Part 14

He turned, faced his mother silently, half afraid, as though some grim barrier stood between them. He saw fine lines about her gray eyes, and their color seemed heavy and faded. The boy sat staring at his mother with an intensity that made a color come to her cheeks, but he was not looking at her any more. Instead, he was wondering fiercely why he had never noticed the gray in her hair or the lines in her face, or the cough. The cough--surely he might have noticed that. His body lay limp against the back of the chair.

"The doctor said that Ma was pretty sick," his father was speaking on, his voice devoid of life or feeling. "But he said that she 'ud be all right if she went some place where the air was drier."

"What did he say it was?" he asked in a strained voice.

"It's her lungs, he says."

They were silent after this. He was looking out of the window at a far-away straw-stack which lay a mass of dull gold in the sombre setting of plowed land.

His mother still stood behind his chair. In the heavy silence of the room he could hear her uneven breathing. He heard his father turn in his chair.

"Well, Mother's got to go west--we might all of us go," he spoke with an attempt at cheerfulness. "Maybe we can work a small farm out there."

"What will we do with the farm here?" As she spoke the boy felt his mother's hand press more heavily on his shoulder. He turned from the window and caught his father's eyes looking at him. He saw his face flush.

"I guess we got to sell it. I can get a fair price. Help is scarce and rent's low since the dry years. We can't afford to rent it."

Again the boy caught his father's glance resting hopefully on him.

"But we can't sell the old place; we have worked it too long."

The boy was uneasily conscious of the break in his mother's voice. He sat up, his body stiffened. Did they expect him to stay on the farm? He wouldn't--he could not do that! They had no right to ask this of him. But he remembered the quick hope in his father's eyes.

He got up from his chair, walked past his mother without looking at her, picked up his hat and went outside, closing the screen-door noiselessly behind him.

The earth slept warm in the drowsiness of early afternoon. The freshness of the morning had passed and a languorous mist had fallen. The boy looked out to where earth and sky met in a haze of indefinable color. What a wonderful earth was beyond! He turned and walked heavily away. They hadn't any right to expect that!

Half-unconsciously he went toward the grove north of the house where he had played when he was a little boy. The neighbor boys would collect in the grove on a quiet summer afternoon, dressed as Indians, and in heavy seriousness would plan a desperate attack on the little white house with its green trimmings. What happy times they used to have! But he wasn't a boy any more, he had grown up; still he felt an expectant eagerness as he entered the cool shade of the trees.

He followed a path, indistinct now in the rank growth of gooseberry bushes, until he reached his destination. A tree, broken off a couple of feet from the ground, had left a high stump with some ragged splinters, serving as the back of a natural chair.

The boy sat for a while, leaning back with lowered eyelashes. The dim spaces of the grove brought old memories. As he brooded there, relaxed, the sunlight coming in broken fragments through the oak leaves softened his face into almost that of a child.

Suddenly he straightened in desperate rebellion. Why did things have to happen so? He didn't want to grow older--he would rather be a boy. If he were, his father and mother would not expect him to stay on the farm. With his reflections came the picture of his mother, her dark eyes shining unnaturally out of the rigid paleness of her face. Then the black dress with its long folds--it was horrible. The boy's thoughts blurred into a confusion of sharp emotions.

As he lay back again, with lowered eyelids, he was vaguely conscious of the life about him. Robins hopped from branch to branch, singing and chirping. A blue-jay, in a cracked crescendo, was attacking the established order of things among birds. A bee droned idly past. Occasionally all sounds ceased, and silence, deep and impenetrable, seemed to close in. After a moment, the confused murmur of the woods began again.

In the underbrush near him, the boy became aware of fluttering noise. At first he could see nothing; then he saw a snake--a blue racer--writhing along the ground, while above it, making queer little noises of distress, hovered a brown wood-thrush. He stiffened. His flesh always crawled at the sight of a snake! Yet, leaning forward, he watched intently. The thrush, its body a blur of brown feathers, rose and fell in continuous attack. Then he saw the reason. A few yards from the tree-stump lay a nest, hidden in a clump of gooseberry bushes. Above the rim showed a circle of hungry gaping beaks. The snake was crawling steadily toward the nest.

