GUNS AND STRING BEANS
"Claire darling--
"Almost two weeks since I wrote to you. Will you love me any more?
"As I write I am all alone on the edge of a very little pool of light
reflected from my little lamp that was only intended to see me into bed
and not to burn half the night through while I write to my pal.
"Is this summer night as perfect where you are, Claire? (Tush--you've
probably been playing tennis and dancing and flirting until you are too
exhausted to care about anything except the breakfast bell disturbing
you.) But up here it's _wonderful_! The sky is blue-black velvet, all
studded with stars that seem suspended--they are so very close. And
the air just caresses you! And there are the sweetest smells, grassy
and earthy and all fragrant of roses. There are queer little noises,
too--as though the night was full of fairy creatures. And I heard a
whip-or-will! And a screech-owl, way, way off.
"Since I wrote to you last I have 'put my foot in it' again! Terribly!
It's too long a story to write to you--there isn't nearly oil enough
for that--but I skated over the thin ice and reached safety--in other
words, I am still here! And, Nancy, I know, now, even Aunt Sabrina is
beginning to like me! Do you know why? Because I lost my head and
told her what I thought was the matter with her and Happy House and I
don't suppose anyone _dared_ to tell her that before. (I called her
Leavitt traditions tommy-rot.) And I think she _enjoyed_ the
sensation! Anyway, she seems to treat me now like Somebody and she
said something the other day about how lovely the autumns were on the
Island, as though she took it for granted I'd be here then!
"Claire, what if I can _never_ get away? Did I dream, when I took
Anne's shoes (to speak in figures) and put them on, where they'd lead
me? And sometimes I think that I will not see the end of the trail for
a long time. I'm not crazy to see it, either, for it _must_ end in
Disaster!
"I am beginning to understand these people, too. I--in my usual way,
judged them too quickly! One must know their history to know
them--know what a splendid background they have. Aunt Sabrina has
taken up Ezekiel where she left off and tells me stories about the
Champlain Valley. Of course, I know she is doing it, because I called
the Leavitt glories 'tommy-rot' and when I read, in B'lindy's book
(gotten up, of course, to bait tourists) what these Islanders _have_
done, I feel cheap and small and insignificant beside all these people
who have such heroic grandfathers and great grandfathers.
"I suppose, all over the world, Island people must be different from
people whose lands lie directly contingent with other lands and people.
The very waters that shut away these precious Hero Islands wash their
lives back upon themselves--they live in--they can't help it. The
world that rushes on so fast for us, living in the big cities, scarcely
stirs them here! These folks talk about Ethan Allen and Remembrance
Baker as though it was only yesterday they walked down under the elms
of the village street! They all eat off from very old china and sit in
very old chairs--precious because some hero dear to the Island has sat
in them!
"(All of this is not original with me--The Hired Man said it.)
"So just as I finished grandly saying to Aunt Sabrina that it didn't
matter at _all_ what the people, who are dead and gone, have done, I'm
beginning to see--like a picture opened before my eyes--that it _does_
matter--quite a little! They, these dead and gone people, leave us
what they have done; if it's bad, we have to pay for it, some way or
other--if it's noble, we have to be worthy of it! _That_ philosophy is
all mine and not the Hired Man's.
"There are a great many things about the aforesaid Hired Man (I never
think of him as that) that perplex me. He is a great big riddle. He
is more interesting than any one I ever met before. I wish you were
here so we could talk him over the way we used to the Knights of the
Pink Parlor. That he is good looking is not what seems so queer,
because I suppose there _are_ good-looking hired men as well as
good-looking street car conductors or undertakers. He is so
understandable--he is like you and Anne and Dad. And he knows so much
about everything! He must have gone to college--he talks just like a
college man. But once when I hinted he smiled and told me that he was
'still a student in the college of Experience, where after all one
could learn more than at even the great universities.'
"He is Mysterious. After I've been with him I plan it all out--what he
must have been and why he fell to the level of this sort of work; then
the next time I see him he says something that makes me change all my
ideas. I am sure he is concealing something--he simply will not say
one word about himself! I don't believe it's anything as bad as murder
or forgery or--anything like that, because he has such honest eyes, and
they look right straight through you. It's probably some sorrow or--or
disappointment. Sometimes his eyes look very tired, as though they had
seen some terrible tragedy, though mostly always they're just jolly.
