by Georg Schock.
Originally published in Harper's Monthly Magazine (Harper & Brothers) vol.116 #692 (Jan 1908).
The flowered shawl kept flapping back with its wearer's exertions; the purple skirt, so scant that it did not permit a full step, made her progress a flutter. She moved over the roses in the carpet like a long-bodied, small-winged moth—a moth of bright colors but melancholy temperament, astray in polar regions. Her face would have been hard to date, but her bare neck and arms were ten years old, and thin, and at present blue, for the parlor was full of stagnant, hopeless cold.
The five deep windows, which in those distant days made the window tax so high, looked into flickering whiteness: the eye carried only a few feet through that weather. Back and forth went the flakes, collided and blew into columnar shapes, which whirled about like pale spirits dancing madly over a desolate place. The storm enwrapped the room, filled it with gray light, made of it a little world alone among the clouds. The pelting on the panes was as loud as the girl's quiet breath and footsteps.
She was only dusting, but she did it with grave pleasure, as though preparing for a rite. Every inch of haircloth was wiped, every carved pattern explored. Sighing with anxiety, she spread a fine cloth over the table and placed on it a bowl. The bowl, which was copper-glaze, with medallions representing strange landscapes, gentlemen and ladies languishing in the midst of them—a dignified utensil—was half full of water.
The tinkle of sleigh-bells penetrated the muffling snow. Heavy, cheerful steps came along the hall, a man entered, and the room was instantly full. His thick body, from which all the flakes had not been shaken, shouldered the air aside; his black fur cap was glittering, and his large black eyes shone under it; his face was dark red and happy.
He spoke in the dialect of the pioneers, still near to the mother tongue—broad Palatinate dashed with French, liquids strangely mixed with gutturals.
"Why is there no fire?"
"The mother said not, until you came. She did not know when you could get here, since it snows so hard."
"That is not right. The fire ought to have been started long ago. This room is too cold to bring the boy in."
"She did not know if you could fetch the parson or not."
"Yes, I fetched him. I could hardly get the horses through sometimes, and we could see no more than the length of the sleigh ahead, the snow is so thick; but I fetched him. It is a good thing, too. One cannot say when it will be weather to take the boy out to church." He spoke with the satisfaction that finds an audience anywhere, even by talking to itself. "Well, now when the fire is made and the room is warm, all will be ready. Bring me some wood in." He went and looked down at the white cloth and the bowl. "Yes, it is all ready," he repeated.
An hour later the purr of the fire made harmonies with the wind blowing through the snow, and its yellow light darkened the pearl-gray day. This strange light gave a sombre look to the occupants of the room. There were four who were in evidence. The girl was by the door, and moved nothing but her eyes. A woman, very like her in features, sat as though her armchair were green earth and she had flung her body there. Her parted hair was smooth and lifeless; her neck was full of cords. Under the thin flesh the bones of her forehead and jaw appeared like the sides of a box in which a spirit was detained—a spirit weak from some long ordeal, which, however, would look out fiercely now and then. She kept her eyes on her husband and the minister, who stood talking in the middle of the room.
The younger man was now without his cap and muffler, and his face could be seen, framed in blue-black hair and beard. His shaven upper lip was tight over his teeth, his eyes were direct, not to be diverted by the feelings of the one beheld. His bearing would have suited the king of a nomadic and warlike tribe.
"I have hunted in the Bible and in the dictionary, and I can find no luckier name," he was saying loudly. "Can you think of one, Parson?"
"What do you mean by that—a lucky name?"
"A name that has a good meaning and no bad associations about it. No one would want to call his boy Judas or Cain; or Ichabod—that means, 'My glory is departed.'"
"Better call him Jacob: 'a supplanter.' I have read the dictionary too," the woman interrupted. She was grave, but her eyes turned from one to the other with the effect of mocking laughter.
"A supplanter, did you say, Rebecca?' He went straight on with his speech, not taking the trouble to state that he thought her suggestion meaningless. "So I call him Felix. That is, 'prosperous.'"
"Do you believe the name will do him good, then, Gad?' the minister said.
"I don't leave it at that. I want him to have all he can have, and all I can do for him I do; but a good name will surely hurt nothing. Now we are ready, Parson. Rebecca, get up and come over here."
"Yes; I got up before for this—out of my bed." She pulled herself to her feet, falling back once with a gasp of weakness. The minister helped her to the table.
"I do this because I am here, Gad." he said, severely, "but if I had known how Rebecca is, it would have waited."
