REVELATION
Winter was loitering through its last calendar month, although it usually
fastens its iron claws upon the first days of spring also, and is
dislodged only after a gusty struggle. Brooke turned from the cross-way
into the river road, upon the daily walk she forced herself to take in
all but impossible weather, according to her compact with Dr. Russell.
Of walking in general she would have declared that she was passionately
fond, but navigating the uneven roads, scarred by the storms of a winter
of unusual severity, did not come under the usual term.
After crossing an especially slippery bit she paused to rest for a
moment, supporting herself by the rough fence of split rails that made
a barrier between the road edge and the rocky bank which fell away, at
first sharply, and then more gradually toward the Moosatuk. As she stood
there, looking up and down, the saying came forcibly to her, “Whosoever
loves the land in February, loves for life.” Did she love nature, or was
she only baffled and cowed by its omnipotence and bent to it by the
force of necessity? This day she herself could not have judged.
All the sources of inspiration seemed closed. Silence reigned in the
River Kingdom; the voice of the ruler was stilled. Great, sooty crows,
lean and ravenous, patrolled the river meadows, croaking ominously as
they quarried a meal from the frozen wild apples, or rent asunder the few
blighted ears that remained in the corn-fields.
The day before had been one of sleet and wind; no human being had even
passed the homestead—merely a brindled cat of the half-wild breed, and he
had scuttled along on the other side of the road under cover of the wall.
Robert Stead was ill of a sudden cold, Adam had reported when he returned
from his daily lessons, consequently José, the Mexican half-breed
factotum, had not left the shack even to fetch the mail.
Thinner than when she had come to Gilead a month before, Brooke’s supple
figure had the spring and elasticity of physical health in spite of its
lack of roundness, for the long nights of sleep and the simplicity of the
daily routine offset the strain of unaccustomed toil. Neither was she
lonely in the common meaning of the word, which always implies a great
degree of leisure; also she was young, and Bulwer was right—“The young
are never lonely.” Then there were the books that the silent man brought
her—poetry, story, and all the lore of her fellows, the birds and beasts
of the field, that heretofore had been to her unknown creatures of
mystery; while Adam (she had never called him the Cub since the night of
his return) and she had many new sympathies, and when the boy, inspired
by the talk of his teacher, rushed in to tell her of the track that he
thought perhaps might belong to a fox or a mink, or with the surmise that
a strange bird was feeding by the granary, she was as eager as he to see
and to prove it.
The grisly mood that had seized upon her this 12th day of February
was born of the sudden stepping into the foreground of the future
with all its necessities, which, until that moment, had been blended
optimistically with the middle distance at the very least.
In two days more Mrs. Peck’s period of “accommodation” would be over;
the 1st of March Larsen would go to Gordon, and the spring work must be
begun if they would eat of the harvest. Toil as she and the boy might
with their hands, there must either be more money, or cattle and land
must be parted with, the homestead depleted, and the family start on that
dreadful shrivelling process of acquiring the habit of doing with less
and less, instead of pushing forward to fresh effort, which enervates the
mental, and finally the moral, nature, and has made some parts of New
England a graveyard of abandoned farms. For the thousandth time Brooke
thought of her mother’s little dower,—this, if it had not vanished,
would have more than doubled the monthly yield,—then she put the thought
from her as she had done before, but this time less forcibly.
With all around ice, snow, dusky tree trunks, and rock of granite, she
felt all the sensations that would belong to a wild animal at bay.
Indeed, she might have lingered on there to her hurt, had not Tatters
barked and pulled her by the skirt.
“Yes, I will come now, old man! I’m sorry I stood so long; I know your
paws must be chilled!” she exclaimed ruefully. “You want to go to Gilead
village instead of to the foot of Windy Hill to see old Mrs. Fenton?
