IX

Abner spent Christmas at the Giles farm, as Stephen had understood him to

promise; and Medora, as her brother had engaged, "went along" too, and

"ran the whole thing" from start to finish. Abner, with a secret interest

compounded half of attraction, half of repulsion, promised himself a

careful study of this "new type"--a type so bizarre, so artificial, and

in all probability so thoroughly reprehensible.

Medora made up the rest of the party to suit herself. She had heard of

Adrian Bond's struggles toward the indigenous, the simplified, and she

was willing enough to give him a chance to see the cows in their winter

quarters. Clytie Summers had begged very prettily for her glimpse too of

the country at this time of year. "It's rather soon, I know, for that

spring barn-yard; but I should so enjoy the ennui of some village Main

Street in the early winter."

"Come along, then," said Medora. "We'll do part of our Christmas shopping

there."

Giles accepted these two new recruits gladly. "Good thing for both of

them," he declared to Joyce. "They'll make more progress on our farm in a

week than they could in six months of studio teas."

This remark admitted of but one interpretation.

"Why!" said Abner; "do you want her to marry _him_?"--him, a fellow so

slight, frivolous, invertebrate!

"Oh, he's a very decent little chap," returned Giles. "He'll be kind to

her--he'll see she's taken good care of."

"But do you want him to marry _her_?"--her, so bold, so improper, so

prone to seek entertainment in the woes of others!

"Oh, well, she's a very fair little chick," replied Giles patiently.

"She'll get past her notions pretty soon and be just as good a wife as

anybody could ask."

One of those quiescent, featureless Decembers was on the land--a November

prolonged. The brown country-side, swept and garnished, was still

awaiting the touch of winter's hand. The air was crisp yet passive, and

abundant sunshine flooded alike the heights and hollows of the rolling

uplands that spread through various shades of subdued umber and

meditative blue toward the confines of a wavering, indeterminate horizon.

The Giles homestead stood high on a bluff; and above the last of the

islands that cluttered the river beneath it the spires of the village

appeared, a mile or two down-stream.

"Now for the barn-yard!" cried Clytie, after the first roundabout view

from the front of the bluff. "Adrian mustn't lose any time with his

cows."

Giles led the way to a trim inclosure.

"Why, it's as dry as a bone!" she declared.

"Would you want us water-logged the whole year through?" asked Abner

pungently.

"And as for ennui," she pursued, "I'm sure it isn't going to be found

here--no more in winter than in summer. However"--with a wave of the hand

toward the spires--"there is always the town."

No, the parents of Giles had taken strong measures to keep boredom at

bay. They had their books and magazines; they had a pair of good trotters

and a capacious carryall, with other like aids to locomotion in reserve;

they had a telephone; they had a pianola, with a change of rolls once a

month; they had neighbours of their own sort and were indomitable in

keeping up neighbourly relations.

"I think you'll be able to stand it for a week," said Medora serenely.

"We've done it once before," said Bond.

"Don't be anxious about _us_!" added Clytie.

Medora Giles took Abner in her own special care. She knew pretty nearly

what he thought of her, and she was inclined to amuse herself--though at

the same time making no considerable concession--by placing herself

before him in a more favourable light. In her dress, her manner, her

bearing there was a certain half-alien delicacy, finesse, aloofness. She

would not lay this altogether aside, even at home, even in the informal

country; but she would provide a homely medium, suited to Abner's rustic

vision, through which her exotic airs and graces might be more tolerantly

perceived.

The illness of one of the servants came just here to assist her. She

descended upon the kitchen, taking full charge and carrying Abner with

her. She initiated him at the chopping-block, she conferred the second

degree at the pump-handle, and by the time he was beating up eggs in a

big yellow bowl beside the kitchen stove his eyes had come to be focused

on her in quite a different fashion. Surely no one could be more deft,

light-handed, practical. Was this the same young woman who had sat in the

midst of that absurd outfit and had juggled rather affectedly and

self-consciously with tea-urn and sugar-tongs and had palavered in empty

nothings with a troop of overdressed and overmannered feather-heads? She

was still graceful, still fluent, still endowed with that baffling little

air of distinction; but she knew where things were--down to the last

strainer or nutmeg-grater--and she knew how to use them. She was

completely at home. And so--by this time--was he.

To deepen the impression, Medora asked Abner to help her lay the table.