"It cannot be too early, Parson. The boy is well and strong, but sometimes something happens so quick. I want it done. Here, Rebecca, take him."
"She can hold nothing."
"Well, it may be she would let him fall. I hold him, then."
He unwrapped the bundle in his arms as delicately as if he were peeling a fruit and feared to bruise it. The child's white dress appeared, a little, little head, and a pair of open eyes, cloudy blue, with an observant and haughty expression. This being was as yet scarcely in the world; he viewed it with detachment.
Gad held his son proudly. Rebecca clung to the table, and the girl stood leaning forward. The minister's bearing changed: his gray head had an ambassador's dignity; for the moment he stood before the human race with authority to recognize and bless its future. Wind and fire were the instruments that accompanied his fine tones; water served him for a symbol. "Im Namen des Vaters, und des Sohnes, und des Heiligen Geistes,—Allmächtiger, ewiger Gott,—Entsagest du—Glaubest du,—Ich taufe dich,—Friede sei mit dir.—Amen."
The girl disappeared, and Rebecca sat down with a sharp expulsion of her breath.
The minister came from behind the table. "A nice, big boy," he said.
"Is he not a fine one? I must wrap him up again." Gad replaced the shawl carefully.
Rebecca did not attempt to take the child, and she spoke as before, with the effect of interruption. "Look at his hands, Parson."
The tiny thing's calm gaze implied that he declined the associates, the emotions, offered by the present world. The minister touched one of the pink hands.
"Strong for such a little one, and broad. Ach! Six fingers!"
"And all perfect, bones and all. That is not common," said Gad.
"Parson, tell him to let the doctor take off those extra fingers."
The minister looked from one to the other. "What is this now?"
"Doctor says they ought to come off, and now, while he is little. And Rebecca she wants it done. But I will not have it."
"Parson, how will his hands look when he is grown? How can he use them like other people? And it is such bad luck! I have always heard that."
Gad laughed. "It is luck enough that he is here. I will not have him changed. I will keep him as he is. There cannot be too much of him."
He was not to be moved from this, and was repeating it, still with exultant laughter, when the minister left the room. Then he sat beside his wife with the baby in his arms.
"It is so unlucky," she feebly urged.
He pulled a bank-book from his pocket.
"I would rather look to what I can do for him myself than to such foolish signs. I give him a good name, and something to start him well. That is better than to be afraid of you know not what. See here: Felix Heffner on the cover. This is his, and I opened it with one thousand dollars. There will be good interest till he is of age."
Rebecca looked pleased. " Agnes has none," she said.
"Oh, well,—she gets along. I believe he sleeps. I lay him on those cushions on the sofa. So."
He came back, and she received him with constraint. Though he was eternally by, she recognized that it was long since his spirit had been so present with her. He looked the tardy gratitude given to the messenger who brings a great gift. "And he is here at last!" he said. "It ha been long."
"Eleven years."
"Yes. Long to wait for him."
He grew ardent. Her flesh did not shrink, but even he might have seen the withdrawal of the weary and contemptuous soul. "Just as usual you are, Gad," she said, in her thin voice.
"How is that?" he asked, indifferent to the answer, leaning over her.
"With your face straight ahead, seeing one way only. But I think if we should be like that, we should not have been made so that we could look around."
He paid no attention, but caressed her, saying, "In the day is no hour when I do not thank you."
"And already you forget what has gone by?"
"Forget what?"
Though his arms were around her, she spoke as though from a remote and icy place. "So now you forgive me because Agnes was a girl, and because the little one that died was a girl, and because the time was so long between the three?"
"Ach, Rebecca, think of that no more. I forgot all."
"Yes, you forget, Gad?" she drawled. "Ei! What is that on the baby?"
Even for the boy he moved reluctantly. "A spider," he said, and took it in his hand. The sprawling thing curled into a tight ball, its own little soul shaken by its own love of life, terror, and indignation. His fingers contracted on it.
"Stop!" she cried. "What for a spider is it?"
"Just such a common gray spider."
"Then let it go quick. Don't kill it!"
"Why not? It is no beauty, certainly."
She struggled up. "Gad, don't, for God's sake, kill a cross-spider. You know if it is good to have one come, with the cross on the back. And in the winter, too! Now indeed I feel hope for little Felix. If you kill it, you throw his luck away, you give him bad fortune."
"Ach!" he said, with disgust. The insect cracked and fell on the floor. Rebecca sat down again, watching him, as he returned to her, with her shining eyes.
