：· * * * ·{：，：،
（...:…， …（ ººº. •••••••••• • •••••••••••••••••••！！!！！！！！）………… .
، ، ،：º ： ***：-）→

-
* - -1.
& -
- a-- -
* ~
- * *
,- r wº- w
* -º-
- !
V. . .”
• - \
- * - * . -
- A. ^x -
," - 4
4 * ...,
J -.” ..) * *
Y. *
-
- ~sº- t
|ETITITUTITUTIVºž dº,
É HTIIIHIIIHIIIlſº § ſº Bºš. -
- Fºlſº rºl||
# S-ºn=xxº~ |E|3:
Hi LIBRARY OF THE Eifl. | -
# UNI VE snºutmºs # o
J)
‘J’ſº º -----
t - tº:
a sº - --- -- -
* -
º ALIU-ALA MACVAQUINN.CººlTº Lºſ ALAU
º
-
H
º
...] EH H
- --4 |-
#3 | |
*...] H | -
£3 ==
--
i
ſ-
i
|


















92.8
38772 4,
PARAD IS E

By the same Author
KING’S EN ID
Crown 8vo 6;
Opinions of the Press
The Spectator.—“A delightfully drawn sketch of
life in New England; and Nancy, the heroine,
is a charming creature. The book is not only
worth reading, it will be remembered after it
is read.”
The Guardian.—“In Miss Alice Brown we have a
most welcome and delightful addition to the
writers on American village life. It is long
since we have read a book of this kind which
has pleased us more.”
The Literary World.—“One of the most notable
results of recent fiction. Its distinction and
freshness should commend it to all who are
tired of the commonplace and the neurotic.”
Literature.—“A charming story, instinct with hu-
manity, well written and with a characteriza-
tion far above the average. It is well worth
reading.”
Candid Friend.—“A book of great freshness and
charm. I followed the fortunes of its strange
characters with unflagging interest.”

P A R AD IS E
BY
A LI C E B R O WN
it mutin
ARCHIBALD CONSTABLE & CO. LTD.
BOSTON AND NEW YORK
HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & CO,
1905
PARAD IS E
PA R A D IS E
I
MALORY DWIGHT had taken the five-mile drive
from his farm to the village, and hitched his horse
in front of the house where Ann Parsons, the old
nurse, had a second-floor tenement. The door
was locked, the curtains, all over the house, were
down. He drew a breath of despair, for he needed
Ann greatly. As he stood on the narrow side-
walk, debating, a man hailed him from the other
side of the street.
“Guess she’s gone to the hall, Malory. There’s
doin’s there.”
“Much obliged.”
Malory untied his horse and stepped into the
wagon again, and as the voice continued, “How's
your sister P” he replied briefly, “Worse,” and
drove on through the one street whose modest
signboards proclaimed the life of trade. He drew
up in front of the little yellow hall where the
“doings” predicted were already apparent. Men
and women were going in, exhaling a vague
2 P A R A D IS E
excitement from their hurried salutations and
the quivering importance of their backs. They
were the last of the late-comers; and when Malory
also entered, indifferent to his working clothes
and disordered hair, the audience was seated,
the hall was still, and a tall man with piercing
eyes and a dashing mustache and imperial was
arranging various properties upon the stage.
Several men and women turned to notice Malory
as he stood, stern-faced and anxious, in the
background, his haggard eyes traveling over the
assembly, in futile search. One thought was in
the minds of those who knew him, and a woman
voiced it.
“S'pose she’s dead?” she asked her next neigh-
bor.
Malory, hearing the whisper, frowned savagely
in her direction and bit his lip. At that moment
he caught sight of Ann Parsons, a little old woman,
bent with hard work, but bearing no marks of it
in her face, shrewd, quizzical, and kindly. He
strode up the aisle, regardless of the man on
the platform, who stood waiting for the rustle
of alien interest to subside, and touched her
on the arm. She turned with a start, and he
looked into her sharp gray eyes and felt his anxi-
ety lulled by the weather-reddened face, bordered
with its bands of smooth black hair. He knew
every line of her features and expression; it all
P A R A D IS E 3
meant energy and a beneficent kindliness. She
spoke in an undaunted whisper.
“Law, Malory! that you?”
“We’ve been left in the lurch,” he returned, in
an eager undertone. “Can’t you come an’ take
care of Clary a spell ? Can’t you come to-night?”
“I’m real sorry,” said Ann. “I can’t noways.
I’m nussin' Mis’ Hiram Peters, an’ the reason
I’m here is’t her darter’s come for over night.
I’ve had quite a spell o' watchin’, an’ they
thought it might 'cruit me up to git out amongst
folks.”
“You come with me,” he urged.
“I can’t noways, Malory. She’s nervous as a
witch, an’ if I don’t turn up by half arter nine
there’ll be a terrible time an’ nobody to it.”
“Ladies and gentlemen,” — began the lec-
turer, a warning eye upon Malory, and the young
man, dejected as a dog in trouble, turned away
and went heavily down the aisle and out into the
air. He stood a moment on the steps, debating
whether any other channel of help were open to
him. The autumn wind struck chill upon his face,
and the silent village seemed unfriendly to him.
All the people within were in the league of an
eager interest, and he felt their cruel distance.
Then the lecturer's voice, round and oratorically
placed, came floating out and roused him.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” the man was saying,
4. P A R A D IS E
“I regret to inform you that Miss Barbara
Benedict, the astrologer and palmist, is ill to-
night and unable to appear.”
The words, only because they were words,
broke the spell for Malory, and he went hastily
out to his wagon, unhitched the horse, and drove
away. The deserted street suddenly looked kind;
it had lights here and there, and before him lay
the dark country road and the darker conditions
of the house where his sister lay alone waiting for
him to come. He was a man needing woman’s
help, and pathetically unable to obtain it.
The road led first through a half mile of farm-
land, and then into a solemn wood. At the begin-
ning of this darker stretch, he saw a woman’s
figure going his way, and drew up, when he over-
took it.
“Ride?” he asked, in the familiar country
formula. He expected to hear a voice he knew,
but the note of it startled him. It was a young
voice, rich, and pierced by a reedlike thrill. It had
at that moment a certain poignant anxiety or
appealingness. --
“Yes, oh yes,” said the woman. “Thank you
very much.” She stepped into the wagon as
lightly, he thought, in a momentary comparison
with certain clambering women he knew, “as a
bird.” Seated beside him, she drew a long breath.
They drove into the darkness of the woods, and
P A R A D IS E 5
there Malory, because she was a stranger, and
conversation seemed demanded of him, spoke
awkwardly.
“Goin’ far P”
“No, not far,” she answered, half defiantly.
Then, as if impelled by necessity, she added,
“How far can you take me?”
“About five mile from town,” said Malory.
Presently, because he felt his trouble, and the
need of woman’s help was strong upon him, he
burst forth, “I’d carry you further if you wanted,
but my sister’s all alone. She’s sick.”
“Sick P”
“She’s in consumption. We’ve had a woman
workin’ for us, an’ she’s come down with a bad
throat, an’ I had to carry her home. Then Mis’
Nash that lives next door’s been called to Fair-
fax because somebody’s sick, an’ I just harnessed
up an’ drove into town to see if I could get Ann
Parsons. She’s a nurse.”
“Could nºt you get her P”
There was a vivid interest in the woman’s
voice. Malory warmed under it.
“No. We used to have Ann for everything, but
Clary’s been sick so long Ann had to leave once
or twice, when there was a tough case some'er's
else. Well, I can fix Clary up for the night, an’
maybe in the mornin’ I can do somethin’.”
They were driving out of the woods now, and
6 P A R A D IS E
the pale revealing of the moon was on them.
Involuntarily they turned and fronted each other.
Malory saw a girl’s face, white and very small
within the enveloping shadow of her hood. To
her eyes he was a young and honest country-
man with a short beard. She spoke in a quick
insistence.
“I wish you’d let me take care of her.”
“You!”
“Yes.”
Then, to his amazement, she began to sob. He
drew the horse in to a walk. The girl was speak-
ing wildly.
“Don’t you ever tell. You won’t, will you?”
“No! no!” asserted Malory, with an empha-
sis proportioned to her own. Even there in the
dark, he felt a strong championship of her, and
for the instant his sister was out of his mind. She
spoke abruptly, watching his face in the dusky
light, as if to judge of her effect:
“I’ve run away.”
There was a pause. Then Malory, summoning
probabilities, answered:
“Where from ? the poor farm P”
“No, oh no! Did nºt you hear there was a jug-
gler in town to-night?”
“Yes. He’s at the town hall. I went there after
Ann Parsons. He was just beginnin’ when I
come away.”
P A R A D IS E 7
Involuntarily she shrank from him, with an
instant sorrow at her confidence. Suddenly he
was not a beneficent and shadowy stranger out
of the dark; he was a tangible link between her
and what she had escaped. Malory felt her mood
without interpreting it. His answer was as hasty,
in a rebound:
“I heard a few words. He said the palmist was
sick an’ could n’t come.”
The girl broke into a low laugh.
“Sick!” she echoed. “Then he is n’t going to
tell I’ve run away.”
“Are you the palmist P”
“Yes, I was. I’m not going to be any more —
for him.”
The horse, impatient for home, broke into a
willful trot, but Malory pulled him up again.
Still he ignored the need of haste in pondering
the possibility the girl had offered. He spoke
awkwardly, sorry to question her, and loath to
offend with an ungrateful challenge.
“I s”pose you’re used to sickness?”
“No,” she said eagerly. “No, I don’t know as
I am. I’ve taken care of him ever so many times
when he had attacks.”
“What kind of attacks P”
“He” — she hesitated, and her voice fell —
“he used to drink.” She said it sympathetically.
“Once he had pneumonia,” she added in a
8 P A R A D IS E
bright afterthought, as if that fitted her the more
lavishly.
“Who is he?” asked Malory suddenly, sur-
prising himself with his own insistence. “Your
father ?”
“He said he was my uncle.’
sunken. She was ashamed.
“Is he your uncle?”
“No. He told me so to-day. That’s why Iran
away.”
“So you did n’t want to be travelin’ round
with him. That the reason P”
“I did n’t want to be traveling round with
him. Yes. That’s the reason.” But her tone be-
trayed some bitterness, and he felt there was more
behind.
“Well,” said Malory, after an instant’s ponder-
ing, “if Clary’s agreed, I am. You come in an’
let her see you. If she says, “Stay,” I say so,
too.”
“Oh,” cried the girl, in a burst of feeling, “you
shan’t be sorry. I’ll take good care of her. I’ll
work my fingers off.”
“Anyway,” continued Malory, “you stay all
night to-night. Clary’d want you to as much as I
do. She would n’t turn a kitten into the road.”
He shook out the reins, and the horse answered.
At the gate they stopped, and the girl laid a hand
on the robe covering Malory's knee.
5
Her voice had
P A R A D IS E 9
“Wait a minute,” she said. “Promise me you
won’t tell.”
“Tell what P”
“Where I come from. If he comes after me,
you’ll hide me.”
“Hide all you want to.” Malory felt a sudden
lightness of heart. “There’s an attic an' a barn
cellar an’ a cornhouse. Take your pick.”
She leaped lightly to the ground, and now she
stood there wrapped in her cloak, awaiting him.
Malory got out, and after a glance at the win-
dows, hitched his horse to the fence.
“There’s a light in the kitchen,” he said.
“Some o’ the neighbors must ha’ come in. We’ll
slip up the front stairs an’ see Clary first.” He
opened the gate for her, and she waited until he
had closed it. Then they walked up the grassy
path, where dry hollyhock stalks rustled on either
side, and Malory pushed open the front door.
The hall was dark, and he held the door wide for
her to find the stairs.
“There you are,” he said, when she reached
the first step, and turned to him in an expectant
pose. “Go right up. It’s the chamber to the
right.”
But in the upper hall she awaited him, while
he opened the door softly and motioned her to
enter. That she refused by a gesture of finality,
and stood there, wrapping her cloak more closely
10 P A R A D IS E
about her shoulders, her small face sunken in its
folds. Malory halted a second, and then stepped
in, leaving the door open behind him.
“Shut the door,” came a thin, sweet voice from
the bed. “You got home, Malory?”
“Yes,” said Malory, in a tone moved by the
excitement of the moment. “Yes, Clary. Some-
body’s here.”
“Who is it P”
He went forward to the great fireplace, and laid
a log upon the smouldering coals. A bushel basket
stood there filled with pine cones, and he heaped
a double handful on the log. The fire answered
in a great roar, and went singing up chimney.
Instantly the room started into life, shadows and
all, and the girl outside in the darkness stood
there and saw it. Unused as she was to country
houses of this sort, the walls seemed to her to be
hung with pictures, pretty and bewilderingly
alike. It was landscape paper, all castles and
trees, and before every castle stood a lover and his
lass. There were rich, dark pieces of old furni-
ture, and a great bed, with a tester of white dim-
ity, held a place of dignified importance. In the
bed, resting on a pile of pillows, lay a girl, pale
and thin-cheeked, with a braid of yellow hair on
each side of her face. Malory had advanced to
the bed. The girl outside scanned him also, and
made a rapid inventory of his strength and grace.
P A R A D IS E II
He was a huge creature, brown-haired, and with
a noble profile. His blue eyes were sweet and
kindly, under their thick brows, and she trusted
the sight of him as she had trusted his voice in
the dark. His sister was smiling up at him, ado-
ration in her look.
“Ann Parsons P” she asked.
He laughed a little, with a sudden recognition
of the oddity of the event. Up to this moment it
had seemed a most natural thing to bring home a
stranger out of the dark. Now the familiar atmo-
sphere, the enveloping walls of the house, made it
incredible. He cast a glance at the doorway, un-
certain, for the moment, whether she were there.
“Well, it’s kind o' queer, Clary,” he said
frankly, “but I found a stranger on the road, an’
she thinks she can take care o' you.”
“Where is she?” asked the sick girl, in a vivid
interest. “Maybe I’d like her. I ain’t set on
Ann Parsons. Where is she, Malory?”
At the instant of his turning to summon her,
the girl stepped lightly into the room. She still
wore her cloak, but the hood fell, and with a
quick movement she swept its folds away and
dropped it to the floor. It was not a dramatic
action. Her face, half shame and half appeal,
made it apparent that she sought no effect save
that of revealing the worst of herself at once. The
brother and sister, by one impulse, caught their
I2 P A R A D IS E
breath and gazed at her. She was a slender crea-
ture with a pale, small face and great dark eyes.
Her lips were vividly red, and the short upper one
was lifted now over white, small teeth. She was
dressed in yellow gauze that shimmered about
her like gold, her black hair hung over her shoul-
ders, and there was a crown upon her head. In
her face was shame only now, growing the more
they looked at her, and reddening her cheeks to a
suffusing warmth.
“By George!” said Malory, under his breath.
His sister lifted one small hand and beckoned.
She remembered an old green book up in the
attic, where she had used to read, in other days.
“Are you,” she asked, “a fairy P”
At this the girl, conscious of approval of one
sort or another, broke into a laugh. It drew her
face into delightful creases. She took Clary’s
hand in her two warm ones, and held it.
“My name is Barbara,” she said, and whether
by nature or some dramatic quality she had,
the phrase sounded movingly. “I don’t like my
last name. It don’t belong to me. I don’t ever
mean to use it any more. If I had some clothes,
I’d put 'em on, and then I could take care of
you.”
The two girls looked at each other in a sudden
fellowship, and Malory felt his own exclusion.
But Clary spoke, and he could have blessed the
P A R A D IS E 13
newcomer for bringing that note of interest to her
voice.
“Malory, you get a light an’ take her into the
back chamber. My things are there, my every-
day ones an’ all. You look through the drawers,
Barbara. You put somethin’ on, an’ then come
back here to me.”
II
MALORY went down the front stairs, and out
through the yard to his horse, impatiently back-
ing and halting at the post. He unhitched again,
stepped into the wagon, and drove round through
the wide gateway to the barn. The house door
opened while he was unharnessing, and another
tall man came out.
“That you, Nick?” called Malory.
“Yes. Got anybody ?”
“Yes.”
Nick Jameson began tying a trace, and in a
moment Malory had led the horse out of the
shafts into the barn. The other man followed,
and waited until he had put the horse into his
stall, and then come out and begun hanging up
the harness.
“Want a lantern ?” he asked.
“NO. This ’ll do.”
“Who’d ye get?” asked Nick, when they had
shut the barn door, and turned together toward
the house. “Ann Parsons P”
“No. 'Twan’t Ann Parsons.” Malory found
the question difficult, and wished Barbara herself
were there to answer it. “It’s a kind of a stran-
P A R A D IS E 15
ger,” he added lamely. “I don’t know’s we’ve
ever had her before.”
Then he entered the kitchen, and a miracle
saluted him. Barbara, clad in a neat blue calico,
her black hair coiled on the top of her head, stood
by the stove, stirring broth. Malory halted and
took off his hat, and Nick did likewise, with the
air of finding himself called upon for a superior
grade of manners.
“This is” — Malory began awkwardly.
But the girl forestalled him. She looked up,
meeting their eyes with an extreme calm.
“My name is Barbara,” she said, and took off
the porringer, with the sweep of a supple wrist.
“Got a little waiter P” she asked Malory. “Any-
thing I can carry this up on ?”
There was no such thing in the household
stores, as he remembered them, but he felt only
a dazed relief because she had known immedi-
ately what to ask.
“Never mind,” she said. “I’ll take it up this
way.” With a plate in one hand and the cup in
the other, she waited at the door, and Malory saw
too late, as Nick forestalled him, that he should
have opened it for her. Nick closed it after her,
and then returned to the fire, a little flushed and
speculative over a situation not yet explained.
Then after Malory had stuffed the stove with
wood, the two men stood there, absently warming
16 P A R A D IS E
their hands, and exchanging no word. They were
equally tall, but Nick had a subtle air of outdoor
freedom. His clothes were careless, his move-
ments free; but that was not it. By a hundred
signs too small to need denoting, he smelled of
the woods that were his chosen home. He was
reddish in coloring, with thick red-brown hair
heavy upon his forehead, and his flannel shirt
turned low from his gaunt throat. It was a bony
face, with high cheekbones, an aquiline nose,
and a dark line over the upper lip where the red
moustache sprang thickly. A scar slanted down
his left cheek, and his blue eyes had the keen
look of the hunter or the sailor. He lived in a
desultory way with his aunt, Mrs. Nash, on the
next farm, but he kept a lodging at his own old
house down the valley. There he slept when he
tired of commonplace comforts, and there he
kept his gun and ammunition, and skinned his
peltry.
Barbara, in the east chamber, had given Clary
the cup, and while the girl drank from it, moved
softly about the room, tidying it here and there.
When the draught was finished, she took the cup
away, and made as if to smooth the bed-clothes
for the night. But Clary laid a hand upon her
skirt and stayed her.
“Sit down a minute,” she said. “Let’s talk.”
Barbara hesitated.
P A R A D IS E 17
“I guess it’s time for you to go to sleep,” she
said.
“No, I don’t go to sleep for ever so long. Some-
times Malory comes up, an’ sits an’ talks. Once
he stayed till 'leven. I get lonesome all alone here
in the night.”
“Don’t anybody watch with you?”
“Yes, kinder. They make up a bed on the
lounge. But it’s always one o’ the neighbors or
Ann Parsons, an' I know what they’re goin’ to
say before they say it. How long have you been a
nurse P”
“I’m not a real nurse.”
Barbara drew the Boston rocker to the side of
the bed, and dropped softly into it. She was
watching the sick girl in a bright-eyed way, as if
some monitor within counseled her to soothe as
well as satisfy. Clary’s eyes brightened still more
in their uneasy lustre. She laid a hand on Bar-
bara’s wrist and drew her nearer.
“What you been doin’?” she asked. “What
made you have on that dress P”
Barbara waited for a moment, pondering on
the wisdom of what she might say. At length
she spoke in a tone of even flow, as if she re-
pressed the girl’s impatience the while she in-
dulged it.
“That’s a long story. I won’t tell all of it to-
night. The amount of it is, I’ve been traveling
I8 P A R A D IS E
round with a man — a friend” — again she hesi-
tated before adopting the word – “to tell for-
tunes. I read from hands. Then I — I got tired
of it. I ran away. Your brother came across me,
and I asked him if I might n’t come and take
care of you. That’s all.”
It seemed a simple story, as she told it, in a
colorless voice and with a face devoid of meaning.
For the moment Clary was deceived by the lan-
guor of it. It was like reading a book that set
forth dramatic events with no finger post to em-
phasize their value.
“That’s all,” said Barbara again. “Now let’s
fix up the lounge there for me, and we’ll get to
bed.”
But Clary’s eyes were brightening, in an in-
tense way they had. The pupils seemed almost to
darken across the white.
“You tired P” she asked.
“No,” answered Barbara, with a careful com-
posure, “not really.”
“Then” — she spoke breathlessly, and the red
spot in her cheeks seemed to deepen, “you tell my
fortune. You tell me whether I shall ever — get
well.” g
Her voice sank on the last words. She looked
piteously as if she were going to cry. Barbara
leaned over her in a determined calm.
“I can’t to-night, dear,” she said. “It — it
P A R A D IS E I9
tires me. We’ll do it some day in the morning.
But I’ll tell you this. You’ve got” — her voice
halted at the leap, “you’ve got a lucky face.”
“Oh, do you think so P” cried the girl eagerly.
“Do you 'most think I — I could get well ?”
“A lucky face,” said Barbara cheerfully.
“That’s what you’ve got. Now let’s go to bed.”
The next morning it seemed to the brother and
sister as if Barbara had always been there. She
was, in a sense, through some remoteness of per-
sonality, a stranger, but all her ways were fa-
miliar. In the middle of the forenoon, Malory,
with a new lightness of heart, because his sister
was for the moment entertained, went out to
chop wood, and swung the axe mightily. It
seemed to him, against reason, as if some fortu-
nate thing were about to happen. Clary’s room
was in order, with the sun streaming in through
two windows upon the landscape paper, and Bar-
bara, sedate in her blue calico, sat by the bed,
darning Malory's stockings, in a wretched state
from the reign of long misrule. Her eyes were
bent on her work. She could not look at the other
girl, now that daylight had disclosed in her the
ravages of disease, without a surge of pity that
blinded her vision and betrayed her tongue. But
Clary was childishly happy that morning. She
had a sense of life, born out of that joy of discov-
ery incident to new relations. They had talked
20 P A R A D IS E
intermittently about the resources of the house for
dinner, and Barbara had owned that she could
cook. In the many exigencies of their traveling
life, she explained, there had often been need of
her setting up a small temporary establishment,
of a saucepan and a lamp. Or even, because
he was particular about his food, -she never re-
ferred to him by any name, – often,some kind
woman in a lodging-house would let her go down
and do deeds in the kitchen. But this great farm-
house kitchen, she declared, was in all respects
lovely. And she had found the cook-books in
the table drawer. There were many dishes known
to her by name only, and those she was in haste
to try. But Clary, though she punctuated the
talk with an eager word here and there, or a little
laugh, was not paying a full attention, and when
Barbara stopped darning to contemplate a work-
manlike heel, she put out her hand and drew the
work away.
“Lay that down,” she said. “Now you tell my
fortune.”
Barbara, meeting her eager eyes, foresaw less
excitement in compliance than evasion. She took
the wasted hand.
“Well,” she said, while she hurriedly consid-
ered, “you’ve been pretty sick, have n’t you?”
“But I’m better,” insisted the girl implor-
ingly. “Don’t you think I’m better?”
P A R A D IS E 2I
“You’ve got a good line of life. It’s firm and
strong.”
“Which is my line of life?”
Barbara pointed it out with her forefinger that
was ever traveling lightly over the palm.
“But it’s short,” cried the girl sharply. “Bar-
bara, it stops short.”
“That’s nothing,” said Barbara, laughing
with a faint-hearted warmth. “That don’t count.
See how firm and strong it is. Well, maybe you
won’t have so long a life as some. Maybe you
won’t reach seventy. But sixty-five’s a good age.
Don’t you think that’s long enough P”
“Sixty-five!” she laughed, in a sharp-voiced
glee. “Forty years more! I’m goin’ to get well.
Tell me I’m goin’ to get well. I could nºt live
forty years like this.”
“You’re going —” she hesitated a moment,
with a choking breath, and ended calmly, “you’re
going to get well.”
Tears came into the girl’s eyes, and she leaned
back on her pillow, but with a smiling mouth.
Presently she asked shyly: —
“Can’t you tell me anything else that’s goin’
to happen? Maybe you think I sha’n’t be mar-
ried ?” Again her voice invoked fortune on her
own poor behalf.
Barbara bent over the palm, and looked at it
the more intently.
22 P A R A D IS E
“There’s somebody that cares a lot about
you,” she temporized.
Clary laughed in shrill confirmation, and with-
drew her hand.
“You shan’t tell any more,” she declared, with
a hollow gayety, “for fear you’d say somethin'
bad. I’ll tell you instead. It’s Nick Jameson.”
“The one I saw with your brother last night?”
“Yes. We’re engaged. When I got sick, I
broke it off, but he would n’t have it so. He
comes 'most every day. Sometimes I don’t see
him. When I’ve had a bad day I won’t, I look
so. But now you say I shall get well, I guess I
shall, Barbara, I guess I shall. But don’t you tell
Nick. We’ll surprise him.”
Barbara laughed with her in a heavy-hearted
unison, and presently she said it was time to get
dinner, and went downstairs to start the water
boiling.
In that simple neighborhood the programme
of sickness followed the customs of an older time.
A nurse, save in great crises, did the housework
besides serving her patient, and Barbara fell un-
complainingly into the routine. She showed no
sign of interest in her past life, and it was in all
respects as if she had been doing tasks for years
with that miraculous ease shown by women when
they know the place of every knife and spoon.
While she did the supper dishes, Malory
P A R A D IS E 23
brought in wood by the armful for the night, and
a little later, when Clary had dropped off to sleep,
she came back again, and sat with him by the
hearth while the soapstones heated for Clary’s
bed. They were both regarding the little gleam
of firelight with absent eyes, as it shone through
the draft in front, and listening to the clock's
tick, their minds accordantly serene. Barbara
broke the silence. -
“I’ve done an awful thing to-day.”
“What was it?” He smiled at her.
“I told your sister she was going to have a long
life. I gave her to understand maybe she’d be
married. Anyways, I guess I did.”
A quiver passed over his face, and broke its
worn serenity. He spoke gently.
“I guess 't won’t make any great odds. Let her
have all the comfort she can.”
“I don’t see what makes her care so much
about being married, anyway!” burst forth Bar-
bara hotly. “I should n’t. I hate men.”
Malory laughed out.
“Do you?” He spoke with a kind reasonable-
ness, as if she were a child.
“They’re nice until they — they like you,” the
girl continued breathlessly. “I hate the girls that
like to go round with them and be — be silly.”
She broke down and began to cry, and Malory
gazed at her amazedly. -
24 P A R A D IS E
“Well!” he breathed. It was all the response
he could summon.
Barbara wiped her eyes, and regarded him
defiantly.
“I’ve told her lies about that, too,” she volun-
teered.
“What?”
“When she asked me why I ran away from the
fortune-telling business, I said I got tired of it. I
did n’t tell her I found out he was n’t my uncle —
we were in a town where a woman remembered
him and told me where he got me — at the poor
farm it was. And then he owned ’t was so. And
he said he was n’t my uncle, nor any relation, and
he - he said he'd meant to tell me anyway, be-
cause he liked me, and he – oh, he tried to kiss
me!” She ended in a burst of grief.
All that occurred to Malory to say seemed to
him inadequate, as he ventured it: —
“That’s too bad.”
She was gazing at him with tear-wet, angry
eyes. She looked like Daphne fleeing the assaults
of love.
“I don’t want such things,” she continued
wildly. “Plenty of girls like 'em. Let them have
'em. But they can let me alone.”
Malory's mind ran swiftly backward to one
girl who made fondness the business of her life,
and his pulse beat faster. He had meant never to
P A R A D IS E 25
think of her again, but here, at a breath of wo-
manhood, she was again, tormenting the heart.
Something clutched at his throat, and he put his
hand there, to still the tumult. Barbara was look-
ing at him softly from her tear-wet eyes. •
“What’s the matter?” she asked. “Did I say
anything wrong?”
Malory twisted in his chair, so that the lamp-
light fell upon his face and showed it seamed with
deep emotion. He was a silent man, but at the
thrill in her voice, that compelling quality, his
reserve crumbled.
“You made me think of somebody,” he said,
“that’s all.”
“Somebody I’m like P”
“No, no. You ain’t a mite like her.”
He smiled at the thought, and she could not
tell whether the smile meant disparagement or
praise.
“Then what made you think of her ?”
He looked at her, and she saw again what
goodness there was in his sad eyes.
She was the girl I liked,” he answered simply.
iser voice fell to a unison with his.
“Don’t you like her now P”
He rose, and his height towered over the
mantel.
“That’s all over,” he said briefly. “She went
to Bellville to work in the shoe shop; but that was
26 P A R A D IS E
only a blind. She went because he was foreman
there. But it was all over before she went.”
Barbara was looking at him curiously, as if the
emotions he outlined were alien to anything she
could imagine. .
“How did she look?” she hazarded.
“Tall, pretty tall.” His voice felt its way along
from point to point, as if he had never before at-
tempted an inventory of a whole he had accepted.
“She carried her head high. She’s got a good
deal of color — and brown eyes — and brown
hair. It’s curly.” His voice broke on the last
words. -
“What’s her name P”
“Lindy, Lindy Nash. She ain’t got any father
nor mother. That’s why she’s kinder head-
strong. I never thought that meant anything.
But I guess it did — I guess it did.” He beat the
mantel with an impatient finger, and reading his
face with the keenness she had learned from her
juggling with humankind, she saw in it the marks
of grief. It looked strange to her. She speculated
upon it as a soulless creature might upon the ways
of man.
“Where’d she live when she was here P” she
asked.
“Next house from here, old Jotham Nash's.
He's her uncle.” There was silence for a mo-
ment, and then he turned impatiently, as if re-
P A R A D IS E 27
gretting his confidence. “That’s over an’ done
with,” he said, in a kind of angry shame. “What’s
the use? Don’t you tell Clary. She thinks
Lindy’s just gone away to work. She need n’t
know. No reason why she should.” -
There was a fumbling at the latch of the outer
door, and Malory started forward, announcing,
“That’s Aunt Nash,” at the moment a woman
came in lightly, as if a wind had blown her. She
was small and pale, with a thin aquiline nose
bent a little to one side, and the keenest of black
eyes. Over her gray hair she had tied her apron,
and she shivered from the night air.
“Massy sakes, Malory!” she began in a high
voice, thin with the huskiness of dry leaves in the
wind, “you heard what’s happened? There’s a
girl run away from that kind of a mesmeriser
there to the town hall last night, an’ he’s got a
team drivin’ round over the country arter her.
Ain’t Ann Parsons here 2 Who’s this?”
Malory stood with his mouth agape, waiting
for the fortunate word, but Barbara’s even voice
was instant in reply.
“My name’s Barbara. I’ve come to take care
of Clary.”
III
THE little old woman stood and regarded her
with a sharp and even a merry face, like one bent
on getting the utmost out of small things. Bar-
bara with a smile looked back at her, and then
drew in her mouth to sedate proportions, because
the woman seemed to her quaint and mirth-pro-
voking. Mrs. Nash, regarded as a total of various
garments, was at all points askew. Her dress was
buttoned wrong. The hair brooch that held her
collar had a diagonal twist, and one sleeve, in
spite of the cold weather, was rolled to her elbow.
She had failed to put it down after her dishwash-
ing, but it gave her the effect of having dressed
hastily for a fire. But in spite of external irregu-
larities, she looked a comfortable creature, likely
to understand and to make no pretensions toward
being understood. *
“Barbara P. That your name 2 Well, that’s the
other one’s name, too.”
“What other one P”
“The girl that run away.”
“Oh!” Barbara turned to the door leading to
the stairs. There she paused, with her hand on
the latch. “Well,” she said lightly, “I guess I
P A R A D IS E 29
shan’t run away, long as they treat me right.”
She smiled a little, as if in farewell, and left the
room. When the door closed behind her, Mrs.
Nash turned to Malory.
“Well,” she said in frank surprise, “where’d
you come acrost her ? She looks neat as wax.”
“She’s all right,” agreed Malory, with the em-
phasis of a misleading cheerfulness. “Sit down.
How’s Jotham P.”
She obeyed his motioning hand, and took the
chair opposite his beside the hearth. There she
pondered a moment, and then looked up brightly,
like a bird.
“I dunno,” she said frankly, as if disclosing
confidence. “He’s had quite a spell with his
heart.”
“What brought it on P’’
“Luggin' in wood, he says. He wants to have
a kind of a derrick fixed — I dunno what all
— tackle an’ falls — an h’ist the wood into the
winder.”
“What’s Nick say?”
“Well,” she paused a moment, and her eyes
took on a far-seeing candor, “he kinder swore.
Arter that he brought in the wood, same’s
usual.” -
Malory smiled a little to himself, and then
sobered, lest she detect him. But she seemed to
be musing, in a bright-eyed way, over matters too
30 P A R A D IS E
strange for her personal comprehension. Then,
as a step struck the doorstone outside, she roused
herself briskly.
“I believe my soul that’s Tim Gale,” she said,
and immediately the door swung open to admit
an old man trimly made, and a model of care-
ful dress. With his dark clothes and an old-
fashioned dickey and stock, he seemed to have
walked out of some picture of early American
days. His face, clean shaven and shrewd, had
the salient points of a sharp chin, a sharper nose,
and an expansive forehead, with long, sparse
eyebrows, and under them twinkling eyes. He
advanced to the fire, giving the two a nod of care-
ful courtesy.
“How do, Mis’ Nash P” he said. “How are
ye, Malory?”
The three sat down together, as if by old habit,
and Timmie Gale, after warming his hands a
moment, turned again to Malory.
“Well,” he said, “how’s Clary gittin’ along?”
“Better,” said Malory involuntarily, against
his reason thinking of the brighter face of things
above stairs.
“Better!’” Both the older people echoed the
word surprisedly, and he qualified a little.
“Well, she seems better. She's livelier, takes
more notice.”
“That’s good,” said Uncle Timmie, nursing
P A R A D IS E 31
his knees. “Now ain’t that good!” Cheerful in-
credulity was in his speech, and Malory flushed
a little, vaguely irritated that no one would let
him indulge for a moment his futile hope.
“Got your squashes in, Uncle Timmie P” asked
Mrs. Nash, smiling about her in a random cheer-
fulness. -
“Law, yes,” said Uncle Timmie. “I covered
'em up with coverlids till I was sick an’ tired
on’t.”
“You don’t prize your chores very much, do
ye, Uncle Timmie P” asked Malory, to start the
wheels of social intercourse.
“I hate the whole business,” said Uncle Tim-
mie fervently. “If I had my way, I’d go off into
the woods an’ be a wild man. I’d go fur enough
so’t I should n’t suffer with the cold, an’ I’d take
me a pair o’ overhauls for summer an’ a buffalo
robe for winter, an’ when they was wore out I’d
wear the rags so long as they’d hang on, an’ then
I’d go stark naked.”
“There! do tell!” said Aunt Nash soothingly.
“Yes, I would,” repeated Uncle Timmie, with
a quarrelsome emphasis.
“Why don’t ye?” asked Malory, listening to
steps upstairs. He hoped Barbara would come
down again and talk a little more before bed-
time.
“Why don't I? Because I’ve been brought up
32 P A R A D Is E
different. When I was twenty-five year old,” he
laid a long forefinger in the palm of the other
hand, “I got married. You knew her, Mis’ Nash,
— you knew her, egg an’ bird.”
“Yes, I guess I knew her pretty well,” said
Mrs. Nash, betaking herself to the past with the
mild interest of one opening a well-worn book for
another reading.
“She was a jade,” said Uncle Timmie. “She
died, an’’t was the best thing she could ha’ done.
Wan’t she a jade, Mis’ Nash P”
“I guess she was kinder high-sperited,” owned
Mrs. Nash in mild confirmation.
“High-sperited! Old Nick was by at the
makin’ of her, an’ he never made another. Well,
when she died, I thought it all over. There’s hea-
ven an' hell, I says. She’s gone to hell. I ain’t
a-goin’ to foller her. So I begun to live a righteous
life. Ain’t I lived a righteous life, Mis’ Nash, for
forty year P”
“I guess you’ve done as well as anybody.”
“I’ve lived alone, an’ I’ve kep’ my house com-
plete, as well as any woman, dang 'em. I’ve
moulded up bread, when I wanted to go an eat
with the pigs, an’ I’ve beat up my feather bed
when I’d ruther creep into the haymow an’ stay
there. An’ I’m goin’ to keep on to the end, an’
see what happens.”
“Goin’ to give 'em a chance, ain’t ye, Uncle
P A R A D IS E 33
Timmie” said Malory, a step ahead in the fa-
miliar flow of argument. - . . . .
“Yes, sirree, I’m goin’ to give 'em a chance to do
what’s fair by me. I’ve done what’s fair by them.”
“Well, I guess it’ll all come out right,” said
Mrs. Nash, with her diffusive optimism.
“Mebbe 't will, mebbe 't won’t. Mebbe I shall
find I might jest as well ha' laid in the straw.
Mebbe I shan’t find nothin'. Mebbe my last
breath’ll be the end on’t. But I’ve follered the
rules, an’ by gum ! I’m goin’ to see where they
lead to.”
The door opened with a sweep, and a rush of
cold air, and Nick Jameson came in, his overcoat
flying back from his long legs.
“You’re sentfor, Aunt Nabby,” he said briefly.
“He’s got another spell.”
Mrs. Nash gathered her apron over her head
and rose with the haste of those who are, of neces-
sity, always in readiness.
“What’s the matter?” she paused to ask.
“Is’t his heart P.”
Nick had taken off his overcoat, and thrown it
on a chair. He looked like a gaunt hunter home
from the chase, in his blue shirt, and trousers
tucked into his boots. But to-night there was a
difference in him. He was shaven, and his thick
hair was wet and carefully arranged, to its own
detriment.
34 P A R A D IS E
“No, it ain’t his heart,” he responded coldly.
“He’s felt a draught sence you come over here,
an’ he’s got lung fever.”
“My land!” Then she flitted out, and the door
closed behind her.
“Kinder spleeny P” asked Uncle Timmie in-
cidentally.
“He’d ought to have a cradle an a nurse an’ a
bottle,” said Nick gloomily. “She waits on him
by inches. He’ll live to 'tend her funeral.”
“”T ain’t a mite o’ use to grumble about your
health,” said Uncle Timmie. “Jest gets ye by the
ears. My soul! Ain’t I been scairt in my time!
Cold wind blow on my neck. There! says I, I’m
done for. Now I says to it, Blow away, I says,
an’ be darned to ye.”
“Well, you get some comfort out o' cussin',
don’t ye, Uncle Timmie P” asked Nick, sitting
down and disposing his legs comfortably.
“I don’t cuss,” declared Uncle Timmie. “It
ain’t righteous, an’ I’m livin' a righteous life.”
“Goin’ anywhere?” asked Malory of Nick,
noting his sleek air.
Nick flushed a little and looked shamefaced.
“I thought maybe I could go up an’ see Clary,”
he explained.
But that was not the reason. From some vague
motive he hardly recognized, he had been im-
pressed by the neatness of the young stranger,
P A R A D IS E 35
and unconsciously he weighed his own unwor-
thiness to approach her patient in his common
state. Barbara herself was not significant to him.
He hardly remembered her at all, save as a know-
ing creature.
At that moment the stair door opened softly,
and Barbara came in. She walked up to Nick and
addressed him with a direct simplicity.
“She’d like to see you.”
He nodded, and turned instantly to the stairs.
Barbara followed him.
“I guess I would nºt stay long,” she coun-
seled, with a smile that asked indulgence for a
caution he must share with her. Then she walked
back to the stove, and Uncle Timmie, in the fa-
miliar country way, nodded at her with a “Good
evening,” and Malory saw no need of introduc-
tions. Uncle Timmie was still regarding her with
an estimating eye.
“You ain’t very old to be in this business,” he
said inquiringly. /
Barbara looked at him in a smiling kindliness.
Old people she liked; and old men, since they
did not seem prone to the unwelcome ways of
young ones, she liked quite warmly and with no
TeSeTVeS.
“I’m light on my feet,” she answered irre-
levantly, casting about for some recommenda-
tion.
36 P A R A D IS E
“Yes, yes, that’s so,” said Uncle Timmie,
rising.
“Don’t hurry,” Malory advised, in the neigh-
borhood formula, without which no call could be
completed.
“I got to sponge bread,” said Uncle Timmie.
“Why don’t ye eat husks P” called Malory
after him.
“I’d ruther, I’d ruther,” said he, but he turned
back to emphasize the hated fact, “I’m leadin’ a
righteous life.”
The door closed after him, and Barbara looked
at Malory in a vivid questioning.
“What’s he going to sponge bread for P” she
asked. “Does he live alone P”
“Yes. Has for forty year. He’s an awful good
housekeeper, neat as wax.”
“Does he like it P”
“No, he says not. Says he hates it. Says he’s
doin’ everything right so’s not to go to hell.”
Barbara came a step nearer him, and chal-
lenged him with her eyes. Now he saw she looked
anxious, and his mind leaped to one conclusion.
“Clary ain’t no worse?”
“No, no. You heard what that woman said —
the one that was in here P”
“Aunt Nash P”
“She said he was round trying to find the girl
that ran away. He means to get me back.” She
P A R A D IS E 37
looked anger rather than alarm, and Malory felt
the force of her hidden nature, though it had no
beguilement for him. He liked softer charms,
woven of woman’s tenderness or its simulation,
not these vivid lightnings of a fighting soul. But
an honest chivalry answered her.
“Let him find you. He can’t get you.”
“No!” she drew herself up and stood more
proudly. “He’s got no claim on me. He owned
that. And I don’t owe him anything. I’ve paid
for every mouthful I’ve eat and every rag of
clothes.”
“How old are you?”
“Twenty-two.”
“You’re all right, then. He can’t force you.
Let him come.”
Her stature seemed to dwindle. She hung her
head, and a painful color flushed her cheek.
“No, no,” she murmured almost inaudibly, “he
must n’t come. I can’t stand it.”
“Why can’t you?”
“I don’t ever forget what he – he said to me.”
Male anger woke in Malory, and he spoke
Savagely at random.
“I’ll knock his head off.”
“No! no!” she looked him in the face with a
moving candor. “It was nºt anything wrong.
He — asked me — to marry him.”
Malory stared at her.
38 P A R A D IS E
“Well, tell him you won’t,” he counseled.
“I did. But it was awful to me. Maybe it was
because I’d thought we were relations for so
long, I could nºt think of anything else. But
maybe 't was because I hate such things. I don’t
ever mean to marry. I — I always thought I was
a Sagittarius woman.” She looked at him in a
wistful humility as if she confessed a fault. Mal-
ory was entirely dazed. He was silent, not be-
cause he shrank from owning ignorance, but
because any question might prove a challenge
of her probity. She translated his mood in that
quick way she had learned from her intercourse
with men seeking their destiny.
“That’s my sign,” she explained, “I’m sure
it is, – my sign of the Zodiac. It means I’m hard
to live with, except with the right persons. It
means I ask too much, and I make folks unhappy
when I don’t get it. Sagittarius women have a
bad time of it.”
Malory was smiling into her eyes, and some-
how, though this was a mystery to her, the look
swept away some film between them, and made
her heart beat happily. She was pleasantly
aware of him.
“Folderol!” he said. “Don’t you get addled
with that kind of thing. I guess if you like folks
you can live with 'em, an’ if you don’t you can’t,
same’s the rest of us. What’s his name P”
P A R A D IS E 39
“Benedict. Signor Benedict, he calls himself.”
“I’ll Signor him, only let him come round. See
here; if he comes, you clip it upstairs. That’s
easy.” - - t
“What if he asks you if I’m here?”
“I’ll 'tend to that.”
“Don’t you touch him.” She looked a sudden
fright. -
“Don’t you want him hurt?”
“Oh, it is n’t that! But he’s a juggler. He’s a
magician. He knows things. He can make you
see folks and not see 'em, and tie knots you can’t
undo. He’d get the better of you somehow.”
“Don’t you worry,” said Malory, smiling at
her. “But I’m sorry folks know your name,”
he added thoughtfully.
Again there was that flash of pride from her.
“I don’t know what my real name is,” she
said. “Barbara Benedict is all I’ve got, and I
won’t hide it.”
“No! no! I was only thinkin’ of you. The
name would be a clue for him. But let him come,
the sooner the better.” -
A chair was moved overhead, and she turned,
remembering her patient.
“He has n’t stayed long,” she said. “That’s
nice.” -
“No. Clary says when she’s tired. You won’t
tell her about Benedict P”
40 P A R A D IS E
“No, oh no!”
Nick came down the stairs with a light tread,
moving, as he always did, like an Indian on the
trail. His face was flushed and troubled.
“I’ll get her a pa’tridge to-morrow,” he said
to Barbara, as if she had done him a great ser-
vice, and they were to go on in a community of
deeds. “She could n’t touch the last one. She
says she’s better. She says you’ve done it.”
Barbara’s face fell into a pitiful alarm. In-
stantly it seemed to her as if she had woven a
mesh of lies for the entanglement of the two men
who stood looking at her with a grateful courtesy.
She answered in a low tone, grazing the fact as
nearly as she could :
“Maybe I’ve made her more comfortable.
Maybe she wanted some young company.” Then,
to hide her troubled looks, she left them, and,
while they gazed after her with the suffused eyes
she could not meet, she ran up the stairs to
Clary.
The girl was sitting up in bed, a bright spot in
her cheeks. Barbara laid a gentle hand upon her
shoulder. &
“What if you was to lie down, dear,” she said.
“You lie back on your pillows.”
“I want to get used to settin' up,” she breathed.
“I must get back my strength. I shall begin to
walk soon.” - -
P A R A D IS E 41
Barbara felt the pain of those who see grief
coming and are powerless to stay it.
“Dear, you lie down,” she said.
Clary obeyed her gentle hand, but she still went
on talking.
“I told him I was better, an’ Barbara, he –
he spoke about the house.”
Barbara’s intuition failed her there for a mo-
ment, and she looked an incautious question.
“Why, don’t you know P’’ Clary answered her,
“The one we’re goin’ to live in. He says we’ll
keep the old Jameson house to let, an’ build on
the old cellar, the one down by the mill. You
must go see it when spring comes. There’s alders
growin' up in it now, an’ withes an’ things.”
“He’s going to bring you a partridge to-mor-
row,” said Barbara, moving about in her deft
preparations for the night. “Let’s go to sleep
early, so’s to have a good day.”
“Yes.” The girl was musing on her pillow.
In the firelight that hid the wasting of her face
she looked sweetly fair. “It won’t be any break-
ing up here,” she went on dreamily. “Malory
won’t miss me. *T is n’t as if he did n’t have
Lindy.”
“No,” said Barbara, with another new pain at
her heart.
“He told you about Lindy ?”
“Maybe he did just speak of her.”
42 P A R A D IS E
“Malory don’t talk much. He’s close-mouthed
when he cares about anything. But he’s engaged.
Lindy’s real pretty.”
“You like her ?” asked Barbara, with a pang
like jealousy.
Clary considered.
“I don’t know’s I do,” she owned at length.
“We went to school together. Girls don’t like
Lindy much. Boys used to say ’t was because
she was too pretty. I don’t know’s that was it.
Yes, I guess I like Lindy, - only I never seem
to know what she’s up to. But Malory sets the
world by her.”
IV
So far as the daily life went at the farm, it seemed
as if Barbara had been some one they had long
waited for. Things marched more serenely than
they had since the old days when the father and
mother were alive and the boy and girl had no
cares save to bring in the wood and do sums in
the evening. It was curious to realize how fa-
miliar she was, how exactly suited to the course of
things and to Clary in her need. She took every-
thing for granted. After her first tempestuous
talk about Benedict, she seemed to dismiss him
from her mind, and to rest, it might be, in Malory's
assurance of their combined strength in meeting
him. She was sweetly responsive to their kind-
ness in a most natural way. It even seemed out-
side the scope of her quiet courtesy to trouble
them with spoken gratitude. Each had told her
the intimate secret of the heart; but even that was
natural. How much herexpectant attitude, learned
from years of training, had to do with it, they
could not have said. It was merely easy to talk
to her, in the certainty that she would understand.
Secure as they were in the gifts she brought them,
Clary’s faith in the false hope given her was a
44 P A R A D IS E
disarming thing. It seemed base to have deceived
her, and yet with every day’s pathetic appeal, it
was impossible not to deceive her more. Bar-
bara was not used to illness of that nature, and
the girl’s wasted body and laboring breath were
tragic to her. While she told her merciful lies,
death seemed inexorably nearing. She awaited
the doctor's visit in a baseless hope that he might
say her lies were justified.
He came one morning while she was taking a
quick walk down the road for a breath of air, and,
returning, she met him at the gate. His horse, a
shaggy roan, stood with dropped head, and the
doctor, beside him, had the weight already lifted.
Barbara looked at him in a frank interest. He
was a tall man, rotund, enormous, his loose over-
coat a shag of fur, his red beard, dulled with
gray, flowing over his breast. He would have
been a creature of note anywhere, if only as a
surprising animal; but seen nearer, his eyes in
their deep sockets made an instant though uncon-
scious demand. They dominated by the force of
sheer intelligence, as his presence reigned through
physical power. He spoke, and his voice, a melo-
dious bass, thrilled by the beauty of its quality.
“You the nurse P” he asked. º
“Yes.” Everything had at once gone out of
her, save an inexplicable confidence in him. She
looked up at him imploringly.
P A R A D IS E 45
“Is Clary any better?” she faltered.
“No,” he said. “She can’t be better. You
know that, don’t you?”
She shook her head. Some faint denial even
seemed demanded of her, as if she might
strengthen Clary’s case.
“I thought she might be,” she insisted.
He looked at her more searchingly.
“I guess you’re not a nurse,” he said.
“No.” She was looking at him in a perfect
candor. “I’m not a nurse. But I can take care
of her,” she added hastily.
He had stepped into the wagon and tucked the
robe about him with a sweep of his hand.
“Yes,” he said, “yes.” She thought there was
a smile in ambush behind the great beard. “Yes,
you take care of her.” He shook the reins, and
the horse, lifting his head, settled to business, and
started at a sharp trot.
Clary was exhilarated.
“He said I could eat anything,” she began.
Barbara stood in the middle of the floor with
clasped hands and a musing face.
“He’s the queerest I ever saw,” she said.
Clary laughed.
“Queer! I guess he is. Everybody knows doc-
tor. Why,” her voice fell mysteriously, “some-
times he can’t go to see folks at all.”
“Why can’t he?”
46 P A R A D IS E
Clary hesitated for a moment. She seemed to
be in doubt about concealing the misdoing of a
beloved sinner. “He drinks,” she owned at last.
“When he’s — so — he sits down at home an’
reads by the fire, an’ you can’t get him out.
'T would n’t do no good if you could. He’d only
talk an’ talk. He don’t seem to know you’re sick
then. He never comes to see me when he’s like
that, but I should n’t be afraid. Doctor’s real
kind.”
“No,” said Barbara slowly, “I shouldn’t be
afraid.”
“I guess not. But you don’t seem to hear. He
says I can do anything I feel to. O Barbara, I’ll
tell you now! I never meant to tell anybody.
Seemed as if 't would bring it nearer — but I
never expected to get well. I never should if you
had n’t come. What’s the matter, Barbara P
What makes you pale P”
“I guess I’m kind of numb to-day,” said Bar-
bara. It was an excuse she had heard Mrs. Nash
proffer, and involuntarily she used it.
“You don’t go outdoors enough. Tell you
what: this afternoon, when Malory’s here, you
have another walk, an’ go down to Uncle Tim-
mie's an’ see if he’s got our banjo clock fixed.
That’ll give you something to go for.”
Barbara did not answer. She was looking out
of the window at the wintry coloring of the
P A R A D IS E 47
woods, and suddenly she was aware that a buggy
had driven up to the front gate, and that a man
had alighted and was tying his horse.
“What is it, Barbara P” Clary continued.
“Anybody stopped P”
“I guess it’s a man with things to sell,” said
Barbara slowly. She felt frozen. Her lips chat-
tered upon the words. “I’ll go down and see.”
She sped down the stairs into the kitchen, and
locked that door first. Then she flew to the front
door, and shot the heavy bolt. Benedict was com-
ing. She heard his steps upon the path. There in
the dusk of the front hall she waited, leaning
against the casing, one hand at her throat, where
tremors constricted her. He lifted the knocker,
and let it fall with a clang that echoed through
the house. She waited, and her quickened
breath choked her. Again he knocked, and then
again, and presently she heard him going round
the corner of the house to the side door. There
his rapping was the sharp, insistent beat of
knuckles upon wood, and about this there was
something terrifying, because its measure seemed
to hold a hint of his undaunted personality.
Again there was silence, and from her dark
retreat she heard the sound of starting wheels.
She stole to the sitting-room window to look out.
There he was, driving away and gazing back at
the house as he went. He looked handsome in his
48 P A R A D IS E
fur-lined coat and fur cap, yet the black accenting
of his eyes and moustache made him evil to her.
In spite of what she knew about the delusion of
his tricks, he seemed, now that he was in pursuit
of her, like a magician endowed with unknown
powers. At that moment she could not think it
out clearly, but it was evident to her that behind
all his juggler's arts was the will, the deftness, the
artifice, to give him mastery. And now all those
weapons were set against her. When he had
turned the bend in the road, she went weakly up
the stairs again, leaving the door still fastened.
“Did n’t you go to the door P” asked Clary.
“No,” said Barbara. She stood by the bed-
foot, smiling vaguely in reassurance, and rubbing
out the worried frown in her brow.
“Why did n’t you?”
Again Barbara adopted a country formula
often accepted in lieu of clear-cut reasons. “I
don’t know as I can tell.”
Clary laughed a little, and nestled into her
coverlets. “I b'lieve you were afraid,” she said.
“I’ll tell Malory. I bet he’ll laugh at you.”
Barbara told him herself. When he got home
from his wood-hauling and came in to warm his
hands before feeding the cattle, she met him
almost at the door. She was flushed, and her eyes
shone like points of light.
“He’s been here,” she announced, in a low tone.
P A R A D IS E 49
“Who?”
“He — Benedict.”
Malory's face darkened.
“You see him P” he asked curtly.
“No. I fastened the doors. He knocked and
knocked.” -
“Why did n’t you see him an' have it over ?
You said you wan’t afraid.”
“I’m not afraid. But you — you were nºt
here.” The womanly faltering of her voice was
delicious to him. Instinctively he straightened.
“If he comes back, we’ll have it out,” he said
briefly.
But she was going about her tasks with a
drooping head.
“I wish he’d go off and forget me,” she mur-
mured to herself.
That afternoon she kept close at home and left
the front door fastened. Malory had meant to go
for more wood, but she was relieved to see him
chopping limbs at the pile instead. Again she
felt protected, and a little song rose to her lips
while she tended Clary.
“Ain’t that pretty P” said the girl. “Where’d
you learn it?”
But the question choked it, for it was a song
with Italian syllables incomprehensible to her,
that she had been used to sing to distract the
audience while Benedict did certain tricks. Again
50 * P A R A D IS E
Clary urged her to go to walk, but she put off the
hour until after their early supper. Then she felt
he could not see her from far off, and at the sound
of wheels she might slip behind the bushes of the
road.
Malory was sitting with his sister in the fire-
light when she stole out of the house, not because
she wanted to go, but because she was ashamed
to let him see she was afraid. It was a chilly night
with hints of snow in the air, and the ground was
frozen. Barbara, on her way over the ruts and
the grassy roadside, felt a hot impatience against
the world as it is. All its events seemed to have
slipped along a degree out of their harmonious
channel, so that there was no satisfaction for any-
body. This country life, with its hardy comforts,
pleased her to the soul; yet the course of it was
about to be broken by death. Malory seemed
to her as friendly and strong as a beneficent
deity, but there was no content for him unless
he could light a fire in a heart that was cold
to him. The whole fabric was an irritating simu-
lation of life as it might be, a picture set for the
tormenting of the hungry eye. Flying along the
echoing road, her blood moved fast, and she for-
got to be afraid. Benedict seemed far off, and
when she came to Uncle Timmie's little house, set
in the midst of a trim front yard, she was almost
gay. She tapped at the door, and presently he
P A R A D IS E 51
appeared, carrying a lamp and peering forward
into the night.
“Oh,” he said, with a fall of satisfaction in his
tone, “it’s you, ain’t it? I thought 't was some
stranger, or they’d ha’ come right in. I thought
’t was that chap that come this arternoon to buy
coverlids.” -
Barbara followed him in, and as he set the
lamp on the table, she took a straight chair by the
fire, and unclasped her cloak. Her cheeks were
scarlet now, and the old man, looking at her with
an appraising eye, set her down as “no great
shakes for size, but kinder pleasant.” He took his
old armchair on the other side of the hearth, and
gave the fire an admonitory kick. Sparks flew
up in showers, and then the flame leaped wildly.
Barbara looked about her in a frank pleasure.
The room was low, and the woodwork had dark-
ened, but all the furniture was of an according
value, and the floor had been scoured white. It
was like Uncle Timmie's shell, and as he, on a
first meeting, gave an impression of almost a
bravado of cleanliness, so did his house. His
spectacles lay on an open book on the table, the
great picture Bible.
“I guess you were reading,” said Barbara
shyly.
He looked at her with a glance so keen, yet de-
void of personal interest, that it seemed to her
52 P A R A D IS E
a challenge for some particular style of talk,
perhaps as orderly as his house.
“I read three chapters every night now,” said
Uncle Timmie, “an’ three every mornin’. I’ve
read the Bible through forty times sence I took up
with it — forty times.” There was a dogged tri-
umph in his tone.
Barbara’s eyes grew large with the wonder he
expected.
“Do you like to ?” she asked involuntarily.
A shade of indifference had settled upon him.
“I dunno’s I do,” he responded. “Some parts
I like. Some I don’t. Here in Revelation I git
along pretty swift, but way back there in the
begats — sometimes I git cast there, an’ then I
cuss the whole thing.”
“What’s in Revelation ?”
“Lord sake! don’t ye know 2 That’s where it
tells what’s goin’ to happen when the universe is
rolled up as a scroll. You look a-here.” He drew
up his chair to the table and pulled the book
forward. Then, fitting on his glasses, he be-
gan, hardly waiting for them to help him to the
printed page, but as if the words thronged his
mind from old acquaintance. He looked up at
her in a challenging consequence, as if he had had
the making of the phrases and their tenor pleased
him. To Barbara, the Bible had represented the
hypocritical pastime of a set of minds quite
P A R A D IS E 53
alien to her. It was their weapon, or their affec-
tation, as they chose to use it. Now at the ma-
jestic words, her eyes grew luminous, and she
leaned forward, with hands eloquently clasped,
and parted lips. Uncle Timmie guessed her ad-
miration.
“There!” he voiced his triumph. “What
think o’ that P” - -
“You believe it’s true?” asked Barbara
breathlessly.
It punctured the bubble of his pleasure. He
took off his glasses and laid them on the page
again. Then he withdrew to the fire, and heaped
on a handful of pine cones from the basket at his
side. Light flames shot up, as if in brilliant com-
ment on his coming words.
“I dunno,” he said dryly. “It’s all dark to
me.” *
“But what’s it for 2 What’s the good of it all,
if it is n’t true P”
“So I say,” rejoined Uncle Timmie shrewdly.
“If it ain’t true, it’s a lie, an’ them that got it up
ought to be pizened with ratsbean. Hangin’s too
good for ‘em.”
She had a fine sense of the value of words, and
the integrity of the phrases themselves moved
her mind.
“It says,” she put in quickly, “These sayings
are faithful and true.’”
54 P A R A D IS E
“So it doos. So it doos. The more shame for
'em if they ain’t.”
But Barbara hardly listened to him. Her eyes
burned bright, like those of one on the eve of
discovery.
“Then,” she said, - “then, if it’s true, it’s
easy to die; maybe it’s better to die than to
live.”
“So I say,” rejoined Uncle Timmie. “Don’t
ye see, there’s the ketch in it. Ye won’t know till
ye do it, an’ then it’s too late, an’ your time’s all
wasted.” -
“Wasted P HOW P”
“Doin' what goes ag’inst the grain because
they’ve fixed it so’t ye’ll be cussed if ye don't.”
“But I’d rather do the things,” she cried.
“Oh, I’d love to do them!”
Uncle Timmie was looking at her in a tolerant
interest. -
“Mebbeye would,” he said, “mebbeye would.
