Book 1 - Chapter 8. The Choice Of The New Daughter

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_ CHAPTER VIII. The Choice of the New Daughter

Although my mother met me each morning with a happy smile, she walked with slower movement, and in studying her closely, after three months' absence, I perceived unwelcome change. She was not as alert mentally or physically as when I went away. A mysterious veil had fallen between her wistful spirit and the outer world. Her vision was dimmer and her spirit at times withdrawn, remote. She laughed in response to my jesting, but there was an absent-minded sweetness in her smile, a tremulous quality in her voice which disturbed me.

Her joy in my return, so accusing in its tenderness, led me to declare that I would never again leave her, not even for a month. "You may count on me hereafter," I said to her. "I'm going to quit traveling and settle down near you."

"I hope you mean it this time," she replied soberly, and her words stung for I recalled the many times I had disappointed her.

With a mass of work and correspondence waiting my hand I went from my breakfast to my study. My forenoons thereafter were spent at my desk, but with the understanding that if she got lonesome, mother was privileged to interrupt, and it often happened that along about eleven I would hear a softly-opened stair-door and then a call,--a timid call as if she feared to disturb me--"Haven't you done enough? Can't you come now?" There was no resisting this appeal. Dropping my pen, I went below and gave the rest of my day to her.

We possessed an ancient low-hung "Surrey," a vehicle admirably fitted for an invalid, and in this conveyance with a stout mare as motive power we often drove away into the country of a pleasant afternoon, sometimes into Gill's Coulee, sometimes to Onalaska.

On these excursions my mother rode in silence, busied with the past. Each hill, each stream had its tender association. Once as we were crossing the Kinney Hill she said, "We used to pick plums along that creek." Or again as we were driving toward Mindora, she said, "When McEldowney built that house we thought it a palace."

She loved to visit her brother William's farm, and to ride past the old McClintock house in which my father had courted her. Her expression at such times was sweetly sorrowful. The past appeared so happy, so secure, her present so precarious, so full of pain. She sensed the mystery, the tragedy of human life, but was unable to express her conceptions,--and I was of no value as a comforter. I could only jest with a bitter sense of helplessness.

On other days, when she was not well enough to drive, I pushed her about the village in a wheeled chair, which I had bought at the World's Fair. In this way she was able to make return calls upon such of her neighbors as were adjacent to side-walks. She was always in my thought,--only when Franklin took her in charge was it possible for me to concentrate on the story which I had begun before going abroad, and in which I hoped to embody some of the experiences of my trip. _Boy Life on the Prairie_ was also still incomplete, and occasionally I put aside _The Hustler_, as I called my fiction, in order to recover and record some farm custom, some pioneer incident which my mother or my brother brought to my mind as we talked of early days in Iowa.

The story (which Gilder afterward called _Her Mountain Lover_) galloped along quite in the spirit of humorous extravaganza with which it had been conceived, and I thoroughly enjoyed doing it for the reason that in it I was able to relive some of the noblest moments of my explorations of Colorado's peaks and streams. It was an expression of my indebtedness to the High Country.

I made the mistake, however, of not using the actual names of localities. Just why I shuffled the names of trails and towns and valleys so recklessly, I cannot now explain, for there was abundant literary precedent for their proper and exact use. Perhaps I resented the prosaic sound of "Sneffles" and "Montrose Junction." Anyhow, whatever my motive, I covered my tracks so well that it was impossible even for a resident to follow me. In _The Eagle's Heart_ I was equally elusive, but as only part of that book referred to the High Country the lack of definite nomenclature did not greatly matter.

Personally I like _Her Mountain Lover_, which is still in print, and for the benefit of the possible reader of it, I will explain that the "Wagon Wheel Gap" of the story is Ouray, and that the Grizzly Bear Trail leads off the stage road to Red Mountain.

Our red raspberries were just coming into fruit, and a few strawberries remained on the vines, therefore it happened that during the season we had a short-cake with cream and sugar almost every night for supper,--and such short-cakes!--piping hot, buttered, smothered in berries. I fear they were not very healthful either for my mother or for her sons, but as short-cakes were an immemorial delicacy in our home I could not bring myself to forbid them.

Mother insisted on them all the more firmly when I told her that the English knew nothing of short-cake or our kind of pies, and then, more to amuse her than for any other reason, I told of a visit to my English publisher and of my bragging about her short-cake so shamelessly that he had finally declared: "I am coming to Chicago next year, and I shall journey all the way to West Salem just to test your mother's short-cake."

This made her chuckle. "Let him come," she said confidently. "We'll feed him on it."

