Bardek had taught her the meaning of freedom; but she lacked his
courage to be really herself. “You don’t know what you have in there,”
he would often say, tapping his heart and his head. “Only God knows,
who gave you great forces to use.” She was seventeen and thoroughly
matured, she admitted, yet custom hardly sanctioned even her apparel.
What she had achieved in that department was won by fighting; and it
was a fact, she bore witness in every daily movement, that until she
had boldly adopted the costume of womanhood she had not been able to
think the thoughts of woman. So small a thing as inches on a skirt
influenced mightily one’s very thinking. How strange was that; but how
much more powerful were other restrictions. Until one accepted freedom
and moved forward, there was a stoppage of mental growth.
Many things she would like to do but dared not. At this moment, if she
had the courage, she told him, she would slip into a travelling-gown,
pack a bag, and take a sleeper for Holden. In the morning she would go
straight to her _capitaine_, Allen Blynn, have breakfast with him and
spend the day talking anything that chose to come into their heads, and
read poetry, and let the world slip. The spring air had done this thing
to her--she knew that; but why should one resist the call of spring.
Cherry blossoms did not resist. Neither did the veriest worms. All
night long Birchall’s dog had barked his delight. Why shouldn’t he? He
didn’t consider, “Gorgas Levering is trying to sleep; I should not do
this natural thing; I will resist the overpowering temptation to yowl.”
If he did he would cease to be a dog. Next spring it would be easier
for him to shut up; and in a few years he would move into a porch-house
and be writing essays on the immorality of any barking whatever. By
that time he would be wearing piccadilly collars and eye-glasses.
Some day she would break loose and express herself. She had done so in
a number of small things. Phew! How the good mater would carry on if
she knew!
For illustration, Gorgas gave a sketchy account of her holiday with
Bardek. They had tramped across country to Chestnut Hill, and up the
Whitemarsh Valley, where in a thick of young willows by the upper
reaches of the Wissahickon they had struck camp. They built a fire and
had luscious broiled chicken empaled on sticks--Bardek had negotiated
for the chickens at a near-by farm house. For hours they lolled on
the ground, Bardek’s thick coat serving as a protection from the damp
earth, stirred the fire, and talked themselves out. They should have
started for home, of course, but it was Gorgas who declined to go back,
and Bardek had consoled himself with the sight of an occasional puffing
train off beyond the trees; when they willed they could whisk back to
Mount Airy in a half-hour or less.
Then, as the warm sun was slanting warningly toward the west, Gorgas,
prowling among the willows, came upon an amateur spring-board
disclosing a swimming-hole, shut in from all the world. The day was
exceptionally warm, but when she shouted with delight and invited him
to dare her to dive in, Bardek was wise enough to know the dangerous
deception in the day and season, and ordered her most thunderously to
do no such thing. And therein Bardek was not wise at all. She would
not be ordered about by anyone, she had retorted angrily; she would do
as she pleased; and when he strode forward, talking the while as if he
were disciplining one of his youngsters, she plunged in. And just to
show that she was master of herself, she had swum about deliberately in
the tingling water until he changed his tone and pleaded with her to
come out.
That, of course, put trains out of the question. The miles to Mount
Airy must be walked, and at a good pace, too. The stimulating chill of
that water she recorded as one of the most satisfying shocks of her
young experience; and the swift tramp homeward on an exquisitely warm
April night was altogether good.
Bardek, mindful of added trouble to Gorgas if the Leverings should
glimpse him, discreetly dropped out at his white-washed cottage; so to
Gorgas it was left to face the family alone. It was close to midnight.
The Levering household was awake and watching, one might be sure, and
full of silly speculation.
There was a row, of course; but not a word of explanation from Gorgas.
She answered questions with tantalizing vagueness, foraged for food and
ate hungrily, but only stared like Ophelia at their admonitory speeches.
Presently they noticed her closer resemblance to Ophelia, the damp
hair, and presented the theory that she had fallen into the water.
The thought of swimming in April did not occur to them. As that drew
sympathy and a cessation of fault-finding she affected a clever shiver
or two and was put to bed with much solicitude and a comforting drink
of hot lemonade. At this hour she was presumed to be sleeping.
What good would explanations have done? She asked Blynn. The net
result had been good, physically, mentally and spiritually good. She
had let loose struggling feeling and had the fine bounding recompense
that always comes when mother nature says, Give. To tell the bare
facts would be to tell a sort of untruth; certain persons--the
plaster-of-paris sort--are incapable of receiving; preconceived notions
of conduct have “set” them forever.