There were no studio gimcracks, mercifully, to put into place; but the

tableware was as far removed, on the other hand, from the ugly, heavy,

time-scarred things at Flatfield and from the careless crudities of his

own boarding-house. Abner had had a tolerance, even a liking, for his

landlady's indifference toward finicky table-furnishings; but now there

came a sudden vision of her dining-room, and the spots on the

table-cloth, the nicks in the crockery, the shabbiness of the lambrequin

drooping from the mantel-piece, and the slovenliness of the sole

handmaiden had never been so vivid.

"Shall I be able to go back there?" he asked himself.

Finally, to seal the matter completely, Medora led Abner to the place of

honour and bade him eat the meal she had prepared. Abner ate and was

hers. Even a good boarding-house, he now felt, was a mistake; the best,

but a makeshift.

During the day the telephone had made common property of the news of

Abner's arrival, and the next morning, an hour or so after breakfast, the

front yard resounded with the loud cry of, "What ho, neighbours!" and

Leverett Whyland was revealed in a trig cart drawn by a handsome cob.

"Why, what's that man doing here?" Abner asked Giles, as they stood by

the living-room window.

"He has a place three or four miles down the river," replied Giles,

casting about for his hat. Clytie, meanwhile, had drubbed a glad welcome

upon the adjoining window and then rushed out bareheaded to give

greeting.

"He always comes out here with his family for Christmas," said Stephen.

"His family? Is he married? Has he a wife and children?"

"Yes."

"Yet he goes slam-banging around with a lot of young girls into all sorts

of doubtful places?"

"Oh, I've heard something about that," said Giles. "Well, you wouldn't

have them in charge of a bachelor, would you?"

"What's he farming for?" asked Abner, left behind with Medora.

"Sentiment," she replied. "He was born down there, and has never wanted

to let the old place go. Do you think any the worse of him for that?"

Whyland had come to fetch the men and to show them his model farm. They

spent the forenoon in going over this expensive place. Bond gave vent to

all the "oh's" and "ah's" that indicate the perfect visitor. Abner took

their host's various amateurish doings in glum silence. It was all very

well to indulge in these costly contraptions as a pastime, but if the man

had to get his actual living from the soil where would he be? Almost

anybody could stand on two legs. How many on one?

"Do you make it pay?" Abner asked bluntly.

"Pay? I'm a by-word all over the county. Half the town lives on my lack

of 'gumption.'"

"H'm," said Abner darkly. He was as far as ever from hitting it off with

this smiling, dapper product of artificial city conditions.

"I came across some of your Readjusters the other day," observed Whyland,

at the door of his hen-house--a prodigal place with a dozen wired-in

"runs" for a dozen different varieties of poultry: "Leghorns, Plymouth

Rocks, Jerseys, Angoras, Hambletonians and what not," as Bond

irresponsibly remarked. "They say they haven't been seeing much of you

lately."

Abner frowned. Whyland, he felt, was trying to put him at a disadvantage.

But, in truth, it could not be denied that he had practically left one

circle for another,--was showing himself much more disposed to favour the

skylights of the studios than the footlights of the rostrum.

"I am still for the cause," he said. "But it can be helped from one side

as well as from another. My next book----"

"I didn't dispute your idea; only its application. I should be glad if

you _could_ make it go. Anything would be better than the present

horrible mess. We have 'equality,' and to spare, in the Declaration and

the Constitution, but whether or not we shall ever get it in our

taxing----"

"I am glad to hear you speaking a word for the country people----" began

Abner.

"The country people?" interrupted Whyland quickly, with a stare. Never

more than when among his cattle and poultry was he moved to draw

contrasts between the security of his possessions in the country and the

insecurity of his possessions in town. "What I am thinking of is the city

tax-payer. Urban democracy, working on a large scale, has declared itself

finally, and what we have is the organization of the careless, the

ignorant, the envious, brought about by the criminal and the

semi-criminal, for the spoliation of the well-to-do."

Abner began to be ruffled by these cross-references to the city--they

were out of place in the uncontaminated country. "I believe in the

people," he declared, with his thoughts on the rustic portion of the

population.

"So do I--within a certain range, and up to a certain point. But I do not

believe in the populace," declared Whyland, with his thoughts on the

urban portion.

"All the difference between potatoes and potato-parings," said Bond,

catching at a passing feather.

"Soon it will be simply dog eat dog," said Whyland. "No course will be

left, even for the best-disposed of us, but to fight the devil with fire.

From the assessor and all his works----"

"Good Lord deliver us," intoned Bond, who fully shared Whyland's ideas.

Abner frowned. His religious sensibilities were affronted by this

response.

