Chapter X
WE CLIMB A HILL TOGETHER
The next morning I did not urge Miss Goodwin to come to the farm. Infact, I urged her to sit in the sun and rest. It was a glorious day, areal June day, though June was not due till the following Wednesday. Itwas Sunday, the Sunday preceding Memorial Day. But, as my farm was so farfrom the centre of the village, and my lawn was so screened from theroads by the house on one side and the pines and maples on the other,I resolved to hazard my reputation and go at my lawn, which the rain atlast had settled. I hitched the horse to my improvised drag and smoothedit again, several times, in default of a roller. Then I led the horseback to the barn.
As I came to the barn door again, a carryall was passing, with a womanand a stout girl on the back seat, and another stout girl and a man onthe front seat. The women were dressed in their starched best, theman, an elderly farmer with a white beard, in the blue uniform andslouch hat of the G. A. R. They were going to Memorial service. Iinstinctively saluted as the old fellow nodded to me in his friendly,country way, and he dropped the reins with a pleased smile and broughthis own hand snap up to his hat brim. I watched the carryall disappear,hearing it rattle over the bridge across my brook, and for the firsttime felt myself a stranger in this community. I suddenly wanted to gowith them to church, to hear the drone of the organ and the soft windrushing by the open windows, bringing in the scent of lilacs, to seethe faces of my neighbours about me, to chat with them on the churchsteps when the service was over. I realized how absorbed I had beenin my own little farm, and resolved to begin getting acquainted withthe town as soon as possible. Then I picked up a rake, and went back tothe lawn.
As soon as I had eliminated the horse's hoofprints, I got a bag oflawn seed and scattered it, probably using a good deal more than wasnecessary. Mike had assured me it was too late to sow grass, but I hopedfor fool's luck. I sowed it carefully about the sundial beds, so thatnone should fall on them, but over the rest of the lawn I let it fallfrom on high, delighting in the way it drifted with the gentle windon its drop to earth. I had not sown long before the birds began to come,by ones, then by twos and threes and fours, till it seemed as if fiftyof them were hopping about. I shooed them away, but back they came.
"Well," thought I, "lawn seed is not so terribly expensive, and theycan't pick it all up!" I scattered it thicker than ever, and thenharrowed it under a little with a rake, working till one o'clock, forSunday dinner was at one-thirty. Then I went back to Bert's, with onlya peep into my big south room to see how cheerful it looked. I found MissGoodwin still sitting where I had left her, under the sycamore before thehouse.
"You see, I've obeyed," she smiled. "I've not read, nor eventhought. I've 'jest set.' But I'm beginning to get restless."
"Good," said I. "Shall we celebrate the Sabbath by taking a walk? I'dlike to have you show me Bentford."
She assented, and right after dinner we set out, I having donned myknickerbockers and a collar for the first time since my arrival, andfeeling no little discomfort from the starched band around my throat.
"The size of it is," I groaned, "all my clothes are now too smallfor me. If you stay here till July, you'll probably have to send for anentire new wardrobe."
"That's the fear which haunts me," she smiled, as we crossed my brookand turned up the hill toward the first of the big estates. In front ofthis estate we paused and peeped through the hedge. The family hadevidently arrived, for the unmistakable sounds of a pianola were issuingfrom the house. The great formal garden, still gay with Darwin tulipsand beginning to show banks of iris flowers against lilac shrubbery,looked extremely expensive. The residence itself, of brown stucco,closely resembled a sublimated $100,000 ice-house. An expensive motorstood before the door.
"How rich and ugly it is," said Miss Goodwin, turning away. "Let'snot look at houses. Let's find some woods to walk in."
We looked about us toward the high hills which ring the Bentford valley,and struck off toward what seemed the nearest. The side road we wereon soon brought us to the main highway up the valley to the next town,and a motor whizzed past us, leaving a cloud of dust, then a second,and a third. We got off the highway as speedily as possible, crossinga farm pasture and entering the timber on the first slope of the bighill. Here a wood road led up, and we loitered along it, finding lateviolets and great clumps of red trilliums here and there.
The girl sprang upon the first violets with a little cry of joy, pickingthem eagerly and pressing them to her nose. "Smell!" she laughed,holding them up to mine. She soon had her hands full, and was forced topass by the next bed--as I told her, with the regret of a child whohas eaten all the cake he can at a church supper.
"No child ever ate all the cake he could," she laughed. "Oh, pleasedig up some trilliums and plant them in your garden, or rather in yourwoods!"
"How are we going to get them home?" said I. "We'll have to dig upsome of the earth, too, with the roots."
"I know," she answered. "Even if I am a highbrow, I've not quiteforgotten my childhood lessons in manual work--which I always hated tillnow. I'll weave a basket."
Looking about, I saw a wild grape vine, and I pulled it down from thetree to which it was clinging. "I feel like a suffragette," said I,"destroying the clinging vine."
