THE BIRD
"Softly a winged thing
Floats across the sky,
And earth from slumber waketh
And looketh up on high,
Sees it is only a bird--
A great white bird--
That floating thro' the darkness undisturbed
Floats on, and on, and on."
Late sleeping in a tent is rather a difficult feat as the morning sun
seems to spy out the sleeper's eyes and there is no way to escape him.
Some of the campers tied black ribbons around their eyes and some even
used black stockings, but the first rays of the sun always found Nan
stirring. It was not that she was especially energetic, she was indeed
rather lazy, according to her more vigorous sisters, but the charm of
the early morning was so wonderful that she hated to miss it lying in
bed. It was also such a splendid time to be alone. The camp was a
bustling, noisy place when everyone was up, and early morning was about
the only time the girl had for that communing with herself which was
very precious to one of her poetic temperament.
She slept in a tent, not only with her sisters but with Lil Tate and
Tillie Wingo, now that the week-enders had swarmed in on them at such a
rate, stretching their sleeping accommodations to the utmost. Of course
it was great fun to sleep in a tent but there were times when Nan longed
for a room with four walls and a door that she could lock. The next best
thing to a door she could lock was the top of the mountain in the early
morning. Unless some enthusiastic nature-lover had got up a sunrise
party she was sure to have the top of the mountain to herself.
Mr. Tucker had divulged to her the night before that her mother had
abandoned the designs she had been entertaining for Douglas, and she in
turn had been able to pass on the good news to Douglas. Mrs. Carter had
not told her daughter herself but was evidently going to take her own
good time to do so. Their mother's being a bit cattish was not worrying
either Douglas or Nan. They were too happy over the abandonment of the
plan. Of course they could not help feeling that since the plan was
abandoned, it would have been sweet of their mother to let Douglas
know immediately since she was well aware of the fact that the idea
was far from pleasing to her daughter. And since it would have been
sweet of her to let her know the moment she had abandoned the plan, it
was on the other hand slightly cattish of her to conceal the fact. Of
course the girls did not call it cattish even in their own minds--just
thoughtlessness. Douglas had no idea of how the change had come about,
and Nan held her counsel. It was Mr. Tucker's and her secret.
As she crept out of the cot on that morning, before the sun was up, she
glanced at her elder sister and a feeling of intense satisfaction filled
her heart to see how peacefully Douglas was sleeping. Her beautiful
hair, in a great golden red rope, was trailing from the low cot along
the floor of the tent; her face that had looked so tired and anxious
lately had lost its worried expression--she looked so young--hardly any
older than Lucy, who lay in the next bed.
"Thank goodness, the poor dear is no longer worried," thought Nan
devoutly as she slipped on her clothes and crept noiselessly out of the
tent.
What a morning it was! The sun was not quite up and there was a silver
gray haze over everything. The neighboring mountains were lost, as were
the valleys. The air had a freshness and sweetness that is peculiar to
dawn. "'The innocent brightness of a new-born day is lovely yet,'"
quoted Nan. "If I can only get to the top of the mountain before the sun
is up!" She hurried along the path, stopping a moment at the spring to
drink a deep draft of water and to splash the clear water on her face
and hands. She held her face down in the water a moment and came up
shaking the drops off her black hair, which curled in innumerable little
rings from the wetting. She laughed aloud in glee. Life was surely worth
living, everything was so beautiful.
The sides of the mountain were thickly wooded but at the top there was a
smooth plateau with neither tree nor bush. One great rock right in the
middle of this clearing Nan used as a throne whereon she could view the
world--if not the world, at least a good part of Albemarle county and
even into Nelson on one hand and Orange on the other. Sometimes she
thought of this stone as an altar and of herself as a sun-worshipper.
On that morning she clambered up the rock just a moment before the sun
peeped through a crack in the mist. She stood with arms outstretched
facing the sun. The mists were rolling away and down in the valley
she could distinguish the apple orchards and now a fence, and now a
haystack. There a mountain cabin emerged from the veil and soon a spiral
of thin blue smoke could be spied rising from its chimney.