I should n’t, that’s all. Now you look a-here,”
he went on, in an argumentative swell, “any-
body’t leads the kind o' life I do, I ask you if it’s
fair. Over forty year I’ve kep’ the rules, blow
high, blow low. I’ve washed out stockin’s when
I’d ruther tied up my feet in an old bag. I’ve
gone to meetin’ when I wanted to stay to home
an’smoke a pipe an’ read a dime novel. There’s
powerful good readin’ in one o’ them paper-
P A R A D IS E 55
covered novels, only git the right title. Well, I
ain’t done one o’ the things I hankered arter for
over forty year, an’s’ pos’n it should all fush out
at the end. You jest think o’ that.”
Barbara was gazing into the fire, where the
cones were sinking to a jeweled glow. Her hands
were clasped upon her knees, and her cloak fell
back, showing her fair young throat above its
white collar. With the simplicity of her dress and
the enfolding cloak, she looked like the votary
of some holy order, vowed to humble work.
“It says the “sayings are faithful and true,’”
she repeated musingly.
Uncle Timmie leaned forward, and with lifted
brows nodded at her satirically.
“Don’t ye believe all ye hear,” he bade her,
“not more’n half.”
“You act as if you’d rather they were n’t
true!” she said, with a leap at his inner mind.
“It’s less responsibility,” said Uncle Timmie.
“If I was goin’ to take my choice of a world, I’d
have it so’t things would nºt be so terrible serious
as they be here. I’d make me one where ye could
go into the water an’ not git drownded, an’ where
ye could ketch hold of a hot stick o’ wood once in
a while without burnin’ ye. My Lord! it makes
me tearin’ mad to think I can’t pick up a coal like
them down there, an’ not drop it an’ holler out
murder.”
56 P A R A D IS E
He was beyond her now. She had an obedient
mind, ready to content itself, and if she were
shown a holy city, she would gladly have entered
IIl.
“But you mark my words,” Uncle Timmie
was saying, “it don’t pay to git converted too
young. Might as well try to break a colt afore
he’s got his legs. Look at me! I wan’t twenty-
five, an here I’ve been goin’ round in a tread-
mill for over forty year.”
The clock struck, and the sound recalled her.
She rose and absently drew her cloak together.
“Clary wanted me to ask about their banjo
clock,” she said.
“It’s all right, done complete. I’ll be along
with it sometime to-morrer. That coverlid chap
call to your house?” he asked suddenly, as he
followed her to the door. Barbara stopped and
looked at him with eyes of arrested interest.
“What One P”
“He come along about 'leven. Said he wanted
to buy old truck. I did nºt take no stock in that.
Kinder pryin’ round to see what he could find.”
“What makes you think that?” She stood
regarding the floor in a troubled scrutiny.
“‘You know anything about a girl?’ says he,
‘stranger here in town P’”
“What did you tell him P” Her voice was low,
and she did not look at him.
P A R A D IS E 57
Uncle Timmie's face assumed the puckered
shrewdness of an aged monkey.
“I put my hand up like this,” he said, hollowing
the palm behind his ear. “What?’ says I. Then
he says it over ag’in. “What?' I says. I might
ha’ told him I had n’t told a lie for over forty
year. Makes me sick to my stomach to think
on’t. ‘Be you deef?’ says he. ‘What?’ says I.
That’s all he got out o' me. Then he swore some
to himself. Then he drove off down the road.”
“He drove off,” repeated Barbara, in a grow-
ing trouble. The tale brought her enemy nearer.
He seemed to be already at the door. But Uncle
Timmie had recurred to another aspect of the
stranger's visit. He smacked his lips with an
unctuous relish.
“Doos me good,” he said, “to have anybody
swear under my roof. I ain’t swore an oath for
forty year, except the day I broke my toe. Doos
me good.”
Barbara had opened the door, and she passed
'out droopingly.
“You ’fraid to go home?” called Uncle Tim-
mie after her.
“No,” she answered, half way down the path.
“That’s right. That’s right. You won’t see
nothin' 'round here that’s wuss’n yourself. If
you meet him, jest give him as good as he sends.
5 55
He can’t take ye up if you ain’t done nothin’.
58 P A R A D IS E
The door closed behind her, and suddenly she
felt herself out in the dark. The former charm
of the country, the greater because of its strange-
ness to her, now became dreadful. There was a
flying scud of cloud, and the moon rode through
a rift as if to disclose her to the eyes of night and
terrify her the more. She walked fast until her
breath labored, and then she began to run. The
sharp drawing of her breath hurt her throat, and,
lightfooted as she was, she stumbled now and
then, and caught herself up with a sob. But pre-
sently the elm she had remembered as a landmark
loomed before her, and she turned the corner and
saw the lights of home. She laughed a little at her
own folly, and dropped into a sober pace, not to
enter flushed and panting; but at the moment an
embodied fear assailed her. There was a horse
at the gate harnessed to a light wagon, and
immediately she knew that what she feared had
happened. He was in there, waiting for her.
V
BARBARA went softly up the path to the side door.
There she listened, and hearing nothing, stepped
up on the bank and crept along to the sitting-
room window. The sight there was so surprising
in the midst of its expectedness that she ex-
claimed involuntarily, and then stepped back,
trembling. But the two within were quite regard-
less of her, and, in the instant of that certainty,
she felt safe. There they stood, - two men con-
fronting each other. Malory overtopped the
magician in height, and the bravado of his splen-
did shoulders and well-poised head, but Benedict
had something on his side. He was supple, and
of a sinewy build. There was something feline
about him, the look of the tiger in his tawny eyes
and the locks of straight black hair. It was not a
face to be hated any more than to be loved. It
was to be dreaded, as, with the instinct of caution,
we dread the unknown. So many complex expe-
riences had left their mark upon him, so many
strands of will twisted themselves to make the
iron coil of his self-control, that he was less a man
than a machine made to do something. Still
60 P A R A D IS E
Barbara had not heard them speak, and she
realized now how long it was that they had stood
looking at each other in silence. There had, per-
haps, been one wave of tempest. They were
waiting before another gust. Benedict spoke,
and his voice surprised her. Hitherto she had
never heard him address any one save herself,
and that when they were alone, in any save a
bastard English touched up with an accent that
passed for French. It gave him a hold on the
unlearned. It was one of the means he used to
cover his designs. Now he spoke in direct Eng-
lish, and it made him terribly in earnest.
“She is not here now P”
“No.” Malory's voice was rough and broken.
It seemed to be with anger.
“Where is she P”
“That’s not your business.”
“It is my business. I am her guardian.”
“Who made you her guardeen P’’
The very difference of accent on the last word
seemed to give Benedict a smooth advantage,
and Barbara hated him for it. She stood there in
the half darkness, with the moon riding overhead,
clenching her hands and setting her teeth into
her lip.
“I shall wait here till she comes back,” said
Benedict, and Malory answered:
“No, you won’t. Not under my roof.”
P A R A D IS E 61
At that they looked at each other in such con-
centration of male ire that Barbara followed her
impulse and ran down from the bank and in at
the side door. She slipped through the kitchen
and came upon them, breathless, where they
faced each other. . -
“Here I am,” she said. “Here I am.”
She gave one glance at Malory, as if she im-
plored him to forgive her for complicating the
situation, and then her gaze, with a persistent
will, sought Benedict. She was amazed at what
she saw. His face was overrun with some excite-
ment she had never found upon it. Color suf-
fused it and warmed its ivory pallor, as she had
not seen it, save in anger, and then never with
her. Until this break between them they had
seemed to be two creatures banded together
against the world of dupes, for prudential pur-
poses. She had never thought of herself as far
enough from him to call from him any vivid
emotion at the sight of her. But now it was there,
and she felt the more estranged.
“Bella!” he said, in a voice she hardly knew,
with a beautiful lingering upon the word,
“come.” He stretched out his hand toward her.
“No! no!” She shrank away. “Don’t touch
me.”
His hand fell, and the color faded out of his
face, as if disappointment had passed a solvent
62 P A R A D IS E
over it. For the moment Barbara forgot Malory.
She had taken the burden of the fight upon her-
self. Her eyes bent on the juggler, as if he were a
brute she had to quell, she dared not let them
waver. His gaze in turn held hers. He was look-
ing at her as she had seen him stare down the
rash adventurer from the audience as he tied
him with knots of rope and coils of sinuous
speech.
“Won’t you come with me?” he asked, very
gently.
“No,” she said, in a voice strident from its
difficult defiance. “No. I’m going to stay here.”
“How long, Bella?”
“As long as it suits her,” broke in Malory.
“She belongs here now. We’ve asked her to
stay, my sister an’ me.”
“Your sister!”
Barbara did not heed the delicate suggestive-
ness of the tone, but the thought of Clary mo-
mentarily recalled her.
“You go up,” she said, with a glance at Malory.
“Maybe she wants something.”
“Nick’s there.” He answered her as shortly,
with as brief a look. Their according minds were
bent, in a strange watchfulness, upon their com-
mon foe.
“I am going to take a long rest,” said Bene-
dict, with a persuasive play of syllables. “You
P A R A D IS E - 63
shall take one, too. We will travel a little.
Come, Bella.” -
“No! no!” she said again.
Instantly, in spite of the years he had be-
friended her, terror sprang up in her. She was a
woman wooed to an unwelcome bond. Then he
paused, and as she had often seen him do, retired
within his own mind to think it over. So it had
been when a trick had failed, or he had vainly
tried to study out some combination too ambi-
tious for him. Suddenly he looked up, and the
flash of his smile amazed Malory and frightened
her the more.
“You shall stay,” he said, in a tone of happy
confidence. “It is good for you here. Your
friends are kind. But when you are rested, when
it grows dull, then tell me. You know the old
address.” He paused, and regarded her with a
smile. “I guess it will be dull,” he said, in the
same persuasive tone. “I guess it will be.” He
held out his hand, but Barbara could not touch
it. She had no willful aversion to him, but all her
nerves were in revolt against him. He shook his
head gently, in the pained reproof accorded a
wrong-headed child, and turned away. At the
door he spoke again.
“Good-by,” he said. Then he was gone.
Of Malory he had taken no heed whatever
since Barbara had entered the room, and there
64 P A R A D IS E
was, both to the man and woman left behind, a
subtle implication of unfriendliness. They both
listened without speaking until the gate clanged,
and then the horse's feet were quick upon the
road. Barbara turned to Malory with a long
breath, her eyes brightening, and was amazed to
see the anger of his face.
“What makes you so mad?” she asked in-
voluntarily. “He’s gone.”
Malory relaxed his pose and walked to the
fire. There he stood, in his customary attitude of
rest, leaning against the mantel.
“Damn him,” he said to himself. He turned
to Barbara. “What is it about him that makes
anybody hate him so P”
“I don’t know. I never did till now. I never
liked him nor hated him. I just took him as he
was.” -
They seemed to be in a community of interest,
and Barbara felt secure. The farmhouse might
have been an impregnable fortress. No foe could
scale the walls. In a wave of emotion, like grati-
tude in that it made her turn the more eagerly to
her duties in the house, she asked:
“Has he been upstairs a good while P”
But at that moment they heard Nick descend-
ing, and Barbara began to heat up a little broth
on the stove. He nodded to her, in entering, and
she asked:
P A R A D IS E 65
“Clary all right?”
Malory had turned away and walked to the
window, stilling in himself the passion of the last
half hour. He hardly knew himself in this gust of
anger. Emotion, save grief over his sister, had
been foreign to him since Lindy went. He was
impatient at its return.
“Yes,” said Nick, standing by the stove, his
hands in his pockets, and watching Barbara
absently while she stirred and seasoned. “Say,”
he exclaimed abruptly, lowering his voice with a
glance at Malory, “is she as much better as she
thinks P”
Barbara shook her head without looking at
him. &
“She says you think so. She says you’ve done
it.”
“Done what?”
“Made her get well.”
“Oh, dear! oh, dear!” breathed Barbara to
herself. Then she lifted eyes full of a wistful
pleading. “It’s awful,” she said. “It’s awful.
I’ve lied and lied, but I can’t do anything
else.”
But Nick did not reproach her.
“No,” he said thoughtfully. “I guess we can’t
any of us. To-night I’ve been plannin’ the
house.”
He walked away, his eyes lowered, and pre-
66. P A R A D IS E
sently Barbara heard the click of the outer door,
and knew he was gone.
The next morning dawned sweetly, with a
strange look of early spring. Barbara’s heart
sang within her as she looked out at the autumn
brownness and saw the flocks of little birds whir-
ring over the fields. She was in the habit, even in
her short life, of trusting her intuitions, because
thus far they had made a part of her stock in
trade, and she had trained herself as the magician
educated his eye. Now something told her that
Benedict had really gone, and for the first time
she could believe her new life was really begin-
ning. She and Clary sat in the sunshine, and she
brushed the sick girl’s beautiful hair, and held it
up, to let the light run over it.
“I wish I had such hair,” she said warmly,
and Clary answered:
“It’s all the prettiness I’ve got.”
Barbara knew that, and could not answer.
Nothing was left but the pathos of the wistful
eyes. But though she refrained from specious
confirmation, Clary took the reply from her lips
and added:
“All I’ve got—now. When I am well, I expect
to be — quite nice.” She laughed a little in a sat-
isfied way, and Barbara rejoined at random:
“You could n’t do much to hair like this, to
make it any prettier.”
P A R A D IS E { 67
“No.” Clary held up a lock of it and let the
gold drip from her fingers. “It’s all right as it is.
When Mamie Smith had typhoid fever her hair
grew out as curly, you’d be surprised. But I
guess mine’s curly enough now. Nick’s begun to
plan the house.”
“What do you think Uncle Timmie was
doing?” asked Barbara, breaking in hurriedly.
“He was reading the Bible.”
“Yes, he’s always readin’,” said Clary, from
her dream.
“I want to read it, too,” Barbara continued.
“It tells things, what’s going to be — after-
wards.”
“Haven’t you ever read the Bible?” asked
Clary, mildly curious.
“No, never in my life. Let me show you —
there, dear, it’s all braided. You lay your head
right back — you let me show you what I found
last night. You got a Bible?”
“Oh, yes,” said Clary, with but a languid
interest, “right there on that little stand.”
Barbara took the book, and went to the win-
dow with it.
“Revelation,”
called.”
“It’s the last one. Turn over, right there in
the back.”
“It was the two last chapters he had there.
5
she said, “that’s what 't was
68 P A R A D IS E
Now you listen.” She read with a breathless
haste, stumbling a little now and then, as over an
unfamiliar page. Something exalted came into
her face, and the thrill of her reedy tones, that
little rough quiver in them, made the words mov-
ing. From an idle listening, Clary waked with
every phrase, until at the last she showed amaze-
ment and a rapt attention.
“Why, Barbara,” she said, when it was ended
and Barbara looked up at her with tear-wet eyes,
“you’re religious, ain’t you?”
“No,” said Barbara quickly. “Why, I don’t
see what makes you think of such a thing.”
“The minister used to come in an’ read the
Bible to me,” said Clary musingly, “but he was
so solemn it made me cry, an’ Malory forbid him
the house.” -
“Don’t you want me to read any more ?”
“Yes, all you want to. I can stand it now I’m
goin’ to get well. I don’t know but I like the
sound of it.”
Barbara went back to the beginning of the
apocalyptic vision, and read with a voice at first
trembling and then raised rapturously in the im-
passioned prophecy of beasts and angels and
crowns of gold. Clary listened with a growing
interest, half curiosity over the power of the tale
in moving her. At length Barbara closed the
book and looked up. She was like another crea-
P A R A D IS E 69
ture. Her pale face had flushed and her eyes were
wide with the excitement of discovery.
“Why, Barbara,” said Clary, still gazing at her
curiously. “You look as though you b'lieved
it.” -
“Why, it says so,” returned Barbara, with a
passionate emphasis, forgetting the equal flow
of speech she had observed to keep her patient
quiet. “Look here! Don’t you remember this?
‘These sayings are faithful and true.” That’s
what it says: ‘These sayings are faithful and
true.’” -
“Yes, so it does,” returned Clary thoughtfully.
“I never paid any attention to that. You see,”
she went on, after a moment, “I have n’t liked
to hear about such things since I’ve been sick,
because it’s all about — dyin’.” Her voice fell,
upon the last word, in a way it had, touching that
mournful change.
“But it’s beautiful to die,” said Barbara,
aflame with her new gospel. “Don’t you see
’t is 2 Cities and gold and crowns — and places
for everybody.”
“But there’s the wicked,” breathed Clary.
Barbara considered, seeking to adjust their
case to life as she had seen it. But her gospel
was large enough to fit. She could stretch it a
little here and there, and it covered all mankind.
“I don’t know anything about that,” she
70 P A R AD IS E
rejoined. “But I guess among so many places
there’s room enough for all.”
Inherited belief settled upon Clary like a dark-
ening brood of birds, and she trembled with ap-
prehensions she had striven to flee.
“But what if we find we’re the wicked our-
selves P” she hesitated. -
“Oh, we can’t be,” said Barbara joyously,
relying upon her inward monitor. “I don’t feel a
mite wicked. I feel as if I must be good. You’re
not wicked, I know that. I guess if nobody’s any
worse than we are, it’ll all come right.” Her gay
denial was infectious. Clary laughed, with a
sense of the daring of it all, but an added con-
sciousness of life itself.
“You had a crown on, when you came that
night,” she said. “I thought 't was a fairy. O
Barbara, tell you what let’s do. You put on the
crown an’ the yellow dress, an’ come in here an’
tell my fortune.”
Barbara shook her head from sad knowledge
of the value of the crown.
“You would n’t like it by day,” she said. “It’s
only brass. I’ll do it after dusk,” she hastened to
add, reading the disappointed face, “just by can-
dlelight. It’ll look real pretty then.”
So that night Barbara let down her hair, and,
with a sense of custom, put on the gauzy dress
and set the crown upon her head. Malory, step-
P A R A D IS E 71
ping out of Clary’s room, met her at the head
of the stairs, and stopped, aghast.
“Where you goin’?” he asked, throbbing with
the fear that, since she had come in that dress,
she had donned it to return.
She felt shamefaced before him. The life of
tricks and cheap devices seemed afar from this
sweet air she breathed.
“It’s just to amuse Clary,” she said hurriedly,
with drooping head, while the crown glimmered
in the candlelight. “I’m going to play tell for-
tunes.”
Malory gave a short laugh.
“Maybe I’d like mine told some time,” he
said, and made his way downstairs.
“Now give me your hand,” said Barbara,
when she was sitting by the bedside, a shimmer-
ing shape, irradiating beauties in the firelight.
She bent over the little palm, and pretended to
study it. Tears came into her eyes and scalded
them. She could not speak.
“What is it?” whispered Clary. “You see
somethin' you won’t tell me.”
“No, no, I don’t. It’s only a kind of a game,
anyway. There’s no truth to it.”
“No truth to it? Then did n’t you mean it
when you told me about my line of life?”
“Oh, yes, yes! I mean there’s nothing in your
hand I have n’t seen before, and it’s a kind of a
72 P A R A D IS E
game we’re playing to-night, — putting on this
dress and all. Oh, Clary!”
“Yes! Yes!”
“It’s just as easy to see a good ways as "t is a
little ways. Ever since we read in Revelation,
I’ve seen things in the New Jerusalem. Want
me to tell what I see for you?”
“Yes.”
Barbara began a glowing paraphrase of the
rich promises, but midway she felt the coldness
of Clary’s atmosphere. Her voice faltered, as it
always did when her listener was not in sym-
pathy. Clary spoke with a crude irrelevance.
“Nick says he could begin to build in March.”
“Clary!” said Barbara. She spoke in the deep
tone of her professional training. “You want to
know what your house and Nick’s’ll be in the
New Jerusalem P”
“You think we’ll have one together ?” asked
Clary, awestricken.
“I know you will. I see it.” Barbara closed
her eyes, and began her sibylline utterance.
“There’s a little path that goes up to the door,
and on both sides there’s garden beds, all covered
with blooms.”
“Flowers! Not same as we have here P’’
Barbara remembered the old garden of an inn
where she had stayed with Benedict in a little
town of western Massachusetts, and the joy of
5 5
P A R A D IS E 73
running over the names with the kindly house-
wife. -
“Larkspur and monkshood,” she said, with a
sweet firmness not to be withstood, “all blue.
There’s pinks in the border, and a great clump
of hollyhocks over by the fence. No, not a fence.
It’s a stone wall, sort of straggly. And there’s
columbines, too, and London pride.”
“I don’t like London pride very well. It’s too
bright.”
“It don’t grow in the beds by the walk. There’s
a lot of it way off in a field, on a kind of rise of
ground, and you see it against the sky.”
“How's the house look?” asked Clary, like
one in a dream.
Barbara would have had all houses in the
New Jerusalem gray and old like this, with
mellow shingles; but she reflected and then
answered:
“It’s a good size, with a piazza. And new as a
pin. And it’s painted kind of creamy white, with
green blinds.”
“I think you’re wonderful, Barbara,” said
Clary. “That’s for all the world what Nick an’
I said we’d have here. An’ vines up the piazza P”
“Yes. They grow in a night. And fields and
fields way beyond the house, all green, and smell-
ing when you cut the grass. There’s a little grove
off at one corner. A pine grove, I guess it is.”
74 P A R A D IS E
“What makes you say the vines grow in a
night?” asked Clary curiously.
Barbara considered.
“I don’t hardly know,” she said, “except they
do. You see everything’s different there. You
don’t have to wait for things. If you want a tree,
there 'tis. If you’d rather cut it down, it’s gone.
So maybe that’s why the vines’ll grow in a
night.”
“I never heard of such things before,” Clary
marveled. “I wonder ºf the minister knows!”
VI
THE merciful game went on, and the east cham-
ber walls answered to echoes of the New Jerusa-
lem. Barbara read no more Bible promises to the
sick girl, because Clary could not strip her mind
of the fear that, in some subtle way, the Scrip-
tures were connected with death and judgment.
There were stolen moments when Barbara read
a chapter to herself, now in gloom because her
random seekings there were incomprehensible to
her, and again aflame with wonder over the rich-
ness of imagery and the majesty of promises.
Revelation pleased her most, until by chance she
came upon the story of Solomon’s temple, and
then for the first time she seemed to step outside
her little room of life, and realize what could be
by merely thinking so. It was as if she had lived
inja tent heretofore, unconscious of the winds and
fragrances without. Now she had lifted the
shrouding cloth, and lo! there were “the clash-
ing of armies and setting of suns.” She moved
Quickly about her tasks, and carried her head
high, in a triumphant poise. It was possible for
anything to happen in a world where so much
had come to pass already. But for Clary, there
76 P A R A D IS E
was always the game of the New Jerusalem.
They played it many times a day, - she lying
acquiescent on her pillow, and Barbara's voice
flowing on in rapt improvising. It was the New
Jerusalem fitted to New England ears. There
were always the house and the garden, and sweet
fields translated into mowing lands. Having
built their home of fancy, they went about in it,
Like duteous housewives, and furnished it. There
were snowdrop tablecloths in the presses, and
braided mats upon the floor. There was no win-
ter and no snow, because Clary shrank now from
the gloom of the short days, and feared the
shrouding of the earth. Always there were flowers
blooming without care or trouble, because, as
Clary weakened, she put aside the idea of work.
There were cooling streams, singing by the way,
and wells of water. There was the sound of mu-
sic. Barbara always insisted upon that, even
when she was asked what music, and could not
3.I] SW62T.
“Are they harps ?” Clary besought her anx-
iously, since these reminded her of the ecclesias-
tical heaven she feared.
“No, I guess not,” said Barbara. “I don’t
know what makes it, but it’s music.”
“Is it like a melodeon — or is it like birds P”
“It’s a good ways off, so it’s kind of faint. But
I can always hear it. Maybe the wind makes it.”
P A R A D IS E 77
“I don’t like the wind,” said Clary, shivering.
“It’s too cold.” g
“This wind is different. It’s as soft and warm
and sweet as if 't was always blowing over flowers.
And ’t is. You know what lots of flowers there
are in the garden. You know that, Clary.”
“But what makes you hear the music if I
can’t It’s my house.”
Barbara went to the bedside, and in a passion
of pity laid her warm palms upon the thin white
hands.
“It’s because I’m a fortune-teller, dearie,” she
whispered. “I can see further than most. But
it’s there, just the same as if you could see it, and
it’s yours.”
“When shall I see it?”
“When you get there, honey lamb.”
Strangely enough, for she had not been used
to endearments, sweet phrases leaped to Barbara's
lips, in the waves of her compassion. She called
Clary the names she had seen in books, or heard
mothers call their children. Motherhood had
awakened in her with the growing of the girl’s
need. Now it was no longer necessary to mute
any phrasing that had to do with that house
beautiful they had created out of their girlish
hunger. Clary was in a strange dual state of
mind. With Nick, she assumed that she was bet-
ter and that the spring would see her well, and
78 P A R A D IS E
with Barbara she spoke tranquilly of her going.
But whether it meant death to her, Barbara
could not tell. It might have been the prospect
of a pleasant journey to be taken in some indefi-
nite future. It might have been the unreal gar-
den where her mind betook itself when the day’s
fabric grew too sombre, or it might have been
the one hope wherein she believed. Sometimes
Malory came in while these fancies were in the
weaving, and both girls were shy of him and
stopped. But as their own belief waxed in what
they had created, they grew bolder, and the
romance went on in spite of him. The first time
he stood aghast at the homely vision. Barbara
was gardening that day in the New Jerusalem,
and Clary lay in a comfortable calm, and was
allowing her to transplant bulbs from one border
to another, and raise a lilac hedge. She had a
fancy for yellow daffodils because they came
early. Barbara had set out a field of them, and
they were blooming in a nodding crowd.
“Butif there’s no winter,” said Clary, “’t won’t
be spring, either. They won’t be early blooms.
They’ll come with all the rest.”
Their loneliness had been precious to her.
Barbara snapped a link into the chain.
“There’s no winter,” she said quietly, aware
that Malory's eyes were fixed upon her, “but
there’s a time when things kind of go to sleep.
P A R A D IS E 79
Not the grass. That’s always green. But the
flowers do. They go underground to rest, and
the daffys are the first ones to bloom again.”
Then she went downstairs to get the dinner,
and Malory followed her. He came on her in
the pantry, where, with a wrinkled brow, she
was seeking out a recipe in the old cook-book.
“What’s she mean?” he asked abruptly,
“talkin’ about the New Jerusalem P She said
she’d got a house there. You think her mind’s
failin’ her ?” r
Barbara unwrinkled her brow and looked up
at him in a clear serenity.
“It’s in the Bible,” she said. “It’s promised
to her. ‘These sayings are faithful and true.”
That’s how it goes.”
Malory halted between his own imperfect
memory of stately phrasing and his unaided
conviction that every-day life was not to be trans-
lated into Scripture terms.
“It’s different there * — he hesitated.
“Yes, I know ’t is. But it comes to the same
thing.”
Her unreasonable assurance exasperated him.
She was always, he reflected, saying that things
were so, and failing to prove them. In practical
events they always did come right, but he some-
times had an irritated consciousness that she
made them by unlawful means.
80 P A R A D IS E
“Now what put that into your head?” he
asked, and Barbara laughed. Mirth ran over
her face and made it almost pretty, even to his
standards, fitted to a hardier type.
“Because,” she said, “I’m Sagittarius.”
“You’ve said that before. What do you mean
by it?”
“Sagittarius women have the gift of prophecy,”
she explained seriously, as if she were repeating
a solemn lesson. It might have been a gift that
gave her no pleasure, but was rather a deep re-
sponsibility. Malory's brow had clouded. Such
erratic phrasing seemed to place her outside his
sphere of life. He felt as he did when he was
told that it was important to see whether a calf
were carried out of the barn head foremost, or
to cut the hair on the waxing of the moon.
“Benedict tell you that?” he asked roughly.
Her face settled together, as if it were a flower
closing. She looked at him in a grieving honesty.
“Yes,” she said humbly. “He did. But it’s
true. I feel it’s true.”
Malory knew he had hurt her in one of the
inexplicable ways he had of calling a shade over
her face or bringing lightness there. He walked
back to the stove, ashamed, and when she came
to set her pan in the oven, he opened the door for
her.
“You must n’t burn yourself,” he said, almost
P A R A D IS E 81
tenderly, and then flushed because his atone-
ment seemed to him so clumsy. She brightened
at once. She had a bewildering way of respond-
ing to him. -
“I won’t talk about Sagittarius again,” she
said. She looked up at him, in an eager smiling.
“I don’t like them fortune-tellin' things,” he
responded.
“Don’t you want I should talk to Clary about
— the things I have P”
His face contracted.
“I want you to do anything you like to do,”
he said gently. “I want her to have everything
in the world to make it easier.”
At that moment Nick came in, stamping his
feet from a flurry of snow. He had on his leather
jacket and fur cap, and set down his gun by the
door. He nodded at Barbara, and took out a
partridge from the pouch.
“Think she 'll eat a mite o’ that ?” he asked
anxiously.
Barbara took it from him, and at once began
plucking the feathers into a pan on the table.
“I’ll cook it quick as ever I can,” she said.
“Here,” said Malory, “you let me pick it. I
can do that, anyways.” While he dressed the
bird, Barbara moved about setting the table,
and looked inquiringly at Malory as she brought
three plates.
82 P A R A D IS E
“Stay P” he asked Nick, and Nick, answering
briefly, “I guess so,” took off his coat, and sat
down by the fire, a moody giant, the lines of his
great form all beauty under his flannel shirt. He
watched Barbara with an unhappy intentness
she at once translated, in her way of reading
minds. It seemed to her that he was compar-
ing the lithe precision of her movements, her
wholesome calm, with the bankruptcy of the
girl upstairs. It made her profoundly sad, and
she, too, for the moment hated her strength. If
there had been a market to sell it in for new
blood and heart for the other girl, she would
have sacrificed it. They ate their meal almost
in silence, and when they rose from the table
the snow was falling in large, moist flakes.
“She won’t like that,” said Nick gloomily,
standing by the window, his hands in his pock-
etS.
“No,” returned Barbara, with the brevity of
one who must be busy. “She hates the snow.”
But she stopped in the midst of arranging Clary’s
little tray and turned to him, her eyes luminous.
“I’ll tell you what I should do,” she said.
“What?” asked Nick.
Malory had gone into the shed, and they heard
the sharp fall of his axe on pine limbs.
“She longs for spring,” said Barbara rapidly.
“I know it. What’s the usef When spring
P A R A D IS E 83
comes she’ll be —” The thought choked him,
and he stopped.
“I should take the train and go to the nearest
place where I could buy flowers. I’d buy her a
lot — bright ones, smelly ones. Once I had a
whole bouquet of pinks and rose geranium.” She
stopped, as if the fragrant memory moved her.
“That’s what I should do.”
Nick stood for a moment regarding her.
“I’m obliged to you,” he responded shortly,
and went out.
He did not come back that evening, though
Clary had expected him, and next morning Bar-
bara saw him driving home, with Nash's bay in
the still blinding storm. Presently, when there
had been time for him to put up the horse and
beat the snow from his hat and coat, he came in
at the back door, a folded horse blanket under his
arm. He unrolled it and brought out a box.
“There,” he said to Barbara, in the hoarse
triumph of a tired man, “give them to her.”
She stood by him, the tips of her fingers to-
gether in a happy expectation.
“No, no,” she said, “you take 'em up. She’d
rather have 'em from you. Let me brush the
snow off you, and you get warmed up a mite.
Then you go in as if you’d picked 'em for her,
and she’ll forget the snow.” -
He obeyed her with a dogged gentleness. His
84 P A R A D IS E
brows were drawn in pain, and when Malory
came in, glanced at the box, and asked casually,
“What ye got there?” he answered, “Flowers—
for her.” Then he added, “Makes it seem — ”
He could not finish, but Malory nodded. To
him also the extremity of the service made it too
momentous. It was like a funeral and eternal
parting.
Barbara took the flowers out of their box,
and the kitchen was immediately full of sweet
odors. There were pinks and rose geraniums.
Like a man in a place where every step was to
be groped, he had obeyed the counsel of the wo-
man. Barbara heaped them in his arms and
opened the door for him. They heard him go
into the room overhead, and Malory said to her,
gratefully : .
“You thought of it, didn’t you? That’s great.”
For the moment she felt a new happiness.
Because there was pleasure upstairs it seemed
as if it were good fortune that might last. The
room expanded into the spaciousness of courts.
The lingering flower fragrance breathed of other
seasons, ineffable ones to be called upon by the
mind when the treadmill of time grew wearisome.
When Nick came down the stairs again, she
hid herself in the pantry, lest he should have to
meet her with a betraying face. The moment
must, she judged, have made great demands
P A R A D IS E 85
upon him. But when he was outside the house,
she sped upstairs, secure in what she should
see there; and the omen was fulfilled. Clary
lay back upon her pillows, the flowers strewn
over the white coverlet. Her look was beatified.
Even the youth taken out of her face seemed
like a grossness gone, so pure was what was left.
She looked up with happy eyes.
“I don’t want ’em put into water,” she said,
with a covetous hand upon them.
“No,” said Barbara, “of course you don't.”
Then some new change in the face moved her,
and she answered from a wild impulse, “There’s
no need of it. They won’t ever fade.”
“What makes you say that?” asked Clary,
in a mild curiosity that yet poised no longer
upon the question than a bird upon a limb.
“I don’t know,” said Barbara. A tumult of
inexplicable fancies thronged her mind. “They’re
not common flowers.”
“No. He got 'em for me,” said the girl dream-
ily. “He rode all night. He wrapped 'em up
away from the cold. He says — he’ll get some
every week.”
That evening seemed to Barbara like a breath-
less tune beating on to an inevitable end. Mal-
ory ran up and smelled the flowers and talked
a moment in the firelight. Ten o’clock came,
and Barbara could not go to her couch bed.
86 P A R A D IS E
She made Clary comfortable, and then moved
into the shadow of the great fireside chair, a
lamp upon the floor behind her, and watched.
She was not terrified, only very grave. Some
curious summons was about to strike. It did
not seem to her that of death, because death
she had not known. Only it was something
solemn, and it was near. At midnight, Clary
stirred a little, and she hastened to her, setting
the lamp where it could light the flower-strewn
bed. Clary was looking up smilingly with large,
bright eyes. -
“Is it snowing P” she asked.
“No, dear, no,” said Barbara, – the whole
intention of her manner that of one who lays
a hand upon a struggling thing, to comfort it.
“Is there snow on the ground?” Clary asked,
like a child consulting older wisdom.
“No, dear, it’s spring. The grass is green.
Smell all the flowers.”
Clary shut her eyes, and Barbara stayed in
innocent watching of her stillness. Then as the
room seemed too silent, in a strange, prescient
way, a thrill ran over her, and she knew the
expected thing had come as softly as a waving
wing, and passed them by. With no fear upon
her, but a sense of haste, she ran and beat upon
Malory's door to summon him.
VII
IN four days more it was all over. Neighbors
had thronged in and cleaned the house, accord-
ing to the country custom after a death; there
had been a service of austere formality, and the
mourners had gone home, – all but Aunt Nash
and her husband, and Timmie Gale. They sat
about the fire with Barbara and Malory, and
talked a little, in a kindly way, loath to leave
the house to its changed estate. Barbara felt
like a stranger here in the sitting-room. Her
work had kept her busy until now in the kitchen
and Clary’s chamber, and she looked about her
with pleased, appreciative eyes. The room was
wainscoted high, and had consistent furnishings
of an elder time. There were spindle-legged,
flag-bottomed chairs and a highboy, a mirror
with Venus and Cupid, and peacock feathers
drooping over it.
Uncle Jotham Nash sat in a corner of the fire-
place, and edged his feet nearer and nearer to
the coals. He was a broad, heavy man, with an
innocent face overspread by a curious expression
of nervous alarm. Sometimes it puckered his
round visage as if he were going to cry. Aunt
88 P A R A D IS E
Nash knew that look. It heralded a fresh dis-
628,S62.
“Don’t you git so near the blaze, Jotham,”
she said admonishingly, as one might warn a
child. “I can smell the luther.”
“I’d ruther burn my shoes off’n my feet than
git lung fever, this weather,” said Uncle Jotham,
yet remembering that the boots had been tapped
the week before and withdrawing them an inch.
“Malory, I should think you’d take down them
peacock feathers over the lookin'-glass.”
“Why would ye?” asked Malory absently.
He was leaning back in a great fireside chair,
from which he bent forward now and then to
drop a handful of cones on the blaze. He had
been very silent through these last days, and
only his sad eyes told how they had laid hold
upon him. Barbara, glancing at him from time
to time, understood his stolid calm, and her
heart ached anew.
“They 're a bad sign as ever you 'll come
acrost,” said Uncle Jotham.
“I guess what’s comin’ will come, and what’s
goin’ will go,” said Malory, in dull certainty.
“It’s all like a river runnin’ down to the sea.
You can’t stop it by whistlin’ nor takin’ down
peacock feathers over the lookin'-glass.”
“You can remember your Creator in the day
of your youth,” declared Uncle Timmie testily.
P A R A D IS E 89
He had bent to push a stick into easier burning
space, and unexpectedly scorched his finger.
“Yes,” said Malory heavily. The words
meant nothing vital to him, but they had a Sun-
day sound applicable to the occasion, and he
accepted them. -
“I s'pose it keeps ye kind o' calm to be so
pious, don’t it, Tim P” asked Uncle Jotham
curiously. He was ever seeking new recipes for
cooling the blood and stilling life to an equable
measure.
“I dunno’s it doos,” said Uncle Timmie.
“Some o’ the time it makes me 'tarnal mad. I
know that.”
“There! there!” Aunt Nash was murmuring.
“Do tell.” She had on her black cashmere,
her worked collar, and cameo pin. Her hands
were folded in her lap in a clasp of sabbath
calm.
“Yes, it doos,” insisted Uncle Timmie. “It
makes me so mad sometimes I could jump up an’
down right where I be.” He caught Barbara's
eyes, and the vivid question in them, and an-
swered her directly. “The world ain’t made
right,” he explained.
“There’s nothin’ the matter with the world,”
volunteered Aunt Nash, remembering a saw to
fit. “It’s the folks there is in it.”
“Folks had n’t ought to be’n made to want to
90 P A R A D IS E
do one thing an’ have to do another,” said Uncle
Timmie.
“I guess you don’t want to do anything very
bad,” interpolated Aunt Nash.
“I dunno’s I do. I dunno whether it’s bad or
not,” said Uncle Timmie obstinately. “Anyways,
whatever *t is, ye can’t do it. If ye want anything,
that’s the thing ye can’t have. I’ve been right-
eous now for over forty year, an’ I’m pretty nigh
sick on't.”
“Mebbe 't won’t do ye no good arter all, if ye
begrutch doin’ it,” said Uncle Jotham shrewdly.
“Yes, ’t will, too. They’ve got to keep their
promise, ain’t they P”
“Who P’’
Uncle Timmie hesitated before the solemn
name of the Great Paymaster.
“I look upon’t like this,” he said argumen-
tatively, his lean forefinger in oratorical play.
“There’s be’n a kind of a system made up, an’
we’ve got to go by’t. They’ve made it as hard as
they can. I dunno why. Sometimes I think it’s
to spite somebody. An’ if we foller out the rules,
we’ve got to be paid, in the end. They’ve got to
pay us, jest as sure as you’ve got to pay your
hired man. That’s the promises.”
“‘These sayings are faithful and true,’” broke
in Barbara involuntarily, and then flushed, not
knowing why she spoke. -
P A R A D IS E 91
“But I tell ye one thing,” went on Uncle Tim-
mie hotly, “there’s one thing I won’t stan’, blow
high, blow low. For over forty year I’ve done
what I don’t want to; an’ if I should live forty
year more I’d do it jest the same, if I die for’t.
That time ain’t goin’ to be wasted. Now what if
Igit over there where there’s freedom an’ golden
streets an I dunno what all, an’ I find I ain’t got
no taste for anything but what I’ve be’n doin’?
What if I’ve lost my appetite, so to speak, by
starvin’ my stomach here?”
Uncle Jotham twisted in his chair. Aunt Nash
watched him narrowly. Unconsidered actions
meant some upheaval, and she ran about in her
mind to decide upon the nostrum to be admin-
istered.
“Don’t do so,” she admonished him.
Uncle Jotham’s face had assumed its quiver of
imminent tears. .
“It’s terrible excitin’ to talk about such
things,” he complained. “Makes my heart beat
like a trip-hammer. Malory, you ain’t got a mite
o’ brandy ?”
“I got some cherry rum,” said Malory. He
went to the corner cupboard, and brought out a
stone jug from below. He poured a stiff glass,
and presented it to Uncle Jotham with a rigid
arm. Uncle Jotham sipped it, and failed to hide
his eagerness; but even carnal pleasure had to
92 P A R A D IS E
fall under the rule of his prevailing fear. His
gaze sought his wife’s eye timorously.
“I dunno but it’s ’most too strengthenin’,” he
confided to her.
“It’ll go to your head, Jotham. I never can git
ye home, save my life.”
“Have some P” Malory asked Uncle Timmie,
waiting with the jug in his hand.
Uncle Timmie shook his head viciously, look-
ing at the jug as if he loved and hated it at once.
“I ain’t touched a drop for forty year,” he
vowed. “I don’t believe it’s a mite wuss’n tea
an’ coffee; but it’s forbidden. That’s the devil
on’t.”
Malory set away the jug, and came back to his
sad vigil by the hearth, where he seemed hedged
about within the circle of his grief. Aunt Nash,
in the disturbance of the moment, had turned to
Barbara and asked gently:
“What you goin’ to do, now Clary’s gone?”
Barbara looked up at her in a quick alarm.
Through all the solemn turmoil of the time she
had not thought of herself. She was only a by-
stander, a worker ready to take up intermittent
tasks here and there, as she was called upon.
“I don’t know,” she breathed.
“You’ve be’n proper good to Clary,” said
Aunt Nash, seeking about for some palliative of
the emotion she had evoked.
P A R A D IS E 93
Barbara’s eyes were wet. She could not answer,
but presently she asked, with a child’s sim-
plicity: -
“Don’t you think I could stay a day or two,
till I got my things together P”
The last phrase served for a reason, but she
remembered, for the first time, that she had no
things, – only the gauzy dress and the crown of
gold. -
“Yes, yes,” said Aunt Nash, “I guess you
could. Malory would nºt want you should do
anything different.”
Her gaze, ever seeking Uncle Jotham, fixed
itself upon him in a helpless exasperation. He
had set the half finished glass down upon the
hearth at his side, and his fingers were upon his
pulse. He looked up, and his eyes met hers in
solemn terror.
“A hunderd an’ ten,” he announced heavily.
“Nabby, I’ve counted up to a hunderd an’ ten.”
“Now what odds does that make P” she
returned, with an alarmed asperity. Uncle
Jotham was not an open book to her. Some-
times she felt plain anger at his terrors, and again,
for his sake, she shared them. It had never been
possible for her to learn whether he was at death’s
door, or, in the way of the fool, afraid of a shadow.
“What good’s it do to set there an’ count?” she
exclaimed, in an impartial appeal to the others.
94 P A R A D IS E
“Come to that, I could count my pulse all day if
I’d a mind to, an’ what good would it do me?
What hurt either ? Jotham, I’m terrible tried
with you.” -
“Ye don’t time it by anything, Uncle Jotham,”
said Malory, roused to a momentary levity.
“Doctors take their watch in one hand an’ count
with tº other.” -
“I don’t need to do that,” returned Uncle
Jotham mournfully. “I’ve counted so much I
can time myself better’n any watch 't was ever
wound up. Nabby, I’m goin’ to have a heart
spell within twenty minutes.” -
Aunt Nash got out of her chair like one sum-
moned to a duty well understood.
“You help me git him home,” she said briefly
to Uncle Timmie. “No, no, Malory, don’t you
come. You’re so big,” she whispered, in a hasty
aside, “if he leans on you, you’ll have to carry
him. He won’t bear down much on Uncle Tim-
mie. He’d ruther be whipped than fall.”
She sped into the bedroom and returned with
her shawl cast hastily about her shoulders and
her bonnet awry. She bore Uncle Jotham’s coat,
and held it up for him with all the strength of
her slender arms. Malory took the coat away
from her, and extended it while she lifted Jo-
tham’s hands, one after the other, and plunged
them into the sleeves. She buttoned it deftly,
P A R A D IS E - 95
dragging it together across his broad chest, and
then tied his comforter about his neck and set
his hat upon his head. Meantime he stood like
an image made of some pliable material, for no
practical use but the exasperation of humankind
in moving it from one spot to another, desiring its
standing room. His face held its look of vacuous
terror, and when she bade him move here or
there, he complied gingerly, as one afraid of
starting up some runaway mechanism within
himself. Uncle Timmie meantime had got his
hat and coat, and together, with a hand upon
his arm, they convoyed him to the door. There
he paused a moment, to enunciate, in an unrecog-
nizable voice:
“My mittins.” -
“His mittins,” said Aunt Nash to Malory, and
he passed the appeal along to Barbara in exas-
perated inquiry:
“His mittens P”
Barbara sped into the bedroom and returned
with them, great fluffy paws combed into fur, and
Aunt Nash patiently drew them on over the big
lax hands. Then the three went out into the crisp
winter night. Barbara ran to the window, and
watched them down the path. When she returned
to the fireplace, Malory had laid the sticks to-
gether for a new blaze.
“You think he’s sick?” she asked, taking her
96 P A R A D IS E
chair again, a straight-backed one, where she
looked quaint and small.
“No more’n the cat.” He set back the chairs
of the departed guests, and then took his own
seat in the other corner. “What’s Aunt Nash
sayin’ to you ?” he asked suddenly, with a sharp
look at her.
“When P” *
“A minute or two ago. She asked you some-
thin’. It bothered you like time.”
Barbara’s head drooped, and she looked away
from him into the fire.
“She asked how long I was going to stay here,”
she returned, in a low tone.
“Stay here? Ain’t this your home, much as
’t was Clary’s P”
She shook her head, smiling a little, but with
tears brimming her eyes.
“Clary was your sister,” she said gently.
“You ain’t fur off yourself. Do you s'pose
we’d ever forget, Clary an I, what you’ve done
for us 2 No, sirree.”
“I have n’t done anything,” returned Barbara,
in the same colorless voice, “except work some
— for a home.”
Malory leaned toward her across the hearth.
“See here,” said he, in a passion new to him,
“you’ve done well by me, an’ I’ll do well by you,
so help me! So long as I’ve got a roof over my
P A R A D IS E 97
head, half on’t’s yourn. So long’s I’ve got a crust,
that’s yourn, too.” He stretched out a hand, and
she laid hers in it. The ceremonial was like blood
brotherhood. He breathed faster when he drew
back from her, and sat looking moodily into the
coals. “”T would n’t ha’ been so,” he muttered,
“if things had turned out as they’d ought to.”
A willful spirit in her determined her to dis-
cover all that was in his mind, not toward her,
but toward his life. She looked away from him,
and her voice held an even calm.
“You wanted things different?” she sug-
gested. “You mean — about her.”
For a moment he was silent. Then he nodded.
“It was always understood between us. We were
goin’ to be married. Clary would have married
Nick, an’ they’d have built ’em a house, an’ we
should ha’ lived here.”
The words came wrenchingly, as if they cost
him something.
“You miss her,” said Barbara softly. She was
not looking at him, but she was aware that he
clenched his hand suddenly upon his knee.
“I dunno’s I do,” he answered coldly. Then
his blood compelled him. “You can’t help
missin’ what you’ve grown up with, an’ thought
about, an’ planned for. I never looked at another
woman. It ain’t been here to-day an’ there to-
morrer with me. Long’s I’ve known anything,
98 P A R A D IS E
I’ve known I wanted Lindy, an’ I could ha’
swore 't was so with her.”
“Maybe 't was,” said Barbara, in a careful
justice. She felt the blighting of an inexplicable
pain. It made her friendless even in his company.
Malory was looking at her with hot eyes.
“She P’’ he repeated bitterly. “She’s like the
wind that blows. I was well enough when she
could n’t get anybody else. Maybe I’d ha’ done
for good an’ all, if nobody had come round; but
the other beckoned to her, an’ — good-by!”
Rejoicing arose in her, as mysterious as her
misery.
“Maybe you won’t care any more,” she said.
She could not keep that exultation out of her
voice. “If she’s as bad as that, maybe you won’t
care.”
“Maybe not,” said Malory drearily, sunken
suddenly to a dull level. “It don’t make any dif-
ference whether I care or whether I don’t. It’s
Over. That’s all I know. It’s over.” He rose
heavily, and got his bedroom candle. Then there
came a sudden softening thought of her in their
changed situation, and he set the candle down
again. “Maybe you did n’t want to go to bed so
early,” he concluded, with a new remembrance
of his duties as a host. “If you don’t want to set
here alone—”
Barbara rose, and seemed to brush away dis-
P A R A D IS E - 99
turbing thoughts. She smiled at him brightly, yet
in soft compassion. Suddenly, now that Clary
was no longer here, he seemed to be definitely
given her for comforting. “No, I’m going my-
self,” she said soberly. “You must be tired to
death. I’m tired, too. Good-night.”
Her last sight of him, as he stood holding the
light for her at the foot of the stairs, melted her
the more. At first she had felt a kind of anger
against him, that he could keep on loving a wo-
man who had not loved him. Now that softened
into sheer compassion, seeing how good his face
was, how honest and how sad. She was moved
with the pity of it all, and longed only to serve
him, no matter what it cost her. But after she
was in bed, the keen wintry air blowing in upon
her face, she kept turning, in angry restlessness,
and asking herself, as if it were partly in a dream:
“How can he like her, if he hates her so P”
VIII
BARBARA, with all her runaway fancies, had
never imagined a life such as this she now lived.
Throughout Clary’s illness hard work and anxiety
had been the rule of the house. Now she had her
days to herself, broken only by the happy trouble
of serving Malory. Clary, to her yearning vision,
still abode with them. She kept flying upstairs,
in sudden panics, lest Clary were really there,
and wanted something. But the white bed was
empty, as she knew it would be, and the room in
its cold order. Once, with an impulse to warm
her own heart by a return to the semblance of
dear habit, she lighted a fire there and stayed
looking at it, shutting her mind to her certainty
of things as they were. It had not been an equal
companionship, her friendship with Clary. She
had been nurse or mother, the soul on whom the
other leaned; and now, again like a mother, her
arms were empty. Still she was strangely happy.
Alone in the house all day, cooking and setting in
order, the walls seemed hers, and she breathed
for the first time the fragrance of home. Malory
took her for granted, like a comforting fact. She
called him by his first name now, because one day
P A R A D IS E 101
he bade her do it, and she began to learn, with a
wistful wonder, the value of human ties.
“I never had a relation in the world,” she said
to him suddenly one night, when he laid down the
county paper and looked up at her with a frank
yawn, where she sat by the table darning stock-
ings. “I suppose I had 'em, but I never knew
who they were.” -
Malory smiled again at her, always indulgently.
He was in the habit of treating her like some-
thing dear and familiar, and much younger than
he had ever been.
“Well, you’ve got some now,” he said. “You’ve
got Nick an Aunt Nash an old Tim Gale an’
me. Nick been in here to-day ?”
She shook her head.
“He ain’t been in since — ” He hesitated.
“No,” she answered, “not since the day she
was carried away. I’ve seen him go by with his
gun. He looks pale.”
“Yes.” Malory spoke musingly. “I see him
crossin’ the orchard this mornin’. He did n’t
stop to speak.”
“You’ve always been friends, have n’t you?”
“We grew up here together. The only words
we ever had was when I give him that welt across
the face. We were boys then, not more’n six-
teen.”
“What was it for P”
I02 P A R A D IS E
“He said Lindy was a liar, an’ I up with an
axe helve I was smoothin’ an’ hit him over head
an’ ears.”
Barbara had at once a demon’s impulse to earn
her scar also. -
“Well,” she asked, with a specious coolness,
“was nºt she P”
“What?”
“A liar.”
There was a pause, and the clock seemed to
hurry like her pulse. When Malory spoke it was
slowly, and with a temperate emphasis:
“Yes, Lindy was a liar. I knew it then, much
as I know it now; but I wan’t goin’ to have any
man tell me so.” -
“Would you now P” She spoke in the velvet
tone veiling too strenuous passion. “Would you
bear it now P”
“No, I guess not,” said Malory, as slowly.
“What’s the use of callin’ names P Let her be
what she will, I’ve lost her, an’ I might as well
keep my tongue between my teeth.” It all sounded
temperate, and yet it roused her like a passionate
defense. For the moment, nothing in the world
seemed desirable but to be loved with such un-
reasoning loyalty. The hint of that was in her
face; but though Malory was looking at her, he
did not see it. Sometimes he gazed past her and
again into her eyes with a grateful friendliness;
P A R A D IS E 103
but the seeking heart within her he did not re-
cognize. To-night her breath choked her. She
had heard much talk of jealousy in her fortune-
telling. Men and women were always paying
money to find out whether they had cause for
what seemed to her then a baseless anger. She
had always told them there was no cause, and
found herself paid by their relief when they
left her, or even a kind of ecstasy she was far
from understanding. Now she felt a distaste
of herself, as it appeared that she, too, was
jealous.
“Would you?” Malory was repeating, “would
you hear such things said about anybody you’d
liked P’’
There was a step at the outer door, and Aunt
Nash came in. This was wintry weather, and she
wore her shawl and pumpkin hood, wherein her
small face seemed to lose itself. She spoke from
out its quilted depths:
“Seems if I never should git here. It’s all a
glare of ice in the road.”
“Good sleddin’,” responded Malory, while
Barbara unveiled the visitor, and disclosed the
wintry pink of her face and the roughness of her
tumbled hair. Aunt Nash was addressing Bar-
bara, glibly, as if she had arranged her speech
beforehand:
“Should you jest as soon run over’n’ set with
104 P A R A D IS E
Jotham a minute 2 I want to see Malory proper
bad; an' Jotham’s alone, an’ if su’thin’ don’t
take up his mind, he’ll have a spell.”
Barbara pulled her cloak from its nail.
“I’ll be glad to,” she agreed. “I’ll stay till you
come.”
Aunt Nash listened for an instant to her step
upon the frozen snow, and then, not regarding
the chair he offered her, turned to Malory. She
smoothed her hair with both small hands, and
laid a finger on the button of his coat.
“Malory,” she said, “there’s a terrible tew
Over her.”
“Who P”
“Barbara. There’s be’n talk, an’ the minis-
ter’s got hold on’t, an’ he drove up this arter-
noon, an’ laid the case afore me.”
Malory's eyes were stern with wonder.
“What’s it all about?” he asked curtly.
“They say 'taint decent for her to be livin'
here with you — There, there, Malory! don’t
you take it so. You’re enough to scare anybody
to death.” .
He looked like an enraged animal of a noble
sort, his eyes bloodshot, his face suffused.
“You send 'em here to me,” he said in a low
voice, controlled because it threatened to break
away from him. “My God! you send 'em here
to me.”
P A R A D IS E I05
“He was comin’ this arternoon,” she went on
rapidly, still keeping a hand upon his arm, “the
minister was, but I told him 't was as much as his
life was wuth. I beseeched him to let me drop in
an’ talk it over. I told him I’d set it out fair an’
plain, an’ you could see what you felt ’t was right
to do.”
“Do! Ride over there in the mornin’— no, I’ll
go to-night.” His breath failed him.
Aunt Nash still kept her hand upon his
8.TIOl.
“Mebbe we could set down a minute an’ talk
it over,” she said hopefully. -
Malory pointed to the chair, and after she had
seated herself, unwillingly took one himself. She
smoothed her apron over her knees and looked at
him in a mild deprecation, which he presently
translated.
“You don’t mean to say you uphold him!”
he cried, in bitter wonder.
“No, dear, no! I’d be ashamed to fetch an’
carry such trade as that. On'y, Malory, it ain’t
customary.”
“What ain’t customary P”
“For young folks to live along like this when
they ain’t no blood relation.”
“It ain’t customary for a stranger to come in
an’ do for ye as she’s done for us, an’ refuse to
take a cent. If I’d gone an' picked her up, no-
106 P A R A D IS E
body knows where, an’ brought her here arter
Clary went, that’s one thing. But—” Again the
words failed him.
“Malory,” said Aunt Nash, soothingly, “she’s
a terrible nice little creatur’. Why don’t you
marry her ?”
“Marry her ?” He repeated the words amaz-
edly. “Marry!” he continued. “Why, I—”
Then he remembered that he was not, as he was
about to say, bound to Lindy, and groaned under
the impact of that double loss.
Aunt Nash understood.
“Don’t you waste a thought on her,” she
counseled eagerly. “She’s a poor tool.”
In his pain he answered willfully.
“Barbara P”
“Law, no! Lindy. I don’t care ºf she is Jo-
tham’s niece. She’s a poor creatur’, an’ al’ays
was. I’ve heard about her, Malory, things I ain’t
told an' ain’t goin’ to tell. But she ain’t a good
girl, Malory, she ain’t a good girl.”
“What have you heard?” he asked, in a
dogged quiet.
She shook her head, and all her wisps of hair
seemed to start up in a new rebellion.
“No, Malory,” she said, “it ain’t necessary.
But you marry this little creatur’ an’ settle down
here together, an’ you’ll be as contented as two
kittens. She’s a faithful little creatur’ as ever I
P A R A D IS E 107
see. All the men folks in town might camp out in
your front yard, an’ she’d be as prim as a dish.
But tº other one — my soul!” -
“What have you heard about Lindy ?”
“I’ve heard she’s set up housekeepin’ down
in the mill deestrick, an’ if they ain’t married
they’d ought to be. There! I know ’t is true.”
She was scarlet with the shame of it, and her
own temerity in the telling. Malory sat there, his
great shoulders shrugged forward and his eyes, as
she remembered afterwards, “like coals o' fire”
in his white face. He struck the table with his
fist, and straightened himself.
“So be it!” he said, with a great oath. “That
parts us. I’ll marry any woman that’ll have
me.” sº
“There! there! I would n’t go so fur as to say
that—” -
His mind had reverted to Barbara and her
lone estate.
“There’s a girl without a place on earth to lay
her head,” he cried. “Here’s a roof to cover her,
an’ they won’t let her have it.”
“Where’d ye come acrost her, Malory?” She
asked the question with her mild good-will, and
yet he had to frown it down like an impertinence.
He was silent, and she covered the interval with
her customary, “Well, there!”
Meantime his thoughts were swift. Not only
108 P A R A D IS E
did the habit of his lonely life cry out for Barbara,
but her need cried out for him. He could not pay
her for her services, and send her away to find
another shelter. Benedict was in that outer world
waiting for her, and Malory seemed to himself
the one man to shield her. He came back from
his meditations, and looked up at Aunt Nash
with a sudden smile that pleased her into think-
ing she had not done wrong.
“We’ll see,” he said, and she rose immedi-
ately and smoothed down her apron and her
hair.
“I’ll be gittin’ home,” she said, tying on her
hood.
“Uncle Jotham all right?”
“Budge as you please. He’s had two good
days. I left him settin' by the fire straight as a
mack’rel, crackin’ nuts. Mebbe Barbara’ll eat
some, an’ that’ll tickle him.”
“Much obliged!” Malory called after her,
when she began picking her steps down the
snowy path; and he stood there at the door, bare-
headed, until Barbara came running back that
way. The hood of her cloak had fallen to her
shoulders, and when he stepped back to let her
in, she passed him like a sprite, bringing the
wind with her. He turned about and looked at
her with regarding eyes that had never seen her
save through a lens of gratitude. She was at her
P A R A D IS E 109
best, a child, not woman, her eyes bright with the
air and the joy of night, and her cheeks flaming.
Malory for the first time felt timidity before her.
The world had come between them. Its fingers
were pressing them apart. They were living amid
a cloud of witnesses. -
Barbara had hung up her cloak, and now she
stood by the fire, stretching her small hands to its
heat. Some picture of Uncle Jotham rose before
her, and she raised her mirthful face to tell him.
What she saw there stopped her, and the words
died.
“Malory,” she breathed, “what is it?”
He was looking at her kindly, but there was a
great excitement in his face. He strove to speak
indifferently.
“I don’t s’pose we can al’ays live along like
this, Barbara.”
She caught her breath, and her color faded.
“No,” she said, with a little catch in her voice,
“no, of course we can’t.” It was the woman’s
hopeless acquiescence in the man’s mysterious
will.
“Should you just as soon—” He hesitated,
and then, because no great emotion was con-
straining him, said the words simply and natu-
rally, “should you just as soon we’d be mar-
ried ? Then you could live here always.”
Her lips parted. She gazed at him, large-eyed,
I 10 P A R A D IS E
in a disturbance that looked like fright. He trans-
lated it so, and spoke the more gently.
“I would n’t say such a thing to some girls.
They would n’t think for a minute of marryin'
a man they did n’t set by. Nor you would n’t,
only you’ve said you don’t set by men folks any-
way—”
“No,” she managed to return, from her dry
lips.
“An’so mebbe you’d be contented jest to have
a home here with me, an’ live along as we’re
livin' now. I would n’t — hold you to anything.
It would be — jest as ’t is now.”
“Then what makes us change?” She said it
involuntarily, in a spasm of wonder.
He hesitated. It seemed impossible to stain
her innocent content, and he answered, “I dun-
no’s I can tell. Only it’s all very well to live on so
for a few weeks, but — Barbara, I ain’t got a tie
on earth to hold me, nor you ain’t, an’ every
man’s hand is against us.”