"Cut it into two-foot lengths," she retorted, "and don't make poorpuns." She sat on the brown needles at the foot of a pine, and begantwisting the pieces of vine into a rough basket. I sat beside her andwatched her work. Out beyond us was a sun-soaked clearing, a tiny swampon the hillside, and the sunlight dappled in across her skirt. As sheworked, a wood thrush called far off, his last long-drawn note ringinglike a sweet, wistful fairy horn. The white fingers paused in theirweaving, and our eyes met. She did not speak, but looked smiling intomy face as the call was repeated, while her throat fluttered. Then,without speaking, she turned back to her work. I, too, was silent. Whatneed was there of words?
"Was that a hermit, too?" she asked presently. "It sounded different."
"No, a wood thrush," said I. "He's not so Mozartian."
She finished the basket and held it out proudly. "There!" she cried."It isn't pretty, and it isn't art, but it will hold trilliums."
She dusted off her skirt, and I helped her to her feet. We continued upthe road, looking for trilliums, and when the first large clump appearedpushing up their dark red blooms from the leafy mould, we were bothon our knees beside it, prying it up, earth and all. We soon had thebasket filled, and then pressed on straight up the hillside, leaving thewood road. It was a steep scramble, over rocks where the thin, mossysoil slipped from under foot, and through tangles of mountain laurelbushes. I had frequently to help her, for she was not used to climbing,and she was breathing hard.
"Let's stop," said I. "This is too hard work for you."
She grasped a dead stick, like a banner staff, struck an attitude, andcried, "Excelsior!"
"No, sir," she added, "I'm going to reach the top of this hill andlook down the other side if I die on the summit. I know now for thefirst time why Annie Peck and Hudson Stuck risked their lives on MountSomething-or-other in the Andes and Mount McKinley in Alaska. It's agrand sensation. I feel the primal urge!"
"Didn't you ever climb a mountain?" I queried, incredulous.
"Never," she answered. "Never even a baby mountain like this. Myaltitude record is the top step of the Columbia University library."
"You poor child!" I cried. "Why, I'll _carry_ you to the top! I neverrealized that you were such a hopeless urbanite."
We went on more slowly, for the way was very steep now, and betweenhelping her and holding the trilliums level I had my hands full. Laughingwhen we had the breath, we scrambled through the last of the shrubbery,and suddenly stood on a flat rock at the summit, with the world spreadout below us like a map. I set down the basket, wiped my face, andruefully felt of my wilted collar. The girl sank, panting, on the rock,fanned herself with her wisp of a handkerchief, and gazed out over thegreen Bentford valley below to the far hills
in the south. The sky aboveus was very blue and lazy afternoon clouds were floating in it. Far uphere only a few birds peeped in the scrub. We seemed strangely alone inthat privacy of the peak.
"'Silent upon a peak in Darien!'" I heard her say, as if to herself.Then she turned her eager face to mine. "Isn't it wonderful!" shecried. "Look, all the world like a map below you, and all this sky tosee at once, and the cooling breeze and the feeling that you are aboveeverybody! Oh, I love it! Quick, now let me see the other side!"
She ran across the rock, and I after her. From this side we lookedbetween the trees into the valley to the north, the next valley toBentford, and saw a blue lake, like a piece of the sky dropped down,and several large estates, and the green and brown checkerboards offarms, and far off a white steeple above the trees, and then once moreon the horizon the eternal ring of blue mountains. Even as we gazed,from somewhere below us drifted up, faint and sweet, the sound of achurch bell.
"Oh, it is nice on the roof of the world!" she cried. "Think ofthat--here am I, a Ph. D. in philology, and the only adjective I canfind is 'nice'!"
"It's all in how you say it," I smiled. "I think I understand. Icalled you 'poor child' a few moments ago because you'd never been ona high hilltop. Now I take it back. Think of getting those first virginimpressions when you are old enough to appreciate them! I envy you. Iwas only five when they took me up Mount Washington."
"I should think you'd have insisted on the Matterhorn by the time youwere ten," she laughed. "I should."
We hunted out some soft moss in the shade, and sat down to get cool inthe summit breeze before the descent. The girl spoke little, her eyeswandering constantly off over the view with the light of discovery inthem. In my own staid way, I had always fancied I enjoyed the quieterpleasures of the outdoors as much as any one, but before this rapture Iwas almost abashed. If I did not speak, it was chiefly because I fearedto drop clumsy words into her mood.
But presently I did suggest that we must be starting down. As therewas no path visible--later I have found that since the advent ofmotors there are never any paths where the walking is in the leaststrenuous!--we took the way we had come, and began the descent.Naturally I went ahead, and helped her all I could. To one unaccustomedto hard walking, a steep descent is more tiresome than a climb, and Ibegan to fear that I had led her into an excess. But she came bravelytumbling along behind. In some places I had to put up my arms and lifther down. In others she had to slide one foot far ahead for a secureresting-place, with a reckless show of stocking. But she laughed itall off gayly. We missed, somehow, the way we had taken up, andpresently found ourselves on a ledge with a clean drop of eight feet. Iprospected to right and left, found a place where the drop was only six,and jumped. Then she lowered the basket to me, sat on the edge herself,leaned out and put her arms about my neck, and I swung her off. As Iset her on the ground again our faces were close together for aninstant, and I could feel rather than see her eyes laughing into mine.
