ON THE WINGS OF THE MORNING
During the remainder of the summer the village of Harley's Mills went
into a sort of chrysalis state as befitted its coming change of name.
The fact that the Felton house had ceased to exist as a social centre
and that many of the Quality Hill folk had gone abroad added
considerably to its somnolence. Some of what are generally referred to
by the local press as "leading citizens" had under construction a brick
block on the Westboro side of the blacksmith shop in which the chief
trade interests of the place were to be sheltered, including the new
post-office.
Philip Angus continued with the Latimers, for his new house overlooking
the sea would not be ready before October, and if the rumor proved true
that Howell, the sculptor, was anxious to take Philip with him to winter
in Rome, it was unlikely that it would be occupied before spring.
Of course there was much speculation concerning the amount and
disposition of John Angus's property, especially his holdings in real
estate, for he owned some of the most sightly tracts in the township in
addition to the house and home acres on Windy Hill. Early in the autumn
a definite statement was given out concerning the latter by no less an
authority than Stephen Latimer. Poppea and Philip, agreeing that under
no circumstances could they live there, proposed to devote it to a
hospital and home for crippled children from the city, and the necessary
alterations began soon after.
It was almost Thanksgiving time when Miss Emmy and Poppea returned, Miss
Emmy going directly to the house on Quality Hill which she now called
home, Miss Felton and Caleb having moved Mr. Esterbrook back to Madison
Square at the beginning of cold weather. The village did not realize how
much it had missed them both until Poppea was again seen walking daily
up the road to Quality Hill, and Miss Emmy resumed her morning marketing
trips, where she sat in the barouche (the lining was now a durable
russet leather) dressed in very suitable and becoming brown with a
warming glint of color in the velvet rose on her bonnet, holding a sort
of court, whereat the butcher extolled the quality of his sweetbreads,
and the blacksmith's wife related the details of her rheumatism and her
husband's father's last seizure, with equal freedom.
Immediately after her return, Philip took Poppea to see the new house,
to which a music room with a place for an organ had been added to the
original plan by throwing out a wing to correspond with his studio. With
her arm about his shoulders they walked slowly through the rooms,
stopping before the picture that each window offered, until they came
to one on the second floor, a bay from which one might not only look out
to sea, but up the Moosatuck until it was lost in the hill-country.
"This is your room," he said, laying a detaining hand upon her arm to
make her hear him out, "whenever you wish to come to it for an hour or
forever, but I never shall ask you by so much as a word to leave Daddy,
for I feel about it much as you do. What if he had not? Oh, Sister, what
if he had not? You would have still been yourself, but I, what should I
have been without you to love?" and the rapt expression stole across his
face with which the devotee is pictured.
Presently, sitting side by side on the steps of the wide porch in the
early winter sunshine, they talked over Philip's plans, the tide
creeping up the sand laden with pungent seaweed, and the gulls now
flying across with shrill cries, now dropping to rest upon the water.
At last Philip, taking Poppea's hand and laying it against his cheek,
told her of what was closest to his heart,--his desire to go to Rome
with Howell for the winter, to do there with the master a piece of work
he could not hope yet to accomplish alone. Unrolling a paper he showed
her the design for the group, the outcome of months of thought and
dreaming. Two women, one taller than the other, with tender, radiant
faces, standing side by side, hands outstretched to aid a crippled
child, who, having dropped his crutch, was clinging to them. About the
base this legend ran _Amor Consolatrix_.
"These are our mothers," he said softly, "yours and mine. When they are
done in marble, they shall stand by the gate up at the hospital to
welcome the children who must go in alone."
So Philip sailed away, and from the Christmas music at St. Luke's his
silver voice was missing.
