Part 4

Oh, Carrie, if you “knowed” how folks try to get letters from me and can’t, you’d appreciate the delightful toil I take in writing to you. Ordinarily it’s just like laying bricks for me to write even a business letter, but when I write to you—lemme see what to say—it’s like lifting the lightest feather from the breast of an eider duck and watching it float through the circumambient atmosphere. (That strike you hard enough?)

I’ll tell you what, Carrie—(now don’t get mad, Caroline) I need a boss. For the last month I’ve been so no-account and lazy that I haven’t turned out a line. And yet, I don’t think it’s exactly my fault. I’ve felt kind of melancholy and dreamy and lonesome, and I don’t sleep well of nights. Once I dreamed that I had a magnolia for you and you turned up your nose at it and went away with Jeff—you remember Jeff?

_Everybody’s Magazine_ sent down the editor’s automobile and took me uptown to a distinguished nerve specialist, who decided that I had been working too hard, and advised me either to take a trip to Europe or some tablets he had in a box. I took the tablets. They didn’t taste bad, so I kept on taking ’em, and I ain’t a bit worse to-day.

But none of ’em knew that what I needed was just somebody to fix a cushion for me on the sofa, and tell the man with the gas bill that I wasn’t in.

You asked me what I get for short stories. I get ten, fifteen, sometimes twenty cents a word, and everything engaged long before it’s written.

Now, I’ll tell you what to do: kick the mountains over and hurry to New York. It’s 50 per cent. of the game to see the editors in person. Right here is the only place on the American Continent where you can live. What are the mountains compared to it? Dear Carrie, kick the mountains over and take my advice. You are far enough advanced to make your way from the start. And I assure you, as I said, being on the ground is 50 per cent of the game.

They call it a lonely city. Lonely! with every masterpiece of art, music, and beautiful things within a block of you! Say, Carrie, chop down the tomato vines and come on. I can get you into every editorial office in town (where you are not already appreciated), and you will make a success. Attend, oh, Princess of the Bluest Ridge, these are not the words of one D. Hudson the adolescent, but of Bob the Perspicacious, who has seen and who knows. If I didn’t think you had the genius to win the game I’d never advise you to try.

There’s a line in your letter—“I couldn’t know what the boy had developed into.” I can only say into one surely no better, unsatisfied, and always remembering the little girl next door.

Please, Carrie, write to me soon, and if you don’t like my letter say you condone it, for there ain’t nobody up here like you, and I’m awfully lonesome to-night. And so, may I sign myself,

Yours as ever, BOB.

P.S. I’m awfully glad to see by the weather reports that there’s a freeze coming. I hope the gent that rows you on the lake will have to buy tacks to put in his oars.

P.P.S. I was in a thanksgiving party where we had a flashlight photo taken. I’ll send you one when they are printed.

Do I condone Bobby’s letter? The wicked, contraband little joy grows and _grows_.

_Christmas Eve. Midnight._

It is snowing—a real snow. The night outside my windows is one soft whirling blur. At dusk John came in from the twenty-mile-away town. He shook the snow from his clothes like the traditional Santa Claus, and he was just as full of bundles. Two express packages for me in the big, bold hand grown so familiar set my heart to beating and my cheeks to blushing furiously under John’s scalpel eyes.

Since nine o’clock, when John went to bed tired out with his hard day’s journey, I have sat here in my bedroom, dim save for the light of the leaping flames and silent save for the sift of the snow piling high and higher on the window-panes. Luxuriously I dive again into the most wonderful box of candy I ever dreamed of; luxuriously I sniff the perfume of the most exquisite flowers I ever saw, across the snow-filled air the village bells ring their faint, “Peace on earth, good-will to men.”

To-morrow when I wear my flowers to church, I’ll feel like a princess—orchids and lilies of the valley—your princess, Bobby.

