WARMER THAN THE WORLD.
A bluster of warm wind brought a thaw, and the ice in the lake was
breaking--a disjointing time, a cracking of winter's old bones, a time
when being alone we feel less lonely than in a noisy company. At night
Milford sat musing in the kitchen. The outer door stood open, and he
heard the cattle tramping about in the mushy barnyard. The hired man and
his wife were singing a lonesome song in the sitting-room. There came
another tramping, not of cattle, but of one more weary, of a man, the
Professor. He trod into the light that fell from the door, and Milford
bounded up to meet him, but fell back in reverence of his grief-stricken
face. For a time the old man did not speak. He dropped his bundle, once
so precious, but now a sapless husk, laid his walking-stick across it,
took hold of a chair, and let himself slowly down with a groan.
"We are going to have rain," he said, attempting to smile, and
unbuttoning his old coat with a palsied fumble.
"Yes, I think so. The clouds have been tumbling about all day."
"A weird song they are singing in there."
"The love song of the ignorant and the poor," said Milford.
"The poor and the wise would not have written it," the Professor
replied.
"Shall I tell them to stop?" Milford asked.
"Oh, no, poor crickets. Bring some cider, my boy. Let us live for a time
in recollection only. I will not take too much."
"You may take as much as you like. It is time to drink."
"Yes, to drink or to rave."
Milford brought a jug of cider. "The devil's sympathy," said the old
man, drinking. "More, give me more--promises heaven, but slippers the
foot that treads its way to hell. But I will not take too much. Did I
tell you that I had lost my place at the mill?"
"No, you didn't say anything about it."
"I was discharged the evening before I went to town, but it made no
impression on me then."
"Well, don't let it make any now. Everything will come all right."
"Yes, it will. I have walked with many an experiment, but at last there
is such a thing as facing a certainty."
"Have you anything in view?"
"Oh, yes. And everything will be all right."
"I hope so."
"I don't hope--I know. But enough of that. It is a philosopher who can
say, 'Ha! old Socrates, pass your cup this way.' They have hushed their
song. Even the poor and the ignorant grow weary of singing; then who can
expect music from the wise? What have you there? Old Whittier? He died,
and they gave him a stingy column in the newspapers, squeezed by the
report of the prize fight at New Orleans. If a poet would look to his
fame, let him die when there is no other news. But some have died in a
spread of newspaper glory--Eugene Field, the sweetest lisper of a boy's
mischief, the tuner of tenderest lyrics, but with a laugh for man that
cut like a scythe. And some of the rich whom he had laughed at,
scrambled for a place at his coffin to bear it to the grave--tuneless
clay, scuffling over tuneful dust! Oh, hypocrisy, stamp thy countenance
with a dollar!"
"It's raining now," said Milford, seeking to draw his mind from the
darkness of its wandering.
"Yes, the falling of water, rhythmic, poetry--all poets have been as
water. I will class them for you. Keats, the rivulet; Shelley, the
brook; Byron, the creek; Tennyson, the river; Wordsworth, the lake;
Milton, the bay; and Shakespeare, the waters of all the world, the sea.
But I will not keep you up. You are a working-man, and must rest."
"Don't go; I'm not tired; I haven't done a thing to-day. Shall I fill
the jug?"
"No, enough. Let me take up my gilded trash," he said, reaching for his
bundle.
"I wish you'd stay longer. Let me go home with you."
"No, I prefer to walk alone. You remember in the old reader, the dog
went out to walk alone."
"It was the cat that walked alone," said Milford. "The dog sat down to
gnaw his bone. Don't you recollect?"
The old man touched his forehead, and shook his head. "So it was the cat
that walked alone. But we will reverse it. The dog will walk alone
to-night."
"I wish you'd let me go with you."
"Plead not your friendship, or I shall yield. But I want to be alone."
"Then you shall be."
"I thank you, and good-night." He strode off, with his bundle and stick;
and out in the darkness he cried: "Don't forget my classification of the
poets. Wordsworth! Wordsworth! And so, good-night."
The hired man came into the kitchen. "Wan't that the Professor shoutin'
out there?" he asked.
"Yes, the poor old man has just come home, crushed."
"Didn't find no market, then, for his book?"
"No. He brought it back with him. And, by the way, his life insurance
will soon be due, and I must pay it for him."
"Don't he owe you for one?"
"That makes no difference. I must help him. The world ought to help him,
but he is laughed at by you clods."
"Bill, don't call me a clod. I don't own enough dirt to be called a
clod."
"That's all right, Bob. I don't mean you. What day of the month is
this?"
"Second, ain't it?"
"I asked you."
"Then I guess it's the second."
"His insurance will be due on the ninth. Bob, early in the morning you
go over to Antioch and tell old Bryson that he may have those calves at
the price he offered."
"Yes, but I don't think it's enough, Bill."
"Can't help it. I've got to raise money enough for that poor old
fellow."
Before breakfast the next morning Milford hastened to the Professor's
house. Mrs. Dolihide heard him unchaining the gate, and came out upon
the veranda. He did not care to go in; he dreaded to look again upon
that blasted countenance. "Good morning, madam. I wish you'd tell the
Professor not to worry over his insurance. Tell him I'll make it all
right."
"I will when he comes home. I expected him last night, but he didn't get
back."
"What----" But he checked himself. An alarm had arisen in his breast,
but he would not spread it. He muttered something and turned away,
leaving her to gaze after him in wonderment. A man came running down the
road. Milford stopped him, and he stood panting until he could gather
breath enough for his story. It was brief. The Professor's body had been
taken from the lake. At daylight he had come down to the shore and had
shoved out in a boat. A man warned him against the tumbling ice, for the
wind was fresh. He had a rod, and said that he was going to fish. The
man told him that the fish would not bite. He said that they would bite
for him. Out beyond the dead rushes where the water was deep the boat
tipped over. It looked like an accident--the ice. There were no means
of rescue, and so he drowned. The man was excited, and could not say for
certain, but he thought that the Professor had cried out, "Warmer than
the world!"