But if Philip's tones were silver, Poppea's now poured forth like rich,
unalloyed gold. It seemed to her as though she had never fathomed the
full joy of singing until, lacking necessity, it had ceased to be a
possible commercial profession, and become, as now she held it, a
freewill gift to all who asked for or needed it, singing alike in
church, hospital ward, the poor-house, or in the low farm-houses of the
back hill-country, where she carried hope and music to those for whom
all other doors were closed. Once even had she gone over the deeply
drifted roads on a wood sled with 'Lisha Potts to a revival meeting at
his lumber camp, and in the rough faces of the wood-choppers read a
deeper, truer appreciation than she had ever felt respond to her among
the music-lovers of the drawing-room.
Then, too, there were the Sunday evenings, she and Daddy sitting on
either side the fire in the foreroom,--Satira going invariably to the
muscular type of prayer-meeting that would satisfy her soul's hunger for
the next seven days.--Then the heartstrings would quiver in vain for the
magic thrill and the sound of the melody that only one may play for each
one of us, until to break the oppressive silence, she would lift the
piano lid and let her fingers feel their way a moment, until the
old-time hymns and anthems made response. Gradually Daddy would join in,
until at the end of half an hour he was singing with might and main,
although often quite off the key and half a bar behind. As she paused,
he would limp to and fro rubbing his hands together, and saying for the
fortieth time:--
"Pretty good music you and I can make, eh, Poppy? Forty years ago I was
the loudest bass singer in this township, and 'twas when I was singing
in First Church Choir that Mary, a stranger to me, sang the second
treble, and it was the kind way she had of keeping me in line when I'd
shied from the tuning-fork that made me take to her. Yes, it's true what
the poet says, that Music hath charms to soothe the savage breast. It
soothed mine, Poppy, who always had dreaded women."
So the winter wore away. March, the tug of war between seasons,
blustered out roaring defiance, and April, the capricious, in its last
week had kept to one mood long enough to green the grass, draw red blood
to the maple tops, and gold sap to the willows.
In two weeks more Philip would return. Poppea was entering the gate with
a letter from him that had come in the last mail. She had walked slowly
up from the new post-office in the brick block, reading it as she came.
How different all concerning the new order was, to be sure: _Entrance_
and _Exit_ printed plainly on the doors; no little knots of men from the
scattered back settlement exchanging news. Rather did these, after
getting their mail, continue to come to their old haunt and talk to
Gilbert as he sat in his shop, sometimes idle but never listless, while
a large checkerboard put by Poppea's suggestion in the place of the
boxes of the old beehive, filled the gap when the powers of conversation
needed rest.
She stopped to look at a cluster of daffodils, whose jolly yellow
flowers kept on beaming even through the dusk, and then went toward the
house, when the wheels of a vehicle, coming rapidly up the road, stopped
short, and Hugh Oldys's voice called:--
"Poppea, wait a minute, please," and without pausing to fasten the
horse, he pushed through the gate and strode toward her.
"What is it, Hugh?" she almost cried out, shocked by the ashiness of his
face and its nervous working. "Can I help you in any way?"
"Yes, you can help me and only you, though I do not know that I ought to
let you undergo the strain even if you are willing.
"Listen and judge, Poppea. Last night my mother became physically ill;
until then her bodily health has been better than for years. This
afternoon within two hours her mind has suddenly cleared, the doctors
explain it by the moving of a clot. She called me to her and spoke as
naturally as before the blow fell; yet she remembers perfectly well that
father is dead and that she has been very ill, though she has no sense
of the length of time. Then she begged me not to leave her for so long
again, and asked for you, Poppea."
"Why, Hugh, I will go to her at once. Could you think that I would not?"
"That--that is not all," he faltered, his shoulders drooping and his
whole attitude broken and dejected. "She thinks that everything is as
she had believed it would be--two years--ago. She thinks that we are
married--that you are in the house, but stay out of the room for fear of
disturbing her. Oh, Poppea, could you--could you slip a loose shawl or a
sack over your shoulders and go in for a moment and speak to her or
answer her, so that she need not know? Will you do it for the sake of
all those years that we were comrades?"