She was looking at him now in a pathetic be-
wilderment. No man’s hand, she thought, had
been against her, and Heaven, even, had poured
down its largess. “I’ll give you a good home,”
he urged. It seemed to his sore heart as if Lindy
were in the room, and heard him justly tear the
web of old allegiance. “While I live, you’ll have
it, an’ when I die it’ll be yours.”
P A R A D IS E 111
Her face arrested him. Still it was like a
child’s in the pure innocence of its look; and
there was something so wistful about it now, that
he paused as if, without words, it spoke.
“Do you—” she hesitated, and then brought
out the question with a noble candor, “do you —
care about me?” -
Involuntarily he turned from her, and walked
back and forth through the room. When he
returned to his place by the chimney, his cheeks
were seamed as if by tears.
“God is my witness, Barbara,” he said roughly,
“I don’t care about any otherwoman. That’s all
burnt out. I can’t ever feel it again. I would n’t
if I could. It only tears ye to pieces to no end.
But I’ll be as good to you as the day is long. I
shan’t ever have a thought but you.”
She stood in silence, musing. Recoiling him-
self from the inexorable coldness of his suit, he
looked at her, and was amazed at the light upon
her face. He could not know how her headlong
soul had outrun probability. As in a vision, she
saw the swift procession of days wherein she
should always be by him, serving him. Her heart
sang a willful song of its own, “He does not care
for me; but he will care.” If he had approached
her in another way, with passionate speech and
quickened pulses, she might have withdrawn in
the old distressful terror that made Benedict
112 P A R A D IS E
hateful to her. But for Malory, she felt a flood of
tenderness and worship. He seemed to her a
beneficent being to whom she or any one could
fly and meet with faithful service; and to go on
with him toward unknown years in this daily
commerce of homely pleasures was beatitude.
And at this moment he loved Lindy no more.
This seemed the dewy promise of the morn, and,
as it was enough for her, she never guessed it
might not be enough for him. She stood looking
at him shyly. The trouble of his face passed,
and he smiled at her.
“Will you, Barbara P” he asked softly.
She nodded, her bright eyes on his.
“That’s good. When P”
“Not right off.” Why she made delay she did
not know. It was an instinct deep as woman’s
nature, that bids her say, “Not now.”
“Then, tell you what I’ll do. To-morrer I’ll
go an’ get Ann Parsons to stay a spell with us.”
Her face flashed into questioning.
“You don’t like my cooking!”
“Yes, yes, I do. Cookin'! What’s cookin’?
But I’m goin’ to have somebody help you with
the work, so’t you can kinder look over the house
an’ see ºf it suits you.” -
She moved lightly toward the door, and stood
looking at him with what seemed a shy pleasure
in her eyes. She had not been used to his face in
P A R A D IS E 113
former happiness, and now she did not know how
unnaturally old he looked.
“I like the house just as it is, Malory,” she
said softly. “I like everything just as it is. Good-
night.” g
IX
NExT day Nick drove by to mill. There was
a flurry of snow, and Uncle Jotham, feeling a
flake or two down his neck, had remained pru-
dently at home. Malory, on his way to the barn,
saw Nick and hailed him.
“Want to send ?” returned Nick, pulling up.
“You call at Ann Parsons’, an’ tell her I want
her.”
“Anybody sick?” .
“Tell her I want her. Tell her to bring things
enough to stay a month.”
“Barbara sick?”
“No, no. You tell her.” He swung off toward
the house, and Nick drove on.
It was dinner time when Ann Parsons came.
Barbara was just dishing up pork and apples,
and a platter of sliced potatoes carefully baked
according to a recipe of the house and adapted
to winter weather. She and Malory had hardly
spoken that morning. He regarded her, from
time to time, with a puzzled consideration, as if
she were something precious he had lately in-
herited, and of which he hardly yet knew the
value. Something exuberant and womanly had
P A R A D IS E 115
fallen upon her, quickening her color and set-
ting her body to a new rhythm. It was not to be
understood by herself more than by him, for it
was that sense of the wonder of life, ready to re-
spond in us when the beautiful looks suddenly
out at us from dim corners. She had loved this
house, and now the house was hers. She had
felt for Malory an intimate worship, and now he
was to be nearest to her of all human things:
nearer than house or trees or flowers.
Ann Parsons opened the side door and came
in, her keen eyes peering, her wintry face red-
dened by the cold. Malory followed her, bringing
her carpet bag, distended with clothes and reme-
dies; for she carried nostrums of her own, and
even, when the doctor seemed to her “shifless,”
administered a few herbs unknown to him. She
stripped off her mittens as if they were manacles
that kept her from her quest. •
“Who’s sick?” she asked.
Barbara had just set the last dish on the table.
She turned to the visitor smilingly, conscious
of a clean kitchen with the sun in it, of Malory
standing by, a rare smile on his face, and of the
visitor she liked at once.
“Who’s sick?” repeated Ann Parsons. She
had taken off her blanket shawl and folded it
with a deft motion, untied her bonnet, and laid it
on the shawl.
116 P A R A D IS E
“I’ll leave these in the front entry,” she said,
and did it with the words. Back again before
them, she seemed to quiver with expectation. Her
small rough hands were folded in front of her;
but in spite of their professional repose they still
looked eager. Barbara, gazing at her and waiting
for Malory to speak, thought she had never seen
so clean an old woman. Her black hair, parted
and drawn back into a stiff knot, shone with
brushing. She looked like an ill-favored bird
that had spent all its time preening its feathers.
“Land sakes, Malory, why don’t you speak?”
she inquired, with wholesome exasperation.
“Le’s have some dinner,” said Malory. “Ye
won’t 2 Well, then, le” me have hold o' your bag,
an’ I’ll show ye your room.”
He led the way through the front hall and up
into the west chamber. A fire was burning there;
but Ann Parsons cast a look at the vacant bed,
and her face fell. Malory set down the bag, and
shut the door behind them. He advanced until
they faced each other, he towering over her and
she glancing up at him, her head on one side in-
quiringly.
“See here,” said he, “You go an’ come, an’
you hear all there is. You know what’s said
about me an’ that girl downstairs.”
She nodded, and her face took on a kind
neutrality.
P A R A D IS E 117
“I heard on’t last night,” said Malory. His
anger rose with recollection. “I’ve asked her to
marry me. But till she does it — Ann Parsons,
you stay here an’ kinder help her out.”
Ann’s manner had returned to the ease of one
who knows her office.
“I’d be pleased to,” she declared. “There
ain’t much sickness now.” She said it mourn-
fully. “I dunno’s there’s a mite. Every time a
wagon’s drove up I’ve said to myself, ‘There,
it’s come.’ But it’s a terrible healthy season.
Now le’s go down to dinner.”
But Malory lingered, his hand upon the door.
“I spose you know why I sent for you an’
nobody else,” he hesitated.
“I would n’t ha’ come if he’d told me 't wan’t
a case o' sickness,” said Ann, nodding her head
with one of her shrewd looks.
“You know more’n the doctor an’ more’n
the minister does, of what goes on under every
roof in this county, an’ the grave ain’t deeper.
My mother used to say so.”
“Law,” said Ann Parsons easily, “if I was
goin’ to tell what I know, I should have to talk
all day long. Would n’t be no time for nothin'
else. Now le’s go down to dinner.”
That afternoon the minister drove up, and
Malory at his woodpile saw him, threw down
his axe, and advanced to the gate at the end of
118 P A R A D IS E
the drive. There he took his stand in the middle
of the path.
“Hold up,” he called, and while the minister
sat there with a hand upon the reins of his dull
hired horse, considered him with a frowning
brow. This was a mild old man, with a long face,
and thin hair pathetically blowing. He sat there
regarding Malory with an air of patient courtesy.
Malory turned to the house.
“Holloa'” he called. Ann Parsons’s face ap-
peared at the window. “You see that?” he in-
Quired of the minister. “That’s Ann Parsons.
She’s come to stay. There’s no call for you to
come spyin’ out the lay o' the land. When folks
run to you with a dish o' dirty talk, you can kick
it over. That’s all. Drive along.”
The minister clucked to his horse, with a kind
of dignity not easy to combine with his poor
driving, and turned his horse about. Malory
watched him as he awkwardly cramped the
wheel, and reflected scornfully on parsons as
they seemed to him. The minister looked back.
“Good-by, Malory,” he called. “I shall re-
member you before the Throne.”
Malory stood there watching his shawled
back, pathetic with the droop of age, and then
strode back to his work, ashamed. He struck a
blow or two at a knot, threw down his axe, and
went off into the barn. The cattle, silent in their
P A R A D IS E 3. 119
stalls, roused themselves at his step, and rattled
their necks against the stanchions. The horses
gave a little whinny, and trod eagerly. But he
could not heed them. The calls of the outer
earth were dear to him; but now he was con-
scious only of his angry heart. He sat down on
a box on the barn floor, and fell into moody
speculation. All his life he had thought little
of himself. Since his mother's day it had been
Lindy; then it was Clary. The instinct of ten-
derness toward them, the demand of service,
filled his needs. Now it occurred to him that he
was suffering irritation of a distracting kind.
Like animals in cold weather, he was cross, and
that inner warfare teased and worried him. To
get away from his kind, that was what he wanted.
Their ways seemed foolish to him, their stand-
ards hideous. If he could escape them — he and
Barbara. He began to think about her, and al-
ways with the passion of gratitude that arose
like incense to envelop her. She was like some
impersonal force, all beautiful, and sent to min-
ister to him. Then, as it always did, after rest
for a moment upon any thought, his mind swung
back to Lindy, and he set his teeth as if into the
bitter mood besetting him, and acknowledged,
for the first time, how he hated her. After great
love, it was wholesome to his soul to feel any-
thing so deadly as that hatred. It was like turn-
120 P A R A D IS E
ing a bitter cud about in his mouth and chewing
it, and feeling the taste of it upon his tongue.
He hardly knew himself in this mood, gentle as
he had always been, and merciful to beasts and
men. But Lindy was different. She seemed to be
a malignant force set from the beginning in a
channel bound to wreck his life.
Meantime, after Ann and Barbara had done
the dishes in a swift accord, they sat down to-
gether, and Barbara brought out her sewing.
Ann sat for a moment regarding her mournfully.
“You’re terrible healthy, ain’t ye?” she asked.
Barbara laughed out.
“Don’t you want me to be P” she returned.
Ann’s wintry face broke into a dry smile.
“I dunno but I’d like to have you kinder give
out for a day or two, so’s to git ye well. I’m
possessed to tinker folks up. Never could help
it, from the time I was knee-high to that spool o'
silk. Look-a-here! you gi’ me that waist. I can
take in the seam as well as you can.”
“It’s Clary’s,” said Barbara softly. “He
told me to alter over all her clothes.” -
Ann had taken the waist, and was seeking a
thimble in her long pocket. “Clary was a beau-
tiful girl,” she said, pinning the work to her knee
and taking rapid stitches, “a beautiful girl.”
“I guess she was.”
“There 's Nick, now,” said Ann, glancing up
P A R A D IS E I2]
at the window. Barbara followed her look and
saw him striding homeward across the orchard,
head bent, and his gun upon his shoulder. “Don’t
look up, doos he P” -
“He never comes here now. I suppose he
can’t bear to.”
“I never thought he'd marry an’ settle down.
He’s more like a wild creatur’. Belongs in the
woods.”
“But they’d been engaged a long time.”
“Well, I guess they never knew what brought
it on. They’d been together off’n’ on sence they
read in the primer. Like two kittens they were.
Clary was a beautiful girl.”
“Did you know Malory's mother ?” Barbara
asked suddenly. The question seemed to bring
her nearer him; she found her face flushing, and
knew how her voice trembled. -
“Law, yes. She was as like Clary as two peas,
—on’y Clary never had any health. She was a
wice creatur’, Mis’ Dwight was, good-tempered,
easy’s an old shoe. Malory takes arter her.”
“You think he’s easy P” asked Barbara shyly.
The Malory she knew was one whose face
showed stormy moods and heavy brooding.
“Law, yes. Nick, now — ye never'd know
what Nick would do, only git him started. Why,
:e winter when I was over Pine Hill way, nus-
sin' Mis’ Pilsbury, I started to come acrost the
122 P A R A D IS E
woods arter dark, to git me some clean clo’es.
I had my lantern, but I was kinder nervous, I
dunno why. There was a lusevee round that
winter. Well, all to once I heard Suthin’ movin'
round in the dark. I stopped short, an’ my legs
shook under me. Then somebody spoke. 'T was
Nick. ‘That you, Ann Parsons P’ says he.. I
could ha’ shook him. “That you, Nick Jameson P’
says I. ‘What you doin’ here this time o’ night?’
‘Ann,’ says he, “you come here.’ He kinder
'peared to me out o' the deep woods. I could nºt
see him till he was close up to me. I’d set my
lantern down to my feet. ‘Ann,’ says he, ‘you
come this way an' hear the trees talk.” I follered
him, an’ when we’d got in among the pines, he
stopped short, an I stopped, too. Well, 't was
jest as he said. I never heard anything like it,
long as I lived, an’ arter that night I never heard
it again. There did n’t seem to be much of a
wind, but ’t was as if all the trees were whisperin’
together. I tried to speak to him about it arter-
wards, but he would n’t listen. Ketch him in one
o' them spells, an’ you never’ll do it again. Might
as well expect a white blackbird.”
“I wish I could hear it!” said Barbara, with
wide eyes.
“Well, ye won’t, not by his showin’. He ain’t
in the same kind of a mind once in a dog's age.
Now you give me that sleeve, an’ I’ll fit it in.”
X
MALORY put aside his angry mood with the day
it assailed him, and it returned no more. He felt
like a new man. Now, at last, he thought, he was
done with Lindy. The pang of hatred had been
the last throe out of which liberty was born. He
took to watching Barbara. The very freedom
of her content was surprising to him. Uncon-
strained as she had been with him in their life
together, she seemed to have gained some ease
from having Ann Parsons near. Another woman
was the shield behind which her graces shone.
She was delicately happy, in a way that could
only please. Clary’s presence still abode with
them and cast a sedateness of mood over the
house; but though Barbara’s heart acquiesced in
the decorum of mourning, her body rioted. She
gained color from the country air. She was so
well that it did not seem as if she could move fast
enough or breathe in enough of the day. Malory
wondered, and tried, in a gentle fashion, to get
better acquainted with her. Until now they had
talked of the short past they held in common,
wherein Clary was a third; but now, since Mal-
ory insisted upon it, they spoke openly, in a shy
124 P A R A D IS E
way, of their future. Ann Parsons would doze
in a corner, in the long evenings, or even run
across to gossip with Aunt Nash, and leave them
to the solitude they had begun to crave. Some-
times she went to bed early, to “get 'cruited up,”
as she said, for her next case, and then they would
sit together by the fire, and make their confi-
dences like man and woman whose paths were
one. Barbara told him everything she could
remember about her life with Benedict, and he
listened, asking questions here and there that
showed his curiosity, but no jealous desire to wipe
out that memory. There was not much for him to
tell her except about his childhood, which seemed
to him unimportant. The later years were full of
Lindy, and they had tacitly agreed to drop her
out of their speech.
Barbara bloomed under happiness, until Aunt
Nash saw it, and told Malory she was “a pretty
creatur’; ” and one day Nick met her, as he came
home from the woods, and stopped to stare at her.
“What is it?” asked Barbara.
“What’s what?” he answered, still with that
musing gaze.
“I thought maybe something was the matter.”
“No,” he said, “no. I was only thinkin' I
did n’t know how you looked.”
She gazed up at him, with the clear candor of
her questioning eyes.
P A R A D IS E - 125
“Why,” she said, “that’s queer. Don’t you
remember how folks look?”
Nick was smiling at her now, and she suddenly
considered that she had never seen his face, save
under the pallor of grief.
“Wan’t you a fortune-teller P” he asked
abruptly. -
Alarm overspread her face and made it pite-
OUIS. -
“Why,” he went on, “don’t look like that.
It’s nothin’ to be ashamed of. Clary said so.
She told me not to tell. That’s all there was to it.
Don’t look like that.” -
“I shan’t ever do it again,” she faltered. That
remembered past seemed to put her miles away
from this still hour and peaceful company.
“Yes, you will, too. You’ll do it for me. Want
a pack o' cards P”
She shook her head. -
“I could do it by your hand,” she said shyly.
He drew it from its mitten, and held it out there
in the cold. She bent over it debatingly.
“What a long line of life!” she cried.
“You bet it is,” he said indifferently. “I shall
live as long as Uncle Jote. Be jest like him, too,
havin’ to be calked up an’ puttied.”
As she gazed, her late fictions came up before
her, and something choked her in the throat. She
straightened herself and shook her head.
126 P A R A D IS E
“I can’t,” she trembled. “I don’t like it. The
last things I told were n’t true.”
“What you told to her ?” He spoke solemnly,
and even reverently. She nodded.
“Well, what I told her wan’t true, either.
Mebbe she’s found us out; mebbe she ain’t. But
it had to be done.”
“Oh, it’s all right now,” said Barbara eagerly.
“Now it’s the New Jerusalem.” -
He was looking past her with unseeing eyes.
“Mebbe so,” he said gravely. “Then 't wan’t
a lie. I hope it’s true. She had lies to live on
when she ’s here.”
“You mean you planned the house with her.”
He turned and looked at her with a sombre
passion, and she thought suddenly that she had
never known such dark blue eyes.
“If I could go back to the time I did n’t tell lies
to Clary,” he said slowly, “I should go back a
good many year. I don’t hardly remember the
time when I wan’t tellin' 'em. You don’t see
what I’m drivin’ at, do you? Well, I don’t either,
hardly.” Quicker of ear than she, he heard
familiar bells. “There’s Malory comin’. You’ll
catch a ride. Good-by.” He leaped the fence,
and was away before Malory turned the bend in
the road.
It was the next day that Ann Parsons began to
stir uneasily in the nest. She did her share of the
P A R A D IS E 127
housework in haste, and then, sewing in hand,
sat by the window talking absently.
“I’m as nervous as a witch,” she owned to
Barbara.
“Why?”
“I dunno. Yes, I do, too. I feel as if things
were goin’ on outside som’er's, an’ I’d ought to
be in ‘em.”
“Want us to have a fit of sickness P” asked
1Malory, coming in with the wood.
She seemed to whether glance on him, and as
Barbara ran down cellar, continued, in a quick
aside: ra
“You git married, that’s what you do, right
straight off.” He regarded her seriously, as if the
project were of quiet but momentous interest for
him. “I can’t stay here forever,” she continued
impatiently, hearing Barbara’s steps below.
“What if diphtheria should break out down to
Fairfax, same's it did last spring 2 I’d be off, an’
you could nºt stop me. It’s all folderol, the way
you’re carryin’ on now. You git married an’
settle down.”
Barbara came up the stairs.
“Well,” said Malory seriously, “well, I guess
I will.”
Ann Parsons, of definite purpose, went up to
her room after the dinner dishes were washed,
and left the two by the fire. Malory stood there
I 28 P A R A D IS E
looking at the girl, as she wrung out a towel with
a full, free motion and hung it up to dry. His
heart was softened toward her. She seemed the
best thing life had ever given him, -clean and
sweet, without and within, her heart as trustful
as a child’s.
“Barbara,” he called softly.
She turned her head with the instant obedience
he had always noted in her. Malory held out his
hand. “Come here,” he said.
She went forward, but she did not take his
hand. A flush ran into her face and changed it.
“Barbara,” he repeated. He advanced a step,
and laid the hand upon her wrist. “Barbara,” he
said imploringly.
She looked at him, her mouth unsteady. He
forgot Lindy, and there was a great uplift of peace
in the certainty that now false love could plague
him no more. Here was something as sound as
the earth, and it was his. He smiled at her,
and without knowing what was in his mind, save
that it was a great well-wishing toward her, she
smiled also, and felt an acquiescence that made
his next words the expected note in a true har-
mony.
“What if we should be married this week, an’
let Ann go home P”
“If you want me to, I will.” She answered
with a solemn shyness, and Malory, in a sudden
P A R A D IS E 129
warmth of recognition, leaned to kiss her. But
she started back. -
“Don’t you want me to ?” he asked her gently.
She was breathing fast. If she could have told
him all, it would have been that she did want to
kiss him, but that she had some sweet fear of him.
“Don’t you like me?” asked Malory.
“Yes, I do. Oh, yes!” That she could answer
without a tremor.
He dropped her hand, and when she glanced
at him in a quick plea for pardon, he looked mer-
rily at her, surprising her. Again she realized
that she had never seen him happy, and the guess
at what it might be affected her movingly.
“Wednesday?” he asked. “We’ll ride over to
Fairfax Wednesday mornin’. Then we’ll come
back, an’ I’ll take Ann Parsons home.”
He went up to Ann’s room to tell her, and pre-
sently she came down and began ironing her
clothes from the wash, to have them ready. There
was an air of preparation about the house, and
Barbara, in a shyness of it, got her hat and cloak,
and went out to walk through the Pine Road,
and possess her soul again before it felt more
onslaughts. The day was crisp and clear. There
had been no melting at all, and the crystals of
snow over the field were like shining sands. Ex-
hilaration possessed her, and she thought it life,
as it might be lived always, not knowing it was
I30 P A R A D Is E
happiness that comes but once, perhaps, and then
hides away, leaving only its picture behind. Walk-
ing fast into the pine woods, she came on Nick
suddenly, by the bole of a great tree. He was
waiting, as still as a wood creature, and as she
neared him, he stirred and then came forward.
She turned her radiant face on him, flushed
with the cold and rounded into happiness; but
with the look, her question came involuntarily:
“What’s the matter P”
“I wanted to find you,” said Nick. “I did n’t
know how, unless I went over to the house.”
“What’s the matter?” she asked again.
He looked deeply troubled. There were heavy
lines between his brows. It seemed not so much
grief as reflection.
“See here,” he said rapidly, “I want you to do
5 55
somethin’.
“What is it P”
“I want you to tell Malory somethin’.”
Vague alarm rose up in her.
“Why don’t you tell him P” she asked.
“I can’t. We’ve come to blows on it before.
He knows what I think of her.”
“Lindy!” she breathed.
“What?” he asked sharply.
“Nothing,” she answered, and he went on:
“There's somebody he likes an’ I don’t.
That’s enough to make bad blood. But you tell
P A R A D IS E . I31
him. Tell him you saw me, an I said she’d come
back.”
She stood looking at him with dilated eyes.
In spite of the rosiness of her face, new lines
of fear put something tragic into it.
“Who’s come P” she managed to say.
“Lindy. You tell him that. Tell him I saw you
an’ asked you to say so. That’s all you need to
know.”
She had turned away, but now she rounded
back on him like an animal suddenly revengeful.
“All I need to know!” she repeated, “all I
need to know! Tell me what she’s here for, or
I’ll see her and find out myself.”
He regarded her, amazed.
“What do you know about her ?” he asked.
“What do I know P I know she’s relation to
Uncle Jotham, just as you’re relation to his wife.
I know she went away. What has she come back
for P Tell me, Nick, tell me.” Unconsciously she
had covered the step or two between them, until
now he stood staring down at her at close range,
the fair grain of her cheeks, the mixed hues in
the iris of her distended eyes. She looked like a
creature caught in a trap, full of rage and suf-
fering.
“My Lord!” he said, under his breath. “Bar-
bara,” he added, in what seemed an access of
wonder, “do you like him yourself?”
132 P A R A D IS E
She shook her head impatiently, not so much
in denial as if she thrust away irrelevant issues.
“What’s she come back for P” she repeated,
with a note of command that, for some reason
he did not formulate, he dared not resist. He
glanced up and down the road to the curve at
each end, where the trees seemed, in turning, to
block the way.
“Come in here,” he said, pointing toward a
cart-path winding into the woods themselves.
“This takes us out on the cross-road. If we stay
here folks’ll come along, — Malory, like as not.”
She followed him without question. For a few
minutes they walked in silence through the path
shadowed by pines on both sides. Then she
looked at him in a mute, impatient questioning.
“I thought he’d got rid of her,” said Nick
briefly, in answer. “But she’s bound to make
him trouble, an’ she’s come back to make it.”
“What can she do P” The words were shrill
with passion. Lindy seemed to her a common
enemy they must prepare to fight.
“She can stir him up, an’ make him curse the
day he was born.” He spoke in a quick bitterness,
and for a moment curiosity led her glance to
him. He was striding along moodily, his eyes on
the ground. “Curse the whole thing,” he said sud-
denly, “men’s likin’ women, a woman’s likin’ a
man! It’s bitter as wormwood.”
P A R A D IS E I33
In the midst of her absorption she had a mo-
ment of swift compassion for him. -
“Clary!” she said softly. “Oh, I’m sorry
He broke into a short laugh. -
“No,” he answered, “don’t you trouble your
head with that. It ain’t Clary. It’s another girl
that makes me curse my luck.”
She looked at him in open scorn.
“What!” she cried. “Another girl, and
Clary — ”
He nodded moodily.
“Finish it out,” he said. “Clary not cold in her
grave. That’s the way it goes, ain’t it? It’s an-
other girl, an’ to-day I’ve found out she cares
about another man.”
From these puzzling issues she turned back to
Malory. A light scorn of Nick had possession of
her, but it seemed after all unimportant whether
he were faithful to the dead. There were living
things to be fought for. -
“Well,” she said, “I’ll tell him she’s come.”
“There’s somethin’ else.” He spoke dubiously.
“She sent him a message. I told her I would n’t
bring it, but might as well, Isºpose. She wanted
he should come over to-night.”
The sun had gone down behind the tree-tops,
and Barbara was watching the rose of color
through the boughs. Suddenly, with the dreari-
ness of the woods, she felt chilled. The world
| >>
134 P A R A D IS E
was unfriendly to her. In that moment, with
one of the picturesque forecasts of youth, she
realized, or believed she did, what it was to grow
old.
“Well,” she said, in an unmoved voice, “I’ll
tell him. I’m going back now.”
“No, no. The cross-road’s right through here.”
“I don’t know my way from there.”
“I’m goin’ along with you.”
“No. I’d rather go alone.” She turned back
on her steps and, while he watched her, broke
into a run. She had to get away from him, she
felt, to be alone with her sharp trouble; and she
hurried on, the wind of running harsh in her throat,
until the stillness of the woods calmed her a lit-
tle. On the main road she paced back and forth
for a time under the trees, the length of their
shade making her tether. But as the dusk fall-
ing outside made it night within, she awoke sud-
denly to a consciousness of time. The day was
over. When she walked into the kitchen, the
dusk was there also, but the room hummed with
warmth. Ann had begun getting supper, and the
sweetness of baking bread came from the oven.
Malory, his barn work done, stood by the stove,
waiting for his women-folks. Barbara, not know-
ing what she should do, saw the bulk of his fig-
ure in the dark, and hurried to it from these
shadows of the hour.
5
P A R A D IS E 135
“Malory, O Malory!” she said brokenly,
between breaths that were like sobs.
“Why, what is it?” Surprise and great gentle-
ness were in his tone. For an instant it seemed
to him she must have been frightened upon the
road. He put out a hand to her, and Barbara
found herself within his arms. He was kissing
her and she kissed him back again, tumultuous
blood rising in her. It seemed like a fear for
him and a hatred of the other woman, or, it
might be desire to drain the spring of life before
it should be dry. To Malory it was as if some
alien wood creature he had welcomed at his fire
should suddenly have taken on the face of wo-
mankind, warm, demanding. As he pressed his
hot cheek to her cold one, she was sweet to him,
and the flood of feeling in him told him of un-
discovered joys in her, springs of loyalty and deep
devotion from which no man had drunk.
“No,” he said unsteadily, “don’t go. You are
cold. What frightened you — dear?”
The word was exquisite, coming in that broken
tone. It gave her an uplift of sane happiness.
She broke into a little laugh, withdrawing from
him.
“Now I can tell you,” she said. Her voice
was mellow with delight. “Malory, she’s come
back.”
“Who’s come back P”
5
136 P A R A D IS E
Again she laughed, in the security of her con-
fidence. . -
“Lindy.”
His hand was on her shoulder, with the light
weight of a caress. Now she felt it tighten until
it gripped her painfully.
“Lindy!” he echoed.
. A sense of insecurity fell upon her. She was
like a messenger whose news has been ill taken.
Yet she went on. -
“I met Nick,” she said, her voice faltering
more and more. “He said to tell you she had
come. She sent a message to you. She wanted
you should come over — to-night.” On the
last word she caught her breath. It was not as
she had expected it to be, that minute before.
In the instant when his lips touched hers, some
triumphant sense had told her that when he
heard he had been summoned, he would laugh.
A strange fright was rising in her now. His hand
had dropped from her shoulder. He seemed to
have forgotten her, save as a messenger.
“Right off P” he asked. His voice shook a
little.
She began taking off her things. Her com-
posure, assumed involuntarily, gave her a faint
curiosity over the extent of her own strength.
“No,” she said, in an even voice. “After
supper, I guess. That was the way I took it.
P A R A D IS E 137
If Ann would come down, we’d have it now,
and then you could go right over.” She lighted
the lamp with a steady hand. Savage curiosity
was upon her to see how he looked, and the
event justified it. Her eyes found him a different
man. He had straightened. His head was up,
as if pride or triumph had entered into him. His
face, suffused with some feeling that brought
light into it as well as color, was that of a younger
man. Suddenly, as she turned about to set down
the lamp, he seemed, with a start, to become
aware of her. Emotion faded from his face. He
spoke, in the old patient tone.
“Well. I sha’n’t go.”
Barbara advanced to him, smiling upon him
with a specious candor.
“Oh, yes!” she said, “you must go. Of course
you must.”
“Why must I?” The tone, she thought, was
that of the man who invites temptation.
“You don’t know what she wants. It would n’t
be fair not to.”
“Well, maybe not. You’re a good girl, Bar-
bara. Yes, I’ll go.”
“There’s Ann coming now,” she said smil-
ingly. “We’ll have our supper quick, and then
I’ll get your shaving water.”
XI
UNCLE Jotham sat at the kitchen table, eating
his supper with great solemnity, while Aunt
Nash, rather pale at her compressed lips, moved
about the room in futile haste, like a badly
frightened bird. Uncle Jotham had lifted an
apple high in air, and was peeling it neatly.
Two others lay on the plate before him. Aunt
Nash stopped, in one of her flights.
“Jotham,” she said, “you do try me 'most to
death. I wisht you’d eat suthin’ for supper in-
stid o’ that raw trade.”
Jotham cut a thin slice from the apple and
conveyed it, on the flat of the knife, to his mouth.
“There’s nothin so wholesome,” he asserted,
with a believing seriousness. “The papers say
so.”
“You ain’t used to it,” continued Aunt Nash,
in gentler argument. “You’ve had three good
meals ever sence you got your second teeth. If
you don’t bring on the colic, I’ll miss my guess.”
“It said to give every mouthful thirty-two
chews,” insisted the old man. “I’m goin’ to give
thirty-five. It’s all rheumatiz, Nabby, rheumatiz.
Git rheumatiz inside ye, an’ you’re pretty nigh
P A R A D IS E 139
done for. An’ there’s nothin’ so wholesome as
apples – raw apples.”
“Last week’t was drinkin’ water, an’ this week
it’s apples. Made me as nervous as a witch
to see you goin’ to the dipper, every other min-
ute, swillin’ down cold water. But that’s bet-
ter’n livin' on raw apples.”
Uncle Jotham took another slice.
“There was one man,” he continued, with
solemn enjoyment, “that had r’t eat a meal o'
vittles for thirty year. He carried apples in his
pockets an’ kep' at 'em all day long. He eat
cores an’ all. He said there’s suthin in the cores.”
“I guess there is,” said Aunt Nash, in a tear-
ful scorn. “Worms. I know that much.”
There was the sound of a closing door, and
he turned his head, in a mild curiosity, toward
the best room.
“Anybody in there?” he asked.
Mrs. Nash seemed to be on the brink of tears.
“She’s in there — Lindy, making up a fire
so’s to git Malory Dwight over here, if she can
lay hands on him. If she ain’t sent word for
him, I’ll miss my guess.”
“Think he'll come P”
A step struck the stone outside, and a hand
was at the latch.
“There!” she said, as if it were ample reply,
and Malory walked in. -
140 P A R A D IS E
He was shaven, but not clad in his best clothes,
as Barbara had expected him to be. His excite-
ment of the afternoon had gone, and though he
held his head high, in a defiant strength, the
shadow upon his face was that of a man who had
come on some serious mission. He nodded to Jo-
tham, but Aunt Nash left him no time for speech.
“In there,” she said disparagingly, pointing
to the best-room door. She had her opinion of
a man who could see the trap and yet walk into it.
Malory did not hesitate. Often he had entered
that door, on a courting night, with the hasty
step of a lover longing to be there and yet recog-
nizing the gauntlet he had to run, as one of
amused interest in the game of a man and a
maid. Now he tapped at the door, opened it, and
closed it behind him. There he stood just over
the sill, until Lindy turned to meet him. The
frigid order of the room, even in that moment,
struck a pang to his heart, it was so exactly what
it had been on nights when he came to be happy,
and yet was not entirely so, because he had been
so full of unrest. There was the centre table
with the family Bible and its ribboned book-
mark of cross and anchor, the what-not in the
corner loaded with shells he had coveted when
he and Lindy were children, and, the one friendly
thing in the room, the fire on the hearth. And
there was Lindy. She stood for a moment look-
P A R A D IS E 141
ing at him, and he as gravely answered her.
She was a tall, sumptuous creature, with a lovely
contour of neck and bosom, abundant hair
touched with bronze red, and red in her brown
eyes. She was a little thinner in the cheek than
of old, but the hard color stayed there unflinch-
ingly. Her eyes met his with a shadow of appeal
he had never seen in them. Every phase of
earthly passion, save noble ones, had sprung
there momentarily, but never that soft asking.
He felt the change in her, and the senses ached
at it. Even her dress was different. He had been
used to her in high colors. Now she wore a plain
black gown and a white collar. The simplicity
of it seemed to him beautiful. He noticed how
cleverly she had tied the little black bow at her
throat, and something came sobbing up in him
and spoke for her. She smiled faintly.
“Hullo, Malory,” she said. Her voice, to an-
other man, might have broken the charm. It
was hard by inheritance, and habit had quick-
ened it to a tune of gay assault.
“You sent for me,” he said gravely.
She advanced, and put a hand on his arm.
“Awful glad to see you,” she returned.
Her nearness, the sense of familiarity she
brought with her, of something maddeningly
withheld from him and yet poignantly his own,
Overmastered him.
I42 P A R A D IS E
“What is it, Lindy ?” he asked, in a shaken
tone. “What have you come back for P”
She laid her hand on the big chair where he
had been used to sit, and urged him forward to
it. He obeyed her, and when she saw him in
his place, she drew a little cricket forward and
dropped upon it. Her head was against his
knee, and she was saying, in a new voice for her:
“I had to come back, Malory. I had to come.”
Hitherto it had been he who was the suppliant.
Now it was bewilderingly different, though still
it was the familiarity of her that moved him
most. All the hopes and happiness of many years
had been inwoven with her: the sorrows, too.
She was so intimate a part of his emotions that
she seemed the heart of him. Either he had
shared things with her, in an impulsive service,
or he had wished he might share them and had
known she could not understand. All his life
had been an unspoken reference to her, as to
the tribunal of his love. Now he had a vague
sense of doing wrong, but not toward Barbara.
Her he had forgotten. He had sunken into a
hopeless acquiescence in what had proved itself
unworthy.
“You have n’t changed towards me?” she
asked suddenly, looking into the fire and speak-
ing as if out of satisfied reflection. “You’re just
the same. Malory, ain’t you just the same?”
P A R A D IS E 143
A groan broke from him. His eyes were wet
with the futile pity of it all.
“Ain’t you just the same P” she asked softly.
“Lord God! I s’pose I am,” he answered,
under his breath. She could not catch the words,
but the tone pleased her. She sat up, and clasped
her hands about her knees.
“I’ve had an awful hard time,” she said.
“I’m glad — to get back.” The tone sounded
as if she meant getting back to him, and though
he wondered, in a dull scorn, why she took the
trouble to fool him, he was swayed, as she had
known he would be. Sudden anger rose in him.
“What’s become of him P” he asked savagely.
“Has he done with ye P”
She nodded, looking at the fire. Her brows
were drawn together. The side of her face, as he
saw it, made a picture of sullen rage. Her acqui-
escence moved him as no passion could have done,
and he watched her with a double tumult rising.
“Yes,” she said slowly, while he waited, “he’s
done with me.” Then she turned, and caught
his hand in both hers. “Malory,” she cried,
“it’s over an’ done with. I’m done with him,
same as he has with me. I never want to hear
his name again.”
He left her his hand, but waves of anger were
beating up in him against the man who must have
wronged her.
144 P A R A D IS E
“Want me to find him P” he asked coldly.
“No! no! What good would that do P”
“I could make him come back to ye.”
“I don’t want him. I’ve seen the last of him.
It’s a good riddance.”
“I could—” His breath labored, and he
stopped.
Now she was on her knees before him, still
holding his hands. Her eyes, with some new pas-
sion in them, were upon his. She seemed to be
pouring her soul into him.
“Malory,” she said rapidly, “you used to say
there wan’t a thing on earth you would n’t do
for me.” t
He could not answer, but his face spoke for
him.
“You used to say you’d die – yes, you did.
You’ve forgotten, but you did — you said you’d
die to give me a minute’s happiness. Malory,
I’m in awful trouble. I have n’t told anybody.
You’re the only one I could tell.” She was
writhing on her knees before him, and it sud-
denly became apparent to him that she was in
earnest. Hitherto all her passions had been
specious wiles to gain some end. He knew that,
even while he was moved by them. Now she was
in trouble.
“What is it, dear?” He bent to her. “You
tell.” A thought enraged him. “Damn him!”
P A R A D IS E 145
he cried, and would have thrown her off, but she
clung the closer.
“Oh, hush!” she whispered, “they'll hear you
out there. She despises me now, but she don’t
know. It’s over, Malory, what you’re afraid of.
He’s gone off, an’ I’ve come here to tell you, an’
left the – baby while I came.”
He was staring at her with a terrible face.
Now that the worst was over, she was getting
back her old fluency. “I was sick,” she whis-
pered. “They thought I’d die when the baby
came. O Malory, don’t look that way. Do you
wish I had P”
“Yes,” he said, “I wish you had.” Yet there
was no hatred in his heart: only an unformu-
lated thought that so she might have paid her bill
to fate.
A moment she was silent, still holding the hand
he had forgotten. Then she spoke again, and
there was an irrepressible ring in her voice.
“He’s awful pretty — the baby is.”
He moved abruptly, pushing her away from
him, though still she kept his hand.
“He shall marry you,” he said hoarsely. “I’ll
hunt him down, an’ he shall marry you.”
“No! no! I don’t care about him, Malory. I
hate him. He won’t marry me. He — he can’t.”
“Can't P Why can’t he Pº
“He went an’ married her — the other wo-
146 P A R A D IS E
man — when he found out. She married him to
— to save him from me.”
Vicious hatred was in her voice and the grip of
the white teeth that clicked together upon the
words.
Malory was still looking into the fire, and con-
scious of his aching heart.
“Malory,” she whispered, “I ain’t got any-
body in the world but you. I don’t dare to tell
them out there. They’d be ashamed. They’d
turn me out, maybe. Malory, you’ll stand by
me, won’t you?” -
He bent over and gathered her in his arms.
She leaned against his breast, his cheek upon her
hair, and he rocked her slowly back and forth,
soothing her voicelessly. She felt the tears upon
her face, and knew they were not hers. It was
amazing to her that any man could be so moved.
She began whispering him.
“You don’t know how cunnin’ he is, Malory,
the baby.” Then as his arms loosened about her,
she cried jealously, “Poor little thing! he ain’t to
blame.”
“No,” said Malory heavily, settling back in his
chair and releasing her, “he ain’t to blame.”
She returned to her stool, and sat looking at
him. The firelight had flushed her, and her tan-
gled hair was beautiful. She looked like a trou-
bled bacchante.
P A R A D IS E 147
“You’ll help me out of it, won’t you?” she
whispered.
Malory lifted a hand to smooth the lines in his
drawn forehead. His eyes were full of pain, like
those of a man who has not slept.
“What’s to be done P” he asked. “If he’s
married, there’s the end o' that.”
She spoke eagerly.
“What can I do? I’ve left the baby with the
woman that keeps the boardin’-house. She’s got
one about the same age, an’ she’s real kind. I
told her I was comin’ to fix things. He’s always
been fed on those things you buy; but I can’t go
to work in the mill again an’ leave him to her all
day. I can’t bring him here. Aunt Nash would
kill us both.”
“I can get you some money,” he returned,
without life or interest in his tone. “Then you
can go there an’ live.” -
“It would not do.” Her white teeth were upon
her lip. “I — I want,” she whimpered like an
animal, “I want it so’s I can live with the baby
— respectably.” Something he could not say
showed in his face, and with a prescience she had
never shown toward him, she translated it. “You
think I ain’t cared much about what folks said P
Well, I ain’t. But it’s different now. I’ve got to
have things right for the baby. He’s got to be
brought up different.”
I48 P A R A D IS E
A new light had come into her face, passionate,
adoring. It was the mother look. Malory sat
gazing at her, as at a different woman. He rose
from his chair.
“I’ll get you the money,” he said, “to-mor-
Ter.
She came to her feet with a spring, and stood
there, both hands upon his arm.
“I don’t want money,” she was whispering,
though they were alone. “I want you, Mal-
ory —”
“Me!” The irony of it was like a lighter blow
in the midst of great distress.
She was translating herself swiftly.
“I want you to stand by me. I want to think
there’s one livin' soul I can speak to — O
Malory! if I should die, would you look out for
him — the baby P” Sincerity was in that cry.
Young, flushed with health, and able to throw
any gauge to fortune, she felt at last the univer-
sal fear when what we love may be left unde-
fended. He could not answer.
“Good-night,” he said, and when he got to the
door she asked, with a hesitating lift of the voice:
“You must miss Clary?”
The name at that moment meant to him not
Clary, but the other girl who had served him. At
the change in his face, Lindy made a little note of
sympathy.
P A R A D IS E 149
“I’m awful sorry,” she said, but Malory had
gone.
In the kitchen Aunt Nash sat by the fire, knit-
ting, with a capable air of not being obliged to
look on. Her gaze was on the andirons, and she
did not lift it. She had a woman’s scorn for the
victim in the toils of her own sex. Uncle Jotham,
a newspaper on his lap, was paring an apple with
his jackknife.
“Malory,” he called, “ever hear o' livin' on
apples and nothin’ else?”
“No,” said Malory, at the outer door.
“That’s what I’m livin’ on,” said Uncle Jo-
tham proudly. “I eat three for supper, an’ I’m
goin’ to eat three more 'fore I go to bed. They
lay kind o' hard for a while, an’ then they leave
ye’s holler’s a horn.” *
But Malory, not answering, had gone.
XII
WHEN Malory got home, the house was empty
below stairs, though the bright fire told that some
one had been recently there. He wound the clock
and went to bed, not much moved by what he
had been through, but heavily tired. He slept,
and next morning awoke at the usual time, his
rested mind sensitive at once to a sense of trou-
ble. Barbara was in the kitchen, talking to Ann,
and though she spoke to him alertly, she did
not look at him. Ann was in high feather. She
was starched and ironed in her preparation for
imminent events, and in the pantry she took
occasion to whisper Barbara:
“I’m goin’ to make a mite o” cake.”
“NO! no!” cried Barbara.
“Not weddin” cake. Sunthin’ kinder rich, with
plums in it. You can have it for supper that
night.”
Barbara spoke with dignity, as if the house
were hers already. -
“No, Ann. We won’t do anything different for
— for what’s going to happen.”
There was disturbance in the air, and Ann
scented it as a cat feels the fitfulness of the wind.
P A R A D IS E 151
She went up to her own room, with an armful of
mending, and Malory, who had been lingering
about, sought Barbara where she was beginning
to mould her bread.
“Let that be,” he said. “I want to speak to
you.”
She answered him quietly.
“I can’t. It’s time to put it in the pans.”
“Never mind the bread.”
“You can talk. I’ll listen, and work, too.”
He stood there by the table, absently watching
the motion of her arms.
“It was a queer time last night,” he said.
“I’ve got to tell you how ’t was.”
“You need n’t.”
“I’ve got to. I’ve got to tell you the whole.
He’s left her — the man she went away for. He’s
married to somebody else. There’s no help for
her.”
“No help ?” She was looking at him with
hard, clear eyes, the hardness of the young who
judge by rote. “Help for her ?” she repeated.
“What help does she want?”
Thrown back upon the bareness of the fact, he
stumbled, as Lindy had not done with him. He
thought of these girlish judgments as he would
have considered Clary’s, formed in the rigor of
country life where chastity is at once more and
less regarded than among the assemblages of men.
152 P A R A D IS E
“She’s had a hard time, Barbara,” he said
haltingly. “It’s 'bout as bad as it can be.”
“What is it that’s bad P”
“He’s left her, Barbara, an’ there’s a baby.”
Barbara had known all manner of crude facts
in her fortune-telling, but she had worked with
them as a child puzzles out his sum and never
dreams of its bearing on actual life. But now the
formula helped her, and she applied it. Color
rose to her cheeks, and angry sexual judgment
overcame her.
“Is it here?” she asked, “the baby P”
“No. An’ you mustn't tell. I’m the only one
that knows. I told you because” – he hesi-
tated. It was difficult to put his loyalty into
words. “But you must n’t tell. They’d be pretty
hard on her, — Aunt Nash an’ Jotham. She’s
got nobody to stan’ by her — poor girl.”
“You’re sorry for her, are n’t you?” asked
Barbara.
He looked at her, amazed. -
“It’s a pretty hard case,” he answered gently.
“When is her birthday P”
The irrelevance of the question astonished him
again. He told her, and she considered, as she
put the last cushion of dough into its pan and
pricked it. Her face had fallen into tragic lines.
It was pathetic that anything so young the day
before could have looked so old.
P A R A D IS E I53
“That’s not quite right for you,” she said
reflectively. “But she’s the kind that always gets
its own way. They’re on her side.”
“Who 9°
“The planets.” -
She dusted off her floury hands, and seated
herself. Her face had settled still further into its
despairing pallor.
“Malory,” she said gently, “I know what she
wants you to do.”
“What?” -
“She wants you to be the one to stand by
her.”
“Yes,” he answered simply, “yes. She said so.”
“You meant to be married, didn’t you?”
“We –” He was shy before great facts, but
in a moment he answered gravely, “I told you
we did. I meant it right along, from the time we
were little.”
“Well!” He had never heard such a voice
from her, even in her compassion for Clary, -
so small, so full of the quality mother animals
might have in their brooding over their young.
“That’s what she means, Malory.”
“What does she mean P”
“Does she like the other man still?”
“No.” He remembered that distorted face.
“She hates him.”
“She’d like to have you — marry her, Malory,
I54 P A R A D IS E
and bring the baby here.” The words came with
difficulty, but she knew them to be true.
He was staring at her.
“I never thought of such a thing,” he said
honestly.
“You like her, Malory, don’t you?” asked the
girl. She was looking at him with a kind little
smile. The hard look had gone from her eyes;
her face, though pinched, was young again.
He tried to answer her, but he ended by turn-
ing away and looking out at the snowy fields.
“Barbara,” he said at length, hoarsely, “I
don’t know’s I can tell you jest how I feel about
Lindy. I don’t know’s I know myself.”
“I know,” she said softly. The possibilities
of miraculous service rose up before her, and
she added, “It is n’t much to do, Malory, if you
care about her. It is n’t much to take the baby,
either.”
“His—” He paused on the word, and dull
red surged up into his face.
“I should n’t care whose it was,” she went
on, “so long as I did it for her.”
“But you don’t know her,” he reasoned, con-
fused by the impersonal sacrifice she offered.
“You can’t like her.”
“No, I don’t like her,” said Barbara, in the
same soft tone. “I guess I hate her.”
“Hate her P Why?”
P A R A D IS E I55
5
“She’s made you suffer.” Anger blazed out
and quickened her speech. “She’s hurt you.”
He smiled faintly, as if he thanked a good
child for some service. -
“Don’t you bother about that. I guess we’re
all of us bound to get more or less hard knocks.
Might as well come that way as any. But I told
you, because you’d ought to know. You’ll have
to judge right along now — we shall have to
judge together — what I’d better do.” It was
sweetly said, and it moved her, but not out of
the inevitable track.
“I know what you’ve got to do,” she pursued,
“you’ve got to marry her.”
“Barbara!” He repeated her name again as
if he recalled her. “Have you forgot — what’s
goin’ to happen Wednesday?”
She paled a little, but she answered steadily.
“No, I have n’t forgotten. But there are some
things we can’t fight against. He taught me that.”
“Benedict P”
“Yes. It’s the stars, Malory. We can’t fight.”
The old fate feeling had come upon her. She
looked weary, and yet unhappily resigned. The
rote of her fortune-telling had meant nothing
grave or final to her, so long as her own life
needed no compass other than fearless strength;
but now the diction she had used in her horo-
scopes came back as an unanswerable fiat. It
156 P A R A D IS E
was like the revenge of a discarded belief, bred
in the bone, and never to be wholly eradicated.
Malory was looking at her as if she were beside
herself, and seeing it, she smiled at him sadly.
“It’s no use, Malory,” she said. “I can’t marry
you. She and you belong together. If I parted
you, you’d only come together in the end.”
“What makes you say we belong together ?”
“I can see it. She’s like your own hand to
you. If it stole — or murdered — it would n’t
stop being your own hand. I’ve always seen that.
I realize it now, though I tried to keep it down.
But it’s chiefly her coming back. Don’t you see,
that’s the stars. They could n’t let her get away
from you.”
“She ain’t been square,” said Malory. “You
don’t seem to sense that. You don’t seem to re-
member that she’s put me through a good deal
a’ready. What if she put methrough some more ?”
“I guess we’ve got to stand that. If the folks
we like are good, so much the better for us. If
they’re bad, I guess we’ve got to take it on
ourselves. Anyway,” her voice fell lower in its
plaintive cadence, “I sha’n’t ever marry anybody.
Why, Malory,” — something flashed out, like a
hurt animal in its escape, –“you don’t love me!”
Neither of them had mentioned the great word
before. At its sound, he turned away from her
and hid his face.
P A R A D Is E - 157
“No,” she said, speaking like an old and tired
woman. “I know that now. I guess I always
knew it.” He was despicable to himself that he
could not gainsay what seemed her larger wis-
dom. She rose, and began putting the room
in order. “Besides,” she added, “I sha’n’t be
here long. I’ve got to go away.” -
“Go away ? Where will you go—poor child?”
The last words stung her with their ring of
dutiful compassion.
“I’m going with Ann Parsons,” she answered.
“She’s going to teach me to be a nurse.” Neces-
sity had put the words into her mouth, and the
moment they were said, they seemed reasonable
to her.
Malory was gazing at her as if she had struck
him a blow; but Ann's step was on the stair, and
he took his hat and went out.
“Ann,” said Barbara, when the woman was
in the room, “can’t you stay here a little longer ?
Just while I stay P”
Ann looked at her piercingly.
“Stay ?” she repeated.
“Yes. I’m called away. We’re not going to
do what we meant to, Ann. We’ve given it up.”
“You ain’t had words, have ye?” asked Ann,
with a benignant look. “Law, overlook it, what-
ever 'tis. It’s like a hailstorm in spring — ye
only have to plant all over.”
158 P A R A D IS E
“We have n’t quarreled. We’ve only given
it up. I’m going away — to friends, Ann; but
I can’t go now. O Ann, you stay and help m
Out!” -
Ann felt the flatness of the land. Life that
flowed as a river was not for her; but since this
also had the look of an emergency, she bright-
ened somewhat.
“Yes, I’ll stay a spell,” she said, “only don’t
you be too long. Well, I’ll run over to Mis’ Nash’s
an’ tell her I may be here a mite longer. She
wanted I should help cut out her new delaine.”
Barbara sat down at the old desk between
the windows and wrote a quick little note.
“I want to go away from here,” she wrote.
“I want you to find me something to do. I
sha’n’t ever tell fortunes or go round with you.
But I’ve got to have something to do.”
She addressed it to Benedict, and had it ready
for Ann when she came down with her shawl
over her head and patterns under her arm.
“Ann,” she said, “here’s a letter. If you’re
going over there, you give it to Nick. Ask him
to send it, first chance he gets.” A sense of power
was upon her. In a strange way Lindy, whom
she had not seen, had taught her something.
Nſen could be swayed, if they cared enough, to
smooth the path of life. She was no longer
afraid of Benedict. Homeless and alone, the
P A R A D IS E 159
despair within her brought a strange fighting
instinct into being, and the more subtle fears
withdrew like conquered foes. One who had lost
everything need not pause to consider whether
her bed were hard or easy.
Ann stepped out on the doorstone. It was a
brilliant hour of sun and sparkling air. Barbara
was behind her on the sill, getting a breath, and
sickened, as we are in trouble, by the fairness of
the day. Ann did not move. A hand shading
her eyes, she was watching the road.
“Ain’t that Jotham P” she asked. “Look at
him. I thought ye might blow him up with gun-
powder, but you could n’t stir him out of a walk.”
Uncle Jotham was running, with long lopes
like a boy. He turned in at the driveway, and
both women went to meet him. His large face
was purple, and there were tears upon his cheeks.
“Ann, you make haste,” he gasped. “Lord
God! she may be gone.”
“It’s Abbie, ain’t it?” queried Ann. He
stopped to sob, and she took his arm and shook
it. “Jotham Nash, you tell afore I stir a step.”
The old man burst into a thin whisper.
“Nabby’s got a heart spell. She fell right
down—” Ann Parsons was away before he
had finished, and Barbara was with her in a
fleet-footed run. Uncle Jotham sat down for an
instant on the cold doorstone, because his legs
160 P A R A D IS E
were yielding under him. But presently he stag-
gered to his feet, and followed them.
When he entered his kitchen, Aunt Nash was
on the sofa. Her face wore a dreadful pallor,
and her eyes were closed. Ann Parsons was
holding something to her lips in a cup, and Bar-
bara, seeing nothing better to do, was setting the
breakfast dishes back in the cupboard. Aunt
Nash did not open her eyes, but with what
seemed an access of breath, she whispered Ann:
“You git me my drops.”
“Where be they P”
“It’s a — little bottle — in the earthen crock
where the fruit cake is.” Aunt Nash spoke deli-
cately, like one conserving her strength.
Ann rushed to the under cupboard, and re-
appeared with a black vial. She darted a look
at the directions. Then, with a practised care, she
dropped out the dose, and Aunt Nash swallowed
it. Uncle Jotham stood by the sofa, twisting his
hands, the one over the other. Large tears were
dropping down his cheeks.
“O Nabby,” he kept moaning, “you ain’t
a-goin’ to be took away? O Nabby, I never could
bear it in this world! I never could.”
For a time no one but Aunt Nash heard him,
and she only moved an impatient foot. But when
she had been covered, and the color came faintly
back to her face, Ann Parsons was suddenly
P A R A D IS E 161
and irritatingly aware of him. She was kneeling
beside Aunt Nash, holding her wrist and smiling
over the strengthening pulse; but she came to
her feet with a noiseless haste, and took Jotham
by the arm. She convoyed him into the shed,
and he yielded like a bewildered child. There,
by the chopping block, she pulled him about to
face her.
“Jotham Nash,” she said, “if you can’t keep
from carryin’ on like that, you harness up an’
go off to the street, an’—git drunk if you want
to, an’ lay down in the gutter. Anyways, don’t
you come back here.”
Jotham’s face creased piteously.
“I never thought o' such a thing as Nabby's
givin’ out,” he whimpered. “I never once thought
On't.”
“I know ye did n’t. Ye was too much con-
cerned with tinkerin' up your frame.” She turned
away from him to open the door a crack and
observe her patient. Barbara sat by the couch,
a grave watchfulness upon her face, and Aunt
Nash was breathing peacefully. Ann shut the
door, and returned to him. “ Jotham,” she said,
“you set down there on that choppin’-block.
Jotham Nash,” she proceeded, “I’m goin’ to
tell you suthin'. I al’ays had it in mind I should
tell ye, but the time had n’t come. She wanted
me to promise not to, but I says to her, “When
162 P A R A D IS E
the time comes, I shall speak.’” Jotham was
looking up at her piteously, and hanging upon
her words. “Four year ago last April,” con-
tinued Ann, “Abbie Nash harnessed up, an’
drove over to me. You was abed, with that fellin
on your finger. I b'lieve you stayed abed most a
week for that fellin. That’s how she could git
off. Well, she says to me, ‘Ann, there’s Suthin'
the matter. I fell right down by the kitchen sto’
yisterday mornin’. I could n’t git my breath.’
‘You come over an’ talk to doctor,” I says. “He
don’t know any too much, but mebbe he’s seen
suthin’ like it.’ So we drove over, an’ much as
ever he knew, but I guess he hit it. He listened
to her chist, an’ went through consider’ble, an’
he says, “It’s your heart. You’ve got to be care-
ful. You must n’t hurry round too much, nor
carry anything heavy, nor git mad —” She
looked up to me at that, and kinder winked.
‘Forever!’ says she, ‘What be I goin’ to do, then!’
Well, he give her some drops, an’ she beseeched
him not to tell, an’ he said he would n’t. But I
says, “I’ll tell when the time comes. I’ll be
whipped if I don't.”
“”T was four year ago, then,” said Jotham
eagerly. “An’ now she’s had another.”
“Had another, ye born fool! She’s be’n a
havin' 'em ever sence. She told me so last week.
She’s had six or eight. ‘Abbie,’ says I, ‘you’ve
P A R A D IS E I63
got to speak about it. "Tain’t right,” I says. “I
know ’t ain’t,” says she, an’ then she kinder gi’n
out an’ told the truth. ‘Fact is, Ann,’ says she,
“I’ve got so tired o' hearin’ folks talk about their
mortal frames, I can’t bring the words out o' my
lips. Makes me sick to my stomach,” says she.”
“I dunno who she means,” said Jotham.
“Ann, seems terrible queer I never see her in
one o’ them spells.”
“She hid her nest; that’s what she done, she
hid her nest. Every time she felt kinder poorly,
she'd keep away from ye, an’ once, when she
got dizzy, she managed to git into the fore-room,
an’ there Nick found her, keeled up side o’ the
sofa.”
“I never knew Nabby was in pore health. I
never knew it.” e
“Well, ye know it now,” said Ann dryly, “an’
if ye want to keep the breath o' life in her, you
draw up to the table, when noon comes, an’ eat a
meal o’ victuals like other folks. Now I’m goin’
back in, an’ you can foller, when you can set up
an’ face the music.”
Barbara rose from her chair by the couch,
and Aunt Nash lifted fluttering eyelids and smiled
a little.
“I guess 'tis over for this time,” she said
faintly. “I’ll peel the potatoes in a minute.”
“No, ye won’t,” said Ann. “I’ll git the dinner,
164 P A R A D IS E
an’ you lay still. Ain’t that Lindy comin' up the
walk P Where’s she be’n P”
“Over to the street. She was in a terrible tew
to git a letter, an’ Nick had to go tºother road.”
Barbara, at Lindy's name, made her way
quickly to the side door.
“Yes,” said Ann, “you go home, an’ if I need
ye, I’ll hang a cloth up in the winder.”
But Lindy had come round the corner of the
house, and Barbara, stepping outside, found
herself confronted by the tall, red-cheeked crea-
ture, who at the moment seemed all beauty and
surging color.
XIII
LINDY spoke at once, and with a scrupulous
warmth. Her eyes ran over the other girl in quick
interest, and Barbara felt small and poor. She
returned as brief an answer, yet Lindy's gaze
called on her to stay.
“You took care of Clary, did n’t you?” asked
Lindy.
“Yes.”
“Nick told me about you.”
“Your aunt is sick,” said Barbara. “She’s
real sick, I guess.” She passed Lindy swiftly,
and went hurrying home.
All the forenoon she watched for the cloth in
the window, but it did not appear. At twelve
Malory came, set-lipped and silent, and they had
their dinner together. When she told him about
Aunt Nash, he roused himself briefly, but she
could see how his thought flew to Lindy, in spec-
ulation whether this would affect her stay. He
was touchingly kind to Barbara, in a way that
hurt her like a personal shame, and when he had
gone out, she walked up and down the kitchen,
lifting a face distorted with tears.
“What am I going to do?” she kept saying to
166 P A R A D IS E
some unknown cruelty. “What am I going to
do P”
Once having seen Lindy, she was distraught.
It was no longer an absent woman to whom
Malory paid an empty fealty. This was a breath-
ing creature, and her domination seemed ter-
rible. The cold air had brought the red to Lindy’s
cheeks that morning and a flaunting courage to
her pose; to Barbara she was more invincible
than armies. Lindy seemed to own the earth;
her own estate was pitiful and mean.