Well, so be it, we shall see more people on that road; besides, I think
that both you and I need something from the store,—post-stamps, and
lavender oil, for I’m going to try my hand at painting, you see, Tatters,
if it’s only Easter bonbonnières. Cookies? Yes, sugar cookies, and you
can get two stale ones for this penny. Watch out, Tatters,” and Brooke,
throwing off her dismal mood with an effort, held the copper coin before
his nose as she spoke, and the dog, comprehending either tone, word,
gesture, or all three, preceded his mistress joyfully in an uneven but
steady trot, that ate up the road and caused her fairly to break step in
order not to be left behind.
The cookies were bought and eaten, mistress and dog resting awhile at
the little shop that sold simple drugs, etc., and eleven o’clock saw
Brooke climbing the upper road toward home. She had gone but half of the
way when, missing Tatters, she turned about to look for him. Whistling
and waiting a moment, she saw his head appearing slowly over the last
upward roll in the road, and noticed that he was limping painfully. She
hurried back to where he had paused, as soon as he knew that he was
in no danger of being deserted, and he began to lick one of his front
paws, which had been cut by a sharp, jagged piece of ice, and which was
bleeding profusely. Kneeling in the road beside him, Brooke moistened
her handkerchief by the slow process of holding snow in her hands until
it melted, and, after cleansing the cut as well as she could, wound the
handkerchief tight around it.
“You can’t hobble a mile in this plight, neither can I carry you. Will
you lie up there on that dry moss in the spot where the snow has melted,
and wait until I can send Adam for you?” and Brooke took a few steps
uphill to illustrate what she meant while waiting for his answer.
No, Tatters emphatically declined to wait, for as soon as she had moved
a step he began to hobble on three legs, while at the same time the
leaden sky shed a few big snowflakes, as if to show casually what might
be expected at any time before night. So his mistress halted and began to
look about as if for a possible suggestion.
Presently the head of a meek, ginger-colored horse began to rise above
a steep “thank-you-ma’am.” A stout body and four legs followed, next a
covered wagon, such as milk pedlers use, with a glass front, through
which a man’s face looked out. The sight was such a relief to Brooke that
she made no pretence of concealing the fact, but waited until the team
came alongside, when she read the legend “Mrs. Banks’ Homemade Pies,”
printed in elaborately shaded letters on the side of the canopy.
The horse stopped of its own accord on the small plateau, the driver
dropped his window and looked out, smiling cheerfully. It was anything
but a handsome face,—that of a man who was probably sixty but might
be less, weathered and somewhat sharp; small gray eyes, but with a
merry twinkle, peered from under shaggy, sandy eyebrows, that matched
a half-starved mustache. The hair of the head was gray, and from it at
right angles two very sizable ears stuck out with somewhat startling
effect. Yet, in spite of these details, the whole was a face to inspire
trust.
“Miss Keith West’s dog, and in trouble, I take it,” was his opening
remark. “I’m goin’ straight past her house, and I’ll fetch him up if you
like and relieve your mind, as you seem partial to animals.”
“Could you take me, too?” asked Brooke, returning his smile, “that is, if
I shall not make your load too heavy, for though Tatters seems to know
you” (Tatters had given the coolest sort of tail wag at the sound of the
man’s voice), “I’m afraid he will not go without me.”
“So you are travelling uphill too—climb right in, though I reckon you’ll
hev to set on this box here. Do you happen to be one uv Miss Keith’s
folks that owns the farm and wuz comin’ to live there when she goes
to Boston? Though, as I says to my wife (she’s _Mrs. Banks, Homemade
Pies_, and I’m Mr. Banks that peddles ’em, besides raisin’ and pickin’
the berries and apples and pumpkins fer their innards, along with a
considerable lot of garden sass), I says, ‘Keith’ll never make up her
mind to go; the city isn’t all it’s cracked up to be when onct you’re
used to plenty o’ room to move and free empty air.’ What air there is in
big cities is so chuck full o’ noise and smell and one thing and another,
you wouldn’t know it. Why, it’s worse than the Methody church down in
the holler, when they had a revival meetin’ on a summer night, and felt
called to close the winders on account of gnats.