_Christmas Day. Afternoon._

When my eyes opened this morning the flaming beauty of the east took me to the window—such a marshalling of sunrise banners to do honour to the day. Not waiting for my fire, judging from the sounds in that direction that mammy was having a holiday nap, anyway, I dressed rapidly, high shoes, short skirt, coat and cap, and sallied forth. The landscape stretched before me like a vast white sea, its purity unbroken by footstep of man. It seemed to belong solely to me and a few noisy crows. I marched straight to the post-office. It was closed when John passed last night. I had a sneaking little hope—but it wasn’t there. I got a little note from Dicky, though. She writes that her gift is delayed. It is always. I could never teach Dicky timeliness—always, like Bobby Haralson, she has been superior to time.

The day that I began joyously has been a restless one. I have climbed to the hilltop. Below me the village lies, a crystal toy town in the lap of crystal hills. My eyes travel down the chain of glistening hills to Camel Back. Wise old comrade, I do believe he knows. Anyway, it is a relief to tell him. “Camel Back,” she writes, “A chance encounter at the theatre with Bobby Haralson in which I still conceal my identity.” Camel Back’s snowy hump twinkles as though he laughs; above him the clouds that have seemed to drift aimlessly form a fairy castle. Its turrets and dome glitter in the sunset’s dying fire. I can trace a door—a vast, closed portal. How ridiculous that a trick of the clouds could thrill me! Slowly the door has opened. I can’t explain the lovely magic of it, but there in the white stillness some words that Bobby wrote rolled over me in a great, mounting, singing wave.

“You have sympathy and a deep and true humanness.” If Bobby is not mistaken! If it could be! Almost solemnly I turn from my mountain, with its castle fading from the sky, and take my way home.

_January 20th._

Every minute that I can spare from my school duties I work at my book in a fury of enthusiasm. Just as the snow made the village so beautiful on Christmas day, something within me no longer sees the frailties of the mountain people with whom my lot is cast. Their kindness through all the long years comes to me instead. So I call my little book “The Window.” I look out and see beauties I never saw before, and the sun pours in and warms me.

_January 25th._

I am working at it night and day. It grows amazingly. “Child,” some one said to me yesterday, “I heard ye was writin’ a book. Ain’t plenty o’ books in the worl’, ’thout rackin’ yore pore brains to write anuther?”

Almost, I gave back indignant answer; but I have learned of my little book—of my little book that flows in my veins and runs down through my finger-tips, sometimes to laugh and exult, sometimes to sob and sigh.

_February 15th._

My book is written. It was pure joy. It is very simple—just the hopes and fears, the joys and sorrows of this spot isolated from the big world by its wall of mountains. I owe much to my book. Winter still holds the world, but flowers bloom inside me. Not the orchids and roses I demanded of life when I wanted to dynamite my garden plot, it is true, but some old-fashioned pinks that make these February days sweet and smelly ones.

_March 1st._

Did it ever happen to anybody before? I have knocked and knocked at editors’ doors; I have waited months and got my stories back, too. Two weeks, and I hold in my hand a telegram from Bobby’s publishers: “Your little book is ours, and it’s love at first sight.”

_April 1st._

It is advertised in the magazine section of the _Times_. How it flashes out to meet my eyes: “The Window”—a certain simplicity of expression—a realism that touches with delicacy and pathos things that we feel are the actualities of life.

John comes in and brings Dicky’s letter: “Caroline Howard! And not to tell me! Such a peach of a heroine, Caroline. How’d a sedate old thing like you catch that spirit of youth? Your heroine flames like a red, red rose. And what do you know of love’s sweetness and its fierceness?”

What do I know? I go indoors and gaze soberly at the sedate old thing that is I. Then I go in search of mammy. “Mammy,” I call, “I _must_ have somebody to talk to. They say you can look right into the shadowy interiors of the mountaineers’ cabins; that you can see the vague objects take shape in them because I’ve got the atmosphere so well.” Mammy is feeding the chickens. “What is atmosphere, honey?” she asks calmly. “Oh, feed your chickens,” I say, disgustedly, and, calmly, she obeys.

By some queer trick our publishers, Bobby’s and mine, have put us together—my little book by his big book. I have not heard from Bobby since Christmas. No doubt all his fingers are now out of commission.