Yet beneath this tumult of sex warfare was still
tenderness for Malory. She had seen him in his
grief over Clary and his bitter longing for Lindy.
She knew the softness of his heart, and felt that,
at any cost, it must be hurt no more. She could
do none of the things counseled by the madness
of despised love. Tragic desire was upon her
to put on the tinsel dress and crown, the only
clothes he had not given her, and run away into
the distance. But then he would be sorry for her,
and even Lindy could not compensate him. She
must stay, and she must keep his house until she
could go temperately to some covert he thought
secure. Once there, free from the kindness of his
sad eyes, there would be time for the whirlwind
of her grief. Musing on that refuge, she suddenly
awoke to a terror of what she had done by in-
voking Benedict. Her momentary sense of being
P A R A D IS E 167
able to withstand him vanished in distaste for
what it would be to throw herself into that
wretched partnership, or even the daily sight of
a life that seemed to her now as tawdry as the
circus to the weary clown.
Nick came in at the door. She started up. He
seemed to have been vouchsafed to her eager
mood.
“My letter!” she said breathlessly.
He took off his hat and passed a hand over his
forehead. He looked tired, and at the same time
oddly excited.
“I mailed it myself,” he answered.
“You did l’’
“Yes. As soon as Aunt Abbie was all right, I
harnessed up an’ rode to the Junction. Ann
Parsons said 't was important.”
She could not blame him, but her heart failed
and a physical sickness rose in her. Nick was
watching her, and turning his cap round and
round in his hands.
“Barbara,” he said abruptly, “are you goin’
to marry him P’’
She looked at him, and did not answer.
“Malory?” he insisted. “I want to know.”
“No,” she answered, blushing hotly, “I’m
not.” $
Nick drew a deep breath.
“I was afraid of it yesterday,” he owned.
168 P A R A D IS E
“Anyway, I was afraid you set by him. But when
he came over last night an’ spent the evenin'
with Lindy, I begun to mistrust I was wrong.
Malory’s a good feller. He would n’t ha’ done it
unless he was free to.”
“No. He’s free to do it.”
Nick’s face blazed up into life and color.
“Then,” he said, coming a step nearer, and
looking at her with a warm beseeching, “you
think o’ me, Barbara, you think o' me.”
She stared at him, amazed.
“Think of you?” she repeated. “Think of
you?”
He spoke humbly.
“I like you, dear. I — love you.”
She started up, distress in her small face.
“Oh,” she cried, “how can you, and Clary—”
He shook himself impatiently, like an animal
that feels a fetter.
“See here, Barbara,” he said, “you might as
well know the truth of it. It wan’t what you
thought about Clary an’ me.”
“But you told her,” she cried, “you promised
her the house—”
“Yes,” said Nick dryly, “an’ you promised
her the New Jerusalem.”
“But—” She faltered, and then the Bible
words came back to her. She looked at him wist-
fully. “It said so,” she whispered, in an appeal
P A R A D IS E 169
that made her pretty to him. “These sayings
are faithful and true.” That’s what it said.”
Nick regarded her for a moment, surprised at
his own pleasure in her; for this passion had been
of short duration. He had awakened to her.
Until she had warmed and glowed under the cer-
tainty of her coming happiness with Malory, he
had hardly seen her with the eyes of the spirit.
Now there was a fine, free fascination about her.
She was unlike anything in his world. But he
answered her coldly, in the midst of his sadness
over what was past.
“Well, my sayin’s were n’t faithful an’ true.
She was goin’ to be called away, an’ I did what I
could to please her — same as you did. I went
with the tide.”
Barbara sat quite silent for a time, looking at
nothing, and thinking, until the silence irritated
him. r
“It’s very strange,” she said, at length.
“What’s strange P”
“It don’t seem to mean anything to love folks.
It don’t make them love you back again. Clary
set everything by you.” She was fast adopting
the country phrasing, in her delighted intimacy
with its daily life.
Nick answered her patiently.
“I set everything by Clary. We grew up to-
gether. If she’d been well, I should ha’ gone
170 P A R A D IS E
away, when it seemed to be growin’ into some-
thin’ else, an’ she’d ha’ forgot about me. But
she was always kinder pindlin, an I stayed by.”
There was great sadness in the last words. It
seemed quite simple to him to have stayed by, and
yet Barbara, with her quick leap at understand-
ing, felt his fetters. “You sit down,” said Nick
gently, “we’ll talk it all out, an’ then we need n’t
ever bring it up again.”
She obeyed him absently, thinking as she did
so how different he was from Malory, - who
could not disclose his own inner mind without a
wrench that brought the blood. Nick took a chair
at the window near her, and threw his cap on the
floor. She was aware of him as a personality to
be reckoned with, though his thoughtful mien,
his great gaunt figure, did not sway her, except as
they seemed to her something large and strong
requiring true answers. He sat looking down at
the floor, and spoke as if he were appealing to
some inner judge instead of her. It was not curi-
osity he was satisfying, so much as the integrity
of things.
“I don’t know when it begun to be understood
Clary an' I were goin’ together. I guess 't was
when folks begun to plague us about it. So that
winter I went off to Freeport to work. I’m a car-
penter by trade. Well, she begun to have a cough.
Then Aunt Nash wrote me a letter. She thought
P A R A D IS E 171
maybe I had n’t done just right. So I come back.
Clary was pleased. She said she'd marry me.
But she grew worse an’ worse, an’ I give up my
work an’ come back for good. I did n’t see no
other way.” -
Barbara caught her breath. She had the bitter
vision of it all, - the woman who loved, the
man compassionately moved. She hardly saw
Clary making that innocent mistake; it was she
in her fondness for Malory.
“What makes you look so P” Nick was saying.
“You think it’s a pretty bad case, don’t you?”
She shook her head dumbly. There were many
things she wanted to say: that she felt the sexual
shame of it for herself and the other girl, the out-
rage they had unwittingly dealt themselves by
giving love unasked.
“That’s all there is to it,” Nick said abruptly.
“Clary never knew, an’ I’m glad she did n’t. If
there’s anybody to blame, I can’t see who ‘t is.
It’s a terrible mix-up, anyways. It did n’t seem
to make much difference then. I wan’t o' much
account. If she thought she wanted me, the only
thing for me to do was to see she did nºt regret it.
But it begun to seem different when — I thought
of you.” His voice fell movingly, and his honest
eyes sought hers.
Barbara shook her head.
“It’s no use.” A sudden irritation rose up in
172 * P A R A D IS E
her. “Don’t!” she cried. “Don’t think of such
things. I’m an unlucky girl. You can tell it by
my horoscope.”
His lip curled scornfully.
“Your horoscope!” he repeated. “Barbara,
you don’t hold to that folderol P”
“Yes,” she said drearily, as if it were of no
particular importance. “I believe in it. It’s
the stars. We can’t help ourselves. Why, you
could n’t help yourself about what you’ve just
told me. Nobody can.”
“They can make a good try at it,” said Nick
dryly. “Come, Barbara, I can’t waste time over
the stars. I like you, dear. I’m fond of you. I’d
take good care of you.”
“When is your birthday ?” she asked suddenly.
His look hardened.
“I won’t tell you. If you want to cast horo-
scopes to find out where we are, you can just hold
your horses. I won’t have things settled that way.
If you like me, well an’ good. If you don’t, I’ll
see if I can’t make you. But as to goin’ to witch-
craft, I won’t, an’ you sha’n’t. Come, Barbara,
don’t you be a fool.”
His voice dropped, beseechingly. She was re-
garding him in some interest, but only because
emotion had stirred him to a great intensity. His
eyes were warm in color, and his mouth trem-
bled. She realized wonderingly that she had never
P A R A D IS E 173
truly seen him. This was not Clary’s lover, sad-
dened, as she had thought, by the nearness of
parting. It was a new creature, who wanted some-
thing, and wanted it very much. His voice trem-
bled as he spoke to her. It was full of sweetness.
“Barbara, don’t you want I should tell you
how we could live? I’d buy a house at the Port,
a little ways out o' town. You could have a gar-
den. There’s an old-fashioned kind of a place I
know is for sale. It’s much as a hundred years
old, an’ there’s larkspur down in the front as
high as your head. It was all in bloom last
summer.”
She shook her head and smiled at him faintly.
The kindliness of it moved her.
“It must be real pretty,” she said. “I guess I
don’t want any garden, nor any house.”
“I can get work there every day o' my life,” he
returned eagerly, “an’ I’ve got a little money laid
up. You sha’n’t ever regret it, dear. You come.”
The slow tears filled her eyes. She seemed to
herself in pitiful estate, scorned by the man she
chose and entreated by another. His keen eyes
were speculative. Her trouble moved and mys-
tified him.
“Barbara,” he asked again, “do you like
Malory?”
She looked at him dumbly, anguish in her gaze.
She could not answer, yet she would not lie.
I74 P A R A D IS E
“Are you jealous because Lindy’s come
back?” he went on, in his kind persistence.
She shook her head.
“No,” she answered, “I’m not jealous. I
want everybody to—” Her voice failed. She
wanted all men and all women to have the moon
they cried for.
Nick felt a quick compassion.
“There! there!” he said, “I won’t hound you
down. Only you remember, dear, I don’t change.
I can’t love folks when I don’t, an I can’t stop
when I do. There’s Ann Parsons. I’ll wait an’
pass the time o’ day with her.”
Ann came in, a breeze in her garments and
joy upon her face. She nodded at Nick.
“There,” said she, taking off her shawl and
folding it, “I’ve got Jote Nash jest where I know
what to do with him.”
Nick had risen slowly to his feet.
“You’re the first one, I guess,” he said. “Aunt
Abbie all right?”
“Right as she’s be'n any time this six year.
My king! ain’t I got Jote Nash down fine! He’s
eat up everything in the house because I told him
’t would please her to have him swear off’n ap-
ples, an’ now he sets there in the bedroom, side
o' the bed, holdin’ onto her hand. ‘Nabby, be
you warm enough P’ says he. “Nabby, you feel
a draught?’” She laughed her dry, satirical
P A R A D IS E 175
chuckle. “It’s terrible excitin’ ‘round here,” she
added, with great satisfaction. “I’ll go over
ag’in 'long after dark. If folks have got to be
sick, I do admire to be on hand.”
XIV
EARLY in the morning Ann Parsons sped over to
see Aunt Nash. She came back crestfallen.
“Lively as a cricket,” she mourned, “steppin'
'round fryin’ cakes, an’ Jote beseechin’ of her
not to.”
“How's Jote P” asked Malory.
Her mouth widened grotesquely.
“If Abbie Nash knows enough to last her over
night,” she asserted, “she’ll keep Jote right
where he is. He’s a changed bein’. Only trouble
I see, he’s shifted the boot to t'other foot, an’ I
dunno but Abbie’ll find that’s full as bad. She
can’t put her head outdoor but what he’s arter
her with a cloud or suthin’, ‘fear she’ll ketch
cold. First time it happened, she’s as pleased as
a cow with a luther apron; but now it kinder
riles her. Come night, she’ll be as nervous as a
witch. I guess I’ll hang round a day or two, an’
see how things turn.”
“So do,” said Malory, in great relief.
Later he came upon Barbara where she stood
in the snowy path, throwing corn to the hens.
She liked their foolish darting, and the rattle of
their bills on the grain.
P A R A D IS E 177
“Barbara,” said he, “things ain’t no ways
changed between us, anyway so far as I’m con-
cerned.”
She looked at him brilliantly. The air had
given her a color, and she was conscious of its
wholesome tonic.
“I have n’t changed, either,” she returned, “in
Some ways. I’m just as much a friend to you;
but what we said could n’t ever be. *T would be
foolish, Malory. You’ve got to?’ — she paused
a moment over the greater word, and then chose
one belonging to his own vocabulary — “you’ve
got to set by folks a good deal to — marry ‘em.”
“An' you don’t,” said Malory sadly. “Well,
I can’t blame ye.”
He went dejectedly about his work, and she
looked after him with something like anger in
her heart. It seemed willfully dull of him not to
translate his own mind, not to know what had
power to sway him, and then cleave to that.
He seemed to be throwing on her the burden of
his life and her own, while her heart was torn
with fear lest he should be left to fight alone.
But Malory was not dull. He was inarticulate,
and much as he had been able to tell her of his
wounded mind in past days, when she seemed
to him only an impersonal sympathy, now he
could not speak, because she too had become
involved. He went to the barn to “feed the
178 P A R A D IS E
critters,” but largely for their unspoken com-
panionship, while he pursued his thoughts alone.
The dumb things were as much comfort as if
they had been his brothers; more, for they had
a grateful expectance of him, and never talked.
He walked about soothing himself by tending
them, and then, when the sound of their feeding
was the only one in the barn, sat down on his
accustomed seat and brooded. The two women
were in his mind, and his thought swung from
one to the other with a dull futility. Barbara’s
high-hearted resolution had deceived him. No
wonder she could not stay, he reflected sadly.
She had plans of her own, and they might well
have thrust him out. Then he fell to speculating
over Lindy. That was all a maze, because of the
change in her. Often and often he had wondered
what could break that crust of hardness over
her, where high spirits played like light. He had
always humbly felt it would be when she cared
greatly about some one, and had thought with
awe of the time when it might come. It had
come. She was terrified for another, not herself,
and the change made her poignantly moving to
him. He thought of the unknown child that had
wrought the work, with no anger now, as at that
first moment of revelation, but a softened won-
der. Jealousy was dead in him, as it is in those
whose dream is broken beyond mending. Even
P A R A D IS E - 179
the man who had wrought the shame seemed
far away, inaccessible, hidden from revenge. It
was all a part of the great movement of things,
of life, – life that he had never understood and
could never understand.
That night he sat by the fire, while Barbara,
at the table, sewed steadily. She was darning
table linen, taking an anxious care in the task
because she meant to leave his house in order.
Ann Parsons had been over to see Aunt Nash,
and make sure she got to bed comfortably.
There was a sound of hurrying steps, and
Barbara, thrusting her work from her, rose
from her chair, and stood there white and star-
ing, a hand upon the table. She knew who it
was, –Lindy, bareheaded and distraught. Mal-
ory got up, and met her at the door.
“Aunt Nash!” he said. “I’ll go right over.”
“No! no!” she cried. She was clinging to his
arm with both hands, and looking at him in a
sharp compelling. “Malory, he 's sick, the
baby’s sick!”
The door blew open behind her, and an icy
wind swept in. Malory closed the door, and
then led her to the fire. Barbara stood watch-
ing them, staring chiefly at his face. It was all
a moved compassion, the spiritualizing of great
love. The man and woman were aware only of
each other. They seemed to think themselves
H.80 P A R A D IS E
alone. Malory drew forward a chair, but Lindy
would not take it. She beat her breasts as if they
ached and violence could kill the pain.
“The letter’s just come,” she said, in the high
voice of dire revealing. “Nick brought it. The
woman promised to write every day. When I
could n’t send, I’ve walked to get my letter. I
did n’t go this mornin’ because Nick was goin',
an’ now it’s too late! too late!” It was the
cry of the childless, the wail of those who see no
compensating for little beings denied the earth
before they fairly taste it.
“You can go in the mornin’,” said Malory.
“I’d take you over to the Junction to-night, if
there’s a train.”
She turned upon him in a futile rage.
“Go in the mornin'!” she cried. “In the
mornin'! He's got all night to die in. My God!”
He could not speak further, and suddenly
her anguish broke, and she clung to him anew,
in a rain of tears. Barbara saw him put his arms
about her and bow his cheek to hers. Still they
did not heed her, and she stole out of the room
and up to Clary’s chamber. There, in a mood
inexplicable to her, she got out the tinsel dress
and crown, whether to put them on and go away
in them, she did not know. But as she looked at
them, the folly of that wildness came over her,
and also a scorn of herself for demanding the
P A R A D IS E I8I.
luxury of dramatic grief. She bundled the things
back into the closet, and then stood looking out
of the window at the snowy road. She wanted
to see Lindy’s departure; but the night was
silent and full of stars, and no one came or went.
Her own impatience grew into a fever, and she
caught a shawl from the drawer, wrapped it
about her, and herself went out into the dark.
Lindy, downstairs, was holding Malory's hand,
as if she must spend the night in weeping, and
demanded his staying by her to keep her head
above the flood. He felt only a dull wonder at
the place where they found themselves. Once
it would have uplifted him to heaven’s gate to
have her seek him so, even through her need.
Now all life was changed. His own youth had
gone with the ardor of his emotion. An infinite
sadness seemed to hang over everything. The
great facts dwindled. Death seemed smaller,
for Clary was dead, and it had begun to be as if
she had never lived. He was even conscious of a
dull relief that she was not alive to share the
present coil of things. Marriage, once the top
note of his desire, seemed but a fleeting bond
formed for time and as quickly broken. His
relation to Barbara was like a dream. They
had promised each other a sedate fealty, and
now that tie was snapped, and neither cared.
All these dull recognitions surged through him,
182 P A R A D IS E
bringing a pain of their own, and he awoke to
a consciousness that Lindy had ceased crying,
and that they sat before the fire in a recognized
companionship. He turned to look at her. She
was flushed with weeping, and the tears were
still upon her cheek. The sweet bloom of her
seemed only to deepen his melancholy. She was
made, his senses told him, for heavenly uses, and
yet there was nothing about her that would not
perish with her youth. It was her imperious
grip on life that had laid hold on him also, be-
cause he, too, was an atom there. She was a part
of the greatness of things and their inexorable
tyranny, sweeping on to their own uses. Now
Lindy was looking at him, and her full brown
eyes were lustrous in the light.
“Malory,” she asked, “what you thinkin’?”
He could answer without halting, “I don’t
know, Lindy, I don’t know.”
She put out her hand again, and he took it.
“You don’t mind about the baby now, do
you?” she asked, in a pleased assurance of his
kindliness. “You’re willin’ to talk about him,
ain’t you, Malory?”
“No, I don’t mind,” he answered. He wanted
to add, “I don’t mind anything,” but that seemed
likely in some way to hurt.
“I knew you’d see me through it,” she as-
serted. “Isaid to myself, ‘He’ll seemethrough.’”
P A R A D IS E 183
The clock struck ten, and she did not seem to
hear it. But Malory roused himself. -
“You must go, Lindy,” he said. “Come, I’ll
walk along with you.”
She shrank back into her chair, and the tears
came again. -
“No, no,” she said, “I can’t bear it. I sha’n’t
sleep, Malory. I shall think about him all night
long, an’ it’ll craze me. Let me stay here, where
I can speak a word when I can’t bear it.”
“No, you’ve got to get some sleep, an’ have a
bite of somethin’ in the mornin’. I’ll get you off
to that early train.”
But she did not hear. Her eyes were large
with pity of herself. She seemed awestricken at
the cruelty of things.
“Malory,” she said, in a whisper, “only to
think of it! I’ve got to fight it out alone. An’
that little baby, he’s got to fight it out alone.
He’s got to grow up without any name, without
any father, an’ have the other young ones point
at him. What am I goin’ to do, Malory? what
am I goin’ to do?”
That inexplicable change again came over her.
She was not alone the agonized mother now,
partaking with the beast in natural instincts of
nurture and defense. Something self-forgetful
softened her, breathed from her lips, exhaled
from her full presence. It was the pure maternal,
184 P A R A D IS E
and it swept over him in a wave made up, it
seemed to him, of all the loves his life had known.
The unspoken tenderness between him and his
mother, his service to his sister, the unfledged
hopes that had made his own house-building
heart to bloom and wither, — all sprang into full
fruitage at the benison of the mother touch in
her. Something exquisite rose up to meet it. The
great world service called to him like a bell. At
last it made no difference how the business of
life was done, so long as it was done. He was
smiling at her in such strange tenderness that she
caught her breath.
“Malory, what is it?” she asked again.
He put out his hands to her.
“Lindy,” he said, “if you marry me, you’ll be
safe.” -
She rose to her feet.
“Marry you?” she repeated. “Malory!” her
voice dropped, but her eyes were blazing on him.
He read their tragic expectation.
“Yes,” he said, “he could come, too.”
“The baby?”
& 6 Yes.”
Her muscles relaxed, and it seemed for a mo-
ment as if she might kneel to him.
“Live here,” she repeated, awed and wonder-
ing, “an’ bring him, an’, Malory — he could
have your name!”
P A R A D IS E 185
He nodded at her. The extremity of her grate-
ful passion shook him, while he had expected it.
Her voice rose in triumph, and its volume swelled.
“Folks may talk for a while; then they’ll
forget. By the time he’s old enough to go to
school, they’ll think he’s your own child. Mal-
ory!” Temptation had assaulted her, and at
the same moment he read its shameful face.
He rose from his chair, human anger hot in
him.
“No, by God!” he said. “I’ll stan’ by him;
I’ll stan’ by you. But I won’t lie about it. I won’t
take that on me.”
“No,” she said droopingly. Her humble
sweetness was again upon her. “No, that would
be too much.”
Now that he was no longer the suppliant, he
suddenly felt himself the master.
“Come,” he said, touching her sleeve. “You
must go now. I’ll see you get off early.”
She held out her hands, and he took them
She lifted her face, and in a shuddering distrust
of the old spell, with its cruelties and tremors,
he put his lips to hers. When they drew apart,
it was the woman’s eyes that were wet; the man’s
were stern and dry.
XV
BARBARA had gone into the night, and softly as
the falling of her step, the night received her.
Now she was homeless. Up to this moment,
though she had truly given him up, the inexor-
able had not happened. He might have taken
Lindy in his arms, but she had not seen it; at last
she had looked on, and their union was terrible
to her. The fiercest pang of life assailed her, a
jealousy of the flesh. Whatever he might do,
however he might need her, even, her young and
savage instinct told her he had done with her.
Meantime there was nothing to do but walk and
walk, where the still air might cool her blood.
Before she reached the stretch of pines, she heard
the sound of bells. The country region had al-
ways seemed quite safe to her, and to-night es-
pecially, her mind full of her own tragic destiny,
she was afraid of nothing. The sleigh met and
passed her, and she, head bent, pushed along
swiftly. The bells ceased, with a consonant clash,
and she heard the breathing of the horse. She
turned and waited. A voice came:
“Where does Malory Dwight live?”
It was Benedict, and instantly her fear of life
P A R A D IS E I87
crumpled up and was blown away by her fear
of him. Now that he was there, it was no longer
possible to manage him, or even tolerate him.
He seemed to be recalling her to old unworthy
things she had not truly known while she was
among them. With the breath of this air in her
nostrils, she made her choice: to trust the mer-
cies of the night rather than that inviting voice.
Almost at once, it seemed to her, she lifted one
hand and pointed in the way he was going.
“There!” she called, and her hoarse voice
gave her courage. “There!” Then she turned,
and plunged into the woods.
The moon was under a cloud, and the trees hid
her. Once in their shadow, she ran, and then
stopped, breathless, to listen for his retreating
bells. It seemed to her they had not clashed since
he halted, but immediately there was a faint con-
fusion as if he were turning. With the fear that he
might overtake her in the woods, she broke again
into a run. Caution told her to plunge into the
path Nick had shown her and lie briefly hidden
there; but she was too afraid. If he had to over-
take her, it must be in the open, and she ran the
faster. Again there was silence, and she tried
vainly to thrust her fear away. Then, as she came
out from the half-mile stretch of pine, she saw a
light, and, with a sobbing breath of joy, remem-
bered Uncle Timmie. The moon was out now,
I88 P A R A D IS E
and Barbara, at the post beside his gate, pressed
through, and then ran, with an accession of
fright, up the path that seemed not to have been
shoveled since the last snow; a soft flurry had
blown over its frozen chiseling. She sprang to
the front door and knocked. There was no an-
swer, though the light was burning. Something
strange about the house struck her with a dis-
turbing pang, and she ran round to the side door,
opened it, and went in. The kitchen was cold,
and she sought the gleam of light in the sitting-
room. Though the place was silent, her senses
told her life was there. A bed had been set up in
the middle of the room, and bolstered high upon
pillows was Uncle Timmie. A fire flickered on
the hearth, and everything was in extreme order.
Uncle Timmie was in the whitest of linen, and
his hand outside the coverlet had the delicacy
of sickness. He was bright-eyed, and his cheeks
were wasted. When Barbara came in, he did not
turn his head, but his eyes sought hers with an
inquiring eagerness that was yet indifferent.
“Sho!” said he, his thin voice fainter than she
had ever heard it. “It’s you, is it?”
She hurried to the bedside.
“Are you sick?” she asked, with a concern
shifted from herself. “You sick, Uncle Tim-
mie P”
“Yes, I be.” Then temper rose in him, and he
P A R A D IS E 189
added fractiously, “I dunno whether I be or not.
Lord sakes! I’m so tired o’ tellin’ the truth, an’
it’s a burnin’ shame I’ve got so used to't I can’t
tell nothin’ else.”
She was at the window, peering out at the gate.
A sleigh had stopped there. -
“Uncle Timmie,” she said chokingly.
“Well, what is it?”
“There’s somebody out there in the sleigh.
He’s after me.”
“Who is it? Malory?”
“No! no! It is the man I used to go round
with when I told fortunes. He’s come for me.”
“Well, ye need n’t go.”
“Oh, I’m afraid! I’m afraid!” She clasped
her hands, terrified anew by the necessity of fight-
ing off that old tyranny. Until she had tasted lib-
erty, she had not known what thralldom meant.
Uncle Timmie came up in bed.
“You step out into the kitchen, an’ hand me
my old fowlin’-piece,” he commanded grimly.
“No, no. Only let me hide. Then you tell him
— oh, Uncle Timmie, tell him to come to-morrow.
I can face him by daylight.” - -
“You step in behind that dresser.” He indi-
cated a curtain in a chimney recess.
“No, no. He’d feel I was there. He’d hear me
breathe. You don’t know what he is.”
“Dunno what he is! I guess he ain’t no more’n
I90 P A R A D IS E
mortal man, is he? Well, I tell you what you do.
You go up them stairs there in the kitchen, an’
they’ll bring ye out in the room overhead.
There’s a hole cut there I had to kinder warm
me up, when Islep’ up chamber. There’s a board
over it now; but you put your ear to 't, an’ I guess
you can hear all that’s said below.”
There were steps on the doorstone, and then
the knocker fell. Barbara melted from the room
like one of its shadows, and with a blindly seeking
hand found the latch of the stairway door. She
groped up the stairs and into the chamber over
the sitting-room. There she crept to the spot
where she fancied her peephole was to be, and
sank softly to the floor. The knocker had fallen
again, and Uncle Timmie called querulously:
“Come in, can’t ye?” But the front door was
fastened, and the man tried it once or twice;
then, as Barbara had done, he skirted the side of
the house and entered the kitchen. She heard his
steps, unfamiliar with the way, as they slowly
crossed the room. Presently, as she judged from
his voice, he was beside Uncle Timmie's bed.
“How are you?” he asked. “Are you laid
up P’’ s -
“I dunno's I’m laid up,” said Uncle Timmie.
“I dunno but I laid myself up.”
“My niece Barbara just came in here,’
Benedict. “I should like to see her.”
5
said
P A R A D IS E 191
There was silence. Uncle Timmie looked up
at him coldly. Barbara, above, had found the
board, and she pushed it aside, the fraction of an
inch. She was in deadly fear of his trained
senses. His eyes, his ears, she knew, gave him .
almost miraculous warnings. Benedict had
seated himself, unasked, and was stretching a
hand to the fading fire.
“Sha’n’t I put on a stick?” he suggested.
“You let things be,” said Uncle Timmie.
Then a text occurred to him, and he muttered
fractiously, as if it were a curse, “‘The stranger
within thy gates,’” and added, “Ye can if ye see
fit.”
Benedict put on a log, deftly fitted a forestick,
and blew the fire. It darted up enchantingly, and
the room sprang into life. Then he sank again
into his chair.
“She’s been staying at Malory Dwight's,
has n’t she P” he asked idly.
“Who P’’
“My niece, Barbara.”
“I dunno anything about your nieces nor your
nephews,” said Uncle Timmie. “I’ve got as
much as I can do to drive my own team.”
“I met her out here in the woods,” said Bene-
dict, his eyes upon the fire. “I did n’t recognize
her for a minute. Where is she P”
Uncle Timmie was silent, eying him bellige-
192 P A R A D IS E
rently and yet with a certain satisfaction. It was
long since anything had happened in this room;
now slight events were welcome. Benedict turned
and looked at him. Their eyes met. Each studied
the other. The conjurer rose and took off his coat.
“You don’t know who I am,” he remarked.
“You might be the devil an’ all for what I
care,” said Uncle Timmie, in a growing pleasure.
“Don’t excite yourself,” continued Benedict,
approaching the bedside. “You’re a sick man.
Can’t I get you something P”
“No,” said Uncle Timmie, watching him with
glittering eyes, “ye can't.”
Benedict deftly spread up the coverlet and
smoothed it, and Uncle Timmie's gaze softened.
“There! there!” he said, mollified. “That’s
clever of ye, but I don’t want no stan'in’ round
my dyin’ bed. You better be gittin’ along. Your
hoss’ll ketch cold.”
The stranger retreated from the bedside, and
folded his arms in a pose Barbara knew.
“Will you tell me where my niece is P” he
inquired. “She came into this house, and she
has n’t left it. I can hear her breathe. A min-
ute ago she put her head down on her arm, to
listen.”
Uncle Timmie looked him in the eyes, in a
delighted scorn. “Bah!” he said loudly, and
snapped his fingers. “Bah!”
P A R A D IS E I93
“Will you kindly give me back my watch?”
Uncle Timmie stared.
“Down there in the hollow of your arm. You
have spread the sheet over it, but it is n’t cov-
ered.”
Instinctively Uncle Timmie looked. He
glanced again with knitted brows. The watch
was there. With one trembling hand he plucked
it forth, and held it dangling by the chain, while
he regarded it. “My Lord – a – mighty!” he
breathed.
“My ring,” said the conjurer pleasantly.
“You put that under your left shoulder. Kindly
give it to me.”
Uncle Timmie probed there, in a terrified obe-
dience. He brought it forth, a large seal ring, and
held it with the watch.
“Now my purse. You tucked that between the
blanket and the sheet. Find it for me.”
Waveringly Uncle Timmie's hands went over
the coverlet, and paused upon a likely place.
He turned the coverlet back, sitting up and regard-
ing the spot with a pathetic wonder. The purse
was there, and he laid watch and ring beside it,
and sat trembling. He looked from them to Bene-
dict and back again.
“You see,” said Benedict, as one who was en-
joying himself. “You play a dirty trick on me
and I find it out. There’s nothing I can’t find
194 P A R A D IS E
out. Now I am going to search your house for the
girl. You might as well tell me where to look.”
“Wait! wait!” cried Barbara from above.
“I’m coming.” Her flying feet were on the stairs.
She crossed the sill, and was at Uncle Timmie's
side, where he sat in gaping wonder.
“It’s the devil himself,” he quavered at her.
“You look out.”
Barbara gathered up the watch and ring and
purse, and dropped them in a little pile at Bene-
dict’s feet. She had not looked at him.
“He’s a juggler, Uncle Timmie,” she said
rapidly, in her anger. “He tucked those things in
there himself and let you find them. It’s a trick.”
Uncle Timmie shook his head slowly.
“Don’t you go with him,” he whispered.
“Don’t you sign away nothin’.”
“Sign away ?” She was spreading the clothes
about him, and persuading him, with a gentle
hand.
“They say he asks ye to sign away your soul,
sign it in blood, they do. I used to think 't was all
folderol; but I dunno, I dunno. You be careful.”
“He’s a juggler,” said Barbara, in a tone
meant for Benedict. “He does tricks — for
money.”
“That’s what he’s made you think,” said
Uncle Timmie wisely. “That’s what he’s made
up his mind to 'pear to folks. You look out.”
P A R A D IS E 195
Barbara had faced her enemy.
“I’m going now,” she said to him. “I sha’n’t
go with you; but I sha’n’t leave you here to
worry him. Uncle Timmie, I’ll tell Ann Parsons
you’re sick. She’ll be in.”
“Don’t ye do it,” called Uncle Timmie. “You
tell 'em to keep away. I ain’t sick. I’m wore
out.”
Benedict had invested himself with his pro-
perty, and was following Barbara from the room.
She held the door open, and, passionately bent
on seeing him out of the house, motioned to him
to precede her. He acquiesced with a bow ironi-
cally low, and she followed him out and down the
path. At the gate, she paused an instant while he
uncovered his horse.
“Good-night,” she said coldly.
Benedict was at once beside her, a hand upon
her wrist. She knew that touch. The unrelent-
ingness of it made her senses quiver. She looked
up at him, and the moonlight seemed to deepen
his accustomed pallor.
“Let me go,” she said, in a low tone, yet not
trying to move her hand.
“Don’t be a fool, Bella; you sent for me.”
“Yes. I’m sorry. I did n’t mean to.”
“You meant it then. You wrote to me, and
here I am.”
“That old man is sick,” she said. “I’ve got to
196 P A R A D IS E
run back and tell Ann Parsons, and she’ll go to
him.”
“Who’s Ann Parsons P”
“A nurse. Let me go. In the morning I’ll see
you. I’ll talk to you as long as you like.”
“No, Bella, you’ll see me to-night. I did nºt
mean to be so late; but there was a freight off the
track, and I left my train at the Junction, and got
this horse and came on here. I mean to take you
back in time for the early train.”
“I shall never take the train with you.”
“What will you do?”
She stood silent, and her wrist ached.
“Come, Bella.” His voice had softened. “You
must n’t quarrel with me. I’m your only tie on
earth. There won’t be any more nonsense about
falling in love, and that sort of thing. Come,
dear.”
“You can come back in the morning.”
“No, dear.” His voice was quieter and more
unyielding. “I sha’n’t leave you.”
“Then we shall stand here all night.”
His manner changed.
“Very well, dear,” he said. “In the morning.
But I can’t leave you here to-night. Jump in.
I’ll drive you back there.”
“Will you leave me there?”
“Yes, I’ll leave you.”
The simplicity of his air convinced her. She
P A R A D IS E 197
drew a breath of relief and stepped into the
sleigh. Benedict wrapped the robe about her,
and started.
“Stop!” she cried. “That’s not the way.
Malory Dwight's house is behind there.”
He threw an arm about her, and with the
other hand shook out the reins. The horse’s
heels kicked up little balls of snow into her face,
and she put out her hands to catch at something.
But somehow Benedict’s grasp was about her
arms also, pinning them to her side. The horse
settled into a quick trot, his head turned home-
ward, and Barbara gave up to a despairing ac-
Quiescence. Only once did she open her lips,
and then to say, bitterly:
“You shall never put me on a train. I’ll scream
at every man I see.”
“Do it. I’ll tell them you are insane. I’ll tell
them. I’ve caught you, and the more you scream
the better.”
The horse flagged, and at that moment she
saw a man’s figure swinging along the road. She
knew it, the height, the stride, and threw herself
forward with all her strength.
“Nick!” she cried, “Nick! Help me! Bar-
bara! Barbara!” She called her own name in
shrill anguish, to tell him what she could, and in
a second, it seemed to her, the horse reared,
settled back on his haunches, and stopped. Nick
198 P A R A D IS E
was holding him, while Benedict, not slackening
his grasp upon her, somehow got the whip into
his other hand, and in a rage was lashing at the
horse’s flank.
“Give over there!” Nick bellowed at him.
“Drop that whip! drop it, you fool!”
Barbara seized the whip, wrenched it out of
Benedict’s grasp, and threw it into the snow.
The horse, with a snort, quieted under Nick’s
hand.
“Get out,” called Nick. “Get out, both of
you.”
Benedict withdrew his arm from her, and
spoke suavely, though his voice trembled.
“Introduce me, Bella. Perhaps the gentle-
man will direct us to Malory Dwight’s.”
She had sprung to the ground, and hurried to
Nick’s side, while he gentled the horse.
“Let him go,” she implored him.
“No,” said Nick hoarsely, “he’ll settle with
me first.”
“Let him go, Nick. I can’t bear any more to-
night.” A sob escaped her, and he took his hand
from the horse’s head.
“To-morrow, Bella,” called Benedict. “You’ll
see me in the morning P”
“Yes,” she answered. “I’ll see you in the
morning.”
He called out a robust good-night, and started
P A R A D IS E I99
on. Nick and Barbara took their homeward
way, but as the bells stopped, they both glanced
back involuntarily. Benedict was picking his
whip out of the snow.
XVI
“WANT me to lick him P” inquired Nick, “or
kill him P which P You wait here, an’ I’ll settle
with him now.”
She clung silently to his arm, only at ease when
Benedict stepped into the sleigh and drove on.
“All right,” he continued, “I’ll fix him in the
mornin’. Come, le’s get home.”
They turned about and walked in silence
along the snowy road. She had released his arm,
and moved rapidly, her courage back again.
“I’m going to Malory Dwight's first,” she
said, “to tell Ann Parsons about Uncle Timmie.
He’s sick.”
“Sick P What’s the matter of him P”
“I don’t know. I found him in bed.”
“What makes you say you’ll go to Malory's
first? Where you goin’ then P”
She had not thought, and she was silent.
“Has he quarreled with you?” asked Nick
sharply.
“Who P”
“Malory Dwight.”
“No, he has n’t.” She spoke irritably, in un-
reasoning defense.
P A R A D IS E 201
“Malory’s a good chap. But I’ve no confi-
dence in any man that’s under the thumb of a
jade.”
“What makes you call her a jade P”
“She would n’t be if she lived in the woods
with the other animals. It’s only because she
happens to herd with men an’ women, an’ they’ve
built up another kind of a system. Lindy don’t
know it, but she’s got to satisfy her appetites
by kickin’ down the system.”
Barbara felt the difference between him and
the sad, dull fellow who used to come in to sit
for an hour beside Clary's bed.
“Seems as if I never knew you before,” she
said involuntarily.
“I don’t speak like this to everybody. I never
did to anybody before. You get the truth out of
me.” His voice was thrillingly moved; but emo-
tions had become hateful to her, and she wanted
nothing but calm. Nick put aside these things
for another time. “Do you mean you won’t stay
at Malory's any more ?” he asked.
“I can’t.”
“Then you come to Aunt Nash's. She’ll be
good to you.”
“I can’t do that either. She’s half sick. Be-
sides — she’s there.” Her voice sank to the
measure of her dread.
“Lindy ?”
202 P A R A D IS E
“Yes.”
“Barbara, why don’t you marry me? I’d be
good to you. I’d let you live whatever life you
wanted. I would nºt ask anything of you till you
got to care about me. You might sometime.”
She stopped, and her voice rang out in laughter.
“For God’s sake, don’t.” He laid a hand
upon her arm. “I should think you were crazed.”
The irony of the proposal, so like Malory's,
even in its phrasing, shook her again. She felt
the indignity of it. Two men could ask her to
marry them for prudential reasons. Benedict
wanted her to tell fortunes for him. She won-
dered if any man lived who would love her warmly
and hot-headedly, in defiance of reason, as Lindy
was beloved. But she returned to the thought of
Nick and his kindness.
“I’m sorry,” she said humbly. “No, I can’t
marry anybody, and I don’t know where I shall
go, nor how I shall live.”
Nick had been thinking rapidly.
“I’ll tell you,” he said. “You run in now an’
stay with Uncle Timmie, an’ I’ll pike ahead an’
call up Ann Parsons. She’ll be along in the
course of half an hour. Then she’ll see to Uncle
Tim, an’ you can get to sleep on the lounge there,
an’ in the mornin’ we’ll see what can be done.
But I guess you’ll end by goin’ back to Malory’s.”
She did not answer. They walked on in silence
P A R A D IS E 203
then until, reaching Uncle Timmie's gate, they
stopped, and Nickspoke with a deeper tenderness.
“You tired, Barbara P”
“No, I guess not.” Sudden gratitude rose in
her. She put out her hand. “Oh, Nick,” she
said, “you’ve been good to me!” She would
have withdrawn the hand, but he held it.
“You promise me one thing,” he said, with
an earnestness that moved her. “When you’re
in trouble, or when you want anything, you
come to me, straight as you can come. That’s
all I ask. Will you?”
“I guess so.”
“Promise.”
“I do promise.” He released her hand, and
she pushed in between the gate posts, and took
the path again.
Nick halted a moment, watching her. “You
ain’t afraid P” he called after her.
“No,” she answered. “He won’t be back to-
night.” -
Nick went striding on his way, and Barbara
meantime opened the side door softly and stole
into the sitting-room, where Uncle Timmie might
be asleep. But he was lying high upon his pillows,
as he had been when she found him first.
“Who’s that ?” he called. She threw her shawl
on a chair, and advanced to the bedside. He
met her with challenging eyes.
204 P A R A D IS E
“Where is he P” he demanded.
“Gone,” she answered soothingly.
Uncle Timmie whispered, “Did ye sign away
anything?” •
She shook her head and smiled.
“How’d ye git red on him P”
“Nick Jameson did it.”
Uncle Timmie drew a breath of relief. He lay
for a moment, his gaze traveling past her to the
fire.
“It was the devil, wan’t it?” he asked sud-
denly. -
“No. He’s a man that travels round and
gives shows. What he did to you is only what he
does every night of his life, for pay.” -
Uncle Timmie shook his head upon the pillow.
“Wanderin' up an’ down the airth,” he mut-
tered, “seekin’ whom he may devour. You be
careful.”
Barbara had seated herself by the bedside.
He seemed to require nothing, and she did not
know what ways to invent to make him com-
fortable. -
“Nick has gone to get Ann Parsons,” she
said, to reassure him. i
Uncle Timmie raised himself upright in bed.
“Now look a-here,” said he, “you ain’t be’n
an’ done that?” -
“Why, there’s nobody to take care of you,
P A R A D IS E 205
Uncle Timmie. You don’t want to lie here and
be sick alone.”
Uncle Timmie lay back again and resigned
himself to life as he found it.
“Don’t I?” he asked grimly. “How do you
s’pose I happen to be here in this bed, any-
ways P’’
“I suppose you felt sick, and did n’t get up.”
“Well, I did n’t feel sick. T was a week ago
come to-morrer, I got tired o’ the whole business.
I says to myself, ‘I may live twenty year longer,
an’ I’ve had enough on’t. If I was younger,’
I says, ‘I’d break through, an’ do suthin’ to
make their hair stan’ up. Mebbe I’d set the
town afire; mebbe I’d git out Malory Dwight's
old bull an’ put a saddle onto him, an’ ride him
down the turnpike. Mebbe I’d stan’ on my
head on the meetin’-house steps. Mebbe I’d go
in, in the middle o’ sermon, an’ put some ki’an
pepper on the sto’. But it’s too late. I can’t
take no real interest in them things, as I could
if I’d done 'em when I’d ought to; an' besides
I’ve lived a righteous life till it’s rotted me. I’m
all punk, that’s what I be.’ So I thought it over,
an' I says, “There’s nothin’ in the Bible to say
a man’s got to eat. There ain’t no law that says
ye sha’n’t go to bed an’ stay there, an’ not put
anything into your mouth unless you want to.
An’ God sakes! I don’t want to. I’ve cooked
206 P A R A D IS E
long enough, an’ I’ve eat long enough.” So I
moved this bed down from up chamber, an’ I
got into it. Everybody’s al’ays died in this
room. We’ve al’ays had warnin’ enough to set
up the bed.”
Barbara was gazing at him with a horrified
unbelief.
“Uncle Timmie,” she implored, “you don’t
mean to say you’ve been starving yourself P”
He regarded her with a smile that wrinkled
his face into strange distortions and closed his
shrewd old eyes. But he did not speak.
“Who’s kept up the fire?” she asked, her
mind running rapidly over the orderly room.
“I’ve kep’ it up. I thought 't would be kind o'
pleasant to see it as long as I see anything. Pox
take it, though! I’ve had to brush up the room
some. I’ve got into the habit on’t, an’ I can’t
help it. My king! there never was a man so
spºiled as I’ve be’n by leadin’ a righteous life.”
He closed his eyes and lay grumbling to himself
for a moment, while Barbara watched him.
She heard the kitchen door open, and Ann
Parsons's nearing step. Nick, also, she knew,
had come; but he stayed in the kitchen, and she
heard him light a lamp and begin building a fire.
Ann Parsons gave Barbara a glance, and hur-
ried to the bedside. She had on her alert, pro-
fessional look, and Uncle Timmie met it with
P A R A D IS E 207
one of smiling obstinacy. They were combatants
fitted for the fray.
“He has n’t had anything to eat for days,”
said Barbara, in a low tone, knowing she of
fended him, and that he scornfully expected it
of her. “He’s gone to bed, to starve himself to
death.”
Ann had laid a finger on his pulse, and he
tossed it lightly off.
“Bah!” said he, “you go an’ feel Jote Nash's
pulse. He’ll let ye count it a week o' Sundays,
if ye want to.”
Ann put her hand upon his forehead.
“He ain’t hot,” said she reflectively.
“Bah!” said Uncle Timmie again.
She bent her head to listen to his breathing,
and, like a rearing horse, he raised himself and
pushed her from him.
“Git off’n my chist,” he said grimly. “Your
hair smells o’ taller candles.”
Ann Parsons flushed. Her personal cleanli-
ness was her religion. Uncle Timmie winked
deliberately at Barbara. -
“That’s the way my gre’t-aunt Debbie used to
color her hair,” he mused. “She took a taller
candle, an’ put some soot on't, an’ rubbed it on
her hair. You ain’t got a gray thread, have ye,
Ann P” he added slyly.
A deeper red rose into Ann's cheeks, but her
208 P A R A D IS E
professional calm had not deserted her. She went
out into the kitchen, where Nick had a crackling
blaze.
“Put on a kittle,” she commanded. “Git some
water out o’ the well.”
Barbara heard the windlass go round, and the
bucket fall, and again Uncle Timmie winked at
her.
“They’ll try to make ye go to bed,” he con-
fided to her, “so’t Ann can reign supreme. Don’t
ye do it. This’ll be one o’ the nights o' your life.
Gre’t doin’s, I tell ye, gre’t doin’s.” Then seeing
her honest perplexity he softened toward her.
“Law, you,” he said kindly, “don’t you mind
what I say. It don’t signify. Gi’ me my head a
spell. ’T won’t be long.”
Tears came into her eyes at the sight of age di-
verting itself with its own loneliness. But he had
closed his lids, and his next words were full of
elfin cheer.
“You go out in the kitchen to Ann. That’s
what they al’ays do in sickness. They tiptoe into
tº other room an’ talk it over. But don’t ye whis-
per. That’s enough to raise the dead an’ make
'em cuss the livin’.”
In a perplexed obedience she did get up, and
went into the kitchen, where Nick stood by the
stove, cramming in light kindling, and Ann was
stirring something in a cup.
|P A R A D IS E 209
“See ºf you can see the salt,” said Ann.
“Mebbe it’s in that cupboard there.”
Barbara found it, noting incidentally the per-
fect order of the shelves.
“I’m goin’ to make a mite o” flour gruel,” Ann
went on, grinding out flour lumps with a spoon
against the cup. “How'd you find him, Bar-
bara P”
“I happened to come in,” said Barbara, re-
membering for the first time the strangeness of
her wandering the country neighborhood at night.
But Ann’s mind was on other issues. Her work
lay with the great questions of life and death, and
lesser coils had ceased to move her.
“I b'lieve my soul you’re right,” she said,
pouring the boiling water into a saucepan. “He
tell you he’s be’n starvin’?”
Barbara nodded. She had a gruesome sense
that Uncle Timmie in the next room was grin-
ning, in satirical commentary.
“If the Lord had shook him an' Jote Nash up
together, they’d ha’ made a fair average,” said
Ann, stirring and tasting. “There! that’s a good
water gruel. Mebbe he won’t touch it unless we
hold his nose. You come in, too, Barbara. He
kinder seems to like you, I thought by the way he
looked at you.”
Uncle Timmie, covered to the chin, was evi-
dently deep in slumber. His eyes were tightly
210 P A R A D IS E
closed, and he even, after drawing in his breath
at the nostrils, expelled it from the mouth, with a
distended cheek. Ann Parsons was not deceived.
“Here, Mr. Gale,” said she, “you wake up an’
take a mite o’ this.”
Uncle Timmie turned upon his pillow, and
breathed more placidly.
“Timothy Gale!” said Ann Parsons, “Timo-
thy! you take a drop or two, an’ then we’ll turn
out the light, an’ you can doze till mornin’.”
Uncle Timmie's eyelids came open with lan-
guid slowness. He sniffed a little.
“What ye got there?” he inquired cordially.
“It’s a mite o' gruel.” Ann was pleased and
satisfied. “Open your mouth, an’ I’ll give you a
leetle out o' this spoon.”
Uncle Timmie's face took on a guileless
anxiety. -
“Is pose you got some salt in it?” he inquired.
“Yes, it’s all salted up to the nines.”
“Got a mite of nutmeg P”
“No, you don’t need nutmeg. *T ain’t good for
ye, in your feeble state.”
“You gi’ me that cup,” commanded he, and
Ann placed it deftly in his hand. “Now I’ll hold
it while you git the nutmeg. I never took a swal-
lero” flour gruel without nutmeg, an’ I never will.
You go an’ find it. Look in the table-drawer.”
“Well! well!” said Ann indulgently, and went.
5
P A R A D IS E. 211
Uncle Timmie winked into Barbara’s sorrow-
ful face. - -
“You run an’ say it’s in the upper cupboard,”
he whispered. “Did n’t I tell ye’t was goin’ to be
one o’ the nights o' your life?”
Barbara hurried out, to give her message, and
as her foot struck the sill, Uncle Timmie threw
back the clothes and stepped softly from his bed.
He poured the gruel into a deep mound of ashes
at the back of the log, and was noiselessly in bed.
before Ann Parsons, nutmeg grater in hand, had
reached his side again. Uncle Timmie passed
her the empty cup.
“If ye’ve got to take a thing, take it an’ have it
over,” he said wearily. “Now you turn out that
light, an’le' me git a wink. You go back to Mal-
ory's. I’ll hang a cloth out the winder in the
mornin', if I want anything.”
Ann looked at him with suspicion, and he
returned a glance of innocence. A glow of ap-
proval, due the good patient, overspread her win-
try face. She took the cup from his hand, and,
setting it aside, tucked him up cosily.
“I’ll carry out the lamp,” she said. Her own
sort of service transformed her into a benevolent
creature, unable to find ways enough to shed her
kindliness. “Mebbe you’ll git a mite o’ sleep, an’,
come daylight, I’ll give ye some more gruel.”
Uncle Timmie's breathing was at once deep
212 P A R A D IS E
and regular, and she stole away with the lamp
into the kitchen.
“Ain’t that complete, now P” she said to Bar-
bara and Nick, sitting in silence by the fire. “I’m
goin’ to watch, Barbara. You might as well poke
off home an' git to bed.”
Barbara roused herself.
“No,” she answered. “Let me sit here.”
Ann’s ways were easy. She accepted things as
they came, and said no more, and Barbara sat
down to her drowsy vigil. She was aware that
Ann moved about, noiselessly stirring at the
stove, and then pouring hot water on something
mysterious that at once diffused an herby smell.
She was sleepy, like a child, her head dropping to
her breast and her body numb. Finally, when it
seemed as if she had been swaying and drowsing
interminably, strong arms lifted her and carried
her to the couch. Hands covered her, and she set-
tled to a rapturous security, and then into the
depths of sleep.
XVII
THE light poured, full flood, into the kitchen, and
Barbara awoke to find life about her. The fire
was burning, and a comfortable warmth diffused
itself. A cloud of steam from the boiling kettle
softened the air. She lay for a moment, trying to
inure herself to the unfamiliar walls. There were
good smells, too, about the kitchen, those of food
and tea, and she heard Ann’s voice, in a reasoning
cadence, as she talked to Uncle Timmie in the
next room. Nick was standing by the stove, and
she took in his tall figure with her traveling gaze,
seeking for a moment to make it Malory's, and
then dropping back into her heavy certainty that
he and she were to meet no more. Nick saw her
trying to collect herself and adjust her mind
to the present scene, and nodded, without ap-
proaching her. Barbara sat up, and put a hand
to her disordered hair. She had the jaded feeling
of having slept in her clothes.
“Have you been here all night?” she asked.
“Off an’ on,” he answered. “I went over to
milk, an’ find out what was doin’, an’ then I come
back.”
“How's Uncle Timmie P”
214 P A R A D IS E
i -
“He won’t eat, Ann says. I want to ride over
an' get doctor, but he’s forbid it, an’ she thinks
she can manage.”
“Has she been here all night?”
“Yes.”
Against her intention, Barbara spoke, the
words following on the heels of his.
“Then who’s got Malory's breakfast?”
Nick looked his bitterness. His lip curled, and
he answered:
“That’s like you women. Let him go to the
devil; but who'll get his breakfast when he’s got
there P’’
She had risen to her feet, and now she shook
her skirts into order, and, careless of her looks,
advanced to him.
“What do you mean by going to the devil?”
she asked.
Immediately he was sorry.
“I’m ugly,” he said, making way for her at the
stove. If she had looked at him with recognizing
eyes she would have seen the tenderness of his
glance toward her. “Warm your hands, dear.
Get warmed through. Barbara, he’s done some-
thin’ foolish.”
“Malory? What has he done?” Again she
spoke quickly, her maternal instinct in arms, and
her small face pinched and pale.
Nick answered slowly, as if he hated the words.
P A R A D IS E 215
“He’s gone off with Lindy. They took the
early train.”
Her hands shook, as she held them to the fire.
“Well,” she said at length, in a small, dry voice,
“that’s all right. Why can’t he go off with any-
body he wants to ?” &
“He come over while I was feedin’ the cattle.
He asked me to take him an' Lindy to the Junc-
tion.”
“Did you?”
“No.”
“Why did n’t you?”
“I wanted to be here when you woke up. So he
took his own team. He’s goin’ to leave it at the
tavern there till they come back.”
“Till they come back!” She repeated the words
numbly, and in spite of herself, fell into her old
solicitude. “Then he did nºt have any breakfast
at all.”
Nick frowned savagely.
“God sakes!” he said, “can’t you get along
unless he’s got somethin’ inside of him 2 Yes, he
had his breakfast. Aunt Nash was up early.
Lindy stayed out till midnight, an’ she got wor-
ried. She give him his breakfast.”
“Well,” said Barbara meditatively. Then she
looked at him, with a poor little smile.
“What makes you hate him so P” she asked.
“I don’t hate him. I think he’s a fool.”
216 P A R A D IS E
“Would n’t you stand by anybody you liked P
Would n’t you do it through thick and thin P”
He shook his head ironically.
“Not always. Not if 't was Lindy.”
Ann Parsons came out from the sitting-room.
Her forehead was tied up in a knot of care.
“He worries me 'most to death,” she an-
nounced. “He won’t take a mouthful o' food.”
“Has nºt he taken anything since last night?”
asked Barbara.
“No, an I mistrust he did n’t take that, not
so’s to git it right down into him.”
“You let him alone,” said Nick. “Poor old
devil! he ought to be allowed jurisdiction over
his own weasand.”
Ann had not heard. Her brow wrinkled the
tighter.
“At four o’clock he said he’d take suthin’ at
five,” she rehearsed. “When five come, he said
he’d do it at seven. An’ now it’s eight, an’ not a
drop has passed his lips.”
“You let him be,” counseled Nick again,
speaking absently and still watching the trouble
of Barbara’s face. “He wants leave to withdraw.
Don’t you go an’ block his wheels.”
“Well,” said Ann, as if it were a tragic last
resort, “mebbe we’ll have to send for doctor.”
She had poured tea for herself and Barbara,
and set out bread and butter on the kitchen table.
P A R A D IS E 217
When she had left the room for another glance at
Uncle Timmie, before beginning her breakfast,
Barbara turned hastily to Nick.
“Should you think I’d got a right to take
away a few of Clary's clothes? He gave them to
me.”
Nick cursed under his breath.
“Course you have. They’re yours.” *>
She was regarding him with wide, serious
eyes. She looked like a child who had suffered ill
usage or some form of want.
“I have n’t any clothes at all, you see,” she
explained, “unless I take those. And seems as
if I’d got to have some. I’ve got to start some-
where else, you know. And he gave them to me.”
Nick was moved beyond his own patience to
bear.
“Of course they’re yours,” he said. “It would
be a dirty trick to go away an’ let him think you
did n’t feel friendly towards him.”
Her brow was wrinkled thoughtfully.
“That’s true,” she owned. “I’ll go over after
breakfast, and see what I’d better do. I’ll take
as little as I can.”
Ann returned, and they had their meal in si-
lence, she thinking of her case, and Barbara
making futile plans for her own leaving. When
they rose from the table, Nick asked:
“Want me to get the doctor P”
218 P A R A D IS E
The wind had changed with Ann.
“My land alive!” she answered. “What’s a
doctor goin’ to do for a man when there’s nothin'
in the world the matter of him, except he’s set
his mind on dyin’ an’ die he will?” Again she
returned to the siege, and Nick took his hat to go.
“I shall be round,” he told Barbara. “I sha’n’t
be out of earshot. You know he’s bound to
come.”
“Benedict!” For the moment she had forgot-
ten him in the impact of heavier things. Sud-
denly she felt scorn of him, and a wonder at
herself for having allowed him and the night to-
gether to terrify her so. “I’m not afraid,” she
said. “He can’t hurt me.”
She had taken her shawl from its nail and
wrapped it about her. She had her hand upon
the latch of the outer door, when Nick was also
there.
“Wait a minute, dear,” he bade her.
She looked up at him, and thought how kind
he seemed, and, in a moving way, how compas-
sionate.
“See here, Barbara,” he besought her, “don’t
you make any mistake. You feel thrown out of
house an’ home, with Malory gone an’ all, an’
if you don’t look out, you’ll do somethin’ foolish.
You may think you’ll go off with that fellow.
Don’t you do it, Barbara.” |
P A R A D IS E 219
She looked up at him with sad eyes full of a
clear sincerity.
“Oh, no,” she said, “I should n’t do that.
Nothing could make me.”
She stepped out into the clear morning air,
and closed the door behind her. It was cold and
beautiful, and at once a keen pleasure came upon
her from looking across the rolling land, snow-
covered, to the fringe of firs on the farther hills.
She felt the momentary exaltation that may be
a thrill of nature-worship or a mystic prescience
of a hopefulness beyond this valley of despair.
The heart within her lifted, and her eyes filled
with tears. Something in the morning was offer-
ing unseen gifts, and she who had been poor
felt the magnificence of riches. She went down
the path to the road and turned, still wearing
her new courage like a crown, along the road to
Malory's. Once there, her spirits momentarily
failed her. The curtains had not been raised since
last night, and because she knew he was away,
the place looked incredibly deserted. She went
in at the side door, and in the kitchen gazed
about, her assurance gone. There had been a
fire that morning, but it was low, and the room
was chill. The newspaper lay on the table where
Malory had thrown it when Lindy came. The
lamp was there, its oil burned low. She glanced
at the tall clock, and its face looked friendly.
220 P A R A D IS E
She took off her shawl, and put wood into the
stove. Then she ran up to her room, and lighted
a fire there, and made herself tidy for the day.
Clary’s clothes were in the bureau drawers, and
her dresses hung in the big closet. Barbara made
a hasty choice among them, and took a few of
the plainest to serve her until she should begin
to earn. In doing this, a sweetness of security
fell upon her, as if Clary were in the room. As
she worked, her mind turned to Malory, also,
with a peculiar softness of affection. She reflected
that not even Nick, who was so near them, could
understand what the brother and sister had been
to her, nor what fealty she owed them. Sex
hatred fell away from her, and she thought of
Malory with a new compassion, all maternal.
Was he to blame because he could not love her ?
Was she not rather bound, if she loved him, to
help him to his happiness P So, working with
her hands in some semblance of her old service
in the house, she grew happier, and when her
little store of clothes had been done up and the
rest folded away again, she ran down stairs and
looked about her. Whatever reason Malory had
for going, he must find an orderly house on his
return. All the forenoon she wrought at her ac-
customed tasks, and with a pang at knowing she
should serve him no more. She saw Lindy, as
with her bodily eyes, already moving about the
P A R A D IS E 221
house, filling it with her lavish presence, inviting
to the warm ecstasies of life. That Malory loved
her was enough to make her sacred. It seemed
a chrism as mysterious as the bond of service
Barbara felt for him. Bread had been set to rise
the night before, and she put it in the pans.
When her other work was done, it had risen, and
she baked it with a sacramental sense of doing a
deed of sad finality. For all her youth, she attained
in that forenoon an age of wisdom. Perhaps her
elementary study of the planets made one fibre in
her mystical sense of the far-reaching of life and
the wonderful hand upon its chords: the hand of
what we call love. There was necessity to con-
strain us, so she learned. There was law. But
over all was the divine unreason — love. It was
twelve o’clock when she had finished, and saw
a shining house, the new bread hot under cloths
and diffusing its good savor, the hearth clean, and
the lamp ready to be lighted. When it was over,
she stood by the threshold a moment, her bun-
dle in her hand, hushing even her own breath,
to learn the room by heart. A broad track of sun-
light lay upon the floor, and the cat basked in it,
outstretched on her side, in warm oblivion. For
a moment Barbara had that poignant imagining
that comes to us in the quietude of inexorable
ways: what if it were a dream, and some benig-
nant power could wipe out the day and night that
222 P A R A D IS E
brought our grief, and make all as it had been
before ? What if the feet of the beloved were set
toward us, the face of the beloved ready to shine
upon us, as of old? For a moment it was almost
so, and she stood musing, happy as the aged are
in the palace of their dreams. Then the silence
was borne in upon her with a power like the call
of voices, and she awoke. The room was empty,
and the white world outside had its look of calm.