Even this long letter, now coming to an abrupt close, was helpful and
right. Nature had not said, Sleep--although she was saying it now, and
mighty strong, too--but she had said, Give; write; tell Allen Blynn.
And if Allen Blynn would mail his letters before ten o’clock at night
Gorgas Levering would be the first to claim them in the morning. Spying
over one’s letters would be the next thing to take up with the family!
Allen Blynn’s reply was dispatched immediately and strictly according
to mailing directions. It was in long-hand, a tacit sign hereafter of
the distinction between public and private readings.
The theme of his letter was freedom. To be free--that was the history
of all human conflict and the goal of civilization. He was with her so
thoroughly in her attempt to be herself that she glowed with the spirit
of vindicated right. Here was an “authority” giving her that necessary
courage so much needed by those who fight alone.
That was distinctly Blynn’s way with children, to start with agreement,
gain loyalty, divert the terrific force of opposition--a pedagogic
jiu-jitsu which turned all the energies his way.
“But here we come to a puzzle,” he went on, “which nobody yet has
satisfactorily solved. Obey your instincts? All right. It is a great
principle. But which instincts? The instinct to assert the best that
is in us? Oh, yes, indeed. The instinct to be strong, to produce
worthily, to live without mental or physical pain? Undoubtedly. But
should we give play to other instincts, too, equally natural and
equally struggling to express themselves; the instinct to kill, for
instance; to grovel; to run away; to save one’s skin at the expense of
one’s ideas; to be unclean; to be slothful; diseased; to sneak and lie
and bear false witness? I am not mentioning the worst ones, but if you
were a man I could. No doubt you are old enough to have heard of some.
In other words, there is a war among our most natural desires, and the
game is to him who exercises the high, and atrophies the base in us.
That’s the old quarrel over good and evil, the archangel of the Lord
against Lucifer and his demons.
“Whenever I feel most the desire to ‘break loose,’ as you say, and
have my momentary will, I think of certain creatures about me who
have tried that game to the full,--the blear-eyed wretches who sun
themselves in the parks or nod and drowse in the reading-rooms of the
public libraries; and of that hunted-looking crew of hideous women who
prowl the streets in ones and twos after nightfall. All of these were
young and fair once, and laughed, and felt the call to be themselves.
Think of it!
“How can you judge where your desire will lead? The child would eat
nothing but ice cream and cake. Some forlorn little kiddies, whom I
meet in my journeys through the city, have been allowed to have their
will. I see them satisfying their natural hunger craving while mothers
look on complacently and permit the growth of a brood of malnutritioned
youngsters. We wiser folks, passing by, we know the end. We are like
prophets foreseeing calamity.
“Well, what is to guide us? Wisdom. And how shall we know wisdom? That
is hard, I admit; but some of it is found in the curbs and restrictions
of society. The very repressions that gall you may be the law that
keeps you from eventual destruction. Society is not always right, not
by a jugful, and revolutionists there must be to amend and abolish.
But one must have care. For the ancient régime one might unwittingly
substitute The Terror.
“Your letter has inspired me to write a parable. Half the morning I
have been toiling over it, shaping and reshaping the phrases--is there
any exercise more delightful! I have added to my joy by trying to put
it into the stately English of Elizabeth, which even at its worst is
touched with subtle beauty. It doesn’t satisfy just yet, so I shall
wait.
“The title is clear to me. ‘Ignorance.’ No one should feel hurt by the
accusation of ignorance; it is the common mortal possession.
“Before I close I must tell you more of my great mystery, ‘The Lady of
the Interruption.’”
After one has been very serious with children, he knew, it is always
prudent to shift the topic abruptly, as if all that has been said has
no personal application whatever.
“She is present quite often at my extension lectures. Once or twice
I have seen her distinctly, and have learned to look for my cues by
her nods of approval or her smiling disdain. So far, she has not
‘interrupted’; but I am ready any moment. After the lecture we open
the question-box and have a fifteen minute rapid answering of queries.
Lately she has been asking questions, which, needless to say, I do not
read aloud. Here is one.
“‘Don’t you think that a professor of English should take as much
care in purchasing wearing apparel as he does in the selection of
his phrases? Or do you believe that a hump at the back of the coat
is essential to professional dignity; or that a white waistcoat for
evening wear would be too undemocratic in a republic?’
