Part 8

I flushed, ashamed. How prone our little weak Self always is to play Arnold with our Soul!

I began at once to work. It is what one does with one's own acre, not what one preaches should be done to the acres of others, that convinces his neighbors at last, and settles the standard of his life's text among them.

I started it on a gullied hillside of The Home Stretch. These gullies I filled. Young trees were easy to transplant from the over-crowded growth of the woodland. Nature is at last her own greatest doctor. I gave her the soil she had been begging for, and very quickly she studded it with little pioneers of the game black locust, to hold back that which she had, to shadow it with coolness and damp that grass might grow beneath, and mold form, and the blistered soil have yet another chance, and that later the trees might rear their great heads high, stealing from the clouds the moisture for the earth.

My neighbors knew me, had known me from a boy, and it was not difficult to get them to meet me at the little schoolhouse once a week and hear my talk. Now talks all depend upon one's honesty and earnestness, not on one's brightness; in a month they became interested and were one with me. They had always looked upon a forest as a necessary evil, as a great wood put there to be cut down, burnt, destroyed, that man might till the land. Indeed, from their pioneer fathers, whose greatest burden was clearing the land, there had come down to them the instinct of forest hatred, just as had come their instinct of Indian hatred, bear and wolf and panther hatred. But at the same time I knew that they had in the heart of their pedigrees another and sweeter instinct, and that it came from their forest-loving Briton and Saxon and even remote Aryan sires, whose ancestors before them, had long ago gone through the same fight with the primeval forest, but whose children after them for a thousand years, from the North Sea to the Mediterranean, were forced to go back to tree-planting, to forest preservation, or die with their soil. It did not take much to make this forest preserving, land-preserving, life-preserving instinct outcrop again among their children here. It was a revelation to them when I explained that the true forester was he who assisted the farmer and the lumberman in rearing more trees and better trees where they should be, and destroying the worthless ones, even all of them if need were, where they should not be. In their prejudice they thought a forester was a dreamer, an impractical person, who preached forest preservation from sentiment, and would let the trees grow where children ought to grow. I won them all when I explained that a tree, when ripe, should be garnered, just as corn or wheat, or any other product of the soil. But during the years while it ripens for the saw, the young things beneath it, which should take its place, must be protected, and their life preserved in the harvesting of the ripe trees; or if the land was to be cleared for tilling, other places on the farm, especially the unproductive hillside, and the sources of the stream, should be given over to forestry. This would save the hillsides from washing and depositing their flinty soil over the rich valleys below, and guarding the water head, preserve the springs. But when the tree is ripe it should be harvested, unless it stood in some park or yard or town for a street ornament or shade. If it were in any of these places it should die in the ripeness of beautiful old age, a younger one taking its place. It was not long before I had a class of forestry, and there was much of the German methods I had learned in every branch of farming which I gave them for nothing, that helped me greatly. It is what one gives for nothing that brings in the greatest returns at last.

But my greatest help was in a flood early in May. The headwaters of the Cumberland lie in the Appalachian range, that great wooded mountain strip which mothers the headwaters of the Ohio, the Tennessee, and the Cumberland, and so of all the states they water. That long ridge of wooded slope had been a sponge, the gauge that controlled the flow from half the tillable Union. On the Tennessee, the forest had been brutally butchered, and on the Cumberland as badly treated. The flood came. There was but little to hold, and check it, and we had a deluge such as was never known before. Even my grandsire, seeing it, admitted what I said. The seemingly wasted word had fallen as the drift of the elm tree's shaft had taken root in a corner of the old field.

*CHAPTER XIII*

*THE UNATTAINABLE*

My work took me daily to Tammas's cottage. There was nothing so restful to me as these two good people, and their sweetness and cheer, and Elsie held my interest. I had always been fond of her, and now that she had grown into this rare, delicate flower, so sensitively turned, so romantically original, I found the greatest pleasure in studying her, and, in humoring her, as everybody did who came into her sphere. She commanded obedience as readily as she gave it. Every day was a different mood, and always a romance with her. One day she had on a large white apron, and was helping Tammas with the churning.