“Come, kitty,” she said, and took the cat up
under her arm. “I’ve got to put you out, kitty;
but he’ll come back and find you.”
She stepped out and closed the door. The
cat, rudely awakened to the cold, stood for a
moment with roughened fur, and then ran, in a
swift, knowing little trot, to the barn, where mice
lived fatly among the grain. Barbara went out
into the road, terrifyingly free in a world where
no place claimed her. There were yet things to
do: to say good-by to the kind souls who had
been hospitable to her, and to keep her tryst with
Benedict. And as if she had known it would be
so, when she came in sight of Uncle Timmie's
house, there was a sleigh waiting at the gate.
XVIII
WHEN Barbara walked into the kitchen, her lips
were set in a line destructive to their soft young
curves. Benedict was there. He sat on one side of
the stove, and Nick, to her relief, was on the other.
Whether they had been talking, she could not
guess. Nick, in a significant attitude of calm,
sat whittling a wedge from a piece of kindling,
and Benedict was watching him. Barbara
guessed inwardly that he had tried his armory
in vain: his accent, perhaps, his slightly pedan-
tic English, and his air of a man of the world,
and that Nick had kept on whittling. Benedict
rose at her entrance, and gave her good-morning.
She answered him briefly, and they stood there
together by the stove, while Nick worked ab-
sorbedly. The suspense was irritating to Bar-
bara. She spoke brusquely.
“Where are you now 2 Is there much busi-
ness P”
He shook his head.
“I have given it all up.”
“You have given it up! Aren’t you traveling
any more ?”
“Yes, I’m traveling. I’m going round the
224 P A R A D IS E
country picking up antiques, – furniture and
stuff. I am storing it now; but as soon as I’ve
got enough, I shall set up a little shop. Maybe
you’ll come and help me, Barbara.”
For the moment, it seemed a refuge. He looked
so commonplace in the morning light that she
could have flouted her fear of him. Her mind
went rapidly over the possibilities of his offer. If
she could stay in a little shop while he went about
the country and picked up antiques for her to
sell, it would not be so bad.
“I don’t know,” she said impulsively.
Nick got up from his chair.
“No, you won’t, Barbara,” he announced
quietly. “You’ll stay here with me.”
It was the first time a foreign will had laid its
grip upon her. In the old days she had obeyed
Benedict easily, without thinking, because life
went smoothly enough, and she saw no reason
to rebel. Later, when she had escaped him, his
persistence seemed no worse than a harassing
siege that irritated without quelling her. But
this was like a hand upon her, and she looked
up at Nick with the startled gaze of innocence.
He met her glance gravely, and then turned to
Benedict.
“She is goin’ to stay here,” he repeated, “with
me.”
Benedict’s lip curled upward.
P A R A D Is E 225
“With you?” he asked. The sneer was hardly
palpable, and only the man caught it.
“Don’t you worry,” returned Nick steadily.
“We’ll tend to things ourselves, when we get
round to it.”
“Pox take it, you let me alone,” came Uncle
Timmie's voice from the next room, in querulous
protest. “I don’t want to be turned over, an’ I
won’t take none o’yer slops. I can’t git a minute
to myself but what you’re houndin’ me on with
cups an’spoons.”
“We disturb him,” said Barbara, to the two
men. “We must n’t talk.”
“Yes, ye can, too,” Uncle Timmie called, with
redoubled vigor. “It’s the only let-up I’ve had
to-day, layin' low an’ listenin’. Barbara, you
come in here.”
Barbara obeyed hurriedly, and found him
lying in his cleanly bed, Ann Parsons standing
there, cup in hand. She had never seen Ann’s
brows tied in such worried knots. Uncle Tim-
mie took a fold of Barbara’s dress, and drew
her nearer.
“Say,” he said, in a whisper, “is that him P
He’s come back, ain’t he P”
“Yes, Uncle Timmie.”
“”T wan’t the devil, was it, arter all P”
“No, Uncle Timmie. I told you so. He’s
just a man that goes round doing tricks.”
5
226 P A R A D IS E
“Strange what lamplight 'll do,” said Uncle
Timmie practically. It was evident that he re-
signed the romance of the occasion with a pang.
Then he brightened. “You call him in here,”
he commanded.
Barbara looked at Ann Parsons, and the
nurse nodded.
“Mebbe 't'll take his mind off’n himself an’
his own pigheadedness,” she said, when Barbara
had summoned Benedict, and he stood smilingly
there. “If I could git a cup o' suthin’ into him, I
should feel made.”
The two men were regarding each other in a
subtle likeness of expression. Uncle Timmie
looked like a fox who would juggle if he could,
and Benedict had the satisfied mien of one with
a repertory at his command.
“You played a kind of a trick on me,” said
Uncle Timmie. “Man to man, now, how’d ye
do it P”
“Think it over,” returned Benedict quietly.
“Look at me and see if you can guess. Look at
me.”
Barbara moved involuntarily, to break the
spell, but a springing caution warned her not to
substitute an excitement she might not conquer
for one experience had taught her to despise.
Uncle Timmie's eyes were upon Benedict’s in a
willing fascination. The two women watched
9
P A R A D IS E 227
the sick man, ready to rescue him, and yet for
some reason withholding their hands. His lids
sank slowly, and he seemed to sleep.
“You are hungry,” said Benedict, in a low
tone. “Take the cup. Drink.”
Ann Parsons, in an equal obedience, lifted
the old man upon his pillows and set the cup
to his lips. Uncle Timmie drank. They laid
him back again, and presently Benedict touched
him on the shoulder and spoke to him. The old
man Smacked his lips.
“Seems if I kindertasted suthin’,” he grumbled.
“Taste good?” inquired Ann Parsons. She
had set down the cup beyond his sight. Her
face beamed with satisfaction. There were no
wonders for her in a world which not only al-
lowed diseases, but made herbs to conquer them.
She even tried to set down in her memory the
magician’s exact manner, as if it were a formula.
Uncle Timmie's eyes were on Benedict, but
now of his own will.
“How long be you goin’ to be round these
parts P” he asked suspiciously.
“Not long. Barbara’s going back with me.”
“Bah!” said Uncle Timmie, more to himself
than in contemptuous answer. Again he laid hold
of Barbara's dress. “Le’ me speak a word to
you,” he said. “They can go into tºother room.
You stay where ye be.”
228 P A R A D IS E
Ann Parsons led the way, and Benedict fol-
lowed.
“Shet the door,” said Uncle Timmie, and
Barbara obeyed. When she returned to him, he
looked clear-eyed and sane. “You see here,”
he said to her. He spoke in a mysterious whis-
per. “I ain’t got a relation on God’s earth.”
She was about to make up her mouth into
some sympathetic rejoinder, when it became ap-
parent that this was not what he wanted. He was
merely stating a situation, and it was one wherein
he took delight. “I’ve got this place, an’ I’ve
got three acre o’ ma’sh land, an’ I’ve got six
hundred dollars in the bank.” He checked off
the items on his lean forefinger. “Now you say
you’ll stay here an’ take care o’ me an’ keep
Ann Parsons off, an’ I’ll make my will this day,
an’ leave it all to you. What say?”
“I could n’t keep Ann Parsons off,” she said
gently. “She’s taking care of you. I’d take care
of you myself, but I should n’t know how so
well.”
“Pox take it! I don’t mean to get red of her.
Ye can’t do that, any more’n ye can a crow in
plantin’ time. I mean kinder stan’ by an’ trip
her up, an’ knock over them cups o’ drink, when
she fetches 'em in, an’ when she sticks a hot
soapstone into the bed, ketch it out an’ throw it
through the winder. T ain’t Ann Parsons I
P A R A D Is E 229
mind. It’s the things she doos.” His eyes were
gleaming with an ancient mirth. “What one
wouldn’t think of, t'other might,” he said, chuck-
ling. “You stay here, an’ I’ll put ye up to
things, an’ you do ’em.”
Barbara considered. That phase of his temp-
tation she hardly heard. Why he wanted her
did not seem to matter. She was moved because
anybody wanted her.
“You look a-here,” Uncle Timmie was say-
ing. “I’ve lived a righteous life, an’ I ain’t had
none o' my rights, so fur. I ain’t had no fun, an’
pox take it if I don’t take a smell or two out o'
the bottle. *T would be kinder innercent, the
whole on’t; I could put you up to things, an’
you could do ’em. ‘T wouldn’t be as if I’d done
'em myself.” A gleam of shrewdness traversed
his eyes. This was the look known of old by
“swappety horse” men, when Uncle Timmie
traded. Now he whispered, “You come here.
Don’t you say a word to nobody, an’ I’ll tell
you what I’m layin’ abed for.”
“I won’t tell,” said Barbara.
“Law! I told ye t'other night,” he added, in
a burst of recollection. “Yes, I told ye. Well,
I’m gettin’ tired o' waitin’ to see whether there’s
anything to it or whether there ain’t. But s’posin’
there is, I ain’t a-goin’ to lose my chance o’ sal-
vation by kickin’ over the traces at the last min-
230 PARAD Is E
ute. No, sirree! But 't would be kinder pleasant
if I could lay here an’ set you on.”
Barbara was looking at him with a grave in-
tentness. She hardly knew the terms of his bar-
gain. It was no more to her than the delirium
of the sick, and she scarcely thought it was more
to him.
“Perhaps you did n’t know it, Uncle Timmie,”
she said, “but I have n’t anywhere else to go.
I should like to stay here while Ann Parsons
does.”
“Has Malory give ye the slip P” he asked
sharply.
“No, oh, no!” Instinctively she put her hands
out to defend herself, even from curiosity; but
his gaze had fallen. -
“Well, you stay,” he muttered. “You stay.
I’ll tend to makin’ over things to-morrer.”
She stole away from his side, but he recalled
her. When she returned, his eyes met hers, in
an anxious probing.
“I feel kinder strange inside o’ me,” he said
confidentially. “If I had n’t kep' a strict watch,
I’ll be whipped if I should n’t think they’d got
some o’ their gruel into me.”
But at that moment Ann Parsons opened the
door and came in. Uncle Timmie groaned, with
extreme distaste, and turned his face to the wall,
and Barbara escaped to the kitchen.
P A R A D Is E 281
“He has asked me to stay here,” she said to
Nick. “I’m going to do it.”
Benedict had risen at her coming. “I’ll stay
myself till six o'clock,” he volunteered, “and help
the old gentleman take his cups of gruel. Then
I’ll go back to the Junction for the night.”
“For the night!” echoed Barbara, and his
eyes met hers. .
“I have taken board there,” he said, “at the
tavern. I go back there after my trips.” There
was a childish triumph in the words. They
seemed to bid her remember that he was one
who could not yield. Suddenly she felt a great
impatience of him, and the situation where he
placed her.
“Why? why?” she exclaimed hotly. “You
don’t care so much about me as all that.”
“Oh, yes, I do,” he returned. “I care a lot,
Barbara.”
She spoke again, in a new illumination.
“I know why you do it. You won’t be beaten.
It’s the same thing that makes you do your
tricks over and over, and if a man sets his will
up against yours, never rest till you’ve con-
quered him. It is n’t me. It’s because I’ve
stood up to you.” She was standing up to him
then, and both men looked at her with a quick-
ened heart. There was scarlet in her cheeks,
and her eyes were lustrous.
232 P A R A D IS E
“No,” said Benedict quietly, “I don’t often
fail to make good. I’m glad you’ve noticed it.”
They talked no more, and the two men, to
Barbara’s irritated fancy, seemed bent on tiring
each other out. It was a welcome relief when
Ann appeared again, and filled a cup from a por-
ringer on the stove. Involuntarily she glanced
at Benedict.
“Yes,” he answered, “I’ll manage that.”
“Not that I believe in it,” muttered Ann, in a
half apology to the others.
Nick was looking at her frowningly, and Bar-
bara had rebellion on her tongue. But the nurse
and the magician went into the room together,
and Uncle Timmie saluted them with the satire
of his glance. “What’s in that cup P” he asked.
“Suthin’ to do you good,” Ann returned, with
a pleasant vagueness, and Benedict, placing
himself at the foot of the bed, looked hard at
Uncle Timmie.
Again the old man’s eyes responded, but not
as they had before. A spark of understanding
lighted them, and then flamed into ire. He rose
in his bed, and shook an accusing finger.
“That’s what ye done, was it?” he cried
piercingly. “You got it into me by some kind o'
witchcraft, did ye? Well, ye won’t do it ag’in.
Out o' my room! Out o' my house! If ye don’t
git out, I’ll put ye out.”
P A R A D IS E 233
“Look at me,” said Benedict.
Uncle Timmie looked and sneered, and looked
and sneered again. The charm was gone. The
two in the kitchen had heard.
“You’ve got to interfere,” said Barbara
quickly, and Nick crossed the room at a stride.
He appeared at the bedside noiselessly, and
laid a hand on Benedict’s collar.
“Come,” he said, with authority. “Come.”
Half in caution, Benedict allowed himself to
be guided from the room. They crossed the
kitchen in a swerving struggle, and at the door
Nick had an arm about him, and with the other
hand opened the door. Barbara watched them
from the window. For an instant after Nick re-
leased him, Benedict stood looking at him. Then
he glanced up at her; his face was livid and his
eyes burned. With an exaggerated dignity he
walked down the path, and she ran out to see
him uncover his horse at the gate and drive away.
Nick nodded at her.
“That’s a good job done,” said he.
“Oh, it’s not done!” she cried. “It’s not
done. He’ll make you sorry for it.”
Nick was looking at her in a large tenderness.
“It takes a good deal to make me sorry. An’
’t won’t be this time. Now I’ll go over an 'tend
to Malory's stock.”
After Benedict had been led out of the room,
234 P A R A D IS E
Uncle Timmie looked at Ann in satisfied de-
light. He held up his cautioning finger to ensure
her silence. When the door closed behind them,
he drew a sigh, and then a happy chance oc-
curred to him.
“You look arter ’em, Ann,” he counseled
eagerly. “Mebbe Nick’s givin’ him a drubbin’.
Mebbe he’s rollin’ him in the snow. You look.”
But when she reported only Benedict’s de-
parture, he resigned himself sadly.
“Well,” he said, “well!” and seemed to sleep.
But his eyes flew open with a snap. “Who’s
that?” he asked. “Somebody’s come into the
kitchen. I’ll wager anything that’s Abbie Nash.”
Ann went out to see, and there was a whispered
colloquy. Uncle Timmie grinned by himself;
but hearing a name, he sat up to listen. Aunt
Nash had forgotten caution. She stood there in
the kitchen, her little shawl slipping back from
her disordered hair, her hands trembling. Bar-
bara was in the dark corner upon the lounge;
but neither of them noticed her.
“They’ve come back!” said Aunt Nash. Her
voice throbbed with the burden of her news.
“Not Malory an’ she together ?”
“Yes, Ann. They took the arternoon train,
an' here they be. An Ann, what do you say to
this? Malory's married her, an’ they’ve brought
back a baby.”
P A R A D IS E 235
“You don’t!”
“Yes, it’s truth an’ fact. I run over when I
sèe a light, to ask if Malory did n’t want I should
git him some supper, an’ there he was, pale as
chalk, makin’ the kitchen fire, an’ the cat pur-
rin’ round his legs. An’ Lindy set there, as
budge as you please, an’ held up that baby to
me. Pretty little creatur’ as ever you set your
eyes on. She looked as if somebody’d left her a
gold mine. “Law, Lindy,’ says I, ‘whose baby
you got there P’ ‘It’s ourn,’ says she, “we’ve
named him Malory.’”
“You le me set down an’git my breath,” said
Ann Parsons. “You make me kinder faint.”
“Ann Parsons,” called Uncle Timmie, “you
come in here, an’ bring me some o’ them slops.”
She turned, at the summons, and hastily pre-
pared one of her cups at the stove.
“How is he P” asked Aunt Nash. “I meant to
come in afore.”
“He’ll come out all right if he’ll only eat.
Worries me to death to see anybody starvin'
themselves afore your face an’ eyes.”
But she found Uncle Timmie sitting up in bed,
his eyes blazing.
“You gi’ me that drink,” he commanded. .
“I’ve got work to do, an’ I’ve got to git my
stren’th up.” He took her posset, making a wry
face over it.
236 P A R A D IS E
“So Malory Dwight’s run off an’ married that
jade an’ fathered her young one,” he said grimly.
“T’ other girl was too good for him, but I’ll make
her independent of 'em all, consarn 'em!”
“Don’t you heed nothin’ that 's said,” Ann
counseled soothingly. “You shet your eyes now,
an’git a mite o’ sleep.”
“I’ll shet my eyes if I want to, or I’ll keep 'em
open,” said Uncle Timmie. “To-morrer, I can
tell ye, there’ll be suthin’ doin’.”
There was the sound of an opening door, and
another step in the kitchen. Ann Parsons, mend-
ing the fire, listened, and Uncle Timmie listened,
too. It was a timorous voice breaking the silence,
and yet charged with emotion of a worried sort.
“Nabby, you here P” it queried.
Aunt Nash’s voice in answer betrayed undue
exasperation.
“Yes, Jotham, I be. What you over here for P”
“I brought you over your shawl, Nabby,” said
Uncle Jotham. “I see you start off with that little
shoulder shawl, an' I says to myself, “She’ll git a
chill,” I says, “an’ I’ll start right over arter her.’
Nabby, here’s your shawl.”
“The land, Jotham! You’ve be’n an’ rooted
out my long shawl 't I never wear, sca’cely to
meetin’,” said Aunt Nash. “Well, it’s real clever
of ye, but it doos kind o’ try me to be follered
up.
P A R A D IS E 237
“Jote!” called Uncle Timmie, “Jote, you
come in here.” -
Jotham found his way into the sitting-room,
and Uncle Timmie regarded him with a smile.
“How be ye, Jote P” he asked.
Jotham stood by the bedside, his wrinkled
clothes a size too large, and an undue gravity
upon his face.
“Nabby had quite a bad spell some days ago,”
he announced. “She’s got to look out. How be
ye, Timothy P”
“Me 2 I’m as gay as a cricket. Nothin’ to do
but eat an’ grow fat. You don’t seem to be so
porely as you used to, Jote.”
“Nabby’s had a terrible sick time,” said Jo-
tham gravely, and Uncle Timmie chuckled.
“Law!” said he, “so long as you can keep
some kind of a disease in the family, don’t make
no difference who’s got it.”
Ann Parsons, lingering near the door, made
Jotham a sign, and he tiptoed forth. Aunt Nash,
her shoulder shawl over her head and the long
shawl folded over her arm, was waiting for him.
Her gossip had been spoiled, and there was no-
thing to do but go. Ann Parsons followed them
out to get a breath of the wintry air; and when
the kitchen was still, Barbara sat up in her corner
and, one hand upon her mouth, as if she feared it
would cry out, rocked back and forth in the dusk.
XIX
As soon as Malory had seen Lindy established in
her new home, he had gone out to the barn to un-
harness. Nick had been there, milking, and was
now, with an unwilling instinct of neighborly
service, just leading the horse into the stall.
“Much obliged,” said Malory. He glanced
round at the stalls, where the cattle were feeding.
“You foddered 'em P’’ he asked. -
“Yes,” said Nick, with a brevity of manner
greater than that of the word.
Malory stood in the middle of the floor, and
looked about him wearily. He put up a hand,
and, taking off his hat, pushed the matted hair
up on his forehead. His eyes looked tired, and
there were lines of weariness upon his face. Nick,
glancing at him, felt some of his anger die.
“I s”pose Barbara’s over to your house?” said
Malory.
Nick made no answer.
“You know whether Ann Parsons is gone?”
“Ann’s down takin’ care of Uncle Tim. He 's
tryin’ to starve himself to death.”
“Where’s Barbara P” Malory's voice betrayed
a quick alarm, and Nick’s anger rose the higher.
P A R A D IS E 239
The man had not protected her from chances of
misfortune, yet he was keeping the right to show
an emotional interest in her. But thinking that,
he held himself in check, and answered coldly:
“She’s down to Uncle Tim's, too. She’s goin'
to stay there.”
Relief passed over Malory's face, and smoothed
out some of its lines of care.
“All right,” he said. “But you tell her it’s all
right here, too. Tell her Lindy wants her to make
it her home with us.”
Rage came up in Nick and swelled the veins in
his face to angry prominence. He spoke rapidly,
in the tone of suppressed anger.
“She does, does she You 'tend up to a girl till
she sets her eyes by ye, an’ then you offer her a
home with Lindy. Have ye took Lindy here for
good?” -
“Lindy an' I got married yesterday.” Mal-
ory’s mind was wrestling with Nick’s accusation.
It filled him with amazement. He had no resent-
ments left to waste on anger. In marrying Lindy,
he had counted the cost of the public disapproval,
the public’s self-accorded right to censure, and,
swallowing his bitter draught at one gulp, he
could meet the moment patiently.
“After you’ve made her worship the ground
you stand on,” Nick went on, “you turn her out
into the street, an’ then you tell her she can live
240 P A R A D IS E
with Lindy an' Lindy’s —” He hesitated at the
word, not from prudence, but the decency of old
friendliness, and choking upon his phrase, went
out of the barn and down the path to the road.
Malory looked about and assured himself that
all his chores were done. Then he took up the full
milk pails, and went into the house. There the
strangeness of the atmosphere enveloped him
with a sense of home-coming, and yet to a place so
changed that his heart ached at it. The fire was
hot, and the table had been set for supper. Lindy,
her baby in her arms, sat in a low rocking-chair
near the stove. It had been his mother's chair,
where she used to sew, and where he himself had
been cradled, he well knew, upon a generous
breast. Lindy's cheek wore a flush of happiness.
Her eyes were bright, her hair delightfully dis-
ordered, and the baby was in a state of calm.
Malory, following her fond, inviting look at the
small face, glanced also, as he had not brought
himself to do, and immediately was sorry for the
child,—a wan little man, exquisitely modeled, a
snowdrop of the year, waiting for warm suns to
nurture him. Lindy read his glance jealously.
“You don’t think he looks rugged, do you?”
she asked.
Malory answered her gently.
“I don’t know. I never had much to do with
babies.”
P A R A D IS E 241
The look of terror that he had seen in her face
the night when she had fled to him for succor
stamped it again into despairing lines.
“It’s the town air,” she cried, as if she im-
plored him for a kindly verdict. “Maybe she
did n’t give him his food regular, too. You have
to be careful with prepared foods. We can nurse
him up, can’t we, Malory?”
“Yes,” he answered, with the same patient
kindliness. “I guess so.”
She laid the child in a nest of shawls she had
made on the kitchen lounge, and set the chairs to
the table. When the tea had been poured and
Malory was served with Barbara’s good bread,
Lindy sat a moment looking before her at her
plate. It was a silence like that of grace before
meat; yet she was only reflecting on her good for-
tune in having worked her will. Impulsively she
rose from her chair, and crossed the space be-
tween them. She bent, and gave Malory a quick,
warm kiss on his hair.
“You’re a good old man, Malory,” she said,
and went back to her place. “Don’t you know
you’re a good old man P”
He glanced up at her in surprise, and her eyes
were full of tears. But she was applying herself
happily to her supper, and in the pauses of her
lively talk he remembered how the wave of her
vivacity had always seemed to lift his heavier
242 - P A R A D IS E
nature and toss it buoyantly. Now he was to be a
looker-on while the wave beat upon shores too
far for him to reach. -
“What did Nick say?” she asked him, pour-
ing him a second cup of tea, and taking delight,
even his tired eyes could see, in that simple office.
The homemaking instinct was rising in Lindy.
When she came into the house, she was all mother.
Now she had a grace the more.
“I don’t know.”
“Did n’t you tell him what we’d done?”
“Yes, I told him.”
“What'd he say?”
“Nothin’ much. Uncle Tim's sick. Ann’s
down there takin' care of him. Barbara’s gone
with her.” -
“Where’ll she go after that, I wonder P”
“Barbara P”
“Yes.”
“You know,” he reminded her gravely, “we
said she must have a home with us.”
“I said she could,” amended Lindy, with a
laugh. “I knew she would n’t.”
“Why would nºt she P’’
“Why, you don’t s’pose a girl that was as much
in love with you as she was would come here an’
live with you an’ me! Not that kind of a girl, any-
way.”
Malory had pushed back his plate. He sat
P A R A D IS E e 243
there gazing at it, and then, lifting his eyes,
stared at her. She met his gaze for a moment,
and laughed, in pure fun.
“Oh, Malory,” she said, setting her white
teeth into the bread, “sometimes you act as if
you were born yesterday.”
But he was still looking at her curiously.
“Lindy,” he said at last, “what makes you say
that P” *-
“What?”
“What makes you say she set by me — Bar-
bara P”
“Why,” said Lindy easily, “any fool could see
it. I did, first time I laid eyes on her, the way
she looked when I mentioned your name. Then
that night — the night I come in here to tell
you the baby was sick — did nºt you see how
she looked when she slid out o' the room the way
she did P.”
“No, I did n’t see it.”
“Well, I did. I thought she’d gone to do her-
self some mischief.”
“You did P” He was speaking in pure won-
der. “You did n’t foller her, Lindy. You let
her go.”
“I forgot her,” said Lindy. She flushed all
over her face, not in any acquiescence in his re-
proach, but the memory of her anguish of that
night and the good fortune that had succeeded it.
\
244 P A R A D IS E
“I forgot,” she said simply. “I was thinkin’
about the baby.”
To his outer eyes she was a moving picture of
wholesome beauty, the vision of what the earth
can do when it creates life at a fruitful moment.
She got up, and, giving Malory's shoulder a little
tap in passing, went to the sofa and sank on the
floor there beside her child. Now he was asleep,
and she contemplated him rapturously. Malory,
who did not look at her, had already seen that
drooping sweetness of her form, and his tired eyes
pictured it to themselves. She rose, with noiseless
grace, and came back to clear the table.
“He ain’t goin’ to be sick,” she said, her voice
throbbing upon the words. “We can save him,
Malory.” Presently she halted, on the way to the
sink, a pile of dishes in her hand. “Malory,” she
asked, “ain’t your old cradle some'er's round
here P”
“It’s up attic, I guess. I’ll see if I can find it.”
With the same air of preoccupied calm he rose,
lighted a lamp, and went up the stairs. Lindy
cleared off the table and did her dishes with an
exaggerated caution, lest she wake the baby.
She opened doors here and there, as the thought
seized her, and glanced at china she remembered,
things Clary might have inherited, but that were
now hers alone. A sense of well-being was upon
her, and her heart was soft toward Malory be-
P A R A D IS E 245
cause he had not failed her. Before the baby
came she had perhaps never felt gratitude to any-
body, because, whatever service might be done
her, she always saw the possibility of buying a
greater one, when she might need it, by her per-
suasive charm. The child had remade her world.
It was not a pleasure ground any more. It was a
nest where a frail young heart could beat. And
now Malory, also, had pledged himself to guard it.
Malory was gone a long time, and when he
came down again, he bore the wooden cradle.
He set it by the fire, and straightened himself.
“Heavy Pº asked Lindy cheerfully, but he
could not answer. Some inward weariness, not to
be translated even to himself, made the burden
grievous. It was a symbol of the pack he must
bear, in the face of men, to his dying day. She
was bending over the cradle, a hand upon its
hood, rocking it back and forth in a mixture of
mirth and tenderness.
“It’s a queer old thing, ain’t it?” she laughed.
“Well, I guess we can line it so ‘t’ll be soft
enough.”
“I’ve made up a fire in the long chamber,”
said Malory. “I thought you’d rather have that.
It’s over the kitchen, so 't’ll be warm.”
She looked at him frankly.
“I thought maybe we’d have Clary's room,”
she said.
246 P A R A D IS E
“No,” returned Malory slowly. “I guess the
long room’s better. It’s good an' warm. I found
some sheets an’ piller-cases in the press there.
Mebbeyou’d better go up an’ hang’em to the fire.”
When she had gone he stood where she had
left him, the cradle at his feet, and the alien child
a breathing presence in the room. He still had
the feeling of carrying heavy weight, and of hav-
ing sworn to carry it as long as he should live.
No regret was in his mind. The allegiance he felt
for Lindy left no room for that. Nor did he split
phrases to assure himself that this was love he
was fulfilling with her. It was only as if he had a
task to do, to which he had been prejudged from
a long time before, and found very dark and
heavy weather to do it in.
By and by Lindy came back, and then, having
fed the child with an anxious care, and much
measuring and warming of the prepared food her
own traditions told her to distrust, snuggled her
baby into her arms, and looked up at Malory
Smilingly.
“Now,” she said, “we’ll go.”
He took the lamp, and went before her. The
chamber was warm, and he threw on another log
of wood, and looked about the room in careful
questioning.
“There, I guess that’s as well as we can do,”
said he. “Good-night.”
PARAD Is E 247
Lindy had laid the child down in the hollow of
two pillows, and turned to him. She had flushed.
Her eyes looked humid.
“Good-night,” he said again. He crossed the
room to her, and bent to kiss her. She held up her
lips eagerly, and for an instant put a hand upon
his arm. But he withdrew from it gently, and
went out, closing the door behind him. She heard
his steps going down the stairs, and then, when
the clock below struck midnight, mounting again
to his own room.
XX
THERE were, as Uncle Timmie had predicted,
great doings at his house the next day. The doc-
tor was sent for, by his mandate, and the justice
from the town. They met at his bedside, and he
protested eagerly to the man of law that he was
in his right mind, and begged the doctor for con-
firmation. The doctor agreed with him cheer-
fully. There was nothing the matter with Uncle
Timmie, he owned, save that he was run down.
“Been starving yourself a little, I guess,” he
added, primed by Ann.
Uncle Timmie merely looked his scorn.
“Bah!” he said, and snapped his fingers at
the profession. But he told the justice clearly
what he wanted. He had meant to make Barbara
his heir, but he had decided to transfer his pro-
perty to her now in his lifetime. The country jus-
tice looked curious over the project, and asked
who Barbara was; but Uncle Timmie seemed at
the moment to have no particular interest in her,
nor to know whether she was in the house, or the
town, even. She might have been a name he had
selected for the disposal of what was his.
Barbara, in the crowding of the house, had
P A R A D IS E 249
gone out for a walk. It was January now, and the
full sunlight brought a promise. She stood a mo-
ment in the road, looking at the brown bushes
pricking through the snow, and suddenly pos-
sessed by the thought of spring. It was the recur-
rent joy of her life, the burgeoning of the year,
whether she met it half-way in country roads or
found it in the softened air and rising gayety of
town life, when Benedict and she had gone there
to ply their tawdry trade. Her heart lifted briefly
from its trouble of the night before, and she
breathed the clear air with some renewal of that
recognition of mere life that is most like grati-
tude. A man was walking rapidly along the road.
She looked at him idly, and then with unreason-
ing alarm. It was Malory, and seeing that, she
started on, neither to meet him nor await him
there. But an inward prescience told her that he
was coming in search of her. She might walk
away from him, but he would overtake her.
Presently, when his steps were quick on the
snow, he called her, and she turned. At once her
heart went out to him. Though he was smiling at
her, in that kindliness she knew, his eyes were un-
changing in their weariness. There were new lines
about them, she thought, new marks of sleepless
thought upon his forehead. He came nearer and
held out his hand. She gave him hers, frankly,
and smiled back at him. *
250 P A R A D IS E
“I was comin’ to see you,” he said. “I’ll go
along a step.”
They turned together, and for a moment
walked in silence. Then he spoke, with the grave
simplicity she liked in him.
“I did nºt mean you should go away, Barbara.
What made you go?”
“Uncle Timmie's sick,” she responded.
“Yes, but he’s got Ann Parsons. You know
how things are now, over at the house.”
“Yes,” she answered, in a full tone. “I’m real
glad for you.”
He ignored that.
“What I want to say is,” he went on, frowning
over the difficulty of the thing, “you ain’t goin’
to be turned out o' house an' home. She wants
you there. Lindy wants you. She sees it jest as I
do, Barbara.”
She was looking straight forward into the bril-
liant landscape. His words did not stir her, save
with warm pity of him, and a wish to make his
difficult way even a little smoother. Lindy seemed
far away and ineffectual,—a creature who had
wrought great issues, so far as they concerned
her, but with whom she had nevertheless no per-
sonal bond, nor ever should have. In the moment
of his speaking, there came upon her again some-
thing of her old fate feeling, — only now, perhaps
born out of the pity in her heart, a little uplift
P A R A D IS E 251
of hope mixed with it. Life seemed under the
sway of great forces, the planets, or greater than
the planets, only curiously not now at the mercy
of them. Malory's tie with Lindy appeared to her
as something he could fulfill, perhaps throughout
an earthly destiny, to escape from it on another
star; or, if he and Lindy together bound them-
selves to the task of working it out to another
end, he might find her blessed to him. All these
thoughts seemed to come from her desire that
creatures should be happy, and so far as she
had known the injustice of circumstance, there
was no possible road to happiness save the pa-
tience of well-doing. That must be the road.
That must be the end so hungered for. Suddenly
she was aware that she must have been silent too
long a time, for he was asking her again:
“Can’t you come back an’ try it, Barbara P
She’d be real good to you.”
“I don’t doubt that,” she answered, starting
out of her dream. “But it’s better not, Malory.
It’s better for you and her to begin living to-
gether” – she hesitated a second — “just like
other folks. I shall stay a spell at Uncle Tim-
mie's. He’s real good about it. Then when Ann
Parsons goes — well, we can all make up our
minds.”
“You’ll come then,” he said, quite eagerly.
“I’ll tell her you’ll come.”
252 P A R A D IS E
“We’ll see,” said Barbara, and he was soothed,
as she meant he should be. Things were too hard
for him, her instinct told her, for her to impose
her fraction of trouble also. That was not for
mortal mind to simplify. It was between her
and what she called the stars. He stopped, and
again held out his hand.
“Well,” he said, “I feel better now I’ve seen
you. I’ll go back along.”
There were many things he had not hoped to
say, but yet had come miserably forth to make
right with her if he could. Looking at her, his
sad eyes humid with the memory of them, he
realized that they could never be said, nor should
they be remembered. How to say to a woman,
“Is it true you love me? What can I do to make
the wound less deep P” Nor could he tell her how
sacredly she lived apart in his life, the peer of his
dead sister, in a solemn fealty. But, in some way
not to be explained, he was comforted. He felt
she knew, not perhaps all he would have sacri-
ficed for her, but the warmth of his well-wishing.
She was looking at him, her lips trembling a
little, her hand in his. She spoke in the old for-
mula of her trade, because there were no other
words to express her voiceless yearning:
“It’s going to be all right.”
Then they parted, and he turned homeward.
Barbara went on, seeing no more of the snowy
P A R A D IS E 253
landscape or the bright day, her vision all within.
Hemmed in by destiny, her soul seemed beating
its life out against bars in a deathless determina-
tion to reach the sky its eyes had never seen, save
for a moment. When she met Malory first, some-
thing had bloomed and fructified within her. She
was no longer the same creature, nor could she
ever be the same. She was a woman now, as old
in some ways, in spite of her outer freshness, as
she might be at eighty. She had eaten of know-
ledge, the certainty of the ecstasies of life and the
bitterness at the bottom of every rapture-giving
cup. There was no hope within her that she could
ever drink from another spring like this. She did
not look for the reconstruction of her world. As
to the anchorite in the desert, who has had one
vision, the desert still stretched illimitable, and
there was no reason for thinking the dream would
ever come again. But since it had been there,
since with her bodily eyes she had seen it, she
knew it was possible for somebody, not as a
vision, but a certainty to abide. For Malory,
she felt chiefly now an aching sense of his dear-
ness, of his familiarity, the conviction that makes
those we love seem, in spite of their wanderings
from us, to be unalterably our own. In a pas-
sion of innocent devotion, she felt he must be
good, he must be happy. She set her mind
upon it.
254 P A R A D IS E
When she got home that day the house was
still. Doctor and justice had gone, and Ann was
only waiting for her to sit with Uncle Timmie
that she might go over to Malory’s and pack up
some clothes.
“Give him a half a cup o' this at leven,” she
ordered, pointing out one of her decoctions. “I
would n’t go in till then, unless he calls ye. Let
him rest a mite.”
She was no sooner out of the door than Uncle
Timmie's voice rose imperatively.
“Barbara, you come in here.”
She found him bright-eyed and flushed, and, to
her ignorant estimate, the better for that false
brilliancy.
“What do you think?” he began eagerly.
“I’m as poor as I was when I come into the
world. I’ve made over all my property.”
“Have you?”
“Yes. I says to myself, ‘Why not git red on’t
now, an’ not have folks pull-haulin’ arter I’m
dead?’ But you stay here, jest the same as if I
had n’t made it over.”
“I’ll stay,” said Barbara. She seated herself by
the bedside, and rested a hand upon the quilt.
She longed to put it on his thin fingers, he seemed
so unfriended; but satirical shafts ever ready at
his command had bade her keep a friendly dis-
tance. He settled snugly down to confidences.
P A R A D IS E 255
“Ye see,” he went on, “I’ve took care o’ this
place now for forty year. I’ve washed an’swep'
an’ mended for it, an’ put p’inted papers on the
cupboard shelves, an’ as long as I own it, I’ve got
to have it on my mind. While I’m layin’ here, if
I see a mite o’ dust on the hearth, I’ve got to
crawl out o' bed an’ brush it up.”
“I would n’t be so particular.”
“Would n’t! How do ye know ye would n’t, till
ye’ve tried it? When I begun to live a righteous
life, I begun to fulfill the law. Every jot an’ title
on’t — that’s what it says — every jot I’ve ful-
filled. What’s ‘title” mean P. The headin’s P But
somethings I can’t fulfill no more. They go to my
stummick. They make me kind o’ squeamish.
Sweepin’s one. Dustin’s another. So’s doin' up
bosom shirts. You would n’t think I could starch
an’ iron, would ye P”
“It must be real hard,” she answered, again at
random, with a vague sense that argument was
bad for him.
“Hard!” And then, as if the memory over-
weighted him, “God sakes! I’ve put in bluin',
too. I might ha’ stood it longer if it had n’t be’n
for that.”
He closed his eyes for a moment, and she
thought he dozed a little. But when her own
mind ran off to other thoughts, he recalled her
suddenly. -
256 P A R A D IS E
“Don’t you tell Ann Parsons. Don’t you tell
her till a month from this day.”
“What, Uncle Timmie P”
“What I’m goin’ to tell ye. It’s suthin' I know
an’ she don’t. Make her mad as fire. One month
from this day I sha’n’t be here.”
It was as commonplace as if he had said he was
going to market; yet she knew what journey he
intended, and looked at him mutely.
“There! there!” said Uncle Timmie, not un-
kindly, “don’t put on that cut of a face. You’re
a kind of a likely gal, if you keep the corners
o’ your mouth perked up. No. I sha’n’t be here.
You git me that Farmer's Almanac up behind
the clock.”
She rose, and brought it to him.
“Open it. Open it to to-day.”
She found the date, and he peered at it with
keen eyes.
“There!” he said, taking the book from her
and keeping the date with one finger. “Now you
find that pencil in the back o' my desk, an’ you
make a mark ag’inst to-day.” She did it with
difficulty, because he would not let her hold the
book, but guarded it with eye and hand. He
turned the page. “Now you find a month from
this day. There! Now you make a mark ag’instit,
an’ then you begin with that day an’ draw a line
through all of 'em through the month to come.”
P A R A D IS E 257
When it was done, he gave up the book to her,
and lay back at ease. “There!” he said, with an
air of vast enjoyment. “All them days you’ve
marked out I sha’n’t be here. Mebbe I sha’n’t be
here a full month, but more’n a month I know I
sha’n’t. If we could stop to go through the months,
markin’ out, an’ through the year, 't would be the
same. Them days ain’t mine.”
“Oh!” cried Barbara. For the moment she
was angry. He seemed to have involved her in a
scheme for wiping him out of time. She carried
the book back to its place, and laid the pencil on
the desk. Then, with reddened cheeks, she sat
down again.
“You show it to Ann Parsons,” he chuckled;
“but not till I’m off safe an’ sound. Tell her I
knew more’n she did. Massy! she'll be mad
enough to dig me up an’ begin all over. You
know what’s takin' me off?” he inquired, with
one of his bright changes.
“No, Uncle Timmie,” she implored him. “I
don’t want to know. Let’s not talk about such
things.”
“It’s two things,” he went on, not heeding her,
“two things that’s stronger’n I be. One’s curi-
osity, an’ tºother’s bein’ beat out.”
She made no answer.
“I’m terrible curious about what’s goin’ to
be,” he owned, as if to himself. “I wisht I knew
258 P A R A D IS E
whether there’s another world — an’ my soul!
I’m terrible sick o’ this one. That’s the two
things. I’m sick o’ this place, an’ I want to find
out if there’s another.”
This time she did put her warm young hand
upon his.
“It’ll be all right,” she said eagerly, in her
formula of mercy.
“What’ll be all right?” he asked fractiously,
taking his hand away and folding it upon the
other that was used to it. She answered warmly:
“Where we’re going — after this world, I
mean. I’ve read things about it. They’re in the
Bible.” Then the words that had sounded so
convincing rose again to her lips, and she uttered
them raptly, “‘These sayings are faithful and
true.’”
He was looking at her in a weary tolerance.
“Ye can’t tell me anything about the Bible,”
he said disparagingly. “I’ve read it till I’m sick
an’ tired. I know all them sayin’s. “This day
shalt thou be with me in Paradise.’ Well, what’s
Paradise P. That’s what I want to know. You
says to me, ‘I’ve got a house in York State, an’
you come an’ visit me;’ an' I says to you, mebbe,
‘What kind of a place is it?’ Well, if you’ve got
any seem to ye, you’ll up an’ tell. So when any-
body promises mesuthin’ in a place they call Para-
dise, I says ‘What is it?’ An’ if there ain’t no way
P A R A D Is E 259
o' findin’ out but dyin', by gum! I’ll die an’ find
out that way.”
“Paradise!” Barbara repeated, not heeding
any word but that. Her cheeks were pink and her
eyes lighted, at what fire of longing he could not
know. “Paradise! it’s a pretty word, prettier’n
the New Jerusalem.”
“It’s all one,” said Uncle Timmie, tolerant of
her ignorance. “Some says one thing, an’ some
another. They’ll say anything to ketch ye. But
where "t is, that’s what I want to know.”
It was half-past eleven, and she slipped away
into the kitchen, and presently returned with his
drink. Uncle Timmie took it most courteously in
his hand. He made as if to taste it, and then with-
drew the cup.
“You git me a mite o' cold water fust,” he said,
and when she had gone, he slipped out of bed and
poured the gruel in his chosen place behind the
backlog. Barbara returned, and he took a sip of
the water with relish, giving her his empty cup.
“Water tastes terrible good, don’t it?” he in-
quired. “Now I’ll doze off a mite.”
XXI
WHEN Malory, after a round of outdoor business,
went home to dinner, many things were clear to
him. He had seen five or six of his neighbors. They
had made pretexts to meet him, one to bring up
an old question of schoolhouse repairs, another
to show a decoy duck he had been smoothing.
But it was all to gain speech with him, Malory
knew, to find out what he really thought of his
domestic state. Nothing momentous passed be-
tween them, yet he went back to Lindy convinced
that, for the time, until their marriage should
have become a dull story, he was outside the
intimate fellowship of the place. He had not
done wrong. He had merely done what was
Queer, and he must pay for it.
Lindy was even gay at dinner. She had hailed
the doctor as he went past, and called him in.
The baby was suffering from nothing, he told her,
but underfeeding. What had again exhilarated
her she did not tell: that he had displayed no
curious interest over the child. His attitude
seemed a pledge of the simplicity of life as it was
to be. Malory hardly heard her. His mind, un-
consciously to itself, was running on Barbara, not
P A R A D IS E 261
so much as a person he had just seen, but as
something that wonderfully loved him. Lindy
had never seemed to love him. She had stood for
the pleasures of pursuit, the poignant unrest that
waits upon the unattained. But in the other wo-
man, who seemed to him always half a child, he
found a pathetic well-wishing that, demanding no-
thing for itself, moved him by its kind simplicity.
The baby was sleeping, and Lindy after dinner
did up the work quickly, and then sat down by
the cradle and smoothed a fold of the little quilt.
Malory, looking at her with keener eyes, noted
her high color and the imperious happiness of her
glance. Lindy lacked some of women’s little
ways. There was no bit of work near her, to
take up. She was likely instead to throw herself
into careless attitudes, and doze away the time
until some gay interest called her. But to-day she
was too happy even for drowsing. For months
there had been retributive fiends upon her track,
but now it seemed again, as it had all her girl-
hood, as if this were a careless world where no-
body was going to make too great a pother over
small transgressions. She pushed up a tendril of
her hair, and turned to Malory. It was a charm-
ing look, over her shoulder, a look like a beckon-
ing finger.
“I don’t s’pose a man could see how pretty he
is,” she said challengingly. -
262 P A R A D IS E
“He’s real pretty,” returned Malory. But he
did not look at the cradle, nor at her, save with a
responsive courtesy.
“I don’t believe you’ve fairly seen him,” she
said jealously.
“Yes,” answered Malory, “I looked at him
yesterday.”
“But not to-day!”
“No, mebbe not to-day.”
His strange quiet daunted her. It seemed to
make another man of him. She included him in
her personal regard.
“Where you been all the mornin’?” she
asked, with a cosy interest.
Malory began slowly. He had some difficulty
in phrasing what he had to say, and it seemed to
him to demand careful statement. He leaned for-
ward a little in his chair, his hands loosely clasped,
and his gaze upon the floor.
“I saw Barbara,” he began.
Lindy yawned, and showed her fine white
teeth.
“What she say?” she asked absently.
Malory considered. He could not at the mo-
ment remember any definite things Barbara had
said to convey that idea he had of her great kind-
liness.
“She’s a nice girl, Lindy,” he essayed, “an
awful nice girl.”
P A R A D IS E 263
At once Lindy looked sharply at him. There
was a hint of emotion in his tone, something she
was not used to there, save as she called it forth
herself.
“What you up to, Malory?” she asked. Then,
with a headlong impulse unlike her usual suavity,
she added, “You like that girl! I know you like
her.”
“Why, yes,” he answered, even more deliber-
ately, feeling his way along the windings of his
mind, “of course I like her.” He looked up with
a vestige of his rare smile, the look that had al-
ways been to Barbara like the kindling of fire on
a hearth. “You must like her, too, Lindy,” he
recommended persuasively. “We owe her a lot.”
“What do we owe her ?” Her voice was quick
with angry feeling.
Again he considered. -
“Well,” he said, “she took care of Clary.”
“So'd Ann Parsons, off an on. You want me
to set by Ann Parsons?”
“I don’t know’s I could tell you what we owe
that girl, Lindy. I don’t know’s I know myself.
All I can say is, she stood by us pretty well, an’
she’s standin’ by me now.”
“Standin’ by you now P What do you want
standin’ by for P”
Malory was silent. Not to his own mind, far
less to her, could he explain that feeling within
264. P A R A D IS E
him of a womanly intelligence that prized his
well-being and would sacrifice itself to make him
whole.
“I guess I can’t tell you,” he owned, seeing
that she still waited. “All I can say is, she ain’t
had a thought of herself throughout. ”T was she
that said if we cared about folks we’d got to stan’
by 'em through thick an’ thin. Lindy, I can’t
dwell on it, but I feel as if she’s the only one that
knows how things are between you an’ me.”
“How are they P”
She spoke in a curiously quiet voice, watching
him intently. Not a line about her seemed to stir,
even with her breath. She looked like an animal
ready to slay. The question startled him. He
looked up at her, and their eyes met in a long
gaze, terrifying to them both. She saw less than
he, but the look told her that her power was gone.
For some reason her intelligence could not divine,
he was no longer the soft-hearted creature suing
for her favor and dumbly suffering when she
withheld it. He was a man, to whom she had to
account, as she had to account to the world, for
the child she had brought into it. For a moment
she suffered a pang quite unknown to her ease-
loving life, the agony of the beautiful body when
it learns that its hair can no longer bind, its
eyes no longer light the soul that has once turned
away from it. A strange terror seized upon her.
P A R A D IS E 265
Malory had always been a part of her equipment,
something to torment, to make use of, to try new
wiles upon, but something that could no more
fail her than the sun. But he was looking at her
with passive eyes.
“Malory!” she cried. “Malory!”
He did not seem to hear. His eyes had a far-
seeing look. Though they were turned upon her,
they gazed through her and beyond.
“Hush,” he said at last, as she called him
again. “You’ll wake the baby.”
But she had no thought, even for the child.
She was looking still at the man, who seemed
with every breath to be departing from her along
an unseen road.
“There’s some things I guess we can’t talk
about,” said Malory. “But there’s one thing
I’ve got to say. It’s about that girl. There’s
nothin’ between us but what’s fair an’ open to
the light o’ day. Only she’s kinder made me see
things. I ain’t the worse for it, Lindy. Mebbe I
ain’t better; but I ain’t worse. An' I shall be
the better to you.”
“But” — her voice trembled a little as he had
never heard it—“don’t you care as you used to,
Malory?”
He considered. The truth was beyond him.
He would give her nothing less; but it eluded him.
“I ain’t the same man I was, Lindy,” he said
266 P A R A D IS E
at last, as if he weighed his words. “I guess we
ain’t either of us the same. We’ve been young,
an’ now we’re old. There’s things that can make
you old, same as if they were years.”
She had bowed her head into her hands, and
now he heard her sobbing. They were honest
tears, and he looked at her perplexedly. She had
not been given to emotions, only to the sem-
blance that decoyed them forth in others.
“I don’t mean there ain’t goin’ to be good
times,” he reassured her. “I can’t say jestly what
I do mean. Only we’ve got things to do now,
Lindy. Why,”—he forgot himself in remem-
bering what would interpret life to her the more
swiftly, and, putting out his hand, he laid it on
the cradle, –“ why,” he said, “we’ve got to take
care o” him!”
The baby stirred, and finding no touch ready,
moved again. Lindy put out a hand and began
rocking the cradle, but too violently, and the
waking child rebelled, with a little cry. Malory
rose. He stood before her, overcome with pity of
her.
“Don’t you take on, Lindy,” he said. “We’ll
weather it yet. Lindy,” as the tears dripped
down her cheeks, “what makes you cry?”
She looked up at him, a forlorn face flushed
and sodden with its tears.
“I’m homesick, Malory,” she said.
P A R A D IS E 267
A pang struck him with new pity of her.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “You want to go over to
Aunt Nash’s or back — there P”
She was twisting her handkerchief between her
nervous hands, and the baby cried unheeded.
“I want things to be as they used to be,” she
said, with trembling lips. “You — you’re dif-
ferent, Malory.”
“Well,” he answered, with a grasp at cheerful-
ness. “Mebbe I shall be better if I hold on.”
Suddenly he stooped, and with slow, steady
hands, lifted the crying child. He took him into
his arms, as he had wonderingly seen fathers do,
and began to walk up and down the room. Lindy
watched him, with parted lips that hardly
breathed. He did not seem to be thinking either
of her or of the child. He was looking with unsee-
ing eyes, and his face had the sweetness of great
pity. The baby liked his secure nest. He quieted,
and then stopped whimpering. Malory seemed
suddenly awake to the knowledge that his task
was over. He went up to Lindy where she sat,
her tears dried now, her hands upon her lap. He
put the child down to her, and she held up her
arms to receive him.
“There!” said Malory. “I guess he’ll be
quiet now. Don’t you worry — dear.” Then he
went out to his work.
XXII
NICK was at Uncle Timmie's kitchen window,
and Barbara, rolling her sleeves down from her
dish-washing, saw him and went to see what he
wanted.
“Come on out,” he said. “The crust’ll bear
anywheres till noon, mebbe all day. I started
out over the fences, an’ then I come back for
you.” -
She glanced beyond him at the inviting day,
and at once got her hat and cloak. When she
stepped out of doors, the keen air was wholesome
to her. She felt the lifting of the heart that goes
with physical exhilaration, and, in spite of reason,
presages better things to come. The crust glit-
tered from a million crystals, and here and there
were little lakes of icy snow. They struck out to-
ward the woods a mile away, not talking at first,
Barbara breathing fast with haste and pleasure.
Suddenly he spoke.
“I saw Benedict to-day.”
For the moment she had forgotten Benedict.
Her mind had been with Malory.
“Where P” she asked.
“At the tavern. I went in to see a man about
P A R A D IS E 269
some pelts, an’ he was there, swellin’ round the
bar-room. He did n’t see me.”
“Oh, yes, I guess he saw you,”
quickly. “He sees everything.”
“Mebbe. Well, anyway, he’s there. You
marry me, Barbara, short off, an’ put a stop to
this tomfoolery.”
“No,” said Barbara, “I can’t do that.”
“Not yet?”
“No, Nick, not ever.”
“Why not, Barbara 2 I could make you like
me. By, George, I could!”
There were reasons, but she could not give
them. The bond between a man and woman
seemed to her an inevitable thing. All her dab-
blings in planetary lore had moulded her to a
patient belief in destiny, and Malory's love story
had confirmed her mind anew. He was bound, he
knew not why, to a woman whom he would will-
ingly have escaped. Yet destiny must be fulfilled.
Nothing had made him swerve from Lindy, not
another love nor a quicker sympathy. So also
must she herself fulfill her fate. Though she could
not say to Malory that she loved him, some in-
exorable fealty forbade her to think of another
man as she had thought of him. Nick was re-
calling her from her musing.
“What say?” he urged. -
“I don’t know, Nick. I guess I can’t tell you.
5
said Barbara
270 P A R A D IS E
Things like that can’t be changed by trying. I
wish they could.”
“You wish they could P Do you want to like
me?”
“I’d like it ever so much,” she answered hon-
estly. “I do like you, but not that way. I can’t,
Nick. I can’t.”
He did not answer, and his face, as she glanced
at it, had the stern lines of conquered pain. At
that moment, in her trouble for him, she seemed
to take him into her life, with Malory and Clary,
as one who was ready to show her great kindness,
and to whom she owed the truth. She stopped on
a rise of ground and looked away over the ridge
where a freight train left a line of smoke on the
clear air. The world, what she could see of it,
was all sparkle and gleam. It looked like a place
where there must be more happiness than the
children of men had found in it.
“Wait here a minute,” she said, turning back
to him. “Nick, I want to tell you something.”
“Yes,” he said invitingly, “tell on.”
She was looking at him with her clear gaze of
friendliness and sincerity. It seemed very easy,
out there in the day, to tell all sorts of things, so
long as they were true, and with no fear of mis-
understanding.
“Nick,” she said, “you must n’t blame Mal-
Ory.
P A R A D IS E 271
“I do blame him. There was a time when you
were goin’ to marry him. Aunt Nash let it out.
Then Lindy come along an’ whistled, an’ he
threw you over an’ run.”
“No,” she said, speaking without passion,
“that was n’t so. The time he asked me to marry
him —” She paused an instant, because old
happiness choked her, and Nick flamed out:
“Then 't was true. He did ask you!”
“Yes, he asked me. I see now ’t was because
he wanted to give me a home, and he thought
there was no other way. He told me — over and
over again he as much as told me — he did nºt
care about me; and he never knew I cared about
him. So he thought 't would be simple enough for
two folks that had n’t anybody else to live along
pleasantly together like — like him and Clary, if
she’d been spared.”
A question was on his tongue, but he could not
ask it. Her quick divining instinct asked it for
him.
“Yes, Nick,” she answered humbly. She was
still looking at him, her clear gaze steadying to
him also, like a hand on bounding pulses. “Yes,
Nick, I did care about him. He did n’t know it,
but I cared. And I thought he’d lost Lindy. I
thought 't was well for him to have something. I
knew I could keep house and be good to him—”
A spasm of pain wrung her mouth, and she looked
272 P A R A D IS E
away. But presently her gaze came back, with its
old suggestion of wistful truth.
Nick muttered an oath like a groan.
“You do like him,” he cried, with unconquered
jealousy, “you like him just as much as ever.”
Something flamed up in her, like anger even.
“Why,” she cried, “can I stop, because he
don’t want me nor ever did P Suppose his mother
was alive, and he had to leave her, to live with
Lindy. She would n’t stop being his mother,
would she I guess not.”
“You ain’t his mother, Barbara. You’re as
young as Lindy, an’just as likely, in another way.
That’s accordin’ to taste. An’ you’re breakin’
your heart over Lindy's husband. That’s all there
is about it.”
Terror changed her face, and she stood for a
moment brooding upon his words in all their
crude significance. They seemed to demand the
death in her of something she could not kill. It
would rise up, in spite of her, a pale, beautiful
ghost out of the body of slain love, more radiant,
more alive than when it had hoped for a dwelling
in the homes of men. A sudden smile flickered
over her face, and she spoke gently.
“I can’t help it, Nick. I can’t stop liking him;
but it’s not in any way you’d blame, or she would,
either, if it was understood. I don’t want any
part in him, except to help him along.”
P A R A D IS E 273
“What do you mean by that?”
He was looking at her curiously. Her words
were strange to him, though a part of him he
had never recognized, save in still hours in the
woods, perhaps at night, responded to them.
Yet she looked to him entirely wholesome, and
belonging to the earth as he saw it. There darted
into his mind an idea that hearing her talk was
like putting the ear to a telegraph pole, and lis-
tening to what seemed voiceless messages. It
fascinated him. Again he wished to listen. “How
can you help him P” he repeated.
Barbara answered in a low voice. It was a sa-
cred confidence. She knew he would not break
it.
“I try not to think of him. But every night
and every morning I say, “Please help him.’ I
don’t say his name. She might not like that. But
I say ‘Please help him.’” .
“Do you mean you — pray for him P” His
voice dropped upon the word, as if it made him
shy. *
Barbara’s eyes filled suddenly. She looked
like a child confronted with too hard a catechism.
“I don’t know,” she said. “I don’t know as
they’re prayers. But I say ‘Please help him.’”
They walked along in silence, and once,
mounting a ridge where the crust was slippery,
Nick took her hand, to help her. For a moment
274 - P A R A D IS E
after the ascent, he kept it, and they went along
like schoolfellows, bound for their according
tasks. But she was not thinking of him, as he
knew after a questioning glance. Her gaze fol-
lowed the distance, the fir woods, and the horizon
line. She recalled herself suddenly, and with-
drew her hand.
“I thought I'd tell you,” she said, in conclu-
sion. “I knew you blamed Malory. There 's
nothing to blame him for.”
“Well,” said Nick, temporizing with his judg-
ment. “It ain’t this nor that I blame him for,”
he broke out suddenly. “I blame him for bein’
a fool.”
“How is he a fool P”
“He’s let her lead him by the nose. An’ now
she’s done him the last ill turn she can. She’s
married him.”
“What makes you hate her so P”
“I don’t know,” he answered, as if it were cu-
rious to him also. “I’ve speculated on it a good
deal. There ain’t a feller in town except me that
ain’t run after Lindy, off an’ on. Mebbe it’s be-
cause I grew up with her. I know her, egg an’
bird. An’ Malory’s made me so devilish mad
trailin’ after her an’ takin’ her sass for sugar,
— well, it’s al’ays riled me, an’ it al’ays will.”
“You’ve got to stand by him,” she said, some-
thing throbbing into her voice.
P A R A D IS E 275
“Stand by him 2 Where’s the sense of that?
He’s got what he wants. He don’t care a hooter
for anybody else.”
“Folks are talking about him,” she cried
hotly. “Ann says so. I heard her tell Aunt Nash.
There’s no comfort in it for him, Nick, - not
yet, anyway. He’s looked at, and pointed at, and
so’s Lindy. He knows it, as well as anybody
could tell him. Don’t you blame him, too, Nick.
You stand by.”
Nick made no answer; but she felt the com-
munity of their softened feeling. Then, as they
went on, her mind had one of its silent wander-
ings over the amazingness of it all. Old events
seemed pulsing back on her, to be judged by a
clearer mind, now that she had poignant expe-
rience of her own. The people who had come
to her, to have their hands read or their horo-
scopes cast, were no longer a band of childish
egotists created to earn Benedict’s living for him,
but a part of the innumerable throng all over
the earth who were in trouble and wanted to
escape it.
“How's Uncle Tim P” asked Nick suddenly.
“He’s no better. Ann says so. He won’t take
scarcely any nourishment.”
“Why don’t they turn it into him P”
“The doctor won’t have it. He says it’s
cruelty to animals.”
276 P A R A D IS E
“So 'tis,” agreed Nick. “Poor old devil! if
he wants to die, let him die.”
They had gone on over ridge after ridge of
the rolling land, and now they stood looking
down into the valley where the pines made a
softened dusk.
“We must go back,” said Barbara. “I must
help get dinner.”
