The Mettle of the Pasture

She put on her hat which unfortunately she had chosen to trim herself, tied a white veil across the upper part of her face and got out her second-best pair of gloves: Harriet kept her best gloves for her enemies. In the front yard she pulled a handful of white lilacs (there was some defect here or she would never have carried white lilacs in soiled white gloves); and passed out of the gate. Her eyes were lighted up with anticipations, but ill must have overtaken her in transit; for when she was seated with Miss Anna in a little side porch looking out on the little green yard, they were dimmed with tears.

"The same old story," she complained vehemently. "The same ridicule that has been dinned into my ears since I was a child."

"Ah, now, somebody has been teasing her about being an old maid," said Miss Anna to herself, recognizing the signs.

"This world is a very unprincipled place to live in," continued Harriet, her rage curdling into philosophy.

"Ah, but it is the best there is just yet," maintained Miss Anna, stoutly. "By and by we may all be able to do better—those of us who get the chance."

"What shall I care then?" said Harriet, scouting eternity as a palliative of contemporary woes.

"Wait! you are tired and you have lost your temper from thirst: children always do. I'll bring something to cure you, fresh from the country, fresh from Ambrose Webb's farm. Besides, you have a dark shade of the blues, my dear; and this remedy is capital for the blues. You have but to sip a glass slowly—and where are they?" And she hastened into the house.

She returned with two glasses of cool buttermilk.

The words and the deed were characteristic of one of the most wholesome women that ever helped to straighten out a crooked and to cool a feverish world. Miss Anna's very appearance allayed irritation and became a provocation to good health, to good sense. Her mission in life seemed not so much to distribute honey as to sprinkle salt, to render things salubrious, to enable them to keep their tonic naturalness. Not within the range of womankind could so marked a contrast have been found for Harriet as in this maiden lady of her own age, who was her most patient friend and who supported her clinging nature (which still could not resist the attempt to bloom) as an autumn cornstalk supports a frost-nipped morning-glory.

If words of love had ever been whispered into Miss Anna's ear, no human being knew it now: but perhaps her heart also had its under chamber sealed with tears. Women not even behind her back jested at her spinsterhood; and when that is true, a miracle takes place indeed. No doubt Miss Anna was a miracle, not belonging to any country, race, or age; being one of those offerings to the world which nature now and then draws from the deeps of womanhood: a pure gift of God.

The two old maids drained their rectifying beverage in the shady porch. Whether from Miss Anna's faith in it or from the simple health-giving of her presence, Harriet passed through a process of healing; and as she handed back the empty glass, she smiled gratefully into Miss Anna's sparkling brown eyes. Nature had been merciful to her in this, that she was as easily healed as wounded. She now returned to the subject which had so irritated her, as we rub pleasantly a spot from which a thorn has been extracted.

"What do I care?" she said, straightening her hat as if to complete her recovery. "But if there is one thing that can make me angry, Anna, it is the middle-aged, able-bodied unmarried men of this town. They are perfectly, perfectly contemptible."

"Oh, come now!" cried Miss Anna, "I am too old to talk about such silly things myself; but what does a woman care whether she is married or not if she has had offers? And you have had plenty of good offers, my dear."

"No, I haven't!" said Harriet, who would tell the truth about this rankling misfortune.

"Well, then, it was because the men knew you wouldn't have them."

"No, it wasn't!" said Harriet, "it was because they knew I would."

"Nonsense!" cried Miss Anna, impatiently. "You mustn't try to palm off so much mock modesty on me, Harriet."

"Ah, I am too old to fib about it, Anna! I leave that to my many sisters in misfortune."

Harriet looked at her friend's work curiously: she was darning Professor Hardage's socks.

"Why do you do that, Anna? Socks are dirt cheap. You might as well go out into the country and darn sheep."

