CRUMBLING CASTLES
At the foot of the garden Beulah paused irresolute, the suit-case
swinging gently in her hand. She had made no plans for the decisive
step events of the day had forced upon her, but the step itself she
felt to be inevitable. She was not in love with Jim Travers; she had
turned the whole question over in her mind that afternoon, weighing
it with judicial impartiality, supposing all manner of situations to
try out her own emotions, and she had come to the conclusion that
Travers was merely an incident in her life, a somewhat inspiring
incident, perhaps, but an incident none the less. The real thing--the
vital matter which demanded some exceptional protest--was the narrow
and ever narrowing horizon of her father, a horizon bounded only by
material gain. Against this narrowing band of outlook her vigorous
spirit, with its dumb, insistent stretchings forth to the infinite,
rebelled. It was not a matter of filial duty; it was not a matter of
love; to her it was a matter of existence. She saw her ideals dimly
enough at best, and she would burst every cord of affection and
convention rather than allow them to be submerged in the grey,
surrounding murk of materialism.
Perhaps it was custom and the subtle pullings of association that
drew her feet down the path across the bench to the edge of the
stream that gurgled gently in the still night. She stood on the
gravel by the water's edge, packed firm by the wagon-wheels of
twenty-five years, and watched her image as it swayed gently in the
smoothly running current. There was no moon, but the stars shone down
in their midnight brilliance, and the water lay white and glistening
against the black vagueness of the bushy banks. She stooped and let
it fondle her fingers. It was warm and smooth...But it was shallow at
the ford...Farther up it was quite deep... The stars blinked a
strange challenge from the sky, as though to say, "Here is the tree
of knowledge, if you dare to drink thereof."
At length she turned her back on the stream and retraced her steps up
the path. The house loomed very sombre and still in the quiet night.
A light shone dimly from her father's window. At intervals a deep,
contented sighing came from the cows in the barnyard. She took the
path past the house and down to the corral, where she paused, her ear
arrested by the steady drone of milking. A lantern sitting on the
black earth, cast a little circle of light, and threw a docile cow in
dreadful silhouette against the barn. And by that dim light Beulah
discerned the bent form of her mother, milking.
"Mother, this is too much!" the girl exclaimed.
Her mother started and looked up. "You're leaving us, Beulah?" she
asked. There was no reproach in her voice, nor even surprise, but a
kind of quiet sorrow. "I couldn't let the poor brutes suffer," she
explained.
"Yes, I'm leaving," said Beulah. "I can't stand it any longer."
The mother sighed. "I've seen it coming for some time," she said, at
length. "I suppose it can't be helped."
"You're so passive," returned the girl, with a touch of impatience.
"You make me want to fight. Of course it can be helped, but it can't
be helped by always giving in."
"Your father has met one of his own mettle at last," said the mother,
and the girl fancied she detected a note of pride, but whether of
father, or daughter, or both, she could only guess. "Well, it's all
very sad. Your father is a good man, Beulah...I should send you back
to your bed, but somehow I can't. I--I don't blame you, Beulah."
She had finished the last cow. Beulah helped with the pails of milk,
and the two women went back to the house together. When Mary had
washed her hands she took her daughter's face between her palms and
kissed her on the cheeks. Slowly Beulah's arms stole about her neck,
and it took all the steel in her nature to prevent surrender.
"It's not you I'm going from," she managed to say. "You understand
that, don't you? I'll write to you often, and we'll surely meet
before long...But I've just got to. There's no other way out."
"Stay till morning, Beulah. Your father may be disposed to give and
take a little then, and you'll do the same, won't you?...Oh, my girl,
don't break up our home like this!"
"You can't break up what you haven't got. Aside from you, why should
I call this place home? I work here, and get my board and clothes.
Well, I can work other places, and get my board and clothes. If I've
got to be a cog in a money-making machine, I will at least choose the
machine."
"What plans have you made? Where are you going?"
"Haven't made any plans, and don't know where I'm going. But I'm
going. At present that's enough. The plans will come along as they're
needed."
"Have you any money?" asked the mother, with a brisk effort at
cheerfulness. She was already planning for her daughter in the new
world she was about to enter.
"Enough to start me. That's all I need. I can earn more. It's not
work I'm afraid of, although I suppose father won't be able to see it
that way. He'll put all this down to laziness and obstinacy. It's
neither. It's just a plain human craving to _live_."
"I sometimes wonder whether I'll be able to stand it through to the
end," her mother whispered, somewhat fearfully, as though frightened
by the admission. "I've--I've seen it coming with you, and I can't
help feeling that perhaps this is only the beginning."
