STRATEGY AND GEOGRAPHY
Barnes’ position in the library was a strategic one. It gave him an
excuse for not venturing out on so fair a morning, after his usual hour
with Mr. Van Patten; it saved him from the necessity of lounging in the
sitting-room and so revealing too obviously his object in remaining
indoors; and it afforded him a point of vantage to intercept Miss
Van Patten from time to time as she passed up and downstairs on her
important housewifely missions. Incidentally it gave him time to muse
and still more incidentally to acquire a variety of statistics which he
hoped to use this evening as defense guns in the assault he anticipated
from Dr. Merriweather on his none too impregnable position. For Aunt
Philomela had astounded them both by announcing that she had asked the
doctor to dinner that evening. So far, Barnes had been successful in
evading the man, for from all he had heard he would find it no easy
matter to hoodwink this big-hearted country doctor.
He made his first sortie as Miss Van Patten passed the door on her
way with orders to the cook. She wore a small white apron as finely
embroidered as a muslin kerchief. In her hand she held a pad and
pencil. Any one could see with half a glance that she had no time to
waste.
“Oh, Eleanor,” he exclaimed, rushing out.
At sound of her name she grew confused and stopped as short as though
an emergency brake had been applied.
“I beg your pardon,” he stammered, not realizing until then the
impetuosity of his attack. “I beg your pardon, but Alaska contains five
hundred and eighty-six thousand square miles.”
“Really?”
“I thought you ought to know.”
“Perhaps I’d better write it down.”
She scribbled it on the top of her pad and later amazed the cook by
ordering five hundred and eighty-six thousand pounds of roast.
“It’s a surprising fact, isn’t it?” he exclaimed.
It certainly had surprised her if that is what he meant.
“I didn’t know Alaska was so large,” she admitted.
“Nor I. But it is. You can see it here on the map.”
He hurried back to the map and standing over it pointed
melodramatically in such a way that one could not help but examine
unless one wished to appear rude.
“It goes from here to here and here to here,” he explained as she came
nearer. “It was bought from Russia for seven million, two hundred
dollars. The deal proved that the nation had become essentially Yankee.
I think some of my ancestors must have been mixed up in it.”
“Your father is a business man?”
“The apotheosis of a business man. He reckons his age in fiscal years.
Business to his life is what the cook-stove is to the kitchen; it warms
and feeds him. Take it away and the world would contain nothing but
useless pots and kettles and a few raw materials. The only concession
he makes to Art is to put a scroll upon the cook-stove door. It was
from that scroll that I received my own humble inclination towards Art.”
“I’m afraid your father would think you wasting your time here,” she
said anxiously.
“My father thinks I waste all my time,” he assured her. “But that is
because he doesn’t know. I rather think he would give me credit for
doing a little better than usual at present.”
“I wish it were possible to return to him your kindness to my father.”
“Perhaps,” he faltered, “the opportunity will come.”
“If it would,” she cried eagerly.
“I’ll let you know if it does,” he replied.
She raised her eyes to his. Then she lowered them. For a fraction of a
second she felt as she had when the Dutch door closed upon her.
“I’m beginning to marvel,” he mused, “how often the little incidents
of life turn out to be the big ones. Every decision we make is like
drawing at straws held in the hand of Fate. The ends are all even and
we can’t tell until afterwards--years afterwards, perhaps--whether we
have drawn the short straw or the long straw.”
Without at all thinking what she was about, she wrote upon her pad,
“Long straw.”
“And we draw,” he concluded, “every minute of our lives.”
While her eyes were lowered upon the paper (she was working a scroll
about the sentence) he leaned forward a little. Three days ago Fate had
held out to him two straws; one was the road to the next village, the
other was the road to this house. He had drawn, he thought, the short
one, but was it so? Was it so?
“You make life seem such a breathless affair,” she was saying.
“It is such a wonderful affair,” he answered.
“It had always seemed to me here rather humdrum.”
“And now?”
“The sunsets,” she faltered, “the sunsets are such nesting-places of
fancies.”
“So is everywhere; so is this old library.”
“But the kitchen,” she put in quickly, “is a place of stern realities.
I must go at once.”
No one could leave more abruptly when her mind was upon it. Before he
had gathered his wits together she had gone.
“It is,” he determined with a sigh, “the curse of the cook-stove. The
Acme has worked its spell again.”
With the map before him, he settled himself to explore more in detail
this new country which lay immediately before him. In this the map
itself did not help him except to afford a convenient resting-place for
his elbows.
It was clear to him now that he had inadvertently stumbled upon
the center of the universe. It was rather odd that geographers had
neglected to point out so significant a feature. To the north lay the
North, to the south lay the South, to the east the East, to the west
the West. Start in any direction, continue in a straight line, and one
would come back here. It was a demonstrable fact. He had no doubt that
even if one pursued a circuitous and zigzag path, the result would be
the same. One could no more escape it than can the compass the magnetic
north. Had he himself not reached this point over that devious winding
course which started at his cradle?
He heard her footsteps and charged his guns with another fact.
“Do you know,” he announced as she approached the library door on her
way back upstairs, “do you know that Alaska is approximately as large
as all the United States east of the Mississippi river, if we subtract
the areas of Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, North Carolina,
and West Virginia?”
