Part 4

“Oh, don’t, Tude; don’t _rehearse_ like that at me!—I can’t a-bear it.” And the serious Mr. Twiggs held out his hand as though warding off a blow. At this appeal the girl’s demeanor changed to one of tenderest solicitude.

“Why, Pop’m,” she said, laying her hand on his shoulder, “I did not mean to vex you—forgive me. I was only trying to be happy, as I ought, although my own heart is this very minute heavy—very heavy—very.—No, no; I don’t mean that—but, Father, Father, I have not been dutiful.”

“W’y, yes, you have,” broke in Mr. Twiggs, smothering the heavy exclamation in his handkerchief. “You ain’t been ondutiful, nor nothink else. You’re jest all and everythink that heart could wish. It’s all my own fault, Tudens; it’s all my fault. You see, I git to thinkin’ sometimes like I was a-goin’ to _lose_ you; and now that you are a-comin’ on in years, and gittin’ such a fine start, and all, and position and everythink.—Yes-sir! _position_, ’cause everybody likes you, Tudens. You know that; and I’m that proud of you and all, and that selfish, that it’s onpossible I could ever, ever give you up;—never, never, _ever_ give you up!” And Mr. Twiggs again stifled his voice in his handkerchief and blew his nose with prolonged violence.

It may have been the melancholy ticking of the clock, as it grated on the silence following, it may have been the gathering darkness of the room, or the plaintive sighing of the rising wind without, that caused the girl to shudder as she stooped to kiss the kind old face bent forward in the shadows, and turned with feigned gayety to the simple task of arranging supper. But when, a few minutes later, she announced that Twiggs and Tudens’s tea was waiting, the two smilingly sat down, Mr. Twiggs remarking that if he only knew a blessing, he’d ask it upon that occasion most certainly.

“—For on’y look at these-’ere ’am and eggs,” he said, admiringly: “I’d like to know if the Queen herself could cook ’em to a nicer turn, or serve ’em up more tantaliz’in’er to the palate. And this-’ere soup,—or whatever it is, is rich as gravy; and these boughten rolls ain’t a bad thing either, split in two and toasted as you do ’em, air they, Tude?” And as Mr. Twiggs glanced inquiringly at his companion, he found her staring vacantly at her plate. “I was jest a-sayin’, Tudens—” he went on, pretending to blow his tea and glancing cautiously across his saucer.

“Yes, Pop’m, I heard you;—we really _ought_ to have a blessing, by all means.”

Mr. Twiggs put down his tea without tasting it. “Tudens,” he said, after a long pause, in which he carefully buttered a piece of toast for the second time,—“Tudens, I’m ’most afeard you didn’t grasp that last remark of mine: I was a-sayin’—”

“Well—” said Tudens, attentively.

“I was a-sayin’,” said Mr. Twiggs, averting his face and staring stoically at his toast—“I was a-sayin’ that you was a-gittin’ now to be quite a young woman.”

“Oh, so you were,” said Tudens, with charming naïveté.

“Well,” said Mr. Twiggs, repentantly, but with a humorous twinkle, “if I wasn’t a-sayin’ of it, I was _a-thinkin’_ it.”—And then, running along hurriedly, “And I’ve been a-thinkin’ it for days and days—ever sence you left the ‘balley’ and went in ‘chambermaids,’ and last in leadin’ rôles. Maybe _you_ ain’t noticed it, but I’ve had my eyes on you from the ‘flies’ and the ‘wings’; and jest betwixt us, Tudens, and not for me as ort to know better, and does know better, to go a-flatterin’, at my time o’—or to go a-flatterin’ anybody, as I said, after you’re a-gittin’ to be a young woman—and what’s more, a werry _’andsome_ young woman!”

“_Why, Pop’m!_” exclaimed Tudens, blushing.

“Yes, you are, Tudens, and I mean it, every word of it; and as I was a-goin’ on to say, I’ve been a-watchin’ of you, and a-layin’ off a long time jest to tell you summat that will make your eyes open wider ’an that! What I mean,” said Mr. Twiggs, coughing vehemently and pushing his chair back from the table—“what I mean is, you’ll soon be old enough to be a-settin’ up for yourself-like, and a-marry’—W’y, Tudens, what _ails_ you?” The girl had risen to her feet, and, with a face dead white and lips all tremulous, stood clinging to her chair for support. “What ails you, Tudens?” repeated Mr. Twiggs, rising to his feet and gazing on her with a curious expression of alarm and tenderness.