“Yes, I lived in N’ York six months,—it’ll be nigh five years ago. You
see, the farm didn’t pay as it uster when I raised six children on it
and we was all satisfied. Everything doin’ got to be more wholesale and
knocked out us small fry. Next, for a spell, I took to the railroad; got
a job through one of the big bugs down ter Stonebridge, and after a time
got ter be conductor on the through express freight, sleepin’ home every
other night. Well, it gave me a chance to see life, I’m glad to say, for
which I’d allus hankered, but it was a nervous job, and kep’ me too far
above the ground, which was my born station.
“Then the boys coaxed ma and me to go to N’ York, she to keep a flat for
’em,—I suppose maybe you’ve seen one o’ them contrary sort of outfits,
a floor divided up small like a parlour box car for racing stock, well
enough looking till you close the doors, then everybody shook up together
until you’re sick o’ the sight and smell o’ your very own. All of God’s
sunlight you get is what’s dribbled in down a flue, like the chute of a
feed bin, and not a scrap o’ grass to bleach clothes on, only to hang
’em out in a little narrer place to sweat on a line like bacon in a
smoke-house. Mother withered so that summer I was afeared she’d let go
the tree before autumn, like a windfall apple; and as for the ‘genteel
work for my old age’ the boys had got me—genteel be _damned_! I beg your
pardon, Miss—?”
“Lawton.”
“Oh, then you are one o’ Miss Keith’s kin. But that word’s one that
remains of my experience on the through freight that somehow’s too handy,
though wrong, to be quite give up. What was that job with short hours
that was to keep me clean-handed and from bendin’ my back? To wear a
plum-red coat, like a circus monkey, and stand in a bank on a stone
floor, that made me cold as an ice pond when you hole fer frost fish,
without the pleasure o’ catchin’, and openin’ and shuttin’ the door
all day fer a lot of fool Jays and Jenny Wrens, well able to do it fer
themselves, and me reachin’ toward sixty! _Genteel nothin’!_ My spirit
broke before noon of the second day, and goin’ to that flat I just picked
up mother and we lit out fer home, which the summer folks that rented
it had left, we leavin’ a note behind like young folks ’lopin’. Then,
when we’d set and considered a spell, the Lord pointed out pies, like a
sky-fallen revelation; the boys caved in and gave us a horse; now life’s
jest a hummin’ along brisk as a swarm o’ bees! And once more the Lord’s
borne it in upon us two old folks, after that discipline of city life,
that if we was goin’ to scratch a livin’ nowadays we’d got to give folks
jest what they want, and make it good, and no skimpin’. Folks in Gilead
County eats pies, and they need ’em good!”
“Cousin Keith has been away a month now,” said Brooke, when Mr. Banks
paused for breath, “and she writes that she is enjoying herself
immensely, so I do not think that she is likely to return.”
“She’s actoolly gone, then? That knocks me out,” said the pieman, with a
disappointed droop in his voice. “I didn’t know that, fer I’ve been goin’
the short way and haven’t been over this upper road since New Year, the
goin’s been so bad. I allus reckoned on puttin’ up at the West farm for
the noon hour to bait Maria here and get my coffee het up; but maybe your
ma won’t fancy shelterin’ strangers, for I think Miss Keith said the farm
came through the female line and was again rightly vested in a female.”
“I own the farm, and I shall be very glad to have you rest and feed your
horse there and take your dinner with us to-day,” said Brooke, taking a
mischievous satisfaction in the effect of her words on the funny little
man.
“You! a slip of a girl like you own the snuggest small place in the
county, and best kep’ up!” he ejaculated, his jaw dropping with reflex
wonder; “but maybe you’re married?”
“No.”
“Keepin’ company, then?”
“No”—this time Brooke had great difficulty in controlling either voice or
countenance.
“Left a beau in town or in foreign parts somewhere, then?” he persisted,
almost anxiously.
“No”—but this time the word had a different sound.
“Not even got picked out yet? well, I want ter know! I thank you kindly
for yer invitation, and I’ll be pleased to go in. Hev you got a ma and
pa, or only a hired man?”