"Ah, you have never had a brother—my brother! so you cannot understand. I can feel his heels pressing against my stitches when he is walking a mile away. And I know whenever his fingers touch the buttons I have put back. Besides, don't you like to see people make bad things good, and things with holes in them whole again? Why, that is half the work of the world, Harriet! It is not his feet that make these holes," continued Miss Anna, nicely, "it is his shoes, his big, coarse shoes. And his clothes wear out so soon. He has a tailor who misfits him so exactly from year to year that there is never the slightest deviation in the botch. I know beforehand exactly where all the creases will begin. So I darn and mend. The idea of his big, soft, strong feet making holes in anything! but, then, you have never tucked him in bed at night, my dear, so you know nothing about his feet."

"Not I!" said Harriet, embarrassed but not shocked.

Miss Anna continued fondly in a lowered voice: "You should have heard him the other day when he pulled open a drawer: 'Why, Anna,' he cried, 'where on earth did I get all these new socks? The pair I left in here must have been alive: they've bred like rabbits.'—'Why, you've forgotten,' I said. 'It's your birthday; and I have made you over, so that you are as good as new—me!'"

"I never have to be reminded of my birthday," remarked Harriet, reflectively. "Anna, do you know that I have lived about one-eighth of the time since Columbus discovered America: doesn't that sound awful!"

"Ah, but you don't look it," said Miss Anna, artistically, "and that's the main object."

"Oh, I don't feel it," retorted Harriet, "and that's the main object too. I'm as young as I ever was when I'm away from home; but I declare, Anna, there are times when my mother can make me feel I'm about the oldest thing alive."

"Oh, come now! you mustn't begin to talk that way, or I'll have to give you more of the antidote. You are threatened with a relapse."

"No more," ordered Harriet with a forbidding hand, "and I repeat what I said. Of course you know I never gossip, Anna; but when I talk to you, I do not feel as though I were talking to anybody."

"Why, of course not," said Miss Anna, trying to make the most of the compliment, "I am nobody at all, just a mere nonentity, Harriet."

"Anna," said Harriet, after a pause of unusual length, "if it had not been for my mother, I should have been married long ago. Thousands of worse-looking women, and of actually worse women, marry every year in this world and marry reasonably well. It was because she tried to marry me off: that was the bottom of the deviltry—the men saw through her."

"I am afraid they did," admitted Miss Anna, affably, looking down into a hole.

"Of course I know I am not brilliant," conceded Harriet, "but then I am never commonplace."

"I should like to catch any one saying such a thing."

"Even if I were, commonplace women always make the best wives: do they not?"

"Oh, don't ask that question in this porch," exclaimed Miss Anna a little resentfully. "What do I know about it!"

"My mother thinks I am a weak woman," continued Harriet, musingly. "If my day ever comes, she will know that I am, strong, Anna, strong."

"Ah, now, you must forgive your mother," cried Miss Anna, having reached a familiar turn in this familiar dialogue. "Whatever she did, she did for the best. Certainly it was no fault of yours. But you could get married to-morrow if you wished and you know it, Harriet." (Miss Anna offered up the usual little prayer to be forgiven.)

The balm of those words worked through Harriet's veins like a poison of joy. So long as a single human being expresses faith in us, what matters an unbelieving world? Harriet regularly visited Miss Anna to hear these maddening syllables. She called for them as for the refilling of a prescription, which she preferred to get fresh every time rather than take home once for all and use as directed.

Among a primitive folk who seemed to have more moral troubles than any other and to feel greater need of dismissing them by artificial means, there grew up the custom of using a curious expedient. They chose a beast of the field and upon its head symbolically piled all the moral hard-headedness of the several tribes; after which the unoffending brute was banished to the wilderness and the guilty multitude felt relieved. However crude that ancient method of transferring mental and moral burdens, it had at least this redeeming feature: the early Hebrews heaped their sins upon a creature which they did not care for and sent it away. In modern times we pile our burdens upon our dearest fellow-creatures and keep them permanently near us for further use. What human being but has some other upon whom he nightly hangs his troubles as he hangs his different garments upon hooks and nails in the walls around him? Have we ever suspected that when once the habit of transferring our troubles has become pleasant to us, we thereafter hunt for troubles in order that we may have them to transfer, that we magnify the little ones in order to win the credit of having large ones, and that we are wonderfully refreshed by making other people despondent about us? Mercifully those upon whom the burdens are hung often become the better for their loads; they may not live so long, but they are more useful. Thus in turn the weak develop the strong.