Notwithstanding her reaction to my jesting, my anxiety concerning her deepened. The long periods of silence into which she fell alarmed me, and at times, as she sat alone, I detected on her face an expression of pain which was like that of one in despair. When I questioned her, she could not define the cause of her distress, but I feared it came from some weakening of her heart.

She was failing,--that was all too evident to me--failing faster than her years warranted, and then (just as I was becoming a little reassured) she came to me one morning, with both her hands outstretched, as if feeling her way, her face white, her eyes wide and deep and dark with terror. "I can't see! I can't see!" she wailed.

With a sense of impending tragedy I took her in my arms and led her to a chair. "Don't worry, mother!" was all I could say. "It will pass soon. Keep perfectly quiet."

Under the influence of my words she gradually lost her fear, and by the time the doctor arrived she was quite calm and could see--a little--though in a strange way.

In answer to his question she replied with a pitiful little smile, "Yes, I can see you, but only in pieces. I can only see a part of your face,--the rest of you is all black."

This reply seemed to relieve the doctor's mind. His face lighted up. "I understand! Don't worry a mite. You will be all right in a few minutes. It is only a temporary nerve disturbance."

This proved to be true, and as her lips resumed their placid sweetness my courage came back. In a few hours she was able to see quite clearly, or at least as clearly as was normal to her age. Nevertheless I accepted this attack as a distinct and sinister warning. It not only emphasized her dependence upon me, it made me very definitely aware of what would happen to our household if she were to become a helpless invalid. Her need of a larger bed-chamber, with a connecting bathroom was imperative.

"I know you will both suffer from the noise and confusion of the building," I said to my aunt, "but I am going to enlarge mother's room and put in water and plumbing. If she should be sick in that small bedroom it would be horrible."

Up to this time our homestead had remained simply a roomy farmhouse on the edge of a village. I now decided that it should have the conveniences of a suburban cottage, and to this end I made plans for a new dining-room, a new porch, and a bath-room.

Mother was appalled at the audacity of my designs. She wanted the larger chamber, of course, but my scheme for putting in running water appealed to her as something almost criminally extravagant. She was troubled, too, by the thought of the noise, the dirt, the change which were necessary accompaniments of the plan.

I did my best to reassure her. "It won't take long, mother, and as for the expense, you just let _me_ walk the floor."

She said no more, realizing, no doubt, that I could not be turned aside from my purpose.

There were no bathrooms in West Salem in 1899--the plumber was still the tinner, and when the news of my ambitious designs got abroad it created almost as much comment as my brother's tennis court had roused some five years earlier. As a force making toward things high-fi-lutin, if not actually un-American, I was again discussed. Some said, "I can't understand how Hamlin makes all his money." Others remarked, "Easy come, easy go!" Something unaccountable lay in the scheme of my life. It was illogical, if not actually illegal.

"How can he go skittering about all over the world in this way?" asked William McEldowney, and Sam McKinley said to my mother, "I swear, I don't see how you and Dick ever raised such a boy. He's a 'sport,'--that's what he is, a freak." To all of which mother answered only with a silent laugh.

The carpenters came, together with a crew of stonemasons, and the old kitchen began to move southward, giving place for the foundations of the new dining-room. By the end of the week, the lawn was littered with material and tools, and the frame-work was enclosed.

My mother, in her anxiety to justify the enormous outlay said, "Well, anyhow, these improvements are not entirely for me, they will make the house all the nicer for my New Daughter when she comes."

"That's true," I answered, "I hadn't thought of that."

"It's _time_ you thought of it. You're almost forty years old," she replied with humorous emphasis, then she added, "I begin to think I never _will_ see your wife."

"Just you wait," I jestingly replied. "The case is not so hopeless as you think--I have just received a letter which gives me a 'prospect.'"

I said this merely to divert her, but she seized upon my remark with alarming seriousness. "Read me the letter. Where does she live?--Tell me all about her."

Being in so far I thought it could do no harm to go a little farther. I described (still in bantering mood) my first meeting with Zulime Taft more than five years before. I pictured her as she looked to me then, and as she afterward appeared when I met her a second time in the home of her sister in Chicago. "I admit that I was greatly impressed by her," I went on, "but just when I had begun to hope for a better understanding, her brother Lorado chilled me with the information that she was about to be claimed by another man. To be honest about it, mother, I am not sure that she is interested in me even now; although one of her friends has just written me to say that Lorado was mistaken, and that Zulime is not engaged to any one. I am going down to visit some friends at the camp to test the truth of this; but don't say a word about it, for my information may be wrong."

