Hempfield

Nort's eyes, usually so blue and smiling, grew as black as night.

"What do you mean?" he asked.

"I mean just what I said" – I looked him in the eye – "you are running away before the battle begins."

For a moment I thought I had lost him, and my heart began to sink within me, and then – it was beautiful – he stepped impulsively toward me:

"Well, what do you think I should do, anyway?"

"Nort," I said, "only yesterday you were enthusiastic over the idea of getting the truth about Hempfield, of publishing a really great country newspaper."

"What an ass I was!"

"Wrong!" I said.

"David," he cut in petulantly, "I don't get what you mean."

"I'll tell you, Nort: The greatest joy in this world to a man like you is the joy of new ideas, of wonderful plans – Now, isn't it?"

"Yes. I certainly thought for a few days last week that I had found the pot at the end of the rainbow."

"It was only the rainbow, Nort: if you want the pot you've got to dig for it."

"What do you mean?"

"You think that you can stop with enthusiastic dreams and vast ideas. But no vision and no idea is worth a copper cent unless it is brought down to earth, patiently harnessed, painfully trained, and set to work. There is a beautiful analogy that comes often to my mind. We conceive an idea, as a child is conceived, in a transport of joy; but after that there are long months of growth in the close dark warmth of the soul, to which every part of one's personality must contribute, and then there is the painful hour of travail when at last the idea is given to the world. It is a process that cannot be hurried nor borne without suffering. And the punishment of those who stop with the joy of conception, thinking they can skim the delight of life and avoid its pain, is the same in the intellectual and spiritual spheres as it is in the physical – barrenness, Nort, and finally a terrible sense of failure and of loneliness."

I said it with all my soul, as I believe it. When I stopped, Nort did not at once respond, but stood looking off across the river, winding a twig of alder about his finger. Suddenly he looked around at me, smiling:

"I'm every kind of a fool there is, David."

I confess it, my heart gave a bound of triumph. And it seemed to me at that moment that I loved Nort like a son, the son I have never had. I could not help slipping my arm through his, and thus we walked slowly together down the road.

"But Ed Smith – " he expostulated presently.

"Nort," I said, "you aren't the only person in this world, although you are inclined to think so. There are Ed Smiths everywhere – and old Captains and David Graysons – and you may travel where you like and you'll find just about such people as you find at Hempfield, and they'll treat you just about as you deserve. Ed Smith is the test of you, Nort, and of your enthusiasms. You've got to reconcile your ideas with corned beef and cabbage, Nort, for corned beef and cabbage is."

I have been ashamed sometimes since when I think how vaingloriously I preached to Nort that day (after having got him down), for I have never believed much in preaching. It usually grows so serious that I want to laugh – but I could not have helped it that November afternoon.

I see two men, just at evening of a dull day, walking slowly along the road toward Hempfield, two gray figures, half indistinguishable against the barren hillsides. All about them the dead fields and the hedges, and above them the wintry gray of the sky, and crows lifting and calling. Knowing well what is in the hot hearts of those two men – the visions, the love, the pain, the hope, yes, and the evil – I swear I shall never again think of any life as common or unclean. I shall never look to the exceptional events of life for the truth of life.

The two men I see are friend and friend, very near together, father and son almost; and you would scarcely think it, but if you look closely and with that Eye which is within the eye you will see that they have just been called to the colours and are going forth to the Great War. You will catch the glint on the scabbards of the swords they carry; you will see the look of courage on the face of the young recruit, and the look, too, on the face of the old reservist. In the distance they see the fortress of Hempfield with its redoubts and entanglements. They are setting forth to take Hempfield, at any cost – their Captain commands it.

Near the town of Hempfield, as you approach it from the west, the road skirts a little hill. As we drew nearer I saw some one walking upon the road. A woman. She was stepping forth firmly, her figure cut in strong and simple lines against the sky, her head thrown back, showing the clear contour of her throat and the firm chin. A light scarf, caught in the wind, floated behind. Suddenly I felt Nort seize my arm, and exclaim in low, tense voice:

"Anthy!"

I thought his hand trembled a little, but it may have been my own arm. I remember hearing our steps ring cold on the iron earth, and I had a strange sense of the high things of life.