"I am playing a new game, to-day, Jack," she said, pulling me to a corner of the dairy where the spring water whirled through the stone troughs. "You'll laugh when you hear it," she added, her eyes shining into mine.

"I'll not," I said, "I'll be more apt to play with you. What is the game to-day?"

She laughed merrily. "Well, to-day I am a duke's daughter, who was secretly exchanged in her cradle with the dairyman's baby. Now only three people know it; the dairyman, who is old, and about to die; and who is so sorry that he ever did it, but he did so want his own daughter to be a lady in the land; and me, whom he has told at the last minute, and the bad, bold knight, very dashing, who has bribed the dairyman to tell him, and who wishes very much to marry me. But I want to marry my own bonny prince, you see."

"I should think he'd be proud and loyally love his dairymaid bride," I laughed, pinching her cheek.

"But, Jack, you are so stupid," she said, pouting. "You don't catch on. I can't play a game by myself. I want you to play the prince."

Tammas stood looking on, his face in its favorite Scotch grin. "Weel, weel, did ye ever hear the like o' that, an' it's no' leap-year either!"

I could see that he was pleased and proud.

"And it is the prince I'll play from now on, my ane braw lassie," I said, dropping into her own dialect. "Isn't that what you call them in Scotch?" I asked.

"An' noo," said Tammas, "a' lasses get unco thrang when their lovers are aboot, to gar them think they are unco worthy."

Elsie laughed and went vigorously to work, molding butter pounds. I stood watching her while I talked to Tammas. She was not all a child. There was a certain queenliness, a quiet dignity about her that was very attractive. In her fine-cut face, deep down in her great blue eyes, in her very poise there was a quiet naturalness, a pretty aloofness which spoke of reserve forces, that seemed to soothe me. God only knew how I needed it!

After an hour with her and Tammas I felt, as I went down the wooded path, under the great trees of the dairy lot, as I had when I heard for the first time, in the deep hours of the night, the chimes of the bells of Munich. I had not cared for the service with all its symbols and, to me, its meaningless metaphors; but I had loved its music, the great bells which calmed my soul.

I wish to join a new church. I am tired of these which preach. I want to join one where there is no preaching, no talking, nothing but music, music which makes you feel God. Why all this preaching anyway? God and talk do not go together. Religion is not a science to be proven, not a thesis to be demonstrated, not a problem to be solved, but a silent Soul-Force to be felt.

Preachers and priests in their vanity to be heard, or their zeal to proselyte, or their over-humanness just to talk, talk, talk, have robbed the church of half its sweetness and power. Will they never learn that God's house was made for God's children and in it they should do as God does,--be silent and worship? And if there be a voice to break it, let it be the Voice of that which is nearest to God on earth--Music.... It was this feeling that Elsie gave me--of calmness, of restfulness, of devotion. There are those who irritate us, and they cannot help it; there are those who provoke us, anger us, madden us by their very presence. There are others who stir us up for trade and money-making; the sound of whose very voice makes us wish to own land, or buy stock or build houses; and there are those--God help them--whose talk, be it ever so brief, falls over us like an unwholesome thing.

Elsie read much of romance, and her small library was choice; but the love-poems of Burns she knew best of all, and she always read them to me when I was about to leave, as if she would hold me longer. Then I would remember them far into the night and the radiant-faced, spiritual girl with the deep eyes, reading them. I needed the restfulness which Elsie's friendship gave. I needed her sweetness that calmed me, her fresh friendship that was like a great rose at the window of my soul. In her utter unseekingness, her loyal trustfulness, I saw that she did not even suspect that I loved Eloise.

I stayed all day at the cottage and she flitted around with her great white apron on, now and then calling me her bonny prince, especially if Tammas and Marget were not around. I humored her, seeing how much pleasure she took in it.

"If I am your Prince," I said, when I had her alone in the butter room, "I am going to call you my Heart's-Ease."