"He's wonderful with Nonie and Davy--they adore him. He thinks of so
many nice things for them to do. He says once he was a scoutmaster in
the Boy Scouts. I think he almost gave something away then, for, after
he said it, he looked so funny and wouldn't say another word.
"He treats me as though I was another boy just a little older than
Davy. And after the silly men we knew in college it's a relief to find
anyone like Peter Hyde, even though he is a hired man. I suppose it's
because he's probably had a hard time--has had to make his way, he's
had all the nonsense knocked out of him! I am sure, if one could teach
him to dance and then set him down in the middle of your mother's
living-room you'd all go crazy over him. Now isn't that some Hired
Man? Dear me, I spend more time wondering about him! Then I laugh at
myself. Do you remember the Russian who came to college last year--how
we all thought he must be a Russian prince and then we found out he'd
been born on the Lower East Side?"
* * * * *
There were other doubts concerning Peter Hyde that Nancy did _not_
confide to Claire. For the past two years and more, in Nancy's honest
soul, all men between twenty-one and forty were divided into two
classes; those who had gone over to France and those who had not. If
Peter Hyde _had_ gone there was nothing in any act or word that
signified it; if he had _not_ gone, why not? Was _that_ what he was
hiding?
She had resorted, feeling very contemptible as she did so, to little
traps to draw him out, but he had invariably escaped them--sometimes
changing the subject abruptly, other times openly laughing and saying
nothing. Very much against her will she felt growing within her a
contempt for him; almost a dislike of his personal appearance, so
obviously healthy and able to have fought for his country! And yet,
loyalty had kept her from confiding this to Claire.
A sense of fairness, too, urged her to give Peter the benefit of the
doubt until she knew. "I'll just ask him," she decided resolutely.
"I'll ask him right out--the very first chance I get!"
The opportunity to learn the truth had come on the very afternoon
following the night she had written to Claire. Nonie and Davy had not
appeared for a swim, so Peter had suggested a walk. He wanted Nancy to
go over, with him, the new work he had started on the Judson ten-acre
piece, the improvements in the barns, the rotary gardens.
It was the first time that Peter Hyde had talked much about his work.
Nancy, who would have said turnips grew on bushes, for all she knew,
found herself, under his instruction, suddenly absorbed in the
scientific growing of beans and corn and potatoes; in the making of one
strip of garden produce three different food products in rotation; in
irrigation and drainage; in sanitary stables and electrically lighted
chicken houses.
"You know there's poetry in these growing things," Peter cried, waving
his hand out over the tender stalks of corn. "You get all the Art you
want! Can you find anywhere a more wonderful picture than that waving
field of oats--pale green against that sky? And in a few weeks it'll
be yellow. See that lettuce green, too. And music--you can stand in a
field of corn when the wind is blowing a little and you will hear a
symphony!"
Nancy, surprised, watched his glowing face with interest Here was
indeed a new side of the Hired Man! He went on:
"And business, say, there's a practical side to this farming that ought
to satisfy any man. Wits, science, strategy, instinct, plain
common-sense--it's all as necessary right here as in the biggest
business concern in the world. And if a fellow wants a _fight_--well,
he has it when he goes up against Mother Earth. We're used to thinking
of her as kindly, generous, lavishing her favors! I've had another
picture--she's worse than a Czar! She's exacting, she's moody, she's
undependable, at times. I suppose she does it to try out her
children--but anyway, the farmer has to fight every minute!"
He stopped suddenly. "I'm boring you to death, maybe!" He laughed
apologetically. "It's always been a hobby of mine--this working with
the earth. I never thought I'd do anything with it--until the war!
Then I realized how much a nation's prosperity depends upon how its
soil is used. And that's where our government's been short-sighted.
They haven't paid enough attention to the small farmers. Of course,
they try out some good things and publish bulletins, but the farmers
ought to _know_ how, by certain scientific changes, the productiveness
of the land can be doubled! Take Judson, here. He's been farming this
whole place just the way his grandfather did before him! He's read
about new-fangled things, but he's afraid to try them--he doesn't know
how to begin! Think how many Judsons there are all over the world! So
I'm trying to show him by actually working out some experiments I've
tested. If it's a success, if his account at the bank at North Hero
shows it at the end of the season--why, there isn't anything Judson
will be afraid to try. And think what it would mean to this country if
it had a million farmers like Judson! And see how easily they can be
shown!"