"Oh, mother, if you should!" cried the girl. "That would do it--that
would open his eyes. He'd see then that there is something in the
world besides wheat and cows, after all. You know, I think he's in a
kind of trance. He's mesmerized by wheat. It was so necessary in
those first years, when he was fighting against actual starvation,
that it has become a kind of mania. Nothing short of some great shock
will bring him out of it. If you would come--if you would only come
too, things would be different."
"But I couldn't do that," said the mother, after a silence, and as
though speaking with herself. "He's my husband, Beulah. You don't
understand."
They talked then, in secret, sorrowful confidence, of many things,
things for their ears only, and the grey was returning in the
northern sky when the girl again left the house, and this time swung
resolutely down the road that led to Plainville. Her heart was now at
rest, even at peace. In the sacred communion of that last hour she
had come to see something of her mother's problem and sacrifice; and
although she was going out into the world alone, she felt that
somewhere, some time, was a solution that would reunite the broken
family and tune their varying chords in harmony. The North star shone
very brightly amid the myriad finer points of light that filled the
heavens. She raised her face to the cold rays. The stars had always a
strange fascination for her. Their illimitable distances, their
infinite number, their ordered procession--all spelled to her a
Purpose--a Purpose that was bigger than wheat and land and money, a
Purpose that was life, the life for which she groped vaguely but
bravely in the darkness.
From an unhappy sleep in his room upstairs John Harris was awakened
by the whine of the cream separator. A quiet smile stole across his
strong, still handsome face. "Beulah has decided to be sensible," he
whispered to himself.
***
In the morning the Harris household was early as usual. The farmer
and his son gave their attention to the horses while Mary prepared
breakfast, and it was not until they were seated at the table that
Harris noticed his daughter's absence.
"Where's Beulah?" he demanded.
"I don't know," his wife replied.
"Ain't she up yet?"
"I don't know."
Harris rose from the table and went upstairs. He entered his
daughter's room without knocking. The bed had not been slept in, and
a strange apprehension suddenly tightened about his chest. He
returned quickly to the kitchen.
"Mary," he said, "I want to know where Beulah is."
"I can't tell you where she is, John. She left here last night."
"Left here? Do you mean that she has run away?"
"Not just that, perhaps, but she has gone, and I'm not looking for
her back for a while." The mother's voice was dry, and she talked in
the restraint of subdued emotion.
"And you knew she was going?"
"I knew before she left. I didn't--"
"No. You didn't think it was worth mentioning to me. Just a matter we
could talk about any time. I suppose you thought I wouldn't care."
"Well, you didn't seem to care very much, John. You gave your orders
and went to bed. Beulah could obey or get out. You might have known
she had enough of your own spirit to soon settle that question. She
settled it just as you would have settled it if you had been in her
place."
"Oh, of course, I'm to blame for the whole thing," said Harris, and
his throat was thick as he spoke. His daughter was very dear to him,
and that she would leave home had never entered his head. Why should
she? Wasn't he a good father? Didn't he give her a good home, with
plenty to eat and wear, and a little money to spend from time to
time, and no questions asked? What more could a man do than that?
Already his heart was crying out for his daughter--the cry of broken
strings which never knew their strength until they broke. But to show
any emotion, or to express regret for anything he had done, meant
surrender, and if there was one thing John Harris could not do it was
surrender. Not that he felt he had done anything wrong, or even
imprudent; he was sincerely sorry for what had happened, but not for
his part in it. And, lest gentleness should be mistaken for weakness,
he clothed his real feelings in sharp words to his wife.
"Of course, you must take her part. I suppose you advised her to go.
It was an awful thing for me to tell her she must do her work, but a
small thing for her to run away. Well, I hope she likes it. If she
thinks I'm going to hitch up a buggy and go chasing around the
neighbourhood, begging her to come back, she's mistaken. She's gone
of her own free will, and she can come back of the same, or not at
all."
"I wouldn't look for her back too soon," remarked Allan. "Looks to me
as though this thing had all been figured out ahead. Jim went
yesterday morning; Beulah goes last night. Just a chance if they
ain't married by this time."
"So that's it, is it?" exclaimed Harris, jumping up from his
untouched breakfast. There was a fierce light in his eye and a
determination in his face that boded ill to any who opposed him. He
seized his wife roughly by the shoulder. "And you were a party to
this, were you? You--you wouldn't even stop at that? Well, I'll stop
it. I'll stop him, if I do it with a bullet. I'll show him whether
any--any--_hired man_--can cross me in a matter of my own family."
His wife had risen, and was clinging to his wrists, half for
protection, half in suppliance. "Now, John," she pleaded, "don't be
rash. You don't know that Beulah's gone with Jim, and you haven't a
word of proof of it."
