Joe Vavrika heard often from his daughter. Clara had always
been fond of her father, and happiness made her kinder. She wrote
him long accounts of the voyage to Bergen, and of the trip she and
Nils took through Bohemia to the little town where her father had
grown up and where she herself was born. She visited all her
kinsmen there, and sent her father news of his brother, who was a
priest; of his sister, who had married a horse-breeder--of their
big farm and their many children. These letters Joe always managed
to read to little Eric. They contained messages for Eric and
Hilda. Clara sent presents, too, which Eric never dared to take
home and which poor little Hilda never even saw, though she loved
to hear Eric tell about them when they were out getting the eggs
together. But Olaf once saw Eric coming out of Vavrika's house--
the old man had never asked the boy to come into his saloon--and
Olaf went straight to his mother and told her. That night Mrs.
Ericson came to Eric's room after he was in bed and made a terrible
scene. She could be very terrifying when she was really angry.
She forbade him ever to speak to Vavrika again, and after that
night she would not allow him to go to town alone. So it was a
long while before Eric got any more news of his brother. But old
Joe suspected what was going on, and he carried Clara's letters
about in his pocket. One Sunday he drove out to see a German
friend of his, and chanced to catch sight of Eric, sitting by the
cattle pond in the big pasture. They went together into Fritz
Oberlies' barn, and read the letters and talked things over. Eric
admitted that things were getting hard for him at home. That very
night old Joe sat down and laboriously penned a statement of the
case to his daughter.
Things got no better for Eric. His mother and Olaf felt
that, however closely he was watched, he still, as they said,
"heard." Mrs. Ericson could not admit neutrality. She had sent
Johanna Vavrika packing back to her brother's, though Olaf would
much rather have kept her than Anders' eldest daughter, whom Mrs.
Ericson installed in her place. He was not so highhanded as his
mother, and he once sulkily told her that she might better have
taught her granddaughter to cook before she sent Johanna away.
Olaf could have borne a good deal for the sake of prunes spiced
in honey, the secret of which Johanna had taken away with her.
At last two letters came to Joe Vavrika: one from Nils,
enclosing a postal order for money to pay Eric's passage to
Bergen, and one from Clara, saying that Nils had a place for Eric
in the offices of his company, that he was to live with them, and
that they were only waiting for him to come. He was to leave New
York on one of the boats of Nils' own line; the captain was one
of their friends, and Eric was to make himself known at once.
Nils' directions were so explicit that a baby could have
followed them, Eric felt. And here he was, nearing Red Oak,
Iowa, and rocking backward and forward in despair. Never had he
loved his brother so much, and never had the big world called to
him so hard. But there was a lump in his throat which would not
go down. Ever since nightfall he had been tormented by the
thought of his mother, alone in that big house that had sent
forth so many men. Her unkindness now seemed so little, and her
loneliness so great. He remembered everything she had ever done
for him: how frightened she had been when he tore his hand in the
corn-sheller, and how she wouldn't let Olaf scold him. When Nils
went away he didn't leave his mother all alone, or he would never
have gone. Eric felt sure of that.
The train whistled. The conductor came in, smiling not unkindly.
"Well, young man, what are you going to do? We stop at Red Oak in
three minutes."
"Yes, thank you. I'll let you know." The conductor went out,
and the boy doubled up with misery. He couldn't let his one chance
go like this. He felt for his breast pocket and crackled Nils'
letter to give him courage. He didn't want Nils to be ashamed of
him. The train stopped. Suddenly he remembered his brother's
kind, twinkling eyes, that always looked at you as if from far
away. The lump in his throat softened. "Ah, but Nils, Nils would
understand!" he thought. "That's just it about Nils; he
always understands."
A lank, pale boy with a canvas telescope stumbled off the
train to the Red Oak siding, just as the conductor called, "All
aboard!"
The next night Mrs. Ericson was sitting alone in her wooden
rocking-chair on the front porch. Little Hilda had been sent to
bed and had cried herself to sleep. The old woman's knitting was
on her lap, but her hands lay motionless on top of it. For more
than an hour she had not moved a muscle. She simply sat, as only
the Ericsons and the mountains can sit. The house was dark, and
there was no sound but the croaking of the frogs down in the pond
of the little pasture.
Eric did not come home by the road, but across the fields,
where no one could see him. He set his telescope down softly in
the kitchen shed, and slipped noiselessly along the path to the
front porch. He sat down on the step without saying anything.
Mrs. Ericson made no sign, and the frogs croaked on. At last the
boy spoke timidly.
"I've come back, Mother."
"Very well," said Mrs. Ericson.
Eric leaned over and picked up a little stick out of the grass.
"How about the milking?" he faltered.
"That's been done, hours ago."
"Who did you get?"
"Get? I did it myself. I can milk as good as any of you."
Eric slid along the step nearer to her. "Oh, Mother, why did you?"
he asked sorrowfully. "Why didn't you get one of Otto's boys?"
"I didn't want anybody to know I was in need of a boy," said
Mrs. Ericson bitterly. She looked straight in front of her and her
mouth tightened. "I always meant to give you the home farm," she
added.
