INTERPRETING CHESTNUT BURRS
The conversation had taken a turn that Gregory wished to avoid, so he
said: "Miss Walton, you regard me as wretched authority on theology,
and therefore my opinions will go for nothing. Suppose we join the
children on the hill, for I am most anxious to commence the search for
the clew to your favor. Give me your hand, that as your attendant I may
at least appear to assist you in climbing, though I suppose you justly
think you could help me more than I can you."
"And if I can, why should I not?" asked Annie, kindly.
"Indeed, Miss Walton, I would crawl up first. But thanks to your
reviving influences, I am not so far gone as that."
"Then you would not permit a woman to reach out a helping hand to you?
Talk not against Turks and Arabs. How do Christian men regard us?"
"But you look upon me as a 'heathen.'"
"Beg your pardon, I do not."
"Miss Walton, give your honest opinion of me--just what you think."
"Will you do the same of me?"
"Oh, certainly!"
"No, do not answer in that tone. On your honor."
Gregory was now caught. If he agreed he must state his doubts of her
real goodness; his low estimate of women in general which led to his
purpose to tempt her. This would not only arm her against his efforts,
but place him in a very unpleasant light. "I beat a retreat, Miss
Walton. I am satisfied that your opinion would discourage me utterly."
"You need have no fears of that kind," she said; "although my opinion
would not be flattering it would be most encouraging."
"No, Miss Walton, I am not to be caught. My every glance and word
reveal my opinion of you, while yours of me amounts to what I used to
hear years ago: 'You are a bad boy now, but may become a good one.'
Come, give me your hand."
As she complied she gave him a quick, keen look. Her intuition told her
of something hidden, and he puzzled her.
Her hand was ungloved, and he thought, "When have I clasped such a hand
before? It could help a Hercules. At any rate he would like to hold it,
for it is alive."
There is as much diversity of character in hands as in faces. Some are
very white and shapely, and a diamond flashes prettily upon them, but
having said this you have said all. Others suggest honest work and
plenty of it, and for such the sensible will ever have a genuine
respect. There are some hands that make you think of creatures whose
blood is cold. A lady's hand in society often suggests feebleness, lack
of vitality. It is a thing to touch decorously, and if feeling betray
you into giving a hearty grasp and pressure, you find that you are only
causing pain and reducing the member to a confused jumble of bones and
sinews. There are hands that suggest fancy-work, light crochet needles,
and neuralgia.
Annie's hand was not one that a sculptor would care to copy, though he
would find no great fault with it; but a sculptor would certainly take
pleasure in shaking hands with her--the pleasure that is the opposite
of our shrinking from taking the hand of the dead. It was soft and
delicate to the pressure, and yet firm. It reminded one of silk drawn
over steel, and was all electric and throbbing with life. You felt that
it could give you the true grasp of friendship--that it had power to do
more than barely cling to something--that it could both help and
sustain, yet its touch would be gentleness itself beside the couch of
suffering.
When they had reached the brow of the hill he was much more exhausted
than she, and sat down panting.
"Miss Walton," he asked, "do you not despise a feeble man?"
"What kind of feebleness do you mean?"
"The weakness that makes me sit pale and panting here, while you stand
there glowing with life and vigor, a veritable Hebe."
"All your compliments cannot balance that imputation against me. Such
weakness awakens my pity, sympathy, and wish to help."
"Ah! the emotions you would bestow on a beggar--very agreeable to a
_man_. Well, what kind of feebleness do you despise?"
"I think I should despise a feeble, vacillating Hercules most of all--a
burly, assuming sort of person, who could be made a tool of, and led to
do what he knew to be mean and wrong."
"You must despise a great many people then."
"No, I do not. Honestly, Mr. Gregory, I have no right to despise any
one. I was only giving the reverse of my ideal man. But I assure you I
share too deeply in humanity's faults to be very critical."