She looked up quickly and a faint blush came into her face. She did not reply, but busied herself about the house, while Tammas and I talked of the new test of Lass o' Lowrie, one of his cows, which, from five gallons of milk daily was making three pounds of butter.

"Dae ye ken Mr. Jack, whit's daeing it?" said the old man. "It's nae ither than the auld Top Sawyer bluid!"

Elsie, daintily gowned in a pretty white frock and for the first time with her hair up in a comical little Scotch top-knot, walked with me down the wooded path to the parting of our ways. A tiny heart's-ease had just thrust out its fragrant leaves in the rich mold under the trees. She plucked the leaf, and there was the faintest trace of a twinkle in her blue eyes as she came up and pinned it on my lapel.

"Here is your heart's-ease, my Prince," she said slyly.

I felt a flush upon my cheek. She was silent, and then she said slowly, "Do you know Mr. Jack--Jack, that I believe every prince at times has need of a heart's-ease friend, and--and--well, maids need a prince to help them."

I looked at her quickly.

"I am your good Knight always if I can help you, Elsie."

She flushed and turned her face aside that I might not see it.

"And you won't misunderstand?" she asked.

"I don't think I could misunderstand you, Elsie. I don't think anybody could."

She came up closer.

"Well, it's this, Jack. Sit down here by me. I have no one I can confide in but you. You know how kind you have always been to me. Ever since I was a wee bairn in a strange land. I can't talk to Tammas about it, but I feel there is something strange between Colonel Goff and me. I feel that there is--"

I started. She was pale, but went on.

"Well, you know, I didn't come here with them. I didn't come here with them--with my grandparents; that was so long ago I don't remember what is back of it. Anyway, soon after I came I remember Colonel Goff. And do you know," she went on, "he has been so good to me that--that I cannot understand it at all--only I feel when I am with him that I am drawn to him so! Oh, I have seen so much in him that others don't see--and when I see him watching me so closely and saying nothing, it hurts me."

She did not finish, but looked down the path, up which Colonel Goff, himself, was riding towards us.

Elsie paled and then flushed quickly. He was smiling at us, his little eyes twinkling kindly. He gave us a quick military salute.

"My word, a _tete-a-tete_, and a bloomin' fool it is who'd break in on it. Hello, lassie--Jack!"

He got down from his horse, shaking hands with us gravely. I noticed that he was watching Elsie, and she, knowing it, was reddening.

"You are a good guesser, Colonel," I said, with feigned lightness, for I felt that he was taking it too seriously, "and pray tell me who would not like to be with so fine a lassie?"

He looked at me quickly. "If you mean that, Jack," he said, in his blunt, unseeing English way, "here is my hand."

Elsie broke into a little confused laugh. "The idea of pinning Mr. Jack down like that," she said, looking bravely into Goff's eyes. "What else could he say? Now give me that box of candy. I see it sticking out of your pocket."

Goff pulled out the box of candy, and catching her to him, kissed her on the cheek.

"She is my own lassie, Jack," he said, holding her an instant in his arms. "I have loved her since she was so high." He paused. "Well, perhaps it was because I was an exile in your country, and she is the Scotch flower I found blooming here. Eh, lassie?"

Elsie kissed his cheek.

"You have been mighty good to me, Colonel Goff. But go your way. Tammas said he wanted to see you if you came by and--well--Mr. Jack and I want some candy!"

For a moment he looked at us queerly, trying to smile. He glanced into my eyes, but I met his squarely and unflinchingly. He was not a man whose mental action was quick. He saw but one side of things at a time. I saw that he was embarrassed in his slow way. Very awkwardly he left us, going up to Tammas's cottage. Elsie walked on with me.

The wind blew her hair around her temples and the reflection of the blue hills of Scotland was in her eyes. "This is such an inconsistent world, Jack," she said after a while. "I can't ever learn it, and I get so lonely up here with only Tammas and Marget, I often wish that they would tell me more of myself. I should so love to know who my father is."