“She has been hinting several times that my personal appearance
could be improved without loss of vocal delivery! Isn’t it the most
eccentric thing you ever heard of? And the strangest part of it all is
that I enjoy it. I find she is quite right in a number of points. I am
a shabby beggar. The total effect has been to send me to a good tailor.
Oh, we’re quite spruce, nowadays, I tell you! Her latest question was:
“‘You follow my suggestions, but you do not read my questions aloud.
Be careful, or I shall expose you again.’
“Is she simply odd-brained, or a great humorist? Pray, put your mind to
it. I’m tremendously interested.”
It was not difficult for Gorgas to decide about the lady, but she did
not write her full conclusions to Allen Blynn; if the lady were mad,
there was method in it. What she did write was to inquire more about
her appearance. Did she smile or look over-serious? Was she dark or
light?
Men are the most artless creatures, she thought; women could take
outrageous liberties with them and they never suspect anything. And of
all artless men, Allen Blynn was the easiest. He was so chivalrous,
so ready to serve. A woman had but to say, “Sit by me and talk,” or,
“Spend Wednesday afternoon with me,” and Allen would drop his dearest
interest to do the lady’s bidding; and with such flattering attention,
too.
The “Lady of the Interruption” was going to needless lengths to capture
the services of Allen Blynn, Gorgas thought. How easy to see through
her ruse; although one had to admit that she was a daring creature,
and intelligent, too. One could not help admiring her supreme nerve.
Undoubtedly, she was “expressing herself,” and defying all that same
code of society which forbids a young woman to debate in public.
A day or two later a typewritten letter, obviously for family reading,
came to Gorgas, containing the simple statement that he thought the
Leverings might be interested in the enclosed bit of writing.
A PARABLE OF IGNORANCE
His turban was a strange purple, and his gown was the orange of the
dust of the road; and in his hand he bore no staff but a branch of
wild grape. Although he had travelled far, yet was his face white;
white like those hermits that dwell apart in caves; white was he as
the live white of the growing lily, as the pallor of the moon in
daylight; and the men and women of the city marvelled, for they were
a dark people that worked in the furrows of the earth and lived daily
in the sun.
Now the stranger would have passed on, but they came out from the
gates of their city to gaze upon him. Some stood in the way and
hindered, some touched reverently the hem of his robe, and many
besought him to enter into their houses and stay with them.
But he said unto them, A wanderer have I been all the days of my
manhood and must fare alone; although best of all things I love
friends and companionship. And he would have turned back, even at
the gate of the city, but they pressed him to come among them, if
only for a little while. Friends, they cried, thou shalt have an
abundance; for here everyone worketh with his hands in the fields,
and each is neighbor to another. And he hearkened to them and said
no word, but looked upon them as one with great longing. So he
tarried with them.
And straightway some among them began to toil less in the heat of the
day, and some wove coverings of straw to keep their faces from the
light of the sun; and they said to one another in the market-place,
How beautiful is the whiteness of the face and the hands of him that
stooped to come among us. We are a rough people, dark of skin; from
of old have we toiled with our hands and have lifted up our faces
daily to the burning heavens, and see what it hath profited us. Would
that we were as the holy man is.
Then went some to him in the night and told of their great desire to
be as he. And one who was nearest him said unto him, Tell me, I pray
thee, wherein thy comeliness lieth and wherewith we might be as thou
art. And when they one and all pressed upon him to say wherewith they
might be as he, he smiled and regarded them with great tenderness.
Yet he passed his hands over the faces of those whom he loved, and
blessed them, and, behold, they lost their roughness and became
smooth and fair and of the whiteness of the clouds of heaven.
And one by one to each as he asked he laid his hands upon the brow
and upon the cheek and upon the lips and upon the strong limbs, and
blessed them, and they became as the Wanderer was, and went away
rejoicing at the miracle wrought upon their bodies.
Much honor, they offered him, even silver and jewels; but none of
these would he have save the daily bread and wine, claiming only
their friendliness.
And when the day came that he had set for his departure, there was
much sorrow, so that the Wanderer tarried longer. And again and
again was the day put off until he had sojourned with them a full
twelfth-month. The day of his coming they named for a holy day and
the year of that day they celebrated with feasting and thanksgiving,
for now few of them were not fair.