Only for a moment had Poppea drawn back, but it was so imperceptibly
that Hugh did not notice.
"I will go," she said slowly, without looking at him, "and you need wait
only a minute."
Going swiftly to her room, she made a wrapper and pair of slippers into
a hasty bundle and threw a light shawl about her head and shoulders.
Saying a few words to Satira, who was in the kitchen kneading bread and
so could not follow her to the gate for details other than she chose to
give, she took her place silently by Hugh in the buggy.
On the drive neither spoke, for it was one of the hours when the softest
spoken word is too harsh and jarring. Up from the marsh meadows the cry
of the rejuvenated "peepers" rose in what to Poppea's nerves, strained
to snapping, seemed a clamor that surrounded her head closely and dulled
even her powers of thought.
At the threshold Mrs. Shandy was waiting, her eyes red from crying. With
finger on her lips Poppea signalled that she wished to go to Mrs.
Shandy's room. There she slipped on the wrapper she had brought, and
loosing the pins, let her hair fall in a careless braid, as though she
had but just waked up.
In the square upper hall Dr. Morewood sat in a deep easy-chair, reading
by a shaded lamp. In answer to Poppea's questioning look he said in the
low tone, that yet is not a whisper, which the sensitive physician
acquires:--
"Yes, the brain is clear, but the physical vitality in its final
flicker; at best it can hold its own but a few hours."
When, steadying herself by an almost superhuman effort, Poppea reached
the door of Mrs. Oldys's chamber, so familiar in every detail even in
the subdued light, Hugh was already there crouched by the bedside, one
of his mother's transparent hands clasping his, while with the other she
was striving to push back the heavy hair from his forehead.
At the sight of Poppea the nurse drew back into the alcove shadows.
Seating herself in a vacant chair on the opposite side from Hugh and
waiting a few seconds, the girl made a very slight motion that revealed
her presence.
"My dear daughter!" Mrs. Oldys formed the words rather than spoke them,
dropping her other hand upon Poppea's so that she was held fast as it
were between them.
"Why have you stayed away so long? I have thought that you were ill,"
the voice was clearer now. "Did Hugh break your sleep to call you?"
"No,--Mother,--I was quite awake when he said you wanted me."
"And you will stay with me to-night?"
"Yes, surely I will stay."
"Now I am at peace, my two dear children--" the fluttering eyelids
closed and for a while she seemed to sleep, except that the pressure of
her hands did not relax.
Presently she looked up again.
"I cannot seem to think by myself," she said, "I need something to lean
upon--to carry me with it. Do you remember, Hugh, the music--the song
that you and Poppy used to sing sometimes without the organ? It brought
me close to the gate--perhaps it would carry me through with it
to-night."
Poppea, who was trembling like a leaf in the wind, looked toward Hugh,
but his face was buried in his arm. Then a calm settled over her.
Loosening the robe at her throat, she straightened herself, and from her
lips the notes fell soft yet clear:--
"Hark! hark, my soul; angelic songs are swelling."
An expression of ineffable peace crossed Mrs. Oldys's face.
"Yes, that is it," she whispered, smiling.
Unfalteringly Poppea sang to the end, and it was not until the last note
died away in complete silence that Hugh raised his head.
Presently the doctor looked in, the nurse came forward with some
nourishment, and so the night wore on, but it was not until the dawn
began to scatter darkness that the frail hands gradually relaxed their
loving clasp, and the nurse looking from the shadows beckoned the
watchers away.
Through the passageway and down the stairs Hugh and Poppea passed
together. Then Hugh left her for a moment, returning to say that Dr.
Morewood would drive her home as she must have some rest as soon as
possible.
Mrs. Shandy, coming out, begged her to wait and take a cup of coffee,
but Poppea shook her head.