"I wonder what they are going to have for breakfast!" exclaimed the
wood nymph, and then she took herself to task for thinking of food
when everything was so poetical. Just as she was wondering what the
mountaineers who lived in that tiny cabin were going to cook on the fire
whose smoke she saw rising in that "thin blue reek" the sun came up. A
wonderful sight, but the sun has been rising for so many æons that we
have become accustomed to it. Something else happened at that moment,
something we are not quite accustomed to even yet: Far off over the
crest of a mountain Nan thought she saw an eagle. The first rays of the
sun glinted on the great white wings. For a moment it was lost to view
as it passed behind a cloud and then it appeared again flying rapidly.
"It is coming this way, a great white bird! I am almost afraid it might
pick me up in its huge talons and carry me off, carry me 'way up in the
air--I almost hope it will--it would be so glorious to fly!"
She stood up on her throne and stretched her arms out, crying an
invocation to the winged thing.
She heeded not the buzzing of the aeroplane as it approached. To her it
was a great white bird and she only awakened from her trance when the
machine had actually landed on her plateau.
The humming had stopped and it glided along the grass, kept closely
cropped by Josephus, as this was his grazing ground when he was not busy
pulling the cart. Nan stood as though petrified, a graceful little
figure in her camp-fire girls' dress. Her arms were still outstretched
as when she cried her invocation to the great white bird.
The machine came to a standstill quite close to her altar and a young
man in aviator's costume sprang from it. Taking off his helmet and
goggles, he made a low bow to Nan.
"Oh, mountain nymph, may a traveler land in your domain?"
"Welcome, stranger!"
"And may I ask what is this enchanted land?"
"This is Helicon--and you--who are you?"
"I am Bellerophon and yonder winged steed is Pegasus. Maid, will you fly
with me?"
He held out his hand and Nan, with no more thought of the proprieties
than a real mountain nymph would have had, let him help her into his
machine. He wrapped a great coat around her, remarking that even nymphs
might get cold, and seemingly with no more concern than Bill Tinsley
felt over starting the mountain goat, he touched some buttons and turned
some wheels and in a moment the aeroplane was gliding over the plateau
and then floating in the air, mounting slowly over the tree tops. Up, up
they went and then began making beautiful circles in the air. Nan
sighed.
"Are you scared?" and the aviator looked anxiously at his little
companion. He had not resumed his helmet and goggles and his eyes were
so kind and so merry that Nan felt as though she had known him all her
life.
"Scared! Of course not! I am just so happy."
"Have you ever flown before?"
"Not in reality--but it is just as I have dreamed it."
"You dream then a great deal?"
"Yes! 'In a dream all day I wander only half awake.' I am sure I must be
dreaming now."
"I, too! But then the best of life is the dreams, the greatest men are
the dreamers. If it had not been for a dreamer, we could not have had
this machine. Look! Isn't that wonderful?"
Nan was looking with all eyes at the panorama spread out below them. The
sun was up now in good earnest and the mountains had shaken off the mist
as sleepers newly aroused might throw off their coverlids. The orchards
in the valleys looked like cabbage beds and the great mansions that
adorn the hills and are the pride and boast of the county seemed no
larger than doll houses. From every chimney in the valley smoke was
arising. Nan was disgusted with herself that again the thought came to
her:
"What are all of these people going to have for breakfast?"
They dipped and floated and curvetted. Nan thought of Hawthorne's
description of Pegasus in the "Chimæra" and the very first opportunity
she had later on she got the book and reread the following passage:
"Oh, how fine a thing it is to be a winged horse! Sleeping at night, as
he did, on a lofty mountain-top, and passing the greater part of the
day in the air, Pegasus seemed hardly to be a creature of the earth.
Whenever he was seen, up very high above people's heads, with the
sunshine on his silvery wings, you would have thought that he belonged
to the sky, and that, skimming a little too low, he had got astray among
our mists and vapors, and was seeking his way back again. It was very
pretty to behold him plunge into the fleecy bosom of a bright cloud,
and be lost in it for a moment or two, and then break forth from the
other side."