It was almost there. The thrush became wild in fear for its young. Again and again its body flashed in silent deadly attack. The snake, rearing its head from the ground, its jaws wide, struck back at the fluttering terror above it.

The snake reached the nest. It writhed over the edge. With a quick, sharp note the bird flung itself upon its enemy. A blur of brown feathers and a glimpse of a twisting, bluish body were all that the boy could see. A moment, and the snake writhed out from the nest. The thrush lay on the ground, blood crimsoning the speckled white of its breast. Its wings fluttered slightly, then the body was still.

The boy leaned back against the trunk and closed his eyes. He released his breath sharply. His throat contracted so that he almost choked. He had always had a horror of seeing a creature maimed or killed. He felt it doubly now, and he might have helped the bird,--no one else could. Yet it was only a bird; such things happened continually--they had to be: but he could not forget the flutterings of the dying thrush. Then, suddenly, he remembered his mother.

After a long time, he opened his eyes. The trees, the sky,--all the country was asleep; the absolute tranquillity of space lay lightly in the air and bathed the earth with a drowsy light. And the boy yielded himself to the silence. His eyes mirrored the mystic, reflective mood of the afternoon.

In the west, ragged clouds massed together and spread over the sky, their long streamers, black where they reached the sun, darkening the earth with the gray misty twilight of the storm. Then a cool breeze sprang up, the clouds receded, and the sun shone out.

The boy became conscious that it was late and jumped down from his seat. He felt strangely cheerful. The confused emotions which had raged in him all the afternoon had spent themselves, and he whistled as he walked on between the trees. When he turned into the lane near the house, he could see, in the west, a few black masses of cloud, vivid against the crimson flame of the sky--wandering spirits in an infinity of lonely space.

At the windmill he stopped and looked toward the house. The kitchen was lighted; the rest of the house was dark and shadowy. A thin spiral of smoke twisted up until it became lost in the gray light. How home-like it all was! The boy walked quickly toward the house, took the milk pails from the hooks on the porch and went into the barn. The horses did not raise their heads from the grain as he entered. The sound of their crunching, the sweet smell of the hay, seemed part of the pervading rest and content about him. His father came up from the gloom of the barn, carrying a pail of milk. He glanced at the boy.

"I thought I'd do the chores to-night, son. You don't get a vacation very often. You ought to rest."

"Oh!" The boy felt sudden embarrassment. He had a queer pity for his father. He almost wished that he could have done the chores himself.

It was dark as they walked slowly to the house. In the dusk of the east, the moon appeared red on the rim of the horizon. Everything seemed asleep, yet infinite life still vibrated through its sleep. Out of the oak-grove sounded the hopeless lament of the turtle-dove, voicing the mystery and sadness of the night. From the farm to the north came the faint cry of someone calling the cows, "Co-o, boss; co-o, boss!" A moment, the boy felt as though it were the wonder and music of the horizon that called. Then he smiled at the idea.

His father stopped on the porch. The boy knew what his father was thinking, knew with a wave of pity and understanding. It seemed to him there, in the darkness, that suddenly he was able to comprehend the shadows which he had not known before in his boyish dream of life.

He took off his hat. The night wind was cool. How intense the night was! Nature seemed a living and beautiful power, ever-veiled but always near. For a moment his father rested his hand upon the boy's shoulder. The boy moved closer to him.

THE END OF THE PATH[13]

BY NEWBOLD NOYES

From _Every Week_

[13] Copyright, 1915, by Every Week Corporation. Copyright, 1916, by Newbold Noyes.

Set far back in the hills that have thrown their wall of misty purple about the laughing blue of Lake Como, on a sheer cliff three thousand feet above the lake, stands a little weather-stained church. Beneath it lie the two villages of Cadenabbia and Menaggio; behind and up are rank on rank of shadowy mountains, sharply outlined against the sky,--the foothills leading back to the giant Alps.

