Sunday afternoon, Orde, leaving Newmark to devices of his own, walked
slowly up the main street, turned to the right down one of the shaded
side residence streets that ended finally in a beautiful glistening
sand-hill. Up this he toiled slowly, starting at every step avalanches
and streams down the slope. Shortly he found himself on the summit, and
paused for a breath of air from the lake.
He was just above the tops of the maples, which seen from this angle
stretched away like a forest through which occasionally thrust roofs and
spires. Some distance beyond a number of taller buildings and the red
of bricks were visible. Beyond them still were other sand-hills, planted
raggedly with wind-twisted and stunted trees. But between the brick
buildings and these sand-hills flowed the river--wide, deep, and
still--bordered by the steamboat landings on the town side and by
fishermen's huts and net-racks and small boats on the other. Orde seated
himself on the smooth, clean sand and removed his hat. He saw these
things, and in imagination the far upper stretches of the river, with
the mills and yards and booms extending for miles; and still above them
the marshes and the flats where the river widened below the Big Bend.
That would be the location for the booms of the new company--a cheap
property on which the partners had already secured a valuation. And
below he dropped in imagination with the slackening current until
between two greater sand-hills than the rest the river ran out through
the channel made by two long piers to the lake--blue, restless,
immeasurable. To right and left stretched the long Michigan coast, with
its low yellow hills topped with the green of twisted pines, firs, and
beeches, with always its beach of sand, deep and dry to the very edge of
its tideless sea, strewn with sawlogs, bark, and the ancient remains of
ships.
After he had cooled he arose and made his way back to a pleasant
hardwood forest of maple and beech. Here the leaves were just bursting
from their buds. Underfoot the early spring flowers--the hepaticas,
the anemones, the trilium, the dog-tooth violets, the quaint, early,
bright-green undergrowths--were just reaching their perfection.
Migration was in full tide. Birds, little and big, flashed into view and
out again, busy in the mystery of their northward pilgrimage, giving
the appearance of secret and silent furtiveness, yet each uttering his
characteristic call from time to time, as though for a signal to others
of the host. The woods were swarming as city streets, yet to Orde these
little creatures were as though invisible. He stood in the middle of a
great multitude, he felt himself under the observation of many bright
eyes, he heard the murmuring and twittering that proclaimed a throng,
he sensed an onward movement that flowed slowly but steadily toward the
pole; nevertheless, a flash of wings, a fluttering little body, the dip
of a hasty short flight, represented the visible tokens. Across the pale
silver sun of April their shadows flickered, and with them flickered the
tracery of new leaves and the delicacy of the lace-like upper branches.
Orde walked slowly farther and farther into the forest, lost in an
enjoyment which he could not have defined accurately, but which was so
integral a portion of his nature that it had drawn him from the banks
and wholesale groceries to the woods. After a while he sat down on a
log and lit his pipe. Ahead the ground sloped upward. Dimly through the
half-fronds of the early season he could make out the yellow of sands
and the deep complementary blue of the sky above them. He knew the Lake
to lie just beyond. With the thought he arose. A few moments later he
stood on top the hill, gazing out over the blue waters.
Very blue they were, with a contrasting snowy white fringe of waves
breaking gently as far up the coast as the eye could reach. The beach,
on these tideless waters, was hard and smooth only in the narrow strip
over which ran the wash of the low surf. All the rest of the expanse of
sand back to the cliff-like hills lay dry and tumbled into hummocks and
drifts, from which projected here a sawlog cast inland from a raft by
some long-past storm, there a slab, again a ship's rib sticking gaunt
and defiant from the shifting, restless medium that would smother it.
And just beyond the edge of the hard sand, following the long curves of
the wash, lay a dark, narrow line of bark fragments.
