Atlantic Narratives Part 49

'You could not really mean anything so horrible! And your body, so slim, so beautiful, that I have loved!'

His voice, though it was low, rang also, now--quivered almost.

'You forget that the stripes might be sweet, my well-beloved,'--I could see that his lips trembled,--'something still suffered for your sake.'

She put her hand to her brow, a little lovely gesture, as though all this troubled her, perhaps dazed her; or perhaps it was some old recollection in his voice.

'How absurd we are! We shall be parting soon.'

'Yes,' he said, 'for always. What can I say to you that you will remember?'

'Only say that you can never forget the night by the river.'

'I can never forget it.'

Something in his words fell final, like a fate.

She turned now to her husband. The stage was already slowing up.

'Is this the county seat? I have found out quite a great deal. I will tell you more about the coal lands as we drive. He is an interesting man.'

Suddenly, from having been intently upon them, my attention became aware of a familiar sound, the thudding hundred-hoofed sound of an approaching herd; I had been so absorbed in the strange world of the other happening that I had not known of their approach. Almost suddenly they were about us, black and brown backs, spreading horns, broad wet noses, ma.s.sive foreheads.

The driver looked down through the little hole rea.s.suringly.

'Just wait till they get past. They're on their way to the stockyards!'

We waited, the four of us, huddled together, with a strange kind of intimacy, it seemed, in the 'bus, while the trampling ma.s.s of driven dumb creatures surged and swayed around us, and finally struggled painfully by, each crowding the other, on their way to death. The woman watched them with eyes in which there met fear and pity.

With the last of the herd past, the driver was already opening the stage door. The woman's husband rose, stooping.

'If you'll allow me, I'll get out first with these.'

He took the satchels and got out of the 'bus, heavily.

He turned to a.s.sist the woman. She did not give him her hand at once.

The Franciscan drew back a little to let her pa.s.s. She paused the fraction of a moment and gave her hand to him.

'Good-bye.'

When she was beside the large man on the road, he also offered his hand to the Franciscan.

'Thank you; thank you very much indeed.'

He turned. 'Guess that's our surrey over there, Louise.' The darkey driver of the surrey hurried toward him. 'Yes; take these.'

The woman followed him. She did not look back. He a.s.sisted her into the surrey and followed, himself, his weight bending it heavily to one side as he entered.

I saw them drive away, along a broad cross-road into the lovely rolling country, her brown veil floating a little, unknown to her, but like a living thing, with a little wild waving of its folds. The Franciscan I saw follow a road in another direction. The curve of it soon hid him. I did not see him again.

I remained in the 'bus. We were to stay only a little while at the county seat, for we were already late. New horses were put to the pole, and within twenty minutes we were driving over the same road by which we had come.

An old gentleman who, I think, was a lawyer returning from county court, was the only other occupant, and he was soon dozing. It was a strange ride back. When we came to Latonia the light was so altered as to make a new and lovely adventure of it. The sun was not yet set, but the sunlight had withdrawn to the tops of the tall trees. Below, the hotel lawn was cool, almost twilit, mysterious in shadows. It was there only a little while ago that I had first seen these two coming down the path to enter the 'bus. The last few hours had changed life for me entirely.

Though I did not know it at the time, I know now that the two worlds of reality and of romance--before that distinct and separate in my mind and all untried--were forever mingled with each other now, for me, and were one with my own life. I shall never henceforth be able to see a herd of cattle on a dusty road without seeing those two in their last meeting; nor shall I ever see any who remind me of him or her without a sense of love and death and the inevitable.

This is a true story. I have never told it before. I have kept it locked away as something too cherished, too intimate to share with any one.

There always seemed to me a finality about it beyond any story I could ever read. Yet I am telling it now, partly from a sense of honor, partly from a hidden hope; because it was not, after all, finished that day.

She may still be living. This may chance to meet her eye. If so, I would have her know that the dark-eyed child who rode with them that day came in time, by that strange chance, so much more strange in life than in any story, to meet just what she had met: to meet Love, the glorious and radiant presence, only to find that there walked beside Love,--road-companions of the way,--Poverty, and one whose face had all the likeness of Death. And I would have her know that, because of that day, and because of the memory of her in my heart, so long cherished, I, at the chosen moment, laid my hand in that of the s.h.i.+ning Presence,--despite those other presences,--to go with it, in what paths soever it might lead me.

It is so, I take it, life deals with us more largely than we know. Fools in our folly; spendthrifts though we may be, throwing priceless wisdom away to the winds, as these two had done; wasting our wealth and our substance of joy irretrievably; careless of G.o.d's treasure intrusted to us; squandering gold worth the ransom of all the kings of the earth, and this for some trifling thing, some inconsiderable bauble; yet G.o.d, unknown to us, does most usually, no doubt, save from our wrecked fortunes and our lost argosies something--something precious still, and above price--with which, at a future day, with merciful largesse of wisdom and of love, some other soul may yet be blest and may yet be enriched, as it were by all the treasure of the earth.

CHILDREN WANTED

BY LUCY PRATT

THEY were sitting at the breakfast table when the morning mail came in.

There was something for Mr. Henry Tarbell--there was always something for him; there was something for Mrs. Henry Tarbell--there was usually something for her. The only thing at all unusual was that there was something for Master Crosby Tarbell. It was rather a strange-looking doc.u.ment, too. Beside the address was a picture of a pony with a long, sweeping tail, and just under the pony were some words. Crosby was learning to read in a school which was proud of its 'phonetic method,'

and he read the words slowly, with many little lip sounds to help him on.

'Would you like a pony for your vacation? You can have her free.'

His father's glance fell on the picture.

'Hullo, where does all that come from?'

'It says I can have her free,' began Crosby, with a characteristic pause in the middle of his sentence, which always gave the effect of steadying the inclination to a slight tremble in his small, earnest voice; 'it says--I can have her free.' His face flushed. 'Can I--have her, father?'

'Where would you keep her?' inquired his father casually, opening a letter. 'In the kitchen?'

'No, in the--in the barn! They used to keep a horse there--before we lived here! I--I could keep her in the barn!'

'M--m, barn? I'm afraid she wouldn't recognize it.'

'But there's a stall there! A nice stall! _Couldn't_ I have her?'

His father looked up again.

'What's this? A prize contest? Oh, I see.' He smiled absently as he went on with his mail. 'Yes, it's safe to say you can have her--if you can get her.'

Crosby's face flushed slowly again, and his eyes looked very bright.

'If you can get her,' repeated his father, pus.h.i.+ng his chair back and looking at his watch; 'but you can't, Crosby. There isn't a chance in a thousand that you could.' He put his watch in his pocket and looked at his wife. 'Well, I must go. Come on, old man. Better take your pony correspondence outside! Too good a day for the house.'