The last tiny cream-colored house of the villages stands a full two miles this side of the tortuous path that winds up the face of the chrome-colored cliff. Once a year, in a creeping procession of black and white, the natives make a pilgrimage to the little church to pray for rain in the dry season. Otherwise it is rarely visited.

Blagden climbed slowly up the narrow path that stretched like a clean white ribbon from the little group of pastel-colored houses by the water. There was not a breath of wind, not a rustle in the gray-green olive trees that shimmered silver in the sunlight. Little lizards, sunning themselves on warm flat stones, watched him with brilliant eyes, and darted away to safety as he moved. The shadows of the cypress trees barred the white path like rungs of a ladder. And Blagden, drinking deep of the beauty of it all, climbed upward.

When he opened the low door of the little chapel the cold of the darkness within was as another barrier. He stepped inside, his footsteps echoing heavily through the shadows, though he walked on tiptoe. After the brilliant sunlight outside he could make out but little of the interior at first. At the far end four candles were burning, and he made his way toward them across the worn floor.

In a cheap, tarnished frame of gilt, above the four flickering pencils of light, hung a picture of the Virgin. Blagden stared at it in amazement. It had evidently been painted by a master hand. Blagden was no artist; but the face told him that. It was drawn with wonderful appreciation of the woman's sweetness. Perhaps the eyes were what was most wonderful,--pitiful, trusting, a little sad perhaps.

The life-sized figure, draped in smoke-colored blue, blended softly with the dusky shadows, and the flickering candlelight lent a witchery to blurred outlines that half deceived him,--at moments the picture seemed alive. She was smiling a little wistful smile.

And the canvas over the heart of the Virgin was cut in a long, clean stroke--and opened in a disfiguring gash. Beneath it, on a little stand, lay a slim-bladed, vicious knife, covered with dust.

Blagden wonderingly stooped to pick it up--and a voice spoke out of the darkness behind him.

"I would not touch it, Signor," it said, and Blagden wheeled guiltily.

A man was standing in the shadow, almost at his elbow.

He was old, the oldest man Blagden had ever seen, and he wore the long brown gown of a monk. His face was like a withered leaf, lined and yellow, and his hair was silver white.

Only the small, saurian eyes held Blagden with their strange brilliance. The rest of his face was like a death mask.

"Why not?" said Blagden.

The monk stepped forward into the dim light, crossing himself as he passed the picture. He looked hesitatingly at the younger man before him, searching his face with his wonderfully piercing eyes. He seemed to find there what he was searching for, and when he spoke Blagden wondered at the gentleness of his voice.

"There is a story. Would the Signor care to hear?"

Blagden nodded, and the two moved back in the shadows a short distance to the front line of little low chairs. Before them, over the dancing light of the four candles, stood the mutilated picture of Mary, beneath it the dust-covered dagger.

And then the withered monk began speaking, and Blagden listened, looking up at the picture.

"It all happened a great many years ago," said the old man; "but I am old, so I remember.

"Rosa was the girl's name. She lived with her father and mother in a little house above Menaggio. And every day in the warm sunlight of the open fields she sang as she watched the goats for the old people, and her voice was like cool water laughing in the shadows of a little brook.

"She was always singing, little Rosa; for she was young, and the sun had never stopped shining for her. People used to call her beautiful.

"And there was Giovanni. Each morning he would pass her home where the yellow roses with the pink hearts grew so sweetly, and always she would blow him a kiss from the little window.

"Then Giovanni would toil with all the strength of his youth, and he too would sing while he toiled; for was it not all for her?

"Often Rosa's goats would stray toward Giovanni's vineyard as dusk came, and they would drive them home together, always laughing, always singing, hand in hand, as the sun slipped golden over the top of the hills across the lake. Sometimes they would walk together in the afterglow, and Giovanni would weave a crown of the little flowers that grew about them, and his princess would wear it, laughing happily.

"They were like two children, Signor. There were nights spent together on the lake, when he told her of his dreams, while the gentlest of winds stirred her curls against his brown cheek, and the moon's wake stretched like a golden pathway from shore to shore.

"They were to be married when the grapes were picked, people used to whisper.

"And then one day a new force came into the girl's life. The Church, Signor!