"Did it ever occur to you that it might not be at all pleasant for you to know? They love you and they want you to be happy."

She paled. "I had never thought of that. I had never thought of that--oh, why didn't I think of it!"

"Elsie," I said, taking her hand in mine, and drawing her to me as I had when she was a child, and I her big brother, "you have no better friend than I. Tell me what it is that is troubling you?"

"You would hate me, Jack," she said, looking up quickly into my face with great, earnest eyes.

"Hate you? Nonsense," and I laughed, pinching her ear. "Tell me," I pleaded, smiling.

"Nay, nay, bide a wee--bide a wee," she said abstractedly falling into her childhood's dialect as she so often did when she forgot. "And first," she went on, "why, first I'd have to kind of explain it, Jack; but it is like this now: suppose one was not satisfied with one's lot and had those feelings I have been telling you of."

I nodded.

"And suppose--now this is the worst of it--now suppose one really loved another--one found one's soul dream," she paused, blushing.

"Soul dreams, Elsie, ay, I think I understand," I said. "I too have them--they are the great, unattainable things of our life. Do you know I think that their being unattainable is what makes them great?"

She looked up. "If it is worth so much--this unattainable thing--why then does it hurt so?"

"Ay, ay, that's it. It is the things that hurt which count. 'Our sweetest love is always sweetest pain,'" I said, quoting the line of a poem.

"Oh," she said, clasping my arm. "You have said it, Jack."

I looked at her quickly.

"Elsie," I said, "you once told me--do you remember what you said to me and Aunt Lucretia--about your hand being sought in marriage? Is it the same person you now speak of?"

"It is Captain Rutherford," she said, her face drawn tensely.

I started, angry, flushed.

"Elsie, this will never do. Do you love him at all?"

"No, Jack, not as compared to the other--the unattainable. Well, I should say about as the difference between a--well--say a star and a little firefly."

A dry, fighting anger clinched my throat and I could scarcely speak. I could have throttled Braxton Bragg then!

"Tell me, Elsie," I said, controlling my anger and trying to speak calmly, "tell your big brother all."

But she was silent, her face turned from me; at last she said, "It is all so strange, Jack; those we love, love us not, and those we do not love want to marry us even if they are not fit to."

"Not fit to hold your shoe, let alone your heart," I added angrily.

She put her hand over my mouth.

"Have I done wrong? Have I said too much? Come, I must go. I see the Colonel waiting for me."

I took her by both hands, holding her before me, for I was strangely worried and I wished to know--I looked earnestly into her eyes.

"Do you love me, Elsie?"

She blushed crimson. In an instant her arms were around my neck.

Shamed and stricken with my own thoughtlessness I tore her arms from me.

"Elsie, forgive me, you don't understand!"

In reply she gave me one shamed, hurt look and fled up the path. I saw Goff waiting for her.

*CHAPTER XIV*

*GOD AND A BUTTERFLY*

I saw a race for life the other day. It occurred in mid-air in a kingdom not of earth--not of our own; but the air was sweet where the fight was on, and the fields were green, and the woods lay calm and soothing beneath, and the great, kind sun was above.

It was the pursuit of a golden-winged butterfly, one of those filmy creatures that is more of sky than of earth, made of rainbow and a rose, of light and a lily's blossom. It seemed strange to me that this beautiful thing, thrown off from the rim of a rainbow, living on the nectar of a flower, sleeping on the bosom of a nodding lily and floating on the breath of a zephyr, so spiritual it was, should fall under the cruel laws of life, and be forced to fight for its brief but beautiful existence.

Who were its enemies? Two glorious mocking birds that had sung like spirits from an heavenly choir around the house all spring and summer, that had been permitted to live and rear their young in contentment and happiness and should have held no grudge against any other creature.

