BENEATH DEAD LEAVES
The cold March rain drove steadily against the car window. His thoughts
were like that,--cold, ugly, driving thoughts. Looking out at the bleak
country through which they were passing he saw that dead leaves were
hanging forlornly to bare trees. His hopes were like that,--a few dead
hopes clinging dismally to the barren tree of experience. So it seemed to
Dr. Parkman as he looked from the car window at the country of hills and
hollows through which he was passing. The out-lived winter's snow still
in the hollows, last summer's leaves blown meaninglessly about, denied
even the repose of burial, the cheerless wind and the cheerless rain--it
matched his mood.
Almost a year had gone by, and Dr. Parkman was going out to see
Ernestine. Every mile which brought him nearer, brought added uncertainty
as to what he should say when he reached her. What was there for him to
say? The dead leaves of her hopes were all huddled in the hollow. Was he
becoming so irrational as to think he could give life to things dead? Was
she not right in wishing to cover them up decently and let them be? Was
anything to be gained in blowing them about as last summer's leaves were
being blown about now by the unsparing, uncaring winds of March?
She was out where she had lived as a girl,--living in the very house
which had once been her home. He had understood her going. It was the
simple law of living things. The animal wounded beyond all thought of
life seeks only a place of seclusion.
But when Georgia returned from her visit to Ernestine the month before,
she came to him with:
"Dr. Parkman, you _must_ do something for Ernestine!" And after she had
told him many things, and he questioned still further, she said, in
desperate desire to make it plain--"She is becoming a great deal like
you!"
And from then until the time of starting on this trip he had had no
peace.
He understood; understood far more deeply than she who would have him
see. Was any one better qualified to understand that thing than he?
Well,--what then? What now? Was there any other thing to expect? Was he,
of all men, going to her with platitudes about courage and faith? And
even so, would sophistry avail anything? Did he not know Ernestine far
too well far that?
His own face bore the deep marks of hard and bitter things. But the loss
and the sorrow showed themselves in strange ways, little understood as
manifestations of grief. He ran his automobile faster, showed even less
caution than before in his business ventures, had less and less to say,
was called more and more strange by those associated with him. And the
thing which mocked him most of all was that the year had been attended
with the greatest professional successes of his life. He never heard his
plaudits sounded without a curse in his heart.
"It went mighty hard with Parkman not to be able to save Hubers," medical
men said with growing frequency as the year advanced. But there were none
of them who dreamed into what deep and vital things the cut had gone.
With his own will and his own skill he patched it up on the surface, not
the man to leave his wound exposed to other eyes. But he knew its
hopelessness too well ever to try and reach the bottom of the wound. It
was not a good, clean, straight cut such as time expects to heal. Indeed
it was not a cut at all; nothing so wholesome and reachable as that. It
was a destroying force, a thing burrowing at the springs of life, a thing
which made its way through devious paths to vital sources. Did a patched
up surface mean anything to a thing like that?
The evening of the day he had seen Georgia, and she told him of
Ernestine, he sat a long time in his office alone. The grey ashes of his
own life seemed spread around him. And it was he, who was asked, out of
this, to rekindle a great flame? And what flame? What was there left for
Ernestine? Ask her to come back--to what? Fight--for what?
He did not know, or at least he said he did not know, and yet he, like
Georgia, saw it as all wrong, unendurable, not to be countenanced, that
Ernestine should shut herself out from life.
Perhaps he was going to her because he knew so well the desolation of
ashes. Was it because he had lived so long among them that he hated to
see another fire go out? Could it be that a man who had dwelt long among
ashes knew most surely the worth of the flame?
He had reached the end of his journey. He had come to the western college
town for which he had set out. From the window he could see some of the
college buildings. Yes, this was the place.
He rose and put on his coat. A few minutes later he was standing on the
station platform, watching the on-going train. Then he turned, with
decision, in the direction Georgia had bade him go.