The boy stared and slid closer. "Oh, Mother," he faltered, "I
don't care about the farm. I came back because I thought you might
be needing me, maybe." He hung his head and got no further.
"Very well," said Mrs. Ericson. Her hand went out from her
suddenly and rested on his head. Her fingers twined themselves in
his soft, pale hair. His tears splashed down on the boards;
happiness filled his heart.
The Troll Garden
Flavia and Her Artists
As the train neared Tarrytown, Imogen Willard began to
wonder why she had consented to be one of Flavia's house party at
all. She had not felt enthusiastic about it since leaving the
city, and was experiencing a prolonged ebb of purpose, a current
of chilling indecision, under which she vainly sought for the
motive which had induced her to accept Flavia's invitation.
Perhaps it was a vague curiosity to see Flavia's husband,
who had been the magician of her
childhood and the hero of
innumerable Arabian fairy tales. Perhaps it was a desire to see
M. Roux, whom Flavia had announced as the especial attraction of
the occasion. Perhaps it was a wish to study that remarkable
woman in her own setting.
Imogen admitted a mild curiosity concerning Flavia. She was
in the habit of taking people rather seriously, but somehow found
it impossible to take Flavia so, because of the very vehemence
and insistence with which Flavia demanded it. Submerged in her
studies, Imogen had, of late years, seen very little of Flavia;
but Flavia, in her hurried visits to New York, between her
excursions from studio to studio--her luncheons with this lady
who had to play at a matinee, and her dinners with that singer
who had an evening concert--had seen enough of her friend's
handsome daughter to conceive for her an inclination of such
violence and assurance as only Flavia could afford. The fact
that Imogen had shown rather marked capacity in certain esoteric
lines of scholarship, and had decided to specialize in a well-
sounding branch of philology at the Ecole des Chartes, had fairly
placed her in that category of "interesting people" whom Flavia
considered her natural affinities, and lawful prey.
When Imogen stepped upon the station platform she was immediately
appropriated by her hostess, whose commanding figure and assurance
of attire she had recognized from a distance. She was hurried into
a high tilbury and Flavia, taking the driver's cushion beside her,
gathered up the reins with an experienced hand.
"My dear girl," she remarked, as she turned the horses up the
street, "I was afraid the train might be late. M. Roux insisted
upon coming up by boat and did not arrive until after seven."
"To think of M. Roux's being in this part of the world at
all, and subject to the vicissitudes of river boats! Why in the
world did he come over?" queried Imogen with lively interest.
"He is the sort of man who must dissolve and become a shadow
outside of Paris."
"Oh, we have a houseful of the most interesting people,"
said Flavia, professionally. "We have actually managed to get
Ivan Schemetzkin. He was ill in California at the close of his
concert tour, you know, and he is recuperating with us, after his
wearing journey from the coast. Then there is Jules Martel, the
painter; Signor Donati, the tenor; Professor Schotte, who has dug
up Assyria, you know; Restzhoff, the Russian chemist; Alcee
Buisson, the philologist; Frank Wellington, the novelist; and
Will Maidenwood, the editor of Woman. Then there is my
second cousin, Jemima Broadwood, who made such a hit in Pinero's
comedy last winter, and Frau Lichtenfeld. Have you read
her?"
Imogen confessed her utter ignorance of Frau Lichtenfeld,
and Flavia went on.
"Well, she is a most remarkable person; one of those
advanced German women, a militant iconoclast, and this drive will
not be long enough to permit of my telling you her history. Such
a story! Her novels were the talk of all Germany when I was there
last, and several of them have been suppressed--an honor in
Germany, I understand. 'At Whose Door' has been translated. I
am so unfortunate as not to read German."
"I'm all excitement at the prospect of meeting Miss
Broadwood," said Imogen. "I've seen her in nearly everything she
does. Her stage personality is delightful. She always reminds me
of a nice, clean, pink-and-white boy who has just had his cold
bath, and come down all aglow for a run before breakfast."
"Yes, but isn't it unfortunate that she will limit herself to
those minor comedy parts that are so little appreciated in this
country? One ought to be satisfied with nothing less than the
best, ought one?" The peculiar, breathy tone in which Flavia
always uttered that word "best," the most worn in her vocabulary,
always jarred on Imogen and always made her obdurate.
"I don't at all agree with you," she said reservedly. "I
thought everyone admitted that the most remarkable thing about Miss
Broadwood is her admirable sense of fitness, which is rare enough
in her profession."
Flavia could not endure being contradicted; she always seemed
to regard it in the light of a defeat, and usually colored
unbecomingly. Now she changed the subject.
"Look, my dear," she cried, "there is Frau Lichtenfeld now,
coming to meet us. Doesn't she look as if she had just escaped out
of Valhalla? She is actually over six feet."
Imogen saw a woman of immense stature, in a very short skirt
and a broad, flapping sun hat, striding down the hillside at a
long, swinging gait. The refugee from Valhalla approached,
panting. Her heavy, Teutonic features were scarlet from the rigor
of her exercise, and her hair, under her flapping sun hat, was
tightly befrizzled about her brow. She fixed her sharp little eves
upon Imogen and extended both her hands.