She had not seen us. She was walking with one hand lifted to her breast, the fingers just touching her dress, in a way she sometimes had. I shall not forget the swift, half-startled glance from her dark and glowing eyes when she saw us, nor the smile which suddenly lighted her face.

I suppose all of us were charged at that moment with a high voltage of emotion. I know that Anthy, walking thus with her hand raised, was deep in the troubled problems of the Star. I know well what was in the heart of Nort, and I know the vain thoughts I was thinking; and yet we three stood there in the gray of the evening looking at one another and exchanging at first only a few commonplace words.

Presently Anthy turned to Nort with the direct way she had, and said to him lightly, smiling a little:

"I hope you will not desert the Star. We must make it go – all of us together."

Nort said not a word, but looked Anthy in the eyes. When we moved onward again, however, his mood seemed utterly changed. He walked quickly and began to talk volubly – Jiminy! If they'd let themselves go! Greatest opportunity in New England! National reputation – I could scarcely believe that this was the same Nort I had found only an hour before moping by the river.

As we came into Hempfield the lights had begun to come out in the houses; a belated farmer in his lumber wagon rattled down the street. Men were going into the post office, for it was the hour of the evening mail; we had a whiff, at the corner, of the good common odour of cooking supper. So we stopped at the gate of the printing-office, and looked at each other, and felt abashed, did not know quite what to say, and were about to part awkwardly without saying anything when Nort seized me suddenly by the arm and rushed me into the office.

"Hello, Fergus!" he shouted as we came in at the door.

Fergus stood looking at him impassively, saying nothing at all. He had compromised himself once before that day by giving way to his emotions, and did not propose to be stampeded a second time.

But the old Captain had no such compunctions, and almost fell on Nort's neck.

"The prodigal is returned," he declared. "Nort, my boy, I want to read you my editorial on Theodore Roosevelt."

Just at this moment Ed Smith came in. I wondered and trembled at what might happen, but Nort was in his grandest mood.

"Hello, Ed!" he remarked carelessly. "Say, I've thought of an idea for making Tole, the druggist, advertise in the Star."

"You have?" responded Ed in a reasonably natural voice.

Thus we were rebundled, at least temporarily. I think of these events as a sort of diplomatic prelude for the real war which was to follow. I was the diplomat who lured Nort back to us with fine words, but old General Fergus was waiting there grimly at the cases, in full preparedness, to play his part. For this was not the final struggle, nor the most necessary for Nort. That was reserved for a simpler man than I am: that was left for Fergus.

CHAPTER XV

I GET BETTER ACQUAINTED WITH ANTHY

As we look backward, those times in our lives which glow brightest, seem most worth while, are by no means those in which we have been happiest or most successful, but rather those in which, though painful and even sorrowful, we have been most necessary, most desired. To be needed in other human lives – is there anything greater or more beautiful in this world?

It was in the weeks that followed upon these events that I came to know Anthy best, nearest, deepest – to be of most use to her and to the Star. A strange thing it was, too; for the nearer I came to her, the farther away I seemed to find myself! She was very wonderful that winter. I saw her grow, strengthen, deepen, under that test of the spirit, and with a curious unconsciousness of her own development, as she shows in the one letter to Lincoln of that period which has been saved. She seemed to think it was all a part of the daily work; that the Star must be preserved, and that it was incumbent upon her to do it.

In those days I was often at her home, sometimes walking from the office with her and the old Captain, sometimes with the old Captain, sometimes alone with Anthy. She was not naturally very talkative, especially, as I found, with one she knew well and trusted; but I think I have never known any other human being who seemed so much alive just underneath.

It was on one of these never-to-be-forgotten evenings in the old library of her father's house, with the books all around, that I came first into Anthy's deeper life. A draft from an open door stirred the picture of Lincoln on the wall above the mantelpiece, and a letter, slipping from behind it, dropped almost at my feet. I stooped and picked it up and read the writing on the envelope:

"To Abraham Lincoln."

Anthy's attention had been momentarily diverted to the door, and she did not see what had happened.

"A letter to Lincoln," I said aloud, turning it over in my hand.

I shall never forget how she turned toward me with a quick intake of her breath, the colour in her face, and her hand slowly lifting to her breast. She took a step toward me, and I, knowing that I had somehow touched a deep spring of her life, held out the letter. A moment we stood thus, a moment I can never forget. Then she said in a low voice:

"Read it, David."