Gareth Johns had just completed his final year at High School, where he had been something more than Lennie Colman's favourite pupil. He had been a sympathetic companion as well. Many times, after school was over in the afternoon, he had sat beside her desk talking with her; many times during the past four years he had called at her house in the evening. He had loaned her books from his private library and, after she had read them, they had discussed them together, not always agreeing, to be sure, but with whom else, Lennie asked herself, could she talk about such books as Jude the Obscure at all? She recalled the time that he had secured, with some difficulty, the copy of Lippincott's for July, 1890, which contained Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray, and the strange excitement that had been their common feeling, following its perusal. They had believed that there was something clandestine in their intimacy over this book, that here was certainly a matter that demanded secrecy, but after, inadvertently, at least one of them had mentioned it casually in conversation with others only to discover that apparently no one in Maple Valley had ever heard of the book or its author, some of the pleasure evaporated from their presumed peccancy. They bent over numbers of Stone and Kimball's new Chap-Book, sitting side by side, Gareth particularly attracted by some sketches by an unknown writer named Max Beerbohm, because, as Gareth quickly ascertained, this Max was a brother of Beerbohm Tree and had visited America in his company, Lennie finding more pleasure in Henry James's novel, What Maisie Knew, which was still running in these pages. Almost all their mutual conversation concerned itself with literature and the drama; there were sides to Gareth's nature, depths, she sometimes sensed, Lennie was quite aware, with which she was unfamiliar. He was, she knew, making a collection of the eggs of native birds, and when, a day or so earlier, he had informed her that he was going up the river to search for the eggs of the bank swallow, she had asked him if she might accompany him. To this suggestion he had offered no objection, had, indeed, greeted it with enthusiasm.
Lennie Colman lived on Marshall Street, a thoroughfare running parallel with the railroad tracks, a block or two above them. Gareth's home was farther uptown, and it was arranged that he should call for her on a certain afternoon, about one o'clock, that is immediately following Maple Valley's traditional dinner hour.
It was a very hot day, even for Iowa; the sun was bright; there were no clouds in the sky, when Gareth strolled up the two steps to the low porch of the old wooden house where Lennie lived with her mother and father. The heat was so excessive that Gareth did not wear a coat, but a belt rather than suspenders held his trousers in place over his slender hips. He carried a tin box with a handle, a box packed with cotton, in which he might deposit such eggs as he discovered. Lennie appeared at the door almost as soon as Gareth had rung the bell. She, too, was dressed as coolly as possible, in a blue and white linen frock. To protect her face from the sun she wore a wide, flapping, straw garden hat, spattered with red poppies. Incongruously, with this costume, in deference to the nature of their projected excursion, she had donned heavy, high walking-boots.
I thought perhaps, Gareth said, that you wouldn't want to come along; it's so hot.
O, I don't mind the heat, Lennie replied. If one is out in it, it isn't half so bad as it is in the house. All the morning I've been working inside helping mother with the housework, and roasting.
They started out, this queerly matched pair, brought together by the paucity of selection offered either of them, walking slowly, turning, at the corner, down Leclair Avenue, passing, unaware, the Temple of the Parce, crossing the tracks and traversing the business section of the town. As during the hour of the siesta in an Italian village, the streets were practically deserted; a few empty buggies, their horses strapped to iron rings in stone hitching-posts, stood by the kerbs; occasionally a shop-keeper scanned the vacant street anxiously from his doorway.