With a person of his persistence social topics might have now become
embarrassing, but chance turned the subject at the right moment, taking
the shape of a covey of quail, huddled under some cedar bushes by the
roadside. The pieman spied them first, and at his sharp pull patient
Maria stopped, although the spot was not very suitable for such a halt.
Brooke expected to see the flock either rise in a body or disappear in
the under-brush, but they did neither, only huddling still closer, while,
inexperienced as she was, she noticed that even their ruffled feathers
illy hid the leanness of their bodies.
“The game along this route has suffered this winter, and it’s missed me,”
he whispered, preparing to raise the curtain on the opposite side of the
wagon to the birds.
“Raise up a minute, please, so’s I can git some buckwheat out uv that
box, and keep a hand on Tatters, else, lame as he is, he’ll out and flush
the covey.”
Brooke did as she was told, while the pieman scooped up a handful of
unhulled buckwheat from the box, and, letting himself down quietly from
the wagon, scattered it among the bayberry bushes, not too near to the
flock, yet in plain sight of it. Returning, he re-fastened the curtain
and started the horse again before he said a word in answer to the
interrogation of Brooke’s face. Reaching the next level, a dozen rods
on, he half turned the wagon in order to give a clear view down the
hill; the quail had crossed the road and were feeding eagerly upon the
buckwheat, like a brood of chickens.
“Puzzled, ain’t yer, ter see a Yankee scatterin’ good fodder by the way?”
said the pieman, highly gratified. “Well, it may seem uncommon, but the
truth is these five years I’ve been peddlin’ and coverin’ a wild tract
of country twict every week in cold and heat, rain and sun, I’ve come to
think that man ain’t the only created thing that the Lord has cause to
be proud uv or care fer. I’ve got kinder close to the wild folks along
the route, which after all is but accordin’ to Scripture, that bids us
‘Consider the way the lilies grow and look to the fowls of the air,’ and
says the Lord himself ain’t too busy to indulge in counting sparrers—(if
he’d only worded it song or chippin’ sparrers it would be more
comfortin’, though he couldn’t hev meant English ones, cause that island
wasn’t discovered in those days, and so is of no account in Scripture,
which must rile their pride).
“I allus did like birds, even way back when I followed the plough, and
of course I knew some of them apart,—robins and swallers and phœbes and
hawks and all the gamies,—and I jest plumb knew that when crows sat on
the fence a-quaverin’, it was interestin’ and worthy conversation, most
like, if we could only sense it. But it was after that hell-fire summer
in the city that I got the call to treat ’em like my brothers and help
’em out with food in winter like we would neighbouring house folks.
“Soon as it come hot weather there, that time in N’ York, I couldn’t set
closed into meetin’ of Sundays (though mother, she sit it out for sake of
principle), and I don’t believe the Lord does, either,—stands to reason
he’s got too much sense, not havin’ to set an example,—so I uster wander
out through that long narrer park o’ theirn, and when onct I cut clean
through westward, I strayed into that big museum where they keep the
natural relics, and there I come face to face with all the birds that
ever wuz together since Eve’s time. When I’d observed all the cockatoos
and parrerkeets and such like, I went on a bit further, ’n if there
warn’t a partridge a struttin’ on the leaves with his tail all fanned
out, and beyond it the brown eggs was nested in a ground holler. I passed
that by and next I seen a catbird in a syringa bush and a robin on an
apple branch and a highholder on a stump, that set my heart a-bumpin’
so I was all of a tremble and sidled off into a small room to set down.
When I looked up next, what was there in a case marked something about
‘seasonable birds’ but a big medder lark. His breast was jest as fresh
and yaller as when he sings from a tree-top to yer in plantin’ time, or
turns and teeters on a fence to keep you from seein’ him too plain, and
it seemed as if I heard him calling fer spring. That broke me all up, and
I jest leaned over and cried it out into the white Sunday handkerchief
mother got me, ’cause my red ones jarred the boys.
