POET AND GENTLEMAN.
"I sat with Doris, beloved maiden,
Her lap was laden with wreathed flowers:
I sat and wooed her, through sunlight wheeling,
And shadows stealing, for hours and hours."
Rose the sun over an idyllic day; the white clouds floated softly over
the summer blue; the poppies blazed in scarlet splendor through the
grass; the bearded barley stood in sheaves, and through the meadows of
Brackenside, that prosperous farmer, Mark Brace, led his men to their
work.
Earle Moray, whose mother looked on poesy as the macadamizing of the
road to ruin, and desired nothing better for her son than the safe
estate and healthful, honest life of a farmer, had come to take a lesson
in stacking corn.
It is true that farm work was not especially attractive to Earle the
poet, but pleasing his mother was attractive to Earle the son; the
friendship of honest Mark was attractive to Earle the man; and Earle had
common sense to know that every man is better off for knowing how to win
his bread from the field. Therefore, came Earle to his lesson.
"My sister has come!" said Mattie, meeting him with a boding heart. "She
has grown more lovely than ever in these four years. You will write
poems about her when you see her. Her face is a poem, her voice and
laugh are poems!"
"And where is the phoenix of girls?" demanded Earle.
"Down there under the great elm, watching the reapers. I will introduce
you to her," said Mattie, who thought this fatal introduction should be
well over with, the sooner the better.
Perhaps Doris was in a less impish mood to-day. Frank Mattie did not
dream how Doris had meditated all the morning on the new situation, and
had dressed for conquest. In rustic surroundings she would play the
rural queen. Her dress was a simple print, a white ground with little
green sprays of maiden-hair traced on it. At her neck a knot of pale
green, through which was carelessly drawn a flower; in her gleaming hair
a cluster of hop blossoms; her wide straw hat at her feet was trimmed
with a wreath of hop-vine; over her shoulders fell her wonderful hair.
She held a book in her lap; one white hand rested on the page, the other
brushed back a truant curl; and she lifted her lovely eyes in innocent,
pleased expectation, as Mattie and Earle drew near.
The heart of Earle Moray stood still with surprise, then it leaped as if
it would break its bounds, and a flood of passionate admiration fired
his whole being. Oh, how divine a thing she was, this naiad in the
meadow-land; all poetry should wait as handmaid at her feet. Why was one
born to sing, unless to sing. Those shining eyes, those dimpling smiles,
that flush of dawn upon her cheeks, well becoming the young morning of
her maiden life. Oh, daughter of the gods of Hellas! Oh, "being fit to
startle and surprise," looking at her, this boy-poet, whose soul had
until now only stirred in its sleep, and murmured in its dreams, awoke
to full and perfect life.
Mattie looked into his flushing face, his kindling eyes, and saw that
words, if she had dared to utter them, would now be fruitless to warn
him of Doris. She could only in her secret soul hope that Doris was less
cruel than she had said, and so send up in silence to the ear of Heaven,
that prayer:
"God save Earle Moray!"
Earle looked at her.
"Mattie! What is on your mind? Do you want to say something to me?"
"No--yes--only--that you must remember that my sister is only a child,
and takes nothing seriously. You will not mind any nonsense that she
says."
"Surely she will speak as she looks, like an angel."
They drew near the elm. With what consummate art were the violet eyes
drawn down from contemplation of their native skies to comprehension of
earth's lower things! With what a sudden start at the _abandon_ of her
own position on the grass did Doris greet Mattie and the
"gentleman-poet!" She saw the flush on his cheek, the ardent flame
lighting his dark eyes. She said to herself:
"I shall have no trouble here; he is at my feet already. Thank fortune
the man is handsome; and what an air he has! I shall not waste time on
him, as it would be wasted on a clod-hopper. He will be good practice
for better times."
"Ah," she said, as Earle asked permission to sit on the grass at her
feet, "I don't know that you belong there. Are you a worker or an idler?
Mattie is a worker; if you are industrious and good, you must go with
her or my father. I am an idler; if you are naughty and idle, you belong
with me."
"I am of still a third class--I am a dreamer. Here let me sit and dream
of heaven."
Mattie turned away, fearful and sick of heart; the mischief was done.
