LEAVING PARADISE.
Jud hurried down the slope and snatched up the piece of cardboard. His
eyes sought the name, then the departing enchantress. His heart was
full of thankfulness to the stranger, whose gray figure was
disappearing among the oaks.
"She seems just like the fairy queen in the stories we used to read,
Jud," said Justine. Looking over his shoulders, she read aloud: "'Miss
Wood.' Oh, dear; it doesn't give her first name. How I wish I knew
it!"
"And it don't say where she lives," said Jud slowly.
"Chicago, I'm sure. Don't you remember what she said about wishing she
had you there? Dear me, what could she do with a country boy like you
in that great place? Harve Crose says there are more people there than
there are in this whole county. But wasn't she nice, Jud, wasn't she
nice? And did you ever see such a beautiful face?" Here Jud's sober,
thoughtful eyes looked so intently upon his wife's brilliant face that
she blushed under the unspoken compliment. "And her clothes, Jud!
Weren't they grand? Oh, oh, I never saw any one like her!"
The two walked slowly homeward, excitedly discussing the fair stranger
and her generosity. All the evening she and the fifty dollars so
unexpectedly acquired were the topics of conversation. Jud insisted
upon buying a new dress for Justine--as a "wedding present"--but she
demurred. The money was to go into the bank the next day, she
insisted; and she ruled.
He was lying beneath a big tree in the yard, looking up at the stars,
reflectively drawing a long spear of wire grass through his teeth. She
sat beside him, her back against the tree, serene, proud, and happy.
It was he who broke the long silence, dreamily.
"I wonder if I could make it go in Chicago."
She started from her reverie and her hand fell upon his arm. For an
instant her big eyes narrowed as if trying to penetrate some shadow.
In another moment they opened wide again, and she was earnestly seeking
to convince him that he could succeed in the great city.
The months sped by and side by side they toiled, she with love and
devotion in her soul, he with ambition added. As the winter came he
slaved with his pencil and pen, his heart bound to the new hope. The
prediction at Proctor's Falls had inspired him; the glowing blue eyes
had not lied to him even though the lips might have flattered. She had
praised his work, and she knew! She must have known what he could do!
Justine shared the enthusiasm that had been awakened by Miss Wood. She
looked upon that young woman as a goddess who had transformed her
husband into a genius whose gifts were to make the world fall down in
worship.
As the spring drew near Jud began to speak more often of the city and
his chances for success there. He could see the pride and devotion in
his wife's eyes, but he could also see a certain dim, wistful shadow in
the depths. He knew she was grieving over the fear that some day he
would desert their happy, simple home and rush out into the world,
leaving her behind until he had won a place for her. She knew that he
could not take her with him at the outset. He was to try his fortune
in the strange, big city, and she was to stay in the little cottage and
pray for the day to come speedily that would take her to him.
With him, ambition was tempered by love for her and the certainty that
he could not leave her even to win fame and fortune. When he allowed
himself to think of her alone in the cottage, looking sadly at the
stars and thinking of him in the rushing city, he said to himself: "I
can't leave her!" Both knew, although neither spoke it aloud, that if
he went, he would have to go alone.
Justine understood his hesitation and its cause. She knew that she was
holding him back, that she alone kept him from making the plunge into
the world, and her heart was sore. Night after night she lay awake in
his arms, her poor heart throbbing against his ambitious heart,
writhing beneath the certain knowledge that she was the weight about
his neck.
One day, late in the fall, when the strain upon her heart had become
too great, she broke the fetters. It was at dusk, and, coming around
the corner of the cottage, she found him sitting on the doorstep, his
gaze far away, his dejection showing in the droop of the broad
shoulders. A little gasp of pain came from her lips--pain mingled with
love and pity for him. She stood for a moment, reading his thoughts as
if they were printed before her eyes--thoughts of fame, honor, success,
trial, chance! How good, how handsome, how noble he was! She was the
weight, the drag! The hour had come for her to decide. He would never
say the word--that much she knew.
"Jud," she said, standing bravely before him. He looked up, shaking
off his dream. "Don't you think it about time you were trying your
luck in Chicago? You surely have worked hard enough at your drawing,
and I don't see why you put it off any longer."
For a moment he was unable to speak. Into his eyes came a blur of
tears.
"But, Justine, dear, how are we to live there? They say it takes a
fortune," he said. There was a breath of eagerness in his voice and
she detected it.