“I think it was the sight of those birds gave me grit to break loose fer
home. That next winter a woman we sold eggs to over in Gordon, seein’ my
fancy, gave me a book all about their ways and needs, and so ever since
I’ve been with ’em in heart. My, but ain’t they company along the lonely
road bits and in early mornings when I’m comin’ home! (I go up Tuesdays
and Fridays to sleep at Sairy Ann’s, my wife’s sister’s house near
Gordon, startin’ fer home next dawn.)
“Along in April to see the woodcock flirt an’ dance’s as good’s a circus.
Sometime, maybe, ’twould pleasure you to take the trip with me, and Sairy
Ann’d be proud to hev you stop with her. My, here we are at your corner!
How good conversation does pass the time!”
Without in the least realizing that he had been doing the whole of the
talking, the pieman handed Brooke out at the door stone, Tatters limping
carefully after, and Maria turned down the lane to the barn, with which
she was perfectly familiar.
Brooke, hastening in to explain their unique guest to her mother and tend
the sick paw, found that Mrs. Peck had been sent for to “sit up” with
a bereaved household down at Gilead; telling Mrs. Lawton that it was
expected of her, no matter whom she might be “accommodating,” she had
left immediately, promising to return the next night.
Brooke prepared the dinner, to which was added as a contribution,
received in the spirit in which it was offered, one of Mrs. Banks’ most
juicy whortleberry pies (truly the best of its kind), which the Cub
pronounced to be “just bully,” while in turn the pieman praised Brooke’s
coffee, and, for some reason that he could not have explained, kept his
knife in abeyance, while by his cheerful common sense gained the respect
of his entertainers.
After he had left, taking Brooke’s ready promise to go over the route
with him some spring day to see the woodcock dance and hear the partridge
drum, the cloud that his cheerfulness had lifted again settled over the
girl’s spirits. Why was no gleam vouchsafed to lighten her darkness as
the vision of pies had led these humble people into a sort of promised
land?
When she had washed the dishes and made everything neat, it was still
only half-past two. She could neither sew nor read nor settle herself
to write to Lucy Dean, her usual outlet when cast down; a new sort of
restlessness seized her, that of a wild animal caged, who paces to and
fro to its own exhaustion.
Looking into her father’s room, she saw that he slept, while Tatters,
his hurt paw comfortably stretched out, lay on the rug. Her mother was
writing letters at the old desk; and going out to the barn she found
the Cub, with Pam of course close by, mending some spring traps that
he discovered in an old barrel, and preparing to set them, for mink or
weasel tracks, he could not tell which, had been seen that morning about
the chicken house. He was so absorbed and fascinated with his occupation
that he only grunted answers to his sister’s questions, so she returned
to the house, realizing that the change was doing wonders for the Cub,
which was one consolation.
“What is the matter with me?” she said, half aloud. “Is it an illness
coming on? or can it be the painting fever? The air seems to sparkle and
rush through me like electricity! Oh, why did I not work harder when I
had the time? for now if the desire comes I cannot stop,” and Brooke
wrung her hands, and then laughed hysterically at her tragic action.
Going to her room, she unpacked palette and paint box, and took the maul
stick from the closet, where it had remained all winter tied to some
umbrellas. Of canvas she had none, but hunting up some bits of manila
board from between her books, she took them to the kitchen and spread
them on the table, where she had left the turpentine and oil. What should
she try? The snow and rock bit from the window lacked colour and was too
harsh in outline to be seductive to her mood. A scarlet geranium in a pot
against the dark window frame caught her eye, and seating herself, she
began to draw it in rapidly with chalk—anything, if it would only find
vent for the fever of action that tingled in her finger tips.
She was surprised to find that a certain accuracy as well as facility
of touch had not left her, in spite of stiffened fingers and lack of
practice. For her colour sense she claimed no credit; it was born with
her. But after the outline took shape and she began to paint and give
it texture, she dropped her brush again as the words of Lorenz seemed
whispered in her ears, “You have not yet had the awakening, for it you
must wait; it is the same with me; you must interpret your vision and see
it on the canvas before you can create; but first of all you must know
and feel, even if you suffer.”