"No one understands when or why this comes to a young girl, I think. She was torn with the idea that she should join her church, go into the little nunnery across the lake, and leave the sunshine.

"She did not want to go, and it was a strange yet a beautiful thing. This young, beautiful girl who seemed so much a part of the sunshine and the flowers was to close the door of the Church upon it all!

"You are thinking it was strange, Signor.

"Giovanni was frantic--you can understand.

"He had dreamed so happily of that which was to be, that now to have the cup snatched from his lips was torture. He took her little sun-kissed hands in his and begged on his knees with tears streaming down his cheeks. And Rosa wept also--but could not answer as he begged. I think she loved the boy, Signor. Yet there is something stronger than the love of a boy and a girl.

"She asked for one more night in which to decide. She would come up here to this little church and pray for Mary to guide her. He kissed her cold lips and came away.

"He was a boy, and he never doubted but that she would choose his strong young arms.

"The girl came here. All night she knelt on the rough stone floor, praying and--weeping; for she loved him. And the Virgin above the four candles looked down with the great, wistful eyes you see--and bound the girl's soul faster and faster to her own.

"And when morning came she entered the white walls across the lake without seeing her lover again.

"Giovanni went mad, I think, when they told him. He screamed out his hate for the world and his God, and rushed up the little white path to where we are sitting now, Signor.

"Once here, he drew the dagger you see beneath the Virgin and stabbed with an oath on his lips. That is why I did not let you touch it."

Blagden nodded, and the old monk was silent for a moment before he went on.

"Giovanni disappeared for two days. When he came back his face was that of a madman still. He was met by a white funeral winding up the little path. You understand, Signor,--a virgin's funeral. Giovanni was hurrying blindly past when they stopped him.

"There was no reproach spoken for what he had done, no bitterness; only a kind of awe--and pity.

"Rosa had died on her knees in the nunnery at the exact time he stabbed yonder picture. And they told him months afterward that her face was strangely like that of the Virgin when they found her,--beautiful and pleading and sad. There was no given cause for her death--there are things we cannot understand. She was praying for strength, the sisters said."

The monk ceased speaking, and for a long moment they sat silent, Blagden and the withered, white-haired man, staring mutely up at the beautiful face above them. It was Blagden who broke the silence.

"What do you think happened?" he asked slowly.

"I do not know," said the monk.

There was another pause, then Blagden spoke again.

"Anyway," he said, brushing his hand across his eyes, "she paid in part the debt Giovanni owed his God."

"Yes?" said the monk softly. "I wonder, Signor! For I am Giovanni."

THE WHALE AND THE GRASSHOPPER[14]

BY SEUMAS O'BRIEN

From _The Illustrated Sunday Magazine_

[14] Copyright, 1915, by The Illustrated Sunday Magazine. Copyright, 1916, by Seumas O'Brien.

When Standish McNeill started talking to his friend Felix O'Dowd as they walked at a leisurely pace towards the town of Castlegregory on a June morning, what he said was: "The world is a wonderful place when you come to think about it, an' Ireland is a wonderful place an' so is America, an' though there are lots of places like each other there's no place like Ballysantamalo. When there's not sunshine there, there's moonshine an' the handsomest women in the world live there, an' nowhere else except in Ireland or the churchyards could you find such decent people."

"Decency," said Felix, "when you're poor is extravagance, and bad example when you're rich."

"And why?" said Standish.

"Well," said Felix, "because the poor imitate the rich an' the rich give to the poor an' when the poor give to each other they have nothing of their own."

"That's communism you're talking," said Standish. "an' that always comes from education an' enlightenment. Sure if the poor weren't dacent they'd be rich an' if the rich were dacent they'd be poor an' if everyone had a conscience they'd be less millionaires."

"'Tis a poor bird that can't pick for himself."

"But suppose a bird had a broken wing an' couldn't fly to where the pickings were?" said Felix.

"Well, then bring the pickings to him. That would be charity."

"But charity is decency and wisdom is holding your tongue when you don't know what you're talking about."