"You forgot all," she taunted, softly. "That you were twice disappointed, and that you had eleven long years to wait. And you forgot more, too, Gad. How when Agnes was a girl it was long that I had no friendly look from you, and how you show no love for her to this day. You kept it all for the boy if he should come, and your money too, it seems. Also you forgot how, when the other little one died, you did not look to how I felt. You did not try to give me comfort. No. It was a girl also. And you know what for kindness I have had until Felix came. And now you kill the cross-spider!" She snatched her leanness from his arms, her voice rose to a shrill and windy cry. "Ach, get away from me with your kissing, Gad Heffner!"
Three women, wearing black dresses not their best, came out into the sunlight and went to search in different directions. All were old. All were used to usher reluctant beings into the world, and to do what the dead require. They scattered over the farm like crows, returned, and went in together, talking with low voices. Their presence showed calamity in Gad Heffner's house.
Its gray front and the little cedars on guard beside the door were serious; the fields, empty of workers, had an air proper to no day of the week. Along the road the cherry-trees rustled and talked softly, and the strong sun poured down. It covered the girl who came and stood at the gate, watching and listening. That for which the whole place mourned was evidently her peculiar grief. She was erect, but it seemed that her patient face should display furrows left by her tears, they had so plainly been many, and her eyelids looked hot.
She had not waited long, when the sound of the leaves and the beat of hoofs mingled, like a melody with strong bass chords. The hoofs struck all together, the invisible horse threw himself forward, and they struck again; then he galloped into sight under the cherry boughs, head and tail up, enjoying his own moment. He was a tall bay, and his coat matched the hair of the rider, who held him with bare knees and yielded to his leaps indifferently. "Felix," she called, "come in;" but the boy dashed by. She waited, and he returned in a few minutes, this time at a trot. "Felix, do come right in," she begged. He checked the bay and looked at her while she could have counted twenty. He had strange eyes, pale blue with straight lower lids, which wavered no more than the eyes of the beings in some bass-relief of ancient stone. "Felix!" He made a sound to the horse, and it broke into a gallop again and was out of sight.
The front door opened forcibly, and Gad Heffner himself came down the walk. "Agnes, have you not found your brother?" he called.
"Yes; but I cannot get him to come in."
"Where is he?"
"Riding up and down the road. I think he will soon pass again."
Gad waited. He was now nearly fifty, and formidable. His face was weather-beaten to the color of claret; his stiff beard and hair were changed in streaks, strong black and strong white together. He looked as if his proper weapon were the hammer. "It is a funny thing that he runs away this morning, and you have not made him ready for his mother's funeral," he said.
The horse came trotting back, and Felix looked at his father, stopped, and slid to the ground without a change in his level eyes. "Take him in," Gad growled. "It seems there is no trouble getting him to come now. You must have been ugly to him."
Agnes was as quiet as a chidden hound: quietly she went through the whole wretched business of the morning. In the mourner's coach she sat, with her patient eyes on the moving strip of sunny field that showed under the curtain. Her veil was smothering, her black-edged handkerchief was a moist bunch between her hands. Opposite sat her father like a cliff, with his face immobile, and the boy beside him. She tried several times to speak. "Father," she said at last, apprehensively.
Gad looked at her.
"Are you worried about the mother's eyes?"
"Why should I? Your mother is dead. It is enough to feel bad about."
"It is indeed enough. But always have I heard that when one dies and the eyes are not closed, it means that another of the same family will soon follow. Many said so when they saw how she lay and looked down, as if she knew something and would not tell it. I am afraid."
"Be not so foolish. You are just as she was, always looking for signs. When the time comes we go, sure, and not before. And Felix is in good health."
The thoughts of the three diverged, flowed far apart, like rivers in different zones. Agnes was making Rebecca live again, and beautifully. Sometimes she burst out weeping; sometimes she almost smiled. "Mother she saved for seven months to surprise me with that blue silk for my dress. She laughed when I opened the package. Once Mother asked six girls to play all afternoon, and made supper for them, and she baked such a big butter-cake. That time I let the baby fall Mother did not want to whip me. And Mother liked Andrew."
Felix sat resting on each knee a freckled fist with six strong fingers. His lashless eyes were on the peaceful road. His face was illegible; the thoughts behind it might have related to another clime, another age,—might have dealt with sands and fiery sky and playmates scaled or furry. He noticed nothing, but Gad was much aware of him. Sitting with his arm around the boy and one hand on his shoulder, he looked fierce and melancholy together. "Agnes," he said, after a while, interrupting her soft weeping, "stop your crying, and think once how to be a good housekeeper and take good care of Felix, like your mother."