For years Miss Anna had sacrificially demeaned herself in the service of Harriet, who would now have felt herself a recreant friend unless she had promptly detailed every annoyance of her life. She would go home, having left behind her the infinite little swarm of stinging things—having transferred them to the head of Miss Anna, around which they buzzed until they died.

There was this further peculiarity in Harriet's visits: that the most important moments were the last; Just as a doctor, after he has listened to the old story of his patient's symptoms, and has prescribed and bandaged and patted and soothed, and has reached the door, turns, and noting a light in the patient's eye hears him make a remark which shows that all the time he has really been thinking about something else.

Harriet now showed what was at the bottom of her own mind this morning:

"What I came to tell you about, Anna, is that for a week life at home has been unendurable. There is some trouble, some terrible trouble; and no matter what goes wrong, my mother always holds me responsible. Positively there are times when I wonder whether I, without my knowing it, may not be the Origin of Evil."

Miss Anna made no comment, having closed the personal subject, and Harriet continued:

"It has scarcely been possible for me to stay in the house. Fortunately mother has been there very little herself. She goes and goes and drives and drives. Strange things have been happening. You know that Judge Morris has not missed coming on Sunday evening for years. Last night mother sat on the veranda waiting for him and he did not come. I know, for I watched. What have I to do but watch other people's affairs?—I have none of my own. I believe the trouble is all between Isabel and Rowan."

Miss Anna dropped her work and looked at Harriet with sudden gravity.

"I can give you no idea of the real situation because it is very dramatic; and you know, Anna, I am not dramatic: I am merely historical: I tell my little tales. But at any rate Rowan has not been at the house for a week. He called last Sunday afternoon and Isabel refused to see him. I know; because what have I to do but to interest myself in people who have affairs of interest? Then Isabel had his picture in her room: it has been taken down. She had some of his books: they are gone. The house has virtually been closed to company. Isabel has excused herself to callers. Mother was to give a tea; the invitations were cancelled. At table Isabel and mother barely speak; but when I am not near, they talk a great deal to each other. And Isabel walks and walks and walks—in the garden, in her rooms. I have waked up two or three times at night and have seen her sitting at her window. She has always been very kind to me, Anna," Harriet's voice faltered, "she and you: and I cannot bear to see her so unhappy. You would never believe that a few days would make such a change in her. The other morning I went up to her room with a little bunch of violets which I had gathered for her myself. When she opened the door, I saw that she was packing her trunks. And the dress she had ordered for Marguerite's ball was lying on the bed ready to be put in. As I gave her the flowers she stood looking at them a long time; then she kissed me without a word and quickly closed the door."

When Harriet had gone. Miss Anna sat awhile in her porch with a troubled face. Then she went softly into the library, the windows of which opened out upon the porch. Professor Hardage was standing on a short step-ladder before a bookcase, having just completed the arrangement of the top shelf.

"Are you never going to get down?" she asked, looking up at him fondly.

He closed the book with a snap and a sigh and descended. Her anxious look recalled his attention,

"Did I not hear Harriet harrowing you up again with her troubles?" he asked. "You poor, kind soul that try to bear everybody's!"

"Never mind about what I bear! What can you bear for dinner?"

"It is an outrage, Anna! What right has she to make herself happier by making you miserable, lengthening her life by shortening yours? For these worries always clip the thread of life at the end: that is where all the small debts are collected as one."

"Now you must not be down on Harriet! It makes her happier; and as to the end of my life, I shall be there to attend to that."

"Suppose I moved away with you to some other college entirely out of her reach?"

"I shall not suppose it because you will never do it. If you did, Harriet would simply find somebody else to confide in; she must tell everything to somebody. But if she told any one else, a good many of these stories would be all over town. She tells me and they get no further."

"What right have you to listen to scandal in order to suppress it?"