My warning went for nothing! My confession was too exciting to be kept a secret, and soon several of mother's most intimate friends had heard of my expedition, and in their minds, as in hers, my early marriage was assured. Did not the proof of it lie in the fact that I was pushing my building with desperate haste? Was this not done in order to make room for my bride?--No other reason was sufficient to account for the astounding improvements which I had planned, and which were going forward with magical rapidity.

Of course no one could convince my mother that her son's "attractions" might not prove sufficiently strong to make his "prospect" a possibility, for to her I was not only a distinguished author, but a "Good provider," something which outweighed literary attainment in a home like ours.

She could not or would not speak of the girl as "Miss Taft," but insisted upon calling her "Zuleema," and her mind was filled with plans for making her at home.

Privately I was more concerned than I cared to show, and I would be giving a false impression if I made light of my feeling at this time. I spoke to mother jestingly in order to prevent her from building her hopes on an unstable foundation.

In the midst of my busiest day I received a letter from my good friends, Wallace and Tillie Heckman, and though I was but a clumsy farmer in all affairs of the heart, I perceived enough of hidden meaning in their invitation to visit Eagle's Nest, to give me pause even in the welter of my plumbing. I replied at once accepting their hospitality, and on Saturday took the train for Oregon to stay over Sunday at least.

Squire Heckman was good enough to meet me at the train, and as he drove me up the hill to "Ganymede," which was his summer home, he said, "You will breakfast with us, and as it is our custom to dine at the Camp on Sunday we will take you with us and introduce you to the campers, although most of them are known to you."

Mrs. Heckman, who was cordial in her welcome, informed me at breakfast that Miss Taft was the volunteer stewardess of the Camp. "She is expecting us to bring you to dinner to-day."

"As one of the Trustees of the Foundation, a tour of inspection is a duty," I replied.

There was a faint smile on Mrs. Heckman's demure lips, but Wallace, astute lawyer that he was, presented the bland face of a poker player. Without a direct word being spoken I was made to understand that Miss Taft was not indifferent to my coming, and when at half-past eleven we started for Eagle's Nest I had a sense of committing myself to a perilous campaign.

A walk of half a mile through a thick grove of oaks brought us out upon a lovely, grassy knoll, which rose two hundred feet or more above the Rock River, and from which a pleasing view of the valley opened to the north as well as to the south. The camp consisted of a small kitchen cabin, a dining tent, a group of cabins, and one or two rude studios to which the joyous off-hand manners of the Fine Arts Building had been transferred. It was in fact a sylvan settlement of city dwellers--a colony of artists, writers and teachers out for a summer vacation.

[Illustration: Miss Zulime Taft, acting as volunteer housekeeper for the colony, had charge of the long rude table under the tent-fly to which the campers assembled with the appetites of harvest hands and the gayety of uncalculating youth.]

In holiday mood Browne, Taft, and Clarkson greeted me warmly, upbraiding me, however, for having so long neglected my official duties as trustee. "We need your counsel."

Mrs. Heckman, laconic, quizzical, walked about "the reservation" with me, and in her smiling eyes I detected a kind of gentle amusement with her unconventional neighbors. She said nothing then (or at any time) which could be interpreted as criticism, but a merry little quirk in the corner of her lip instructed me.

Miss Taft was not visible. "As house-keeper she is busy with preparations for dinner," Mrs. Heckman explained, and so I concealed my disappointment as best I could.

At last at one o'clock, Lorado, as Chief of the tribe, gave the signal for the feast by striking a huge iron bar with a hammer, a sound which brought the campers from every direction, clamoring for food, and when all were seated at the dining table beneath a strip of canvas, some one asked, "Where's Zuhl?"

Browne answered with blunt humor, "Primping! She's gone to smooth her ruffled plumage."

A cry arose, "Here she comes!" and Spencer Fiske the classical scholar of the camp with fervent admiration exclaimed "By Jove--a veritable Diana!"

Browne started the Toreador's song, and all began to beat upon the tables with their spoons in rhythmical clamor. Turning my head I perceived the handsome figure of a girl moving with calm and stately dignity across the little lawn toward the table. She was bareheaded, and wore a short-sleeved, collarless gown of summer design, but she carried herself with a leisurely and careless grace which made evident the fact that she was accustomed to these moments of uproar. As she neared the tent, however, I detected a faint flicker of amusement in the lines about her mouth.

This entrance so dramatic and so lovely was precisely the kind of picture to produce on my mind a deeply influencing impression. I thought her at the moment one of the most gracious and admirable women of my world, a union of European culture and the homely grace of the prairie.

She greeted me with a pleasant word, and took a seat opposite, making no reply to the jocular comment of her boarders. It was evident that she was not only accustomed to demonstrations of this sort, but considered them a necessary part of her stewardship, an office which was entirely without salary--and scantily repaid in honor.