"I am delighted to hear, Miss Walton, that you share in our fallen
humanity, for I was beginning to doubt it, and you can well understand
that I should be dreadfully uncomfortable in the presence of
perfection."
"If you could escape all other sources of discomfort as surely as this
one, you would be most happy," replied Annie, with heightened color. "I
shall ever think you are satirical when you speak in such style."
"A truce, Miss Walton; only, in mercy to my poor mortality, be as human
as you can. Though you seem to suspect me of a low estimate of your
sex, I much prefer women to saints and Madonnas. I am going to look for
the burr."
This was adroitness itself on the part of Gregory, for, of all things,
sensible Annie, conscious of faults and many struggles, did not wish to
give the impression that she thought herself approaching perfection.
And yet he had managed to make her sensitive on that point, and given
her a strong motive to relax strict rules of duty, and act "like other
people," as he would say.
Jeff's limber pole was now doing effective service. With many a soft
thud upon the sward and leaves the burrs rained around, while the
detached chestnuts rattled down like hail. The children were careering
about this little tempest of Jeff's manufacture in a state of wild
glee, dodging the random burrs, and snatching what nuts they could in
safety on the outskirts of the prickly shower. At last the tree was
well thrashed, and bad the appearance of a school-boy bully who, after
bristling with threats and boasts for a long time, suddenly meets his
master and is left in a very meek and plucked condition.
But the moment Jeff's pole ceased its sturdy strokes there was a rush
for the spoils, the children awakening the echoes with their
exclamations of delight as they found the ground covered with what was
more precious to them than gold. Even Gregory's sluggish pulses tingled
and quickened at the well-remembered scene, and he felt a little of
their excitement. For the moment he determined to be a boy again, and
running into the charmed circle, picked away as fast as any of them
till his physical weakness painfully reminded him that his old tireless
activity had passed away, perhaps forever.
He leaned against the trunk of the tree and noted with something of an
artist's eye the pretty picture. The valley beneath was beginning to
glow with the richest October tints, in the midst of which was his old
home, that to his affection seemed like a gem set in gold, ruby, and
emerald. The stream appeared white and silvery as seen through openings
of the bordering trees, and in the distance the purple haze and
mountains blended together, leaving it uncertain where the granite
began, as in Gregory's mind fact and fancy were confusedly mingling in
regard to Miss Walton.
And he soon turned from even that loved and beautiful landscape to her
as an object of piquant interest, and the pleasure of analyzing and
testing her character, and--well, some hidden fascination of her own,
caused a faint stir of excitement at his heart, even as the October air
and exercise had just tinged his pale cheeks.
But Miss Walton reminded him of a young sugar maple that he had
noticed, all aflame, from his window that morning, so rich and high was
her color, as, still intent upon the thickly scattered nuts, she
followed the old unspent childish impulse to gather now as she had done
when of Susie's age. With a half-wondering smile Gregory watched her
intent expression, so like that of the other children, and thought,
"Well, she is the freshest and most unhackneyed girl I have ever met
for one who knows so much. It seems true, as she said, that she draws
her life from nature and will never grow old. Now she is a child with
those children, looking and acting like them. A moment later she will
be a self-possessed young lady, with a quick, trained intellect that I
can scarcely cope with. And yet in each and every character she seems
so real and vital that even I, in spite of myself, feel compelled to
admit her truth. Her life is like a glad, musical mountain stream,
while I am a stagnant pool that she passes and leaves behind. I wonder
if it is possible for one life to be awakened and quickened by another.
I wonder if her vital force would be strong enough to drag another on
who had almost lost the power to follow. It is said that young fresh
blood can be infused directly into the veins of the old and feeble. Can
the same be true of moral forces, and a glad zest and interest in life
be breathed into the jaded, cloyed, ennui-cursed spirit of one who
regards existence with dull eye, sluggish pulse, and heart of lead? It
seems to me that if any one could have such power it would be that girl
there with her intense vitality and subtle connection with nature,
which, as she says, is ever young and vigorous. And yet I propose to
reveal her to herself as a weak, vain creature, whose fair seeming like
a pasteboard castle falls before the breath of flattery. By Jove, I
half hope I shan't succeed, and yet to satisfy myself I shall carry the
test to the utmost limit."