"Proof! What more proof do I want? When did ever Beulah carry on like
this before? Didn't she always do as she was told? And haven't they
been thick as molasses this while back? Wasn't it over wasting time
with her that Jim got fired, and not a word of admission of the real
facts from him? What more do you want than that? And on top of it all
you help her away, and keep it a secret from me as long as you can. I
daresay you knew their plans from the first. You thought I wouldn't
be interested in that, either."
"I didn't know it," she protested, "and I don't believe it. I don't
believe either Beulah or Jim had any such thought in their head. But
even if they did, Jim Travers is as decent a young man as there is in
Plainville district, and you've nothing to be ashamed of except your
own temper, that drove them away in the way they went."
"I won't listen to that kind of talk from you any longer," said
Harris sternly. "I'll chase the young reprobates to earth, if it
takes all summer. And unless you can clear yourself of being mixed up
in this--well, there'll be something to settle on that score, too.
Hitch up the drivers, Allan, and be quick about it."
"You're not going to leave your ploughing, are you?" asked his wife.
The words sprang to her lips without any misintent. It was such an
unusual thing for her husband, on any account, to leave the farm work
unfinished. The practice on the Harris homestead was work first, all
other considerations second.
"That's enough of your sarcasm," he snapped. "I would think when our
name is threatened with a disgrace like this you would be as anxious
to defend it as I am. How is it you go back on me in a moment like
this? You're not the woman you once were, Mary."
"And you're not the man you once were, John," she answered. "Oh,
can't you see that we're just reaping what has been sown--the crop
we're been raising through ail these years? Beulah's very life has
been crying out for action, for scope, for room, for something that
would give her a reason for existence, that would put a purpose into
her life, and we've not tried to answer that cry. I blame myself as
much as you, John, perhaps more, because I should have--read her
heart--I should have seen the danger signals long ago. But I was so
busy, I didn't think. That's the trouble, John, we've been so busy,
both of us, we haven't taken time to keep up with her. The present
generation is not the past; what was enough for you and me isn't
enough for our children. It doesn't do any good to scold--scolding
doesn't change conditions; but if we'd stopped and thought and
studied over them we might have changed them--or cured them. We
didn't, John; you were too busy with your wheat and your cattle, and
I was too busy with my house-work, and what have we made of it? We've
gathered some property together, and our cares have grown in
proportion, but that which was more to us than all the property in
the world we have lost--because we valued it less." The tears were
slowly coursing down her cheeks, and her thin, work-worn arms were
stealing about his neck. "Don't think, dear," she whispered, "that
I'm indifferent, or that this hurts me less than you, or that I would
shield myself from one iota of my just blame, but let us face the
fact that it has been our mistake rather than Beulah's."
He removed her arms, not ungently. "I never thought it would come to
this," he said. "I thought I humoured her every way I could. As for
our hard work--well, work makes money, and I noticed Beulah could
spend her share. There was no protesting about the work that earned
the money when she wanted a new hat or a new dress, and she generally
got what she wanted."
"You don't understand, John. It wasn't the work, it was the making a
god of work, and giving it so much of our lives that there was none
left for her. That's why she looked somewhere else--if she has looked
somewhere else."
"Allan works as hard and harder than ever Beulah did, and Allan
doesn't feel that way about it."
"That's true," she admitted, "but Allan's ambition is work. He works
and is satisfied, but Beulah thinks, and is not satisfied. It's the
difference in their nature, and we didn't take it into
consideration." In every phrase she tried to link his blame with
hers, that the burden might unite instead of separate them.
"If she'd thought a little more before this mad prank it would have
been better for everybody," he said, "Well, she'll have plenty of
time to think yet." He stepped to the kitchen door, and from the nail
above took down the repeating-rifle.
"You're not going to take that!" she cried. "Don't take that, John.
It can't possibly do any good, and it may do a lot of harm."
"I won't do anything foolish," he answered, "but I'll take it along,
just the same."
Allan, with the drivers harnessed to the top buggy, was now at the
door. Without saying good-bye to his wife Harris joined him, and the
two set off on their search. Almost at the gate they met George
Grant, who had come over to haul water for another day's ploughing.
He stopped in some surprise at the turnout.
"I guess we won't be ploughing to-day," said Harris. He hesitated
before George's questioning look, and a certain sense of family shame
came upon him. But it was evident that he could hardly search for
Beulah without mentioning her departure, and he might as well make a
clean breast of the affair.
"Nothing wrong at home, I hope, Mr. Harris?" said the young
neighbour, noting his troubled appearance. "Nobody sick, or
anything?"
"Yes, there is something wrong," said Harris, trying vainly to
conceal the bitterness in his voice. "Beulah's left us."
