A Williams Anthology Part 22

"Why," he wondered, "doth not Preferment live with me? Am I not as fit a man as the King's Favorite?" And he stretched out his long legs and looked at them.

As long as the Fool was occupied with dreaming and laying the sods on his house, or hunting for the dun deer of a moonlit night, he was company enough for himself, turning his fancies over and over in his mind, as the wind bundles the clouds about the sky; then when he had arranged his conceptions to his taste, he was free to admire them undisturbed, until a new fancy happened along to displace them; just as the wind leaves off driving the clouds at sunset, and in the west there is a sweet tableau for men to look at, till night blots out the scene. So the Fool was usually well content to be alone. But when, as now, he was perplexed by any problem that disturbed his simple cheerfulness, he had to seek some other and wiser man for counsel, not being one of those men, more mind than heart, who unravel problems with as much accuracy and equanimity as a skilful weaver plies his loom.

So that evening, with the moon sending his shadow out ahead of him, the Fool walked overfield to the cave of the Wise Man. Timidly approaching, he peered through the entrance and found the Wise Man sitting still and alone, gazing into the ashes of a flickering fire.

"Please," said the Fool anxiously, "why does Preferment ride with the King's Favorite and never with me?"

The other did not stir for a long while, but after the Fool had s.h.i.+fted several times from one foot to the other, beginning to despair of an answer, the Wise Man spoke.

"Because," he said slowly, still looking into the fire, "thou hast never desired him to." And, having spoken, he kept silent, and after a little the Fool turned away.

"I never desired him to?" he muttered over and over to himself. "What does that mean?" And he stood stock still and looked about for explanation; but none was vouchsafed by the moon, or the bushes, or night itself, the customary adviser of the Fool's doubts and queries.

"How is this?" he said again. "Did the King's Favorite, then, desire him? And will Preferment come if he be wanted? And how does one ask him?"

All this was inexplicable to the Fool and he took courage to return to the cave.

"Tell me," he asked of the Wise Man, "did the King's Favorite want Preferment more than I? And how does Preferment come if he is wanted?"

The Wise Man nodded gently to himself. "Aye," he muttered, "so it is, so it is." The Fool gazed in amazement at this, but because he thought all Wise Men are somewhat mad, he waited and did not run away, as his heels advised.

"Listen," the Wise Man began again, "this man has so wanted Preferment all his life that he has given up everything that is dear to him. He has crushed underfoot every dream and vision save this alone, to be seen in the company of Preferment." The Wise Man turned and looked about at the Fool. "He has no sod house,--no days afield and by the brook. He never heard the night-song of the wind or the winter-rune of the pine. Nothing of all these things that you love has he had."

The Fool's eyes were round with amazement. "No sod house?" But the other was sunk into a reverie and gave no answer. The Fool stood first on one foot, then on the other, then with his old smile he turned and skipped away. As he returned through the night, walking, hopping, or running, as the need came to him, he crooned to himself a song he had once made up.

"My lips are a-tremble with a grave little song.

I care not if the wide world hear.'

Its words happened forth as I dreamed and trudged along.

I care not if the wide world hear.

"It has not worth nor weight, it is neither sweet nor strong.

I care not if the wide world hear.

For I sing it to myself when the great doubts throng And I care not if the wide world hear."

That was all, but he hummed it with great content, beating time with one hand; and as for the King's Favorite, for all that Preferment rideth on the pommel of his saddle, I doubt not he never sang such a song to himself, or took such pleasure in the singing.

_Literary Monthly_, 1907.

THE IMMIGRANTS

HORACE HOLLEY ex-'10

Upon mine ear a deep, unbroken roar Thunders and rolls, as when the moving sea, Too long asleep, pours on th' resisting sh.o.r.e Full half his cohorts, tramping audibly.

Yet here's no rus.h.i.+ng of exasperate wind, Booming revolt amidst a factious tide; Nor hateful shock on toothed reef and blind, Of foaming waves that with a sob subside.

No! but more fateful than the restless deep, Whose crested hosts rise high but fall again, I hear, in solemn and portentous sweep, The slow, deliberate marshalling of men.

No monarch moves them, p.a.w.ns to gain a goal; They felt a fever rising in the soul.

_Literary Monthly_, 1909.

PROPHECY

HORACE HOLLEY ex-'10

All verse, all music; artistry Of cunning hand and feeling heart, All loveliness, whate'er it be, Is but the hint and broken part

Of that vast beauty and delight Which man shall know when he is free; When in his soul the alien night Folds up like darkness from the sea.