Just after Christmas I was in town and I saw a big splendid picture of Bobby in a bookdealer’s window. I know the man, and, shamelessly, I told him Bobby was my first cousin—my favourite cousin. He gave me the picture. Bobby is in his old place on my mantel. And, as before, he dominates the room. There are times when I almost feel his presence, distinct, encompassing. My life has not many idle moments, but when these little lazy let-down minutes do come, when I sit by the fire at night, the school papers all corrected, just before I go to bed, I find awaiting me, giving me the feeling that it is always there, patiently abiding its moment, this nearness to Bobby. It draws near, not like an alien thing unsure of its welcome, but it comes as if in answer to a call. How well I know Bobby Haralson! Times spent together, when apart, how close they come. If disaster overwhelmed him he’d hide his hurt under a froth of gayety, his lips would mock with smiles. Once my mother laughingly called my father to see the pretty picture a little sewing girl made as she slept—her beads of prayer in her hands. Smilingly my father shook his head. My mother loved my father for that chivalry to a little sleeping work girl. Bobby is like that—human enough to advertise through a newspaper for a girl “pal” and then too chivalrous to meet her. The subtle gradations that make a gentleman!

_April 1st._

All the way from school this afternoon I kept telling myself there would be a letter from Bobby on the hall table, and then I would tell myself it was preposterous after this long silence that I should look for his letter. But there it was. And he has been sick. I feel his nerves in the letter.

If Bobby has been reading my last two letters, which he hopes I won’t make my two last, one was most certainly an old one. Of course I thanked him for the Christmas flowers and candy. It’s a bad sign, Mr. Book-writer, for a man to con over old letters. He’s either in his dotage, or he is in love. Is Bobby in love?

Here’s his letter:

_West 20th Street._ _New York. April 1st._

DEAR, DEAR CARRIE:

(Dear, dear Carrie, indeed! And not a line from him since Christmas.)

Here’s my right hand being held up:—Please listen!

To-day for the first time in six weeks I’ve had my trunks unpacked and have sat down at my desk clothed in my ordinarily sane mind, and been able to find pen ’n ink ’n paper to write with and on. I’ve moved four times since I lived in Waverly Place; and have been driven from post-office to pillow by the—noise of elevated trains, waggons (notice the English two g’s), trams (also English), and cries of hucksters (mostly Dagoes). At last I have found a quiet haven; and the first thing I do (of course) is to dig your last two (please don’t make it “two last”) letters and read ’em some more.

I have answered your letters and written you dozens in the spirit; but when it comes to spreading the ink, I know I’ve been as the old darky song goes, “A liar and a conjurer, too.” There are periods of time when the sight of a pen or an ink bottle strikes me to stone. Will it be some slight excuse for not having written to one of whom I have thought by every mail, if I assert that not for months have I written a line for publication except one little short 2,000-word _rotten_ story? It be true.

Oh, some sort of nervous condition—can’t sleep nor nothin’! Oh, yes, ma’am, thank you; feelin’ heaps better now. I live within a few doors of Broadway, but on such a quiet street that the little clock on my desk ticking sounds as loud as a cricket chirping under the honeysuckle vine on your porch on a fall night.

Don’t you think you might come up this way some time? Ain’t there some of your folks that live around here? Seems to me there was. I’d rather see you than to have a bushel of diamonds. And if I can get a string on you I’ll tie more magnolias and gumdrops to it than Roseboro ever saw. Say—please come, won’t you? I do so long to see a human—a Heaven-sent, home-bred, ideal-owning, scrumptious, sweet, wholesome human with a heart such as I know you are—or, in the words of the poet, “one of whom you are which.” The folks up here are all right and lots of ’em are good to know, but—they ain’t got tar on their heels, Miss Carrie, ma’am.

I’ve been thinking of running down to the Bluest Ridge for two or three weeks as soon as it gets warmer here. I want to go up somewhere in the mountings and have a quiet time with the sunrises and the squirrels, and I want to see some morning glories on a board fence. I’ve tried the dinky little hills they call mountains up here, and they ain’t no good. You can’t take forty steps in the wildwood without stumbling over a sardine box or a salmon can; and the quantity of Ikeys and Rebeccas that you scare up in the shady dells is sure something fierce.