The road went creeping past the window. On their black garments the dusty sunshine lay in hot bars. The end of all things for Rebecca, thought her husband. She had finished. It was a hateful thought to him—to cease—to avail no more. His arm contracted on his son's shoulder. Here was the stamp to put his mark upon the future, the creature in whom he would remain alive.
But, even as he exulted, a fear, paternal and familiar, stole upon him, of how many chances were against his darling. Fire and water, disease and accident, on every side they waited, threatening this second life of his. He shared that mood of noble despondency which spoke in one of the great ones of his race: "He has made His creatures the victims of the smallest accidents in nature, and that to such an extent that what promises to be best and most beautiful in life is destroyed." Also, he remembered Rebecca, looking and looking into the darkness with her half-shut eyes. Others—foolish souls—believed that in her grave she foretold calamity; he did not believe; but if she knew, she would not tell.
For a minute the man's hard face was pitiful. He spoke, and his children looked at him curiously. "Now you must be a good boy, Felix," he said.
The minister's shoes were dusty and he had still a mile to go, but his mind was at peace; not for a moment did he regret the carriage which he had not chosen to use. The sunset was before his eyes; he took off his hat and felt the wind in his white hair; on both sides of the road the corn was so high that he walked through a green alley.
He owned several farms himself, and what he saw of Andrew Hoffmaster's pleased him. The oats and potatoes were as good as the corn; the house and yard were beautifully kept, with a red cactus in blossom on the porch, and dahlias thrusting their thick heads over the fence. He gave them an approving look, then his slow walk stopped and he exclaimed.
Next to the cactus the ornament of the yard was a peach-tree. It wore a muffler of cotton around its throat, and its leaves looked as though they were polished every morning. He had seen it the week before, with its first yield, four fine peaches. Andrew had put bags over them, was watching them with almost paternal care. Now one remained upon the tree, two peach-stones lay on the grass, and Felix Heffner, the fourth half
eaten in his hand, was standing all alone in the sunset. He looked at his spoil without pleasure, with an air of condescension, and bit it now and then in an indifferent way.
He turned at the minister's exclamation; then he came and slid between the juicy dahlia-stalks, and the flowers nodded above him. After a long stare he drooped his head until it rested on the fence as a cat's head declines and rests on its paws, and so stood and looked at everything before him—the minister, the sky, and the corn-field.
He scarcely moved when Andrew Hoffmaster came tramping down the walk and spoke to the parson and swore over the peaches in the same breath. He saw the boy, who had the air of hiding among the dahlias, and dragged him out. "You young—!" he exclaimed, shaking him. "Did you think I would not see you?"
"No," said Felix, calmly.
"What do you mean?"
The boy, standing between his hands, merely looked at him. Andrew looked back—presently with pity. "See here," he said. "You do what I say, and we call it right. You go home now, and tell your sister Agnes that I come up this evening. Will you?"
Felix walked from between the hands and started to the gate leisurely. "That's it," Andrew said. "You tell her. Excuse me, Parson. Come right in. Mother will be glad to see you."
"No: I go to visit Gad. I have not been there since the funeral. How does he get along?"
Andrew turned red. "Better than he ought."
"Why? What have you against Gad Heffner?"
The young man hesitated, then he spoke rapidly. His face grew redder and redder, for he was only twenty-one, and his feelings were new to him. "Poor little thing!" he exclaimed. To some of his charges the minister agreed regretfully. Then he spoke. At last he left Andrew, very earnest and hot, and went away along the road. In a short time he caught up with Felix, and the boy sauntered beside him. He did not encourage the minister's remarks; but after a long silence he said: "Father has a new mare. A black one. She is a devil."
"You must not say that."
"She is a devil. You ought to see her kick and bite. He has not yet ridden her."
"He can ride her if any one can. Your father is a fine horseman."
"Neither have I tried her yet. He says I dare not ride her. But I can. I will show her to you," he said, eagerly.
Gad met the minister with pleasure and placed him on the porch between the little cedars, but their talk had not lasted long when he exclaimed and ran to the road. Felix was approaching, leading the black mare. Her coat threw back the light. She had a white foot, and a white blaze on her forehead, and her eyes showed a streak of white. She followed Felix with an air of truce, but as Gad came near she kicked at him. He seized the halter.
"You go over to the parson," he said. "You must not fetch her out. She is so wild."
