In Wild Rose Time Part 9

"But I'd fight awful! And I wouldn't stay. I'd run away, if I had to drown myself."

"They cut people up in hospitals"-and there was an awesome sound in the frightened voice.

"Don't, dear, don't;" and the pleading was that of agony. She held Bess close-all her life was centred in this poor, maimed body. The babies might cry, the world might cease to be, but nothing should part them.

"She'll be cross because there ain't more babies. And to-day she knows.

But the bank's most all out. O Dil, s'pose something happened to-to him!"

They looked at each other in a pathetic fas.h.i.+on through their tears, each bearing the other's sorrow, though they knew nothing of the divine injunction. Dil had fought silent battles with herself for faith in John Travis, but Bess had never wavered until now.

"It was so beautiful-that afternoon, an' the talkin'. I've thought so often 'bout his Lord Jesus, who could make my poor little legs well, an', Dil, somehow they keep shrinken' away. An' the lovely fruit an'

things! An' all that money! O Dil, we know now how rich folks feel, only they're rich all their lives, and we was rich jest that little while.

But it was splendid! Rich folks oughter be happy every minnit, an'-an'

good. 'Twould be so easy when you lived in a big, beautiful house, an'

had flowers an' nice things to eat an' to wear, an' a kerrige to ride in-"

She stopped exhausted, but her eyes glowed with the vision, and a rapture illumined her wan face. Ah, Bess, one poor, forlorn creature, born in the brain of the finest genius of his time, made the same pathetic outcry in her pitiful plight, brought about by her own ill-doing. And you both touched the boundary of a broad truth.

Dil gave a long, quivering breath, and it seemed as if her arms could never unclose again, so tight and fast did they hold their treasure.

"I'm _most_ sure he'll come." Bess made a strenuous effort to keep the doubt out of her tone. "He was ter bring the book, you know, and the picture; an' he didn't look 's though he was one of the forgettin' kind.

There's somethin'-I can't quite make it out; but Dil, when things is all still, most towards mornin', seems _if_ I could hear him talk. Only-it's so long to spring. I'm most sorry we didn't start that day. Why, we might have been to heaven before real cold weather. I'm so tired. Dil, dear, lay me down on the lounge, won't you? It'll rest me a bit."

She put her down softly, and tucked the faded quilt about her. Mamie had fallen asleep on the floor, and she laid her on her own little pallet.

The other baby had found a dropped-out knot in the floor, and was trying to put his crust of bread down through it.

Dil washed her dishes and tidied up the house. The clothes from the floor above swung on the pulley-line, and helped to shut out even the chilly gray light. Then there was dinner to get for the boys, who went to school quite steadily. Dan wasn't so bad, though; and Owen had been threatened with the reform-school, "where you had to sweep floors and sew on a machine like a gal!" That did not look so inviting as liberty.

What would happen to-night when her mother came home? Would she, could she, send Bess away?

"'Tain't no use to pray," she thought despairingly within her much-tried soul. "I uster pray about Bess's poor little legs, an' they never mended any. An' mebbe he thought we'd be a bother, an' he'd rather go to heaven alone."

What had become of John Travis?

V-A SONG IN THE NIGHT

In the twenty-four years of John Travis's life he had not done much but please himself. There was never any special pinch in the Travis household, any choice of two things, with the other to be given up entirely. His father was an easy-going man, his mother an amiable society woman, proud, of course, of her good birth. As I said before, excesses were not to John's taste. He didn't look like a fastidious young fellow, but the Travises were clean, wholesome people. Perhaps this was where their good blood really showed itself.

Mr. Travis had a little leaning toward the law for his son; the young fellow fancied he had a little leaning toward medicine. He dallied somewhat with both; he wrote a few pretty society verses; he etched very successfully, and he painted a few pictures, which roused an art ambition within him. He fell in love with a sweet girl in the winter, and in the late summer they had quarrelled and gone separate ways.

There had been another factor in his life,-his cousin, Austin Travis, some twelve years older than himself, his father's eldest brother's only child, and the eldest grandson. Travis farm had been his early home; and there John, the little boy, had fallen in love with the big boy.

Austin was one of the charming society men that women delight in. Every winter girls tried their best for him; and John was made much of on his account, for they were almost inseparable. It was Austin who soothed his uncle's disappointment in the law business. It was Austin who compelled the rather dilatory young fellow to paint in earnest.

Austin had planned a September tour. They would spend a few days with grandmother, and then go to the Adirondacks. He knew a camping-out party of artists and designers that it would be an advantage for John to meet.

John had packed his traps and sent them down to the boat, that was to go out at six. There was nothing special to do. He would walk down, and presently stop in at Brentano's, then take the car. He was very fond of seeing people group themselves together and change like a kaleidoscope.