"I don't even listen always: I merely stop the stream at its source."

"I object to your offering your mind as the banks to such a stream. Still I'm glad that I live near the banks," and he kissed his hand to her.

"When one woman tells another anything and the other woman does not tell, remember it is not scandal—it is confidence."

"Then there is no such thing as confidence," he replied, laughing.

He turned toward his shelves.

"Now do rest," she pleaded, "you look worn out."

She had a secret notion that books instead of putting life into people took it out of them. At best they performed the function of grindstones: they made you sharper, but they made you thinner—gave you more edge and left you less substance.

"I wish every one of those books had a lock and I had the bunch of keys."

"Each has a lock and key; but the key cannot be put into your pocket, Anna, my dear; it is the unlocking mind. And you are not to speak of books as a collection of locks and keys; they make up the living tree of knowledge, though of course there is very little of the tree in this particular bookcase."

"I don't see any of it," she remarked with wholesome literalness.

"Well, here at the bottom are lexicons—think of them as roots and soil. Above them lie maps and atlases: consider them the surface. Then all books are history of course. But here is a great central trunk rising out of the surface which is called History in especial. On each side of that, running to the right and to the left, are main branches. Here for instance is the large limb of Philosophy—a very weighty limb indeed. Here is the branch of Criticism. Here is a bough consisting principally of leaves on which live unnamed venomous little insects that poison them and die on them: their appointed place in creation."

"And so there is no positive fruit anywhere," she insisted with her practical taste for the substantial.

"It is all food, Anna, edible and nourishing to different mouths and stomachs. Some very great men have lived on the roots of knowledge, the simplest roots. And here is poetry for dates and wild honey; and novels for cocoanuts and mushrooms. And here is Religion: that is for manna."

"What is at the very top?"

His eyes rested upon the highest row of books.

"These are some of the loftiest growths, new buds of the mind opening toward the unknown. Each in its way shows the best that man, the earth-animal, has been able to accomplish. Here is a little volume for instance which tells what he ought to be—and never is. This small volume deals with the noblest ideals of the greatest civilizations. Here is what one of the finest of the world's teachers had to say about justice. Aspiration is at that end. This little book is on the sad loveliness of Greek girls; and the volume beside it is about the brief human chaplets that Horace and some other Romans wore—and then trod on. Thus the long story of light and shadow girdles the globe. If you were nothing but a spirit, Anna, and could float in here some night, perhaps you would see a mysterious radiance streaming upward from this shelf of books like the northern lights from behind the world—starting no one knows where, sweeping away we know not whither—search-light of the mortal, turned on dark eternity."

She stood a little behind him and watched him in silence, hiding her tenderness.

"If I were a book," she said thoughtlessly, "where should I be?"

He drew the fingers of one hand lingeringly across the New Testament.

"Ah, now don't do that," she cried, "or you shall have no dinner. Here, turn round! look at the dust! look at this cravat on one end! look at these hands! March upstairs."

He laid his head over against hers.

"Stand up!" she exclaimed, and ran out of the room.

Some minutes later she came back and took a seat near the door. There was flour on her elbow; and she held a spoon in her hand.

"Now you look like yourself," she said, regarding him with approval as he sat reading before the bookcase. "I started to tell you what Harriet told me."

He looked over the top of his book at her.

"I thought you said you stopped the stream at its source. Now you propose to let it run down to me—or up to me: how do you know it will not run past me?"

"Now don't talk in that way," she said, "this is something you will want to know," and she related what Harriet had chronicled.

VIII

When she had left the room, he put back into its place the volume he was reading: its power over him was gone. All the voices of all his books, speaking to him from lands and ages, grew simultaneously hushed. He crossed the library to a front window opening upon the narrow rocky street and sat with his elbow on the window-sill, the large fingers of one large hand unconsciously searching his brow—that habit of men of thoughtful years, the smoothing out of the inner problems.