She sat beside him and laid her arm about his shoulder. He turned his
face to hers, wondering, and their eyes met. For a long time neither
spoke by tongue, but they understood. A sob came into his throat as he
lifted her hand from her lap and drew her to him almost convulsively.
"Justine, I can't do that! I can't go away off there and leave you
here alone. Why, sweetheart, I'd die without you," he cried.
"But when you are able, dear, to take me to you in the great city, we
can be the happiest people in the world," she said huskily. "I'll be
lonesome and you'll be lonesome, but it won't be for long. You will
succeed. I know it, dear, and you must not waste another day in this
wilderness----"
"It is the sweetest place in the world," he cried, passionately.
"Wilderness? With you here beside me? Oh, Justine, it will be
wilderness if I go away from you!"
"Surely, _surely_, Jud, it is for the best. I know you can't take me
now, but you can come after me some day, and then I'll know that I have
lost nothing by letting you go. You will be a great--you _will_
succeed! Why, Jud, you draw better than any one I ever knew about.
Your pictures even now are better than any I have ever seen. They
can't help liking you in Chicago. You must go--you must, Jud!" She
was talking rapidly, excitedly.
"You love me so much that you are blind, dear. Up in Chicago they have
thousands of artists who are better than I am, and they are starving.
Wait a minute! Suppose I should fail! Suppose they should laugh at me
and I couldn't get work. What then? I have no money, no friends up
there. If I don't get on, what is to become of me? Did you ever think
of that?"
"Haven't you me and the little farm to come back to, Jud? I'll be here
and I'll love you more than ever. And I'll die here on this old place
with you beside me, and never be sorry that you couldn't do for me
everything you wish," she said solemnly. Then she went on quickly:
"But you won't fail--you can't, Jud, you can't. Don't you remember
what pretty Miss Wood said about your work? Well, didn't she know? Of
course, she did. She _lives_ in Chicago and she knows."
"If I knew where to find her or write to her, she might help me," said
he, a new animation in his voice. "But there's no one I can write to.
I don't know how to go about it."
"Go about it like other boys have done. Lots of them have gone out
into the world and won their way. Now, Jud, when will you go?"
The moment of decision came too suddenly. He was not ready to meet it.
"I--I--oh, we can talk about this later on," he faltered.
"We must settle it now."
"Do you want me to go?" he asked after a moment.
"Yes, I do, Jud."
"How queer you are! I'd rather die than leave you, and yet you want me
to go away from you," he said inconsistently.
"Don't say that! I love you better than my life! Don't you see that
is why I want you to go? It is because I love you so, oh, so much, and
I know it is for the best. It's not like losing you altogether. We'll
be with each other soon, I know. You can come home to see me every
once in awhile, don't you see? And then, when you feel that you can do
so, you will take your poor little country girl into the great city to
live with you. You'll be great, then; will you be ashamed of me?"
"Ashamed of you!" he cried.
For a long time he held her in his arms in the twilight, and pleaded
with her to let him remain. To her courage, to the breaking of her
heart, was due the step which started him out into the world to seek
his fortune and hers.
The day was set for his departure. She drew from the bank the fifty
dollars his first picture had brought, and pressed it into his
reluctant hands. It was she who drove him into the village. In the
pocket of his Sunday clothes he carried the names of newspaper artists,
so familiar to him; they were the men he was to see--the strangers who
were to be his Samaritans. If they lent him a helping hand all might
go well.
She was to live without him in the little paradise, with old Mrs. Crane
and Caleb Spangler's boy as companions. They were to conduct the
affairs of the farm through the winter months, while he fought for a
footing in another universe.
It was a sobbing girl who lay all that night in the broad bed, thinking
of the boy whose curly head was missing from the pillow beside her,
whose loving arms were gone, perhaps forever.
'Gene Crawley knew of Jud's intentions long before his departure. In
fact, the whole township was aware of the great undertaking, and there
was more or less gossip, and no end of doubt as to the wisdom of the
step. It was generally conceded that Jud was a bright boy, but still
"he wuzn't much to git ahead, even out in the country, so how in
tarnation did he expect to make it go in the city?" A few of the
evil-minded saw signs of waning love in the Sherrod cottage; others
slyly winked and intimated that 'Gene Crawley had something to do with
it; and the whole neighborhood solemnly shook hands with Jud and "hoped
he'd come back richer'n Vanderbilt."
Crawley saw them drive away to the station in the village, and he saw
the dejected young wife come slowly homeward at dusk. That night,
while she rolled and sobbed in her bed, he sat on the fence across the
lane from the dark cottage until long after midnight.