Читать книгу In the Heart of a Fool - White William Allen - Страница 6

Towns are curiously like individuals. They take their character largely from their experiences, laid layer upon layer in their consciousnesses, as time moves, and though the experiences are seemingly forgotten, the results of those experiences are ineffaceably written into the towns. Four or five towns lie buried under the Harvey that is to-day, each one possible only as the other upholds it, and all inexorably pointing to the destiny of the Harvey that is, and to the many other Harveys yet to rise upon the townsite–the Harveys that shall be. There was, of course, heredity before the town was; the strong New England strain of blood that was mixed in the Ohio Valley and about the Great Lakes and changed by the upheaval of the Civil War. Then came the hegira across the Mississippi and the infant town in the Missouri Valley–the town of the pioneers–the town that only obeyed its call and sought instinctively the school house, the newspaper, orderly government, real estate gambling and “the distant church that topt the neighboring hill.” In the childhood of the town the cattle trail appeared and with the cattle trade came wild days and sad disorder. But the railroad moved westward and the cattle trail moved with the railroad and then in the early adolescence of the town came coal and gas and oil. And suddenly Harvey blossomed into youth.

It was a place of adventure; men were made rich overnight by the blow of a drill in a well. Then was the time for that equality of opportunity to come which the pioneers sought if ever it was coming. But alas, even in matters of sheer luck, the fates played favorites. In those fat years it began raining red-wheeled buggies on Sundays, and smart traps drawn by horses harnessed gaudily in white or tan appeared on the streets. Morty Sands often hired a band from Omaha or Kansas City, and held high revel in the Sands opera house, where all the new dances of that halcyon day were tripped. The waters of the Wahoo echoed with the sounds of boating parties–also frequently given by Morty Sands, and his mandolin twittered gayly on a dozen porches during the summer evenings of that period. It was Morty who enticed Henry Fenn into the second suit of evening clothes ever displayed in Harvey, though Tom Van Dorn and George Brotherton appeared a week later in evening clothes plus white gloves and took much of the shine from Henry and Morty’s splendor. Those were the days when Nate Perry and young Joe Calvin and Freddie Kollander organized the little crowd–the Spring Chickens, they called themselves–and the little crowd was wont to ape its elders and peek through the fence at the grandeur of the grown-ups. But alas for the little crowd, month by month it was doomed to see its little girls kidnaped to bloom in the upper gardens. Thus Emma Morton went; thus Ave Calvin disappeared, and so Laura Nesbit vanished from the Spring Chickens and appeared in Morty Sands’s bower! Doctor Nesbit in those days called Morty the “head gardener in the ‘rosebud garden of girls!’” And a lovely garden it was. Of course, it was more or less democratic; for every one was going to be rich; every one was indeed just on the verge of riches, and lines of caste were loosely drawn. For wealth was the only line that marked the social differences. So when Henry Fenn, the young county attorney, in his new evening clothes brought Margaret Müller of the Register of Deeds office to Morty Sands’s dances, Margaret had whatever social distinction her wits gave her; which upon the whole was as much distinction as Rhoda Kollander had whose husband employed Margaret. The press of the social duties in that day weighed heavily upon Rhoda, who was not the woman to neglect her larger responsibilities to so good a husband as John Kollander, by selfishly staying at home and keeping house for him. She had a place in society to maintain, that the flag of her country might not be sullied by barring John from a county office.

The real queen-rose in the garden was Laura Nesbit. How vivid she was! What lips she had in those days of her first full bloom, and what frank, searching eyes! And her laugh–that chimed like bells through the merriment of the youth that always was gathered about her–her laugh could start a reaction in Morty Sands’s heart as far as he could hear the chime. It was a matter of common knowledge in the “crowd,” that Morty Sands had one supreme aim in life: the courtship of Laura Nesbit. For her he lavished clothes upon himself until he became known as the iridescent dream! For her he bought a high-seated cart of great price, drawn by a black horse in white kid harness! For her he learned a whole concert of Schubert’s songs upon the mandolin and organized a serenading quartette that wore the grass smooth under her window. For her candy, flowers, books–usually gift books with padded covers, or with handpainted decorations, or with sumptuous engravings upon them or in them, sifted into the Nesbits’ front room, and lay in a thick coating upon the parlor table.

Someway these votive offerings didn’t reach the heart of the goddess. She rode beside him in his stanhope, and she wore his bouquets and read his books, such as were intended for reading; and alas for her figure, she ate his candy. But these things did not prosper his suit. She was just looking around in the market of life. Pippa was forever passing through her heart singing, “God’s in his heaven–all’s right with the world.” She did not blink at evil; she knew it, abhorred it, but challenged it with love. She had a vague idea that evil could be vanquished by inviting it out to dinner and having it in for tea frequently and she believed if it still refused to transform itself into good, that the thing to do with evil was to be a sister to it.