“There’s a cart-path through the woods. We
could go through to the old turnpike, and so
back along.”
Suddenly she remembered.
“Is that where the pines sing?” she asked.
“Where you took Ann Parsons that night?”
“She tell you?”
“Yes. She said the trees were talking.”
“I’ll take you there,” said Nick. “But it’s got
to be night-time. They ain’t the same by day.”
She turned homeward, and he followed. When
they were nearing Uncle Timmie's barn, Nick
stopped, threw back his head, and laughed.
“What is it?” asked Barbara.
“I was thinkin’ what a game it is,” he said
harshly, veiling his emotion in a roughened
speech, “a game played by crazy men. Here
Malory sets by Lindy, an’ you think everybody’s
got to turn to an’ cocker 'em up. You set by
Malory, an’ so it’s goin’ to be a kind of a reli-
gion with you to keep single an’ pray for him.
P A R A D IS E 277
Well, I set by you. What am I goin’ to do? Am
I goin’ to be contented to live my life alone like
old Tim here, an’ go crazy an’ starve myself at
the end? Is that all I’ve got to look for’ard to ?”
“I don’t know, Nick,” she said, in a helpless
sorrow for him and all men. “I don’t know what
to say — only—” The answer seemed to come
to her in a shaft of inward light. “All is,” she
said, in the country phrasing she had uncon-
sciously adopted, “we’ve got to do for folks.
And we can do most when we set by ‘em.”
“So Malory’ll do for Lindy, an’ you’ll do for
Malory, an’ I’ll do for you, an’ if I’m lucky
enough to make some girl I don’t care for take
a shine to me, she’ll do for me, an’ we can have
a kind of a grand chain of it, except nobody’ll ever
get any nearer anybody else. Bah! give me the
garden of Eden, an’ one man an one woman in
it, an’ good, wholesome ways.”
Barbara stood silent, finding no answer, though
her thoughts were quick. It seemed to her, too,
hopelessly confused, and yet a game that would
be played out somewhere to the finish.
“Paradise!” she said suddenly. The word
leaped from her lips of its own accord. It was
not to him she spoke; but he heard, and said it
roughly after her.
“Paradise! Barbara, look down there, way in
the Holler.”
278 P A R A D IS E
She followed the line of his outstretched finger
to the valley, where five or six houses made a lit-
tle settlement among acres of farm land. Then
she looked back at him. His brows were bent
and his lips set in a stern beauty she had never
seen upon them. He spoke again, in a musing
and solemn voice.
“The third house down there in the Holler is
the old Jameson homestead. That house was
built over two hundred year ago. Generation
after generation they’ve lived there, the Jame-
sons, an’ had their children an’ married an’
buried 'em. That’s somethin’ real. That’s
somethin’ built up, solid as a mountain or a tree.
Don’t tell me it’s better to go round prayin’ for
folks than for a man an’ woman to settle down
there an’ live along, an’ have their good times
an’ their bad times, as God A’mighty meant they
should. That’s life, Barbara. It’s life.”
It was life, and her inward voice confirmed
him. It was life for those who were so fortunate
as to have found their own true mates; but there
were others, the victims of an aborted destiny.
Other mansions must be built for them. This
she had not words to say; but she looked at him,
tears in her eyes and a little smile upon her lips.
“Paradise!” repeated Nick again. “Para-
dise! You talk any more about Paradise, an’
you’ll make me mad.”
P A R A D IS E 279
She moved on.
“It’s all I’ve got to talk about, Nick,” she
said, when they reached the kitchen door. She
smiled at him whimsically, and he loved her so
much, with all her exasperating ways, that he had
to return the smile. “You’ve got the Jameson
homestead. You let me have Paradise.” Then,
before he could offer her the Jameson home-
stead again, she opened the door and went in.
XXIII
WHEN dinner was over that day, Ann ran in to
see Aunt Nash and borrow “a mite o’ saleratus.”
Uncle Timmie heard her explaining her intent to
Barbara, and called, in his enfeebled pipe:
“You send Jote over here.”
Ann went in to him, her shawl over her shoul-
ders, and her cloud warmly about her head.
“You want to see Jote, Mr. Gale P”
“Send him over,” Uncle Timmie bade her.
“Le’me prod him up a mite. Ain't nothin’
likely to happen this arternoon unless ye make
it. You send Jote over.”
Presently, while Barbara sat by the window
of the sick-room, some mending on her lap,
Jotham appeared in the doorway, his large loose
bulk breathing its curious inadequacy to all the
needs of life. Uncle Timmie's eyes, in these days,
had so sunken in their sockets that one forbore
to look for them. Yet there was enough of them
to emit each a tiny spark. It looked sometimes
like malice, and again pure fun. He spoke in an
inviting cackle.
“Well, Jote, draw up a chair. How’s the
world usin’ ye?”
P A R A D IS E 281
Jotham advanced with the portentous caution
which is the due of sickness. He was breathing
heavily with his sense of the importance of the
time. Barbara got up and gave him the “grand-
father” chair, and then went back to her place
by the window. She knew Uncle Timmie wanted
a spectator, while he touched up Jotham.
“Well,” said Uncle Timmie, with some sharp-
ness, “how’s the world usin' ye!”
Jotham shook his head.
“I dunno’s we’ve got anything to complain
of,” he announced, though mournfully, “long’s
we hold our own.”
“Abbie well ?”
“Fair to middlin’. If she don’t have no set-
back, mebbe she’ll git up May hill.”
Barbara glanced at him, astonished. She had
seen Aunt Nash the day before, briskly about her
work. But she became aware that Jotham, with
a solemn relish, was chewing the morsel of possi-
ble ill. His daily fear for Aunt Nash was sweetly
mingled with acquiescence in what might occur.
“Ye know what I think, Timothy,” he was
saying, in a self-forgetful burst of fancy. “I
think folks lay abed too much.”
“Well,” said Uncle Timmie, “I dunno
whether they do nor whether they don’t. All is,
it’s what I’m goin’ to do, day in, day out, till I
work out my sentence.”
282 IP A R A D IS E
“Ye see,” said Jotham, “it stan’s to reason
if your blood don’t circulate, ye won’t have no
kind o' health. Well, what keeps the blood from
circulatin’? says I. It’s when ye cut it off from
some natºral part. Now ye lay your head down
on the piller, an’ it stops the blood in that side
o' your head. Ye lay on your left side, an’ it
keeps it away from the heart. That’s what I
says to Nabby. “You’ve be’n layin’ on your
left side,’ says I. ‘That’s why your heart’s gi’n
out.’”
“Goin’ to have her stan’ up, like a cow to the
stanchil?” inquired Uncle Timmie.
But Jotham hardly heard.
“I don’t rightly know what you’re goin’ to
do to put a stop to 't,” he conceded. “Mebbeye
could have some kind of a riggin' swung to take
some of the heft off the blood-vessels, when ye
lay down.”
“Haveye asked doctor P” inquired Uncle Tim-
mie slyly.
Jotham shook his head.
“No,” he owned, “no, I’ve gi’n up talkin'
things over with doctor. He don’t regard 'em as
I do. He’ll tickle right out laughin’, an’ then
where be ye?” He sat ruminating, for a mo-
ment, his large hands on his cushioned knees.
Uncle Timmie glanced from him to Barbara
in a satirical delight. He seemed to be calling her
P A R A D IS E 283
attention to a rich find, a happy exhibition of
oddity. But Jotham was speaking.
“Is it your opinion,” he asked, with grav-
ity, “that the blood doos go into every part o'
ye P”
“I dunno,” said Uncle Timmie recklessly,
“nor I don’t care. It can go where it’s a mind
to, for all me.”
“Queer how ’t is some folks don’t take no in-
t’rest in them things,” mused Jotham. “Now
there’s Nabby. I asked her the same question
this mornin', an’ says she, ‘Haveye fed the pigs P’
That’s what she said, ‘Have ye fed the pigs P’
Now Nabby's be’n nigh to death’s door, an’ she
may be ag’in any minute; but ask her about the
circulation o’ the blood, an’ much as ever she
knows she’s got any. Ain’t it queer how folks
are made P”
“There’s the doctor, now,” said Barbara.
Jotham rose in haste.
“I guess I’ll be gittin’ along,” he said hur-
riedly, and made his way to the door.
“You stay an’ see doctor,” called Uncle Tim-
mie; but Jotham paused for no answer, and at
once they heard the door close behind him.
“Where’s doctor P” asked Uncle Timmie.
“Coming up the path.” Barbara had laid
down her sewing and stood now, uncertain
whether to stay or go.
284 P A R A D IS E
“Doos he walk straight, head up, an’ shoul-
ders back?” inquired Uncle Timmie anxiously.
“Yes.”
“Hat on the back of his head P”
“Yes.”
“Then he’s full as a tick. My soul! I wisht
he'd ketched Jote here. We’d ha’ had sport.
You se down, Barbara. Mebbe he’ll want ye to
git him a teacup or suthin’.”
The doctor entered without knocking, and de-
posited his hat on a chair. He saluted Barbara
with a scrupulous courtesy, and then advanced
to the bedside, and laid a finger upon Uncle
Timmie's wrist. Uncle Timmie was watching
him delightedly. He knew, like all the town, what
liquor did for the doctor in stiffening his legs
and loosening his wits. Others were apt to look
on the spectacle with horrified acquiescence.
To Uncle Timmie it was merely a part of the
moving pageant of life, neither good nor evil,
save as law had made it so. The doctor sat down
by the bedside without a word, and regarded
his patient gravely.
“Jote Nash’s jest gone out o’ here,” said Uncle
Timmie.
The doctor nodded slowly.
“Jote Nash has just gone out of here,” he re-
peated, in his melodious bass, “trembling before
the decay of his body. Think of a tree trem-
P A R A D IS E 285
bling because the leaves rot in November. I
ask you to think of it. You and I, Timothy, are
different. We stand up straight until something
mows us down. Then we fall.”
Used as he was to regarding the doctor as a
humorist whose wit was commensurate with his
own, Uncle Timmie could not resist breaking
the flood of an eloquence he loved, to put his
haunting question.
“What becomes on us then, doctor P. When
we’re mowed down, what should you say be-
comes on us then P”
The doctor sat even straighter in his chair.
His noble head was leonine in its poise, and the
sweep of the thick hair back from the rugged
forehead.
“If I should bear my testimony in court,
Brother Timothy,” said he, “I should say I
was convinced there is another country. I am
convinced of it to-day, Brother Timothy, when
I am drunk. To-morrow, if you ask me, I may
be sober. God help me! I may be sober. If I
am sober, I sha’n’t know any more than you or
any other common man. But to-day I tell you
there is a country. It is for the healing of our
diseases. If we believed in it, we should be
kings.”
Timothy stared at him, perplexed. The doc-
tor too often talked, when he was drunk, in lan-
286 P A R A D IS E
guage plain people did not understand. But now
he spoke again. -
“If Brother Jotham knew there was a coun-
try, would he go round whimpering to save his
skin P If he thought he could slough off those
fat dewlaps and come forth a risen man, would
he tinker his rotten framework? No, Brother
Timothy, no!”
He turned his head slowly and looked at Bar-
bara. It was as if her gaze had drawn him. She
sat with her hands dropped in her lap, her lips
parted with listening, and in each seeking eye
a spark of light.
“Is it your opinion,” he asked her courte-
ously, “that there is a country P”
“Paradise!” she breathed.
He nodded several times, with a slow dignity.
“Paradise,” he responded. “That is the name.
A few of us know about it, the underwitted and
the drunk, or some like you,” — his gaze rested
on her for a moment with understanding, —
“some that have hungers and no food.”
Uncle Timmie was looking from one to the
other with a worried intentness, as if they were
beings of another sort whose secret he must
know. But he spoke testily.
“Why ain’t there nothin’ now 2 What’s it got
to be next week for 2 or next year P Why can’t
we have nothin’ here on this airth P”
P A R A D IS E 287
“Why!” said the doctor, looking about him
in a suave interpretation, “this, Brother Timo-
thy, is hell.”
“This,” repeated Uncle Timmie, “the airth 2
Then what’s goin’ to be herearter P”
“The other country,” said the doctor, smiling
upon him. “The country we’re speaking of.”
“Pox take it,” grumbled Uncle Timmie.
“Has it al’ays got to be so P. It’s a kind of a
poor arrangement, seems to me. Nothin’ now,
an’ everything herearter.”
The doctor leaned forward, and lifted an ad-
monishing hand. The slowness of his speech
lent him great dignity.
“Brother Timothy,” he said, “I am of the
opinion that this could be Paradise to-morrow
by mutual consent. We have made a contract
with one another to have it hell. Everybody has
subscribed, except a few, and we override them.
They want it to be different, and we nail them
to crosses, or we break their hearts.”
“Break their hearts!” repeated Uncle Tim-
mie. He looked aghast at the seriousness of the
issue he had evoked. “I dunno’s we break their
hearts.”
“Oh yes! we do that. I broke one. That was
my share. She did n’t want me to drink.” He
sat in a heavy stupor of the mind, forgetful of
them. Suddenly he started awake again. His
288 P A R A D IS E
eyes flashed from their deep sockets. He rose from
his chair and raised his hand, as if in invoca-
tion. “She’s there,” he said. “She’s there, where
somebody’ll take care of her. There’s got to be
a place for such as she, when lazy, drunken swabs
have driven 'em there.” Then he sat down
again, and turned a mild eye upon Timothy.
“You see, Brother Timothy,” he said, in the
continuation of a pleasant argument, “we’re
set here to learn the rules. We’re set here to
bloody our heads and break our hearts and burn
our hands in the fire; and when we’ve grown up
to man’s estate, a man’s country will be given
us. We shall inherit.”
“That’s what she’s al’ays sayin’,” said Uncle
Timmie, with a scornful glance at Barbara.
“‘There’s another country,” she says. “Where
is it?’ says I, an’ there’s the end on’t. An’ now
you says, says you, ‘You got to keep the rules
here, an’’t’ll be all right.”
The doctor rose. He towered in the low-
studded room, and his bulk was gigantic. He
spoke in a voice singularly grave and sweet. It
had a haunting quality, like music of another
SOrt.
“There is only one rule,” he said, as if he
read it from Tables of the Law. “‘Thou shalt
love thy neighbor as thyself.’ Only better, Bro-
ther Timothy, we must love our neighbor better
P A R A D IS E 289
than ourselves. Some of us don’t love ourselves.
We pamper him, the beast, but we despise him.
We must love our neighbor better.”
“You ain’t got that right,” cried Uncle Timo-
thy. “‘Thou shalt love the Lord thy God.” That
comes fust.”
The doctor stood pondering, hat in hand. He
spoke musingly, and Barbara’s heart responded
to the cadence of his voice. “‘Thou shalt love
thy neighbor as thyself,’” he repeated. “That’s
all, and that’s enough.”
He took his way out of the room without a
glance at either of them, and Barbara watched
him drive away. She turned back to Uncle Tim-
mie, and saw his face was ashen.
“I’ve got a kind of a sinkin’ spell,” he said to
her; but when she hastened to him with some
whiskey in a glass, he shut his lips the tighter, and
looked denial. She besought him, and the tears
the doctor had brought to her eyes welled there
again at his refusal.
“You take it, Uncle Timmie,” she begged
him. “I don’t know what to do for you, now
I’m here alone, unless you help me.”
But he shut his mouth until it made a firm,
hard line, and closed his eyes. When she was
despairing over him, the hue of life came back
to his face, and he opened his eyes again, and
looked kindly at her.
290 P A R A D IS E
“There! there!” he said, “you set that trade
away. What you cryin’ for P” -
She put down the glass and came back to
him.
“You make me cry,” she said. “You act so,
Uncle Timmie.”
His sharp eyes pierced her.
“You ain’t goin’ to tell me you set by me, be
ye?” he asked. “There’s two women told me
that already. Don’t you let me hear the sound
on’t. It’s wuss’n pi’son to me.”
“I do like you,” said Barbara, “because
you’re sick. Maybe if you were well, I should n’t.
It worries me to have you act so.”
He laughed a dry little laugh, and shut his
eyes again.
“You’re a good gal,” he said kindly, “an’
you’re a likely gal. Now mebbe I can git a wink
o' sleep.” . .
XXIV
A STREAM of callers came and went through
Malory's house. These were the visits due the
newly wedded, and he could not resent them;
but his eyes burned sombrely when he reflected
that the women were coming with such scrupu-
lous swiftness to see the baby. Lindy took it
like a hostess bred to social usage. She was cor-
dial and apparently happy. She received them
all without effort. Some of her guests, those who
came from a distance, were asked to tea, accord-
ing to the country custom, and entertained with
a careless freedom that went far to balance the
lapses of the table. Lindy was not yet a good
housekeeper. It had been understood, when
other girls excelled her in the making of pies and
the crocheting of edges, that her mind was on
gayer things, and no one thought the worse of
her. Now, when she only succeeded in bringing
forth a rude abundance, with no attempt at the
more exquisite ways of daily life, Malory told
himself that it would be different when she gave
her mind to it. But he did not care if it was never
different. Other fiercer pangs had wiped out the
human desire to have things as other men had
292 P A R A D IS E
them. Day by day he was amazed at Lindy. She
was gentle and acquiescent. She seemed to be
watching him, in a humble way. It gave him
discomfort. She acted like a pensioner with no
especial rights in the house he had given her, and
he even wondered at times if, fettered by her
fears for the child, she could dream her refuge
might not last. Again he saw in her the signs of
her old smouldering fires, when, with the child on
her shoulder, she walked up and down the room
as if it were a prison. She might well hate him,
he thought, for his apathy, his dull inability to
accept the cordial give and take of life, the com-
munion that makes things seem right when they
are wrong.
The winter was breaking. There had been
thaw after thaw, and the sun was high. The
fields were still piled with snow, but it was sod-
den under the surface, and full of little honey-
comb ruts.
One morning after breakfast, when Malory
took his hat to go out, Lindy called him. She
had just laid the baby in the cradle, and seeing
the faint pink dawning in the child’s face, her
own cheeks reddened.
“Wait a minute,” she said. “Malory, I’m
goin’ to ask that girl to supper to-night.”
“What girl?”
“Barbara. Ain’t she got any last name P”
P A R A D IS E 298
For some reason he was startled. Then he
considered.
“I don’t believe she’d come,” he said slowly.
“Oh, yes, she’d come. She’d be glad enough.”
“Well, maybe you can make her.”
“You stay in a minute,” said Lindy. “I’ll go
an’ ask her.”
She caught a little shawl from the nail, and
ran out before he could gainsay it. For a mo-
ment he stood by the window, watching her erect
pose and her graceful stride as she went down
the path. Then his eyes, as they always did when
he was left alone with the child, turned curiously
to the cradle. The little creature lay there in
a sweet content, his dark eyes staring into a
friendly world. Malory had one of his sudden
spasms of wishing the child could talk. Then
something might be explained between them.
The baby might, in the spoken word, demon-
strate whether he was to be a happiness or a
curse. Would he always pull at the heartstrings
with an appeal to pity, or would he answer the
gaze with manly eyes, and justify the suffering
that had nurtured him 2 Malory wondered at
himself whenever he looked at the interloper.
He felt none of the rage and jealousy that had
beset him at first, or, he would have said, might
have prompted him to kill. Yet, his inner sense
told him, he had not met the question weakly,
294 P A R A D IS E
or like a coward. Still less did he have the com-
fort of any picturesque decision. This seemed
to be a load that had been given him to bear,
and he and Lindy were carrying it together, she
unconscious of its weight, while the daily sun
shone upon her, and he with a recognition of
what he did. The man of whom he had been
jealous, and on whom he might have visited
Lindy's wrongs, had faded into a personality as
vague as the black cloud that generates the light-
ning. He had gone, and gone for good. Not even
a vestige of him seemed to remain in her unregret-
ful mind. But the child must stay, and until he
should grow up into health and some acceptance
of individual life, he would always extort that
passion of championship and pity. -
Lindy, on her way to Uncle Timmie's, held
her head gaily and whistled a little, in a boyish
fashion. The sun ran so high that it put into
her the desire to conquer, to turn life again into
action. She had brooded for weeks over the
change in Malory. Her slightest word did not
now avail to move him, gently yielding as he
was to her comfort and her pleasure. He had,
in a sense, escaped her, while he bound himself
to her, and her angry hurt resolved itself into a
consuming curiosity over Barbara. She walked
into Uncle Timmie's kitchen, and found Bar-
bara alone, moulding bread. With a quick eye,
P A R A D IS E 295
Lindy estimated her as of no great consequence.
She saw that she was exquisitely neat, but it
struck her only that she was prim. Barbara’s eyes
widened at sight of her. A question leaped from
them, and Lindy met it at once with a smile.
“I came in to ask you if you’d take tea with
us to-night,” she said.
Barbara paused, one hand upon the moving
dough.
“I don’t believe I can,” she faltered. “Thank
you ever so much.”
“You have n’t been in since we were mar-
ried,” said Lindy. “I shall take it real hard if
you don’t call.”
Ann Parsons came out from Uncle Timmie's
room, and gave Lindy a grudging nod. She had
spent confidential hours with Aunt Nash that
winter, and sex championship was strong in her.
“I’ve been inviting Barbara in to tea,” said
Lindy. “Should n’t you think she might come P”
Ann looked Lindy over from head to foot,
casually and disparagingly. Like most of the
neighborhood women, she had wondered what
under the sun there was in that blowsy Lindy
to set men by the ears.
“What say, Ann P” flashed Lindy. “Speak
right out.”
Ann got the colander from its shelf, and
turned to go down cellar for apples to pare.
296 P A R A D IS E
“No,” said she, “I ain’t got nothin’ to say.”
Lindy’s eyes were hot with anger. The blood
surged into her smooth cheeks. Barbara, look-
ing at her, was fascinated at beauty in a rage.
Lindy had turned the force of that blazing glance
on her.
“Speak it out,” she repeated. “She won’t say
it. She’s too good. You do it for her. Spit it
right out. Be you too good to come P”
A quick revulsion swept over Barbara.
“I will come,” she said eagerly. “I’ll be glad
to.”
Lindy's rage faded as it had risen.
“Will you?” she said, as eagerly. “Come
early, then. Three o’clock, anyways.” She drew
the shawl up over her head, and snapped her
fingers at the cellar stairs, where Ann’s step was
delaying. “Don’t you listen to her,” said Lindy,
with the laugh that had helped to win her follow-
ing. “She’s nothin’ but an old maid.”
“You’re goin', I s”pose P” asked Ann, com-
ing up with her hands full.
“Yes,” said Barbara, “I thought I would.”
“Well, don’t ye let her git the better on ye.
She’s a kind of a Jezebel. You look out.”
Uncle Timmie chuckled from his room. While
these dramas went on in the kitchen, he was
contented not to die.
At three o’clock Barbara, her sewing in her
P A R A D IS E 297
hand, went out to spend the afternoon. She was
very pale, even after the little walk in the cool
wind, and Lindy, opening the door to her,
thought cheerfully that she was a poor atom of
a thing. There was little talk between them until
Barbara was seated in a low chair by the window,
while Lindy opposite, in the Boston rocker, swept
back and forth in happy leisure, one hand on the
cradle hood.
“What you got there P” she asked, when
Barbara unrolled her work. “Old Gale's
dickies P”
“I thought I could turn 'em in. They’re frayed
at the edge.”
“What 's the use ? He never’ll live to wear
‘em.”
“Oh, I guess he will,” said Barbara defen-
sively. “Anyway, I like to do ‘em.”
“What made you go there, anyway?” asked
Lindy, in her buoyant ruthlessness.
“He was sick.”
“Well, he had Ann Parsons. Why did n’t you
stay here 2 Malory offered you a home.”
Barbara felt the rising fear of the prisoner
about to be baited to his own condemnation.
She looked up at Lindy, and her clear eyes
showed pain as well as a great sincerity.
“I was n’t needed here,” she said, in a low
voice. “I thought 't was best to go.”
298 P A R A D IS E
Lindy's gaze reassured her. It held no mal-
ice, only curiosity and a frank natural interest.
Lindy bent forward to steal a look at the child,
and then, finding him deep in his after-dinner
nap, gave herself up to unalloyed absorption in
the hour.
“Say,” she began, “do you know what I
found upstairs?”
“No.”
“I meant to bring it down an’ show it to you.
It’s a yellow dress an a gilt crown.”
“Oh, yes! They're mine.”
“Where'd you wear 'em 2 To parties?”
There was a silence in the room, and the
clock ticked loudly. Barbara remembered how
friendly a sound it was, accenting the still hours
she had spent here, working for Malory. When
she looked up, her face was crimsoned from
the difficulty of the confession she had to make.
“No,” she said, “I did n’t go to parties. I
had it to tell fortunes in.” -.
Lindy clapped her hands noiselessly. She
gave a low, delighted laugh.
“I knew it!” she cried. “He would n’t let on.
I knew 'twas somethin’ queer. You’ve got to
tell mine.”
Barbara shrank back in her chair.
“No, oh, no!” she said hurriedly. “I don’t
do it any more.”
P A R A D IS E . 299
“That’s no reason why you can’t. How do
you do it? Cards 2 I’ve had it done by tea
grounds.”
“I used to read people's hands,” said Bar-
bara, in the same tone of low constraint. She
judged it better to say nothing about astrology.
The stars, in their power, were too terrible to be
invoked in these destinies. “But I don’t do it
now,” she added again, as if she pleaded for
release. “I truly never do.”
“Did nºt you tell Clary’s P”
“Yes, I told Clary’s.”
“Did you tell Malory's P”
“No, I guess I did n’t do that.”
“Why did nºt you?”
Barbara was silent; then, while Lindy watched
her narrowly, she spoke.
“I don’t know as I can say.”
Lindy dismissed that issue for a more vital
Oſle.
“Well, anyway you can tell mine.” She drew
her chair forward, and presented a pretty palm
not roughened yet by toil. “Which you want?”
she asked. “Left or right?” But Barbara did
not take it. She kept on with her work, setting
stitches with trembling fingers. *
“Maybe I can tell you exactly how I feel about
it,” she ventured. “Maybe you won’t under-
stand. But I’ve always tried to tell what I saw
300 P A R A D IS E
7 º’
in hands, and after all, I don’t know whether I
did see anything or not.”
Lindy had withdrawn her palm. She sat star-
ing, — a good-natured intelligence willing to be
convinced if this strange being could interpret
to her. Barbara went on. Lindy was the last
person to whom she had expected to explain
herself; but the call had come, and she spoke as
much to herself as to the other woman.
“I don’t know whether I saw anything in the
hands, or whether I guessed out something in
the people. Anyway, I told 'em all something;
and maybe I did harm, and maybe I did n’t.
But I can’t do it any more.”
“That’s beyond me,” said Lindy frankly. “I
don’t see what harm 't would do, nor what good
either; but I want mine done. Oh, come along!
We’re here alone. Where’s the odds? Tell it,
by hands, if you say so, or guess it out, or any-
way you want to. I’m 'most dead waitin’ for
somethin’ to happen. I don’t care what’t is, bad
or good. Now!” Again she thrust out the small
palm, and Barbara laid down her sewing. She
bent over the hand, not touching the tips of the
fingers, according to her wont, and then, ashamed
of her withdrawal, taking them delicately. She
hardly knew whether she were acting in obedi-
ence to the other woman, or from habit, or even
to satisfy some curiosity of her own. Mechani-
P A R A D IS E 301
cally she noted all the points that had been set
down in her text: the full ball of the thumb, the
lines and mounds. Lindy was excited, partly
with the newness of the occasion, and as she
always was at anything touching her own fate.
Barbara looked up suddenly, and, catching the
unguarded challenge of her eyes, felt the quiver
of her eagerness.
“I’m going to tell you just what I see,” she
said. “I won’t guess. You were born to be very
happy.”
© & Why p”
“You’ve got a good line of life. You’re going
to be well, so far as I can see. There’s no break
in it. And it’s a long life, too.”
“Yes,” said Lindy exultingly. “I’m real
strong.”
The elementary lore of the hand suddenly
failed Barbara, as if its axioms were wiped out
by a sponge. Something came on her like the
power of prophecy, her intuition rising like a
flood and sweeping caution to the wall.
“You can have a happy life and a good life,”
she said, “if you want to. But you’ve got ter-
rible things before you.”
“What have I got?” breathed Lindy. Her
eyes were large with apprehension. Barbara
had ceased to be merely a girl of no account,
with thin neck and black hair. She spoke with
302 P A R A D IS E
authority. The eyes of the two women met, Bar-
bara’s stern with the fear of what she was do-
ing, and Lindy’s obeying their command.
“You’ve got terrible temptations. You’ve
always been loved, and so you don’t care much
about love. You’d better care. Now you make
yourself care. You’ve always thought about
yourself. You think about something else now.
You’ve cared about good times. Give 'em up,
and go down on your hands and knees, and work
and scrub for them that belong to you.”
“The idea!” breathed Lindy. “Well, what
if I don’t P” They were equally under the spell,
she of the terrifying words and Barbara of the
potency of life as she felt it. “What if I don’t
— take care P” -
Barbara was looking at her firmly. It was
Benedict's own hypnotic gaze. She felt that she
must hold her questioner until they had finished,
and steady at the same time her own purpose.
“You will die in a ditch,” she said. The words
did not startle her, little as she was conscious of
choosing them. They ran into her head, as if
she had learned them for this set purpose.
Lindy's mouth took a rebellious curve.
“Have I got to die in a ditch P’’ she whimpered.
Barbara recalled herself. A smile ran over
her face, and her gaze broke into a wistful sym-
pathy.
12 A R A D IS E 303
“It’ll be all right,” she said, with an exquisite
kindliness. “You be good. It’ll be all right.”
Lindy drew a sobbing breath, and leaned
back in her chair.
“You’re just awful,” she declared. “Why,
you scared me 'most to death.”
Barbara smiled whimsically.
“I guess I scared myself, too,” she owned.
“There! that’s the last fortune I ever tell.”
The baby stirred, and Lindy lifted him, in
quick response. She cooed over him and fondled
him, forgetting the spectres of the moment be-
fore; and when he was comfortably awake, she
looked over his head at Barbara.
“Want to take him P” asked the mother.
Barbara hesitated, and the black look of dis-
trust came into Lindy’s eyes.
“You need nºt,” she said jealously. “Baby
don’t need to ask folks to take him. He’s got
folks enough.” .
Barbara looked very pretty. Her eyes were
limpid, and the color had overspread her face.
“I’d like to,” she said humbly, “but I don’t
know how.”
Lindy laughed.
“Oh, my!” she crooned. “Don’t you know
how to hold a baby? Why, you’re a kind of an
old maid yourself, ain’t you? There’s Nick.
What’s he want?”
304 P A R A D IS E
Nick came in at the back door, and with
an inclusive nod advanced to Barbara.
“You better come back home,” he said.
“Uncle Tim 's had a kind of a stroke.”
Barbara bundled her sewing into her pocket,
and hurried to get her cloak.
“You don’t need to go,” said Lindy, advan-
cing the baby to Nick’s face and laughing at his
unmoved look. “He’ll just lay there, same’s
he’s be’n doin’ all this time.”
“I’d better go,” said Barbara. She was hurry-
ing out of the door, and Nick followed. When
they were going down the path, he curbed her
pace with a touch.
“Don’t worry,” he said. “Ann don’t need you
so much as all that. It’s true about Tim, but I
thought I better come over an’ save your havin’
to set down to supper with them two.”
Lindy had a game of romps with the baby, and
then laid him back in his nest. The moment of
mothering past, she stood regarding him in a
steady thoughtfulness. What did the girl mean
by her ill-omened prophecy P. She shivered a
little, and shook it off. She looked back again
at the baby. Every day he was growing sweeter
in his pink perfection. The neighbors had ac-
cepted him. She had every reason to be happy.
Yet the tears blurred her eyes. Things were dif-
ferent. Some sovereignty had gone away from
P A R A D IS E 305
her, and she vaguely felt that it was no longer
easy to ask and have. She saw Malory crossing
from the barn to the cornhouse, a grain mea-
sure in his hand, and tapped on the window to
him. He set down his measure and came, and
she noted, in the moment of his entering, that he
cast a look about for Barbara.
“She’s gone,” said Lindy. “Old Gale's
worse. O Malory!” She went up to him im-
petuously, and raised imploring eyes to his.
“Don’t you like me any more ?”
Malory put his arms about her, and their lips
met. When they drew apart, his eyes were wet
with tears. But he held her gently for a moment,
smiling at her in a reassuring tenderness beyond
her power to translate.
“Dear—” he said, and added in a whisper the
name she had not heard him utter.
She repeated it after him, in a kind of wonder.
It began to dawn upon her that there were feel-
ings deeper than anything she had been used to
name. These emotions she had been wont to
stir seemed to have roots in earth she did not
know. She also spoke out of her maze.
“Yes,” she said. “Yes, Malory, I'm your
wife.” r
XXV
EvKRYTHING about Uncle Timmie's illness was
obscure, like the disease. He seemed to have
entered a shadowy land where no one could fol-
low to snatch him back again. The doctor left
medicine for him; but there was an indefinable
air of understanding between him and the pa-
tient. They had the mien of plotting a happier
consummation than that to which science had
bound itself. To Ann’s irritated vision, they
seemed to be winking at each other and, under
their innocence of aspect, still outwitting her.
She administered the doctor's drops, always
with a suspicion that they were feeble artifices
prescribed to blind her ; but more and more
Uncle Timmie was too cunning for her. No
patient had ever set her so beside herself. He
seemed to have had a slight stroke of paralysis;
but sometimes she even wondered whether that
were real, or whether, by inviting it, he had
brought on a fictitious palsy. One day, tired
of mild measures, she sat down beside the bed,
to reason with him.
“Mr. Gale,” said she.
Uncle Timmie did not stir. He was not asleep.
P A R A D IS E 307
She had seen his eyes open, at their sanest, the
minute before.
“Mr. Gale,” said Ann.
There was the flicker of an eyelid. She knew he
heard.
“Mr. Gale,”—she spoke tearfully,– “you do
try me most to death. Here you be dyin’ by
inches, an’ not the leastest thing the matter on
ye. It's enough to make anybody pack up their
things an’ leave ye to git along the best you
can alone.”
Uncle Timmie's eyes came open. Their sa-
tirical intelligence daunted her, like supernatural
rays from fading mortality. -
“You go, Ann,” said he. “You jest pack up
an’ put for’t. I can git it over twice as quick
without ye.” -
All her passion for healing arose in her, and
the tears came.
“I don’t want ye to die, Mr. Gale,” she im-
plored him. “I want ye to git well. You ain’t
got no ambition, that’s the matter. You let me
git more victuals into ye, an’ a mite o' my tonic.
It’s all vegetable, Mr. Gale. 'Twould n’t hurt
a fly. Nor ’t won’t interfere with anything doc-
tor’s gi’n ye. He’s said so himself. “Any case
you’ve got,’ he’s said to me, ‘you try it. Yes,’
he said, ‘give 'em your tonic. *T won’t do no
harm. Mebbe 't will do good,” he says. But
308 P A R A D IS E
there can’t nothin’ do ye good, Mr. Gale, unless
you’ll take it.”
Uncle Timmie seemed to have forgotten her.
He was listening.
“That Barbara P” he asked. “You send
her here to me.”
Ann went droopingly into the kitchen, where
Barbara, after a walk, stood warming her
hands. -
“He wants ye,” said Ann dejectedly. “If you
can git suthin’ into him, do it, don’t make no
odds what 'tis. I never had anybody starve to
death on my hands afore, an’ I hope my soul I
fiever shall ag’in.”
Uncle Timmie was broadly smiling, yet he
might have been in pain for all the significance
of the wrinkles about his eyes and mouth. When
Barbara sat down by him, he whispered, with a
great importance:
“I got the better on her.”
“Have you?” asked Barbara, at her gen-
tlest.
“Now, don’t ye humor me,” snapped Uncle
Timmie. “When I say I got the better on her,
don’t ye act as if I was ravin', an’ could n’t tell
t’other from which. It’s Ann Parsons I’ve got
the better on. She’s gone out o’ here with tears
in her eyes, because she knows she can’t git her
slops down into me. I don’t believe,” said Uncle
P A R A D IS E 309
Timmie musingly, “there’s man, woman, or
child in this township, or county either, for that
matter, that’s got the better of Ann Parsons,
except me. Ye see,” he explained, “she takes
ye when you’re down, an’ then where be ye?
But she ain’t got me.”
“You must n’t talk, Uncle Timmie. You’ll
tire yourself.”
“Bah! What’s that you an’ doctor said P”
he asked suddenly, “about tºother country?”
Day after day he had asked her the same
Question almost in the same words, and she set-
tled now, without demur, into her story of the
world to come. Sometimes it seemed to her, in
this weaving of old tales with new woof of warm
desire, as if but a day had passed, and she was
telling Clary about the New Jerusalem. But
Uncle Timmie was a more exacting auditor. He
would not admit a word of the Bible promises.
“There! there!” he would say disparagingly,
as if she were putting him off with spurious
texts. “I know them things by heart. If you’ve
got anything new, you can bring it for’ard.”
She brought forward everything that per-
tained to life as she conceived it, in its beauty.
There were days when he hardly seemed to hear
her homely rhapsody full of all the joys she im-
agined sweetest. Again he heard and acridly
interposed.
310 - P A R A D IS E
“Now what you want to say that for P” he
inquired, one day, when she had created a coun-
try of fat farmlands with ample fields and
houses with green blinds. “What do you al’ays
have houses for, an’ folks livin’ in ’em, two an’
two P”
“I think that’s nice, don’t you?” asked Bar-
bara. “There’s nothing I like so well as houses
and folks living in ‘em.”
“Why, that’s where all the trouble comes,”
he denied her, with a flash of his old spirit. “If
folks’d live alone, ’t would be well enough. Then
when the devil got into 'em, they could go to
bed an’ sleep it off, or break up the chairs an’
tables, an’ nobody’d say, ‘Why do ye so?” But
when folks tell ye they set by ye, an’ ye take 'em
into house an' home, an’ then they show what
they ’re made on, — did I ever tell ye about
her P” he asked suddenly, with gleaming eyes.
“Yes, yes, you did.”
“She was a jade,” he murmured, sinking off
to sleep. “I told her so. Time an’ ag’in I told
her.”
The next day, when he called for his sedative
of fantasy, Barbara made him a little safe house
all to himself on the banks of Jordan. Now in-
explicably he wanted definite names for visions,
and the Bible phrasing in which he had steeped
his mind proved to be the only way he had of
P A R A D IS E 3II
expressing himself or understanding her. It was
like an exile’s returning to the language of his
youth.
“Is it on Jordan’s banks P” he asked her, and
she answered:
“Yes.”
“Which side P” he insisted, and she did not
know, until she heard him murmuring the hymn
to himself; then she put the little house among
the sweet fields that are “dressed in living
green.”
“You said 't was on Jordan’s banks,” he cor-
rected her jealously.
“The river’s at the back of the house,” said
Barbara, at once. “You need n’t ever look out
at the swelling flood unless you want to. There’s
vines and creepers all over the back windows.
I guess you could n’t see out through them, any-
way.”
“Bugs in 'em,” grumbled Uncle Timmie.
“I’d have to keep sweepin' 'em down. My Lord
A’mighty! do you s'pose I’ve got to be as neat
as pi’son there, now I’ve fell into the habit on’t P”
But he woke again, after one of his lethargies,
to say with unction, “Though I should n’t mind
havin’ me a mountain ash. They’re proper clean.
The plums are red as fire.”
With her daily added knowledge she embel-
lished the safe little house that was all his own.
312 P A R A D IS E
There were clean maple trees to guard the gate
— Uncle Timmie would not consider the wil-
lows that fringed the stream, because they were
full of spiders' webs in August, and also, he told
her frequently, cluttered up with harps — and
a mountain ash beside the door. There was a
hedge about the house, dark green, and so thick
no eye could pierce it; and all the doors had
locks. Yet, in spite of the protecting shade, the
sun lay richly upon it, and in the neat garden
all manner of herbs grew miraculously in rows.
Whether Uncle Timmie liked his house or not
she did not know, or whether he had the vestige
of a belief in it. But his mind rested upon the
tale, as if upon the current of a gentle stream.
But suddenly one night, when she sat by him
and Ann slept in the kitchen, he opened his eyes
and spoke in a different voice.
“I guess I could have her in it, an’ not make
no trouble.”
“Who?” asked Barbara, bending to him.
“She used to pack up my dinner-pail, an’ send
me off to school, complete,” he continued with
difficulty, in that stiffened voice. “‘You found
your cap, Timmie” she’d say. “You got your
skates ? You be a good boy.’”
“Yes,” said Barbara, “you could have her.”
“She lost her spe’tacles one day. I found 'em
in the huckleberry bushes.”
P A R A D IS E 313
After a time he stirred again, and she bent to
listen. The dread that seizes the living at the
nearing of death was strong upon her. She was
afraid also lest he should lack something at her
unpractised hands. He seemed to divine that
in her, and spoke once more:
“Don’t ye call her. Le’s git the better on
her.”
Barbara’s courage returned.
“I won’t call her,” she said. “You go to
sleep.” *
Ann came unsummoned, in the early morn-
ing. She looked at him, and laid a quick hand
on his wrist.
“Why,” she said, in wonder, “who’d ha’
thought 't would ha’ come like this P”
Then the house, as it had been after Clary’s
going, became at once the meeting place of the
living, to do service to the dead. Neighbors
came in to clean and cook, and others drove
from a distance to ask when the services were
to be. It seemed to Barbara a pageant of strange
faces, an assemblage of eyes turned curiously
upon her, and kindly but interrogating tongues.
It passed, and in three days the house was in
its rigid order, and Uncle Timmie's walls knew
him no more.
Then one forenoon the justice drove over,
and asked to see Barbara, and after he had gone,
314 P A R A D IS E
she went into the kitchen where Ann sat turning
sheets. Barbara trembled. Her eyes were bril-
liant.
“What under the sun’s the matter P” asked
Ann. “You want the camphire bottle P”
“He made over his property to me, Ann,”
said Barbara. “This house and all his money.
He left them to me.”
Ann bit a thread.
“Well,” said she. “I knew that afore. He
told me on ’t himself.”
“Why did n’t I know it?”
“He said he told ye.”
Barbara went back over the colorless days.
“I believe he did,” she owned. “I believe he
did. But I did n’t think he meant it. Ann, why
did n’t you tell me?” • ‘ º
“I don’t meddle nor make,” said Ann briefly.
“What good would it ha’ done ye? Ye know it
now.” -
“I could have thanked him.” She stood, her
hand resting on the table, brooding over her
riches. “Ann,” she said, “what do you suppose
made him P”
Ann laid down her work, and in her turn
looked out toward the distant pines.
“Well,” she mused, “you was al’ays kinder
clever to him. But I guess 't was more’n that,
more’n he knew himself. I see it fust time I set
P A R A D IS E 315
eyes on ye. Anybody ever tell ye you’re a sight
like his wife, – her he had so much trouble
with ? Well, you be. He was bewitched about
her, but it did n’t last.”
Barbara stood staring at her, impressed by
the wonder of it, and then anew at the strange-
ness of her wealth. She put the questions the
justice had been answering for her.
“Ann, do you think it’s mine?”
“It’s gi’n to ye,” said Ann, with a kindly
roughness. “Whose d'ye think 'tis P”
“This house P”
“House an’ lot, an’ buryin’ ground, an his
bank book. "T ain’t no great shakes, so fur’s
money goes, but it’s a roof over your head, an’
suthin’ for a rainy day. Law, I did n’t know you
set by things. I thought you was a kind o' wan-
derin’ bird.”
Barbara had forgotten her. She turned, her
face full of passionate interest, and walked about
the room, laying her hands on the walls and
homely furniture. She touched the chairs as if
she loved them, and drew down the shades an
inch, for the pleasure of it. It was an incon-
ceivable state of things. She who had been
born to nothing, not even to a name, and whose
foot had been inured to wandering, had now
her little shell to keep her from the cold. She
opened the door and went out, because all out-
316 * P A R A D IS E
doors was not too great for such large wonder-
ment.
“Nick,” she called, not waiting till he reached
her. “Oh, hurry, Nick!”
He was coming up the path, his head down,
his shoulders bent. Ann opened the door and
dropped a shawl on Barbara’s shoulders.
“Don’t you git cold,” she said, and shut the
door again. -
“What’s happened?” asked Nick. He was
facing her as she stood on the doorstone. She
shivered with excitement, and he wrapped the
shawl about her. -
“Nick,” said she, “this house is mine. He
left it to me.” .
“Old Gale P”
“He left it to me. It’s mine. And the garden,
and all the land.” She looked beyond him over
the field that made the small domain. She
seemed a sovereign princess.
Nick also looked, but not at the modest little
place he knew. His eyes traveled beyond, to
the greater world where he had hoped to go with
her, if only to work soberly at his trade, and
come home to her twice a day.
“Blast him!” he said angrily. “Mischief-
makin’ old devil! He can’t even die without
settin’ folks by the ears.”
She looked at him, amazed.
P A R A D IS E 317
“Why, Nick!” she said. “Why, Nick!”
“Oh, I can’t help it! Now you’ve got a house
an’ three acres o' land, you’ll think you’re made.
You’ll settle down here with Ann Parsons — ”
“Yes,” said Barbara, to herself, “I’ll ask
Ann to live with me.”
“An' you’ll play house, an’ have a flower
garden, an’ swap receipts for cake, an’ think
that’s all there is to it. An’ time’ll go moggin'
right along, an’ byme-by you’ll wake up in your
playhouse, an’ find you’re an old maid, an’
then where’ll you be P” He had taken off his
hat, only because he was so angrily in love, and
the spring wind, even, was not cool enough; and
Barbara, her eyes drawn to him in surprise, and
then a laughing fascination, stayed there won-
dering at him. The earth and all its merry lures
looked from his ireful face and darkened eyes.
An end of his soft tie blew back over his shoul-
der, and the mother instinct in her made her
want to knot it for him. His face was flushed
with his mood and the weather; he was an image
of wholesome life. At that instant she caught an
understanding of what he had to offer her. It
was pleasure, pleasure in the earth and the rap-
turous uses of it, in the work and play that keep
man and woman like children new created and
set in a garden to make it bloom. Benedict’s
tawdry passion had been hateful to her, and
3.18 P A R A D IS E
Malory, as she thought of him, was all sadness.
But here was a creature full of daring, whose
tenderness would be like the dew, and the light-
nings of his love an illuminating fire.
“What is it?” he was asking her, in a trem-
bling tone. “Barbara, what makes you look
like that P”
Whatever it was, she broke away from it, and
tore her hand from the touch of his when he
sought it at her side. -
“Nick, be good to me!” she whispered. The
words were drawn from her without her will.
“Good to you!” he repeated. “God sakes!
what am I, if I ain’t good P Tell me what to do,
an’ I’ll do it for ye.”
One window after another in life seemed to
be opening before her. Now she understood
many things, not alone as she experienced them,
but as all men and women must. The pity of it,
of all the hunger that sharpens the appetite for
undesired food, the darkness that makes welcome
any light, was keen upon her.
“It’s because I’m so lonesome, Nick,” she
whispered, with trembling lips.
He stared at her.
“Lonesome P” he repeated. “Not two min-
utes ago you were on your high hoss because
you’d got this place, an’ nothin’ more to ask
for.” -
P A R A D H S E - 3.19
At that instant it was impossible not to speak;
and, looking into his face, the warm sweetness
of it, it was easy to tell him.
“I’m lonesome, Nick,” she said, in a quiet
voice that wrung his heart. “Daytimes when
I’m at work I forget it, but night times it comes
back. And when I’m lonesome, I could almost
like what you offer me, because you’re dear and
good, and you’d take care of me. But it’s no
use, Nick, it’s no use. If we tried it, I should
get lonesomer every day, and you’d see it, and
where should we be then P”
His eyes were full of a grave sweetness. The
fire had gone out of them. He seemed to love
her as mothers love, or friends, and it was sooth-
ing to her.
“Could n’t you try it, dear?” he asked.
“Mebbe we could make it work.”
She shook her head.
“It’s no use, Nick,” she said again. Then she
looked at him, her eyes widening in an uncom-
prehending terror of what she had felt. “I’m
going to tell you,” she said. “It can’t do any
hurt. Maybe it’ll do me good. Most of the time
I feel like — drowning.”
“Drowning yourself?”
“No, no. I feel as if I was in a deep sea, and
it was coming up and up, over my chin. And I
get my chin clear, and then it comes again.”
320 P A R A D IS E
He was studying her face. She showed no
terror now, but only a patient calm. Neither of
them could speak Malory's name, and yet their
minds were on him. Whatever Nick put aside
to think over when he should be alone, his con-
clusion was swift.
“Anyway,” he said, “there’s one thing cer-
tain.” -
She looked at him dumbly.
“You’ve got to have more fun. That’s the
way, dear. Did nºt you know ’t was P. When
you say you won’t marry me, I get my gun an’
tramp ten mile or more. You don’t get outdoors
enough. You come with me to-night, an’ we’ll
go an’ hear the pines talkin’. Ain’t it the king-
dom o’ heaven where there’s no marryin’ nor
givin’ in marriage? Well, that’s the way we’ll
have it. You run in, dear, an’ get warm, an’ I’ll
come round a little after moonrise.”
XXVI
NICK came for her as he had promised, and there
was something grave in his air, as if going to
hear the pines were a ceremonial. Ann coun-
seled Barbara to “wrap up warm,” and stood
on the step, to watch them.
“Why did n’t you ask her ?” said Barbara,
when she and Nick were in the road on the way
to the wood path. “She’d like to come.”
“We don’t want her.” They went along in
silence for a moment, and then he continued
moodily, “Ann Parsons is well enough; but who
knows when you an' I shall be together any-
where again P”
“But I’m going to live here.”
“You say so; but I’ve no faith in it. Things
have gone on this way as long as they’re likely
to. They’ve got to break somewheres.”
“Why,” said she wonderingly, “can you fore-
tell ?”
“Foretell!” he scoffed. “Nobody foretells.
Only it’s easy to have a kind of a feelin’ such as
the wild geese have when they start. I’ve got it
now. Things ain’t goin’ to last.”
It was a brilliant night, with flying scuds
322 P A R A D Is E
driven over the moon, and a tang in the rising
wind. In Barbara, it quickened something irre-
pressible and adventurous of great risks. She
was glad to be told that things were not to last.
Perhaps the old hurts were to be healed, and
keen memories forgotten. For a long time she
had been carrying her burden of trouble care-
fully, in the way of youth, clasping it to her, lest
she spill a grain. It was a species of loyalty to
what she had felt most deeply that she should
cherish even the hurts it brought her. But with
the night calling to her, she wished to barter any
remembrance for a sane belief in the kindliness
of life. They turned into the cart path, and
Nick took her hand to lead her. His company
was soothing to her, because now, she thought,
he understood, and, without being too much
moved by her troubles, was, in a sense, a par-
taker in them.
The wind was higher, and thrashed the upper
branches. Nick stopped to hearken, and looked
behind him on the path.
“What is it?” she asked.
“Nothing.”
Yet as they went on, she noticed that he was
always listening. She spoke irrelevantly, with
some unexplained wish to reassure him as to
her stay.
“I mean to have larkspur in my garden.”
P A R A D IS E 323
That loosened his tongue.
“I told you where larkspur was five feet high.
If you’d come an’ live there with me, it would
be yours.” She had no answer but the old one,
and he went on more gently, “I did n’t expect
to talk about such things to-night. It’s mean to
get you out here, an’ trap you that way. But
I want you. I do want you.”
This soft-spoken creature was more like a
fawn than a man. He was big and gentle. It
seemed a pity he could not be stroked, and then
bade to run away into the woods and find his
kinder mates. The thought of Clary was at once
as boldly present to her as if the girl were by her
side. She wondered if a new paradise made up
to her for a lost hearthstone with Nick. She
stopped, and drew a quicker breath.
“Oh, I’m tired of it!” she cried.
“What P”
“Tired of wondering if folks are happy, and
whether we’re happy ourselves. I’m so tired of
it.”
“There’s only one way,” said Nick, as they
went on again. He spoke quietly, as one would
explain to some one much younger than himself.
“The way is to get to work. Do you know what
I’m goin’ to do as soon as winter breaks P”
“No.”
“I’m goin’ to set my gun in the corner an’
324 P A R A D Is E
leave it there. Then I’m goin’ to put for Fair-
fax, an’ go to work. I told you I was a carpenter
by trade.”
“Yes.”
“Well, I’m goin’ to work. I’m goin’ to keep
my eyes on my saw an’ plane. I don’t know
what’ll come of it. I don’t know’s anything
will, - except money in the bank, mebbe, an’ I
don’t want that. But if you won’t have me, I’ll
have nobody. If you don’t want me, I sha’n’t
coax you against your will. I’m goin’ to work.”
Her heart sank, partly in trouble for him, and
partly, she knew, because she could ill spare
any one that loved her.
“Shall you like it?” she asked. “Do you like
your trade P” .
“I like it as well as anything that ain’t layin'
on the ground an’ thinkin’ about nothin’, an’
turnin’ into a weed. But that ain’t the question.
A man has got to stir himself.”
She had no answer for that, and now the night
absorbed them. They had come out to see some-
thing which did not yet appear, for the flying
clouds kept the woods too dark for discovery, and
the only sound was the movement of the trees.
“It’s no kind of a night,” said Nick at last.
“It ought to be as still as death in here, an’ then
further on, where the air sucks through, there’d
be wind enough.”
P A R A D IS E 325
He stopped again and listened.
“What makes you do that?” she asked. “Do
you always in the woods P”
“Sometimes.”
To her ear there was no sound, and the way
grew difficult. There were trees across the path,
and Nick helped her over them.
“It’s got choked up here,” he said. “I’m
mighty glad of it. Folks don’t come so often, an’
there won’t be a sled go through till they cut
down the trees for good. That won’t be in my
day. They’re mine. If you want ’em, you shall
own 'em after me.”
They had passed the fallen growth, and came
to a pathway miraculously preserved. It was
broad enough for four horses abreast. On both
sides were great trees, each naked for a majestic
height, and then spreading into a cloudy dusk.
The branches up there moved ceaselessly, but
not, as Nick had meant to find them, with their
subtle whispering. It was like a storm in that
upper sea.
“We’ll come again,” he said, when they had
stood silent, listening. “You can’t hardly be-
lieve what it is on a still night. We’ll come
again.” *
They turned about and went homeward, not
talking, but he, as Barbara saw, aware of some-
thing unexplained. After they were in the open
326 P A R A D IS E
road, he looked behind from time to time, and
when they were within sight of the house, he
stopped.
“You don’t mind runnin’ along by yourself,
do you?” he asked, still, as she could see, with
his mind on something afar from her. “I’ll stand
here till you get inside the gate. Then I’m goin'
back along.”
“Into the woods P”
“There’s somethin’ in there I want to find
out about. I don’t mean to give it a chance to
get away.”
“An animal?”
“Oh, a kind of an animal!”
She started on obediently. Then she stopped.
“Don’t you want your gun ?” she asked.
“I could bring it.”
Nick gave an odd little laugh.
“No,” he answered, “my hands’ll do.”
Then she went on, and he watched her until
she was inside her own gate. She found Ann
sitting by the kitchen fire, her apron over her
head, in a ghostly way she had, asleep. She came
awake suddenly, in the manner of those used
to being called for watching, and was instantly
herself again.
“Did you hear 'em P” she asked.
“No.” Barbara hung up her cloak, and sat
down by the window. “It was n’t still enough.
P A R A D IS E 327
Nick has gone back to watch something that
stirred in the woods. I wish I’d asked him to
come and tell us what he found.” -
“Well,” said Ann, “I’ll poke off to bed. You
fasten up, won’t ye P”
After she had gone Barbara still sat by the
window, vaguely uneasy, and aware of her own
excited anticipation. Something, she knew, was
arriving. Something would happen before the
night was over. Then, in a recurrent wave of
plain sense, she told herself that the woods, the
stillness, and the windy night, had moved her,
and tried to think of her bed. But instead she
hushed herself and waited. The wind rose and
the clouds went billowing across the moon, and
the moon, to her excited fancy, traveled so fast
that it seemed to sweep the sky. She kept her
eyes on it, almost fearing the recurrent darkness,
and breathing again when the light came. The
earth seemed very small, with the moon racing
so, only one of many atoms swinging and whirl-
ing through a wind-swept space. At last her
own griefs, also, were small to her. She had cast
herself into the life of the night, and sown her-
self there like a grain of dust.
A halting step was on the doorstone. It was
not Nick’s, nor was his the hand that fumbled
at the latch. She ran to the door and opened
it.
328 P A R A D IS E
“Barbara!” It was Benedict’s whisper. “Let
me in.”
He stepped in as he spoke, and closed the door.
She went to the table and lighted the lamp again.
Then she turned back to him where he stood by
the door, a strange pallor on his face, and about
his lips the signs of pain. - -
“Who’s here P” he asked, in the same harsh
whisper.
“Nobody.” Her nerves thrilled steadfastly.
She felt equal to any contest with him, even, in
spite of his uncanny strength, of thrusting him
out of her house.
At once he looked relieved.
“Nobody here P’’ he repeated incredulously.
“Nobody at all?” -
“Ann Parsons is upstairs. She’s gone to bed.”
“Whisper,” he said, himself whispering.
“Don’t wake her. Bella, you’ve got to see me
through.”
His foolish mannerisms were gone. Her own
distaste for him went also, at the sight of his
honesty and need.
“I’ve hurt my wrist,” he said. “I think it’s
broken.” He held it up with the other hand,
which, she noticed now, had been, from the
moment he came in, soothing and protecting it.
“I’ll call Ann,” she said, at once. “She’ll fix
it for you.”
P A R A D IS E - 329
“Stop!”
She halted, and he made a step forward. He
winced, and she saw his pallor deepen.
“Give me a hand,” he said faintly. “Get me
to that chair.”
She put her shoulder under his arm, and
helped him to the chair by the hearth. His chin
sank momentarily on his breast, and he breathed
as if giving himself the ease of respite before
another strain.
“I shall call Ann,” she insisted, and that
roused him. A glow of anger she had once or
twice seen in him leaped to his eyes. Yet it was
not so much that as the throb of nervous pain.
He swore at her roundly, and then bent forward
to her, and took a fold of her dress in his fingers.
“For God’s sake, Bella,” he said, “listen to
me, and do as I tell you. I’ve broken my wrist.
I’ve done some damned thing to my ankle, too.
Go over to Dwight's, where you used to be, and
ask him to harness up and get the doctor here.
He’ll fix me up so I can take the early train out
of this God-forsaken hole, and I can go into a
hospital, and have the right thing done. Go now.
Don’t let him stop to talk. Run!”
He was in a fever of entreaty, and she turned
at once to go. But, with her hand upon the door,
she innocently asked:
“Does your wrist hurt you?”
330 P A R A D IS E
Tears started from his eyes; they were born
out of anger at her dullness, out of rage and pity
for himself. He answered in a high voice, a snarl-
ing tone that frightened her; it was a scarcely
human cry in rapid argument.
“Don’t you remember that old woman that
had the stiff wrist, the one that owned the gar-
den P. She’d broken the bone. Some fool set it
wrong, and it stiffened. Good God! how do you
think I’m going to work with a stiff wrist? Don’t
stand there goggling at me. You little devil,
can’t you move P”
She understood. A part of his exquisite equip-
ment, trained nerve and muscle, the litheness of
the cat,and snake, had been endangered. His
excitement was at once reasonable to her, and
she ran out and down the path to Malory's. The
house was still and the lights were out; but she
beat on the side door, and presently a window
above came up, and he called to her:
“What is it? Barbara! That you? What is
it p”
She answered him rapidly.
“There's somebody hurt over to Uncle Tim-
mie’s.” It was not yet her house in her uncon-
sidered speech. “Can you get the doctor P”
“Who is it P”
He was shutting the window, as he spoke,
and she answered hurriedly:
P A R A D IS E 331
“It’s — somebody – a man that came along.”
“All right. I’ll go.”
The window closed, and at once she turned
back home, hurrying under the light and dark of
the flying clouds. Benedict was where she had
left him, his eyes closed, as if he were doggedly
resting. But he opened them, and they seemed
to her full of pain and terror.
“Has he gone?” he asked, at once.
“He’s going.”
“Going! Why has n’t he gone?”
“He’s got to dress and harness. He was in
his chamber.”
Benedict swore softly to himself, and she re-
plenished the fire, and put on a kettle of water.
She spoke timidly.
“Maybe Ann would know something to do.
Hot water on it, maybe –”
“It sha’n’t be touched. I’ll run my chance.”
There was nothing to do but to sit down and
wait. Suddenly the strangeness of his being there
at all in the night prompted her, and she asked:
“Where's your horse?”
“I did n’t have any.”
She opened her eyes wide.
“You did n’t have any P Did you walk from
the Junction ? Were you coming to see me?”
He stared at her in silence, and she said breath-
lessly:
332 P A R A D IS E
“Don’t! you look as if you’d like to kill
me.”