A curious fact about Iowa towns of this period was that they had no suburbs; nor did the business district straggle. It was built compactly, and one left it almost directly to come upon the factories of the industries which, added to the corn-belt in which Maple Valley centred, made the place an important provincial metropolis. Lennie and Gareth marched between the great grain elevators, towering to the sky, between the factories, where a little later, furnaces would flare, machines throb, great wheels turn, and leather belts, like fantastic giant ribbons, would exploit this energy. Now all was still. Behind these they passed through the railroad-yards, with switchman's tower, repair-shops, round-house, the home of otiose locomotives, and huge turn-table, by means of which an engine might be made to go or come. Directly beyond, they entered upon the river road, just by the corner of an old mill, whose wheel, fed by the expanse of water created by a dam, incessantly revolved, causing the corn-flour to be ground out. Below the dam, the intense heat had almost dried up the river. A fairly broad stream—of deep water ran down one side of the naked bed, near the bank, and streamlets trickled here and there, but most of the bed lay dry and baking under the burning rays of the sun. Above the dam, however, the river was full from bank to bank, a broad sheet of water, across which pleasant, wooded hills, dotted here and there with wind-mills, siloes, and farmhouses, presented themselves against the turquoise dome of the sky. The near bank was shaded by maples and willows, while the other side of the winding, dusty road was occupied by small farms with modest market-gardens, fields of cabbages, musk-melons, beets, and turnips. The doorways and yards of the cottages where the gardeners lived were in great disorder; rusting implements, stray laths and boards, disused wheel-barrows, lay about on the samel, cracked clay. Here and there on rotting steps, beneath blistered doors, a mongrel pup or a mangy cat slumbered, while chickens and geese wandered about disconsolate and unfed. Sometimes, a few sun-flowers raised their warlike shields above their browning stalks and, occasionally, morning-glories, purple, pink, and white, clambered bravely towards the cottage roofs. A few birds were abroad: blue-birds, resembling nothing quite so much as miniature aldermen, perched on telegraph wires; meadowlarks now and again swept down from the sky; the procacious chirrup of the chickadee sounded; and, in the distance, the melancholy calling of the mourning dove mingled harmoniously with the soft lowing of unseen cattle and the monotonous drone of the cicada.
Since they had left the town behind they had been walking in silence, broken first by Lennie: I love this road.
So do I, Gareth conceded. Nobody ever paints or writes about Iowa. Why not, do you suppose?
Why don't you do that, Gareth? A wistful note, not inherent in the phrase itself, obtruded itself into Lennie's query.
O, I can't write yet . . . at least not like a regular author. I try to, but I always destroy what I have written. You have made me see what there is in literature, set some kind of standard for me. I'm afraid it's too high for me to reach.
You're very young, Gareth. You've got lots of time.
Of course, I'm young, he replied, but it doesn't make it any better to be young when I'm so self-critical. I find more fault with what I have done than a critic would, at any rate a critic who took into consideration my age and inexperience. But that doesn't make things any better. Probably as I grow older and my writing improves I'll become still more critical. Will there ever come a time, do you think, when I won't just have to tear things up?
O, Gareth, of course, there will. Lennie spoke with some heat. You'll write splendidly some day. Some of your themes . . .
They were all rotten. I was reading some of them over the other day. I know now what's the matter with them, too; I was always writing about things I didn't know about.
That's the way all writers begin, I'm sure, Lennie tried to convince him. You were aspiring to know about those things.
I want to know everything, everything, Gareth repeated, and, he went on, I'm going to. When I do, then, perhaps, I can write about Iowa.
You're going to college, Gareth. You'll learn a good deal there.
That's a beginning. He hesitated for a moment. I did expect to go to college, he continued. I've always planned to go. I want to go. Mother wants me to go, but you know father. He's dead set against it, calls it a waste of time. He can't see it at all.
O, it's horrid of him! A boy like you! It isn't as though he couldn't afford it.
It isn't the money. He has a horror of any kind of education. Thinks it's a waste of time; thinks boys should go to work when they get through the grade schools, or even sooner. He wouldn't have let me go through High School if he'd had his way. Mother just made him let me. She may make him let me do this, but I'm tired of arguing. Besides, I don't care much any more.
O, Gareth, don't say that! Don't admit it, even if you feel that way. You're the one boy in Maple Valley who deserves a good education.
I'll get that, Gareth muttered. I'll get a good education, but I'm no longer so sure that you need to go to college for that.
You don't mean to say that you're going into business with your father?
No, I don't mean that. I won't do that. His face was the sign of his determination.
Why, what do you mean, Gareth?
Look at that red bird, Miss Colman. It's a cardinal. The boy pointed to the branch of a tree.
Isn't it beautiful!
It's like a tropical bird. There are so many of these brilliantly coloured birds that live in Iowa during the summer. I wonder where they all come from?
They migrate, Miss Colman replied, yet she must have known that he had not asked the question for information.