No complaints about the scarcity of butter, or questions concerning the proportions of milk in the cream jug, had power to draw her into defensive explanation. At last her tormentors unable to stampede her by noise, or plague her by petitions, subsided into silence or turned to other matters, and we all settled down to an abundant and very jolly dinner.

It was because the camp loved Zulime Taft that they could carry on in this way. It was all studio _blague_, and she knew it and offered no defense of her economies.

Most of the artists and writers in the camp were already known to me. They were all of small income, some of them were almost as poor as I, and welcomed a method by which they were able to spend a summer comfortably and inexpensively. A common kitchen, and an old white horse and wagon also owned collectively, made it possible to offer board at four dollars per week!

The Heckman home, which the campers called "the Castle," or "The Manor House," a long, two-story building of stone which stood on the southern end of the Bluff, overlooked what had once been Black Hawk's Happy Hunting Ground. It was not in any sense a chateau, but it pleased Wallace Heckman's artist-tenants to call it so, and by contrast with their cook-house it did, indeed, possess something like grandeur. Furthermore "the Lord of the Manor" added to the majesty of his position by owning and driving a coach (this was before the day of the automobile), and at times those of his tenants most highly in favor, were invited to a seat on this stately vehicle.

"Lady" Heckman possessed a piano, another evidence of wealth, and the pleasantest part of my recollections of this particular visit concerns the evenings I spent with her in singing "Belle Mahone" and "Lily Dale," while Lorado and his sisters sat in the corner and listened--at least I infer that they listened--now that I grow more clear in my mind I recall that Tillie Heckman did not sing, she only played for me; and my conviction is that I sang very well. I may be mistaken in this for (at times) I detected Wallace Heckman addressing a jocose remark to Miss Taft when he should have been giving his undivided attention to my song.

Miss Taft was accused of having a keen relish for the fare at Castle Heckman, and in this relish I shared so frankly that when Tillie invited me to stay on indefinitely, and Wallace suggested that I might make the little pavilion on the lawn serve as my study, I yielded. "Work on the homestead must wait," I wrote to my mother. "Important business here demands my attention."

Zulime Taft appeared pleased when I announced my acceptance of the Heckman hospitality, and Wallace immediately offered me the use of his saddle horses and his carriage, and when he said, "Miss Taft loves to ride," I was convinced not only of his friendly interest but of his hearty cooeperation. Furthermore as Mrs. Heckman often kept Miss Taft for supper, I had the pleasant task of walking back to camp with her.

In some way (I never understood precisely how) the campers, one and all, obtained the notion that I was significantly interested in Miss Taft; but, as I was proceeding with extraordinary caution, wearing the bland expression of a Cheyenne chieftain, I could not imagine any one discovering in my action anything more than a frank liking, a natural friendship between the sister of my artist comrade and myself.

It is true I could not entirely conceal the fact that I preferred her company to that of any other of the girls, but there was nothing remarkable in that--nevertheless, the whole camp, as I learned afterward (long afterward), was not only aware of my intentions but, behind my back, almost under my nose, was betting on my chances. Wagers were being offered and taken, day by day, as to whether I would win or lose!

Fortunately, nothing of this disgraceful business reached me. I was serenely unconscious of it all.

Demure as Tillie Heckman looked, slyly humorous as she occasionally showed herself to be, she was a woman of understanding, and from her I derived distinct encouragement. She not only indicated her sympathy; she conveyed to me her belief that I had a fair chance to win. I am not sure, but I think it was from her that I received the final statement that Miss Taft was entirely free. However, this did not clear me from other alarms, for on Friday night the train brought Henry Fuller and several young men visitors who were all quite willing to walk and talk with Miss Taft. It was only during the midweek that I, as the only unmarried man in camp, felt entirely secure.

Henry Fuller stayed on after the others went back to the city, and I would have been deeply disturbed by Zulime's keen interest in him, had I not been fully informed of their relationship, which was entirely that of intellectual camaraderie. Fuller was not merely a resolved bachelor; he was joyously and openly opposed to any form of domesticity. He loved his freedom beyond all else. The Stewardess knew this and revelled in his wit, sharing my delight in his bitter ironies. His verbal inhumanities gave her joy, because she didn't believe in them. They were all "literature" to her.