If I happen down in your range of mountings may I drop in and see you? I need to get away from town for a while, and I certainly would rather be there than anywhere I know of.

Why don’t you cut loose and come to N. Y.? This is the only place to live. You can choose the kind of life you want and live it, and get all there is of existence. Come on and get in with the bunch! You can get a studio in a top story and raise tomatters on the roof if you must have ’em. I’ll help you tend to ’em. Come on and learn the beauty of a quiet life. Get away from the feverish round of gayeties that you’ve been accustomed to—men taking you out rowing (wasn’t he tall and dark, with a drooping moustache?) and men coming in the Pullman cars and sitting close by your side—oh, I haven’t forgotten about it! Often I’ve gotten out a couple of dozen sheets of paper and started to write to you, when I’d think: oh, what’s the use—she won’t want to hear from me—somebody’s ripping the buttonholes out of his collar trying to pull up car windows for her, or pulling on the wrong oar and rowing the boat into a mud bank where they’ll sit for hours until some plowman plods along and drags them out.

Please, dear Carrie, write to me some more. If you had saved all the letters I’ve written to you in the spirit you’d have a stack as high as the big sunflower by the garden gate. Write and tell me exactly what you think about when you take your hair down and sit on the rug at 11:30 P. M. before the fireplace. And I’ll tell you what I think about when I set the bottle of Scotch on the table and light the last cigar at 2 A. M., when the distant cars and cabs sound like the ripples of your mountain streams on a still summer night.

I send the ghost of a magnolia up to your window.

Yours as ever, BOB.

_April 4th._

I find a P.S. from Bobby this afternoon and the ghost of a magnolia that failed to get in the other letter.

MA CHÉRIE MLLE. CARRIE:

Here’s a magnolia.

I know you believe I am “without the pale” and “N. G.,” but I write again because I do not believe that I am.

If you come to N. Y. this spring I reckon as how you won’t want to see me because you think I am short on etiquette. All right for youse! I’ll watch all the rubberneck coaches, and when I see a little pink-cheeked girl in a straw hat with daisies on it and a white dress with a pink sash, chewing sweetgum—(for shame, Bobby)—and making eyes at the Brooklyn Bridge, I’ll know who it is, and look at you all I please.

So, au revoir, Miss Howard. I am still yours sincerely.

R. H.

_April 5th._

This sweet spring afternoon I cannot stay indoors. In her joy the earth is like the mother of a new-born child. A light, restless wind has piled snowy, errant clouds above the mountain tops, the little green leaves are uncurling, the sun shining as it shines only in the spring and on an awakened world—and the birds——A lover bird, just the kind to capture a little lady bird’s heart, has been pouring out a passionate mating song for two whole days. He is in the cedar tree not far from my window. His little lady love answers from the willow in the pasture. He is trying to make her come to him, I feel sure. Will she?

_April 6th._ _Saturday Afternoon._

My lover bird is gone from the cedar tree. Down in the willow’s cool depths, above the spring where the colts and cattle drink, there are such flutterings, such joyous little outbursts of song that I smile in sympathy. Wise, wise, little woman-bird. Since the coming of these last letters there’s been a stealthy fear following at my heels—the fear that I might go to New York. I could make my book an excuse, and I have some money. I have spent very little since that extravagant outburst last fall. And I could make Dicky an excuse. Dear little Dicky, who is as joyous over my book as if she herself had written it.

I will not go! The fate that let me put the light out the night that Bobby came here is a wicked, wicked jade, but I defy her! I’ll stay right here!

That Bobby should remember a little girl’s hat through all the years! That day so far in the past, when I left Roseboro and Ernest Cold was on the train—Bobby said he was; I don’t remember—Bobby put a real daisy in my hat band when he came in the train to tell me good-bye, and he said——

That stealthy fear that I might go to New York is stealthy no longer. Boldly it has stalked out in front of me and clutched me by the throat.