The air was very clear and crystalline. The light-houses on the ends of
the twin piers, though some miles distant, seemed close at hand. White
herring gulls, cruising against the blue, flashed white as the sails of
a distant ship. A fresh breeze darkened the blue velvet surface of the
water, tumbled the white foam hissing up the beach, blew forward over
the dunes a fine hurrying mist of sand, and bore to Orde at last the
refreshment of the wide spaces. A woman, walking slowly, bent her head
against the force of this wind.
Orde watched her idly. She held to the better footing of the smooth
sand, which made it necessary that she retreat often before the
inrushing wash, sometimes rather hastily. Orde caught himself admiring
the grace of her deft and sudden movements, and the sway of her willowy
figure. Every few moments she turned and faced the lake, her head thrown
back, the wind whipping her garments about her.
As she drew nearer, Orde tried in vain to catch sight of her face. She
looked down, watching the waters advance and recede; she wore a brimmed
hat bent around her head by means of some sort of veil tied over the
top and beneath her chin. When she had arrived nearly opposite Orde she
turned abruptly inland, and a moment later began laboriously to climb
the steep sand.
The process seemed to amuse her. She turned her head sidewise to watch
with interest the hurrying, tumbling little cascades that slid from her
every step. From time to time she would raise her skirts daintily with
the tips of her fingers, and lean far over in order to observe with
interest how her feet sank to the ankles, and how the sand rushed from
either side to fill in the depressions. The wind carried up to Orde low,
joyous chuckles of delight, like those of a happy child.
As though directed by some unseen guide, her course veered more and more
until it led directly to the spot where Orde stood. When she was within
ten feet of him she at last raised her head so the young man could see
something besides the top of her hat. Orde looked plump into her eyes.
“Hullo!” she said cheerfully and unsurprised, and sank down cross-legged
at his feet.
Orde stood quite motionless, overcome by astonishment. Her face, its
long oval framed in the bands of the gray veil and the down-turned brim
of the hat, looked up smiling into his. The fresh air had deepened the
colour beneath her skin and had blown loose stray locks of the fine
shadow-filled hair. Her red lips, with the quaintly up-turned corners,
smiled at him with a new frankness, and the black eyes--the eyes so
black as to resemble spots--had lost their half-indolent reserve and
brimmed over quite frankly with the joy of life. She scooped up a
handful of the dry, clean sand from either side of her, raised it aloft,
and let it trickle slowly between her fingers. The wind snatched at the
sand and sprayed it away in a beautiful plume.
“Isn't this REAL fun?” she asked him.
“Why, Miss Bishop!” cried Orde, finding his voice. “What are you doing
here?”
A faint shade of annoyance crossed her brow.
“Oh, I could ask the same of you; and then we'd talk about how surprised
we are, world without end,” said she. “The important thing is that here
is sand to play in, and there is the Lake, and here are we, and the day
is charmed, and it's good to be alive. Sit down and dig a hole! We've
all the common days to explain things in.”
Orde laughed and seated himself to face her. Without further talk, and
quite gravely, they commenced to scoop out an excavation between
them, piling the sand over themselves and on either side as was most
convenient. As the hole grew deeper they had to lean over more and more.
Their heads sometimes brushed ever so lightly, their hands perforce
touched. Always the dry sand flowed from the edges partially to fill in
the result their efforts. Faster and faster they scooped it out again.
The excavation thus took on the shape of a funnel. Her cheeks glowed
pink, her eyes shone like stars. Entirely was she absorbed in the task.
At last a tiny commotion manifested itself in the bottom of the funnel.
Impulsively she laid her hand on Orde's, to stop them. Fascinated,
they watched. After incredible though lilliputian upheavals, at
length appeared a tiny black insect, struggling against the rolling,
overwhelming sands. With great care the girl scooped this newcomer
out and set him on the level ground. She looked up happily at Orde,
thrusting the loose hair from in front of her eyes.
“I was convinced we ought to dig a hole,” said she gravely. “Now, let's
go somewhere else.”
She arose to her feet, shaking the sand free from her skirts.
“I think, through these woods,” she decided. “Can we get back to town
this way?”