The home of Professor Hardage was not in one of the best parts of the town. There was no wealth here, no society as it impressively calls itself; there were merely well-to-do human beings of ordinary intelligence and of kindly and unkindly natures. The houses, constructed of frame or of brick, were crowded wall against wall along the sidewalk; in the rear were little gardens of flowers and of vegetables. The street itself was well shaded; and one forest tree, the roots of which bulged up through the mossy bricks of the pavement, hung its boughs before his windows. Throughout life he had found so many companions in the world outside of mere people, and this tree was one. From the month of leaves to the month of no leaves—the period of long hot vacations—when his eyes were tired and his brain and heart a little tired also, many a time it refreshed him by all that it was and all that it stood for—this green tent of the woods arching itself before his treasured shelves. In it for him were thoughts of cool solitudes and of far-away greenness; with tormenting visions also of old lands, the crystal-aired, purpling mountains of which, and valleys full of fable, he was used to trace out upon the map, but knew that he should never see or press with responsive feet.

For travel was impossible to him. Part of his small salary went to the family of a brother; part disappeared each year in the buying of books—at once his need and his passion; there were the expenses of living; and Miss Anna always exacted appropriations.

"I know we have not much, but then my little boys and girls have nothing; and the poor must help the poorer."

"Very well," he would reply, "but some day you will be a beggar yourself, Anna."

"Oh, well then, if I am, I do not doubt that I shall be a thrifty old mendicant. And I'll beg for you! So don't you be uneasy; and give me what I want."

She always looked like a middle-aged Madonna in the garb of a housekeeper. Indeed, he was wont to call her the Madonna of the Dishes; but at these times, and in truth for all deeper ways, he thought of her as the Madonna of the Motherless. Nevertheless he was resolute that out of this many-portioned salary something must yet be saved.

"The time will come," he threatened, "when some younger man will want my professorship—and will deserve it. I shall either be put out or I shall go out; and then—decrepitude, uselessness, penury, unless something has been hoarded. So, Anna, out of the frail uncertain little basketful of the apples of life which the college authorities present to me once a year, we must save a few for what may prove a long hard winter."

Professor Hardage was a man somewhat past fifty, of ordinary stature and heavy figure, topped with an immense head. His was not what we call rather vaguely the American face. In Germany had he been seen issuing from the lecture rooms of a university, he would have been thought at home and his general status had been assumed: there being that about him which bespoke the scholar, one of those quiet self-effacing minds that have long since passed with entire humility into the service of vast themes. In social life the character of a noble master will in time stamp itself upon the look and manners of a domestic; and in time the student acquires the lofty hall-mark of what he serves.

It was this perhaps that immediately distinguished him and set him apart in every company. The appreciative observer said at once: "Here is a man who may not himself be great; but he is at least great enough to understand greatness; he is used to greatness."

As so often is the case with the strong American, he was self-made—that glory of our boasting. But we sometimes forget that an early life of hardship, while it may bring out what is best in a man, so often wastes up his strength and burns his ambition to ashes in the fierce fight against odds too great. So that the powers which should have carried him far carry him only a little distance or leave him standing exhausted where he began.

When Alfred Hardage was eighteen, he had turned his eyes toward a professorship in one of the great universities of his country; before he was thirty he had won a professorship in the small but respectable college of his native town; and now, when past fifty, he had never won anything more. For him ambition was like the deserted martin box in the corner of his yard: returning summers brought no more birds. Had his abilities been even more extraordinary, the result could not have been far otherwise. He had been compelled to forego for himself as a student the highest university training, and afterward to win such position as the world accorded him without the prestige of study abroad.

It became his duty in his place to teach the Greek language and its literature; sometimes were added classes in Latin. This was the easier problem. The more difficult problem grew out of the demand, that he should live intimately in a world of much littleness and not himself become little; feel interested in trivial minds at street corners, yet remain companion and critic of some of the greatest intellects of human kind; contend with occasional malice and jealousy in the college faculty, yet hold himself above these carrion passions; retain his intellectual manhood, yet have his courses of study narrowed and made superficial for him; be free yet submit to be patronized by some of his fellow-citizens, because they did him the honor to employ him for so much as a year as sage and moral exampler to their sons.