"Dreaming is even better than idling," said Doris. "And here is a real
land of dreams. See how the poppies bend, sleepy with sunshine; the
sunshine is a flood of refined gold; the bees fly slowly, drunk with
perfume; the butterflies drift up and down like beautiful, happy,
aimless thoughts. Let us dream, and live to be happy."
"One could not do better," cried Earle. "Here shall be our lotus-land,
and you are a fit genius for the place, Miss Brace."
"Now, at the very beginning, I must make a treaty with you. Are you
coming here often?"
"I hope so."
"Then, unless I am to hate you on the spot, you must not call me Miss
Brace. I detest the name! If there is one name above another that I
hate, it is that name Brace! It is so common, so mean--a wretched
monosyllable!"
"But you would grace any name!" cried Earle.
"I don't mean to grace that very long!" exclaimed Doris.
Earle opened his eyes in uncontrollable amazement.
"You don't know what it is to suffer from a wretched, short, commonplace
name. Look at me, and consider that I am called, above all things, Doris
Brace! Horrors! Now, your name is fairly good. Earle Moray. There is a
savor of gentility, of blood, of breeding, about that. You can venture
to rise with such a name. I can only rise by dropping mine, and that I
mean to do."
Earle laughed. This was, after all, the pretty, captious nonsense of a
little child.
"But Doris is a sweet name. It fits this sweet, home-like landscape.
Doris, the lovely shepherdess, has been sung and painted for centuries."
"But I have no genius for woods or fields, and I am afraid of sheep.
However, Miss Doris is better than--Miss Brace."
She reached for a poppy growing in the grass, and the book fell from her
knee. Earle picked it up, and saw what it was.
"_This!_" he exclaimed, in genuine consternation.
Now, Doris absolutely lacked the moral sense that would make her ashamed
of the book, or revolt at anything she found therein. But she had native
wit, and she saw that she was on the point of instantly losing caste
with Earle Moray on account of this literature.
"Eh? What kind is it?" she said, with enchanting simplicity. "I bought
it on the train late yesterday, and since I came out here I have been
too happy to read it. Isn't it a nice book?"
"I should say not," said Earle.
"How do you know, unless you have read it?"
"I know the author's reputation; and then, the title!"
"Dear me! And so I must not read it?--and my one-and-six-pence gone!
Whenever I try to do particularly right, I do wrong. Unlucky, isn't it?
Now the last word my French teacher said to me was, 'By all means keep
up your French; you have such a beautiful accent.'"
Earle looked relieved. Here was an explanation of exquisite simplicity.
There was no spot on this sweet, stainless lily.
Mattie came back.
"Doris, mother thinks you had better unpack your trunk. Your dresses
will be rumpled lying in it so long."
"You unpack it, like a dear! I shall ruin my things taking them out; and
then, I can't go in, it is so lovely out-of-doors."
"Did you not put the things in, to begin with?" asked Mattie.
"No, dear; one of the girls did. The _girls_ loved to wait on me,
Mattie!" This with sweet reproach.
"But mother thinks you are keeping Earle from work."
"Go away, Earle!" said Doris, giving him a dainty little push. "If you
stay idle here, I am to be called in and set to work. After that stuffy
old school this four years, I cannot stay indoors. Go, Mattie, and tell
mother if she insists on my coming in, I shall appeal at once to my
fairy godmother to turn me into a butterfly."
Mattie walked slowly away.
"That's all right," said Doris, with satisfaction. "They all end by
letting me have my own way."
"And how does that work?"
"Well. Don't you suppose it is always a very nice way?"
"It must be, indeed," said Earle, heartily.
He thought to himself that so charming a form must shrine only the
tenderest of hearts, the sweetest of souls, and her way must always be a
good way.
The girl was infinitely more lovely than one could look for in the child
of Mark and Patty Brace, the sister of gentle Mattie; but being the
child of Mark and Patty, and sister of Mattie, she must be a sharer in
their goodness, that sterling honesty, that generous unselfishness, that
made these three everywhere beloved and respected, patterns of domestic
and neighborly virtues.
Thus thinking, Earle sunned himself in the radiance of her smiles.