Felix disappeared around the house.
"He likes her so, but I dare not let him be around her," Gad said, as though he were explaining a severity. "She laid a man up just before I got her, and she goes after everything that comes near. I keep her a while and try to tame her. She will be a good one, once she learns to behave. But he is afraid of no horse, and he does not want to let her alone."
Andrew Hoffmaster drove up, stiffly passed the time of day, and vanished around the corner. Presently Felix reappeared, walking less lazily than usual, and looking pleased. He had a small whip with a horse's head for a handle, and as he came he lashed at the rose-bushes.
"Where did you get that?" his father called.
"A peddler is back there. He came through the fields."
"Well, did he give it to you, or had you money?"
The boy said nothing. Gad rose, and they all three went to the back porch, where the stranger had spread his oilcloth pack. His sharp face was weary and he sat as though he would not rise for days, but he had a flow of words for his wares. Agnes hung over some flowered delaines, and had in her hand a gold ring with a pattern chased around it. "They are so fine and nice," she was saying to Andrew, "but this is the prettiest thing I ever saw."
"It looks as if he must have the whip," said Gad to the peddler. "Do you see something else you want, Felix? Not that nice knife? Well, you are easy to suit." He paid jovially.
The peddler displayed the stuffs and a brooch or two, with many glances, and Agnes looked anxious; when the ring was shown she held her breath. "No," her father said, "I have money for nothing like that. She has already what she needs. Come, Parson."
They returned to the front porch. Felix departed purposefully, and soon went tearing down the road, flourishing his whip over the bay. The peddler strapped his pack and went his dusty way, after a private talk with Andrew, who sat beside Agnes and looked at her. That evening there was more life than usual on the farm.
"I hope you get along with comfort," the minister said. "You lost a good wife in Rebecca."
"Rebecca was a manager. I thought at first now it would not go so well. But Agnes works hard."
"You will miss her when she leaves."
Gad looked up. "Why would she leave?"
"Andrew Hoffmaster he talked to me this evening. And I was glad to hear it. He is a good young fellow, a good son, and he has a fine farm. He would take care of her. It is now the time for you to think of it."
"Has he said anything to her?"
"He says not yet. But it will not go long."
"Well, then he need say nothing. I will have no such thing. Parson, I never wanted this girl, but I had to take it as it came. I raised her and took care of her, and I keep her a while. I could not hire another woman to look after things and take an interest the way she does, and the boy needs looking after, like all boys of his age. He is yet too young to be without a woman. In a few years' time, when he is grown, it is a different matter; then I care not if she goes; but now I want her here."
"Let her take him with her, then, till he is old enough. I have no doubt she would. But let her go, now that it is time, to her own house and her own man."
Pleading youth's eternal cause, the old advocate looked young; but Gad heard him with an elder's superiority. "Parson, you go too far. This is my girl you talk about—and my son." There was no other answer to all the urging that followed, and when the minister went away under the early moon, he went sadly.
Gad's bearing was as usual, but he was not ready for another trial of patience. It was a pity that, as he closed the gate, Andrew Hoffmaster should appear, looking as though he had just caught sight of a treasure and was ready to fight his way to it.
"Mr. Heffner," he began, "I ask permission to marry your daughter."
"Well, you daren't," said Gad.
"Why not?"
"If I tell you that you daren't, that is enough for such a young chap like you."
"And where does she come in?"
"I don't consult her."
"It seems you are sure you can manage this thing. Wonderfully sure you are." Gad kept an insulting silence. Andrew waited. "Do you think you can give the law to me?" he exclaimed. " She is willing, and I marry her."
"Hush up! Do you want me to throw you off the place?"
Andrew unconsciously swung a little on one foot so as to bring his right side farther away from Gad. "I care not if you try. You are a middle-aged man, and therefore I don't give you what you ought to have; but don't think that you make Agnes a slave to you as you made her mother. You need not tell me your objections. I see through you. You want her here, to keep your house and work hard and that boy of yours. But I fetch her away, the sooner the better."
"Get off my land," said Gad.
"If I go, I take her with me."
"Get off my land. If you take her, you get nothing with her but what she has on her back."
"Do think I care for that? Agnes!" Andrew shouted.
The girl came, as softly as a shadow. The flowered ring was on her hand, her face was pink, and she looked timid but happy. Even her father's expression did not appal her, for she had just been led into her own little Paradise, and it was not easy to get her out.
"Agnes," Gad said, "go back where you were."
"Agnes," said Andrew, "get into my buggy."