But his heart was sore and indignant, and then his quick eye fell on the withered rose-buds in the shrunken hand of the child, and after that adventure he had barely time to catch his boat.

He hardly knew himself as he sat on the deck till past midnight. Two little poverty-stricken waifs had somehow changed his thoughts, his life. When he was a little boy at Travis Farm a great many curious ideas about heaven had floated through his brain. And when his grandmother sang in her soft, limpid voice,-

"There is a land of pure delight, Where saints immortal reign; Infinite day excludes the night, And pleasures banish pain,"

he used to see it all as a vision. Perhaps his ideas were not much wiser than those of poor little ignorant Bess. He had travelled with Pilgrim; he had known all the people on the way, and they were real enough to him at that period.

Oh, how long ago that seemed! Everything had changed since then. Science had uprooted simple faith. One lived by sight now. The old myths were still beautiful, of course. But long before Christ came, the Greek philosophers had prayed, and the Indian religions had had their self-denying saviours.

But he had promised to find the way to heaven for them, and they were so ignorant. He had promised to go thither himself, and he had dipped into so many philosophies; he knew so much, and yet he was so ignorant. But there must be a heaven, that was one fact; and there must be a way to go thither.

Sunday morning he was in Albany with Austin and two young men he had known through the winter. One of them was very attentive to a pretty cousin who would be found at Travis Farm. They had a leisurely elegant breakfast, they took a carriage and drove about to points of interest, had a course dinner, smoked and talked in the evening. But the inner John was a little boy again, and had gone to church with his grandmother. The sermon was long, and he did not understand it; but he read the hymns he liked, and chewed a bit of fennel, and went almost asleep. The singing was delightful, the spirited old "Coronation."

They went out to Travis Farm the next morning. There was grandmother and Aunt Maria, the single Miss Travis, Daisy Brockholst and her dear friend Katharine Lee. Of course the young people had a good time. They always did at Travis Farm, and they were fond of coming.

"Grandmother," John said, in a hesitating sort of way, "you used to sing an old hymn I liked so much,"

"There is a land of pure delight."

"Have you forgotten it? I wish you would sing it for me," and his hand slipped over hers.

"Why-yes, dear. I go singing about the house for company when no one is here; but old voices are apt to get thin in places, you know."

He did not say he had hunted up an old hymn-book, and read the words over and over. He was ashamed that the children's talk had taken such hold of him. But presently he joined in, keeping his really fine tenor voice down to a low key, and they sang together.

Then there was the soft silence of a country afternoon-the hushed sweetness of innumerable voices that are always telling of G.o.d's wonders.

"John," she said, in her low, caressing sort of tone that she had kept from girlhood, "I think heaven won't be quite perfect to me until I hear your voice among the mult.i.tude no man can number."

That was all. She had let her life of seventy-four years do her preaching. But she still prayed for her sheaves.

How had he come to have so much courage on Sat.u.r.day afternoon, and so little now? Of course he could not be _quite_ sure. And there would be Austin's incredulous laugh.

They went on to the Adirondacks. He made a sketch of Bess, and sent it to a photographer's with instructions. He was delighted with the artist group. He was planning out his winter. He would take a studio with some one. He would see what he could do for the Quinn children, and paint his fine picture. _She_ would see it when it was exhibited somewhere. There would be a curious satisfaction in it. And yet he was carrying around with him every day three faded, shrivelled wild-rose buds.

And then one day they brought in Austin Travis insensible-dead, maybe.

There was a little blood stain on his face and his golden brown beard; and it was an hour before they could restore him to consciousness. Just by a miracle he had been saved. A bit of rock that seemed so secure, had been secure for centuries perhaps, split off, taking him down with it.

He had the presence of mind to throw away his gun, but the fall had knocked him insensible. He had lain some time before the others found him. There were bruises, a dislocated shoulder, and three broken ribs.

Surgery could soon mend those. But there was a puncture in the magnificent lungs, such a little thing to change all one's life; and at first he rebelled with a giant's strength. Life was so much to him, _all_ to him. He could _not_ go down into nothingness with his days but half told.

Out of all the plans and advice it was settled to try the south of France, and perhaps the Madeira Isles, to take such good care and have such an equable climate that the wound might heal. And John was to be his companion and nurse and friend for all the lighter offices. Austin had hardly allowed him to go out of his sight.

They had returned to New York. Everything was arranged. Austin was impatient to be off before cold weather. For three days John never had a moment; but Bess and Dil had not been out of his mind, and he could steal this afternoon; so, with book and picture, he set out for Barker's Court, not much clearer about the way to heaven than he had been six weeks before.

Barker's Court was not inviting to-day, with its piles of garbage, and wet clothes hanging about like so many miserable ghosts.

"Is it Misses Quinn ye want, or old Granny Quinn?" queried the woman he questioned. "Granny lives up to th' end, an' Misses Quinn's is the third house, up-stairs."