For e'en in song man still reveals His ancient fear, a mournful knell; Like one who dreams of home, but feels The bonds of an old prison cell.

_Literary Monthly_, 1909.

ASHES OF DREAMS

PHILO CLARKE CALHOUN '10

Jane always called him the professor, a name which that individual accepted without comment, as he did everything else. In fact, since he had been possessed of t.i.tular rights, but two people had ignored them--his mother and Mary. His mother had been dead--oh, a very long time, and it was nineteen years and some months since Mary had followed her. When Mary had died people said that Jane was coming to live with the professor; Jane came, and now people said quite unthinkingly that the professor lived with his sister. Jane was high-minded, also strong-minded; her hair was very thin and very straight, a fact for which she was sternly and devoutly thankful. Jane was stern and devout in everything--even in cooking preserves. To the professor, Jane had been surrounded by a sort of halo of preserves, ever since he had recovered from his awe of her unapproachable angularity as to allude to her before admiring play-mates as the "old maid."

When the professor had married, Jane had strongly disapproved--Mary's cheeks were much too pink, her hands much too soft, and her ways of life led her into the flowery meadows of the world and the flesh, if not the devil. The professor had been infatuated, and the year or so of married life seemed only to augment such infatuation, and incidentally Jane's ire. Well, the golden year was over, and the little b.u.t.terfly had gone to its rest, fretfully, fearfully. And then Jane wrote; wrote that the professor needed somebody to superintend him, to see that he did not take cold, and to cook his preserves; so she was coming. The professor did not wish to be superintended, he wanted to take cold in comfort without being asked how he took it, and he abominated preserves; to all of which Jane was supremely indifferent. Jane came; the professor wore overshoes and ate preserves--meekly.

So the professor lived with his sister. At first the direful system which ruled everything from the time of the cat's entrance to the date when the furnace fire should be started, chafed on him. His declarations of independence were received pityingly, as the prattles of a tired child. Gradually he resigned himself, and the germs of discontent followed the wake of the other germs which Jane had promptly and forcefully annihilated.

So the years went on; in time the professor grew tired of ranting and mild objections gave way to sighs of resignation. There had been bones to pick in plenty. The professor had a sneaking fondness for dirt--not mud, but historic dust, so to speak; Jane decreed all foreign matter as d.a.m.ned eternally. The professor liked fiction; he had once in the first years of Jane's rule started a novel, which having been inadvertently left in the living-room, was consigned to the flames; Jane had intimated, moreover, that the authors of such monstrosities would probably end in the embrace of the same element. Whereupon the professor's wrath was great; but his house was built on the sand; so was his novel; and five years afterwards he knew it.

Although Jane's fanatical cleanliness had been far-reaching, the professor's study was nearly immune. In the first place the door was usually locked and the key discreetly lost; and in the next place the professor had mildly but very obstinately insisted, through all the twenty years, that his desk, which is the sanctum sanctorum of the man with a past, remain untouched. Jane sniffed copiously over this stipulation, and, as she liked to do a thing thoroughly or not at all, the study remained as a whole comfortably mussy. Sometimes, however, Jane had twinges of conscience, resulting in the disappearance of all old, unbound, and destructible matter which presented itself. So the professor painstakingly replaced equally old and disreputable matter around the study when the whirlwind had pa.s.sed, and waited till the dust settled.

Of late the professor had been ill with a chronic rheumatism. He grumbled a good deal about the "positively senile" character of his affliction and finally agreed to take to his bed for a few days in the hope of luring nature to a hasty cure. The professor was rather helpless when he was ill; Jane was painfully and triumphantly energetic. One memorable day, when the invalid had fallen into a restless sleep, he was awakened by the vigorous ministrations of Jane, who was creaking around the room in an ostentatious effort, to be quiet. The professor looked and wondered what she would do if he were to yell. Seeing he was awake, she stepped over briskly and began to arrange his bedclothes and pillows. Her hand touched his sore leg. He winced and groaned inwardly.

"I am going to sit here and read to you," she announced with the stern cheerfulness which gave the recipient of her benefits a fitting sense of the self-sacrifice which prompted them. Jane usually read tracts, and the professor did not feel religious; in fact he was conscious of an emotion of most unchristian belligerence.

"Aren't you neglecting your house-work to attend to me?" remarked the victim with clumsy and obvious intent.

"My house is always in order, professor," answered the supremely ignorant one tartly.

"How fortunate; my study, too,--I suppose that is in order?" The professor felt most out of place as an inquisitor but he was desperate.