"Why? What is wrong, Andrew?"
"Agnes, you know what you just promised me. If you mean it, do as I tell you."
The girl was pitiable. She could not speak; her brows twisted in a deep frown; she actually swayed toward one and then the other.
"Agnes!" the young man repeated. She moved then, out of her place, with an effect as if she tore herself up by the roots, and he helped her into the carriage.
Gad watched her as she disappeared along the road—watched until there was nothing to be seen but the dark trees, and the fireflies flashing up and down. His bold eyes surveyed the house with its many outbuildings, the orchards and the fields. "Now it can all be for the boy," he said, aloud.
Felix leaned over his slate, frowning, with his six fingers taking up a great deal of room on the pencil; it squeaked horribly, but his reasons for annoyance were more serious. They lay beside him in the shape of three school-books in paste-board bindings scuffed like a child's shoes, and he gave them disgusted looks. Gad was reading a German newspaper on the other side of the table, but he looked up when his son passed an effacing hand over the slate and pushed it away.
"What have you?" he asked.
"The teacher said I must write a copy before to-morrow morning."
"Well, don't you like to do it?"
Felix stretched and yawned, showing the red roof of his mouth.
"Come here and I help you to learn your mental arithmetic. Now! If I buy a horse for a hundred and twenty-five dollars and sell him for a hundred and fifty, what do I gain?"
The pupil looked as though he had not heard.
"Come. You must learn. If you are grown up once, and yourself deal in horses, how will you do if some fellow wants to buy and you don't know what you make out of him? He could cheat you. Then what?"
'I would thrash him, as you do. I don't go to school to-morrow. I stay here with you and ride the black mare."
"You can't thrash all that want to cheat you. You would have to be at it all the time. And this is not the time to talk about the black mare, but about your lesson. Be a good boy."
Felix leaned his bright head on his fist and made little squeaking strokes on the slate. His eyes drooped.
"Don't you care to be smart when you grow up, Felix? I don't want you to be nothing but a big, dumb fellow. I want you to learn, and add more to what I give you, and be a big man hereabouts—bigger yet than I. You can have all the schooling it takes. I care not for the cost."
The boy's eyes closed and he breathed softly.
"Are you so tired, poor fellow?" said Gad. "Well, take a little sleep."
Behind Felix the uncurtained window showed the last green blotches of a March sunset. The moon looked in like an eye, and the wind talked through outer darkness—so it had talked in the Schwarzwald to Gad's fathers. He heard it, and grew restless in his chair.
He began to study the face of the boy, who slept with his head erect, as a cat dozes. The closed, lashless eyes made two diagonal slits above the broad cheek-bones. "I believe he dreams something," thought Gad. He leaned closer, while the wind made mournful prophecies and lamented over them. "I wonder what he dreams?"
His own face, in the lamplight, assumed the look of a heroic mask in stone—red, black, and white. Almost visibly his mind was searching for a way, his soul groped and struggled toward that other beloved soul. He spoke again: "I think everything of him; I do everything for him. Any day something may happen that will take him away from me. It may be he will not grow up as I would like to see him. I cannot tell what he thinks or what he will do, and sometimes he is so strange—"
There was no way. His slow thoughts returned, discouraged, like pioneers from a new country coming defeated home.
The boy's eyes unclosed upon him, wide and without change. "Come here to me," said Gad.
Felix did not move. Gad put out his hand. The boy yawned, pushed him away, unclosed and closed his own six-fingered hands, and settled down to sleep with his shining head on the table.
Clouds colored like sea-gulls flew across the sky. The bare trees had a bashful look, and some were blushing on their leaf-buds—they knew that very soon they would do wonders and receive gratitude. Now and then there came a note, a flash of blue in the soft air, which shamed the pigeons, faithful to one spot all the year, but they were too busy to envy travellers, and fluttered peacefully in and out of the barn with soft, contented cooings.
The sunshine poured through the open stable door. In every stall appeared a glossy back, roan, bay, or sorrel, and a pair of legs, some heavy with hairy fetlocks, some proportioned like a woman's arm. The place was full of contented sounds of munching and grinding, and now and then a head tossed and dragged down hay from a rack. A pink-eyed cat left her babies sleeping in their straw nest and slid along the wall and off for a little relaxation.