Golden-Wings was in the garden, and he was content until that which sustained life gave out--food. Ay, there is the rub! We would all be angels if it were not for food, we would be saints but for our stomachs. He had sucked every flower in his pasture, he must go to pastures fresh or die. The distance was only a few hundred yards of air, but he knew that in that air was death. He thought of it a long time as he hovered from flower to flower; of life, of his mate, of death. Had he been all spirit he would have stayed forever among the flowers, but he was like all of us, half spirit and half flesh, and the flesh of him was rebelling and begging for food. He must go. He rose slowly, and with uncertain wing, frightened, straight up, every sense awake, every nerve keyed, his eyes on the lookout for his enemy. Up, up he rose, quivering, scared, frightened, then he winged his way across the ether in a flight which proved to be for his life.

The mocking bird is a flycatcher, but not an expert one. Compared with the swallow, the martin, the crested flycatcher or the bold king bird he is a poor imitation; but the mocking bird is also a poet and everything is grist that comes to the poet's mill, from the grasshopper on the ground to the butterfly in the air.

The male bird saw Golden-Wings and gave him the first heat for his life; up in the air he darted, circled and swooped. Golden-Wings, terrified, ducked, dived and escaped. The poet dropped to a twig in disgust and his mate took up the fight. Golden-Wings saw her coming and his heart swelled with fear; he stood quivering in the air, he knew not which way to turn. She darted straight and all but caught him; for a moment in mid-air they whirled, twisted and tumbled, Golden-Wings, panting and fluttering for a chance once more for home and love and life, and the poetess for a morsel to eat. It ended in the butterfly getting above the bird, which always seemed to be his tactics, and the latter dropped down in disgust to her mate.

Then, maddened, they both started after Golden-Wings, and it looked as if this flight was to be his last.

It was a terrible chase that the two poets gave him, the tumbling, darting, circling of the birds in maddened earnestness. Their wings were often so close that they fanned him about like a whiff of gold tissue paper in the wind. Twice they got above him, dropped and missed! Then he was lost altogether, and only by watching the circling of the birds could one guess where he was. When seen again he had got above his enemies, and was steadily pursuing his zigzag, frightened, graceless, paper-fluttering flight for the distant trees and life!

"Luck to you, O Golden-Wings!" I cried. "For already you have taught me a lesson for Life. Let us keep _above_ our enemies if we would be safe, not beneath them--for there we are a prey to their talons, besmirched with dirt; nor on their level, for there we are no better than they; but _above_ them where they cannot reach us, and where we may go on to our destiny with only the sunlight around us and the unseen stars above."

The birds dropped down, baffled, to rest in the top of a sugar-maple tree. Like all poets, in losing their game they had lost their temper, and now between panting and hard breathing they could be heard quarreling. "It was you," said the wife, "you conceited thing; it is all your fault! I had him once if you had let me alone." "Oh, you had him, did you," sneered the mate; "if your talents only equaled your tongue you would be better off!" They almost spat upon each other; they were beaten and angry and they took it out that way.

Golden-Wings was safe. He was high up in the air. His very flight was now the flight of victory. Twenty yards more and he would drop down into the great splotch of green below where his wife was waiting him on the blossom of a wild cherry.

I was about to cheer him with the silent approval of true applause when I saw a lightning bolt of red drop from the jagged bar of the dead limb of a great oak near by, in the midst of the forest and high above the weary, yet happy Golden-Wings. I paled at the sight, for I knew that no butterfly would ever escape this new-comer. Even Golden-Wings recognized his fate, and, paralyzed with fear, stopped his flight in mid-air in a few yards of his home, and lay quivering in hopeless fear. Well he might, for the red and white bolt was a red-headed woodpecker, a very king in the tribe of the flycatchers. Often I had seen him poise above an air-bound moth, then drop like a dead bird in the air and no moth would be there.

The hand of the world is against the marauder, be he bird or man. But they revere the man who robs by rule.

Straight at Golden-Wings he went. The race was up. He used the same old tactics: above the butterfly he soared, then, gauging the distance from his own great beak to butterfly beneath he folded his wings and dropped like a plummet of lead.