Once they went through a low-hanging cloud. Nan felt the drops of water
on her face.
"Why, it is raining!" she cried.
"No, that was a cloud we dipped through," laughed her companion. "Are
you cold?"
"Cold? I don't know! I have no sensation but joy."
The young man smiled. There was something about Nan's drawl that made
persons want to smile anyhow.
"You forgot your hat and goggles," she said as she noticed his blue eyes
and the closely cropped brown hair that looked as though it had to be
very closely cropped to keep it from curling.
"That's so! Some day maybe I shall go back after them. Now shall we fly
to 'Frisco? How about High Olympus? Remember we are on Pegasus now and
he can take us wherever we want to go."
"Breakfast first," drawled Nan. "Come with me and I can feed you on
nectar and ambrosia."
"Oh what a wonderful wood nymph! She understands that mortal man cannot
feed on poetry alone."
They glided to the plateau and landed again by the great rock.
"This is a wonderful place to light," said the birdman. "And now, fair
mountain nymph, please tell me who you are when you are not a nymph--and
what you are doing on the top of a lonely mountain before the sun is
up."
"Nan Carter! And if you think this is a lonely mountain, you ought to
try to get by yourself for a few minutes on it. Before sunrise, on the
tip top point, is the only place where one can be alone a minute----"
"And then great creatures come swooping down out of the clouds and carry
you off. It was very kind of you to go with me."
"Kind of me! Oh, Mr. Bellerophon, I never can thank you enough for
taking me. I have never been so happy in all my life. It is perfect, all
but the noise-- I do wish it wouldn't click and buzz so. I know Pegasus
did not make such a fuss--only the swish of his wings could be heard and
sometimes, as the maiden said, the brisk and melodious neigh."
"Don't you want to know my name, too, Miss Nan Carter? I have a name I
use sometimes when I am not mounted on Pegasus."
"I don't want to know it at all, but perhaps my mother, who is
chaperoning the camp and who is rather particular, might think Mr.
Bellerophon sounded rather wily Greekish."
The young man laughed. Such a nice laugh it was that Nan could not help
thinking it sounded rather like a melodious neigh. He was possessed of
very even white teeth and a Greek profile, at least it started out to
be Greek but changed its mind when it got to the tip of his nose
which certainly turned up a bit. On the whole he was a very pleasant,
agreeable-looking young man, tall and broad-shouldered, clean-limbed and
athletic-looking. What Nan liked most about him were his eyes and his
hands.
"I hate to tell you my name, wood nymph. It sounds so commonplace after
what we have done this morning. I am afraid when you hear it you will
simply knock on one of these great oak trees and a door will open and
you will disappear from my eyes forever."
"Not before breakfast," drawled Nan. "But you must tell me your name
before breakfast because I shall have to introduce you to the others."
"What others? Not more wood nymphs!"
"More Carters--and week-enders!"
"You don't mean I have actually landed at Week-End Camp? Why, that is
what I have been looking for, but I had no idea of striking it the first
thing, right out of the blue, as it were. I heard about the camp at the
University, and want to come board there for a while."
"Well, I am the one to apply to," said Nan primly.
"Apply to a wood nymph for board! Absurd!"
"Not at all! Of course, I can't take you to board without knowing your
name and--er--number."
"Well, if you must, you must--Tom Smith is my name--as for my
number--there is only one of me."
"I mean by your number, where you live."
"Oh, I live in the air mostly. Sometimes I come down to have some
washing done and to vote--at least, I came down once to vote--that was
last June, but as no elections were going on just then and as my having
arrived at the age of twenty-one did not seem to make them hurry, I
went up in the air again. When I do vote, though, it will be out in
Louisville, Kentucky. That's where I have my washing done. You don't
say what you think of such a name as Tom Smith."
"It is not very--romantic, but it must have been a nice name to go to
school with."
