Hempfield

I cut the envelope and read the letter to Lincoln, and knew that Anthy had opened a way into her confidence for me that had never before been opened to any one else.

"David," she said, "I wanted you to know. In some ways you have come closer to me than any one else except my father."

She said it without embarrassment, straight at me with clear eyes. I was like her father. I understood.

I begged that letter of her, and others written both before and after, and keep them in the securest part of my golden treasury. After that she opened her heart more and more to me – a little here, a little there. I waited for those moments, counted on them, tried to avoid the slightest appearance of any jarring emotion, found them incomparably beautiful. She gave me vivid glimpses of her early life, of the books she liked best and the poetry, told me with enthusiasm of her college life and the different girls who were her friends (showing me their pictures), and finally, and choicest of all, she told me, a little here and a little there, of the curious imaginative adventures which had been so much a part of her girlhood. I presume I took all these things more seriously than she did, for she exhibited them in no solemn vein, as though they were important, but always in an amusing or playful light – here with a bit of mock heroics, there with half-wistful laughter. And yet, through it all, I could see that they had meant a great deal to her.

I think, I am almost sure, that Anthy had never at this time had a love affair in any ordinary sense. To the true romance and the truly romantic – and by this I do not mean sentimental – the realities of love are often late in coming. To the true romance the idea of marriage is at first repugnant, will not be thought about, for it seeks to square and conventionalize a great burst of the spirit. The inner life is so keen, so vivid, that it satisfies itself, and it must indeed be a prince who would kiss awake the eyes of the dreamer.

Some of these things, when I began this narrative, I had no intention of setting down in cold type, for they are among the deepest experiences in my life, and yet if I am to give an idea of what Anthy was and of the events which followed, it is imposed upon me to leave nothing out.

I do not wish to indicate, however, that the talks I had with Anthy usually or even often reached these depths of the intimate. These were the rare and beautiful flowers which blossomed upon the slow-growing branches of the tree of intimacy. It was a curious thing, also, that while she let me more and more deeply into her own life she knew less about what was in my life than many other friends, far less even than Nort. Youth is like that, too, and even when essentially unselfish, it is terribly absorbed in the wonders of its own being. I knew what it meant. In a way it was the price I paid for the utter trust she had in me.

CHAPTER XVI

THE OLD CAPTAIN COMES INTO HIS OWN

It was a great winter we had in the office of the Star. It was in those months that we really made the Star. It was curious, indeed, once we began to be knitted together in a new bundle – with Anthy's quiet and strong hand upon us – how the qualities in each of us which had seriously threatened to disrupt the organization, had set us all by the ears, were the very qualities which contributed most to the success which followed. It all seems clear enough now, though vague and uncertain then, that what we really did was to use the obstreperous and irritating traits of each of us instead of trying to repress them.

There was the old Captain, for example. Ed thought him a "dodo," and wanted to put him on the shelf, where many a vigorous old man's heart has bitterly rusted out just because his loving friends, lovingly taking his life work out of his hands, have been too stupid to know how to use the treasures of his experience. Nort smiled at the way he tourneyed like Don Quixote with windmills of issues long dead, and I was impatient, the Lord forgive me, with his financial extravagances at a time when the Star was barely making a living. But Anthy loved him.

I don't know exactly how it came about, but one evening when we were all in the office together the talk turned on the Civil War. Some one asked the Captain:

"You knew General McClellan personally, didn't you, Cap'n?"

I remember how the old Captain squared himself up in his chair.

"Yes, I knew Little Mac. I knew Little Mac – "

It took nothing at all to set the Captain off, and he was soon in full flood.

"I said to Little Mac, riding to him at full gallop … and Little Mac said to me:

"'Captain Doane.'

"'Yes, sir, General,' said I.

"'Do you see that rebel battery down there on the hillside?'

"'I do, General.'

"'Well, Cap'n Doane,' said he, 'that battery must be taken – at any cost. May I depend on you?'

"'General,' said I, 'I will do my duty,' and I wheeled on my horse and rode to the front of my troop.