"And from all his followers," added Whyland. "They threaten me in my own

office--it comes to that. Well, what shall a man do? Shall he fight or

shall he submit? Shall I go into court or shall I compromise with them?"

"It comes to one thing in the end," said Bond, "if you value your peace

of mind. But even then you can put the best face on it."

Whyland sighed. "You mean that there is some choice between my bribing

them and their blackmailing me? Well, I expect I may slip down several

pegs this coming year--morally."

Abner drew away. He was absolutely without any intimacy with the

intricacies of civic finances. He merely saw a man--his host--who seemed

cynically to be avowing his own corruption and shame,--or at least his

willingness to lean in that direction.

"Reform," he announced grandly, "will come only from the disinterested

efforts of those who bring to the task pure motives and unimpeachable

practices."

Whyland sighed again. He thought of his realty interests in town, as they

lay exposed to spoliation, to confiscation. "I am afraid I shall not be a

reformer," he said, in discouragement.

Abner shook a condemnatory head in full corroboration. And Whyland, who

may have been looking for a prop to wavering principles, shook his own

head too.

X

"Don't work so hard at it," said Medora, laying her violin on top of the

pianola. "You shake the house. A minute more and you'll have that lamp

toppling over. And you'll tire yourself out."

Abner wiped his damp brow and felt of his wilted collar. He never put

less than his whole self into anything he attempted. "Tire myself? I'm

strong enough, I guess."

"Well, use your strength to better advantage. Let me show you."

Medora slipped into his place, reset the roll, pulled a stop or two, and

trod out a dozen ringing measures with no particular effort. "Like that."

"Very well," said Abner, resuming his seat docilely. The rest wondered;

he seldom welcomed suggestions or accepted correction.

"Now let's try it once more," said Medora.

An evening devoted to literature was ending with a bit of music. Abner

and Bond had both read unpublished manuscripts with the fierce joy that

authors feel on such occasions, and the others had listened with patience

if not with pleasure. Abner gave two or three of the newest chapters of

_Regeneration_, and Bond read a few pages to show what progress an alien

romanticist was making in homely fields nearer at hand. He had hoped for

Abner's encouragement and approval in this new venture of his, but he got

neither.

"The way to write about cows in a pasture," commented Abner, "is just to

write about them--in a simple, straightforward style without any slant

toward history or mythology, and without any cross-references to remote

scenes of foreign travel. For instance, you speak of a Ranz----"

"Ranz des Vaches," said Medora: "a sort of thing the Alpine

what's-his-name sings."

"It's for atmosphere," said Bond, on the defensive.

"Let the pasture furnish its own atmosphere. And you had something about

a certain breed of cattle near Rome--Rome, was it?"

"Roman Campagna. Travel reminiscences."

"Travel is a mistake," declared Abner.

"So it is," broke in Clytie. "Squat on your own door-step, as Emerson

says."

"Does he?--I think not," interposed Giles the elder. "What he does say

is----"

"We all know," interrupted Stephen, "and ignore the counsel."

Abner did not know, but he would not stoop to ask. "And there was a

quotation from one of those old authors,--Theocritus?"

"Theocritus, yes. Historical perspective."

"Leave the past alone. Live in the present. The past,--bury it, forget

it."

"So hard. Heir of the ages, you know. Good deal harder to forget than

never to have learned at all. _That's_ easy," jibed Bond, with a touch of

temper.

"Oh, now!" cried Medora, fearful that another temper might respond.

"If you must bring in those old Greeks," Abner proceeded, "take their

method and let the rest drop. All they knew, as I understand it, they

learned from men and things close round them and from the nature in whose

midst they lived. They didn't quote; they didn't range the world; they

didn't go for sanction outside of themselves and their own environment."

"The Greeks didn't know so much," interjected Clytie.

"Oh, didn't they, though!" cried Adrian, sending a glance of thanks to

counteract his contradiction. "They _finished_ things. The temple wasn't

complete till they had swept all the marble chips off the back stoop, and

had kind of curry-combed down the front yard, and had----"

"'Sh,'sh!" said Medora. Abner looked about, more puzzled than offended.

"Let's have some music, before our breasts get too savage," said the

girl, starting up.

Bond followed with the rest. "I'll stick to my regular field," he said to

Clytie, as he thrust his crumpled-up manuscript into his pocket.

"Griffins, gorgons, hydras, chimeras dire,--but no more cows. I was never

meant for a veritist."

"Samson is pulling down the temple," observed Clytie. "Crash goes the

first pillar. Who will be next?"

"He'll be caught in the wreck," said Bond, in a shattered voice. "Just

watch and see."