Out on the porch in the fresh, yet mysterious air of coming day, they
waited for the doctor to bring his chaise. Below lay Moosatuck veiled in
mist; beyond, the blue ridge of the hills; one bird called, then
another, until half a hundred had picked up the anthem. Each moment it
grew lighter, the darkness huddled cornerwise down the west, while the
morning star and the harbor beacon paled together.
For a time neither spoke nor looked at each other, then Hugh broke the
silence.
"In a few days, Poppea,--when I am no longer needed,--I shall be going
away for a rest, a long rest, and perhaps it may be that afterward my
life will lie in other places." Then suddenly breaking down, he grasped
her hands, and pressing them to his lips, said, with a half-suppressed
cry:--
"Little comrade! Little comrade! All that I can tell you, all that I
must tell you, is that God himself could not have done more for me than
you have this night."
Poppea, who had been looking off into the sunrise, turned her head
quickly, and for the first time in months, found his eyes fixed full
upon her face before he could shift them.
At last she knew! Leaving her hands in his, she leaned toward him,
murmuring in a voice so full of joy that it quivered as though strung
with tears:--
"Where is more rest than here? _I_ need you, Hugh!"
Then to the one behind the closed door and to the two facing the dawn a
new life came on the wings of the morning.
THE END
NOVELS, ETC., BY "BARBARA"
(MABEL OSGOOD WRIGHT)
The Garden of a Commuter's Wife Illustrated
"Reading it is like having the entry into a home of the class that is
the proudest product of our land, a home where love of books and love of
nature go hand in hand with hearty, simple love of 'folks.' ... It is a
charming book."--_The Interior._
People of the Whirlpool Illustrated
"The whole book is delicious, with its wise and kindly humor, its just
perspective of the true values of things, its clever pen pictures of
people and customs, and its healthy optimism for the great world in
general."--_Philadelphia Evening Telegraph._
The Woman Errant
"The book is worth reading. It will cause discussion. It is an
interesting fictional presentation of an important modern question,
treated with fascinating feminine adroitness."--Miss Jeannette Gilder in
the _Chicago Tribune_.
At the Sign of the Fox
"Her little pictures of country life are fragrant with a genuine love of
nature, and there is fun as genuine in her notes on rural
character."--_New York Tribune._
The Garden, You and I
"This volume is simply the best she has yet put forth, and quite too
deliciously torturing to the reviewer, whose only garden is in Spain....
The delightful humor which pervaded the earlier books, and without
which Barbara would not be Barbara, has lost nothing of its
poignancy."--_Congregationalist._
The Open Window. Tales of the Months.
"A little vacation from the sophistication of the
commonplace."--_Argonaut._
Poppea of the Post Office
* * * * *
By EDEN PHILLPOTTS
The Three Brothers
"'The Three Brothers' seems to us the best yet of the long series of
these remarkable Dartmoor tales. If Shakespeare had written novels we
can think that some of his pages would have been like some of these.
Here certainly is language, turn of humor, philosophical play, vigor of
incident such as might have come straight from Elizabeth's day.... The
story has its tragedy, but this is less dire, more reasonable than the
tragedy is in too many of Mr. Phillpotts's other tales. The book is full
of a very moving interest, and it is agreeable and beautiful."--_The New
York Sun._
By Miss ELLEN GLASGOW
The Romance of a Plain Man
"From the first she has had the power to tell a strong story, full of
human interest, but as her work has continued it has shown an increasing
mellowness and sympathy. The atmosphere of this book is fascinating
indeed."--_Chicago Tribune._
By FRANK DANBY
The Heart of a Child
BEING PASSAGES FROM THE EARLY LIFE OF SALLY SNAPE, LADY KIDDERMINSTER
"'Frank Danby' has found herself. It is full of the old wit, the old
humor, the old epigram, and the old knowledge of what I may call the
Bohemia of London; but it is also full of a new quality, the quality of
imaginative tenderness and creative sympathy. It is delightful to watch
the growth of human character either in life or in literature, and in
'The Heart of a Child' one can see the brilliancy of Frank Danby
suddenly burgeoning into the wistfulness that makes cleverness soft and
exquisite and delicate.... It is a mixture of naturalism and romance,
and one detects in it the miraculous power ... of seeing things steadily
and seeing them wholly, with relentless humor and pitiless pathos. The
book is crowded with types, and they are all etched in with masterly
fidelity of vision and sureness of touch, with feminine subtlety as well
as virile audacity."--James Douglas in _The Star_, London.