She could have put her hands before her eyes
to shut out his glance, but she would not, and
clasped them tightly in her lap. fº
He spoke in a cold meditation.
“I could kill you, if it would do my wrist any
good. I’d kill anything alive, this night, if it
would give me back my wrist as it was before.”
Immediately she was again sorry for him, and
essayed a futile comfort.
“Maybe it is n’t so bad. It’ll come out all
right.”
He was devouring her with his sombre eyes.
“All right! What do you call all right? Should
you call it all right if I played the fiddle as no-
body else did, and stiffened my wrist? I could n’t
play any more, could I? What?”
It became apparent that he cared inconceiv-
ably, in a way she had never thought possible.
His trade had been, in her eyes, a means of liveli-
hood. Now she saw it was a precious calling to
him, full of wonder, perhaps of delight, of the
throbbing devotion she herself might have had
for nothing less than a man who loved her. He
became a different person to her. It was im-
possible not to respect in some measure a crea-
ture who was moved so much by anything. She
essayed her meagre means of comfort.
P A R A D IS E 333
“When I cast your horoscope,” she said
timidly, “there was nothing to show—”
He stopped her short.
“That’s right,” he sneered. “I’m down.
Give me another kick. Bring in that damned
foolery. That’s the last straw.” -
She rose from her chair and faced him. Her
eyes were large; her mouth trembled, the lips
apart, with what it had to say.
“Don’t you’” — she caught her breath —
“don’t you believe in fortune-telling P”
He threw his head back and laughed harshly,
as if it were a small relief.
“Believe in fortune-telling! I’m not a fool.”
“But you taught me,” she said breathlessly.
“Yes, I did. And I taught you second sight.
I taught you to have an apple shot off your
head.” .
“But you made me believe in fortune-telling.
You made me believe it.”
“Of course I did. You little fool, do you sup-
pose you could have done it unless I had 2 That’s
your long suit, believing things. You could n’t
do ’em any other way.”
She sat looking at him in a daze, and yet not
seeing him. Whether joy or sorrow moved her,
she did not yet know. She had made mistakes
by her arrogant meddlings, possibly nothing but
mistakes. That was evident. Yet they seemed
334 P A R A D IS E
of no consequence, so far as they touched her-
self, beside the possibility that she was now free.
Waves of longing surged in her, and she real-
ized, in a passionate self-scrutiny, that this was
what she had always wanted—to be free. Even
perhaps from love — but her wandering mind
stopped there, and left its dim gropings for other
days and clearer vision. Though it seemed as if
there might be love so generous that it bound no
one, not even him who felt it, save to welcome
UIS62S.
“Where’s that farmer ?” Benedict was asking
her. “Why don’t he come P’’
“It is n’t time,” she answered absently.
He went on, as if it were some relief to pass the
hours in talk, but always harshly, always with
that air of showing her a reckless self he had
heretofore concealed.
“See here. You talk about fortunes. Do you
know what fortune is It’s bending, bending,
bending every twig and thread and hair to what
you’ve made up your mind to. That’s fortune.
When I was nine years old, I said I’d be as
good as the best of 'em. You don’t even know
who they are. I’ve read their lives. You call
me a juggler. You call me a conjurer. You call
them magicians.”
At once she knew.
“You wanted to be famous,” she said softly.
P A R A D IS E 335
His eyes were veiled in the scowling of his
brow. -
“I never got ahead enough,” he mused, in
his harsh self-justifying, —“I never got ahead
enough to invent tricks like the old ones. I
never 've had time to study up half the others
invented. I never 've had half a chance. Where’s
that farmer ?” He listened a moment, and then,
as he looked at the black window spaces, some
thought overcame him, and he shuddered. “Put
down that curtain,” he bade her. “Lock the
door.” -
She obeyed him, wondering, and he went on,
seeking, as he talked, an easy posture for his
hand, and with the other guarding it. “Do you
know what broke my luck?”
“You believe in luck!”
“I broke my luck by stopping here to get you
back. When I took you off the poor-farm, I did
a good thing for myself. You were a fool, an
honest fool. That was the kind I wanted. But
when you left, when I took my eyes off my busi-
ness to follow you, I broke my luck. God!” he
said savagely to himself, “let me get away from
here, and I’ll keep my distance.” He stared at
her grudgingly, as if she were a worthless thing
that had betrayed him to ill usage. He seemed
to be under an impatient necessity of explaining
her own meagreness to her. “I was in love with
336 P A R A D IS E
you,” he said, as if he scorned both himself and
her. “What's that P The man don’t live that
would nºt throw over a woman any day for his
work. It’s as dear to him as his right hand.”
He looked down at his wrist with a vast tender-
ness, a yearning terror. He set his teeth, and
spoke savagely through them. “I would n’t be
beaten. I swore I’d have you back. I thought
my work depended on you. I thought my luck
hung on never giving in. But it was n’t so. My
luck was in following my work. What’s a wo-
man P God!”
“You don’t believe in fortune-telling!” She
laughed softly to herself. He had smoothed out
some of the tangles of her mind, and unwittingly
predisposed it to a kindlier feeling. He was no
longer a creature of dark communion with un-
known forces. He was a man who wanted to do
something to put himself in line with his fellows.
That accounted for him. “It hurts you, does n’t
it?” she said impulsively, as he winced and
tried to find an easier place. “Let me go for
Nick. He's got a lot of common sense. I don’t
know what he could do, but he could do some-
thing.” She stopped, the word half finished on
her lips, amazed at him. Terror was on his face;
it betrayed him. He was not looking at her, but
at the curtained windows, and then the door.
His lips moved with his chattering teeth. He
P A R A D IS E 337
looked like a man dying of cold and fright. She
sprang from her chair and stood by him. Her
eyes threatened him.
“Who struck you?” she called, in a loud
voice. “How did you get your hurts P”
He answered doggedly:
“I fell.”
“Were you in the woods? Was it you he went
back to find P. Where is he P”
“Who?” His lips formed the word, but he
could not say it.
She stood for a moment looking at him, and
then turned without a word and took her cloak
down from its nail.
“Barbara!” he called. “Barbara, where are
you going? Come back, for God’s sake!”
But she had gone, and the door had closed
behind her.
XXVII
MALORY was at the doctor’s bedroom window,
knocking on the glass, -an established custom
when the summons was at night. The house was
a large one, unpainted and weatherworn, sitting
in a grassy hollow, and shaded, in summer, by
orchard trees, chiefly peach and pear. It was the
doctor's pleasure to buy new varieties of fruit
trees, and to treat them hardily. There seemed
to be something beguiling to him in reaching
out for saplings with delightful names; but once
they were in his own ground, he proved a cold
stepfather. There was no pruning nor nourish-
ing. They struggled as they could, and sent long
arms to the sun, vainly at times, because his
greed overreached him and he established crowds
of them under his eye. But when they failed
to bear, there was justice in his behavior. He
merely walked among them, the branches sweep-
ing his face, and said nothing.
Malory tapped on the pane, but no one an-
swered. After a few moments a window above
was thrown up and Mary Clyde put out her head.
She had been the doctor's housekeeper for many
years.
P A R A D IS E 339
“Walk in,” she bade him cheerfully. “He’s
in there by the kitchen fire.”
Malory knew what that meant, but he went
in. The kitchen was large, low-studded, and
black with time and smoke. A great beam
crossed it, and from that Mary had hung pewter
mugs and pitchers, to the everlasting condemna-
tion of the doctor, who hit his head against them
at times when discretion was not in him. Then
he swore at them pleasantly, and Mary laughed,
and all was well. A dresser full of bright pewter
was by the wall, and there was a settle beside
the hearth. There were tall iron dogs, and in
their black cavern flames were flickering down.
But the doctor sat by a plain deal table not far
from the fire. His lamp was bright, and a book
lay before him. Over that he bent his great
bulk and shaggy hair, like a Titan in the gloom.
Malory took off his hat, and essayed the im-
possible. -
“I’ve got my horse out here, doctor,” he said.
“I want to take you right back with me. A fel-
ler’s got hurt, and wants you.”
The doctor looked up at him with a mournful
gravity.
“Sit down, Malory,” said he. “I’ll read you
a few lines, Malory.”
“Oh, come along, Doc' I’ll get your coat an’
bat.”
340 P A R A D IS E
The doctor bent over his book, and read aloud
in his sonorous bass:
“The cloud-capp'd towers, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
Yea, all which it inherits, shall dissolve ;
And, like this unsubstantial pageant faded,
Leave not a rack behind.”
When he had finished, he rose and, not look-
ing at Malory, went to the corner cupboard,
poured something into a glass, and drank it.
This was his custom on the nights when his devil
got the better of him. He held it to be swinish
to sit with the bottle beside you, like a boozing
knave. These trips to the cupboard, the hourly
testing of his legs, kept him his self-confidence.
After he had tossed off his glass, he stood look-
ing at Malory in a defense, it seemed, not so
much of his own dignity as of all large and au-
gust things. He might have been an eminent
jurist standing on his feet to address the court.
Malory forgot his errand, and looked at him
with admiration. A colossal creature, he stood
nobly, as if his body did not share in the down-
fall of his will. His glance was challenging and
secure. He was not a satyr in his cups, but a
god fallen and yet master of his outward state.
“Malory,” he said, with a benignant courtesy,
“I don’t offer you a drink, because you are a
younger man than I am, and I do not put the cup
P A R A D IS E 34I.
to my neighbor’s lip. But I am drunk, Malory.
I am very drunk, indeed. It is abominable.”
He walked majestically to the table, and sat down
again. “Shall I read you a line, Malory?”
Malory put a hand on his shoulder.
“Come along, Doctor,” he urged. “There’s
nobody but you. Don’t leave a feller in the
lurch. The cold air 'll clear you up.”
The doctor leaned back in his chair, and re-
garded him. Malory retreated a step. It was
impossible to interfere with so majestic a per-
Sonage.
“You’ve got married, Malory,” said the doc-
tor. “I saw your wife.”
Malory was at once grave.
“Yes, I’m married,” he answered briefly.
“We’ll talk about that, goin’ along.”
“I want to talk a little first, about your wife,
Malory. I feel moved to say a few words. I have
known Lindy Nash for fifteen years now, ever
since she came here to live. The devil possessed
you, Malory, to tie up to her.”
Malory gripped his hat-brim and calmed him-
self. Experience advised him that the doctor, in
this plight, could not be held accountable.
“The devil in you made the acquaintance of
the devil in her,” said the doctor, in a genial
meditation. “What are you going to do about
it p’’
342 P A R A D IS E
Malory looked about the room for the old
coat and the slouch hat the doctor was accus-
tomed to wear on his visits. They were not in
sight. The doctor was musing.
“I had a curious time with Lindy, the other
day. She called me in to see her baby. Lindy
was made over. The animal in her — the ani-
mal that bit and fawned and tore — was changed
into the animal that defends its young. She’s
safe enough, Malory, while she’s got a cub to
nourish. She’ll stay by the fire. It might as well
be a cave, for all she’d mind. But she’ll stay.”
Malory stood there, crimson to his hair, not in
anger, but with a helpless desire to defend Lindy
from the eyes of the world. Yet Lindy did not
want to be defended. He knew that. She craved
only to be warmed and fed and stroked, and to
guard her young.
The doctor had settled to a night of musing.
He was genially hospitable to an auditor who
would be silent, as most of his listeners were,
for they feared him in his cups, as if something
invincible lurked under that half-somnolent as-
pect.
“You know, Malory,” he said, “they’ve got
the better of us, as to marriage.”
“Who?” asked Malory, in spite of himself.
He had not forgotten the stranger for whom
he had come; but the words appealed to that
P A R A D IS E 343
insatiable desire within him to understand some-
thing about the mystery of his own life, as the
fetters of his passion had determined it. The
doctor made an imposing gesture, with one arm
above his head. It seemed to include what was
higher than himself, and yet, like the sky, en-
compassed him.
“The Immortal Gods,” he answered. “That
is what I call them on a night like this when good
and evil are all one to me — the Immortal Gods.
They have made us see life for death, corruption
for immortality. Why, Malory? That the world
may be peopled. But I have found them out.
There’s something underneath we don’t know.”
Malory was not understanding him alto-
gether; but the intention of the words made his
heartbeat, as a child may be moved by the rhythm
of poetry he cannot read.
“What is it, Doctor P” he asked. “What is it
we don’t know P”
“I have an idea that they that love by the
spirit will profit by the spirit in the end. I have
an idea, Malory, that if you cherish that blowsy
trollop of yours, – Lindy, Malory, that’s what
I mean, Lindy, - if you stand by her and her
children, you may create a new Lindy for That
Day. The last day, Malory, the day when the
heavens are rolled up as a scroll. She may not
know it’s done till her flesh drops away from her.
344 P A RAD Is E
Who knows what will come to pass then, Mal-
ory P. For ‘there is a natural body.” He went
on, declaiming Scripture and Shakespeare in a
majestic medley, both elements too noble, even
so, to make a discord.
Malory shook off the spell laid upon him by
the time and the deep utterances of the drunken
prophet. •
“Come, Doctor, come,” he urged. “The
man’s waitin’ for you.”
The doctor shrugged forward into his chair,
and, with his great hands hanging loose in front
of him, went on musing in august phrases. Mal-
ory knew he could neither be stirred nor rescued.
He had perhaps known it at the beginning; but
it seemed necessary to try. So he took his hat
and went out, thinking a little of his mission, but
more of Lindy.
He thought of her a great deal as he drove
back under the clear sky, empty now of clouds.
Many questions crowded upon him, bewildering
in the darkness of his mind. He seemed to be
reaching out for understanding of the common
things that he had once taken as they came, be-
cause all men seemed to take them so. He saw
now that if he had married Lindy in the flower
of her innocence, he might have been wrong-
fully content. For then he did not know her. If
she had never deceived him, he might not have
P A R A D IS E 345
guessed what things were in her. The truth was
better. She, too, had been cut by the great sur-
geon, Life. She had tasted of forbidden fruit,
and now she knew its bitterness. Out of the bit-
terness had come something sweet, — her love
for the child, her gratitude, at least, to him. He
looked back no more to the young elysium he
once had longed for. This was not paradise. It
was a battlefield, where he and Lindy must fight
side by side. As he thought, his unquenchable
loyalty to her sprang like a fountain, and be-
dewed him with a rain of drops that warmed
and vivified. He did not know whether it was
love, as young love is conceived, or whether it
was something better.
XXVIII
BARBARA ran along the road, and turned in at
the wood path, following the way she had taken
with Nick. From time to time she called his
name, and then listened for a moment, and in
the following silence tried to quell her fears. A
certainty of evil was upon her, ready to be de-
fined if she could stop to examine it the more
closely. Now she called no more in the narrower
wood path, but went on, casting quick glances
to this side and that, her skirts brushing a fallen
branch and startling her tense nerves into a
tremor. And when she had ceased calling, a
voice answered her out of the woods close by the
path, and seemed to stop her heart with a cer-
tainty of misfortune worse than the terror of it.
“In here,” said the muffled tone. “In here.
That you, Barbara P”
It was Nick’s voice, and yet strangely unlike
it. The hollow reverberance of it suggested one
whose intelligence was groping back while the
empty organ worked mechanically. She stepped
aside into the woods and stood there, among the
trees, her heart at last stilled at the call of reality.
“Where are you?”
P A R A D IS E - - 347
“Here.” -
She stepped over a fallen branch, and, a foot
or two further in, saw him, a shapeless bulk,
sitting on a stump, crouched over upon himself,
his head in his hands. As she came close to him,
he lifted his head slowly, and leaned it against
her. She put a hand upon his shoulder, to assure
herself, perhaps, that he was really living in the
midst of his strange stillness. He was breathing
in long, slow breaths, and he gave her the im-
pression of a man who was trying to control
himself, to draw back his conscious self into an
almost deserted body. She spoke softly, trying
also to recall him.
“Are you hurt, Nick?”
He gave a little assenting sound, and leaned
his head the more heavily against her. After a
few moments he seemed to collect himself by
a distinct effort, apparent to her in his muffled
voice.
“You’ll be cold. Help me. I’ll get up.”
He put a hand on her arm, and she stood firm
on her feet until he had risen. They waited there
together for his strength to surge back, she with
that unchanging sense that his will was demanding
it. Presently he took a step, and then another,
and they were out in the wood path again, their
faces turned toward the road. Then she noticed
that he leaned on a stick, and when they were in
348 P A R A D IS E
the full moonlight the silver gleam of the knob
caught her eye.
“Why,” she said impulsively, “that’s his
cane!”
“Whose P”
“Benedict’s.” Then, having spoken, she
doubted her own wisdom, and trembled. She
felt a tremor in him, also. It seemed like anger,
for anger was also in his voice when he answered.
“Yes. I’ve got that. It’ll convict him.”
“Where was it, Nick P” she ventured. “Where
did he hit you?”
“Over the head. I got a hold on him before I
went down. I broke some of his bones. I meant
to, so he should n’t get away. But he did, damn
him. He drew off an’ give me another, with a
limb, I guess, for I had the stick. I rolled down
into the gully where he could n’t get to me. He
thought he’d finished me. Maybe he has.” While
he spoke, he was moving with difficulty, and
bringing out the words in time with his dragging
steps. Now he stopped, leaning upon her heav-
ily. He spoke again, and as if he were putting
all his resurgent strength into the effort. “Re-
member—so you can give evidence. He’s done
for me.” -
“Don’t talk about it. We must get you home.”
They seemed together to be convoying some
helpless creature who could not aid them. “Ann
P A R AD IS E 349
will see to you,” she said, to hearten him. “No!”
she added, with a thought. “You must n’t come
to our house. He’s there.”
“Who 9”
“Benedict. He’s waiting there for the doctor.”
She felt him straighten.
“Come on,” he said grimly. -
“No,” she cried, “no, Nick! you must n’t
touch him.”
“Touch him!” he roared. “I’ll do for him as
he’s done for me.” He lurched and settled for-
ward at her feet. Her hands caught at him;
he slipped from them resistlessly. She stood a
moment above him, her heart knocking at her
breast. Once she took his hand and stirred him
a little, in the vain hope of lifting him; but rea-
son told her to run, and she started in full flight
along the road, not halting until she was at her
own gate.
Malory's horse was there, and she was thankful.
Without slackening step she ran up the path, and
in at the kitchen door. Benedict was in his chair
as she had left him; but now Ann, grotesque in
a short gown and petticoat, was leaning over
him, putting the last touch to a bandage about
his wrist. Benedict was bending upon her a
look he had never, perhaps, given any human
thing. It was compounded of imploring faith
and gratitude. Ann, said the look, was saving
350 P A R A D IS E
his wrist. This Barbara saw, in the lightning
of a glance. She turned to Malory.
“Where’s the doctor P”
“He could n’t come. Mebbe old Mary can
5 5 9
start him out in the mornin’.
She had paused by the door, and her hand
was still on the latch.
“Nick’s hurt,” she said breathlessly. She did
not look again at Benedict, but she knew how
he was watching her. “He’s been — he's lying
out there in the road. We must get him home.”
“Forever!” said Ann, straightening herself
from her completed job. “Don’t ye take him
over to Jote's, this time o’ night. Fetch on one
o' Abbie's heart spells, sure’s you’re born.”
“We’ll bring him here.” Her voice rang out
angrily, and now she looked at Benedict. “We’ll
put him in Uncle Timmie's room, and we’ll
watch over him. Maybe he’ll be safe there.
Come, Malory.”
Ann snatched a flask from Benedict’s pocket,
where she had seen him place it, after a fortify-
Ing Sip.
“Here,” she said, “you give him a nip o' that.”
Barbara was half-way down the path, and
Malory took the flask and hurried after. He
passed her, and unhitched his horse.
“Oh, don’t stop for that!” she cried. “Maybe
he’s dead by now.”
P A R A D IS E 351
“Get in,” said Malory, and when she did it,
threw the robe about her and started the horse
at a run. Half through the pine woods, she put
a hand on his arm.
“We’re 'most there,” she said. “A little fur-
ther. There he is, by that big bush.”
The dark bulk had not stirred, - so far as
she could see, – but Malory, out of the wagon
and at his side, lifting his head and shoulders,
could feel his laboring breath. Nick spoke then
faintly.
“Kinder tough on you, Barbara,” he said,
and Malory unscrewed the flask and poured
brandy into him.
“You let him lean on you,” he called to Bar-
bara, “while I get out the wagon seat.” And as
he did it, and with the robe made a makeshift
mattress for the floor, Barbara sat on the ground,
her arms about Nick and his head resting upon
hers. He was so much taller than she that it was
her hair his cheek lay upon; but little as she was
she felt a fierce protection of him, and drew him
the closer to her arms. Then Malory came, and
with much trouble they got him on his feet and,
after many trials, into the wagon.
“You jump in, Barbara,” said Malory. “I’ll
stand up in front here an’ drive.”
As they neared the gate, Ann Parsons, a shawl
over her night-gear, came to meet them.
352 P A R A D IS E
“You got him P” she called. “I’ll clip it back,
an’ open the front door.”
When they got there, it swung wide, and Un-
cle Timmie's bed was ready. Ann and Malory
worked accordingly, and while they got Nick
into the sheets, Barbara, her heart hot with ven-
geance, went into the kitchen, to face Benedict.
He was not there. Her distrust of him was like
an instinct. She went swiftly over the house, to
see if he had managed to hide himself. The upper
rooms were dark and still. At the end of her
search, she heard horse’s hoofs, slow but regu-
lar, and paused. Again she heard them, and
the sound diminished. She was in a back cham-
ber, and now she ran to the front of the house,
overlooking the road, and, leaving her lamp out-
side, looked from the window. It struck her with
a sharp surprise, yet as a thing she might have
guessed, that she knew what had happened. Mal-
ory’s horse was no longer below there at the
door. The wagon was turning carefully out at
the gate, and while she stared, it was rapidly
driven away. She understood, and ran down-
stairs. Malory, not needed for the moment, came
out, and she was ready to tell her shameful news.
For suddenly this seemed to her a shame meant
for her alone. She had brought Benedict there,
and the tragedy of the night was her burden.
She closed the door softly, lest Nick should hear.
P A R A D IS E 353
“He’s got your horse,” she said, with the harsh-
ness sprung from pain.
“Who P’’
“Benedict. He must have gone out when Ann
left him alone, and hid himself while we came in.
Then he took your horse.”
“Well,” said Malory, debating. He looked at
her with sudden keenness. “What for P”
She opened her lips to tell, and then some
woman’s fear of harsh reprisals tempted her,
and she gave only half the truth as she guessed
it.
“He’s afraid his wrist will be stiff, if it is n’t
set right. He’s gone to the Junction, to take the
early train.”
Malory reflected.
“Well,” he said at length, “he’ll leave the
team at the Junction. Like enough he’ll hire
somebody to drive it back home.”
This she could not answer, because, as she was
aware, nothing could lighten her suspicion of
Benedict, of what he had done or meant to do.
“How is Nick?” she asked suddenly. “What
does Ann say?”
“He’s got a long cut in the scalp. She thinks
a rib or two’s broken, mebbe more. I’m goin’
home to tell Lindy. She’ll be sittin' up. Then
I’ll be back an’ stay.”
Ann opened the door and spoke hurriedly:
3.54 P A R A D IS E
“You come here, Malory, an’ help lift.”
As he went, Barbara called to him:
“I’ll run over and tell her. You stay, Mal-
ory.”
“All right. Tell her, if I don’t come, to get
Jote to feed the critters.”
Again Barbara ran out into the night, and,
though the call for haste was over, sped at her
topmost pace. The spirit of the time was upon
her, and it seemed to be one of need. There was
a light in the kitchen, and she paused by the win-
dow to look in at a crack between the shade and
the casing. Lindy was drowsing in a low chair.
At that moment she started, and Barbara went on
to the door, lifted the latch, and stepped in.
“That you?” called Lindy, out of her drowse.
She got up at once and faced about, the bloom
of sleep still in her cheeks. “What’s the mat-
ter?” she asked. “Where’s Malory?”
“He’s over with Ann. Nick’s had a fall. Mal-
ory’s helping Ann with him.”
“Nick P I did n’t know ’t was Nick. How’d
he fall P”
“He got hurt. In the woods.”
Lindy yawned. She was enchantingly pretty,
in that fresh, natural abandon to her own ease.
“I always thought he’d shoot himself,” she
remarked, “prowlin’ round all times of night.”
Barbara had turned to the door.
P A R A D IS E 355
“I guess Malory wants you to go to sleep,”
she added. “If he don’t come in the morning,
he says get Uncle Jotham over to do the chores.”
“All right. I’ll fasten up now.” Lindy laughed
a little, indulgent of her own foolishness. She
liked everything about herself. She had been
made on a pattern she approved, and she had
no personal discontents. “Baby’s upstairs,”
she continued, in the mother tone, “sound as a
top. I thought I’d stay down here till Malory
come, an’ see nobody was prowlin’ round. But
I did n’t lock the door.” She looked challeng-
ingly at Barbara, as if to be commended for her
courage.
“I would,” said Barbara, because solicitude
of some sort seemed to be expected. “You might
as well.”
“Yes, I will now.” She was following to the
door. “I ain’t goin’ to have Malory think I’m
afraid,” she volunteered, with a little laugh. It
sounded almost shy, as if she had woman’s plea-
sure in the thought of him. “An' I ain’t, except
for baby. There’s been a man round the neigh-
borhood, nights, lately. You heard about him P”
“No,” said Barbara. Her heart seemed to
stop. She could have struck herself for a fool, to
have dropped Benedict from her thought. Others
had known of his prowlings, and she had not.
“Uncle Jote went down into the woods the
356 P A R A D IS E
night the heifer strayed out o' the barn, an' he
got a glimpse of him. I told Nick, an’ he laughed.
But I thought Nick knew more’n he’d tell. Well,
much obliged. I’ll lock up.”
When Barbara was in the road again, she
turned toward the pine woods. Thinking sud-
denly and keenly of Benedict, as if he were a
malignant force again evoked, she remembered
his cane, and could not also bring to mind
whether Nick had it when she and Malory came
to find him. It seemed to her important that it
should fall into no hand but hers, whether Bene-
dict was to be spared the reward of his deeds, or
Nick was to be spared the evil burden of work-
ing out that vengeance. It was there at her feet,
the silver top gleaming in a point of light. She
picked it up, with loathing for it and the deed
it had sought to do, and carried it home, hold-
ing it aside from her skirts as if she hated it.
In her own chamber she examined it by the
light of the lamp to see if it had a telltale stain.
But there was nothing, and she set it away in a
closet.
The next morning Malory went again for the
doctor, and Nick called for Barbara. She found
him with a fever spot in his cheeks, and eyes
dilated.
“Where is it?” he asked at once.
“The cane P”
P A R A D IS E 357
“Yes. I let go of it somehow. I knew when
I did it, but I could n’t pick it up nor tell you.”
“I went back after it. I’ve hid it in a closet.”
He drew a breath of pleasure. “I knew you’d
find it,” he said. Then, after a pause, “He’s
be’n hangin’ round the woods nights.”
“What for P” she asked.
“To do me a mischief. He thought if he got
me out o’ the way, there’d be nothin’ to hinder
your goin’ off with him. Or no, I guess not,” he
concluded. “I guess he got his mad up an’ did n’t
hardly know what he was doin’.”
She rose then, because Ann beckoned her from
the doorway, lest her patient should be tired. But
Nick detained her.
“I should n’t have asked you to go,” he said,
looking at her in a soft remorse, “but the tavern-
keeper down there told me Benedict had been
away three or four days. He thought he’d gone
for good. I guess he planned it that way.”
Then he lay silent for a moment, his fingers
holding her dress, and his eyes fixed broodingly
upon her. He was weighing the wisdom of ask-
ing what he so wanted to know. If Benedict
had escaped, he feared for himself, in his hurt
state, the rage of disappointment; and if she
told him the man was in the next room, he
dreaded equally the rising of his rage for blood.
She read these varying minds.
358 P A R A D IS E
“I let him go,” she said, judging it wise to take
the blame upon herself.
“You let him go!” He repeated the words
wonderingly, his eyes still fixed upon her face.
“It was better, Nick,” she urged. “He’s
frightened. He won’t come back again. We
must n’t hate him. It makes me sick to hate.”
The last words came like an ingenuous plea
from childish lips. He lay brooding upon them.
“I can hate,” he said at length. “I’m glad
I can.” *
Seeing him so dissatisfied, she essayed a cruder
comfort. If he wanted vengeance, he should at
least have the smell of it in his nostrils. “You
hurt him, too,” she said. “It was worse than
killing him. You broke his wrist. Maybe he
won’t be able to do his tricks any more. That’s
awful to him. It’s more awful than anything.”
His eyes lighted in hot reply.
“That’s good,” he said. “That’s good.”
The doctor came, shaven and fresh after his
cold bath, considered, in the neighborhood, his
particular madness, not to be met with the silent
indulgence accorded that other foible. He was
grave and low-spoken, as he always emerged after
his blood had rioted, and placed Nick under oath
to get into no danger by moving. He was to stay
where he was until further notice, and Ann was
to take care of him. Of Barbara, who let him in,
P A R A D IS E 359
he took no notice, to her unreasonable disap-
pointment. He had a charm for her. The in-
vincible quality he bore for all the neighborhood,
the town, and the county, operated upon her also,
but in greater measure, as her nature demanded
more. She, like the rest, wanted to hear what
he would say, and she felt a perfect acquiescence
in its value. The rest thought they wanted it to
Smile over it. Yet who could tell ? For when it
was uttered, somehow they could not smile.
XXIX
WHILE Nick was housebound, he felt half as if
he had a small lien on Barbara. Her sweet so-
licitude moved him to a dim forereaching, a ten-
der germ of hope. She, in her own person, was
bewilderingly different; but only because Bene-
dict was gone. He had left the horse at the Junc-
tion, and taken the early train. It did not need
Nick’s grim seeking through Malory to convince
her that he would not return. Assured at last
that she was not on the side of his good fortune,
he had cast her off, as he would have repudi-
ated the stars, if their paths crossed his. But he
had left her, unwittingly, a legacy. He had de-
nied prophecy by hands and horoscopes, and,
all her instincts on the side of freedom, his dis-
avowal made her doubly free.
The year, also, was brightening. Roots moved
underground, and sent up evidence. She felt
something stir within herself, something that,
in the greatening of the year, would challenge
sun and frost.
With the first days of warm spring, Nick went
back to Uncle Jote’s. Then Ann and Barbara
cleaned house with all the delightful ceremo-
P A R A D IS E 361
nies of bleaching, scrubbing, and putting beds
to air. They talked a great deal about Nick, and
frankly owned to him and to each other how
much they missed him. With Barbara he had
established a free companionship. He had sum-
moned her again and again to his room, where
he held the peevish rights of invalids, but chiefly,
it might have seemed, to look at her. When he
got better, he wanted her the more, and yet said
less about it. He watched her, she sometimes
thought, as the hunter watches the wood crea-
ture his mind is fixed upon. Yet he did it bene-
volently. The creature was not going to be slain.
Nick was learning its habits.
It was after he had gone home that she began
the enchanting steps of making her own garden,
from the moment the red-brown luscious tips of
peony appeared and she loosened the earth round
them and seemed to set her own heart free in
doing it, to the day when Nick came over and
helped her spade up the ground about the monks-
hood and sweet clover. Nick thought at that
time she seemed made out of the earth and its
flowers, she was so wholesome, and her graces
smelled so sweet. Barbara herself was always
smelling things, as if they were fragrances vouch-
safed from paradise. On a day when they worked
among the old perennials, nursed unwillingly
by Uncle Timmie, as he had tended everything
362 P A R A D IS E
about his domain, she kept calling to Ann, who
was in the kitchen, baking cake.
“Here’s something else, Ann. Wait a minute.
I’ll bring you a sprig.”
Finally, when the loaf was out of the oven, Ann
appeared, a handkerchief over her head, and sat
down on the doorstone, to save time, she said,
she was called upon so often. Barbara had bits
of sweet clover stuck in her buttonhole, and her
hands were strong of mint, and under it all the
good smell of the earth where she was burrowing.
Nick set his spade carefully, for there were roots
about; but still he looked at Barbara, and Ann,
with a wistful elderly ache at her heart, thought
of the spring-time and how soon it passes. Aunt
Nash was coming up the path. Her step had its
determined vigor, but her face looked younger
from some brightness lately won. A taste of new
things had roused her into quicker life. Uncle
Jotham was a different man; and, though she
was alternately fretted and amused, she could
not be impatient, since it was a change. This
was a spouse she had not known. At the time
when elderly women are waiting only to cover
the embers for good, her life had whirled about
into an incredible reversal. She was reaping
autumn fruitage, in a grim jocosity. For Uncle
Jotham had forgotten his mortality in conserving
hers.
P A R A D IS E 363
“Law, Nick,” she commented, “how strong
you be! This arternoon, when Jote’s gone to the
street, you set to an’ dig round them gooseberry
bushes, down the lane.”
Nick stopped to toss off his cap, and let the
spring wind touch him.
“All right,” he said. “”T won’t do ’em any
good. They’re as old as Noah.”
Aunt Nash laughed, a low, delighted murmur.
“They don’t bear none,” she said to Ann, in
a mirthful confidence. “There ain’t more’n
three green leaves on a sprig, an’ them the worms
eat. But Jote ’s took into his head it’s good for
anybody to dig in the ground, an’ nothin’’ll do
but I must scratch a little.”
Ann laughed with her over masculine feeble-
ness of mind, and Nick concurred cheerfully.
“I’m with ye, Aunt Abbie. You get him out
o' the way, an’ I’ll spade up half a mile every
mornin', an’ tell him you did it.”
“Where’s Jote to-day ?” asked Ann.
Again Aunt Abbie laughed.
“He’s gone off into the woods arter spring
bitters, sarsaparil’ an’ such.”
“He goin’ to take it?”
“He take it? No. He’s goin’ to turn it into
me.”
Both women cackled together, and Nick —
in spite of his grinning sympathy—contributed
364 PATR A D IS E
the flying thought that they were cruel in the
ribaldry of their sex partisanship. He glanced
at Barbara in a fleeting suspicion lest she also
fancied she had fathomed his particular mad-
nesses, and was smiling behind the veil; but
it was apparent that Barbara thought then of
nothing but monkshood and the spring wind.
Presently, vying with Aunt Abbie in the re-
surrection of moribund fruits, Barbara signified
her intention of reviving a row of currant bushes
down by the stone wall, where Uncle Timmie
had, for years, allowed his ministrations to cease;
and Nick put his spade over his shoulder and
started with her. But he did not begin at once
to work. The day overcame him, in its power to
charm, and he stopped to look at Barbara. She
was more than ever unconscious of him. Out of
doors now he could not compel her mood, even
to the point of forbidding his. She seemed to be
absorbed into the air and sun, and only personal
so far as he could meet her there, with plenty
of corners for escape. Perhaps it was because
she was so far from him in her unconsciousness
that he suddenly, dwelling upon her velvet cheek,
and longing to touch it, asked her a question:
“Do you think about him now — about
Malory?”
It was as if he had seized some light-footed,
fleet-winged thing, poised in its element, and
P A R A D IS E 365
stricken it with death. The fire of pleasure in
her suddenly went out. Even in the glowing
cheek there was the gray ash of life. She turned
her eyes slowly upon him, and spoke hoarsely,
in a wonder.
“What makes you ask me that?”
His natural kindness cried out for him to an-
swer that it was the brute in him; but shame
begot a rougher word:
“I don’t know. But, do you?”
She turned from him to the earth, and then
the sky, as if her answer lay in larger, calmer
things than her own heart. Then she spoke
simply and with a touching wistfulness:
“It can’t hurt anybody, Nick, what I feel. I
don’t know exactly what it is; but it can’t hurt
anybody.”
He stood there, sick at heart with his own
cruelty and his aching love for her. It was in-
credible to him that he should have such need of
her, and yet that she should keep only this gentle
friendliness for him.
“I miss you awfully,” he said. “When I was
here, ’t was bad enough; but now it’s worse.
I’ve got to have you under the same roof with
me.”
She smiled at that, looking at him with sad
eyes.
“I guess we can’t set our hearts on things,”
366 P A R A D IS E
she said humbly, remembering the scars upon
her own. “Now let’s dig a little.”
They began, in their sober amity, and suddenly
she looked up at him with the smile that called
upon his heart anew.
“I do like you, Nick,” she said. “You’re
'most all I’ve got, you and Ann.”
Nick choked in his throat, and loved her and
hated her for being at once so kind and so in-
accessible. e
They stopped work before dinner-time. Mal-
ory came by, with a double burden of greens,
and gave them some, and Ann hastened blithely
in to boil the pot. The beginnings of the year
were wonderful to Ann, chiefly because she knew
herbs were starting, and she could almost smell
them on the announcing breeze. She remem-
bered old songs about gypsying. She even forgot
sick-beds in her natural impulse to answer the
myriad voices that, in bloom-time, summon us
to follow.
That afternoon Barbara sat looking at the
beautiful day, in a dull quiescence. Nick’s ques-
tion had not spoiled it for her; but it had thrown
her back into an old habit of wonder that always
left her aching. As to Malory, from time to time
she had to set her mental house in order. There
was no fierce passion in her, no longing for a life
with him; but there was always perplexity over
P A R A D IS E 367
the buds that were not brought to bloom. He had
seemed from the first to be hers, in some kind,
sane way of service and companionship. Yet he
was not hers, her outward eyes declared: for
though she seemed able to enter into his house
of life, he had not met her there. He looked like
a much older man, in these last weeks; but he had
settled into a grave content. And Lindy, who
must be the mirror of his state, was sweetly
blooming. All the gloss the spring puts upon
the leaves and buds lay upon Lindy also. Her
cheek was a fuller red, her eyes were rich in
challenging lights, and she bore her baby upon
her shoulder like an earth goddess, and walked
proudly. “He must be happy,” Barbara thought.
So she sat most of the afternoon, besieged by the
thoughts she must not cherish, while Ann went
over to gossip with Aunt Nash; and by the time
the cool spring wind sprang up and drove them
both in to fire and supper, her mind was fixed.
For days now she had wandered about in a trance
of content with the sunlight and the garden. But
a single word, a name, had shown her that gar-
dens could not last, and summer was not always.
She must make for herself another world.
That early evening she and Ann sat by the
windows, in twilight musing, and Ann brought
out her tale of news.
“Never in the world was such a change in
368. P A R A D IS E
anybody as there is in Lindy,” she concluded.
“What you s'pose ’t is now P”
“What is it P” asked Barbara.
“Malory went to the street yesterday, an’ see
a piece o' muslin in the winder. So he up an’
bought Lindy a dress pattern.”
Barbara waited for Lindy’s entrance upon the
scene. Ann chuckled in the dusk.
“Kind of a purple, ’t was. Fade, like time.
Lindy never'd mind that, though. Make a dress
to-day, wear it out to-morrer, an’ fling it into the
ragbag next day, if it’s anything she likes. That’s
Lindy. But purple’s p’ison to her. Abbie Nash
knew 't was. ‘Law,’ says Abbie, ‘you never’ll
wear that in the world. What you goin’ to do with
it?’ ‘I’m goin’ to wear it,” says Lindy, budge as
you please. ‘Malory thinks it’s pretty.’”
“I’ve made up my mind,” said Barbara
sharply. “I know what I want to do.”
Ann started out of her twilight calm.
“Law! what is it?” she inquired. “Do
When P”
“I want you to live here,” said Barbara. There
was tension in her voice, and Ann could not help
wondering if she were crying in the dusk. “I
want this to be your home. Then I want you to
go out nursing just the same, but I want to go
with you.”
“Nussin’?”
P A R A D IS E 369
“If I could. I don’t know much yet. I want
to learn. But what I really want is to go so as to
tell folks about Paradise.”
Ann was silent, and Barbara knew it was
because she had lost the thread.
“Maybe you did n’t know,” she went on, in
some diffidence, “I used to tell Clary how nice
it was going to be after we die. I told Uncle Tim-
mie, too. I think there ought to be somebody to
go round and tell everybody.”
Still Ann was silent, and so long that Barbara
said at last: -
“Ann, why don’t you speak?”
“I dunno how,” said Ann frankly. Her candid
voice had softened. “About stayin’ here, there’s
no need o' my debatin’ it, if you feel to have me.
I should admire to do it. But about t'other thing,
I don’t know’s I would if I was you.”
“Do you think it silly P” asked Barbara anx-
iously. “Then you could teach me how to do
nursing, and when there was more than you
wanted, I could go to some of the places for you.”
Again silence brooded, and Ann spoke desper-
ately:
“Don’t ye pin your faith to me. I’m no more’n
a broken reed.” Her voice trembled as she went
on. “I don’t know nothin’ about nussin’.”
Barbara, amazed, could find no answer. Ann
apparently gathered herself for another leap.
370 P A R A D IS E
“I dunno but it’s a kind of a relief to tell some-
body. I never'd thought I could. I’ve got a kind
of a nat’ral gift, an’ I’ve be’n at it all my life; so
’t would be strange if I had nºt picked up suthin’.
But I ain’t a real nuss. Bless you! I’m only a
kind of a journeyman. You look a-here. I’ll tell
ye what set me right. I thought I knew as much
as anybody, more’n most. Well, one time, fifteen
year ago, mebbe, there was a man over to Fair-
fax had some trouble with his insides. He’s the
rich man there, owns pretty nigh the whole town-
ship. Well, Doctor was tendin’ him, an’ when
things went from bad to worse he sent off some-
'er's an’ got a big doctor to come down. Doctor
told me he’d done it, an’ then he says to me,
‘Ann,’ says he, “if there’s an operation, you shall
come in for’t, an’ see how things are done.’ Well,
there was an operation. There was the doctor,
— kind o' sandy-haired, he was, with spe’tacles,
quicker’n lightnin', - swore like a trooper, too,
when the ether did nºt work right, — an’ two
nusses in white aprons an’ caps, – real pretty
caps, – an’ they were quick as lightnin', too.
Well, Doctor stationed me in one corner o’ the
room. ‘Don’t you move from there, Ann,’ says
he. “You hold this bottle for me. If I ask for it,
you give it to me.’ Well, it come to me much as
three months arter, when I was layin’ awake one
night, thinkin’ about it, there wan’t nothin’ he
P A R A D IS E 3.71
needed in that bottle, an” he knew there wan’t.
He done it jest to give me suthin’ to do. Jest like
Doctor. Well, they went to work, an’ the great
doctor cut an’swore, an’ the nusses passed him
things, an’ it all went on, in an’ out like anybody’s
fingers when they’re doin' tattin’. You know
what I felt like, stan'in' there in the corner hold-
in’ that bottle 2 I felt like an old spavined horse,
turned out to pastur’. I won’t stop to tell ye what
they done to the man. They done pretty nigh
everything they could an’ leave him alive. Law,
yes, he got well, an’ went to Europe. I dunno
what I’d done if Doctor had n’t stood there, too,
doin’ nothin’ but jest lookin’ on. Doctor looked
to me like God that time. I kept sayin' over’n’
over in my mind, to keep my head from spinnin',
‘You look like God,” says I. ‘You look like
God.’ ”T was as if he’d brought it about, an’
knew how’t was goin’ to end. Well, when 't was
over, I got out o' the room, 'fore any on 'em;
but when the great doctor come downstairs he
walked right out into the kitchen. There I set,
with the bottle in my hand, an’ the cook was
lookin' at me. I never’ve seen that cook from
that day to this. I took pains not to. I guess she
thought I was crazed. The doctor, he walked
right up to me. I guess Doctor'd told him about
me. “Like it?’ says he. He had real nice eyes.
Rind of a spark in 'em, Suthin’ like Nick’s when
372 P A R A D IS E
he’s pleased. I could nºt do nothin’ but look at
him. Seemed to me that minute as if I kinder
worshiped the way he carried things through.
‘I’m discouraged,” says I. That’s all I says, –
‘I’m discouraged.” He laughed. Then he put
his hand on my shoulder, an’ give me a little pat.
‘You’re a natºral bone-setter,’ says he. “You
know lots o' things I don’t. You’re worth your
weight in gold.” Then he went off, an’ I heard
him drivin’ away from the house. Well!” She
paused, and Barbara also felt her breath fail.
“What do you s'pose I done next day P”
“I don’t know.”
“I put on my bunnit, an’ went over to Doc-
tor’s. He was out in the peach orchard, kinder
feelin' o' the blooms that way he has. “Doctor,”
says I, ‘what do you s'pose I want? I want to
go up to town an’ learn to be a nuss.' Doctor he
did nºt say nothin’ for a minute, but he let go o'
the peach limb, an’ a kind of a look come over
his face. I dunno’s you know that look; once in
a while Doctor has it. ‘Ann,’ says he, ‘I don’t
b'lieve I would, if I’s you.’ ‘I’m goin’,” says I.
“I’ll sell everything but the dress I stan’ up in,
but what I’ll go. Why would n’t you go, Doc-
tor?’ ‘You know enough now, for all you’ll want
here,’ says he. “You be contented, Ann. There
ain’t anybody like you, Ann,’ says he. That’s
what Doctor said. But I hounded him on to tell
P A R A D IS E 373
me the reason, an’ that’s all he’d say; but while
I stood there, it all come over me. It was kind o”
still in the orchard, an’ I know exactly how every-
thing smelt. “My Lord! Doctor,’ says I, ‘I’m
too old. That’s it, an’ you won’t tell me. I’m
too old.” Doctor, he put his hand on my shoulder,
jest as tºother one had, an’ when I glanced up to
him, he had that look I told you about. “You
stay here, Ann,’ says he. “You stay jest as you
be, an’ nuss us all, an’ get us well, an’ when the
time comes, you lay us out. That’s what you
do.” Ann was not crying, but Barbara was sit-
ting gripping her hands together in the proud
repression of youth. Ann spoke fiercely now.
“Don’t ye see P I don’t know nothin'. I pretend
I do. I pretend I know more’n all the doctors;
but it’s only whistlin’ to keep my courage up.
Doctor knows I pretend. He’s the only one
except you, now; and he helps me do it. When
I found I did n’t know nothin’, ‘t was too late. So
if you feel called to nussin', you go an’ learn how
to do it.”
Her confession ended suddenly, passionately,
as it had begun.
“One thing you do,” she said, getting on her
feet, and setting her chair back with an orderly
exactness. “Don’t you take a step, one side or
t’other, but what you talk to Doctor about it.
Now I’m goin’ to bed.”
XXX
THE next day it rained, and Barbara stayed in-
doors, thinking. Ann prevailed upon Malory to
take her to the street, and when she came back
at twilight she looked curiously excited, as if
things had happened.
“I’ve seen Doctor,” she volunteered; but Bar-
bara asked no questions. She had a notion that
the interview might have had to do with her; but
that did not matter. She had not yet made up her
mind.
But the next day dawning sweetly, with a clear
Sun upon the stirring green things in the garden,
Nick came over to say it was too wet to work.
He fancied her, in her spring impatience, as bid-
ding him wait for nothing, and he did find her out
in the lush grass looking at the plants adoringly.
They had grown in the rain. Rather they seemed
to have gathered all the life in them to make mi-
raculous leaps when the sun should touch them.
“See!” said Barbara, for all answer to any
tribute he might have paid to the beauty of the
day. She pointed to a soaked ladies’-delight,
already opened bravely to the sun, with an air of
“I’m-wet, but—I’ll-bloom-and-I-don’t-care-who-
P A R A D IS E 375
knows-it.” “I’m going to the street this fore-
noon,” added Barbara.
“Who With P”
“Nobody. I’m going to walk.”
“I’ll call for you,” said Nick. “Uncle Jote’s
diggin' dandelion roots for Aunt Abbie's bit-
ters, an’ she wants some cream-o'-tartar. I’ll be
along about ten.”
In the mid-forenoon they started, and Barbara
was exceedingly happy all along the elm-bor-
dered road. The world was so enchanting that
her heart cried to her to rejoice, and she did re-
joice, with her surfeited eyes and her mounting
blood. Nick left her without question at the
Doctor's gate, and promised to return for her.
If he wondered, he did not show it. Barbara,
half-way up the path, became aware that the Doc-
tor was out among his fruit trees. She stopped
and looked at him before, she thought, he saw
her. The trees were not in full leaf, but they
were clothed in something impalpable and green.
The air itself seemed hung with that illusory veil
of the newborn year. As she looked at him, hesi-
tating yet not exactly afraid, the Doctor seemed
to her taller than any of the trees. There they
sprang and drooped about him, and yet his was
the majesty and theirs the suppliant beauty. He
spoke without turning to her, and his voice
sounded very kind. .
376 P A R A D IS E
“Come round here, Barbara, where I can see
you.” |
For a moment she felt the strangeness of it.
He seemed to know everything without looking.
But she crossed the space between them, and
then he faced her.
“How did you know,” she began, in spite of
herself, and he smiled benevolently. His eyes
looked friendly. They were exceedingly blue,
that morning, as if, like the sky, they had been
washed by cleansing drops.
“I saw you get out of Nick’s wagon,” he an-
swered. “There’s nothing queer in that.” *.
She had at once a feeling that his time must
not be wasted. He seemed too large and too
majestic to be spent on her. - -
“Did Ann tell you about me?” she asked.
He bent his shaggy brows upon her, but did
not anSWer.
“Did she say I wanted to go round, and tell
folks about Paradise ?”
The Doctor turned, and went a step deeper
into the shade of the fruit trees.
“There’s an old bench in here,” he said.
“Come and sit down.”
He pushed aside adventurous branches, and
she sat down with him in an open space of green.
The bench was rotting, like everything else on
the place; but the sun had dried the surface, and
P A R A D IS E 377
since the Doctor gravely seemed to think that
adequate, Barbara scorned to give a thought to
her lilac gingham, save that it had been Clary’s,
and she loved to guard it for her sake. When
they were sitting in the sun, the Doctor answered
her:
“I guess I would n’t do that.”
It reminded her of his counsel to Ann, when
she wanted to learn new ways. Barbara deter-
mined at all costs to have the right answer.
“Maybe you think I don’t know enough P”
she volunteered anxiously.
“Yes,” said the Doctor. “I’m sure you know
enough — about Paradise.”
There was something beguiling in his voice,
and immediately she wondered if he could be
laughing at her.
“Maybe you don’t feel sure yourself?” she
essayed, with difficulty. “You don’t think there
is any such place.” There she paused, remem-
bering his voice the day he had talked with Uncle
Timmie, and had said, “There is a country.”
“Yes,” said the Doctor. “I know there’s such
a place. But it does n’t do to think too much
about it. Sometimes we can think about it and
talk about it, but not always.”
“I’d only talk about it to people when they’re
sick,” she promised humbly, “ or when they’re
in trouble.”
378 P A R A D IS E
The Doctor was silent for a time. She looked
at the grass at her feet, and he looked at her.
Conscious that she was being estimated, she sat
very still, and endeavored to bear his eyes and
then meet their verdict. At last he spoke. It was
difficult for him to bring out his full mind to her,
for these deeper moods were ones that hid them-
selves until his demon broke his will and set
emotion free. *
“We must live here, Barbara. We can have
our dreams about the other place; but this is
where we must live.”
She looked at him now, and found his eyes at
last unconscious of her. They were fixed upon
flickering spaces in the trees, where other green
from the distance broke bewilderingly through,
or there was even, above, an entrancing quiver
of the sky. “See the trees,” he went on, —
now as if communing with himself. “They grow
where they are planted, or not at all. Did you
ever think,” he mused again, “how all creation
works P”
“No.” She breathed the word, not to inter-
rupt his musing, and yet to give him the response
of an expectant listener.
“From the least to the greatest. So do we.
When you are young, you think it’s all pleasure;
but the pleasure is a kind of work. It’s fitting
you for what you’re meant to do. Look at that
P A R A D IS E 379
bird.” An oriole sang out eloquently in the elm
beyond. “You’d say he’s happy. He’d say so,
too, if he could tell you. He’d think it’s inclina-
tion that makes him swoop on that horsehair —
is it a straw P Yes, so it is — but it’s to build his
nest. It’s work — work— work — conscious
or not. You’d better fall into line, child. You’ll
work, too. Be wise about it. Make it count.”
She looked at him, fascinated, her breath quick
in her nostrils.
“How can I?”
He was returning her gaze now, with the direct
shaft of his blue eyes.
“Don’t forget Paradise,” he counseled, “and
don’t let other folks forget it. But if you dwell
on it too much, you’ll be half crazed like some of
the rest of us, chasing shadows all day long, letting
the substance go — I don’t know, though.” His
voice fell again into its murmurous communion
with that hidden self. “I don’t know as they are
shadows. I don’t know as the substance is what
we see and touch. But, damn it!” he blazed into
wrath over his inability to keep long in the path
of obvious reason. “They are the things we see
and touch. We’ve got to see and touch them.
We’ve got to train with the company. I can’t. I
got out of step when I was nºt much older than
you are now. I’ve been lying on the grass ever
since, hearing the birds sing. I’m a deserter. I
380 P A R A D IS E
miss my guess but what I’m shot for one yet.
You go up to town, Barbara. If you want to step
into Ann’s shoes, you learn how to do the trick.
Do you want to ?”
Her face was white. Her eyes were blazing.
“Yes,” she said, “I want to.”
He took a paper from his pocket.
“Here’s a letter I wrote for you. It’s to a doc-
tor I know there. He’ll tell you what to do.”
She took it, and held it preciously in her hand.
“Could I go now P” she trembled. “Could
I begin this spring P”
A curious shadow crossed his face.
“You ask him, child,” he said humbly. “I’m
so far out of it now, I don’t know when things
begin in the hospitals, nor when they end. I
could write for you, but I’m too lazy. It’s better
for you to take your little pack on your back, and
go and find your fortune for yourself. You have
n’t a cat, have you?” He was smiling at her.
But Barbara had never heard of Whittington,
and she answered:
“No, sir, I have n’t. Aunt Nash’s cat comes
over and mouses in our barn.”
The doctor laughed a little, and got on his
feet. She felt dismissed, though kindly, and in a
large, leisurely fashion that permitted her to stay
if she liked. But she rose also.
“And these few precepts in thy memory
P A R A D IS E 381
lock,’” said the Doctor to himself. Looking down
at her, he ended: “Remember, you can’t do any
harm so long as you make people cleaner and
healthier. Wash 'em. Tone 'em up. Beyond
that, I don’t know.”
Barbara moved away along the path, sorrow-
ful at leaving him.
“And,” said the Doctor, laying his hand on
a tree branch, and beginning, it seemed, to forget
her and to become again absorbed into growing
life, “when it comes handy, don’t be afraid of
speaking about Paradise.”
“Thank you, sir,” said Barbara. She wanted
to thank him movingly, ecstatically, up to the
measure of her gratitude.
She was walking away when he summoned
himself back once more, and called to her. She
stopped.
“Barbara,” said he, “you’re a dear child.”
Then she could not thank him, but hurried on
out of the gate and along the road where Nick
would come. There she sat down on a stone
fallen from the wall, and waited, in an extraor-
dinary dream.
Nick looked at her keenly, after she had stepped
into the wagon and seated herself beside him.
“You’re not sick?” said he.
“No, I’m not sick. I went to ask him what
I could do.”
382 P A R A D IS E
“About me?” cried Nick irrepressibly.
“No, oh no! I’m going away, Nick. I’m go-
ing to town, to learn to be a nurse. He’s given
me a letter.” She had the rapt look of a young
acolyte accepted for a chosen task.
“Bah!” said Nick. It was Uncle Timmie's
commentary, and she laughed. “How about the
garden P”
Then her face did fall. She thought of all the
valiant things, pushing up to meet the sun and
live in it. She had meant to be by at their bloom-
ing and their fruitage, but now they must go
untended. Nick stole a look at her, and grew
generous. He could not see her troubled.
“I’ll come back Sundays,” he said. “I shall
be workin’ over in Fairfax; but I’ll run home an’
see to it. Don’t you worry.”
Her face flashed all over in hopeful joy. For
a moment she saw herself also trysting with the
season when larkspur was in bloom; yet she
knew it would not be. When she once began,
there must be no looking back.
“I sha’n’t come for a long time, Nick,” she
said. “I may not ever come.”
At once he had the man’s part of comforting
her. His own desire to plead his suit had sunken
into the plain wish, if she were going, to see that
she did it, not in forlornness, but in the company,
at least, of his befriending thought.
P A R A D IS E 383
“Yes, you will,” he said. “You’ll come when
you’re tired, an’ you’ll find us here. Ann’ll keep
the house, an’ I’ll keep the garden. You’re not
afraid of meetin’ Benedict P” he asked her sud-
denly.
“No. He’s gone, Nick. I don’t know where,
but he’s gone for good. He won’t come back.”
She saw her way as she spoke in a broad field of
light, opening out as the track of the moon does
upon the sea. It was not happiness, the light,
so much as the beckoning freedom of unknown
things.
A wagon was coming toward them. It was
Malory, driving rather fast, because he had to
go to the street and be back before dinner. He
gave them a smiling nod, and Barbara turned
her head for a moment and looked after him.
“Want to stop P” asked Nick.
“No. I’m looking at everybody twice,” she
explained. “Maybe it’s the last time I shall see
them.” *
“Do you care P” was on his tongue, but he
suppressed the thought.
She answered as if she had heard.
“It is n’t as you think, Nick. I’m not—” She
paused, and a flush surged over her face. She
could not put it into words, the thought that he
must not believe she was hungering for a man
who did not care for her. Still less could she tell
384 P A R A D IS E
him that she was not suffering, but only cold.
She had been driven out of the palace she built
for herself, and thenceforth she must feel the
chill of outer air. Nothing in her life had moved
her like Malory's exquisite friendliness. All life
henceforward would be measured in compari-
son. “Malory was very good to me,” she con-
tented herself in saying. “I can’t ever forget
it.” e
“No,” said Nick soberly. “You can’t forget
— any more’n I can.”
“Stop a minute,” she said, when they reached
Malory's own house. “I want to go in.”
Nick wondered, but he answered only, “I’ll
wait for you.”
Barbara, before her courage had time to cool,
was at the porch where Lindy sat breathing in
the spring air, with the baby at her feet cooing
and gurgling and clutching at the universe.
“I’d like my dress, please,” said Barbara,
—“the yellow one, you know; the one you
found.”
Lindy rose at once, full of an eager curiosity.
“You goin’ somewheres in it?”
“No, oh no!”
“You want to show it to Nick P”
“No, I just want it, that’s all.”
“I’ll run up an’ get it.” .
Barbara hoped she might have been allowed
P A R A D IS E 385
to go. She wanted to cross the beloved thresh-
olds, and put her hand on the walls that had seen
her happiness and pain. But she stooped, when
she was left alone, and looked at the baby, while
he ceased splaying about and gazed solemnly
back at her. He seemed to Barbara more wonder-
ful than larkspur; and to have such a little new
thing for a woman’s own was more than many
gardens. She wished she could have been left
alone with him a long time, to know him better;
but all that enchanting, gently boisterous play
of women with children, the rally and assault of
tenderness, was afar from her, and afflicted her
with an agony of shyness to think of. When
Lindy came down, the gaudy dress over her arm
and the tinsel crown in her hand, Barbara was
standing apart, and the baby caught vainly at
her skirt. She took the dress, and rolled it into
a bundle.
“Don’t!” cried Lindy, “you’ll muss it. Goin'
to put it on for Nick?” she added slyly.
“Good-by,” said Barbara, on the step.
“Somebody’s taken quite a shine to you,”
persisted Lindy, glancing past her at the road,
where Nick’s horse was fretting.
“Good-by,” said Barbara again. “Tell Mal-
ory good-by.”
She hurried down the path, and they drove
away.
386 P A R A D IS E
After she had told Ann all about it in the after-
noon, and Ann had set out their early supper,
Barbara went into the field, at the back of the
garden, and set a match to the brush heap there.
It had waited all through the cool spring weather,
because the burning seemed to her like a festival,
and she had put it off, from day to day. Nick
came hurrying over, at the smell of smoke.
“God sake!” he said, trying to scold her. “I
s’pose you’d have done it if you wanted to, if
the wind had carried the sparks right over the
house.”
“The wind’s right,” rejoiced Barbara; “Ann
said so.” She looked like a little wild thing, with
her brown eyes shining and the color in her
cheeks. She threw on a gauzy bundle, and the
flames leaped at it.
“What you got there?”
“It’s my dress, the one I told fortunes in.
Now this, Nick. It’s his stick. You break it
and throw it in.”
Nick snapped the cane, in a responsive vio-
lence, and the flames took that also.
“That’s the end,” cried Barbara. “Now, we’ll
see.” She looked a spirit of the fire and earth
and air. Nick forgot to watch the flames, in
watching her. Ann came to the door, to shake
the tablecloth, and then went soberly in to pack
up Barbara's few clothes for the next day.
P A R A D IS E 387
The brush burned, and brought more color
into Barbara’s face. Nick soberly raked and
tended, and an acrid tang scented the twilight
air. They stood watching it until the dusk fell,
and there was only smoke left from the darkling
embers, coming to life now and then and pulsing
fitfully.
“Want me to carry you to the Junction ?”
asked Nick.
“Yes. I thought you would.”