Receiving Orde's assurance, she turned at once down the slope through
the fringe of scrub spruces and junipers into the tall woods. Here the
air fell still. She remarked on how warm it seemed, and began to untie
from over her ears the narrow band of veil that held close her hat.
“Yes,” replied Orde. “The lumber-jacks say that the woods are the poor
man's overcoat.”
She paused to savour this, her head on one side, her arms upraised to
the knot.
“Oh, I like that!” said she, continuing her task. In a moment or so the
veil hung free. She removed it and the hat, and swung them both from one
finger, and threw back her head.
“Hear all the birds!” she said.
Softly she began to utter a cheeping noise between her lips and teeth,
low and plaintive. At once the volume of bird-sounds about increased;
the half-seen flashes became more frequent. A second later the twigs
were alive with tiny warblers and creepers, flirting from branch to
branch, with larger, more circumspect chewinks, catbirds, and finches
hopping down from above, very silent, very grave. In the depths of the
thickets the shyer hermit and olive thrushes and the oven birds revealed
themselves ghost-like, or as sea-growths lift into a half visibility
through translucent shadows the colour of themselves. All were very
intent, very earnest, very interested, each after his own manner, in the
comradeship of the featherhood he imagined to be uttering distressful
cries. A few, like the chickadees, quivered their wings, opened their
little mouths, fluttered down tiny but aggressive against the disaster.
Others hopped here and there restlessly, uttering plaintive, low-toned
cheeps. The shyest contented themselves by a discreet, silent, and
distant sympathy. Three or four freebooting Jays, attracted not so much
by the supposed calls for help as by curiosity, fluttered among the tops
of the trees, uttering their harsh notes.
Finally, the girl ended her performance in a musical laugh.
“Run away, Brighteyes,” she called. “It's all right; nobody's damaged.”
She waved her hand. As though at a signal, the host she had evoked
melted back into the shadows of the forest. Only the chickadee, impudent
as ever, retreated scolding rather ostentatiously, and the jays,
splendid in their ornate blue, screamed opinions at each other from the
tops of trees.
“How would you like to be a bird?” she inquired.
“Hadn't thought,” replied Orde.
“Don't you ever indulge in vain and idle speculations?” she inquired.
“Never mind, don't answer. It's too much to expect of a man.”
She set herself in idle motion down the slope, swinging the hat at the
end of its veil, pausing to look or listen, humming a little melody
between her closed lips, throwing her head back to breathe deep the warm
air, revelling in the woods sounds and woods odours and woods life with
entire self-abandonment. Orde followed her in silence. She seemed to
be quite without responsibility in regard to him; and yet an occasional
random remark thrown in his direction proved that he was not forgotten.
Finally they emerged from the beach woods.
They faced an open rolling country. As far as the eye could reach were
the old stumps of pine trees. Sometimes they stood in place, burned and
scarred, but attesting mutely the abiding place of a spirit long since
passed away. Sometimes they had been uprooted and dragged to mark the
boundaries of fields, where they raised an abatis of twisted roots to
the sky.
The girl stopped short as she came face to face with this open country.
The inner uplift, that had lent to her aspect the wide-eyed, careless
joy of a child, faded. In its place came a new and serious gravity. She
turned on him troubled eyes.
“You do this,” she accused him quite simply.
For answer he motioned to the left where below them lay a wide and
cultivated countryside--farmhouses surrounded by elms; compact wood lots
of hardwood; crops and orchards, all fair and pleasant across the bosom
of a fertile nature.
“And this,” said he. “That valley was once nothing but a pine
forest--and so was all the southern part of the State, the peach belt
and the farms. And for that matter Indiana, too, and all the other
forest States right out to the prairies. Where would we be now, if we
HADN'T done that?” he pointed across at the stump-covered hills.
Mischief had driven out the gravity from the girl's eyes. She had
lowered her head slightly sidewise as though to conceal their expression
from him.
“I was beginning to be afraid you'd say 'yes-indeed,'” said she.