The closest she ever came to overcoming evil with evil was when she spanked little Joe Calvin for persisting in tying cans to the Morton cat’s tail, whereupon Morty Sands rose and gave the girl nine rahs, exhibiting an enthusiasm that inspired him for a year. So Laura thought that if the spanking had not helped much the soul of little Joe, it had put something worth while into Morty Sands. The thought cheered her. For Morty was her problem. During the first months after her return from boarding school, she had broken him–excepting upon minor moonlight relapses–of trying to kiss her, and she had sufficiently discouraged his declarations of undying devotion, so that they came only at weddings, or after other mitigating circumstances which, after pinching his ear, she was able to overlook.

But she could not get him to work for a living. He wouldn’t even keep office hours. Lecturing settled nothing. Lecturing a youth in a black and gold blazer, duck trousers and a silk shirt and a red sash, with socks and hat to match his coat, lecturing a youth who plays the mandolin while you talk, and looks at you through hazel eyes with all the intelligence of an affectionate pup, lecturing a youth who you know would be kissing you at the moment if you weren’t twenty pounds heavier and twice as strong–someway doesn’t arouse enthusiasm. So Morty Sands remained a problem.

Now an affair of the heart when a man is in his twenties and a girl is just passing out of her teens, is never static; it is dynamic and always there is something doing.

It was after one of Morty’s innumerable summer dances in the Sands Opera House, that Fate cast her dies for the final throw. Morty had filled Laura Nesbit’s program scandalously full. Two Newports, three military schottisches, the York, the Racket–ask grandpa and grammer about these dances, ye who gyrate in to-day’s mazes–two waltz quadrilles and a reel. And when you have danced half the evening with a beautiful girl, Fate is liable to be thumping vigorously on the door of your heart. So Morty walking home under a drooping August moon with Laura Nesbit that night determined to bring matters to a decision. As they came up the walk to the Nesbit home, the girl was humming the tune that beat upon his heart, and almost unconsciously they fell to waltzing. At the veranda steps they paused, and his arm was around her. She tried to move away from him, and cuffed him as she cried: “Now Morty–you know–you know very well what I’ve always–”

“Laura–Laura–” he cried, as he held her hand to his face and tried to focus her soul with his brown eyes, “Laura,” he faltered, then words deserted him: the fine speech he had planned melted into, “O, my dear–my dear!” But he kept her hand. The pain and passion in his voice cut into the girl’s heart. She was not frightened. She did not care to run. She did not even take his persisting arm from about her. She let him kiss her hand reverently, then she sat with him on the veranda step and as they sat she drew his arm from her waist until it was hooked in her arm, and her hand held his.

“Oh, I’m in earnest to-night, Laura,” said Morty, gripping her hand. “I’m staking my whole life to-night, Laura. I’m deadly–oh, quite deadly serious, Laura, and oh–”

“And I’m serious too, Morty,” said the girl–“just as serious as you!” She slipped her hand away from his and put her hand upon his shoulder gently, almost tenderly. But the youth felt a certain calmness in her touch that disheartened him.

In a storm of despair he spoke: “Laura–Laura, can’t you see–how can you let me go on loving you as I do until I am mad! Can’t you see that my soul is yours and always has been! You can call it into heights it will never know without you! You–you–O, sometimes I feel that I could pray to you as to God!” He turned to her a face glowing with a white and holy passion, and dropped her hand from his shoulder and did not touch her as he spoke. Their eyes met steadfastly in a silence. Then the girl bowed her head and sobbed. For she knew, even in her teens, she knew with the intuitions that are old as human love upon the planet that she was in the naked presence of an adoring soul. When she could speak she picked up the man’s soft white hand, and kissed it. She could not have voiced her eternal denial more certainly. And Morty Sands lifted an agonized face to the stars and his jaws trembled. He had lighted his altar fire and it was quenched. The girl, still holding his hand, said tenderly:

“I’m so sorry–so sorry, Morty. But I can’t! I never–never–never can!” She hesitated, and repeated, shaking her head sadly, “I never, never can love you, Morty–never! And it’s kind–”

“Yes, yes,” he answered as one who realizes a finality. “It’s kind enough–yes, I know you’re kind, Laura!” He stopped and gazed at her in the moonlight–and it was as if a flame on the charred altar of his heart had sprung up for a second as he spoke: “And I never–never shall–I never shall love any one else–I never, never shall!”

The girl rose. A moment later the youth followed her. Back into its sheath under his countenance his soul slipped, and he stood before the girl smiling a half deprecatory smile. But the girl’s face was racked with sorrow. She had seen tragedy. Her pain wounded him and he winced in his heart. Wherefore he smiled quite genuinely, and stepped back, and threw a kiss at the girl as he said: “It’s nothing, Laura! Don’t mind! It’s nothing at all and we’ll forget it! Won’t we?”

And turning away, he tripped down the walk, leaving her gazing after him in the moonlight. At the street he turned back with a gay little gesture, blew a kiss from his white finger tips and cried, “It’s nothing at all–nothing at all!” And as she went indoors she heard him call, “It’s nothing at all!”

She heard him lift his whistle to the tune of the waltz quadrille, but she stood with tears in her eyes until the brave tune died in the distance.