"If the people of Ballysantamalo are so decent, how is it that there are so many bachelors there? Do you think it right to have all the young women worrying their heads off reading trashy novels an' doin' all sorts of silly things like fixin' their hair in a way that was never intended by nature an' doin' so for years an' years an' havin' nothin' in the end but the trouble of it all."

"Well, 'tis hard blamin' the young men because every young lady you meet looks better to you than the last until you meet the next an' so you go on to another until you're so old that no one would marry you at all unless you had lots of money, a bad liver, an' a shaky heart."

"An old man without any sense, lots of money, a bad liver, an' a shaky heart can always get a young lady to marry him," said Felix, "though rheumatics, gout, an' a wooden leg are just as good in such a case."

"Every bit," said Standish, "but there's nothin' like a weak constitution, a cold climate, an' a tendency to pneumonia."

"Old men are quare," said Felix.

"They are," said Standish, "an' if they were all only half as wise as they think they are then they'd be only young fools in the world. I don't wonder a bit at the suffragettes. An' a time will come when we won't know men from women unless some one tells us so."

"Wisha, 'tis my belief that there will be a great reaction some day, because women will never be able to stand the strain of doin' what they please without encountering opposition. When a man falls in love he falls into trouble likewise, an' when a woman isn't in trouble you may be sure that there's something wrong with her."

"Well," said Standish, "I think we will leave the women where the devil left St. Peter--"

"Where was that?" asked Felix.

"Alone," answered Standish.

"That would be all very fine if they stayed there," said Felix.

"Now," said Standish, "as I was talking of me travels in foreign parts, I want to tell you about the morning I walked along the beach at Ballysantamalo, an' a warm morning it was too. So I ses to meself, 'Standish McNeill,' ses I, 'what kind of a fool of a man are you? Why don't you take a swim for yourself?' So I did take a swim, an' I swam to the rocks where the seals goes to get their photograph's taken an' while I was havin' a rest for meself I noticed a grasshopper sittin' a short distance away an' 'pon me word, but he was the most sorrowful lookin' grasshopper I ever saw before or since. Then all of a sudden a monster whale comes up from the sea and lies down beside him an' ses: 'Well,' ses he, 'is that you? Who'd ever think of finding you here. Why, there's nothing strange under the sun but the ways of woman.'

"''Tis me that's here, then,' said the grasshopper. 'Me grandmother died last night an' she wasn't insured either.'

"'The practice of negligence is the curse of mankind and the root of sorrow,' ses the whale. 'I suppose the poor old soul had her fill of days, an' sure we all must die, an' 'tis cheaper to be dead than alive at any time. A man never knows that he's dead when he's dead an' he never knows he's alive until he's married.'

"'You're a great one to expatiate on things you know nothing about, like the barbers and the cobblers,' said the grasshopper. 'I only want to know if you're coming to the funeral to-morrow?'

"'I'm sorry I can't,' ses the whale. 'Me grandfather is getting married, for the tenth time, an' as I was in China on the last few occasions I must pay me respects by being present at to-morrow's festivities,' ses he.

"'I'm sorry you can't come,' ses the grasshopper, 'because you are heartily welcome an' you'd add prestige to the ceremony besides.'

"'I know that,' ses the whale, 'but America doesn't care much about ceremony.'

"'Who told you that?' ses the grasshopper.

"'Haven't I me eyesight, an' don't I read the newspapers,' ses the whale.

"'You mustn't read the society columns, then,' ses the grasshopper.

"'Wisha, for the love of St. Crispin,' ses the whale 'have they society columns in the American newspapers?'

"'Indeed they have,' ses the grasshopper, 'and they oftentimes devote a few columns to other matters when the dressmakers don't be busy.'

"'America is a strange country surely, a wonderful country, not to say a word about the length and breadth of it. I swam around it twice last week without stoppin,' to try an' reduce me weight, an' would you believe me that I was tired after the journey, but the change of air only added to me proportions.'

"'That's too bad,' said the grasshopper.

"'Are you an American?' said the whale.

"'Of course I am,' ses the grasshopper. 'You don't think 'tis the way I'd be born at sea an' no nationality at all like yourself. I'm proud of me country.'