself and
his eyes announcing to me--"Not yet."
Do not all these things touch you with homesickness amid the
desolation of the Grand Canal--with the shallow Venetian songs that
patter upon the ear but do not reach down into strong Northern
English hearts?
I have already written this morning to Mrs. Blackthorne. As each of
you hands my letters to the other, these petty chronicles, sent out
divided here in England, become united in a foreign land.
I am, dear Mr. Blackthorne,
Respectfully yours,
ANNE RAEBURN.
JUDD & JUDD TO BEVERLEY SANDS
_December 27._
DEAR SIR:
We have to report that the ferns recently shipped to a designated
address in England in accordance with your instructions have been
returned with charges for return shipment to be collected at our
office. We enclose our bill for these charges and ask your attention
to it at your early convenience. The ferns are ruined and worthless
to us.
Very truly yours,
JUDD & JUDD.
BEVERLEY SANDS TO JUDD & JUDD
_December 30._
DEAR SIRS:
I am very much obliged to you for your letter and I take the greatest
pleasure imaginable in enclosing my cheque to cover the charges of
the return shipment.
Very truly yours,
BEVERLEY SANDS.
BEVERLEY SANDS TO BEN DOOLITTLE
_December 28._
DEAR BEN:
_The ferns have come back to me from England!_
BEVERLEY.
BEN DOOLITTLE TO BEVERLEY SANDS
_December 29._
DEAR BEVERLEY:
I am with you, brother, to the last root. But don't send any more
ferns to anybody--don't try to, for God's sake! I'm with you! _J'y
suis, J'y reste_. (French forever! _Boutez en avant, mon_ French!)
By the way, our advice is that you drop the suit against Phillips &
Faulds. They are engaged in a lawsuit and as we look over the
distant Louisville battlefield, we can see only the wounded and the
dying--and the poor. Would you squeeze a druggist's sponge for live
tadpoles? Whatever you got, you wouldn't get tadpoles, not live ones.
Our fee is $50; hadn't you better stop at $50 and think yourself
lucky? _Monsieur a bien tombé_.
Any more fern letters? Don't forget them.
BEN DOOLITTLE.
BEVERLEY SANDS TO BEN DOOLITTLE
_December 30._
DEAR BEN:
I take your advice, of course, about dropping the suit against
Phillips & Faulds, and I take pleasure in enclosing you my cheque for
$50--damn them. That's $75--damn them. And if anybody else anywhere
around hasn't received a cheque from me for nothing, let him or her
rise, and him or her will get one.
No more letters yet. But I feel a disturbance in the marrow of my
bones and doubtless others are on the way, as one more spell of bad
weather--another storm for me.
BEVERLEY.
CLARA LOUISE CHAMBERLAIN TO BEVERLEY SANDS
_Seminole, North Carolina,
December 25._
SIR:
This is Christmas Day, when every one is thinking of peace and good
will on earth. It makes me think of you. I cannot forget you, my
feeling is too bitter for oblivion, for it was you who were
instrumental in bringing about my father's death. One damp night I
heard him get up and then I heard him fall, and rushing to him to see
what was the matter, I found that he had stumbled down the three
steps which led from his bedroom to his library, and had rolled over
on the floor, with his candle burning on the carpet beside him. I
lifted him up and asked him what he was doing out of bed and he said
he had some kind of recollection about a list of ferns; it worried
him and he could not sleep.
The fall was a great shock to his nervous system and to mine, and a
few days after that he contracted pneumonia from the cold, being
already troubled with lumbago.
My father's life-work, which will never be finished now, was to be
called "Approximations to Consciousness in Plants." He believed that
bushes knew a great deal of what is going on around them, and that
trees sometimes have queer notions which cause them to grow crooked,
and that ferns are most intelligent beings. It was while thus
engaged, in a weakened condition with this work on "Consciousness in
Plants," that he suddenly lost consciousness himself and did not
afterwards regain it as an earthly creature.
I shall always remember you for having been instrumental in his
death. This is the kind of Christmas Day you have presented to me.
CLARA LOUISE CHAMBERLAIN.
CLARA LOUISE CHAMBERLAIN TO BEVERLEY SANDS
_Seminole, North Carolina,
January 7._
DEAR SIR:
Necessity knows no law, and I have become a sad victim of necessity,
hence this appeal to you.
My wonderful father left me in our proud social position without
means. I was thrown by his death upon my own resources, and I have
none but my natural faculties and my wonderful experience as his
secretary.
With these I had to make my way to a livelihood and deep as was the
humiliation of a proud, sensitive daughter of the South and of such a
father, I have been forced to come down to a position I never
expected to occupy. I have accepted a menial engagement in a small
florist establishment of young Mr. Andy Peters, of this place.
Mr. Andy Peters was one of my father's students of Botany. He
sometimes stayed to supper, though, of course, my father did not look
upon him as our social equal, and cautioned me against receiving his
attentions, not that I needed the caution, for I repeatedly watched
them sitting together and they were most uncongenial. My father's
acquaintance with him made it easier for me to enter his
establishment. I am to be his secretary and aid him with my
knowledge of plants and especially to bring the influence of my
social position to bear on his business.
Since you were the instrument of my father's death, you should be
willing to aid me in my efforts to improve my condition in life. I
write to say that it would be as little as you could do to place your
future commissions for ferns with Mr. Andy Peters. He has just gone
into the florist's business and these would help him and be a
recommendation to me for bringing in custom. He might raise my
salary, which is so small that it is galling.
While father remained on earth and roved the campus, he filled my
life completely. I have nothing to fill me now but orders for Mr.
Andy Peters.
Hoping for an early reply,
A proud daughter of the Southland,
CLARA LOUISE CHAMBERLAIN.
BEVERLEY SANDS TO BEN DOOLITTLE
_January 10._
DEAR BEN:
The tumult in my bones was a well-advised monitor. More fern letters
_were_ on the way: I enclose them.
You will discover from the earlier of these two documents that during
a late unconscious scrimmage in North Carolina I murdered an aged
botanist of international reputation. At least one wish of my life
is gratified: that if I ever had to kill anybody, it would be some
one who was great. You will gather from this letter that, all
unaware of what I was doing, I tripped him up, rolled him downstairs,
knocked his candle out of his hand and, as he lay on his back all
learned and amazed, I attacked him with pneumonia, while lumbago
undid him from below.
You will likewise observe that his daughter seems to be an American
relative of Hamlet--she has a "harp" in her head: she harps on the
father.
One thing I cannot get out of _my_ head: have you noticed anything
wrong at the Club? Two or three evenings, as we have gone in to
dinner, have you noticed anything wrong? Those two charlatans put
their heads together last night: their two heads put together do not
make one complete head--that may be the trouble; beware of less than
one good full-weight head. Something is wrong and I believe they are
the dark forces: have you observed anything?
BEVERLEY.
BEN DOOLITTLE TO BEVERLEY SANDS
_January 11._
DEAR BEVERLEY:
The letters are filed away with their predecessors.
If I am any judge of human nature, you will receive others from this
daughter of the South in the same strain.
If her great father (local meaning, old dad) is really dead, he
probably sawed his head off against a tight clothes-line in the
back-yard some dark night, while on his way to their gooseberry
bushes to see if they had any sense.