Orde looked bewildered, then remembered the Incubus, and laughed.
“I haven't been very conversational,” he acknowledged.
“Certainly NOT!” she said severely. “That would have been very
disappointing. There has been nothing to say.” She turned and waved her
hat at the beech woods falling sombre against the lowering sun.
“Good-bye,” she said gravely, “and pleasant dreams to you. I hope those
very saucy little birds won't keep you awake.” She looked up at Orde.
“He was rather nice to us this afternoon,” she explained, “and it's
always well to be polite to them anyway.” She gazed steadily at Orde for
signs of amusement. He resolutely held his face sympathetic.
“Now I think we'll go home,” said she.
They made their way between the stumps to the edge of the sand-hill
overlooking the village. With one accord they stopped. The low-slanting
sun cast across the vista a sleepy light of evening.
“How would you like to live in a place like that all your life?” asked
Orde.
“I don't know.” She weighed her words carefully. “It would depend. The
place isn't of so much importance, it seems to me. It's the life one is
called to. It's whether one finds her soul's realm or not that a place
is liveable or not. I can imagine entering my kingdom at a railway
water-tank,” she said quaintly, “or missing it entirely in a big city.”
Orde looked out over the raw little village with a new interest.
“Of course I can see how a man's work can lie in a small place,” said
he; “but a woman is different.”
“Why is a woman different?” she challenged. “What is her 'work,' as you
call it; and why shouldn't it, as well as a man's, lie in a small place?
What is work--outside of drudgery--unless it is correspondence of one's
abilities to one's task?”
“But the compensations--” began Orde vaguely.
“Compensations?” she cried. “What do you mean? Here are the woods and
fields, the river, the lake, the birds, and the breezes. We'll check
them off against the theatre and balls. Books can be had here as well
as anywhere. As to people: in a large city you meet a great many,
and they're all busy, and unless you make an especial and particular
effort--which you're not likely to--you'll see them only casually and
once in a great while. In a small place you know fewer people; but you
know them intimately.” She broke off with a half-laugh. “I'm from New
York,” she stated humorously, “and you've magicked me into an eloquent
defense of Podunk!” She laughed up at Orde quite frankly. “Giant
Strides!” she challenged suddenly. She turned off the edge of the
sand-hill, and began to plunge down its slope, leaning far back, her
arms extended, increasing as much as possible the length of each step.
Orde followed at full speed. When the bottom was reached, he steadied
her to a halt. She shook herself, straightened her hat, and wound the
veil around it. Her whole aspect seemed to have changed with the descent
into the conventionality of the village street. The old, gentle though
capable and self-contained reserve had returned. She moved beside Orde
with dignity.
“I came down with Jane and Mrs. Hubbard to see Mr. Hubbard off on the
boat for Milwaukee last night,” she told him. “Of course we had to wait
over Sunday. Mrs. Hubbard and Jane had to see some relative or other;
but I preferred to take a walk.”
“Where are you staying?” asked Orde.
“At the Bennetts'. Do you know where it is?”
“Yes,” replied Orde.
They said little more until the Bennetts' gate was reached. Orde
declined to come in.
“Good-night,” she said. “I want to thank you. You did not once act as
though you thought I was silly or crazy. And you didn't try, as all the
rest of them would, to act silly too. You couldn't have done it; and
you didn't try. Oh, you may have felt it--I know!” She smiled one of her
quaint and quizzical smiles. “But men aren't built for foolishness. They
have to leave that to us. You've been very nice this afternoon; and it's
helped a lot. I'm good for quite a long stretch now. Good-night.”
She nodded to him and left him tongue-tied by the gate.
Orde, however, walked back to the hotel in a black rage with himself
over what he termed his imbecility. As he remembered it, he had made
just one consecutive speech that afternoon.
“Joe,” said he to Newmark, at the hotel office, “what's the plural form
of Incubus? I dimly remember it isn't 'busses.'”
“Incubi,” answered Newmark.
“Thanks,” said Orde gloomily.