Yes, Gareth replied, an expression of intense ecstasy flashing across his countenance, they migrate. That's why I love birds.
They had now gone beyond the farm-gardens, and were passing through a wooded copse. The path was narrower and shaded from the sun. The ground, on either side, was carpeted with moss, through which great ferns had thrust their fronds. A mottled toad hopped over a beech-tree root, a gnarled protuberance across the footway.
If you go away, Lennie began, her glance directed on the path ahead of her, whether it is to college . . . or anywhere else, I shall hate to have you go, Gareth. You know there aren't many people to talk to here.
I'll miss you too, Miss Colman, the boy responded.
For the remainder of their walk through the copse they remained silent. Presently, the grove fell behind them; they had come out into the open almost by the bank of the river, while a red, clay cliff, rising sheer for fifty feet, masked the other side of the world from their eyes. The cliff was dotted here and there with holes, into which the grey and white swallows, skimming gaily back and forth over the water, occasionally disappeared, dextrously folding their long, pointed wings.
Is this the place? Miss Colman demanded.
Yes. You sit down now, if we can find a clean, dry spot. You must be tired. While you are resting I'll look for a nest.
The trunk of a great tree, cut off smoothly two feet from the ground, formed an ideal seat. It stood in the shadow of an oak, the branches of which shaded Miss Colman from the direct rays of the sun. Now Gareth, digging his fingers and toes into convenient notches, began to scale the cliff. Frequently, he stopped to examine one of the swallow-dwellings. Little birds, he would call down, or else. Nothing here. Too late or too early. . . . And, at last, in considerable excitement, I've got 'em. He drew an egg out of a hole, depositing it meticulously in his cotton-lined, tin box, the handle of which he was carrying between his teeth; then one, two, three, four more. As Gareth descended the cliff even more carefully and slowly with his burden than he had made the ascent, the mother bird, not making a sound, sailed round and round his head, as near as she dared approach.
Gee, but I'm dirty. He stood before Miss Colman, ruefully surveying his clothes, soiled with clay. . . . But I got the eggs.
You didn't take them all, did you? You left one for the mother bird?
Yes, I took them all. It's a clutch.
What's a clutch?
All the eggs in one nest.
But why do you want a clutch?
So that I can compare them and see how much they are alike, and how much they are different. Also, to show how many eggs there are in a setting. Of course, he added, the number varies.
It doesn't seem right to take them all.
O, there are lots of them. Look at the flock of birds.
But the mother . . .
These are only eggs. If they were young birds, that'd be different.
Let me see them, Miss Colman suggested. Her face was very pale.
Gareth opened the box, and held it before her. She touched the tiny, white shells, in colour scarcely distinguishable from the cetton, with the tips of her long, slender fingers. They were still warm.
Poor, little mother bird, she murmured.
O, that's all right, Gareth asserted cheerfully, and then, abruptly changing the subject, he asked, Miss Colman, what college would you advise me to go to, if I could go?
I don't know what to tell you, Gareth. There are so many good colleges. Chicago is the nearest . . . of the big ones.
I don't know that I want to be near. I want to get away from this town. I do want to go to a city, though, not another small town. I'm tired of small places. I want to visit the theatre and the opera and the art galleries. I want to meet people. I want to learn. Somewhere, there must be more people like me, heaps of 'em.
She was silent for a moment, digging her clumsy boot into the clay. When, at last, she spoke, her tone was rather resigned than bitter: You'll forget your old friends.
I won't forget you, Miss Colman. You've certainly been dandy to me.
You'll forget everybody.
He did not appear to have heard this. He stood looking out over the water, whistling softly to himself the trio from The Stars and Stripes For ever. Quite suddenly he ceased, and flung himself on the ground. I can't get any dirtier than I am already, he explained. Then another swift transition: Have you met Lou Poore's sister?
The Countess Nattatorrini? she asked, falteringly. Yes. I didn't know she had any other sister.
I met her . . . I met her at her sister's reception, the day after she arrived.
I wish I could meet her, Gareth continued. I'd like to listen to her talk about Paris. I suppose she's seen Sarah Bernhardt.
Of course, she must have.
And she probably knows some of the modern French authors. I'll bet she has a lot to talk about.