The weather was glorious September, and as my writing was going forward, my companionship ideal, and my mother's letters most cheerful, I abandoned myself, as I had not done in twenty years, to a complete enjoyment of life. Golden days! Halcyon days! Far and sweet and serene they seem as I look back upon them from the present--days to review with wistful regret that I did not more fully employ them in the way of youth, for alas! my mornings were spent in writing when they should have been given to walking with my sweetheart; yet even as I worked I had a sense of her nearness, and the knowledge that the shimmering summer landscape was waiting for me just outside my door, comforted me. However, I was not wholly neglectful of my opportunities. My afternoons were given over to walking or riding with her, and our evenings were spent in long and quiet excursions on the river or sitting with the artists in the light of a bonfire on the edge of the bluff, talking and singing.

The more I knew of Miss Taft the more her versatility amazed me. She could paint, she could model, she could cook and she could sew. As Stewardess, she took charge of the marketing, and when the kitchen fell into a flutter, her masterly taste and skill brought order--and a delicious dinner--out of chaos. It remains to say that, in addition to all these, her intellectual activities, she held her own in the fierce discussions (concerning Art) which broke out at the table or raged like whirlwinds on the moonlit bluff--discussions which centered around such questions as these: "Can a blue shadow painting ever be restful?" "Is Local Color essential to fiction?" I particularly admired the Stewardess in these moments of controversy, for she never lost her temper or her point of view.

Incredibly sweet and peaceful that week appears as I view it across the gulf which the World War has thrust between that year and this.

We had no fear of hunger in those days, no dread of social unrest, no expectation of any sudden change. All wars were over--in our opinion. The world was at last definitely at peace, and we in America, like the world in general, had nothing to do but to go on getting richer and happier, so happy that we could be just. We were all young--not one of us had gray hair. Life, for each of us as for the Nation, moved futureward on tranquil, shining course, as a river slips southward to the sea, confident, effortless, and serene. Heavenly skies, how happy we were!

That I was aware in some degree of the idyllic, evanescent charm of those days is made certain in a note which I find in my diary, the record of a walk in the woods with Zulime. Her delight in the tender loveliness of leaf and vine, in the dapple of sunlight on the path, I fully shared. Another page tells of a horseback excursion which we made across the river. She rode well, very well, indeed, and her elation, her joy in the motion of the horse, as well as her keen delight in the landscape, added to my own pleasure. We stayed to supper at the Heckmans' that night, and walked back to the camp at nine, loitering through the most magical light of the Harvest Moon.

As she manifested a delightful interest in what I was writing, I fell into the habit of reading to her some pages out of my new manuscript, in order that I might have the value of her comment on it. Of course I expected comment to be favorable, and it was. That this was an unfair advantage to take of a nice girl, I was aware, even then, but as she seemed willing to listen I was in a mood to be encouraged by her smiles and her words of praise.

My growing confidence led to an enlargement of my plans concerning the homestead. "You are right," I wrote to my mother. "A new daughter will make other improvements in the house absolutely necessary. Not merely a new dining-room, but an extra story must be added to the wing--" And in the glow of this design I reluctantly cut short my visit and returned to West Salem, to apprise the carpenters of the radical changes in my design.

Jestingly, and more by way of reconciling my mother to the renewed noise and confusion of the building, I described the walks and rides I had taken with Zulime, warning her at the same time not to enlarge upon these facts. "Miss Taft's interest may be only friendliness," I added.

My words had precisely an opposite effect: thereafter she spoke of my hopes as if they were certainties, and insisted on knowing all about "Zuleema," as she persisted in calling Miss Taft.

"Now, Mother," I again protested, "you must not talk that way to _any_ of your callers, for if you do you'll get me into a most embarrassing situation. You'll make it very hard for me to explain in case of failure."

"You mustn't fail," she responded wistfully. "I can't afford to wait much longer."

It was incredible to her that any sane girl would reject such an alliance, but I was very far from her proud confidence.

In this doubt of success, I was entirely honest. I had never presumed on any manly charm, I made no claim to beauty--on the contrary, I had always been keenly aware of my rude frame and clumsy hands. I realized also my lack of nice courtesy and genial humor. Power I had (and relied upon), but of the lover's grace--nothing. That I was a bear was quite as evident to me as to my friends. "If I win this girl it must be on some other score than that of beauty," I admitted.

In the midst of the bustle and cheer of this week another swift and sinister cloud descended upon me. One evening, as mother and I were sitting together, she fell into a terrifying death-like trance from which I could not rouse her, a condition which alarmed me so deeply that I telegraphed to my father in Dakota and to my brother in Chicago, telling them to come at once. It seemed to me that the final moment of our parting was at hand.

All through that night, one of the longest I had ever known (a time of agony and remorse as well as of fear), I blamed myself for bringing on the wild disorder of the building. "If I had not gone away, if I had not enlarged my plan, the house would now be in order," was the thought which tortured me.