But on the evening of that day the Wanderer fell ill; and he called
about him those who had been chiefly his companions, and said, I am
to die. But they cried aloud that it could not be; that they whom he
had comforted would comfort him also; that as he had ministered unto
them so would they to him. Of a surety, they said, he would live to
be strong again and, in the fullness of time, see age come with honor.
But he answered, I am to die. I am to die, he said, and turned his
face quietly to the wall, quietly as of one who had finished a good
task and was content.
Thereupon they besought him to tell them what they might do to save
him, to which of his gods they might pray and offer sacrifice. And
he turned and answered. Of all earthly things, best loved I friends
and companionship. These ye have given me in abundance. Yet am I to
die; for surely ye have known all this while, as ye turned me from
my journey and led me through the gates of your city, as ye gave me
of the bread and wine, as ye visited me and comforted me daily with
friendliness; surely ye knew as ye begged the secret of my comeliness
and bade me lay my hands upon thy brow, thy cheek, your lips and your
strong limbs, surely ye knew: I am a leper.
XIX
TOBOGGANING
Ned Morris’ behavior toward Gorgas underwent a decided change. His tone
grew discreet and secretive and intimate; he seemed forever smirking,
as if charged with unexpressed humor, the possessor of a private joke.
“Good morning, sweetheart,” he would whisper his greeting, although it
might be evening.
And she would look up from her work with equal appreciation of the
common jest and remark, “Merry Christmas, pretty boy,” but go on with
her work.
When others were present he gave no sign, but so soon as the two were
alone he hovered near, playing the open swain, but purely a dramatic
rôle. It was very amusing. Gorgas liked the drama and the spirit in
which it was played.
As she hammered he would sing an air from the new Robin Hood,
“Churning, churning, churning, all the live-long day,” and act
beautifully the tipsy sheriff of Nottingham. Or he would plead with
mock mournfulness, “Oh, promise me that some day you and I will take
our love together ’neath some sky,” and so forth.
Dangerous topics kept coming to the fore in their conversation,
dangerous with stirring April in the pulse of things, and two healthy
youngsters alone together. Ned seemed to have ample afternoons to give.
He was third year medical school, which should have meant work, but he
claimed to have everything “stowed away” for the May finals. At any
rate, the spring recess was near at hand; he could “plug up” then.
They tried out the courts on fine days. The ground was still soft, but
by dint of much rolling they managed to get some practice; most of the
time, however, they sat on the bench in the sun, and, warmly wrapped
in woolens, breathed the exquisite air and talked. He grew dexterous
in putting sleeves into coats, playing gentleman-in-waiting, and while
ordinarily she resented anyone touching her, she found herself enjoying
these little signs of fond care of her.
He had been smoothing out a collar and tucking a “sweater” snugly back
of her ears, carefully brushing away the hair, and tapping each little
ear jokingly. Meanwhile he had drawn out a log for her feet and with
the aid of a steamer-rug had tucked her in comfortably.
“I feel like a mummy,” she laughed, and bathed contentedly in the warm
sun.
“You look like a seraph,” he eyed her critically.
“Seraphs don’t have feet,” she corrected.
“What!” he exclaimed. “Don’t tell me that! Nor little, fat, brown ears,
either?”
“Nope.”
“Nor crinkly, brown hair what won’t stay fixed?” he deftly put back a
fluttering strand.
“Nope.”
“Nor soft, mellow voices what sez ‘nope’?”
“Nope; they always toot through trumpets--or is it shawms?”
“Well, I’ll be dinged!” he swore.
“You’re quite likely to be.”
“All right,” cheerfully, “let’s be dinged together? Eh? What y’say?”
“Mebbe; how do you begin?”
“_Facilis descensus Averni_,” he suggested.
“Talk a language I understand,” but she quite understood that stale
Latin quotation, “Easy is the road down.”
“That is to say,” Morris cast about for a translation. “‘Let her go,
Gallagher, and boomp! you’re at the bottom!’ Let’s--uh--let’s toboggan?”
He slipped a hand under the steamer-rug and grasped her wrist.
She considered for a moment or two, but she gave no answering touch.
“You’re dead cold,” he withdrew and chirped gaily. “No blood in you.
You couldn’t _descensus_ for a cent. What you need is a series of stiff
lessons.”
“Isn’t this just jim-dandy,” she murmured, ignoring his talk. “Golly!