“Nothing serious, dear Pop’m,” said Tudens, with a flighty little laugh,—“only it just flashed on me all at once that I’d clean forgotten poor ‘Dick’s’ supper.” And as she turned abruptly to the parrot, cooing and clucking to him playfully,—up, up from some hitherto undreamed-of depth within the yearning heart of Mr. Twiggs mutely welled the old utterance, “Tude’s a queer girl!”

“Whatever made you think of such a thing, Father?” called Tudens, gayly; and then, without waiting for an answer, went on cooing to the parrot,—“Hey, old dicky-bird! do _you_ think Tudens is a handsome young woman? and do _you_ think Tudens is old enough to marry, eh?” This query delivered, she broke into a fit of merriment which so wrought upon the susceptibilities of the bird that he was heard repeatedly to declare and affirm, in most positive and unequivocal terms, that Tude had actually come home.

“Yes—_sir_, Tudens!” broke in Mr. Twiggs at last, lighting a fresh churchwarden and settling into his old position at the grate; “have your laugh out over it now, but it’s a werry serious fact, for all that.”

“I know it, Father,” said the girl, recovering her gravity, turning her large eyes lovingly upon him and speaking very tenderly. “I know it—oh, I know it; and many, many times when I have thought of it, and then again of your old kindly faith; all the warm wealth of your love; and our old home here, and all the happiness it ever held for me and you alike—oh, I have tried hard—indeed, indeed I have—to put all other thought away and live for you alone! But, Pop’m! dear old Pop’m—”And even as the great strong breast made shelter for her own, the woman’s heart within her flowed away in mists of gracious tears.

“Couldn’t live without old Pop’m, could her?” half cried and laughed the happy Mr. Twiggs, tangling his clumsy fingers in the long dark hair that fell across his arm, and bending till his glad face touched her own.—“Couldn’t live without old Pop’m?”

“Never! never!” sobbed the girl, lifting her brimming eyes and gazing in the kind old face. “Oh, may I always live with you, Pop’m? Always?—Forever?—”

“—And a day!” said Mr. Twiggs, emphatically.

“Even after I’m—” and she hid her face again.

“Even after—_what_, Tudens?”

“After I’m—after I’m—married?” murmured Tudens, with a longing pressure.

“Nothink short!” said Mr. Twiggs;—“perwidin’,” he added, releasing one hand and smoothing back his scanty hair—“perwidin’, of course, that your man is a’ honest, straitforrerd feller, as ain’t no lordly notions nor nothink o’ that sort.”

“Nor rich?”

“Well, I ain’t so p’ticklar about his bein’ _pore_, adzackly.—Say a feller as works for his livin’, and knows how to ’usband his earnin’s thrifty-like, and allus ’as a hextry crown or two laid up against a rainy day—and a good perwider, of course,” said Mr. Twiggs, with a comfortable glance around the room.—“’Ll blow me if I didn’t see a face there a-peerin’ in the winder!”

“Oh, no, you didn’t,” said the girl, without raising her head. “Go on—‘and a good provider—’”

“—A good perwider,” continued Mr. Twiggs; “and a feller, of course, as has a’ eye out for the substantials of this life, and ain’t afeard o’ work—that’s the idear! that’s the idear!” said Mr. Twiggs, by way of sweeping conclusion.

“And that’s all old Pop’m asks, after all?” queried the girl, with her radiant face wistful as his own.

“W’y, certainly!” said Mr. Twiggs, with heartiness. “Ain’t that all and everythink to make home happy?”—catching her face between his great brown hands and kissing her triumphantly.

“Hooray for Twiggs-and Twiggs-and Twiggs-and—” cootered the drowsy bird, disjointedly.

The girl had risen.—“And you’ll forgive me for marrying such a man?”

“Won’t I?” said Mr. Twiggs, with a rapturous twinkle.

As he spoke, she flung her arms about his neck and pressed her lips close, close against his cheek, her own glad face now fronting the little window.... She heard the clicking of the latch, the opening of the door, and the step of the intruder ere she loosed her hold.

“God bless you, Pop’m, and forgive me!—This is my husband.”

The newcomer, Mr. Stanley, reached and grasped the hand of Mr. Twiggs, eagerly, fervidly, albeit the face he looked on then will haunt him to the hour of his death.—Yet haply, some day, when the Master takes the selfsame hand within his own and whispers, “Tude’s come home,” the old smile will return.

DOLORES

Lithe-armed, and with satin-soft shoulders As white as the cream-crested wave; With a gaze dazing every beholder’s, She holds every gazer a slave: Her hair, a fair haze, is outfloated And flared in the air like a flame; Bare-breasted, bare-browed and bare-throated— Too smooth for the soothliest name.

