The Complete Writings of Charles Dudley Warner Part 193

"Oh, as I wrote you, at the opera; saw her in her box."

"And--?"

"Oh, she's rather a little thing; rather dark, I told you that; seems devoted to music."

"And you didn't tell what she wore."

"Why, what they all wear. Something light and rather fluffy."

"Just like a man. Is she pretty?"

"Ye-e-s; has that effect. You'd notice her eyes." If Philip had been frank he would have answered,

"I don't know. She's simply adorable," and Celia would have understood all about it.

"And probably doesn't know anything. Yes, highly educated? I heard that. But I'm getting tired of 'highly educated'; I see so many of them.

I've been making them now for years. Perhaps I'm one of them. And where am I? Don't interrupt. I tell you it is a relief to come across a sweet, womanly ignoramus. What church does she go to?"

"Who?"

"That Mavick girl."

"St. Thomas', I believe."

"That's good--that's devotional. I suppose you go there too, being brought up a Congregationalist?"

"At vespers, sometimes. But, Celia, what is the matter with you?

I thought you didn't care--didn't care to belong to anything?"

"I? I belong to everything. Didn't I write you reams about my studies in psychology? I've come to one conclusion. There are only two persons in the world who stand on a solid foundation, the Roman Catholic and the Agnostic. The Roman Catholic knows everything, the Agnostic doesn't know anything."

Philip was never certain when the girl was bantering him; nor, when she was in earnest, how long she would remain in that mind and mood. So he ventured, humorously:

"The truth is, Celia, that you know too much to be either. You are what they call emanc.i.p.ated."

"Emanc.i.p.ated!" And Celia sat up energetically, as if she were now really interested in the conversation. "Become the slave of myself instead of the slave of somebody else! That's the most hateful thing to be, emanc.i.p.ated. I never knew a woman who said she was emanc.i.p.ated who wasn't in some ridiculous folly or another. Now, Phil, I'm going to tell you something. I can tell you. You know I've been striving to have a career, to get out of myself somehow, and have a career for myself.

Well, today--mind, I don't say tomorrow"--(and there was a queer little smile on her lips)--"I think I will just try to be good to people and things in general, in a human way."

"And give up education?"

"No, no. I get my living by education, just as you do, or hope to do, by law or by letters; it's all the same. But wait. I haven't finished what I was going to say. The more I go into psychology, trying to find out about my mind and mind generally, the more mysterious everything is. Do you know, Phil, that I'm getting into the supernatural? You can't help running into it. For me, I am not side-tracked by any of the nonsense about magnetism and telepathy and mind-reading and other psychic imponderabilities. Isn't it queer that the further we go into science the deeper we go into mystery?

"Now, don't be shocked, I mean it reverently, just as an ill.u.s.tration. Do you think any one knows really anything more about the operation in the world of electricity than he does about the operation of the Holy Ghost?

And yet people talk about science as if it were something they had made themselves."

"But, Celia--"

"No, I've talked enough. We are in this world and not in some other, and I have to make my living. Let's go into the other room and see the old masters. They, at least, knew how to paint--to paint pa.s.sion and character; some of them could paint soul. And then, Phil, I shall be hungry. Talking about the mind always makes me hungry."

XI

Philip was always welcome at his uncle's house in Rivervale. It was, of course, his home during his college life, and since then he was always expected for his yearly holiday. The women of the house made much of him, waited on him, deferred to him, petted him, with a flattering mingling of tenderness to a little boy and the respect due to a man who had gone into the world. Even Mr. Maitland condescended to a sort of equality in engaging Philip in conversation about the state of the country and the prospects of business in New York.

It was July. When Philip went to sleep at night--he was in the front chamber reserved for guests--the loud murmur of the Deerfield was in his ears, like a current bearing him away into sweet sleep and dreams in a land of pleasant adventures. Only in youth come such dreams. Later on the sophisticated mind, left to its own guidance in the night, wanders amid the complexities of life, calling up in confusion scenes long forgotten or repented of, images only registered by a sub-conscious process, dreams to perplex, irritate, and excite.

In the morning the same continuous murmur seemed to awake him into a peaceful world. Through the open window came in the scents of summer, the freshness of a new day. How sweet and light was the air! It was indeed the height of summer. The corn, not yet ta.s.seled, stood in green flexible ranks, moved by the early breeze. In the river-meadows haying had just begun. Fields of timothy and clover, yellowing to ripeness, took on a fresh bloom from the dew, and there was an odor of new-mown gra.s.s from the sections where the scythes had been. He heard the call of the crow from the hill, the melody of the bobolink along the meadow-brook; indeed, the birds of all sorts were astir, skimming along the ground or rising to the sky, keeping watch especially over the garden and the fruit-trees, carrying food to their nests, or teaching their young broods to fly and to chirp the songs of summer. And from the woodshed the shrill note of the scythe under the action of the grindstone. No such vivid realization of summer as that.

Philip stole out the unused front door without disturbing the family.