It’s good sometimes to be just alive.” He grew quiet. “I heard all you
said, Neddie. I’m not inattentive. Go on and talk. I like to hear you
prattle. But I’m so comforty. I don’t want to think.... And it’s so
nice to be taken care of, tucked in, and all that.” She kicked out a
foot. “There! It’s out again. Be a good boy and fix the mummy’s legs.”
“And he fixed them up so care-ful-ee,” he sang as he worked, “That now
he’s the ruler of the Queen’s nav-ee.”
He smoked and they both lapsed into silence, while his eyes watched her
with frank approval.
“Women like to be helpless,” she spoke out the summing up of her
thinking. “I always thought I despised those frail beseeching-looking
things that hang around like dolls and let men fetch and carry for
them. I always did for myself--usually could do it better than any man;
but lately, I’ve got a case of the ‘delicates.’ You’re responsible,
Neddie; you’ve been taking such delicious care of me that I have
succumbed. ‘Let her go, Gallagher and boomp! I’m at the bottom.’ Just
tuck in that flapping hair, won’t you? I don’t want to move.”
A dutiful and faithful squire Morris became; and no one thought
anything of it. Mrs. Levering frequently came to the “smitty” to watch
the work or to chat with Gorgas about little teas and small receptions
that kept an informal atmosphere moving in the neighborhood; Gorgas was
clever in thinking up original things, decorations and so on. Ned’s
presence was accepted as a matter of course. Had he not grown up in the
neighborhood, and were not he and Gorgas perpetual tennis partners?
But it is doubtful if she ever asked herself even so much as that; her
serene assumption of the careful mother had annihilated all thinking
on the subject.
“My daughters,” she confessed to a caller who was interested in seeing
the “smitty,” “are pretty much about what I planned. It is almost
wholly a question of management, I think. For instance, I decided that
Keyser should like music. She rebelled, naturally; but I held her to
it--my will was the stronger. Now she plays rather nicely, I think; and
she’s very grateful, I can tell, for my insistence. Gorgas has been a
trial, I must say; but look how she has come around! There was a time
when we could hardly have a decent conversation together,” she laughed,
“but now we’re quite chums.
“And then there’s that awful question of boys. I have never had the
question. For us it just doesn’t exist. My scheme is very simple. I
keep a lot of social things going on right at home; the girls have a
good time, and I know everything that is happening.”
While Mrs. Levering talked, Ned Morris was saying pretty nothings in
Gorgas’ ear.
“It seems to me, young man,” Gorgas told him in a secretive undertone,
“that you are making the right speech to the wrong party. Bea Wilcox is
the young lady who should have patent rights on that kind of talk. Or
have you broken off?”
Ned made a wry face. “Friday nights,” he said, “I pay my addresses
to the lady. Mother’s an awful stickler. You have to go home at ten
o’clock, the time they unchain the mastiff. Broken off? Not exactly.
Sort of mangled. Bea’s nasty lately. Can’t make her out. But this isn’t
Bea’s party; I’m talking to your right ear.”
“The right ear is heartily ashamed of you,” she turned completely
around. “Try the left ear; it’s not used to you yet.”
So they chatted nonsense and--drifted.
When the mother had gone she brushed him aside and took up a mallet.
“You are keeping me from my work,” she protested, but not with much
force.
“Aw; you don’t want to work. You’re just bluffing. How can you pretend
to work on days like these?”
Nevertheless, she began a gentle rhythmic tapping.
“‘Churning, churning, churning all the live-long day,’” Ned sang,
keeping time to the beats. Leaning over he took hold of the handle,
closed his hand over hers, and continued the singing. She joined in the
second part, and laughingly enacted the rôle of the milk-maid where the
sheriff aims to instruct Guy of Gisbond into the mysteries of courting.
The scene ends with the sheriff drawing closer and closer until he
turns to implant a kiss on the dairy-maid.
Gorgas ducked half-successfully, and gave the timidest imitation of
a slap. In the wrestling that ensued she became somewhat flushed and
disheveled, and Ned’s soft collar was wrenched quite buttonless; so
that, although the warning of Mrs. Levering and her guest returning
gave ample time for a quick recovery of the mallet, it allowed no
opportunity for anything else.
“My dear,” the mother’s voice was solicitous, “I’m afraid you’re
working too hard this morning. Don’t overdo it. You look positively
done up. Don’t you think you had better lie down and rest, dear?”