She wiles you with wine, and wrings for you Ripe juices of citron and grape; She lifts up her lute and sings for you Till the soul of you seeks no escape; And you revel and reel with mad laughter, And fall at her feet, at her beck, And the scar of her sandal thereafter You wear like a gyve round your neck.

WHEN I DO MOCK

When I do mock the blackness of the night With my despair—outweep the very dews And wash my wan cheeks stark of all delight, Denying every counsel of dear use In mine embittered state; with infinite Perversity, mine eyes drink in no sight Of pleasance that nor moon nor stars refuse In silver largess and gold twinklings bright;— I question me what mannered brain is mine That it doth trick me of the very food It panteth for—the very meat and wine That yet should plump my starved soul with good And comfortable plethora of ease, That I might drowse away such rhymes as these.

MY MARY

My Mary, O my Mary! The simmer skies are blue: The dawnin’ brings the dazzle, An’ the gloamin’ brings the dew,— The mirk o’ nicht the glory O’ the moon, an’ kindles, too, The stars that shift aboon the lift.— But naething brings me you!

Where is it, O my Mary, Ye are biding a’ the while? I ha’ wended by your window— I ha’ waited by the stile, An’ up an’ down the river I ha’ won for mony a mile, Yet never found, adrift or drown’d, Your lang-belated smile.

Is it forgot, my Mary, How glad we used to be?— The simmer-time when bonny bloomed The auld trysting-tree,— How there I carved the name for you, An’ you the name for me; An’ the gloamin’ kenned it only When we kissed sae tenderly.

Speek ance to me, my Mary!— But whisper in my ear As light as ony sleeper’s breath, An’ a’ my soul will hear; My heart shall stap its beating, An’ the soughing atmosphere Be hushed the while I leaning smile An’ listen to you, dear!

My Mary, O my Mary! The blossoms bring the bees; The sunshine brings the blossoms, An’ the leaves on a’ the trees; The simmer brings the sunshine An’ the fragrance o’ the breeze,— But O wi’out you, Mary, I care naething for these!

We were sae happy, Mary! O think how ance we said— Wad ane o’ us gae fickle, Or are o’ us lie dead,— To feel anither’s kisses We wad feign the auld instead, An’ ken the ither’s footsteps In the green grass owerhead.

My Mary, O my Mary! Are ye dochter o’ the air, That ye vanish aye before me As I follow everywhere?— Or is it ye are only But a mortal, wan wi’ care, Sin’ I search through a’ the kirkyird An’ I dinna find ye there?

_EROS_

_The storm of love has burst at last_ _Full on me: All the world, before,_ _Was like an alien, unknown shore_ _Along whose verge I laughing passed.—_ _But now—I laugh not any more,—_ _Bowed with a silence vast in weight_ _As that which falls on one who stands_ _For the first time on ocean sands,_ _Seeing and feeling all the great_ _Awe of the waves as they wash the lands_ _And billow and wallow and undulate._

ORLIE WILDE

A goddess, with a siren’s grace,— A sun-haired girl on a craggy place Above a bay where fish-boats lay Drifting about like birds of prey.

Wrought was she of a painter’s dream,— Wise only as are artists wise, My artist-friend, Rolf Herschkelhiem, With deep sad eyes of oversize, And face of melancholy guise.

I pressed him that he tell to me This masterpiece’s history. He turned—_re_turned—and thus beguiled Me with the tale of Orlie Wilde:—

“We artists live ideally: We breed our firmest facts of air; We make our own reality— We dream a thing and it is so. The fairest scenes we ever see Are mirages of memory; The sweetest thoughts we ever know We plagiarize from Long Ago: And as the girl on canvas there Is marvellously rare and fair, ’Tis only inasmuch as she Is dumb and may not speak to me!” He tapped me with his mahlstick—then The picture,—and went on again:

“Orlie Wilde, the fisher’s child— I see her yet, as fair and mild As ever nursling summer day Dreamed on the bosom of the bay: For I was twenty then, and went Alone and long-haired—all content With promises of sounding name And fantasies of future fame, And thoughts that now my mind discards As editor a fledgling bard’s.