In her absorbed search for nuts, Annie had approached the trunk of the
tree, and was stooping almost at Gregory's feet without noticing him.
Suddenly she turned up a burr whose appearance so interested her that
she stood up to examine it, and then became conscious of his intent
gaze.
"There you stand," she said, "cool and superior, criticising and
laughing at me as a great overgrown child."
"If you had looked more closely you would have seen anything rather
than cool criticism in my face. I wish you could tell me your secret,
Miss Walton. What is your hidden connection with Nature, that her
strong, beautiful life flows so freely into yours?"
"You would not believe me if I told you."
"Indeed, Miss Walton, I should be inclined to believe anything you told
me, you seem so real. But, pardon me, you have in your hand the very
burr I have been looking vainly for. Perhaps in it I may find the
coveted clew to your favor. It may winningly suggest to you my meaning,
while plain, bald words would only repel. If I could only interpret
Nature as you breathe her spirit I might find that the autumn leaves
were like illuminated pages, and every object--even such an
insignificant one as this burr--an inspired illustration. When men come
to read Nature's open book, publishers may despair. _If_ I wished to
tell you how I would dwell in your thoughts, what poet has written
anything equal to this half-open burr? It portrays our past, it gives
our present relations, and suggests the future; only, like all
parables, it must not be pressed too far, and too much prominence must
not be given to some mere detail. These prickly outward pointing spines
represent the reserve and formality which keep comparative strangers
apart. But now the burr is half-open, revealing its heart of silk and
down. So if one could get past the barriers which you, alike with all,
turn toward an indifferent or unfriendly world, a kindliness would be
found that would surround a cherished friend as these silken sides
envelop this sole and favored chestnut. Again, note that the burr is
half-open, indicating, I hope, the progress we have made toward such
friendship. I have no true friend in the wide world that I can trust,
and I would like to believe that your regard, like this burr, is
opening toward me. The final suggestion that I should draw may seem
selfish, and yet is it not natural? This chestnut dwells alone in the
very centre of the burr. We do not like to share a supreme friendship.
There are some in whose esteem we would be first."
When Gregory finished he was half-frightened at his words, for in
developing his fanciful parallel in the bold style of gallantry he had
learned to employ toward the belles of the ball-room, and from a
certain unaccountable fascination that Annie herself had for him, he
had said more than he meant.
"Good heavens!" he thought, "if she should take this for a declaration
and accept me on the spot, I should then be in the worst scrape of my
sorry life."
Miss Walton's manner rather puzzled him. Her heightened color and
quickened breathing were alarming, while the contraction of her brow
and the firmness of her lips, together with an intent look on the
chestnut in the centre of the burr, rather than a languishing look at
him or at nothing, were more assuring. She perplexed him still more
when, as her only response to all this sentiment, she asked, "Mr.
Gregory, will you lend me your penknife?"
Without a word he handed it to her, and she at the same time took the
burr from his hand, and daintily plucking out the chestnut tossed the
burr rather contemptuously away. "Mr. Gregory, if I understand your
rather far-fetched and forced interpretation of this little 'parable of
nature,' you chose to represent yourself by this great lonely chestnut
occupying the space where three might have grown. On observing this
emblematic nut closely I detect something that may also have a place in
your 'parable';" and she pushed aside the little quirl at the small end
of the nut, which partially concealed a worm-hole, and cutting through
the shell showed the destroyer in the very heart of the kernel.