The sufferer's speech had failed, and her pitiful attempts to make her wishes known wrung my heart with helpless pity. Her eyes, wide, dark and beautiful, pleaded with me for help, and yet I could only kneel by her side and press her hand and repeat the doctor's words of comfort. "It will pass away, mother, just as your other attacks have done. I am sure of it. Don't try to talk. Don't worry."

As the night deepened, dark and sultry, distant flashes of silent lightning added to the lurid character of my midnight vigil. It seemed that all my plans and all my hopes had gone awry. Helpless, longing for light, I wore out the lagging hours beside my mother's bed, with very little change in her condition to relieve the strain of my anxiety. "Will she ever speak again? Have I heard her voice for the last time?" These questions came again and again to my mind.

Dawn crept into the room at last, and Franklin came on the early train. With his coming, mother regained some part of her lost courage. She grew rapidly stronger before night came again, and was able to falter a few words in greeting and to ask for father.

During the following day she steadily improved, and in the afternoon was able to sit up in her bed. One of the first of her interests was a desire to show my brother a new bonnet which I had recently purchased for her in the city, and at her request I put it into her hands.

Her love and gratitude moved us both to tears. Her action had the intolerable pathos of a child's weakness united with a kind of delirium. To watch her feeble hands exhibiting a head-dress which I feared she would never again wear--displaying it with a pitiful smile of pride and joy--was almost more than I could bear. Her face shone with happiness as she strove to tell my brother of the building I was doing to make her more comfortable. "Zuleema is coming," she said. "My new daughter--is coming."

When Franklin and I were alone for a moment, I said: "She must not die. _I won't let her die._ She must live a little longer to enjoy the new rooms I am building for her."

It would appear that the intensity of my desire, the power of my resolve to bring her back to life, strengthened her, wrought upon her with inexplicable magic, for by the time my father arrived she was able to speak and to sit once more in her wheeled chair. She even joked with me about "Zuleema."

"You'd better hurry," she said, and then the shadow came back upon me with bitter chill. How insecure her hold on life had become!

Haste on the building was now imperative--so much, at least, I could control. With one crew of carpenters, another of painters, and a third of tinners, all working at the same time, I rushed the construction forward. At times my action presented itself to me as a race against death, or at least with death's messenger. What I feared, most of all, was a sudden decline to helpless invalidism on my mother's part, a condition in which a trained nurse would be absolutely necessary. To get the rooms in order while yet our invalid was able to move about the house, was now my all-absorbing interest.

With no time to dream of love, with no thought of writing, I toiled like a slave, wet with perspiration, dusty and unkempt. With my shirt open at the throat and my sleeves rolled to the elbow, I passed from one phase of the job to another, lending a hand here and a shoulder there. In order that I might hasten the tearing down and clearing away, I plunged into the hardest and dirtiest tasks, but at night, after the men were gone, dark moods of deep depression came over me, moments in which the essential futility of my powers overwhelmed me with something like despair.

"What right have you to ask that bright and happy girl--any girl--to share the uncertainties, the parsimony, the ineludible struggle of your disappointing life?" I demanded of myself, and to this there was but one answer: "I have no right. I have only a need."

Nevertheless, I wrote her each day a short account of my doings, and her friendly replies were a source of encouragement, of comfort. She did not know (I was careful to conceal them) the torturing anxieties through which I was passing, and her pages were, for the most part, a pleasant reflection of the uneventful, care-free routine of the camp. In spite of her caution she conveyed to me, beneath her elliptical phrases, the fact that she missed me and that my return would not be displeasing to her. "When shall we see you?" she asked.

In one of her letters she mentioned--casually--that on Monday she was going to Chicago with her sister, but would return to the camp at the end of the week.

Something in this letter led me to a sudden change of plan. As mother was now quite comfortable again I said to her, "Zuleema has gone to Chicago to do some shopping. I think I'll run down and meet her and ask her to help me select the curtains and wall-paper for your new room. What do you say to that?"

"Go along!" she said instantly, "but I expect you to bring her home with you."

"Oh, I can't do that," I protested. "I haven't any right to do that--yet!"

The mere idea of involving the girl in my household problem seemed exciting enough, and on my way down to the city I became a bit less confident. I decided to approach the matter of my shopping diplomatically. She might be alarmed at my precipitancy.

She was not alarmed--on the contrary her pleased surprise and her keen interest in my mother's new chamber gave me confidence. "I want you to help me buy the furnishings for the new rooms," I said almost at once.

"I shall be glad to help," she replied in the most natural way.