“Really?” she observed again.
“I suppose,” he reflected, “that if you subtracted some more, it would
then be twice as large as something else.”
“I suppose they wish to make it look as large as they can,” she
remarked.
“You can see it on the map,” he urged.
He crossed the room to the atlas and she had nothing to do again but
follow.
“All that pink space,” he announced as grandly as though he owned it.
“How interesting,” she murmured.
“There are a great many facts in a geography,” he declared, “which
aren’t generally known.”
“There are certainly a great many facts about Alaska which even
geographers don’t know,” she laughed.
“Also about this place. Geographers are very ignorant.”
“You didn’t expect to find Chester on the map.”
“But I _did_ find it,” he avowed.
“You did? May I see it?”
“Certainly. Take my place here.”
She seated herself in his chair and leaned forward expectantly.
“Now,” he instructed, “rest your elbows on the atlas and close your
eyes.”
“Oh,” she exclaimed in confusion at having fallen into his trap.
“One understands geography a great deal better with you in the room,”
he confessed.
“But I shouldn’t be in the room,” she cried. “I was on my way to Aunt.”
She rose at once, but this time he covered her retreat.
“Have you written down what I just told you?” he asked.
“I don’t think I shall write down any more,” she answered, remembering
the mistake she had made to the cook.
She was almost as tall as he and yet he could not see her eyes.
“Aunt is waiting for me,” she explained.
“That is a safe statement to make at any time, isn’t it?”
“But this is very important; I am to see about the dusting.”
“I don’t believe you can find any dust in the house.”
“But it is necessary to dust just the same.”
“Just as one prays when there isn’t anything to pray about,” he
suggested.
“Or talks when there isn’t anything to talk about,” she answered.
Whereupon he promptly stood aside and allowed her to pass.
At the door she turned.
“I didn’t mean that,” she apologized. “I’d stay if--”
He moved towards her. She ran upstairs.
It seemed an eternity before she appeared again. He hurried to the door.
“Alaska has a population of thirty-five thousand white people,” he
announced. “There are a lot of us up there.”
She was armed with a feather duster.
“I am to do the library,” she made the much more significant
announcement. “The servants are all busy.”
“There is nothing like giving the servants a great deal of work,” he
declared enthusiastically.
“While I’m doing this,” she remarked, “you may instruct me about
Alaska.”
She moved at once upon the book-case. Her arms were guarded by
sleeve-protectors of a pink and white apple-blossom design.
“You mustn’t think,” he made a beginning, “that gold is the only
interest there. In the fiscal year of 1908 the merchandise shipments
alone amounted to roughly twenty-six million, eight hundred and
seventy-five thousand, three hundred and seventy-three dollars.”
“What is a fiscal year?” she inquired.
“The sorriest of all years; the twelve month space between dollar
marks. I don’t remember that I ever had one.”
“I think Aunt Philomela must have them. I forgot to tell you that her
accounts came out right, in the end.”
“I had no doubt they would,” he said.
He watched her a moment.
“I wonder just what the economic value of stirring up dust is,” he
mused.
She turned upon him.
“You don’t want your library to look as though you never used it, do
you?”
“One might use a library,” he suggested, “without ever disturbing the
books.”
“It is a convenient place to practice in,” she admitted.
“Oh. Are you to practice your duets to-day?”
“I wrote Carl that I should be too busy. And he wished to play me his
new song.”
“At first I should have said it was impossible for him to write a song,
but now--I think I see how he does it.”
“He has a great deal of talent.”
“I liked the way his eyes lighted up at thought of a possible opera,”
he admitted frankly.
“He says he can’t think of you as a business man,” she laughed.
“Why not?”
“Because,” she faltered, “he says--you inspire him.”
“I?”
She nodded.
“But say--that’s odd. I wonder how _I_ inspire him?”
“He says you make him see the tragedy of those men up North. He says--”
she hesitated.
“Well?”
“He said he thought you must have had some big tragedy in your own
life.”
“Of what nature?” he inquired with interest.
“Some big disappointment.”
She appeared confused.
“Of what nature?” he persisted.
“Oh, I shouldn’t have told you. I don’t suppose I ought.”
He looked thoughtful.
“Some disappointment in love?” he questioned.
She nodded.
He drew a deep breath.
“Well,” he said, “he’s wrong.”
“Yes?” she asked indifferently.
“Absolutely. It may be in store for me, but it hasn’t come yet.”
“We can’t any of us tell what is in store for us,” she said quickly.
“No. It might be in store for him, too, mightn’t it?”
“For Carl?”
“I hope not,” he said soberly. “I think that must be the biggest
possible tragedy in anyone’s life.”
“So it isn’t very safe to go adventuring, is it?” she suggested.
“Safe? No. But it isn’t much of a man who won’t--for all that.”
“I have finished my dusting,” she announced, suddenly moving towards
the door.
“No,” he protested. “You oughtn’t to neglect those books in the corner.”
“You said they didn’t matter.”
“I have changed my mind.”
“Anyhow I can’t waste any more time.”
“Waste? Waste?” he exclaimed.
But she had gone.