The pigeon that was clutching the edge of the watering-trough, with feet that looked as if they had been dipped in rose-madder, flew away in a hurry when Felix led out the tall bay. The horse walked along with his neck and back level. He had a grotesquely care-worn look, as though he were very hungry and old and had always lived in the shafts of a cart. He drank leisurely, and seemed to be appraising the fields; then he churned the water with his nose and went drooping toward the stable. Felix returned him to his own place, and rubbed his neck thoroughly.
"Now you had better start," Gad called from the corner where the curry-comb was purring.
Felix sauntered to the door and watched the pigeons.
"Have you not gone yet?" his father said, five minutes afterward. "You will be late."
He slapped the bay with his horse-head whip.
"You would better go to-day. The boys will have such a good time at recess, and you will miss it. Don't you want to play with the boys?"
"No," said Felix, contemptuously.
"Would you rather stay here with me?"
"Yes. I want to ride the black mare."
"Well, it is all right, you stay. You must not touch the mare; she gave me a good kick just now; but you can water the sorrels. Those white-faced sorrels are a fine pair. I get a good price for them."
Felix approached the sorrels carelessly. They were new horses, and one snapped and the other laid back his ears. Then they followed like old dogs, and came back with their noses shining with water.
"You are a good boy with horses, for sure," said Gad, coming to the door. "This afternoon a man comes to look at that pair. I think he will buy. You dare ride them up and down to show them off; and if he does buy, you dare put the money in bank yourself, to your own account. I take you to the city for the purpose."
"Those are, then, my horses?" asked Felix.
"Yes, till they are sold. Then you get the money.
"My horses," he repeated, eying his father. A curious change came over his face; it grew at once mocking and commiserative, like a man smiling at another man's vanity. Then with unusual childishness he started on a march down the stable, striking lightly with the horse-head whip at the shining flanks, and singing. "They are all mine-all mine--all mine," he crooned.
It was the strangest note, like the song of a little soul strayed from a world where it is absolute, and not yet knowing that it has strayed. The voice was full of content and self-satisfaction; but it struck at Gad's heart and made it writhe.
"God! What for a boy is this?" he groaned.
"All mine—all mine," Felix chanted, stamping through the straw. He was almost at the end of the stable. On his left, in the last stall, Gad could just see the black quarters and white foot of the mare.
He ran forward, shouting: "Felix! Come away!"
"All mine—" The march continued.
Gad caught him hard by the shoulder and jerked him around. "I teach you now to listen to me!" he said, fiercely. "I teach you!" He shook the boy as an animal shakes the trap that agonizes it.
Felix did not try to escape. He waited until he was steady on his feet, watching with half-smiling eyes the crimson face above him. Then he lifted his whip and brought it down so that it raised a welt on the black back of the mare. Her hoofs shot out.
A pigeon fluttered wildly into the sunshine. The horses stirred, and the bay gave a long anxious cry. The beasts could not be quiet in that place, which suddenly filled with dust and flying straw,—which resounded with kicks, horrible crackings and the squeals of the mare, and with a man's shouts and sobs.
"I am glad I find you this time, Gad," said the minister. "Shake hands. How goes it with you?"
Gad was old now. He sat on the porch with his fists on his knees and his large shoulders bent, as forlorn as a whippoorwill in the sun. Slowly he turned his head and put out his hand in tardy salutation.
"Heavy," he said.
"Yes. I thought nothing else."
The minister sat beside him and stared at the cherry-trees, which could just be seen in the twilight, a white mist along the road. Frequent drops fell, and the blossoms were sending out their last sweetness before the rain came to scatter them.
"How is your daughter?" the visitor asked.
"I know nothing of her."
"Has she not come here many times, and her husband also, since Felix—"
"Yes."
"Well, then?"
Gad raised his eyes and looked straight ahead. "I want no company. They can do nothing. I work every day—"
They were silent again, until the minister spoke out of his own tenderness. "He was dear to me also."
"Yes, But you know nothing of it."
"I know that it is heavy."
"You know nothing—nor any other," said the remote voice.
"Gad, be not so proud, to think yourself single in this thing. Sorrow is for all. It is two months since," he continued, "and now that I find you for the first time, I like to talk to you about him. I like myself to think about him. He was a fine boy."
There was no answer, and the minister sought for still another way to approach.
"You were a good father," he said.
Gad straightened himself and dropped slowly back to his old position as though he were trying to writhe away from bodily pain.
"Parson, I say you know nothing. If he is dead, I am to blame."
"Gad, think now of something else. How does the planting go?" said the older man.