Whither? Where would a boy be likely to go the first thing? To the barn, the great cavernous barn, its huge doors now wide open, the stalls vacant, the mows empty, the sunlight sifting in through the high shadowy s.p.a.ces. How much his life had been in that barn! How he had stifled and scrambled mowing hay in those lofts! On the floor he had hulled heaps of corn, thrashed oats with a flail--a n.o.ble occupation--and many a rainy day had played there with girls and boys who could not now exactly describe the games or well recall what exciting fun they were. There were the racks where he put the fodder for cattle and horses, and there was the cutting-machine for the hay and straw and for slicing the frozen turnips on cold winter mornings.

In the barn-yard were the hens, just as usual, walking with measured step, scratching and picking in the muck, darting suddenly to one side with an elevated wing, clucking, chattering, jabbering endlessly about nothing. They did not seem to mind him as he stood in the open door.

But the rooster, in his oriental iridescent plumage, jumped upon a fence-post and crowed defiantly, in warning that this was his preserve.

They seemed like the same hens, yet Philip knew they were all strangers; all the hens and flaunting roosters he knew had long ago gone to Thanksgiving. The hen is, or should be, an annual. It is never made a pet. It forms no attachments. Man is no better acquainted with the hen, as a being, than he was when the first chicken was hatched. Its business is to live a brief chicken life, lay, and be eaten. And this reminded Philip that his real occupation was hunting hens' eggs. And this he did, in the mows, in the stalls, under the floor-planks, in every hidden nook.

The hen's instinct is to be orderly, and have a secluded nest of her own, and bring up a family. But in such a communistic body it is a wise hen who knows her own chicken. n.o.body denies to the hen maternal instincts or domestic proclivities, but what an ill example is a hen community!

And then Philip climbed up the hill, through the old gra.s.s-plot and the orchard, to the rocks and the forest edge, and the great view.

It had more meaning to him than when he was a boy, and it was more beautiful. In a certain peaceful charm, he had seen nothing anywhere in the world like it. Partly this was because his boyish impressions, the first fresh impressions of the visible world, came back to him; but surely it was very beautiful. More experienced travelers than Philip felt its unique charm.

When he descended, Alice was waiting to breakfast with him. Mrs.

Maitland declared, with an approving smile on her placid, aging face, that he was the same good-for-nothing boy. But Alice said, as she sat down to the little table with Philip, "It is different, mother, with us city folks." They were in the middle room, and the windows opened to the west upon the river-meadows and the wooded hills beyond, and through one a tall rose-bush was trying to thrust its fragrant bloom.

What a dainty breakfast! Alice flushed with pleasure. It was so good of him to come to them. Had he slept well? Did it seem like home at all?

Philip's face showed that it was home without the need of saying so.

Such coffee-yes, a real aroma of the berry! Just a little more, would he have? And as Alice raised the silver pitcher, there was a deep dimple in her sweet cheek. How happy she was! And then the b.u.t.ter, so fresh and cool, and the delicious eggs--by the way, he had left a hatful in the kitchen as he came in. Alice explained that she did not make the eggs.

And then there was the journey, the heat in the city, the grateful sight of the Deerfield, the splendid morning, the old barn, the watering-trough, the view from the hill everything just as it used to be.

"Dear Phil, it is so nice to have you here," and there were tears in Alice's eyes, she was so happy.

After breakfast Philip strolled down the country road through the village. How familiar was every step of the way!--the old houses jutting out at the turns in the road; the glimpse of the river beyond the little meadow where Captain Rice was killed; the spring under the ledge over which the snap-dragon grew; the dilapidated ranks of fence smothered in vines and fireweeds; the cottages, with flower-pots in front; the stores, with low verandas ornamented with boxes and barrels; the academy in its green on the hill; the old bridge over which the circus elephant dared not walk; the new and the old churches, with rival steeples; and, not familiar, the new inn.

And he knew everybody, young and old, at doorways, in the fields or gardens, and had for every one a hail and a greeting. How he enjoyed it all, and his self-consciousness added to his pleasure, as he swung along in his well-fitting city clothes, broad-shouldered and erect--it is astonis.h.i.+ng how much a tailor can do for a man who responds to his efforts. It is a pleasure to come across such a hero as this in real life, and not have to invent him, as the saying is, out of the whole cloth. Philip enjoyed the world, and he enjoyed himself, because it was not quite his old self, the farmer's boy going on an errand. There must be knowledge all along the street that he was in the great law office of Hunt, Sharp & Tweedle. And, besides, Philip's name must be known to all the readers of magazines in the town as a writer, a name in more than one list of "contributors." That was fame. Translated, however, into country comprehension it was something like this, if he could have heard the comments after he had pa.s.sed by:

"Yes, that's Phil Burnett, sure enough; but I'd hardly know him; spruced up mightily. I wonder what he's at?"

"I heard he was down in New York trying to law it. I heard he's been writin' some for newspapers. Accordin' to his looks, must pay a durn sight better'n farmin'."

"Well, I always said that boy wa'n't no skeezics."

Almost the first question Philip asked Alice on his return was about the new inn, the Peac.o.c.k Inn.

"There seemed a good deal of stir about it as I pa.s.sed."

"Why, I forgot to tell you about it. It's the great excitement.

Rivervale is getting known. The Mavicks are there. I hear they've taken pretty much the whole of it."

"The Mavicks?