The awakening had not come to her, and still she waited; did she not
now know and feel, and had she not suffered enough? The stiff geranium
cramped in its pot bore her no message to interpret, and as a snow-squall
darkened her window she cast the brush aside. Shivering at the utter
silence of the house, she fled to her room and, throwing herself face
downward on her bed, was abandoning herself to the spirits of darkness,
when the thought of her other self, radiating light as Lorenz had painted
her, crossed her wild mood, checking it, and she lay quite still until
her pounding heart calmed to its regular beating, when bodily fatigue
claimed its dole and she fell asleep.
When she awoke it was after five o’clock; the squall had passed away and
sunset light was warming the whole sky, even taking the chill from the
full moon, which it had worn on its apparent rise from the river ice.
Below stairs everything was as she had left it, and yet a different
atmosphere pervaded the place, and the tension left her throat. The Cub
came in with the news, at which he seemed to think she would rejoice,
that Robert Stead was better and would be out again on the morrow. Her
mother expressed unfeigned pleasure, and Brooke was almost ashamed of
the fact that she had for the moment forgotten that he was ill. Yet she
always enjoyed his visits and watched for them, for he was a travelled
and well-read man, and, when off his guard, most entertaining, and not
without a certain compelling magnetism.
“Let’s hurry supper,” said the Cub, when he had brought in the milk.
“I’ve had the last milking lesson I need, and I can do it all right now
without pulling too hard, or squirting, or laming my wrists. Larsen
says I’ll be worth twenty a month and board by summer if I keep on
steady,—just as if I wouldn’t! But I’ve got to keep the other end up
besides, and I’ve some reading to do to-night, if I’m going up to the
shack again in the morning.” Crossing the kitchen, he picked his mother
up as if she had been a feather, and whirling her about, gave her a
hearty kiss that sent a glow to her heart and cheeks at the same time,
before he seated her, like a small child, on the table edge, where she
struggled, laughed, and was sublimely happy at his rough caress. Then,
further to carry out his genial mood, he bounced into his father’s
room and, wheeling him to the kitchen, pushed the chair close to the
table, and thus they all supped together, a circumstance that had seemed
impossible in Mrs. Peck’s presence.
After Adam Lawton had gone to bed, the Cub helping him as usual, the boy
settled himself by the bright lamp in the kitchen with his books, while
Mrs. Lawton and Brooke sat by the firelight in the library, talking
quietly. Brooke, hunched on the rug, leaned her head back against her
mother’s knee, and yielded to the soothing touch of gentle fingers upon
her eyes and brow.
Presently Tatters began to growl deeply and give what they had learned
to designate as his animal bark, quite different in quality from that
with which he announced the approach of man. Pam, of course, joined him,
springing from the cushioned chair in which she slept.
The Cub went to the door and listened—cackles of alarm were coming from
the chicken house.
“It’s the weasel or mink, or whatever it was that prowled last night,” he
reported. “I’ll go out and see, because Stead says that sometimes, if
you leave them all night, they gnaw out of the trap. Don’t you want to
come too, Sis? Hurry up, then, and get your cape. No, don’t let the dogs
out, they’ll get pinched in the trap, or chew the beast up, maybe, and I
want to keep him whole. I guess the moon is bright enough, we will not
need the lantern,” and seizing a stout stick, the Cub tiptoed carefully
out to make as little noise as possible, not having yet learned that to
wild animals scent serves as a warning even more than sound. Brooke,
however, preferred to take the lantern, and lighting it, she quickly
followed.
The Cub examined his traps. They were untouched, but as he knelt he saw
a straight row of tracks in the snow, that were too large to belong
to either weasel or mink. Following these, they led him around to the
roosting house. There, between it and the open yard, something that
appeared to be a small dog crouched in the corner.
The moon shone brightly between the buildings, and every hair of the
little beast stood out as clearly as by electric light.