There was nothing far-fetched in this suggestion of nature, and he
saw--and he understood that Miss Walton saw--evil enthroned in the very
depths of his soul. The revelation of the hateful truth was so sudden
and sharp that his face darkened with involuntary pain and anger. It
seemed to him that, by the simple act of showing him the worm-infested
chestnut, she had rejected anything approaching even friendship, and
had also given him a good but humiliating reason why. He lost his
self-possession and forgot that he deserved a stinging rebuke for his
insincerity. He would have turned away in coldness and resentment. His
visit might have come to an abrupt termination, had not Annie, with
that delicate, womanly tact which was one of her most marked
characteristics, interrupted him as he was about to say something to
the effect, "Miss Walton, since you are so much holier than I, it were
better that I should contaminate the air you breathe no longer."
She looked into his clouded face with an open smile, and said, "Mr.
Gregory, you have been unfortunate in the choice of a burr. Now let me
choose for you;" and she began looking around for one suited to her
taste and purpose.
This gave him time to recover himself and to realize the folly of
quarrelling or showing any special feeling in the matter. After a
moment he was only desirous of some pretext for laughing it off, but
how to manage it he did not know, and was inwardly cursing himself as a
blundering fool, and no match for this child of nature.
Annie soon came toward him, saying, "Perhaps this burr will suggest
better meanings. You see it is wide open. That means perfect frankness.
There are three chestnuts here instead of one. We must be willing to
share the regard of others. One of these nuts has the central place. As
we come to know people well, we usually find some one occupying the
supreme place in their esteem, and though we may approach closely we
should not wish to usurp what belongs to another. Under Jeff's vigorous
blows the burr and its contents have had a tremendous downfall, but
they have not parted company. True friends should stick together in
adversity. What do you think of my interpretation?"
"I think you are a witch, beyond doubt, and if you had lived a few
centuries ago, you would have been sent to heaven in a chariot of fire."
"Really, Mr. Gregory, you give me a _hot_ answer, but it is with such a
smiling face that I will take no exception. Let us slowly follow Jeff
and the children along the brow of the hill to the next tree. The fact
is I am a little tired."
What controversy could a man have with a pretty and wearied girl?
Gregory felt like a boy who had received a deserved whipping and yet
was compelled and somewhat inclined to act very amiably toward the
donor. But he was fast coming to the conclusion that this unassuming
country girl was a difficult subject on which to perform his
experiment. He was learning to have a wholesome respect for her that
was slightly tinged with fear, and doubts of success in his plot
against her grew stronger every moment. And yet the element of
persistence was large in his character, and he could not readily give
over his purpose, though his cynical confidence had vanished. He now
determined to observe her closely and discover if possible her weak
points. He still held to the theory that flattery was the most
available weapon, though he saw he could employ it no longer in the
form of fulsome and outspoken compliment. The innate refinement and
truthfulness of Annie's nature revolted at broad gallantry and
adulation. He believed that he must reverse the tactics he usually
employed in society, but not the principles. Therefore he resolved that
his flattery should be delicate, subtle, manifested in manner rather
than in words. He would seem submissive; he would humbly wear the air
of a conquered one. He would delicately maintain the
"I-am-at-your-mercy" attitude.
These thoughts flashed through his mind as they passed along the brow
of the hill, which at every turn gave them a new and beautiful
landscape. But vales in Eden would not have held his attention then. To
his perplexity this new acquaintance had secured his undivided
interest. He felt that he ought to be angry at her and yet was not. He
felt that a man who had seen as much of the world as he should be able
to play with this little country girl as with a child; but he was
becoming convinced that, with all his art, he was no match for her
artlessness.
In the interpretation of the burr of her own choice, Annie had
suggested that the central and supreme place in her heart was already
occupied, and his thoughts recurred frequently to that fact with
uneasiness. The slightest trace of jealousy, even as the merest twinge
of pain is often precursor of serious disease, indicated the power Miss
Walton might gain over one who thought himself proof against all such
influence. But he tried to satisfy himself by thinking, "It is her
father who occupies the first place in her affections."