"So this is the little friend?" she cried, in a rolling baritone.
Imogen was quite as tall as her hostess; but everything, she
reflected, is comparative. After the introduction Flavia
apologized.
"I wish I could ask you to drive up with us, Frau Lichtenfeld."
"Ah, no!" cried the giantess, drooping her head in humorous
caricature of a time-honored pose of the heroines of sentimental
romances. "It has never been my fate to be fitted into corners.
I have never known the sweet privileges of the tiny."
Laughing, Flavia started the ponies, and the colossal woman,
standing in the middle of the dusty road, took off her wide hat
and waved them a farewell which, in scope of gesture, recalled
the salute of a plumed cavalier.
When they arrived at the house, Imogen looked about her with
keen curiosity, for this was veritably the work of Flavia's
hands, the materialization of hopes long deferred. They passed
directly into a large, square hall with a gallery on three sides,
studio fashion. This opened at one end into a Dutch breakfast
room, beyond which was the large dining room. At the other end
of the hall was the music room. There was a smoking room, which
one entered through the library behind the staircase. On the
second floor there was the same general arrangement: a square
hall, and, opening from it, the guest chambers, or, as Miss
Broadwood termed them, the "cages."
When Imogen went to her room, the guests had begun to return
from their various afternoon excursions. Boys were gliding
through the halls with ice water, covered trays, and flowers,
colliding with maids and valets who carried shoes and other
articles of wearing apparel. Yet, all this was done in response
to inaudible bells, on felt soles, and in hushed voices, so that
there was very little confusion about it.
Flavia had at last built her house and hewn out her seven
pillars; there could be no doubt, now, that the asylum for
talent, the s
anatorium of the arts, so long projected, was an
accomplished fact. Her ambition had long ago outgrown the
dimensions of her house on Prairie Avenue; besides, she had
bitterly complained that in Chicago traditions were against her.
Her project had been delayed by Arthur's doggedly standing out
for the Michigan woods, but Flavia knew well enough that certain
of the rarae aves--"the best"--could not be lured so far
away from the seaport, so she declared herself for the historic
Hudson and knew no retreat. The establishing of a New York office
had at length overthrown Arthur's last valid objection to quitting
the lake country for three months of the year; and Arthur could
be wearied into anything, as those who knew him knew.
Flavia's house was the mirror of her exultation; it was
a temple to the gods of Victory, a sort of triumphal arch. In
her earlier days she had swallowed experiences that would have
unmanned one of less torrential enthusiasm or blind pertinacity.
But, of late years, her determination had told; she saw less and
less of those mysterious persons with mysterious obstacles in
their path and mysterious grievances against the world, who had
once frequented her house on Prairie Avenue. In the stead of
this multitude of the unarrived, she had now the few, the select,
"the best." Of all that band of indigent retainers who had once
fed at her board like the suitors in the halls of Penelope, only
Alcee Buisson still retained his right of entree. He alone had
remembered that ambition hath a knapsack at his back, wherein he
puts alms to oblivion, and he alone had been considerate enough
to do what Flavia had expected of him, and give his name a
current value in the world. Then, as Miss Broadwood put it, "he
was her first real one,"--and Flavia, like Mohammed, could
remember her first believer.
"The House of Song," as Miss Broadwood had called it, was
the outcome of Flavia's more exalted strategies. A woman who
made less a point of sympathizing with their delicate organisms,
might have sought to plunge these phosphorescent pieces into the
tepid bath of domestic life; but Flavia's discernment was deeper.
This must be a refuge where the shrinking soul, the sensitive
brain, should be unconstrained; where the caprice of fancy should
outweigh the civil code, if necessary. She considered that this
much Arthur owed her; for she, in her turn, had made concessions.
Flavia had, indeed, quite an equipment of epigrams to the effect
that our century creates the iron genii which evolve its fairy
tales: but the fact that her husband's name was annually painted
upon some ten thousand threshing machines in reality contributed
very little to her happiness.
Arthur Hamilton was born and had spent his boyhood in the
West Indies, and physically he had never lost the brand of the
tropics. His father, after inventing the machine which bore his
name, had returned to the States to patent and manufacture it.
After leaving college, Arthur had spent five years ranching in
the West and traveling abroad. Upon his father's death
he had returned to Chicago and, to the astonishment of all his
friends, had taken up the business--without any demonstration of
enthusiasm, but with quiet perseverance, marked ability, and
amazing industry. Why or how a self-sufficient, rather ascetic
man of thirty, indifferent in manner, wholly negative in all
other personal relations, should have doggedly wooed and finally
married Flavia Malcolm was a problem that had vexed older heads
than Imogen's.
While Imogen was dressing she heard a knock at her door, and
a young woman entered whom she at once recognized as Jemima
Broadwood--"Jimmy" Broadwood she was called by people in her own
profession. While there was something unmistakably professional
in her frank savoir-faire, "Jimmy's" was one of those faces
to which the rouge never seems to stick. Her eyes were keen and