Evidently, _she_ saw nothing especially significant in my request, but to me it was a subtle stratagem. To have her take part in my bargain-hunting was almost as exciting as though we were furnishing OUR home, but I dared not assume that she was thinking along these dangerous lines. That she was genuinely interested in my household problems was evident, but I was not justified in asking anything further. She was distinctly closer to me that day, more tenderly intimate than she had ever been before, and her womanly understanding of my task--the deep sympathy she expressed when I told her of my mother's recent illness--all combined to give me comfort--and hope!

A few days later we rode back to Eagle's Nest Camp together, and all through those three hours on the train a silent, subconscious, wordless adjustment went on between us. That she was secretly debating the question of accepting me was certain, and there was nothing in her manner to dishearten me; on the contrary, she seemed to enjoy playing round the perilous suggestion.

We dined at "the Castle" as usual, and late that night, as we walked slowly over to the camp through the odorous woods, hearing the whippoorwill's cry and the owlets hoot from their dark coverts, I was made aware that my day's work had drawn her closer into my life. I had made her aware of my need.

The day which followed our return to camp was my thirty-ninth birthday, and I celebrated it by taking a long walk and talk with her. She took some sewing with her, and as we rested under a great oak tree, we spoke of many intimate, personal things, always with the weight of our unsolved problem on our mind.

At last, in approaching my plea for help, I stated the worst of my case. "I am poor and shall always remain poor," I said. "My talent is small and my work has only a very limited appeal. I see no great improvement in my fortunes. I have done an enormous amount of work this year (I've written three volumes), but all of them conjoined will not bring in as much cash as a good stone-mason can earn. But that isn't the worst of it! The hopeless part of it is--I _like_ my job. I wouldn't change to a more profitable one if I could. I have only one other way of earning money, and that is by physical labor. If the worst comes to the worst, I can farm or do carpenter work."

Her reply to all this was not entirely disheartening. "To make money is not the most important thing in the world," she said, and then told me of her own childhood in Illinois, of the rigid economies which had always been necessary in the Taft home. "My father's salary as a professor of geology was small, and with six people to feed and clothe, and four children to be educated, my poor little mother had a very busy and anxious time of it. I know by personal experience what it is to lack money for food and clothes. The length of my stay in Paris was dependent on rigid daily economy. I hadn't an extra franc to spare."

This confession of her own lifelong poverty should have turned me aside from my fell purpose, but it did not--it merely encouraged me to go on. In place of saying, "My dear girl, as compensation for all those years of care and humiliating poverty you deserve a spacious home, with servants and a carriage. Realizing that I can offer you only continued poverty and added anxiety, I here and now relinquish my design. I withdraw in favor of a better and richer man"--instead of uttering these noble words, what did I do? I did the exact opposite! I proceeded to press my selfish, remorseless, unwarranted demand!

It is customary for elderly men to refer either flippantly or with gentle humor to their days of courtship, forgetting (or ignoring) the tremulous eagerness, the grave questioning and the tender solemnity of purpose with which they weighed the joys and responsibilities of married life. It is easy to be cynical or evasive or unduly sentimental in writing of our youthful love affairs, when the frosts of sixty years have whitened our heads, after years of toil and care have dimmed our eyes and thinned our blood, but I shall permit neither of these unworthy moods to color my report of this day's emotion. I shall not deny the alternating moments of hope and doubt, of bitterness and content, which made that afternoon both sweet and sad.

The thing I was about to do was tragically destructive--I knew that. To put out a hand, to arrest this happy and tranquil girl, saying, "Come, be my wife. Come, suffer with me, starve with me," was a deed whose consequences scared me while they allured me. I felt the essential injustice of such a marriage, and I foresaw some of its accompanying perplexities, but I did not turn aside as I should have done. With no dependable source of income, with an invalid mother to care for, I asked this artist, so urban, so native to the studio, so closely knit to her joyous companions in the city, to go with me into exile, into a country town, to be the housekeeper of a commonplace cottage filled with aged people! "It is monstrous selfishness; it is wrong," I said, "but I want you."

My philosophy, even at that time, was essentially individualistic. I believed in the largest opportunity to every human soul. Equal rights _meant_ Equal rights in my creed. I had no intention of asking Zulime Taft to sink her individuality in mine. I wanted her to remain herself. Marriage, as I contemplated it, was to be not a condition where the woman was a subordinate but an equal partner, and yet how unequal the sacrifice! "I ask you to join your future with mine. It's a frightful risk, but I am selfish enough to wish it."