"Great! There were so many of us that the lickings didn't go round."
The girl was leading the way down the mountain path and they came to the
spring where she had performed her ablutions earlier.
"This is the fountain of Pirene."
"Ah! I fancied we would come to it soon," and he stooped and drank his
fill, shaking the drops from his crisp curls as he got up.
"I love to drink that way," cried Nan. "I had a big deep drink as I went
up the mountain."
"Of course you drink that way! How else could a wood nymph drink? You
might make a cup of your little brown hand, but even that is almost too
modern. Ah, there is the camp! How jolly it looks! Are there any people
there? It looks so quiet."
"Any people there? Quiet! It is running over with people. They are all
asleep now, that is the reason it is so quiet. There will be noise
enough later."
As she spoke there were shouts from the shower bath where some of the
youths from the camp had assembled for a community shower, and as the
cold mountain water struck them they certainly made the welkin ring.
"There is father! Come, and I'll introduce you."
Mr. Carter was coming from the kitchen bearing a cup of coffee for his
wife, who stuck to the New Orleans habit of black coffee the first thing
in the morning, and Mr. Carter loved to be the one to take it to her
bedside.
"Father, this is Mr. Bel--Smith. He flew over here this morning," and
Nan suddenly remembered that she was not a wood nymph and that this
mountain in Albemarle was not Helicon. Also that it was not a very usual
thing for well-brought-up young ladies to go flying with strange young
men before breakfast, even if strange young men did almost have Greek
profiles. For the first time that morning Nan blushed. Her shyness
returned. She could hardly believe that it was she, Nan Carter, who had
been so bold. Her Bellerophon was plain Tom Smith and Pegasus was a very
modern flying machine lying up in Josephus's pasture, that pasture on
top of a prosaic mountain in Albemarle County and not Mount Helicon.
The fountain of Pirene was nothing but the spring that fed the
reservoir from which they got the water supply for the shower bath
where those boys were making such an unearthly racket. She was not a
wood nymph--there were no wood nymphs--but just a sentimental little
girl of sixteen who no doubt needed a good talking to and a reprimand
for being so very imprudent. What would her mother say to such an
escapade?
With all of Mrs. Carter's delicate spirituelle appearance there was
nothing poetical in her make-up. She would never understand this talk of
forgetting that one was not a wood nymph. There was more chance of the
father's sympathy. Nan took the bull by the horns and plunged into her
confession.
"Father, I have been up in Mr. Bel--Smith's flying machine. I don't know
what made me do it except I just--it was so early--I--I forgot it wasn't
a flying horse."
Mr. Carter looked at his little daughter with a smile of extreme
tenderness. He had taken flights on Pegasus himself in days gone by. He
seldom mounted him now--the burden of making a living had almost made
him forget that Pegasus was not a plough horse--not quite, however, and
now as his little girl stood in front of him, her hair all ruffled by
her flight, her cheeks flushed and in her great brown eyes the shadow of
her dream, he understood.
"It is still early in the morning, honey, for you--no doubt the
aeroplane is Pegasus. I envy you the experience. Everyone might not
see it as I do, however, so you and Mr. Belsmith and I had better keep
it to ourselves," and he shook the birdman's hand.
"Smith is my name--Tom Smith," and the young man smiled into the eyes of
the older man.
"I am very glad to see you, and just as soon as I take this coffee to
my wife, I will come and do the honors of the camp," and Robert Carter
hastened off, thinking what a boon it would be to be young again in
this day of flying machines.
Nan found her tent about as she had left it. The inmates were still
asleep. "How strange," she said to herself, "that I should have been to
the top of Helicon and taken flight with Bellerophon on Pegasus while
these girls have slept on not knowing a thing about it! I wonder where
their astral bodies have been! Douglas looks so happy, poor dear, I
fancy hers has been in heaven."
Aloud she cried: "Get up, girls! Wake up! It is awfully late--the camp
is stirring and there is a lot to do. I have found a new boarder! He
dropped from the clouds and is starved to death."