I Walked in Arden Part 50

Driving to the station, Helen said: "Let's stop for a day or two in Chicago on our way back next June, Ted. I think it's fun."

On the train Helen and I had a little compartment to ourselves, with another for baby, nurse, and Miss Brock, the trained nurse. Helen insisted at once on playing house and having the baby come as a caller to visit us.

"Ted--just think! We are going across the Continent. It's a real adventure, dear."

"To be anywhere with you is a beautiful adventure," I whispered. It sounded ba.n.a.l, but I meant it.

"Dear old boy, you still pay me compliments after being married to me for ages. And I like them just as much as ever, Ted." She snuggled against me, saying, "Make me comfy, Ted."

In spite of Helen's joy in travel, I found my courage oozing out of me on that train. The tracks stretched so remorselessly and interminably away from the rear carriage, while we went on and on. Our old life and happiness seemed to be fading far off over many horizons. Ahead of us there was nothing but a strange land and an unknown, perilous struggle.

I wondered at the towns we pa.s.sed through, and if, in each village we went by, there were others righting the same fears and watching beside their beloveds.

Mother and baby often sat on opposite seats, chattering to each other of the things seen out the window--gee-gees, moo-cows, and all the rest that all mothers show their babies. Little Helen no longer could sit in her mother's lap.

"Daddy," she asked one day, "why can't I sit in mummy dear's lap any more the way I did in England?"--everything now she compared with England--"and, daddy, why doesn't mummy dear kiss me good-night any more?"

I held little Helen very tight at this, for a pair of grey eyes opposite were staring out the Pullman window.

"Ted," said the grey eyes slowly, "tell her the truth."

"Mummy dear is ill, little girl--and the doctor says you mustn't sit in her lap or kiss her until she is quite well again."

"I want mummy dear to get well quickly, daddy. Tell the doctor to make her well. I want mummy dear to kiss me again."

"Ted, I'm afraid I'll have--to ask you--to--to take baby back--to nurse," the grey eyes tried to smile. "I can't stand--everything, dear."

Helen woke me up the second or third morning--I can't remember which--calling, "Ted, do look at this wonderful country--we are in New Mexico, dear. Look at it!"

I shook myself awake and climbed out of my berth. Helen was sitting in her dressing gown by the window. I noticed that the skin on her throat looked white and waxy. But I came quickly beside her.

"It is like another world out there."

Sagebrush had begun; in the distance were strange, eerie-looking mountains. Shadows were sharp and hard, with edges that looked as if they had been trimmed with a jackknife.

"It _is_ another planet," I said, as we looked at this weird panorama unfolding before us. "It couldn't have been the same G.o.d that made this."

The train stopped with a jerk at some collection of little wooden houses whose gable roofs were squared off by false fronts.

"It's like the Western novels, Ted. Oh, look--there's a real cowboy--by Jove, Ted, he _can_ ride!"

A man in leather chaps rode up to the little station and dismounted with a flourish, I suspect for the benefit of the train. There was, however, no doubt that he and a horse were old acquaintances. Helen made me open the window.

"May I give your horse a lump of sugar?" she called to the man. He looked up surprised, then grinned.

"Sure, lady, if I can coax him alongside of the train."

About this the horse was of another opinion. He reared magnificently and struck out with his forefeet.

"I want to ride that horse, Ted."

We compromised by handing the man the lump of sugar to be transferred to the horse. The horse sniffed it disdainfully and spat it out.

"I guess he ain't used to no dainties, lady," the man apologized.

The train whistled, and we were off again. The man swung into his saddle, the horse bolting with him across the desert. We saw him rein him in and turn in his saddle to wave his hat at the train. Helen fluttered her handkerchief out the window.

"Couldn't we take a Western pony back with us, Ted? I think we can almost afford it."

"If you want one, dear."

"I'd make a sensation on a horse like that at a meet of the Old Berkeley East hounds."

"I think his carelessness with his forefeet would bar him out," I replied.

California at last. The train climbed over a range of the curious mountains, and then coasted down into a wide, flat plain set with groves of trees.

"Orange trees, Ted!" Helen exclaimed.

"Something like the Riviera," I said, a bit doubtfully. I wasn't quite certain, this country was what we had expected. We looked anxiously at the towns, to see what they were like. I think each of us had a little the feeling we were making the best of what we saw for the others'

benefit. The towns were--well, still like other Western small towns. The main streets were a hodge-podge of rural-looking shops. From a train they were not attractive.

"Of course," I said, "Los Angeles is a large city with magnificent suburbs--we mustn't expect the fruit-growing sections to be very home-like."

"I wonder, Ted? Suppose we don't like it here?"

"Nonsense," I answered stoutly. "Think of all the fine things we have heard about California."

It was dusk when the train arrived at Los Angeles. The hotel rea.s.sured us, for it was comfortable, and we were pleasantly received. In the morning I was to begin my search for a bungalow--one right out on the desert, if there were such things here as desert bungalows. I went to bed with a shade of anxiety concerning the recommendation of the London doctor. I had seen nothing yet to make me think this a particularly good place for an invalid.

A house agent took me in tow in the morning. We went first to Pasadena, a beautiful place, as I admitted to the agent, but far too town-like and civilized for our purposes. The agent had much to say about the Californian climate; I had quite a fund of information on this subject before I had done with him. I forget now his statistics: the number of days of suns.h.i.+ne, the number of inches of rain, the number of cool nights in summer. I likewise have forgotten his commercial statistics concerning the thousands of carloads of oranges--"citrus fruits," I believe he called oranges and lemons.

From time to time I reminded him that I was looking for a bungalow. This was necessary, for he preferred to talk of California at the expense of facts nearer home. "It's the garden spot of the world," he exclaimed ecstatically from time to time--"the sun-kissed valleys of California."

"What I am looking for is a sun-kissed bungalow in your garden spot, old thing," I remarked about two o'clock. "We haven't found one yet."

He pulled himself together, and we followed another clue out in Altadena. As we neared the great range of the Sierra Madre mountains, I felt, as children say, we were "getting warm." They towered crisp and clear, like theatrical scenery, and their lower slopes lay pleasantly exposed to the sun. The agent protested that I would find it unpleasant to live so far out.

"What is one near, if one lives further in?" I asked, not unkindly.

I was almost ready to return to Los Angeles with the resolve of seeking another agent on the next day, when we really came across a charming little bungalow standing all by itself on irrigated land. The agent was contemptuous; the locality was not fas.h.i.+onable; he had many other objections. Overhead the mountains fairly hung upon us. All around was open land, unbuilt upon. The house itself was new, comfortable, and of the right size. To the agent's disgust and the landlord's amazement, I paid a month's rent in advance, upon the spot, and with my own hands took down the "For Rent" sign.

One difficulty developed at the last moment.

"Your wife isn't a lunger, is she?" the landlord inquired.