Nancy's face was alight with enthusiasm. With her vivid imagination
she pictured a glorious army of Peter Hydes going out over the land,
rescuing the poor farmers, putting new weapons into their hands!
"It's wonderful! And it's--brave!" she added, "because it isn't as if
you went off with a whole lot of others with bands and flags flying!"
She was suddenly struck with remorse that she had, in her heart, so
wronged Peter Hyde! She had thought him a slacker when he had
shouldered the harder task! Something in the earnestness still
reflected on his face made her own her guilt.
"I can't be glad _enough_ you've told me all this! I didn't know! I
never lived in the country. I just thought things to eat grew up any
old way. And all this time I have been thinking horrid things about
you because I thought you hadn't gone to war! I thought, maybe, you
were way off up here to escape the feeling everyone had for slackers!
You can imagine, now, when I see what you really _are_ doing, how
ashamed I feel! Will you forgive me?"
Peter's frank amusement made Nancy feel very uncomfortable and small.
But then she deserved it! He held out his hand as a sign of his
forgiveness. There was still laughter in his eyes as he regarded her.
"I suppose that was very natural! Most of the young fellows you know
must have gone over!" he said, seriously enough.
She wanted very much to tell him of her father--how he had followed the
men over the top; how he had worked day after day getting the stories
back to the people at home and spent night after night tracing the
"missing," or writing letters for the boys who never got further back
than the first dressing-stations and who wanted mothers and fathers and
sweethearts to know that they'd had their chance and had made the most
of it! But she couldn't, for she was supposed to be Anne and Anne's
father had died when she was a little girl.
She told him of a few of the college men she had known, who had gone,
eagerly, at the first call.
"They didn't even want to wait to get commissions! _They_ just wanted
to fight!"
The revelation of Peter Hyde made her think of Claire's brother. She
told him about Claire and Anne--she called Anne, vaguely, "another
girl." "Claire's a darling and we just love her, but we can't _abide_
her brother! Of course it's not reasonable, because we've never laid
eyes on him, but we've heard enough from Claire to know just what he's
like. I suppose the war made a few like him--he was brave enough over
there and lucky to have all his recommendations recognized, but it made
him _so_ conceited! He came back here and just strutted around,
everywhere. Claire says her mother's friends used to have _teas_ for
him--he'd go to them and speak and show his medals! Claire was mad
over him. She was so disappointed because I came here instead of going
to Merrycliffe. But I couldn't see myself spending my time petting her
beloved Lion! I knew I'd be rude and say just what I thought."
Nancy and Peter were sitting upon the stump of a tree near the cliff.
Peter suddenly rose and walked to the edge--his back square to Nancy.
After a moment he turned.
"Thought I heard something down there," he explained, at her
questioning glance. "Don't blame you for disliking that sort--like
Claire's brother! They're a rummy kind! I had a friend a lot like
him. But--maybe, it wasn't all his fault--about the teas and things!
Maybe his mother got 'em started and he didn't want to hurt her!"
It was like Peter Hyde, so gentle with children and animals, to stand
up now for even Barry Wallace's kind.
"You're just like Dad," Nancy cried warmly, then stopped, a little
frightened. But of course Peter had not been in Freedom long enough to
know anything about the Leavitts.
He bowed with great ceremony, one hand over his heart.
"If Dad's like daughter, I thank you for the compliment. Now, if you
will linger longer with me I'd like to show you Mrs. Sally and her
babies. Sally is my experimental pig. I've built a piggery for her
with a plunge and a sunken garden, and if you don't declare that Sally
enjoys such improved surroundings, I'll know my whole summer's work's a
failure."
Nancy walked over the rough ground toward the barns with a light heart.
She had a delightful sense of being "pals" with this new Peter
Hyde--who, while the Barry Wallaces were swaggering around with their
medals, was up here in an out-of-the-way corner of the nation, fighting
a new sort of a fight! He actually _wanted_ her approval of his new
piggery!