_April 15th._

This morning when I pushed up the shade in my berth I was greeted by the sun’s big, round, inquiring eye. “What are you doing here?” he seemed to be asking. I hastened to explain that my going to New York was in no way connected with Mr. Robert Haralson; that he is not to know I am there. Somewhat shamefacedly I explain to that red, watchful eye that Dicky is not to know I am there either. Dicky doesn’t need me now. Her last letter is as joyous as the lilt of a lark.

My publishers (how fine it sounds) want some little changes made in the book, and for that sole reason I am on a Pullman bound for New York.

So accustomed am I to space that I could not be boxed up in lower twelve last night, so I took the whole section. This morning as I stood on my bed reaching up for my skirt the train took a sharp curve that landed me in the aisle of the car. Visions of a hospital danced with a million stars before my eyes. A young, lovely girl helped me back into my berth. No one else, not even the porter, had witnessed my humiliation. In a little while, in spite of my aching head, I collected my senses sufficiently to get to the dressing-room. Making myself presentable was a clutching sort of experience. I have not spent the night in a train since I was eighteen, and I must have been more agile then. When I emerged from dressing I felt as a mountaineer’s baby must feel when it is being hushed to sleep. If you have ever seen one being flung from side to side of its rude little cradle, threshed about like a weaver’s shuttle, then you understand perfectly.

The girl was waiting for me; she proposed that we breakfast together. In the dining car, under the stimulus of the coffee, which stopped my headache, I told the girl about my little book and that I was going on for my first trip. Back in the coach we were the only passengers and we sat together; she told me about herself. She is going to New York, too. She is going to join the great army of workers. She is so sweet and young, so girlish and refined, so beautifully although simply dressed, that I think my face must have shown my astonishment and regret. That she should be adrift in a great city seemed too dreadful—one of its labourers, and on small wages, in desolate lodgings, isolated from all social life with her kind. I thought of the city’s temptations for a lonely, beautiful girl. And I said: “Child, go back to your family. Haven’t you somebody?”

“I have my little baby that lies in the cemetery.” Her young laugh rang bitter. “I am all alone. I left my husband—he didn’t love baby and me any longer. I mean he didn’t love me. He adored baby. She adored him, too. She used to say, ‘I’m des trazy ’bout my dear daddy.’” She looked from the window; I could see her chin quiver. When she turned back to me her voice was quite steady. “I want to be fair to him. When baby died it hurt him cruelly, and always when I place flowers in the little urn at the head of baby’s grave, I find beautiful ones in the urn at the foot. I know, although he does not love me any longer, that it hurts him for me to be a wage-earner. But I can’t take his money. You—you don’t believe in divorce?” Her voice was half timid.

I was silent. It is something I am so ignorant of. The old Ducketts are the nearest approach to divorce that we have in our mountain world. Recently, without a word to any one, that poor old lady left her home and moved to a little house across the street. Our village has wondered and gossiped about this rupture after sixty years of life together. Poor old lady, she slips in the back door of his house when he is sitting at the front door, and does up the work she has done for sixty years; then she slips home again.

“A woman can’t judge”—the girl’s voice with a defiant note in it brought my thoughts with a start back from the Ducketts, and to her—“unless it is her own problem. She, the other woman, wanted him to leave baby and me. He dropped the letter on the floor and I picked it up and read it. I don’t know why I did it. I had perfect faith in him. She said all her happiness was at stake; she eliminated our happiness—baby’s and mine.”

“But, child”—my mind took a wider circle than it had ever had need of in Marsville—“any woman might fall in love with another woman’s husband and try to take him from her. I know a coloured woman whose husband beats her, and when I try to make her leave him and live on a nice little place we have and do our washing, she says she would leave her old man but that she might not find another, that husbands is so ‘scase.’ They must be from the way some women behave. Perhaps your husband was not at fault.”

The lovely colour mounted to her face, it quivered as she told me that he had acknowledged it. We were both silent then. But presently I asked if he had gone to the other woman. She murmured no.

“He says that he is penitent.” Her eyes were stormy. “He begs me to take him back. Upon what foundation would I build my faith in him again?”