"I know not why I plant and sow. He does not run along with me. Parson, listen. I wanted him too much. From the first day he lived I was afraid. I would not say it to myself, but always was I afraid. So many things can take a child away. Then he got big and strong, and I bought and sold and worked, because I had now a son to take my land, and there was still a Heffner to be a big man in Berks County. But I never felt safe; I wanted him too much. Then the last night I had him it came to me, was he himself quite right? and the last day, he acted—I felt—I laid hands on him, to stop him. I had never touched him in punishment before. And he cut the black mare with his little whip to spite me."
"Gad, we must all have courage."
Now that he had begun to speak, Gad's grievous voice trailed on, repeating what his solitary thoughts had toiled over. "And now I have him no more. Soon I die; and no one comes after me."
"What about Agnes?"
"I have money, Parson, and much land. Yes. But I did not work and save for Hoffmaster."
The minister moved abruptly and opened his mouth to speak, but the voice continued in the darkness. "Now there are no more Heffners. Parson, I always thought it was something against me with him. His mother was a strange woman. Sometimes she acted as if she did not like him. And it may be it was true, what the neighbors said, that she knew that misfortune was to come, because she looked so when she died."
The minister would be silent no more. "Gad, you say she was a strange woman. Who made her strange? When I married you and her she was a pretty girl, and she left a good home for you; and you know if you cared for her or not. How did you treat her until Felix came? How did you value her afterwards?
"And now you say something was against you with the boy. You were yourself against him. How indeed did you bring him up? How did you direct him? You were always afraid--you do not say it to yourself, but you were afraid of bad signs,--and you made your own bad signs. 'Er war in Verkehrtheit gezeuget, und in Sünden empfangen. Der Väter Missethat—' You cannot get out of it, Gad Heffner!"
"Parson--"
"This is the time for you to listen. Now you begin again; as you treated your wife, so now you treat your daughter. I give you right, she might have stayed with you a little when you needed her, and she might have left in a different way. But she has tried to make up with you, and you give her no chance. Why are you her father if you can show no kindness, if she had been far more wrong yet than she is? You are indeed no father, Gad. You are not fit to have a child."
Gad sat as though under missiles. "I think it over," he said, in a dazed way. The minister leaned back and moistened his lips with his tongue. He was panting. The two big black figures remained silent for a long time.
"Gad," said the minister, gently, "go you to see her and make it up with them."
"I think it over."
"You need not to think over this. Go now. She is left to you. If you wait long, it may be you turn her against you, like her mother."
"They can come here."
The minister stood up. "You stiff-necked man! What you get is indeed too good for you. Like a child you yammer at a good gift. You dare not wait. You come now!"
Heavily and slowly, moved by the unbroken will beside him, Gad rose and followed.
They walked with the road between them. The damp wind was in their faces. Once it whirled along a cloud of petals of the cherry-blossom, which drove against them, as the snowflakes had driven on that same road long before; and once the minister spoke.
"Gad, do you not think to what I take you?"
"To see my daughter. I know not what you mean."
They came to Andrew's house. Going up the walk the minister brushed against the little peach-tree, and its wet leaves touched his face, but his thoughts had shot so far ahead that they could not return for any memory. He knocked, Gad standing behind him.
The door opened and Andrew appeared with a light. "Come in, come in, Parson!" he said. "How are you here so late?' Then he saw Gad, and frowned.
The minister went in masterfully. "I bring Gad Heffner to see his daughter and his son-in-law."
"Agnes has gone to bed."
"Do you not think she wants to come out to see her father? I myself will tell her." He ignored the silence, rapped at a door, and called: "Agnes! Your father is here."
Andrew stood undecided; Gad also waited, in a stolid silence. Neither knew what he wished to say. There was a cry from the inner room, quick feet, and the door opened. Then Agnes came. She had thrown a long blue shawl over her white gown; her braided hair was ruffled by the pillows; her pretty eyes were wide. She was in no doubt at all, for she had never asked much.
"Father," she said, "You come! Now am I glad!"
Gad went to her slowly. "Yes. I came."
Her eyes besought and prompted Andrew, and he yielded. The two men shook hands. But she was so eager that even this did not arrest her. "Father!" she said. "Come now to see him!"
"See whom?"
"Father!" she looked at all three of them, "do you not know?"
She flew into the next room, and came back with her shadowlike motion, intent on something in her arms. She carried it to her father, and he received it with-out demonstration—solemnly—and stood looking down at it.
"You did not know, father?" she repeated.
"No."
"And he is already two weeks old!"
A long silence followed. Under old Gad's look the child stirred in his sleep and moved his small, five-fingered hand.