“At evening once I chanced to go, With pencil and portfolio, Adown the street of silver sand That winds beneath this craggy land, To make a sketch of some old scurf Of driftage, nosing through the surf A splintered mast, with knarl and strand Of rigging-rope and tattered threads Of flag and streamer and of sail That fluttered idly in the gale Or whipped themselves to sadder shreds. The while I wrought, half listlessly, On my dismantled subject, came A sea-bird, settling on the same With plaintive moan, as though that he Had lost his mate upon the sea; And—with my melancholy trend— It brought dim dreams half understood— It wrought upon my morbid mood,— I thought of my own voyagings That had no end—that have no end.— And, like the sea-bird, I made moan That I was loveless and alone. And when at last with weary wings It went upon its wanderings, With upturned face I watched its flight Until this picture met my sight: A goddess, with a siren’s grace,— A sun-haired girl on a craggy place Above a bay where fish-boats lay Drifting about like birds of prey.

“In airy poise she, gazing, stood A matchless form of womanhood, That brought a thought that if for me Such eyes had sought across the sea, I could have swum the widest tide That ever mariner defied, And, at the shore, could on have gone To that high crag she stood upon, To there entreat and say, ‘My Sweet, Behold thy servant at thy feet.’ And to my soul I said: ‘Above, There stands the idol of thy love!’

“In this rapt, awed, ecstatic state I gazed—till lo! I was aware A fisherman had joined her there— A weary man, with halting gait, Who toiled beneath a basket’s weight: Her father, as I guessed, for she Had run to meet him gleefully And ta’en his burden to herself, That perched upon her shoulder’s shelf So lightly that she, tripping, neared A jutting crag and disappeared; But left the echo of a song That thrills me yet, and will as long As I have being!...

... “Evenings came And went,—but each the same—the same: She watched above, and even so I stood there watching from below; Till, grown so bold at last, I sung,— (What matter now the theme thereof!)— It brought an answer from her tongue— Faint as the murmur of a dove, Yet all the more the song of love....

“I turned and looked upon the bay, With palm to forehead—eyes a-blur In the sea’s smile—meant but for her!— I saw the fish-boats far away In misty distance, lightly drawn In chalk-dots on the horizon— Looked back at her, long, wistfully,— And, pushing off an empty skiff, I beckoned her to quit the cliff And yield me her rare company Upon a little pleasure-cruise.— She stood, as loathful to refuse, To muse for full a moment’s time,— Then answered back in pantomime ‘She feared some danger from the sea Were she discovered thus with me.’ I motioned then to ask her if I might not join her on the cliff; And back again, with graceful wave Of lifted arm, she answer gave ‘She feared some danger from the sea.’

“Impatient, piqued, impetuous, I Sprang in the boat, and flung ‘Good-bye’ From pouted mouth with angry hand, And madly pulled away from land With lusty stroke, despite that she Held out her hands entreatingly: And when far out, with covert eye I shoreward glanced, I saw her fly In reckless haste adown the crag, Her hair a-flutter like a flag Of gold that danced across the strand In little mists of silver sand. All curious I, pausing, tried To fancy what it all implied,— When suddenly I found my feet Were wet; and, underneath the seat On which I sat, I heard the sound Of gurgling waters, and I found The boat aleak alarmingly.... I turned and looked upon the sea, Whose every wave seemed mocking me; I saw the fishers’ sails once more— In dimmer distance than before; I saw the sea-bird wheeling by, With foolish wish that _I_ could fly: I thought of firm earth, home and friends— I thought of everything that tends To drive a man to frenzy and To wholly lose his own command; I thought of all my waywardness— Thought of a mother’s deep distress; Of youthful follies yet unpurged— Sins, as the seas, about me surged— Thought of the printer’s ready pen To-morrow drowning me again;— A million things without a name— I thought of everything but—Fame....

“A memory yet is in my mind, So keenly clear and sharp-defined, I picture every phase and line Of life and death, and neither mine,— While some fair seraph, golden-haired, Bends over me,—with white arms bared, That strongly plait themselves about My drowning weight and lift me out— With joy too great for words to state Or tongue to dare articulate!

“And this seraphic ocean-child And heroine was Orlie Wilde: And thus it was I came to hear Her voice’s music in my ear— Ay, thus it was Fate paved the way That I walk desolate to-day!” ...