Under no illusion about my own character, I admitted that there is no special charm in a just man. To have a sense of honor is fine, but to have a joyous and lovely disposition makes a man a great deal easier to live with. I was perfectly well aware that as a husband I would prove neither lovely nor joyous. My temper was not habitually cheerful. Like most writers, I was self-absorbed, filled with a sense of the importance of my literary designs. To be "just" was easy, but to be charming and considerate--these were the points on which I was sure to fail, and I knew it. Did that deter me? Not at all! Bitterly unwilling to surrender Zulime to the richer and kindlier man who was, undoubtedly, waiting at that moment to receive her and cherish her, I pleaded with her to share my poverty and my hope of future fame.

Shaken by my appeal, she asked for time in which to consider this problem. "I ought to talk with Lorado," she said.

The mere fact that she could not decide against me at the moment gave me confidence. "Very well," I said. "Mother wants me--I shall go home for a week. Let me know when I can come again. I hope it will not be more than a week."

In this arrangement we rested, and as we walked back to camp I cared nothing for the sly words or glances of our fellow artists. I believed I had won my case.

My mother's demand for my presence did not arise--I soon learned--from any return of her malady, but from a desire for news of my courtship. "Where's my new daughter? Why didn't you bring her?" she demanded.

"She couldn't come this time. The question is still unsettled."

"Go right back and settle it," she urged. "Go quick, before some one else gets her. Write to her. Tell her to come right up. Send her a telegram. Seems as though I can't wait another week."

Her urgency made me laugh, even while I perceived the pathos of it. "I can't bring her to you, mother, till she is willing to come as a bride--but she's thinking about it, and I am going back next week to get my answer. Be patient a little while longer. I promise you the whole question will be settled soon, and I _hope_ it will be settled our way. Zulime seems to like me."

Dear old mother! Her stammering, tremulous utterance made me smile and it made me weep. She was growing old prematurely, and the need of haste was urgent. "If I can possibly persuade her to come," I added very gravely, "I'll fetch her home to eat Thanksgiving dinner with you."

My tone, rather than my words, silenced her, and gave her a measure of content, although she was childishly impatient of even a day's delay.

All that week I alternately hoped and doubted, assembling all the items on the credit side of my ledger, and at last a letter came in which Zulime indicated that she wished to see me. "I am still undecided," she said, "but you may come." I left at once for the camp, feeling that her confession of indecision was in my favor.

Lorado was not markedly favorable to me as a brother-in-law. He liked me and respected me as a friend, but as a suitor for the hand of his sister--well, that was another and far more serious matter.

The camp "Equipage" met me at the station, and I consented to ride in it as far as the Heckman gate, hoping that Zulime would be there to welcome me. In this I was not disappointed, and something in her face and the firm clasp of her hand reassured me.

For nearly a week, in the midst of the most glorious October landscape, surrounded by the scarlet and gold and crimson branches of the maples and the deep-reds and bronze-greens of the oaks, she and I walked and rode and boated in almost constant companionship. Idyllic days! Days of a quality I had lost all hope of ever again reliving. Days of quiet happiness and almost perfect content, for on an afternoon of dreamlike beauty, in a glade radiant with hazy golden sunshine and odorous with the ripening leaves, she spoke the all-important words which joined her future life with mine.

We were seated at the moment on our favorite bank, under a tall oak tree, gorgeous as a sunset cloud, and as silent. I had been reading to her, and she was busy with some delicate embroidery. The crickets were chirping sleepily in the grass at our feet, and the jays calling harshly seemed warning us of the passing of summer and the coming on of frost.

"Let the wedding day be soon," I pleaded as we rose to return to camp. "I am nearing the dead-line. I am almost forty years old--I can't afford to wait. I want you to come to me now--at once. The old folks are waiting for you. They want you for Thanksgiving Day. Your presence would make them happier than any other good fortune in this world."

She understood my way of putting the argument. She knew that I was veiling my own eagerness under my mother's need, and after a little reflection she said, "I am going out to my father's home in Kansas. You may come for me there on the twenty-third of November. That is--if you still want me at that time."

The end of the camp season was at hand; everybody was packing up, and so my girl and I turned with deep regret from the golden halls of our sylvan meeting-place. "This is my Indian summer," I said to her, "and that you may never have cause to regret the decision which this day has brought to you, is my earnest hope."

More than twenty years have gone over our heads, and as I write these lines our silver wedding is not far off. Our lives have not been all sunshine, but Zulime has met all storms with a brave sweetness, which I cannot overpraise. If she has regrets, she does not permit me to know them. My poverty--which persists--has not embittered her or caused her, so far as I know, a single mood of self-commiseration. _

Read next: Book 1: Chapter 9. A Judicial Wedding

Read previous: Book 1: Chapter 7. London And Evening Dress

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