Tramping on Life Part 127

"And now, my darling Hildreth, we'll take this old world and shake it into new life, into the vital thing I have dreamed!" I boasted grandiloquently....

"Here in this little sequestered dream-cottage of ours you and I will carry out, popularise, through novels, poems, plays, essays, and treatises, the n.o.ble work that Ellis, Key, and Rosa Von Mayerreder, and others, are doing in Europe ... and we ourselves will set the example of true love that fears nothing but the conventional legal slavery."

"It will soon be very cold down here," commented Darrie, irrelevantly, "this is only a summer cottage, and they say--the old settlers--that we are to have a severe winter ... the frost fish are already beginning to come ash.o.r.e."

It was generally known, sub rosa, that Hildreth and I were living together. But, as long as she pretended it was not so, as long as I lived seemingly in another house, pretending, under another name, to be Mrs. Baxter's literary adviser, the hypocrisy of the world was satisfied.

I was, in other words, following the accepted mode.

It was a nasty little article by a fellow literary craftsman from the Pacific coast, that set me off, brought me to the full realisation that I was but playing the usual, conventional game,--that roused me to the determination that I must no longer sail under false colours.

This writer retailed how, after a brief, disillusioning few weeks together, Hildreth had grown tired of the poverty and spareness of the living a poet was able to make for her ... of how I was lazy, impliedly dirty ... of how, up against realities, we had parted ... I had, he stated, in fact, deserted her, and was now on my way back to Kansas, riding the rods of freights, once more an unsavoury outcast, a knight of the road ... he ended with the implication, if I remember correctly, that the reception that awaited me in Kansas, would be, to say the least, problematical.

Of course this story was made up out of whole cloth.

'Gene Mallows afterward informed me that the big literary club in San Francisco that this hack belonged to had seriously considered disciplining him by expulsion for his unethical behaviour toward a fellow-writer.

But I maintain that it was good that he penned the scurrilous article.

For I had allowed happiness to lull my radical conscience asleep. It was now goaded awake. I held a conference with Hildreth.

"There is now only one thing for me to ... to come right out with it that you and I are living here together in a free union, and that the love we bear each other not only justifies, but sanctifies our doing as we do--as no legal or ecclesiastical procedure could....

"That here we are and here we intend to abide, on these principles--no matter what the rest of the world does or says or thinks."

"I admit, Johnnie, that that would be the ideal way, but--" interrupted Darrie--

"But nothing--I'm tired of sneaking around, hiding from grocers and butcher boys, when everybody knows--

"And besides, Hildreth," turning to her, taking her in my arms, kissing her tenderly on the brow--"don't you see what it all means?

"As long as I pretend not to be living with you I'm considered a sly dog that seduced his friend's wife and got away with it ... 'served him right, the husband, for being such a b.o.o.b!' ... 'rather a clever chap, that Gregory, don't you know, not to be blamed much, eh?' ... 'only human, eh?' ...--'she's a deuced pretty little woman, they say!'

"Can't you see the sly looks, the nudges they give each other, as they gossip in the clubs?"

"Don't let your imagination get the better of you, please don't!" urged Darrie....

"No," I went on, "I'm going to send right now for Jerome Miller, a newspaper lad I knew in Kansas, who's now in New York on a paper, and give him an interview that will set us right with the stupid world once and for all. Miller was a fellow student of mine at Laurel ... he's a fine, square chap who will give me a clean break ... was president of our Scoop Club."

"Darling, darling, dearest," pleaded Hildreth, "I thought you had about enough of the newspapers ... you've seen how they've distorted all our ideals ... how our attempt to use them for propaganda has gone to smash ... how they pervert ... the filth and abuse they heap upon pioneers of thought in any direction--why wake the wild beasts up again?"

"What's the use believing in anything, if we don't stick up for what we believe?"

"Oh, go ahead, dear, if you feel so strongly about it, but--" and her tiny, dark head drooped, "I'm a little wearied ... I want quiet and peace a little while longer ... I'm getting the worst of it--not you so much, or Penton.

"I'm the woman in the case.

"Remember the invitation the other night, from the Congregational minister--for tea? He invited you for tea, you remember, and left me out?"

"--remember, too," I replied fondly, caressing her head, "how I didn't even deign to reply to the ---- ---- ---- ----!"

"s.h.!.+" putting her hand gently and affectionately over my mouth, "don't swear so ... very well, poke the wild beasts again!... but we'll only serve as sport for another Roman holiday for the newspapers."

I wrote Miller to come down, that I had an exclusive interview for him.

He arrived the very night of the day he received my letter.

Darrie stepped out over to the Ronds', not to be herself brought into what she had so far managed to keep out of.

Hildreth consumed the better part of two hours fixing herself up as women do when they want to make an impression....

"Your friend from Kansas must see that you haven't made such a bad choice in picking me," she proclaimed, with that pretty droop of her mouth.

"No, no! be a good boy, don't muss me up now!"

She wore a plain, navy-blue skirt ... wore a white middy blouse with blue, flowing tie ... easy shoes that fitted snug to her pretty little feet ... her eyes never held such depths to them, her face never shone with such beauty before.

I wore a brown sweater vest with pearl b.u.t.tons ... corduroy trousers ...

black oxfords ... a flowing tie....

A large log fire welcomed my former Kansas friend.

"Well, Johnnie, it's been a long time since I've seen you."

"Jerome, let me introduce you to the only woman that ever lived, or shall live, for me ... Hildreth Baxter."

As Hildreth gave Miller her hand, I could see that he liked her, and that he inwardly commented on my good taste and perhaps said to himself, "Well, Johnnie is not so crazy after all!"

After I had given him the interview, he asked her a few questions, but she begged to be left out, that it was my interview.

"Mr. Miller, you are a friend of Johnnie's ... I have often heard him speak highly of you; can't you dissuade him from having this interview printed ... no matter if you have been sent by your paper all the way down here for it?"

Jerome liked what Hildreth had said, admired her for her common sense.

He offered to return to the city, and risk his job by stating that he had been hoaxed.

"I will leave you to argue it out with him, Mr. Miller." And Hildreth excused herself and went off down the path to the Ronds' too.

"Johnnie," my friend urged, putting his hand on my shoulder, "your little lady has a lot of sense ... it _will_ kick up a h.e.l.l of a row ...

it's true what you say about them rather approving of you now, some of them, considering you a sly dog and so forth.... Yes, I'm sorry to say, what you're doing, much of the world is doing most of the time."

"I beg your pardon, Jerome, but there you've made my point ... do you think I want a sneaking, clandestine thing kept up between me and the woman I love?"

"Then why not stay apart till the divorce is granted, then marry her like a regular fellow?"