ESTHER was standing by the rim of a clear pool in the woods, gazing
down into the water. Her big hat was weighted with cockle blooms that
she had gathered in coming through the wheat. In this natural mirror
she could see that a stem here was too long, another there was turned
the wrong way to look well. With both hands to her head she was intent
upon regulating the effect to please her eye. Turning her head first
to one side, then another, she smiled at herself, impulsive, always
in motion, quick as a wren. The water was so clear that one could see
the last year’s leaves lying at its depths. It was deep and sloped
toward the center. Inverted it would look like a mound where children
are told that Indians are buried, when the one can think of no other
excuse for its grave-like appearance. This pool went by the name of
“Indian Well.” Esther had no thought but that she was alone, until she
saw an image, a serious young face, reflected there, with soft, brown
beard and hair, and deep eyes that wore a languid, meditating look. He
stooped and dipped his curved hand into the surface and was raising it
to his lips. Suddenly, instinctively, she bounded to his side, dashing
the water from his hands before he could drink.
“Don’t you know there is fever in it?”
For a moment he looked at her in wonder.
“The fever,” he repeated, “what do you mean?”
“The germs of typhoid--I thought everybody knew that.”
“But you see I am not everybody,” he answered, laughing.
She looked at every feature of his face. “But didn’t you feel like it
the other night?”
This surprised him so that he had not made an answer when she went on:
“Everybody who has died of typhoid fever around here drank water out of
‘Indian Well.’ This is where they got the germ.”
“I was never here before. You are very good to warn me.” He looked at
her and she seemed so sweet and beautiful as she stood there, between
him and danger. Whether real or imagined, her motive was the same.
“Is your home near by?”
“I live with my grandpa in the white house on the road as you came up.”
“I didn’t come by the road; I came through by the wood-path from the
Curtises. I’m spending the summer there. What a pity this lovely spot
is poisoned, I am sorry; I might see you here again but for that. It
makes a pretty tryst,” he said.
“Sorry? Why? You don’t know me.”
This pleased him. He had found a refreshing creature. At the outset he
had thrilled at the prospect.
“Don’t I? You played once where I had the pleasure of hearing you. Your
name is Esther--Esther Powel.”
“Yes, and I have seen your face before I saw it in the water. They
called you ‘Glenn Andrews’ when they gave you the medal.”
She slowly looked him over from head to foot, and smiled as if in a
trance of joy. It was all so wonderful, so strange--this hero’s coming.
“But I am still ahead. You will never see me win laurels again,
perhaps, and I expect to hear you play many times.”
“Don’t be sure. It’s no use for me to play. People don’t seem to care
whether they hear it or not. I play for myself, because the sounds from
my violin seem to express what I feel.”
“But suppose I care?”
“Then I will play for you sometime, if we should meet again.”
“When could I get in your way?”
“Most any time.”
“Will you be home all summer?”
“Yes, and winter, too.” She laughed at his question.
“Let us sit down and rest a while together. I want to talk over the
pleasure that is in store for me.”
Little did he think as she agreed, and they sat down on an old log,
how much in later life and amidst different scenes, he was to lament
that circumstance. “I have always loved the country. It is so true, so
beautiful; I love it from the bottom of my heart.”
He lifted his face, drawing a deep breath; the air was clean and sweet
with the scent of growing things.
“Everything is beautiful that’s natural,” she said, touching the
beflowered hat. “I never even wear ‘bought’ flowers, because they are
only make-believes. I hate anything that is not sure-enough.”
“It’s a pretty idea. I wondered where you found this.”
“Just made it.”
She seemed to have grasped a good deal for her years.
“I see you have learned a way of your own in your travels.”
“Travels! I’ve never been out of this valley, but I have grandpa and my
mother and my dreams.”
“Your mother. I heard that your mother was dead,” he said, quietly.
“She isn’t as long as I am living,” was her answer.
Glenn Andrews looked at her. There was wisdom in the sentiment she
expressed. All the childishness had passed out of her face.
He hesitated, astonished. “I believe that, in a sense,” he said. “It is
my theory of fulfillment. What could spur us to higher destinies than
the belief that we were carrying out the hopes, the aims of someone we
loved--perpetuating their life through our own!”
“She wanted me to be a musician,” Esther began with a sudden dimness
in her eyes. “She was one until she had rheumatism in her arms. I’ve
strength and health to build on, something she lacked. My mother was an
invalid all her life after I was born.”
“Health is the most priceless gift in this world.”
For a time he forgot it was near the dinner hour. He was caught by the
witchery of the girl and the place.
He had expected to find nothing here but solitude and shade. The
adventure had been a delightful surprise to him.
As they got up from the log: “I shall expect you to keep your promise
about the music. Are you going my way?”
“No; mine is the opposite direction. I will play for you any time
because you want to hear me. Good-bye.”
Glenn Andrews looked after her, as she went her way. Here was a study--a
promise. All his life he had loved growth. Anything in the course of
development delighted and inspired him. He struck off up the path that
wound out of the woods into the field.
The scent of high summer was in the gold of the wheat. Running his
hands lightly over the bearded sheaves he whistled an air that was to
recall neither the genius that wrote it nor the hopes of his own work,
but the face of Esther Powel and the friendship thus begun, of which he
would never think lightly afterward.