Then a moment later with a mental protest at his folly, "What do I care
who has the first place? It's well I do not, for she would not permit
such a reprobate as I, with evil in my heart like that cursed worm in
the chestnut, to have any place worth naming--unless I can introduce a
little canker of evil in her heart also. I wish I could. That would
bring us nearer together and upon the same level." Annie saw the
landscapes. She looked away from the man by her side and for a few
moments forgot him. The scenes upon which she was gazing were
associated with another, and she ardently wished that that other and
more favored one could exchange places with Gregory. Her eyes grew
dreamy and tender as she recalled words spoken in days gone by, when,
her heart thrilling with a young girl's first dream of love, she had
leaned upon Charles Hunting's arm, and listened to that sweetest music
of earth, all the more enchanting when broken and incoherent; and
Hunting, with all his coolness and precision in Wall Street, had been
excessively nervous and unhappy in his phraseology upon one occasion,
and tremblingly glad to get any terms from the girl who seemed a child
beside him. Annie would not permit an engagement to take place. Hunting
was a distant relative. She had always liked him very much, but was not
sure she loved him. She was extremely reluctant to leave her father,
and was not ready for a speedy marriage; so she frankly told him that
he had no rival, nor was there a prospect of any, but she would not
bind him, or permit herself to be bound at that time. If they were
fated for each other the way would eventually be made perfectly clear.
He was quite content, especially as Mr. Walton gave his hearty approval
to the match, and he regarded the understanding as a virtual
engagement. He wanted Annie to wear the significant ring, saying that
it should not be regarded as binding, but she declined to do so.
Nearly two years had passed, and, while she put him off, she satisfied
him that he was steadily gaining the place that he wished to possess in
her affections. He was gifted with much tact and did not press his
suit, but quietly acted as if the matter were really settled, and it
were only a question of time. Annie had also come to feel in the same
way. She did not see a very great deal of him, though he wrote
regularly, and his letters were admirable. He became her ideal man and
dwelt in her imagination as a demi-god. To the practical mind of this
American girl his successes in the vast and complicated transactions of
business were as grand as the achievements of any hero. Her father had
been a merchant, and she inherited a respect for the calling. Her
father also often assured her that her lover bade fair to lead in
commercial circles.
"Hunting has both nerve and prudence," he was wont to say; and to
impetuous Annie these qualities, combined with Christian principles,
formed her very ideal man.
Her lover took great pains not to undeceive her as to his character,
and indeed, with the infatuation of his class, hoped that, when he had
amassed the fortune that glittered ever just before him, he could
assume, in some princely mansion, the princely, knightly soul with
which she had endowed him.
So he did not press matters. Indeed in his rapid accumulation of money
he scarcely wished any interruption, and Annie thought all the more of
him that he was not dawdling around making love half the time. There
was also less danger of disenchanting her by his presence, for woman's
perception is quick.
But now she inwardly contrasted her strong, masterful knight, "_sans
peur et sans reproche_," as she believed, with the enfeebled, shrunken
man at her side. Gregory suffered dreadfully by the comparison. The
worm-eaten chestnut seemed truly emblematic, and in spite of herself
her face lighted up with exultation and joy that the man of her choice
was a _man_, and not one upon whom she could not lean for even physical
support.
Gregory caught her expression and said, quickly: "Your face is full of
sudden gleams. Tell me what you are thinking about."
She blushed deeply in the consciousness of her thoughts, but after a
moment said, "I do not believe in the confessional."
He looked at her keenly, saying, "I wish you did and that I were your
father confessor."
She replied, laughing, "You are neither old nor good enough. If I were
of that faith I should require one a great deal older and better than
myself. But here we are at our second tree, which Jeff has just
finished. I am going to be a child again and gather nuts as before. I
hope you will follow suit, and not stand leaning against the tree
laughing at me."