"Who, Beulah? I can hardly believe that, Mr. Harris. It was only last
night I was talking with her."
"Well, she's gone. Left through the night. We--well, I'll tell you,
George--we had a little disagreement, but I'd no notion she'd take it
so much to heart. Of course you know about the trouble with Jim
yesterday. Taking everything together--there won't be no ploughing
to-day." Harris had said more than he meant; he could feel the colour
mounting into his hair, and the bad English of his last words
betrayed a subtle recklessness rather than carelessness of speech.
"Don't you believe a word of it," said George. "I know Jim, and I
know Beulah, and if anybody else hinted what you've said you'd want
to use that rifle on them. Like enough Beulah's staying somewhere
around the neighbourhood, and she'll be back when she has time to
think it over."
"That proves you _don't_ know Beulah," said Allan. "As for Jim, I was
never able to get below that smile, and I saw more of him than you
did, George."
"Well, I hope you find a way out," said George, sincerely. "It would
have been like her to come over to our place, but she isn't there.
Maybe you'll find her at Morrison's."
"That's possible," said Harris. "We'll go over there, anyway."
But Morrisons knew no more of Beulah's whereabouts than did George,
and inquiry at other homes in the neighbourhood was equally futile.
Harris shrank from carrying his search into the town, as he dreaded
the publicity that would be attached to it. He was a subscriber,
somewhat in arrears, to the local paper, and by calling on the editor
and squaring up for a year in advance he could probably make himself
solid in that quarter, but the gossip of the villagers could not be
silenced by any such simple method. But as the day wore on and the
search continued fruitless he finally found himself in Plainville. If
Beulah and Jim were really married the Presbyterian minister would be
likely to know something of the matter, and the Rev. Andrew Guthrie
was a man of sense and discernment. Harris had frequently gone to
hear him preach before the labours of the farm had grown to their
present magnitude, and he even yet contributed five dollars a year to
the stipend.
Mr. Guthrie received his guest cordially, albeit with some wonderment
as to which member of the family might be sick, but delicacy forbade
a direct question. Now, in agricultural communities it is something
of an offence to approach any matter of importance by frontal attack.
There must be the due amount of verbal skirmishing, reconnoitering,
and out-flanking before the main purpose is revealed. Consequently,
Harris, for all his torture of suspense, spent some minutes in a
discussion of the weather, the crops, and the prospect of a labour
shortage in harvest.
"They'll be all well at home, I hope?" said Mr. Guthrie at length,
feeling that the custom of the community had been sufficiently
honoured.
"Yes, all that's there," said Harris.
"All that's there? I didn't know any of your folks were away. Perhaps
Mrs. Harris is down East? I'm sure a summer amid the orchards of her
old home would be a delight to her, and, of course, Mr. Harris, you
are able to gratify yourself in these little matters now. Things are
not what they were in the early days, Jack, when I preached in Tom
Morrison's log-house, and you led the bass at the services. I'll
warrant that voice of yours could sing yet if you gave it a chance."
Harris received these remarks with a mixture of feelings. The
minister's reference to his financial standing carried with it a
certain gratification, but it consorted poorly with his recent
conversations with his wife and with his present mission.
"And Beulah?" continued the minister, conscious that his first shot
had gone wild. "She's a fine young woman now. I see her in church
occasionally. In fact, I was speaking with Mrs. Burton, the choir
leader, a day or so ago, and Beulah's name was mentioned between us."
"It was about Beulah I came to see you," said Harris, with averted
eyes. Then in a few words he gave his version of what he knew and
what he suspected.
"I fear I can add nothing to your information," said Mr. Guthrie.
"They haven't been here, and, as you say, if Beulah contemplated
marriage I think she would have called on me. Travers, too, I knew a
little, and thought him a decent chap. But we must find the girl and
talk this over quietly with her. Is there any place in town she would
be likely to go to? What about Mrs. Goode's boarding-house? I will
just call up on the telephone. I can make inquiry without the
necessity of any explanations."
Inquiry at the house of Mrs. Goode brought a strong ray of light out
of the darkness. Beulah had been there during the morning, and had
explained that she was leaving on the west-bound train, which even
now was thrumming at the station. On learning this, without a word,
Harris sprang into the buggy, while Allan brought a sharp cut of the
whip across the spirited horses. They reached the railway station
half a minute too late; the train was already pulling out, and as
Harris's eyes followed it in anger and vexation they plainly saw Jim
Travers swing lithely on to the rear platform.
With an oath the farmer reached for his rifle, but Allan wrenched it
from his hands before any onlookers noted the action. "Don't be a
fool," he whispered, and started the horses homeward.