“The early train P”
“Yes. I came at night. I’m going in the
morning.”
She gazed into the fire as if she saw strange
writings there, and he looked at her face, tanned
by the country weather and brightly alive through
some inner flame he could neither stanch nor
kindle.
“You think you won’t come back,” he said.
“I think you will. It may not be for a good while,
— but we shall spend our old age together.”
Then Barbara Smiled at him. Since it was old
age, she need not contradict him. But the fervor
of his desire caught him, as with a wave, and
flung him daringly on heights he had not thought
to climb so soon.
“Barbara,” he said, “I wish, when it comes to
goin', you’d kiss me for good-by.”
Her response was adorable in its quickness
388 - P A R A D IS E
and simplicity. Expecting as he did falterings
and withdrawal, it shook him to the soul.
“Oh yes!” she said, “I’ll do it now.” She
lifted her fresh lips to him, veiled as they were
by the coming dusk. He remembered afterwards
how they seemed to bear the savor of the smoke,
the coolness of the air, and the divineness of her
own spirit. She was smiling at him then, and, as
he also remembered, as if she liked him.
“It’ll all come right, Nick,” she ventured, in
the formula of her hope.
“All right if I don’t have you?” His voice
rang harshly. That was the only way it was
possible to speak. -
“You’ll have everything you want, sometime.”
“I shall have what I want, because I shall wait
for it — and get it.”
“I mean—”
“You need n’t begin on that,” he warned her.
“I know what you’re goin’ to say.”
“It’s what I think,” she insisted humbly, as
if it were her own small banner she had to float.
“In Paradise.”
A SELECTION
FROM
Messrs. Archibald
Constable & Co.'s
List
ARCHIBALD CONSTABLE & Co.'s
The Far Eastern Tropics: Studies in the Ad-
ministration of Tropical Dependencies, by
ALLEYNE IRELAND. With a Coloured Map.
Large Crown 8vo. 7s.6d. net.
The author of this book spent nearly three years in
various Far Eastern countries, making himself thoroughly
conversant with the colonial methods of Great Britain,
France, Holland, and the United States. He deals with
Burma, Java, the Malay Peninsula, Hong Kong, French
Indo-China, Borneo, and the Philippines. Armed with
credentials from the Foreign and Colonial Office, Mr.
Ireland enjoyed exceptional opportunities of carrying on
his investigations, and in his preface he expresses his
gratitude to the many British and Foreign officials whose
assistance at once lightened his labours, and increased their
value during his stay in Eastern Asia.
Among the questions which the author discusses are
Colonial Civil Service, Chinese Labour, the Currency
Question, The Government of Tropical Dependencies,
Educational Work in the Tropics, Colonial Finance and
Colonial Legislation. Two valuable appendices complete
the volume. The first, a Statistical Appendix showing the
area, population, finances, trade and shipping of the coun-
tries treated of. The second, a selected bibliography of
over one hundred works useful for a more detailed study
of the question.
The Author, in his Preface, says:—“I am not without hope that,
in the great scarcity of books in the English language on the sub-
ject of comparative colonization, students of political science may
discover in them something of interest. . . . My object has been
rather to excite an interest in the problems of tropical colonization
than to attempt a final disposition of those problems according to
my lights.
“Judging from my own experience during fifteen years of in-
vestigation in the field of colonial history and administration, the
statistical and bibliographical appendices at the end of this volume
should serve to smooth the path of any one who wishes to pursue
further the lines of thought suggested in these studies.”
ANNOUNCEMENTS
Important Historical Books.
RUSSIA.
The First Romanovs (1613-1725). A History of
Moscovite Civilization and the Rise of Mod-
ern Russia under Peter the Great and his Fore-
runners, by R. NISBET BAIN, Author of The
Pupils of Peter the Great, Peter III., Emperor
of Russia, etc. With 8 Illustrations. Demy 8vo.
I2s. 6d. net.
Extracts from the Author's Preface.—“It will be my endeavour,
in the following pages, to describe the social, ecclesiastical, and
political conditions of Eastern Europe from 1613 to 1725, and trace
the gradual transformation, during the seventeenth century, of the
semi-monastic, semi-barbarous Tsardom of Moscovy into the modern
Russian State. . . . The subject possesses the rare and crowning
merit of almost absolute novelty. We have some half a dozen
manuals of Russian history ; we know something, by this time, of
Peter the Great; we are even learning to know something about
Ivan the Terrible. But seventeenth century Moscovy is still,
to most of us, a terra incognita.”
FRANCE.
Catherine De Medici and the French Reformation,
by EDITH SICHEL, Author of Women and
Men of the French Renaissance, The House-
hold of the Lafayettes, etc. Demy 8vo. With
I2 Illustrations. I5s. net.
Miss Sichel's Women and Men of the French Renaissance
was very well received. The present book treats of the
French court at a slightly later date—the days of the
last of the Valois. For English readers a special interest
attaches to Catherine's court from the fact that it was
there that Mary, Queen of Scots, was brought up, and her
complex character for the most part moulded. Students
of literature will be glad of the full treatment accorded to
Ronsard and the Pleiade.
“Miss Edith Sichel has done a fine and distinguished piece of work.
She has written a brilliant and scholarly book; a book it is both difficult
and tempting to overpraise.”—The Times.
3
ARCHIBALD CONSTABLE & CO.’S
SCOTLAND.
John Graham of Claverhouse, Viscount of Dundee,
I648–1689, by C. SANFORD TERRY, M.A.,
Author of The Life and Campaigns of Alexander
Leslie, First Earl of Leven, etc. Illustrated.
Demy 8vo. I2s. 6d. net.
Professor Terry's contributions to Scottish history of the
Seventeenth and eighteenth centuries are well known.
His new book may fairly claim to be the first authoritative
biography of the great general. Since Napier's, which
appeared nearly fifty years ago, many fresh facts have come
to light, and much that was accepted as fact has been
proved erroneous.
“On the whole it does not seem too much to say that this book pro-
mises to be the definitive biography of a man whose character has been
traduced by ‘prejudice ſounded upon wilful neglect of evidence.’”—
Morning Post.
ENGLAND.
The King in Exile, 1646–1654, by EVA SCOTT,
Author of Rupert Prince Palatine. Demy 8vo.
I5S. net.
A new work by Miss Scott, whose history of Prince
Rupert was so favourably received by press and public.
The King in Exile is the Second Charles, and the story of
his wanderings on the Continent, and of the lives of his
ever-faithful adherents makes fascinating reading.
“A most welcome contribution to historical literature upon a period
in Charles's life, of which the average student knows comparatively
little.”—Daily Graphic.
By the same Author.
Rupert Prince Palatine. Demy 8vo. Illus. 3s.6d. net.
A History of the Ancient World, by GEORGE STE-
PHEN GOODSPEED, Ph.D., Professor of Ancient
History in the University of Chicago. With
Illustrations, Maps, and Plans. Large Crown
8vo. 7s.6d. net. Yeº-
This volume surveys the whole history of the Ancient
World from the earliest Oriental civilization to the crown-
ing of Charlemagne as “Emperor of the Romans '' in 800.
It is primarily intended for teachers, but will have a value
for all who are interested in early history. The illustra-
tions are numerous, and many are in colour.
ANNOUNCEMENTS
Some Books on Russia and Japan.
The Japanese Spirit, by OKAKURA-YOSHISABURO.
With an introduction by GEORGE MEREDITH.
Foolscap 8vo. 3s. 6d. net.
“These Lectures by a son of the land, delivered at the University
of London, are compendious and explicit in a degree that enables
us to form a summary of much that has been otherwise partially
obscure, so that we get nearer to the secret of this singular race than
we have had the chance of doing before.”—From Mr. Meredith's
Introduction.
The Russo-Japanese Conflict: Its Causes and Issues,
by K. ASAKAWA, Ph.D., Lecturer on the Civilization
and History of East Asia at Dartmouth College, Author
of the Early Institutional Life of Japan, etc. With an
Introduction by FREDERICK WELLS WILLIAMS, Assistant
Professor of Modern Oriental History in Yale University.
Large Crown 8vo, about 400 pages. With Io Full-page
Illustrations and a Map. 7s. 6d. net.
[Second Edition.
The Times says:—“Those who admire indefatigable research,
lucidity of expression, and breadth of view in the treatment of
contemporary history cannot fail to give a favourable reception to
this volume ; and the fact that the subject is treated with impartial-
ity and a very agreeable spirit of moderation will do nothing to
detract from the reader's pleasure. . . . He marshals his facts with
order and skill, supplies every text and reference that we can re-
quire for the refreshing of our memories, and, while missing nothing
of serious importance, preserves intact throughout the narrative a
balanced judgment, a fine sense of proportion, and a perfect con-
tinuity of ideas.”
A Secret Agent in Port Arthur, by WILLIAM
GREENER. Crown 8vo. With Map, Plans, etc.
6s.
The Daily Telegraph says:—“A welcome and readable contri-
bution to the literature of the Far Eastern conflict.”
The Standard says:—“Interesting and picturesque.”
The Morning Leader says:—“The best book on the struggle yet
published.”
*: Daily Chronicle says:—“Very admirable, vivid, and brightly
told.”
ARCHIBALD CONSTABLE & CO.”S
“A SWORD WITHOUT A STAIN.”
Recollections and Letters of General Robert E.
Lee, by CAPTAIN R. E. LEE. Demy 8vo.
Illustrated with Portraits. I2s. 6d. net.
“The reading of such a work as this has something in it of en-
couragement and inspiration. ‘The country which has given birth
to men like him,” was the verdict of an English newspaper, “may
look the chivalry of Europe in the face without shame. For the
Fatherlands of Sidney and Bayard never produced a nobler soldier,
Christian, and gentleman than General Robert E. Lee.’”—Daily
News.
Far and Near, by JoHN BURROUGHS, Author of
Green Fields, Walt Whitman, etc. Crown 8vo.
5S. net.
“No man has done so much in the United States, during the last
three decades, towards interesting his fellow-countrymen in the
pure and simple pleasures of Nature, in the life of birds, the great
woods and hills, the well-flowered clearing, and the sparkling brook.
Mr. Burrough's hand has lost nothing of its cunning, and the reader
will find in this volume many a charming picture and much inter-
esting lore. The first half of the volume deals with ‘Green Alaska’;
in the second portion the author returns to his beloved home by the
Hudson River, and gives us some delightful pictures of bird-life.
Few writers on Nature have a more captivating pen than John
Burroughs.”—Country Life.
Bits of Gossip, by REBECCA HARDING DAVIS.
Foolscap 8vo. 5s. net.
“Miss Davis's recollections go back to before the Civil War. She
lived in a Virginian village to which her family had migrated from
one of the cotton States ; and she went afterwards to New England.
She has some striking stories to tell about all these places. . . .
This is most decidedly a book to be read.”—Spectator.
Literary Portraits, by CHARLES WHIBLEY, Author
of A Book of Scoundrels, etc. Frontispiece.
Demy 8vo. 7s.6d. net.
CoNTENTs : Studies in Rabelais, Commines, Burton and several
of the great Tudor translators.
“Mr. Whibley must be classed among the few discriminating
critics of a day in which real sensitive criticism is as an oasis in the
desert. . . . The level of performance is here singularly even and
singularly high, and the book is a book for the library shelf, not a
mere volume of essays to be read, returned, and forgotten.”—
Athenaeum.
ANNOUNCEMENTS
TOLSTOY'S WORKS.
Translated by LOUISE and AYLMER MAUDE.
Resurrection, translated by LOUISE MAUDE. With
a Preface and Appendix. 33 Illustrations by .
PASTERNAK. Small Crown 8vo. 2s. 6d. net.
Sevastopol and other Military Tales, including The
Wood-felling, Meeting a Moscow Acquaintance
in the Detachment, and Two Hussars. With
Portrait, Map, and Preface. Small Crown 8vo.
2s. 6d. net.
*** These two volumes form the latest additions to
Constable's Half-Crown Library. They are also issued in
Sixpenny editions in paper covers.
Plays: The Powers of Darkness, Fruits of Culture,
and The First Distiller. Illustrated. New
Edition. Crown 8vo. 2s. 6d. net. Uniform with
the 2s. 6d. Edition of Resurrection and Sevastopol.
“Nobody who cares for real drama can afford to let this volume
go unread.”—The Academy.
What is Art P Paper, Is... net. Cloth, Is. 6d. net.
“Whoever is really conversant with Art recognizes in it the voice
of the Master.”—G. Bernard Shaw in The Daily Chronicle.
Tolstoy and his Problems. Essays by AYLMER
MAUDE. Crown 8vo. Paper, Is. net. Cloth,
Is. 6d. net.
This contains the only short life of Tolstoy approved by
himself.
“Mr. Maude's long and intimate acquaintance with Tolstoy
enables him to speak with a knowledge probably not possessed by
any other Englishman.”—Morning Post.
7
ARCHIBALD CONSTABLE & Co.'s
A New Book by AYLMER MAUDE (the Translator
of Tolstoy).
A Peculiar People : The Doukhobórs. Illus-
trated with I5 Photographs. Large Crown
8vo. 6s. net.
The Doukhobórs are an extraordinary sect of Russian
communists who migrated to Canada in I899. At first
they gave considerable trouble to the Canadian Govern-
ment, but latterly have become very prosperous. The
present book gives a history of this “peculiar people,” and
discusses their connection with Lollards, Anabaptists, and
other similar sects. A long and interesting letter from
Tolstoy on his relation with the Doukhobórs is contained
in the volume.
Some Women of Wit and Beauty, by JOHN
FYVIE. Illustrated. Demy 8vo.
CoNTENTs : The Unacknowledged Wife of George IV. (Mrs.
Fitz-Herbert)—Nelson's Lady Hamilton—The Queen of the “Blue
Stockings ’’ (Mrs. Montagu)—“The Most Gorgeous Lady Blessing-
ton ’”—“The Female Quixote ”—A Radical Lady of the Last
Generation (Mrs. Grote)—The Real “Diana of the Crossways ''
(The Hon. Mrs. Norton)—A Tory Lady of the Last Generation
(Lady Eastlake).
Archbishop Laud and Priestly Government, by
HENRY BELL, Late Scholar of Clare College, and
Member of the Indian Civil Service (retired),
and of the Middle Temple, Barrister-at-Law.
Demy 8vo. Price Ios. 6d. net.
“In writing the history of a life so varied in its circumstances
and so tragic in its end, I have endeavoured, as far as possible, to
draw a picture of the man as he appears in his own letters, memoir
and diary, for it is only fair to judge him by his own actions and
writings, and not by the caricatures of his enemies, or the equally
misleading portraiture of his friends.”—From the Author's Intro-
duction.
Michael Drayton, by PROFESSOR OLIVER ELTON.
Crown 8vo. Illustrated.
Professor Elton, who wrote an Introduction to Michael
Drayton for the Spenser Society in 1895, and has made
several valuable contributions to the history of our litera-
ture, is perhaps more competent to deal with the author of
The Battle of Agincourt than any other living scholar.
8
ANNOUNCEMENTS
The Decoration of Leather. Translated from the
French of Georges de Recy by MAUDE NATHAN.
With illustrations and examples of Leather De-
coration from various sources.
“In a preface which is omitted from this translation, the author
claims for his work a place between the books dealing solely with
the history and development of the art of working in leather and
those of which the object is to impart a knowledge of the technique
of its various processes to amateurs who may be unable or unwilling
to undertake a regular course of instruction. He points out that
leather, in its adaptibility to many different kinds of treatment, is
a material eminently suited to the interpretation of the style of
decoration known as ‘modern art.’”—Extract from the Trans-
lator’s Note.
Scarabs, An Introduction to the Study of Egyptian
Seals and Signet Rings, by PERCY E. NEwBERRY.
Illustrations in the text, coloured and other
plates. Royal 8vo. I8s. net.
Ten years ago Professor Flinders Petrie's book on His-
torical Scarabs became out of print. Since then nothing
has been done to fill its place. In the present volume Mr.
Newberry, whose services to Egyptology are well known,
Supplies that want.
Extinct Animals, by PROFESSOR E. RAY LANKES-
TER, F.Z.S. Profusely illustrated with plates
and in the text.
The substance of this volume was delivered, as a course
of lectures, to a juvenile audience at the Royal Institution
during the Christmas season, IQ03–4.
The Garden of Eden: Kempton Park once upon a
Time, by EDITH A. BARNETT, Author, of “A
Champion in the Seventies,” “The Fetich of the
Family,” etc. Illustrated. Crown 8vo. 5s. net.
The Sayings of Muhammad, arranged by A. L.
SUHRAWADY. I6mo. 2s. 6d. Uniform with
the “ Ingersoll Lectures.”
9 ::
ARCHIBALD CONSTABLE & CO.’S
By the Author of “Lives of the Hunted.”
Monarch, The Big Bear, by ERNEST THOMPSON
SETON. With many drawings by the Author
in half-tone and line. 5s. net.
“Some (nature students) are drily scientific, some are dull and
prosy, some are sentimental, some are sensational, and a few are
altogether admirable. Mr. Thompson Seton, as an artist and
raconteur, ranks by far the highest in this field.”—MR. JoHN
BURRoughs, in the Atlantic Monthly.
“A more charming and pathetic animal story was never written,
even by that sympathetic student of wild life, Thompson Seton.”—
Daily Express.
Two Little Savages. Being the Adventures of Two
Nat
Boys who Lived as Indians and what They
Learned. With over 300 drawings. Written
and Illustrated by ERNEST THOMPSON SETON.
Post 8vo, cloth, 6s. net.
“From the delight and envy which this book has awakened in
us we can imagine the unalloyed pleasure with which it will be
devoured by all boys clever enough to understand it and fortunate
enough to live where emulation of the doings of Yan and Sam and
Sappy is within the horizon of possibility. . . . Mr. Seton's name
is sufficient guarantee for the style, in which we inhale the aro-
matic freshness and pungency of the great forest-library where he
has studied.”—Glasgow Herald.
ural History in Zoological Gardens, by
FRANK E. BEDDARD, M.A. Oxon., F.R.S.,
Prosector of the Zoological Society, etc. Illus-
trated by GAMBIER BOLTON and WINIFRED
AUSTEN. Extra Crown 8vo. 6s. net.
This volume contains an account of each of the principal
kinds of animals found in most Zoological Gardens. The
types of vertebrate life are placed in due relation to each
other in an orderly way. It will be of assistance as a guide
to the mammals, birds, reptiles, and amphibians collected
together in such great variety at these institutions, and
a great help to the study of animal life. It is sumptuously
illustrated both from photographs and drawings.
“It gives a skilled and interesting account of the history, the
appearance, and the habits of more than a hundred different kinds
of beasts, birds, and creeping things. . . The instructive and con-
cise descriptions in the text are helped out by many admirable
photographs.”—Scotsman.
IO
ANNOUNCEMENTS
The Life of Reason; or, The Phases of Human
Progress, by GEORGE SANTAYANA, Assistant
Professor of Philosophy at Harvard University.
Two volumes. 5s, net each.
CoNTENTS OF Vol. I: The Birth of Reason—First Steps and
First Fluctuations—Discovery of Natural Objects—On Some
Critics of this Discovery—Nature Unified and Mind Discerned—
Discovery of Fellow Minds—Concretions in Discourse and in Ex-
istence—Relative Values of Things and Ideas—How Thought is
Practical—The Measure of Values in Reflection—Abstract Con-
ditions of the Ideal—Flux and Constancy in Human Nature.
CONTENTS OF Vol. II: Love—The Family—Industry, Govern-
ment and War—The Aristocratic Ideal—Democracy—Free Society
—Patriotism—Ideal Society.
The Citizen, A Study of the Individual and the Gov.
ernment, by NATHANIEL SOUTHGATE SHALER,
Professor of Geology in Harvard University,
and Dean of Lawrence Scientific School. Crown
8vo., pp. viii. --346. 6.S. net.
SOME OF THE CONTENTs : The Origin of Mankind—The Begin-
nings of Government—On the Limits of Freedom—Wealth, Its
Origin and Distribution—Foreign Possessions—The Future of the
Commonweath, etc. * *
The Ingersoll Lectures.
The Conception of Immortality, by JoSIAH ROYCE,
Professor of Philosophy at Harvard University.
I6mo. 2s. 6d.
“His lecture is stimulating and helpful. . . . we have no hesita-
tion in commending it to the thoughtful reader.”—Westminster
Gazette.
Science and Immortality, by WILLIAM OSLER,
M.D., F.R.S., Regius Professor of Medicine at
Oxford University. 2s. 6d.
“Thoughtful and suggestive.”—Lancet.
Human Immortality. Two Supposed Objections
to the Doctrine, by WILLIAM JAMES, Professor
of Philosophy at Harvard University. 2s. 6d.
“One of the most suggestive and original writers, and as certainly
the most brilliant psychologist living.”—Spectator.
II
ARCHIBALD CONSTABLE & CO.”S
Psychology, by JAMES RowLAND ANGELL, Head
of the Department of Psychology in the Uni-
versity of Chicago. An Introductory Study of
the Structure and Function of Human Con-
Sciousness. 7s.6d. net.
Wasps, Social and Solitary, by GEORGE W. PECKHAM
and ELIZABETH G. PECKHAM. With an Intro-
duction by JOHN BURROUGHS and Illustrations
by James H. EMERTON. Crown 8vo. 6s. net.
A detailed life story of the various species of Wasps, important
to the scientist and fascinating to the general reader. By their
observation and loving insight, Mr. and Mrs. Peckham may fairly
claim to have done for the Vespidae what M. Maeterlinck did for
their cousins in his beautiful ‘Life of the Bee.’
The Souls of Black Folk, by W. E. B. DUBOIs.
Crown 8vo. 5s. net.
“Herein lie buried many things which if read with patience may
show the strange meaning of being black here at the dawning of the
Twentieth Century. This meaning is not without interest to you,
Gentle Reader ; for the problem of the Twentieth Century is the
problem of the colour-line. . . I have sought here to sketch, in
vague, uncertain outline, the spiritual world in which ten thousand
thousand Americans live and strive. . . Leaving, then, the white
world, I have stepped within the Veil, raising it that you may
view faintly its deeper recesses—the meaning of its religion, the
passion of its human sorrow, and of the struggle of its greater souls.
All this I have ended with a tale twice told but seldom written, and
a chapter of song.”
Sextí Properti Opera Omnia. With a Commen-
tary by H. E. BUTLER, M.A., Fellow of New
College, Oxford. Extra Crown 8vo. 8s. 6d. net.
“No serious student of Propertius can in future afford to dispense
with Mr. Butler’s interesting and elucidating edition.”—School
Guardian.
Dante's Ten Heavens, by E. G. GARDNER, Author
of Dukes and Poets in Ferrara, etc. Cheaper
Edition, Revised. Demy 8vo. 5s. net.
“As a help to the minuter study, not of Dante only, but of what
has always been regarded as the most obscure part of Dante's
writings, it is hardly too much to say that no more valuable work
has appeared in English.”—Athenaeum.
I2
ANNOUNCEMENTS
Verse.
Penthesilea. A Poem, by LAURENCE BINYON,
Author of The Death of Adam, etc. Crown
8vo. 3s. 6d. net.
A Robin's Song and Other Poems, by MARY
SCOTT. Crown 8vo. 2s. 6d. net.
“Very melodious and pleasant little poems.”—Gentlewoman.
Urban VIII., by WILLIAM NASSAU WEECH, M.A.,
Late Scholar and Longstaff Exhibitioner of
New College, Oxford. Crown 8vo. 3s.6d. net.
The Sun and the Serpent. A Contribution to the
History of Serpent Worship. By BRIGADE-
SURGEON C. F. OLDHAM. Demy 8vo. With
33 Full-page Illustrations. Price Ios. 6d. net.
Lord George Bentinck. A Political Biography. By
BENJAMIN DISRAELI (LORD BEACONSFIELD).
New Edition, with a Preface by CHARLEs WHIB-
LEY. Demy 8vo. 6s. net.
A Register of National Bibliography, by W. P. Court-
ney. Two volumes. Demy 8vo. 31.s. 6d. net.
A New Book on Household
Management.
Woman's Kingdom, by MRS. WILLOUGHBY WAL-
LACE, Illustrated by MRS. HERBERT DAVIs.
Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d.
Suggestions as to furnishing, decorating and economi-
cally managing the home for people of limited means.
I3
ARCHIBALD CONSTABLE & CO.”S
New Technical Books.
Steam Turbines, with an Appendix on Gas Tur-
bines and the Future of Heat Engines, by Dr.
A. STODOLA, Professor at the Polytechnikum
in Zurich. Authorized translation from the
Second Enlarged and Revised German Edition
by Dr. LOUIS C. LOEWENSTEIN, Department of
Mechanical Engineering at Lehigh University.
With 24I Cuts and 3 Lithograph Tables. Demy
8vo. 21s. net.
Mechanical Movements, Powers, Devices and Ap,
pliances, by GARDNER D. HISCOX, M.E., Author
of Gas, Gasoline and Oil Vapour Engines, etc.
Tenth Edition. Over 400 Pages, I,649 Illus-
trations and Descriptive Text. Demy 8vo.
I2s. 6d. net.
This work embraces an illustrated description of the
greatest variety of mechanical movements and devices in
any language. It is a book for inventors, students,
draughtsmen, mechanics, engineers, electricians, and all
interested in any way in the devising and operation of
mechanical works.
Mechanical Appliances, Mechanical Movements and
Novelties of Construction, being a supplement
to the preceding volume by the same Author.
400 Pages, about I,000 Illustrations. Demy
8vo. I2s. 6d. net.
An Encyclopædia of Mechanical Movements and Me-
chanical Appliances, including many novelties of Construc-
tion used in the practical operation of the Arts, Manufac-
tures, and in Engineering. For engineers, draughtsmen,
inventors and all others interested in Mechanical
operations.
I4
ANNOUNCEMENTS
The Economic and Commercial Theory of Heat
Power Plants, by ROBERT H. SMITH, A.M.I.C.E.,
M.I.M.E., M.I.E.E., etc., Prof. Em. of Engineer-
ing and Mem. Ord. Meiji. Imp. 8vo. 243. net.
Steam Pipes, by W. H. BOOTH, Author of Liquid
Fuel and its Combustion. Fully illustrated.
Demy 8vo. 5s. net.
Steam Boilers, by H. H. PowLEs, M.Inst.M.E.,
etc. Fully illustrated. Imp. 8vo. 24s. net.
Reinforced Concrete, by CHARLES F. MARSH,
M.Inst.C.E. Fully illustrated. Imp. 8vo.
31s. 6d. net.
“A splendid addition to the literature of an important subject of
engineering science.”—Brigineering Times.
The Flow of Steam through Convergent Nozzles
and Orifices, by A. RATEAU. Authorized trans-
lation by H. BOYD BRYDON. Cr. 8vo. 4s. 6d. net.
Gas Engine Construction: A Practical Treatise,
by HENRY V. A. PARSELL, jr., Member A. I.
Electrical Engineers, and ARTHUR J. WEED,
Mechanical Engineer. Fully illustrated. Demy
8vo. 10s. 6d. net.
Gas Engine Design, by CHARLES EDWARD LUCKE,
Ph.D. Mechanical Engineering Department,
Columbia University, New York City. Demy
8vo. 12s. 6d. net.
National Engineering and Trade Lectures, Edited
by B. H. MoRGAN, assisted by the Board of
Trade and other Government Departments,
various Colonial Governments, British Consular
Officers, Chambers of Commerce, Employers’
Federations, Technical Institutions, etc. Fully
illustrated. 6s. net per volume.
Vol. I. BRITISH PROGRESS IN MUNICIPAL ENGINEERING. A Series of Three Lectures, by
WILLIAM MAxwell, Assoc. M. Inst.C.E.
Vol. 2. BRITISH PROGRESS IN PUMPs AND PUMPING ENGINEs. By PHILIP R. BJorling,
Consulting Engineer, Author of “Pumps and Pump Motors.”
Vol. 3. BRITISH PROGRESS IN GAs WoRKS PLANT AND MACHINERy. By C. E. BRAcken-
BURY, C.E., author of “Modern Methods of Saving Labour in Gasworks."
OTHER VOA. UMAES IAV PR AEFAA' A TION.
I5
—a
ARCHIBALD CONSTABLE & Co.'s
Leprosy and Fish Eating, by JonATHAN HUTCHIN-
SON, F.R.S., LL.D. Camb. Edin. and Glasgow;
F.R.C.S.; late President of the Royal College
of Surgeons. Demy 8vo.
This work comprises statements as to the History of
Leprosy, its Nature, its prevalence in different countries,
and the conditions under which it has disappeared from
many. Facts are brought forward to show that it is not
Ordinarily contagious, and that its real cause is the use as
food of badly cured fish. It is held that the segregation
of lepers is useless, and that compulsory laws are wholly
unjustifiable. There are chapters on the influence of sex
in relation to Leprosy, of religious creed, and of poverty.
The volume contains maps and illustrations.
Some Recent Medical Books,
New Methods of Treatment, by Dr. LAUMONIER ;
translated from the Second edition and Edited
by H. W. SYERs, M.A., M.D., Cantab. Crown
8vo. 7s. 6d. net.
The Surgery of the Diseases of the Appendix
Vermiformis and their Complications, by
WILLIAM HENRY BATTLE, F.R.C.S., Surgeon to
St. Thomas' Hospital, and EDRED M. CORNER,
M.B., B.Ch., F.R.C.S., Assistant Surgeon to St.
Thomas' Hospital. Demy 8vo. 7s. 6d. net.
Clinical Causes of Cancer of the Breast, by CECIL
. H. LEAF, F.R.C.S. Demy 8vo. 25. net.
Clinical and Pathological Observations on Acute
Abdominal Diseases, by EDRED M. CORNER,
B.Sc. Lond., M.A., M.B., B.C. Cantab., F.R.C.S.
Eng., Surgeon to Out-Patients, Surgeon to the
Physical Exercise Department, St. Thomas’
Hospital. Demy 8vo. 3s. 6d. net.
I6
ANNOUNCEMENTS
Fiction.
Crown 8vo. 6/– each volume.
JOHN FLETCHER'S MADONNA.
By MRS. COMYNS CARR,
Author of “Cottage Folk,” etc.
“Mrs. Comyns Carr has very cleverly worked out an original idea,
Contriving her picture in a perfect mosaic of picturesque detail. . . .
The Baron strongly recommends it to those capable of enjoying a
good novel when they get it.”—Punch.
IN SEARCH OF THE UNKNOWN.
By ROBERT W. CHAMBERS,
Author of “Cardigan,” “Maids of Paradise,” “The Maid at
Arms,” etc. With a Frontispiece.
“An elaborate joke of an entertaining kind.”—Daily Graphic.
THE WEDDING OF THE LADY OF LOVELL,
AND OTHER MATCHES OF
TOBIAH'S MAKING.
By UNA L. SILBERRAD,
Author of “Petronilla Heroven,” “The Success of Mark
Wyngate,” etc.
“It may be safely said that few tales of recent years have been
more excellently told. There is a quiet humorous force about the
style, a mature originality, which is altogether admirable.”—
Morning Leader.
CRITTENDEN.
By JOHN FOX,
Author of “The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come,” etc.
A ROUGH REFORMER.
By ERNEST GLANVILLE,
Author of “The Kloof Bride,” etc.
17
ARCHIBALD CONSTABLE & CO.”S
THE OUTLET
By ANDY ADAMS,
Author of “The Log of a Cowboy,” “A Texas Matchmaker,”
etc. Illustrated by E. Boy D SMITH.
Of “The Log of a Cowboy,” The Daily Mail said:—“It is splen-
didly masculine and tells of gritty life, where men do not lie on what
Stevenson has called ‘the feather-bed of civilization,’ but taste the
primal joys of the natural man.”
WILL WARBURTON.
By GEORGE GISSING,
Author of “Veranilda,” “The Private Papers of Henry
Ryecroft,” etc.
A NEW NOVEL.
By MEREJKOWSKI,
Author of “The Death of the Gods" and “The Forerunner.”
This completes the trilogy, “Christ and Anti-Christ.”
JöRN UHL.
By GUSTAV FRENSSEN,
Translated from the German. Over 180,000 have already been
sold of this remarkable novel.
THE STEPPING STONE.
By HELEN HESTER COLVILL,
Author of “Our Wills and Fates,” “Mr. Bryant's Mistake,” etc.
TALES OF RYE TOWN.
By MRS. STEPNEY RAWSON,
Author of “A Lady of the Regency,” “Journeyman Love,” etc.
“The best book or short stories we have read for a year or two—one of
the best we have ever read.”—Morning Post.
THE QUEEN'S MAN.
By ELEANOR C. PRICE,
Author of “Angelot,” “Off the High Road,” etc.
ISIDRO.
By MARY AUSTIN,
Author of “The Land of Little Rain,” etc. Illustrated by Eric Pape.
18
ANNOUNCEMENTS
Some Recent Publications.
The Bridgewater Gallery. I2O of the most noted
paintings at Bridgewater House, reproduced in
Photogravure from Photographs, by WALTER
LONGLEY BOURKE. With Descriptive Historical
Text by LIONEL CUST, M.V.O., Surveyor of the
King's Pictures and Works of Art, and Director
of the National Portrait Gallery. The edition
is strictly limited to Ioo copies for sale, and I5
for presentation, the price to subscribers being
50 guineas net. With each copy of the book a
portfolio containing 6 large autotype plates will
be supplied.
“The last few years have witnessed the publication of more sump-
tuous books on the fine arts than any period of similar length in
the history of the world, and among these books Messrs. Constable's
monumental volume on the Bridgewater Gallery must take the
first place.”—C. J. H. in the Burlington Magazine.
“Nothing more splendid has been accomplished in this direction.
In the first place the I2O reproductions in photgravure are all of
them extraordinarily fine impressions. Such perfection in the
engraving and printing as is here seen can only be the result of
infinite care and fastidious selection. It implies, besides the mas-
tery of the mechanical craft, a real appreciation of the beauties to
be rendered, a choice of the best impressions, and a stern rejection
of everything that does not come up to the highest standard.”—
Athenaeum.
The Prado Gallery and its Masterpieces, by CHARLES
RICKETTs. With 54 Illustrations in Photo-
gravure. Imperial quarto, 5 guineas net.
Edition limited to 350 copies, for sale ; also 50
copies on Japan vellum. I5 guineas net.
“Mr. Ricketts writes with learning and distinction of the pic-
tures in that wonderful collection at Madrid. The critic seems
equally at home in discussing the Spanish, Italian, or Netherlands
school. . . . The work is illustrated by fifty-four photogravures,
some of which are large, and the pictures represented are many of
them among the world’s masterpieces. The volume is therefore a
delightful one, as it is good both to look at and to read.”—Spec-
tator.
I9
ARCHIBALD CONSTABLE & Co.'s
The Old Road, by HILAIRE BELLOC. With Numerous
Photogravures and other Illustrations by
WILLIAM HYDE. Maps and Plans. 31.s. 6d. net.
“His style is admirable, a little elaborate, and often distin-
guished ; and Mr. William Hyde's illustrations to this very handsome
book are gems. He has the secret of getting at the spirit of land-
scape with a fine economy of means. So we have a model affair of
its kind.”—Athenaeum.
Dukes and Poets in Ferrara. A study in the
Politics, Poetry and Religion of the I5th and
early 16th centuries, by EDMUND G. GARDNER,
Author of Dante's Ten Heavens, etc. With
numerous Photogravure Plates. Demy 8vo.
I8s. net.
“Mr. Gardner brings the whole place before the eyes, just as the
age, of which it is a magnificent monument, is vivified in the pages
of his admirable study.”—Westminster Gazette.
Great Englishmen of the 16th Century, by SIDNEY
LEE. Illustrated with Portraits. Demy 8vo.
7s. 6d. net.
“This is quite the best work that Mr. Sidney Lee has given us,
with the possible exception of his introducton to Elizabethan
Sonnets in An English Garner.”—Academy and Literature.
William Cobbett. A Study of His Life as shown
in his Writings, by E. I. CARLYLE. Demy 8vo.
Illustrated. 7s. 6d. net.
“We have, we think, said enough to show that we have read this
book with real enjoyment and interest, and to express our appre-
ciation of the way in which the author has performed his difficult
and laborious task.”—Athenaeum.
John of Gaunt, by S. ARMITAGE-SMITH. With
Portraits and Maps. Demy 8vo. About 500
pp. I8s. net.
“No more important work on mediaeval history has appeared
during recent years.”—Athenaeum.
2O
ANNOUNCEMENTs - - -"
- - - -
*-m-tº-
Letters of William Stubbs, Bishop of Oxford, Edited
by W. H. HUTTON, B.D. Demy 8vo. Illus-
trated. I7s. 6d. net. -
“Here we have contributions to the biography of the great
English historian that are of the greatest value. Primarily, the
book is “a collection of letters.’ But Mr. Hutton has made of it.
something more by his additional narrative which welds the flow
of correspondence into a consecutive text.”—Westminster Gazette.
Quintín Hogg, a Biography by ETHEL Hogg. With
- a Preface by the DUKE OF ARGYLL. Illustrated.
Demy 8vo. Price I2s. 6d. net. [3rd Edition.
“This book is an excellent record of a life entirely given to good
works.”—Times. .
The Life and Letters of Hippolyte Taíne. Trans-
- lated and edited by Mrs. R. L. DEVONSHIRE.
Vol. I. (1828–1852); Vol. II. (1853–1870).
Crown 8vo. 7s. 6d. net each. To be com-
pleted by a third volume. º
“Full of good things . . . should find a large and appreciative-
circle of readers. Mrs. Devonshire's translation strikes us as of
peculiar excellence.”—Academy and Literature. -
Inner Jerusalem, by Miss GOODRICH FREER. Fully
illustrated from Photographs. Demy 8vo.
I2s. 6d. net. -
“Whatever may be true of other places, every one has an in-
terest in Jerusalem. For the many who can never hope to visit it
themselves, Miss Freer's book will be of real assistance, while those
who do make the journey would probably do so with more profit
if they could find room for this shapely volume in their luggage.”—
Outlook. By the same Author.
Outer Isles. Illustrated by ALLAN BARRAUD.
Demy 8vo. 5s. net.
“For picturesque descriptions of the sombre scenery, for infor-
mation as to the manners and customs of the aborigines, and their
miserable habitations, their strange superstitions and their strong
religious feelings, we should desire no. better guide.”—Times.
Wanderings in the Great Forests of Borneo, by
Dr. ODOARDO BECCARI. Revised and edited
by F. H. H. GUILLEMARD, M.A. With numer-
ous illustrations. Demy 8vo. I6s. net. ||
* “Not since the appearance, a good many years ago, of Dr. A. R
Wallace's great work on the Malay Archipelago, has there been such
an attractive volume on natural history in that profuse region.”—
Morning Leader. -
2I



ARCHIBALD CONSTABLE & Co.'s
English Metal Work. A Collection of 93 Draw- -
ings made in the early nineteenth century by
WILLIAM TwoPENY and preserved in the British
Museum. With an Introduction by LAURENCE
BINYon, and descriptive text by LAWRENCE
Con
The
WEAVER, F.S.A. Imperial 8vo. I5s. net.
“This beautifully presented volume.”—Bookseller.
temporary France, 1870-1900, by GABRIEL
HANOTAUx. Translated by J. C. TARVER, M.A.,
and Illustrated with Portraits. In 4 volumes.
Vol. I. (1870–1873), I5s. net; Vol. II. I5s. net
(in the Press). -
The first volume is chiefly concerned with the Franco-
Prussian War, and with the Rise and fall of M. Thiers.
“M. Hanotaux's Contemporory France is likely to be the stan-
dard work on French history of thirty years ago . . . we are
grateful to Mr. Tarver for putting so important a book in the hands
of English readers.”—Monthly Review.
Paston Letters, edited by JAMES GAIRDNER,
LL.D., Author of a Life of Richard III., etc.
In 4 volumes. Vol. I., Henry VI., I422–1461 ;
Vol. II., Edward IV., I461–1471 ; Vol. III.,
I471–1509; Vol. IV., Introductory and Supple-
mentary. A Photogravure Frontispiece to each
volume. Crown 8vo. 21s. net. the set. Vol.
IV. sold separately, Ios. 6d. net.
Every letter is exhaustively annotated. A Chronological
Table, and most copious Indices conclude the work.
“The Paston Letters are an important testimony to the pro-
gressive condition of Society, and come in as a precious link in the
chain of moral history of England, which they alone in this period
supply. They stand, indeed, singly, as far as I know, in Europe;
for though it is highly probable that in the archives of Italian
families, if not in France or Germany, a series of merely private
letters equally ancient may be concealed ; I do not recollect that
any have been published. They are all written in the reigns of
Henry VI. and Edward IV., except a few that extend as far as
Henry VII., by different members of a wealthy and respectable, but
not noble, family; and are therefore pictures of the life of the
English gentry of that age.”—Henry Hallam, Introduction to the
Literature of Europe, i. 228, Ed. 1837.
22
ANNOUNCEMENTS
AN ENGLISH GARNER
• Ingatherings from our History and Literature, the Original Impression of
which is now out of print. Price 4s. net per vol. Complete in I2 uniform vols.
(of about 400 8vo pages each) as follows:–
Tudor Tracts. With an Introduction by A. F.
PollarD, F.R. Hist.S., Author of Protector Somerset, etc.
Stuart Tracts. With an Introduction by C. H.
FIRTH, Fellow of All Saints, Author of Oliver Cromwell.
Late Stuart Tracts. With an Introduction by
GEORGE A. AITKEN, Author of A Zife of Steele.
Voyages and Travels. Mainly of the Fifteenth and
Sixteenth Centuries. With an Introduction by C. RAYMOND
BEAZLEY, Fellow of Merton, Author of Z'he Dazºn of Modern
Geography. 2 vols. 8s. net.
Social England Illustrated. With an Introduction
by ANDREW LANG.
Critical Essays and Literary Fragments. With an
Introduction by CHURTON Collins.
Elizabethan Sonnets. With an Introduction by
SIDNEY LEE. 2 vols. 8s. net.
Longer and Shorter Elizabethan Poems. With an
Introduction by A. H. BULLEN, Editor of Elizabethan Song
Books, 2 vols. 8s. net. Sold separately.
Fifteenth Century Prose and Verse. With an Intro-
duction by ALFRED W. PollarD.
“The series of volumes comprising An English Garner is honour-
ably distinguished among the cheap reprints of our time by the
value and weight of the introduction provided.”—Athenaeum.
Messrs. Constable also publish a re-issue of Arber’s
English Reprints and The English Scholar's Library. For
particulars of titles, prices, etc., see Messrs. Constable's
complete catalogue.
University Extension. The Organ of University
Extension Movement. Published three times a year (in
November, February and June), Price 3d. per copy.
Annual subscription Is. per annum. Post Free.
23
ARCHIBALD CONSTABLE & CO.”S
Some Military Books.
My Service in the Indian Army—and After, by
GENERAL SIR LUTHER WAUGHAN. With Por-
trait and Maps. Demy 8vo. I6s. net.
“The volume, which is attractively presented, will be read with
keen attention by the author's many old friends, and by all who are
interested in the history of the North-Western Frontier of the
Punjaub.”—Athenaeum.
The Story of a Soldier's Life, by FIELD-MARSHAL
VISCOUNT WOLSELEY, G.C.M.G. 2 volumes.
With Portraits and Maps. Demy 8vo. 32s.
net.
“The reader will find in Lord Wolseley's autobiography delight-
ful matter and shrewd observance of character. It is a straight-
forward tale of a soldier's life, interspersed with shrewd criticism.”
—St. James’s Gazette.
“A personal narrative which will rank as one of the most inter-
esting stories that ever came from a military writer.”—Daily
Chronicle.
The History of the King's Bodyguard of the Yeo.
men of the Guard, by COLONEL SIR REGINALD
HENNELL, D.S.O. With about 70 coloured
plates, photogravures, Collotypes, etc. Limited
to 300 copies for Sale. £33S. net.
“The records now published are no mere regimental chronicle ;
they are an epitome of English history for over four hundred years.”
—Athenaeum.
The Fight for Canada, by MAJOR WILLIAM WooD.
Illustrated. Demy 8vo. 2Is. net.
“The first matter for consideration in a book of this kind is as to
its permanent value—whether it contains new facts, or puts old
ones in a new light. The Fight for Canada does, being the fruit of
much research and constant pains . . . his intimate personal
acquaintance with Quebec and the regions round gives a vividness
to his descriptions of the battlefield, and of Wolfe's encampment
at the glorious Falls of Montmorency, that adds immensely to the
value of the book.”—Daily Chronicle.
24
ANNOUNCEMENTS
The Life and Campaign of Hugh, 1st Vícount
Gough. Illustrated with Portraits, Maps and
Plans. 2 volumes. Demy 8vo. 3Is. 6d. net.
“A complete biography. The book is one to be read by all and
closely studied by all military students.”—Athenaeum.
The Second Afghan War, 1878–80. Vol. I., Demy
8vo, Ios. net. Vol. II., Demy 8vo, I5s. net.
“From first to last the book will repay study by every one who
cares to understand how wars can be made—and avoided.”—
Times.
Three Books of Parody.
By Owen SEAMAN.
“Mr. Owen Seaman is the prince of parodists.”—Star.
A Harvest of Chaff. Foap. 8vo. 3s.6d. net.
“To praise them is superfluous . . no one quite comes up to
Mr. Seaman. This volume is fully up to the best of its predecessors.
Whether the fun or the ingenuity is the more to be admired we
cannot say.”—Spectator.
The contents of this book are for the most part parodies
of modern poets written in Mr. Seaman's happiest vein.
A few poems of a more serious temper—“Lines in Mem-
Oriam ”—conclude the volume.
Borrowed Plumes. Foap. 8vo. 3s. 6d. net.
“There are passages in this book which are positively inspired
... a superbly witty and alert collection of criticisms, written in
a style as sure as a master-surgeon's knife.”—Spectator.
“Borrowed Plumes” are mostly in prose. Meredith
and Henry James, Marie Corelli and Hall Caine, and many
another distinguished contemporary novelist in turn re-
ceive Mr. Seaman’s attention.
Lost Masterpieces, by ST. JoHN HANKIN. Foap.
8vo. 3s. 6d. net.
“Here we have parody of manner, parody itself.”—Glasgow
Herald.
“They deserve a niche on the shelf below one's favourite poets.
—Yorkshire Post.
25
ARCHIBALD CONSTABLE & CO.”S
Recent Verse,
St. Frideswide and other Poems, by FLORENCE
HAYLLAR. Foap. 8vo. 2s. 6d. net.
“The poem [The Witch] as a whole is invested with a weird and
magical atmosphere, such as Coleridge knew well, how to produce.
The simile in the last stanza, the suppressed intensity of the feeling,
and the strong, bold touches, are not unworthy of him. No less
imaginative is “Home from Battle,” which we quote in full. . . .
Dramatic power and a Homeric simplicity of manner are here com-
bined, while the pathetic meaning is left to be suggested by the
mere presentment of the situation, as Palgrave well said of Scott's
little masterpiece, “Proud Maisie.” We are reminded of Surtee's
fine ballad, ‘Barthram's Dirge,’ but it must, we think, be admitted
that Miss Hayllar has the advantage of the older poet.”—Athenaeum.
The Agamemnon of Aeschylus. Translated into
English Verse by Rev. EDWARD THRING, the
late Headmaster of Uppingham. Crown 8vo.
Leather, Ios. 6d. net.
“The general result is to convey to the Greekless English reader
a strikingly effective presentation of one of the most powerful and
least accessible examples of Greek literary achievement.”—Educa-
tional Times.
New Editions.
Man and Superman, by GEORGE BERNARD SHAW.
Crown 8vo. 6s. Third Edition.
The Stage Society are shortly to give a performance
of this play.
Mr. Max Beerbohm says: “This is his masterpiece.”
Asia and Europe. Studies presenting the Con-
clusions formed by the Author in a long life
devoted to the subject of the Relations between
Asia and Europe. By MEREDITH TOWNSEND.
Crown 8vo. 5S. net.
“If I could only afford to buy one book this summer I should
certainly choose Mr. Meredith Townsend’s.”—British Weekly.
26
ANNOUNCEMENTS
Canada in the Twentieth Century, by A. G.
* BRADLEY, Author of The Fight with France for
North America. With many Illustrations and
a Map. Demy 8vo. 5s. net.
“A really practical volume of great utility, besides being ex-
ceedingly pleasant reading.”—Daily Telegraph.
Farthest North, by FRIDTJoF NANSEN. An En-
tirely New Edition of Nansen’s Famous Book
of Travel. Illustrated with a Portrait of Nan-
Sen, 2 Maps, and about 20 Full-page Plates.
Cloth Gilt. Demy 8vo. 6s.
“A book for everybody who loves a story of romance and ad-
venture.”—Westminster Gazette.
Cities of India, by G. W. Forrest, C.I.E., Ex-
Director of Records, Government of India.
With 30 Illustrations. Demy 8vo. 5s. net.
“A charming book, which should be in the hands of all who wish
to understand and realize our great Indian dependency.”—Pilot.
Travels Round Our Village, by ELEANOR G.
HAYDEN, Author of From a Thatched Cottage,
etc. With numerous Illustrations and Cover
Design by L. LESLIE BROOKE. Extra Crown
8vo. 3s. 6d. net.
“A delightful book in every sense of the words.”—Country Life.
By Thames and Cotswold, by REv. W. H. HUTTON.
With many Illustrations. Demy 8vo. 5s.
net. [Reduced from Ios. 6d. net.
“No word of praise should be withheld from Mr. Hutton. His
sketches are informative as well as entertaining.”—Scotsman.
27
ARCHIBALD CONSTABLE & CO.”S
Constable's 2/6 Series:
A new series of popular copyright Novels. Bound in Cloth,
gilt-lettered back and side, with design. Small Crown 8vo.
Price 2s. 6d. net.
Cardigan, by ROBERT W. CHAMBERs, Author of
The Maids of Paradise, Ashes of Empire, etc.
“A fine and inspiring story, fittingly told.”—Athenaeum.
Dracula, by BRAM STOKER, Author of The Jewel of
Seven Stars, etc.
“The very weirdest of weird tales.”—Punch.
The Death of the Gods, by MEREJKowSKI. A new
Edition of the novel by this famous Russian
writer.
“Here, in the enthusiasm of reading, we are ready to admit
another to the select circle of great historical novels, and they are
few.”—Daily Chronicle.
Park Lane, by PERCY WHITE. A New Edition
of Mr. Percy White's most successful novel
since The West End.
“Witty, smart, modern, up-to-date.”—Star.
New Additions of Exceptional Interest,
Castle Omeragh, by F. FRANKFORT MOORE, Author
of The Jessamy Bride, etc.
Resurrection, by LEO TOLSTOY. With Introduc-
tion and Appendix. 33 Illustrations by PAS-
TERNAK.
Sevastopol, and other Military Tales, by LEO TOL-
STOY. With Portrait of Tolstoy and Map.
28
ANNOUNCEMENTS
Recent Ós. Fiction.
The Divine Fire, by MAY SINCLAIR, Author of Two
Sides of a Question, Mr. and Mrs. Nevill Tyson,
etc.
“My Nautical Retainer writes: One is apt to despair of English
criticism when a novel like MAY SINCLAIR's The Divine Fire (Con-
stable) goes almost unregarded. Possibly, our conductors are
themselves guided by established reputations: and Miss Sinclair's
was yet to make. She was not Mrs. HUMPHRY WARD, for instance,
and she was not Mr. HENRY JAMEs. Yet the one might well envy
the delightful humour that here tempers a very perfect sincerity,
and the other might admire how an analytic subtlety, as delicate as
his own, could avoid obscurity and a too laboured finesse. Miss
Sinclair's intuition—for experience would never have embraced such
a diversity of types—is something more than feminine. . . . Miss
SINCLAIR is always quietly sure of herself. That is why she will not
be hurried, but moves through her gradual scheme with so leisured
a serenity; why her style, fluent and facile, never forces its natural
eloquence; why her humour plays with a diffused light over all her
work and seldom needs the advertisement of scintillating epigrams.
Judged by almost every standard to which a comedy like this
should be referred, I find her book the most remarkable that I
have read for many years”—Mr. Owen SEAMAN in Punch.
Veranilda, by GEORGE GISSING, Author of The
Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft, New Grub
Street, etc. With a Prefatory Note by
FREDERIC HARRISON. [3rd Edition.
“Gissing’s maturest, latest and most deliberately conceived
book . . . the book that lay nearest his heart during the last years
of his life.”—Mr. H. G. Wells in the Sphere.
For six months the best selling book in the United States.
In the Bishop's Carriage, by MIRIAM MICHELSON.
Illustrated.
“Everyone is reading or wanting to read “In the Bishop's Carriage.’”
Academy and Literature.
Paths of Judgment, by ANNE DOUGLAS SEDGWICK,
Author of The Dull Miss Auchinard, etc.
“The novel shows insight of an unusual order.”—Speaker.
29 **
#
* , ſº *
. ſ \ © “
CONSTABLE & Co.'s ANNOUNCEMENTS
CONSTABLE's STANDARD SERIES...A re.
The
}
issue, in handsome cloth gilt binding, of Popular Works of
Travel, History and Biography. Price 3s.6d. net each.
Fight with France for North America, by A. G. BRADLEY,
Author of Wolfe, etc. Demy 8vo. Illustrated.
“A trustworthy and effective narrative. . . . Braddock and
Wolfe, Amherst and Washington, the excellent Montcalm and the
vain incapable Vaudreuil are admirably drawn. Mr. Bradley writes
as enthusiastic and almost as eloquent English as Macaulay.”—
Spectator. -
Bartholomew Sastrow. The Memoirs of a German Burgo-
- The
master. Translated by ALBERT WANDAM, Author of
An Englishman in Paris, with an Introduction by
HERBERT FISHER, M.A. Extra Crown 8vo. Illustrated.
“One of the most vivid presentations of the life of a past age that
we have ever read.”—Guardian.
Alps from End to End, by SIR WILLIAM MARTIN
CONWAY. With a Chapter on the Western and Central
Alps by the REv. W. A. B. COOLIDGE, and Illustrations
by A. D. McCORMICK. Extra Crown 8vo. .
“There's perhaps not another living Alpinist—unless we except
Mr. Coolidge, who contributes a valuable précis of the topography
—who could have combined the requisite knowledge with physical
capacity for the task.”—Standard.
The Waterloo Campaign, 1815, by WILLIAM SIBORNE.
Illustrated.
“There can be no doubt that the narrative is a classic in its
way.”—Globe.
Rupert Prince Palatíne, by EVA SCOTT, Author of The King
The
in Exile. With a Frontispiece.
“Miss Scott has not only made herself familiar with Rupert and
his surroundings, but is possessed of—what is seldom to be found—
a rare talent for biographical presentment.”—Mr. S. R. Gardiner
in The English Historical Review.
Household of the Lafayettes, by EDITH SICHEL.
Author of Catherine de Medici and the French Reformation,
etc. With a Frontispiece.
“A very vivid and picturesque study of French life during the
revolutionary period.”—Morning Post.
3O
THE works OF



GEORGE MEREDITH
THE ORDEAL OF RICHARD FEVEREL
BEAU-CHAMP'S CAREER
SANDRA BELLONI
VITTORIA
EVAN HARRINGTON
THE EGOIST
ONE OF OUR CONQUERORS
LORD ORMONT AND HIS AMINTA
THE AMAZING MARRIAGE
DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS
THE ADVENTURES OF HARRY RICHMOND
RHODA FLEMING
THE SHAVING OF SHAGPAT
THE TRAGIC COMEDIANS
SHORT STORIES
POEMS.–2 Vols.
POCKET EDITION.
In 17 vols. as above. On thin opaque paper, bound in red cloth,
gilt lettered and gilt top, 2s. 6d. net per volume; in full
leather, 3s. 6d. net per volume. *
LIBRARY EDITION.
Volumes as above, with the addition of “An Essay on Comedy,”
in one volume. I8 volumes, crown 8vo, each with a photo-
gravure frontispiece, 6s. each.
“To-day, by the general consent of the English-speaking world,
or of that part of it at any rate which concerns itself at all with the
humaner letters, he is accepted as our foremost living novelist. There
are few things in literary history more curious than the emergence
of Mr. Meredith from prolonged obscurity finally into assured and
universal fame. Something of the kind there was perhaps in
Shakespeare's case and something too in Goldsmith's. . . . Mr.
Meredith went on writing for the few, and the few read him, but
they were determined that he should also be read by the many. If
there be any one who still doubts the practical influence of literary
criticism upon the ‘general reader ’ he has striking proof of it here.
The victory of Mr. Meredith is also a victory of the critics. It was
a few hardy pioneers, with Mr. Swinburne at their head, and Mr.
Stevenson, Mr. Henley, and Mr. Barrie of their company, who
“discovered ' Mr. Meredith, and insisted in season and out of season
that the world at large should share the fruits of their discovery. . . .
Mr. Meredith, like Voltaire, has been crowned with the laurel in his
life-time.”—The Daily Chronicle.
Standard Books
wiLLIAM SHAKESPEARE's works, Illustrated
Edition. In 20 Imperial I6mo Volumes, with coloured
title-page and end-papers designed by LEwis F. DAY,
and a specially designed coloured Illustration on Jap. vellum
to each play, by L. LESLIE BROOKE, BYAM SHAw, HENRY
J. FORD, etc. Cloth gilt, extra, gilt top, gilt back, with
headband and bookmarker 2s. 6d. net per volume, or
£2 Ios. the set. Each volume sold separately.
SIR WALTER SCOTT. The Waverley Novels,
The favourite Edition of Sir Walter Scott. A Facsimile
of the Edition of 1829 published by Cadell & Co. With
all the original Plates after Sir DAVID WILKIE, R.A.; Sir
EDWIN LANDSEER, R.A.; C. R. LESLIE, R.A. ; CLARKSON
STANFIELD, R.A., etc. (re-engraved). In 48 vols. Feap.
8vo. Cloth, paper label title, Is. 6d. net per volume, or
£3 12s. net the set. Also cloth gilt, gilt top, 2s. net per
volume, or £4 I6s. net the set ; and half leather gilt,
2s. 6d. net per volume, or £6 net the set.
BOSWELL’S LIFE OF JOHNSON. Edited by
AUGUSTINE BIRRELL, K.C. With Frontispiece in Photo-
gravure to each volume by ALEXANDER ANSTED. 6 vols.
Fcap. 8vo. Cloth gilt, designed by GLEESON WHITE, or
paper label uncut. I2s. net the set. Also half leather.
I8s. net the set. Illustrated (Limited Edition) with Ioo
Portraits selected by ERNEST RADFORD. 6 Volumes.
Crown 8vo. Bound in red buckram, paper label, gilt top.
Sold only in sets. Price 25s. net.
BOSWELL’S ACCOUNT OF DR. JOHNSON'S
Tour to the Hebrides. With Photogravure Frontispieces.
Uniform with “Boswell's Johnson.” Cloth gilt or paper
label. 4s. net the two vols. Also in half leather. 6s. net
the two vols.
EDMUND SPENSER. THE FAERIE QUEENE.
Complete in Six Volumes. Foap. 8vo. Cloth, 9s, net.
Edited by KATE M. WARREN. Is. 6d. net each. Also
Art Canvas, gilt extra, with Photogravure Frontispiece,
2s. 6d. net per vol. ; complete in case, I5s. net.
ARCHIBALD CONSTABLE & CO LTD
16, JAMES STREET, HAYMARKET, S.W.
º §
-º-º-º:
Fº
§
** * * ºf
§:
º-º- ºr
§:
tº
Sº ºr.
§ º
º
ɺ
º
§:
**sº
DATE DUE
1 5 1988

- ºr - ~zº-sºus===
| sºund in Lexany . .
we 221918

， … *saegaeº** •~ -->··- ،● * … -_-'!！！�
$wº**************）（&:*á***************、。ſºļºš
∞| *º ， ！{~~~∞·
, ，！ -،
× × ×
ſejr. （?）;..
| （?）; ***
a . . ，º ！ » ， ， ， ， ， º∞ $ s < w x - … ·· · · *ſf ， .-eº, ， ， ， ， ， ， ，*** -ae,•）ſaeſaev ，
§ & * * * * * * * .’’’º.* º ** ** ， ， , ， ， ， ，****ſ！§（***）$'，¿?№tºreſ！！！！！！！！！！！
|- ae-º ºſ ſa, º º2.§ 4→
| <ſ-. ، ، ، ، ، ، ، ،
·، ，© º
0 , ！
·aeſ?
p {（* * * * * *
-ſ º
∞
！§ ***-
Ķ].*¿.º.º.º， ， ， ， ，
sae„ …»…•• • • • • ***e* pººrº;
„-s， *ę） ºù ºn yº : ***
&3·
،• • • • „- , ….* -s.
.*,，+.* * e ******
a zº • • • • • • • • • •
,'º'，'#2 （2，3）
-* ！:, , ， , ， , * « »; *****
-, ， ， ， , ， , ， • , 2：e sº, º.
§ （, ， ， , ， （?-?）, ºººººººººººººº
Mae ae
→