"'Forward —March! Draw —Sabres! Gallop —Charge!– '"

By this time the old Captain was on his feet, cane in hand for a sabre, the wonderful light of a by-gone conflict shining in his eyes. I could see him charging down the hill with his clattering troop; hear the clash of arms and the roll of musketry; see the flags flying and the men falling – dust and smoke and heat – the cry of wounded horses… They took the battery.

Well, when he finished his story that evening there was a pause, and then I saw Anthy suddenly lean forward, her hands clasped hard and her face glowing.

"Such stories as that," she said, "ought not to be lost, Uncle Newt. They are good for people. The coming generation doesn't know what its fathers suffered and struggled for – or what the country owes to them – " And then, wistfully: "I wish those stories might never be lost."

Instantly Nort sprung from his chair, for great ideas when they arrived seemed to prick him physically as well as mentally.

"Say," he almost shouted, "I have it! Let's have the Cap'n write the story of his life – and, by Jiminy, publish it in the Star. Everybody knows the Cap'n – they'd eat it up."

It was Nort's genius that he could see, instantly, the greater possibilities of things, and his suggestion quite carried us away. We all began to talk at once:

"Print the Captain's picture, a big one on the first page. A story every week. Why, he knew James G. Blaine – "

Anthy leaned back in her chair, her eyes like stars, looked at Nort, and looked at him.

When we went out that night the old Captain threw a big arm over Nort's shoulder. The tears were running quite unheeded down the old fellow's face.

"Nort, my boy," he said, "I love you like a son."

He was happier that night than he had been before in years.

The next morning Nort appeared at the office with a tremendous announcement, headed: Captain Doane's Story of His Life, which would, on a conservative estimate, have filled an entire page of the Star. And the old Captain, who need never have taken off his hat to Dickens or Dumas where copiousness was concerned, began to write – enormously. The dear old fellow, looking back into his own past, discovered anew a hero after his own heart, and as the incidents jumped at him out of his memory, he could scarcely put them down fast enough. He filled reams of yellow copy paper.

With the first article we published a three-column half-tone portrait of the Captain, his head turned a little to one side to show the full lift of his brow, and one hand thrust carelessly and yet artfully into the bosom of his long coat. Oh, very wonderful! The first article, headed,

EARLY MEMORIES OF HEMPFIELD

was really excellent, after Anthy had cut out two thirds of the old Captain's copy – which no other one of us would have dared to do.

Well, in an old town, in an old country, where the memories of many people reached far back, where many had known Captain Doane all their lives, this article instantly found sympathetic readers, and began to be talked about. We felt it at once in the demand for papers. Later came the stories of early political affairs in Hempfield and, indeed, in New England, and stories of the war which were really thrilling. Other headings were: "How I Met General McClellan" and "Reminiscences of James G. Blaine."

These not only awakened local interest, but they began to be clipped and quoted in outside newspapers, even in Boston and New York. A reporter was sent down from Boston to "write up" the old Captain. It was quite a triumph. The Captain began to have visitors, old friends and old citizens, as he had never had before. They became almost a nuisance in the office. But the Captain was in his element: he thrived on it; his eye brightened; he walked, if possible, still more erect. His very mood, indeed, for his fighting blood was up, gave us some difficult problems. Nearly every week he would pause in the course of his narrative to smite the Democratic party, to cry "Fudge" at flying machines, or to visit his scorn upon the "initiative, referendum and recall." And one week he cut loose grandly upon woman suffrage, after he had first expressed his chivalric admiration for the "gentle sex" and quoted Sir Walter Scott:

"Oh, woman, in our hours of ease
Uncertain, coy, and hard to please," etc., etc.

Nort brought me the copy, laughing.

"I asked the Captain," he said, "if he thought Anthy was uncertain, coy, and hard to please."

"What did he say?"

"He waved me aside. 'Oh, Anthy!' he said, as if she did not count at all. You know how the Captain lays down the eternal laws of life and then lets all his personal friends break 'em!.. What would you do about the passage, anyway?"

"Why print it," I said. "It's the old Captain himself."

And print it we did.

CHAPTER XVII

IN WHICH CERTAIN DEEP MATTERS OF THE HEART ARE PRESENTED