"This is a very pleasant hill," said I.
"But we are almost to the wood road now," she darted back, jumping intothe lead.
A moment more, and we stood in the wood road, and presently we cameupon a spring under a rock, and plunged our faces into it and drank.She looked up with the water dripping from her saucy nose, and quoted:"'As rivers of water in a dry place.' I'm learning lots to-day. Nowit's the elemental force of the Bible similes."
"All the wisdom isn't in New York--and dictionaries," said I.
"There, now you've mentioned the Dictionary! How could you!" shecried, and suddenly, like a child, snapped water into my face.
"You've ruined my collar," said I solemnly.
"Your collar looks like a fat man's at a dance in July," said she."Let's give the poor trilliums a drink."
She put the basket by the spring, dipped her hands in the water, and thenlet palmsful drop on the wilted flowers. "How woodsy they smell!" shecried, leaning over them. "Now I'm going to wash my face again."
She was like a child. She buried her face in the water, and when sheemerged the little curly hairs on her temples were dripping. "I'd liketo wade in it!" she exclaimed. "I wonder if I dare!"
"Go ahead," said I. "I'll go down the road and wait."
"That wouldn't be daring," she twinkled.
"Well, I'll sit here and wait."
She looked at me saucily, and laughed, shaking her head.
"Coward," said I.
But she only laughed again, sprang up, and started rapidly away.
I caught her by the arm. "Easy, easy," I cautioned. "You're abroken-down, nervous wreck, remember. You mustn't overdo things."
Her moods were many that afternoon. Again she looked at me, but didn'tlaugh. Her eyes, instead, held a sort of startled gratitude, like thoseof a person, unused to kindness, suddenly befriended. She was no longerthe child let loose in the woods. She walked slowly at my side, andso we came down to the high-road again. At the road we looked back tothe hilltop where we had been.
"How much easier the climb looks than it is," said she.
"That's the way of hills--and other things," said I sententiously.
"I knew about the other things," she answered. "Now I've learned itabout the hills. It seems as if I were learning all the old similes wrongend foremost, doesn't it?--springs and--and all?"
Her tone was wistful, and it was with difficulty that I refrained fromtouching her hand. "Oh, there's something to be said for that method,"I answered cheerfully. "Think of all the pleasant things you have tolearn. The other way around you get the grim realism last."
But a thought plagued her as we turned down the side road to my house.However, her face cleared as we drew near, and as the house itselfappeared she clapped her hands, crying, "Now, where are we going to putthe trilliums?"
"At the edge of the pines," I suggested, "where they can talk withthe brook?"
"Yes, that's the place." Suddenly she paused, looked back up theslope, and cried, "Do you suppose this brook is that spring?"
I hastily ran over the contour of the country we had passed through, andsaw that indeed the spring must be its headwaters.
"I'm so glad!" she cried.
"Why?" I asked.
She darted a look at me, with twinkling eyes. "I shan't tell you,"she said.
I got a trowel, and we planted the withered trilliums in partial shadebetween the maples and the pines, and gave them water. Then I showed herthe newly sown lawn, and we peeped in to see the Hiroshiges over the twinfires.
"Now, home and to bed for you," I cried. "I know you've done toomuch."
"I know I've had a wonderful time," she answered soberly."I've--I've--it's hard to explain--but I've somehow connected upthis house with the wild country about it. Do you understand? If I hada house in the country, I should want it where I could get out, thisway, on a Sunday afternoon into the woods and bring home trilliums. Itwouldn't seem right, complete, if I couldn't. I'd want my own deargarden, and then a great big, God's garden over the fence somewhere."
"That is how I feel, too," said I. "Only I want, also, to connect upmy place with my neighbours; I want myself to be a part of the humanenvironment. I thought of that this morning, as I saw the folks going byto church. If I ever get Twin Fires done, I'm going to join the Grange!"
"But Twin Fires comes first, doesn't it? I fear I've been selfish todrag you off to-day."
"Drag me off is good!" I laughed. "You poor little city-bred, you,as if your enjoyment hadn't given me the happiest day of my life! OnlyI'm afraid you did too much."
"I _am_ pretty tired," she admitted, with a happy smile. "But Iwouldn't have missed it for the world."
I was pretty tired myself, but I did a remarkably good evening's work,nevertheless, only pausing before the start to wonder why it was shewept one night when she wasn't tired, and smiled the next when she hadtramped ten miles. But a man cannot afford to ponder such problems infeminine psychology too closely if he has anything else to do!