“It’s a half-grown fox,” whispered the Cub, to Brooke. “Good work if I
can only kill it; there’ll be one less to kill the fowls. Look out that
it doesn’t dodge past you there, Sis,” and the Cub was going toward it,
club raised. But the little fox never stirred. They could only tell that
it was alive by the heaving of its lean sides.
“Stop!” said Brooke, hoarsely, laying a detaining and no very gentle
touch on her brother’s arm. “I won’t have it killed. I believe that it is
starving, like those quails I saw this morning, only they could move, and
this fox is too weak. I’m going to take it in the barn and feed it, and
make it live. Get me some milk, and eggs, and meat.”
“You’re crazy, Sis; it is only a fox, and they’re bad things. It’ll bite
you and make no end of a row,” but as he glanced at her face he saw
something there that stopped all argument, and he hastened to obey.
Then Brooke, placing the lantern on the ground, drew nearer to the little
beast. Yes, he was starving. He tried to stand and toppled over against
the shed; he was powerless and at bay. Fixing her eyes on his, she read
his feelings interpreted by her own of that very afternoon, and kneeling
there in the snow, she understood him.
A vital wave swept over her. Hanging the lantern on her arm, she slipped
the cape from off her shoulders with a swift movement, and covered the
fox with it, wrapping him completely. Then, lifting him in her arms, for
he was less weighty than a well-fed cat, she carried the bundle to the
barn, and slipping the latch, laid the poor little beast on the haymow,
a futile snap and snarl or two having been its only protests.
When the Cub returned with the various articles of food, he was
astonished to see the pair facing each other, not a yard apart, with the
lantern hanging from a beam shedding light upon the strange scene.
While the Cub was near the fox would not touch the food, but when he hid
from its sight, after a time it lapped the egg that Brooke broke and put
before it, as a dog would, and presently the milk; then, still wearing
the hunted look, settled deeper into the hay lair where she had placed
it, panting and with lolling tongue.
“We will go away now and leave it in peace; only promise me, Adam,
that when it grows strong it shall run free, and no one shall kill it;
remember, it is my guest.” Adam promised, and hastily securing the latch,
they went back to the house. The Cub went to the library to tell his
mother of the adventure, but Brooke lingered in the kitchen. A half-hour
passed, and hearing no sound, the Cub went to the door. Returning softly,
he beckoned his mother to follow, and together they stood in the shadow
of the doorway, looking into the room. Two lamps stood side by side on
the mantel-shelf, casting an oblique light; below and at one side of
the fireplace stood Brooke, palette in hand, a straight-backed chair
before her; resting on its arms, as if it were an easel, was the great
oblong bread-board, and on this the girl was painting, with broad rapid
strokes, the head of a fox. Her cloak still hung from her shoulders, her
cheeks glowed; her eyes they could not see until she half turned her
head for a moment as if following a strayed memory, then they noticed a
strange light in them as of inspiration.
Quietly they crept back into the dark and waited. An hour passed; still
Brooke kept at work. Another thirty minutes and they heard the chair move
and again they went to the door.
Brooke stood back from the improvised easel, her hands behind her,
looking at her work. From the board gazed back the head of the little
fox, roughly done, but with the look in its eyes at once hunted, defiant,
and pleading,—not an image, a created thing, living and breathing.
Through suffering and its kinship had come the revelation to Brooke that
if she willed she might be the painter of animals, and as she looked
again, Lorenz’ words sounded in her ears. She had felt and suffered, and
had seen her vision in the eyes of the hunted beast. She had interpreted
it, she felt for what it stood, and now, crude as was the labor, it lived
under her brush. She had awakened, but the strength of the vital touch
was his, and he could not know it. Kneeling before the chair with clasped
hands, as if at some shrine, not to the picture, but to what it stood
for, Brooke took new courage.
Before his mother could restrain Adam he had dashed across the kitchen,
and stood a moment with his hands resting on his sister’s shoulders.
Then, without warning, he tipped back her head and gave her a kiss of
genuine boyish enthusiasm, crying, “That’s a living picture all right,
Sis. Look out it don’t get away from you. I bet you’ve struck your luck
this time.”