Sebastian. A Son of Dreams.
* * * * *
Mr. ROBERT HERRICK'S NOVELS
The Gospel of Freedom
"A novel that may truly be called the greatest study of social life, in
a broad and very much up-to-date sense, that has ever been contributed
to American fiction."--_Chicago Inter-Ocean._
The Web of Life
"It is strong in that it faithfully depicts many phases of American
life, and uses them to strengthen a web of fiction, which is most
artistically wrought out."--_Buffalo Express._
Jock o' Dreams, or The Real World
"The title of the book has a subtle intention. It indicates, and is true
to the verities in doing so, the strange dreamlike quality of life to
the man who has not yet fought his own battles, or come into conscious
possession of his will--only such battles bite into the
consciousness."--_Chicago Tribune._
The Common Lot
"It grips the reader tremendously.... It is the drama of a human soul
the reader watches ... the finest study of human motive that has
appeared for many a day."--_The World To-day._
The Memoirs of an American Citizen. Illustrated with about fifty
drawings by F. B. Masters.
"Mr. Herrick's book is a book among many, and he comes nearer to
reflecting a certain kind of recognizable, contemporaneous American
spirit than anybody has yet done."--_New York Times._
"Intensely absorbing as a story, it is also a crisp, vigorous document
of startling significance. More than any other writer to-day he is
giving us the American novel."--_New York Globe._
Together
"The thing is straight from life.... The spirit of the book is in the
end bracing and quickening."--_Chicago Evening Post._
"An able book, remarkably so, and one which should find a place in the
library of any woman who is not a fool."--_New York American._
* * * * *
Mr. WINSTON CHURCHILL'S NOVELS
Mr. Crewe's Career Illustrated
"Another chapter in his broad, epical delineation of the American
spirit.... It is an honest and fair story.... It is very interesting;
and the heroine is a type of woman as fresh, original, and captivating
as any that has appeared in American novels for a long time past."--_The
Outlook_, New York.
"Shows Mr. Churchill at his best. The flavor of his humor is of that
stimulating kind which asserts itself just the moment, as it were, after
it has passed the palate.... As for Victoria, she has that quality of
vivid freshness, tenderness, and independence which makes so many modern
American heroines delightful."--_The Times_, London.
The Celebrity. An Episode
"No such piece of inimitable comedy in a literary way has appeared for
years.... It is the purest, keenest fun."--_Chicago Inter-Ocean._
Richard Carvel Illustrated
"... In breadth of canvas, massing of dramatic effect, depth of feeling,
and rare wholesomeness of spirit, it has seldom, if ever, been surpassed
by an American romance."--_Chicago Tribune._
The Crossing Illustrated
"'The Crossing' is a thoroughly interesting book, packed with exciting
adventure and sentimental incident, yet faithful to historical fact both
in detail and in spirit."--_The Dial._
The Crisis Illustrated
"It is a charming love story, and never loses its interest.... The
intense political bitterness, the intense patriotism of both parties,
are shown understandingly."--_Evening Telegraph_, Philadelphia.
Coniston Illustrated
"'Coniston' has a lighter, gayer spirit and a deeper, tenderer touch
than Mr. Churchill has ever achieved before.... It is one of the truest
and finest transcripts of modern American life thus far achieved in our
fiction."--_Chicago Record-Herald._
End of Project Gutenberg's Poppea of the Post-Office, by Mabel Osgood Wright