The artist paused and bowed his face Within his palms a little space, While reverently on his form I bent my gaze and marked a storm That shook his frame as wrathfully As some typhoon of agony, And fraught with sobs—the more profound For that peculiar laughing sound We hear when strong men weep.... I leant With warmest sympathy—I bent To stroke with soothing hand his brow, He murmuring—“’Tis over now!— And shall I tie the silken thread Of my frail romance?” “Yes,” I said.— He faintly smiled; and then, with brow In kneading palm, as one in dread— His tasselled cap pushed from his head;— “‘Her voice’s music,’ I repeat,” He said,—“’twas sweet—O passing sweet!— Though she herself, in uttering Its melody, proved not the thing Of loveliness my dreams made meet For me—there, yearning, at her feet— Prone at her feet—a worshipper,— For lo! she spake a tongue,” moaned he, “Unknown to me;—unknown to me As mine to her—as mine to her.”

LEONAINIE

Leonainie—Angels named her; And they took the light Of the laughing stars and framed her In a smile of white; And they made her hair of gloomy Midnight, and her eyes of bloomy Moonshine, and they brought her to me In the solemn night.—

In a solemn night of summer, When my heart of gloom Blossomed up to greet the comer Like a rose in bloom; All forebodings that distressed me I forgot as Joy caressed me— (_Lying_ Joy! that caught and pressed me In the arms of doom!)

Only spake the little lisper In the Angel-tongue; Yet I, listening, heard her whisper,— “Songs are only sung Here below that they may grieve you— Tales but told you to deceive you,— So must Leonainie leave you While her love is young.”

Then God smiled and it was morning. Matchless and supreme Heaven’s glory seemed adorning Earth with its esteem: Every heart but mine seemed gifted With the voice of prayer, and lifted Where my Leonainie drifted From me like a dream.

TO A JILTED SWAIN

Get thee back neglected friends; And repay, as each one lends, Tithes of shallow-sounding glee Or keen-ringing raillery: Get thee from lone vigils; be But in jocund company, Where is laughter and acclaim Boisterous above the name.— Get where sulking husbands sip Ale-house cheer, with pipe at lip; And where Mol the barmaid saith Curst is she that marrieth.

THE VOICES

Down in the night I hear them: The Voices—unknown—unguessed,— That whisper, and lisp, and murmur, And will not let me rest.—

Voices that seem to question, In unknown words, of me, Of fabulous ventures, and hopes and dreams Of this and the World to be.

Voices of mirth and music, As in sumptuous homes; and sounds Of mourning, as of gathering friends In country burial-grounds.

Cadence of maiden voices— Their lovers’ blent with these; And of little children singing, As under orchard trees.

And often, up from the chaos Of my deepest dreams, I hear Sounds of their phantom laughter Filling the atmosphere:

They call to me from the darkness; They cry to me from the gloom, Till I start sometimes from my pillow And peer through the haunted room;

When the face of the moon at the window Wears a pallor like my own, And seems to be listening with me To the low, mysterious tone,—

The low, mysterious clamor Of voices that seem to be Striving in vain to whisper Of secret things to me;—

Of a something dread to be warned of; Of a rapture yet withheld; Or hints of the marvellous beauty Of songs unsyllabled.

But ever and ever the meaning Falters and fails and dies, And only the silence quavers With the sorrow of my sighs.

And I answer:—O Voices, ye may not Make me to understand Till my own voice, mingling with you, Laughs in the Shadow-land.

_A BAREFOOT BOY_

_A barefoot boy! I mark him at his play—_ _For May is here once more, and so is he,—_ _His dusty trousers, rolled half to the knee,_ _And his bare ankles grimy, too, as they:_ _Cross-hatchings of the nettle, in array_ _Of feverish stripes, hint vividly to me_ _Of woody pathways winding endlessly_ _Along the creek, where even yesterday_ _He plunged his shrinking body—gasped and shook—_ _Yet called the water “warm,” with never lack_ _Of joy. And so, half enviously I look_ _Upon this graceless barefoot and his track,—_ _His toe stubbed—ay, his big toe-nail knocked back_ _Like unto the clasp of an old pocket-book._

THE YOUTHFUL PATRIOT

O what did the little boy do ’At nobody wanted him to? Didn’t do nothin’ but romp an’ run, An’ whoop an’ holler an’ bang his gun An’ bu’st fire-crackers, an’ ist have fun— An’ _’at’s_ all the little boy done!

PONCHUS PILUT

Ponchus Pilut _ust_ to be Ist a _Slave_, an’ now he’s _free_. Slaves wuz on’y ist before The War wuz—an’ _ain’t_ no more.

He works on our place fer us,— An’ comes here—_sometimes_ he does. He shocks corn an’ shucks it.—An’ He makes hominy “by han’!”—

Wunst he bringed us some, one trip, Tied up in a piller-slip: Pa says, when Ma cooked it, “MY! This-here’s gooder’n you _buy_!”