The day I met her she was talking about Maple Valley. Lennie, who did not feel like smiling, recalling the conversation, smiled in spite of herself.
Answering the questions of the natives, I suppose, Gareth said. I know! Don't I just know! How do you like Maple Valley? Have you seen the new water-works? Mother had a cousin from Chicago visiting her awhile back and she got that all the time she was here.
Again the wistful expression stole over Lennie Colman's face.
You're awfully clever, Gareth, was all she found to say.
He was silent again for a moment, his eyes directed straight upward towards the leafy branches, before he went on: I wonder if I can meet her?
Who?
Why Lou Poore's sister, of course. He spoke a trifle impatiently.
O, you'll meet her. She's going to be here indefinitely. You know, she added, inconsequentially, they're giving a gala entertainment for her at the opera house.
I know. I want to go to that. The Countess aside, I'd go to anything to get into that opera house, and during the summer we don't have anything but ten-twenty-thirty shows and mighty few of those.
There were good things here last winter.
He was scornful: Della Fox and Emily Bancker and Roland Reed. Not much like what they have in Chicago. I want to see Richard Mansfield and Ada Rehan, and Mrs. Fiske in Tess of the D'Urbervilles.
You'll see everything there!
You bet I will, Miss Colman. That's one of the reasons I want to go.
Do you think it will be Chicago?
I don't know, he replied vaguely. Then looking directly at her, he persisted, I wish I could meet the Countess.
Perhaps . . . Lennie Colman was—hesitant, apologetic. Her face was pale and her fingers twitched nervously . . . at the entertainment at the opera house . . . I might possibly . . . She gained control of herself and pressed forward: As a matter of fact we got on very well. Why was Lennie's heart beating so violently? Why was she hesitating to offer Gareth an introduction to the Countess? These were the questions she was asking herself.
O, would you? Gareth showed his delight.
I might . . . I will try . . . It might be possible to take you to her box for a moment.
That would be dandy of you, Miss Colman. I was wondering if I might ask you to do that.
I'll be glad to. Her tone belied her words. She felt chill on this hot day.
And now Gareth again changed the subject. They chattered on, mostly about books, for an hour or so, and the sun was low, a ball of fire behind the hills across the river in the west, when they started back. Realizing the lateness of the hour, the school-teacher became alarmed.
I must reach home before six, she urged.
It's after that now, said Gareth.
Neither of them was wearing a watch.
O, it can't be. I must get back before six. Lennie was impatient, almost petulant.
They strode forward rapidly and, for the greater part of the way, silently. Where the road crossed the tracks Gareth suggested that they might save time walking the ties; in this manner they could cut a good quarter of a mile from the distance to be traversed. While they were still a half-mile from town they encountered a tramp, a ragged, dirty, fellow, with a tangled beard, bloodshot eyes, and a yellow complexion. He leered at them horribly.
Lady, he said, gimme the price of a meal. Or p'raps your gen'leman friend . . . ? He doffed his greasy cap.
I haven't . . . Miss Colman began with embarrassment and some fear.
We haven't any money with us, Gareth explained honestly.
What's in that tin? The tramp's tone was a mixture of exaggerated politeness and irony, verging on a snarl. Can't you gimme a sandwich? You go out in the woods for a quiet feed with your lady friend an' you can't spare a bite for a poor man what wants work.
They're only eggs in the tin, Gareth muttered.
Gimme an egg!
Swallows' eggs.
So you an' your lady friend's been out for swallows' eggs! Jesus, Mary, and Joseph! The tramp began to grin broadly.
Gareth and Lennie Colman hastened on. As they turned a corner and saw the round-house ahead of them, the woman cast a glance back over her shoulder. There stood the tramp, still leering at them, in the middle of the track on just the spot where they had left him.
What a dreadful man! gasped Lennie. O! I shouldn't be out so late!
It isn't late, argued Gareth, and you said nothing about being in a hurry until just before we started back. He spoke with some heat.
I know! I know! Miss Colman adopted a propitiatory tone. It's my fault, and it was exceedingly good of you, Gareth, to take me with you. But try to understand, Gareth. It is getting dark. I shouldn't like to meet . . .
O, well, I guess we'll get back in time for supper, Miss Colman, the boy remarked indifferently.