Delphi Complete Works of William Dean Howells

by William Dean Howells

  We thought with pathos of our early parting with him, as we approached Plymouth and tried to be kodaked with him, considering it an honor and pleasure. He so far shared our feeling as to consent, but he insisted on wearing a pair of glasses which had large eyes painted on them, and on being taken in the act of inflating a toy balloon. Probably, therefore, the likeness would not be recognized in Bogotá, but it will always be endeared to us by the memory of the many mockeries suffered from him. There were other friends whom we left on the ship, notably those of the conversational end of the table, who thought him simply a bad boy; but there were none of such peculiar appeal as he, when he stood by the guard, opening and shutting his hand in ironical adieu, and looking smaller and smaller as our tender drifted away and the vast liner loomed immense before us. He may have contributed to its effect of immensity by the smallness of his presence, or it may have dwarfed him. No matter; he filled no slight space in our lives while he lasted. Now that he is no longer there, was he really a bad little boy, merely and simply? Heaven knows, which alone knows good boys from bad.

  BLACK CROSS FARM

  (To F. S.)

  After full many a mutual delay

  My friend and I at last fixed on a day

  For seeing Black Cross Farm, which he had long

  Boasted the fittest theme for tale or song

  In all that charming region round about:

  Something that must not really be left out

  Of the account of things to do for me.

  It was a teasing bit of mystery,

  He said, which he and his had tried in vain,

  Ever since they had found it, to explain.

  The right way was to happen, as they did,

  Upon it in the hills where it was hid;

  But chance could not be always trusted, quite,

  You might not happen on it, though you might;

  Encores were usually objected to

  By chance. The next best thing that we could do

  Was in his carryall, to start together,

  And trust that somehow favoring wind and weather,

  With the eccentric progress of his horse,

  Would so far drift us from our settled course

  That we at least could lose ourselves, if not

  Find the mysterious object that we sought.

  So one blithe morning of the ripe July

  We fared, by easy stages, toward the sky

  That rested one rim of its turquoise cup

  Low on the distant sea, and, tilted up,

  The other on the irregular hilltops. Sweet

  The sun and wind that joined to cool and heat

  The air to one delicious temperature;

  And over the smooth-cropt mowing-pieces pure

  The pine-breath, borrowing their spicy scent

  In barter for the balsam that it lent!

  And when my friend handed the reins to me,

  And drew a fuming match along his knee,

  And, lighting his cigar, began to talk,

  I let the old horse lapse into a walk

  From his perfunctory trot, content to listen,

  Amid that leafy rustle and that glisten

  Of field, and wood, and ocean, rapt afar,

  From every trouble of our anxious star.

  From time to time, between effect and cause

  In this or that, making a questioning pause,

  My friend peered round him while he feigned a gay

  Hope that we might have taken the wrong way

  At the last turn, and then let me push on,

  Or the old horse rather, slanting hither and yon,

  And never in the middle of the track,

  Except when slanting off or slanting back.

  He talked, I listened, while we wandered by

  The scanty fields of wheat and oats and rye,

  With patches of potatoes and of corn,

  And now and then a garden spot forlorn,

  Run wild where once a house had stood, or where

  An empty house yet stood, and seemed to stare

  Upon us blindly from the twisted glass

  Of windows that once let no wayfarer pass

  Unseen of children dancing at the pane,

  And vanishing to reappear again,

  Pulling their mother with them to the sight.

  Still we kept on, with turnings left and right,

  Past farmsteads grouped in cheerful neighborhoods,

  Or solitary; then through shadowy woods

  Of pine or birch, until the road, grass-grown,

  Had given back to Nature all her own

  Save a faint wheel-trace, that along the slope,

  Rain-gullied, seemed to stop and doubt and grope,

  And then quite ceased, as if ‘t had turned and fled

  Out of the forest into which it led,

  And left us at the gate whose every bar

  Was nailed against us. But, “Oh, here we are!”

  My friend cried joyously. “At last, at last!”

  And making our horse superfluously fast,

  He led the way onward by what had been

  A lane, now hid by weeds and briers between

  Meadows scarce worth the mowing, to a space

  Shaped as by Nature for the dwelling-place

  Of kindly human life: a small plateau

  Open to the heaven that seemed bending low

  In liking for it. There beneath a roof

  Still against winter and summer weather-proof,

  With walls and doors and windows perfect yet,

  Between its garden and its graveyard set,

  Stood the old homestead, out of which had perished

  The home whose memory it dumbly cherished,

  And which, when at our push the door swung wide,

  We might have well imagined to have died

  And had its funeral the day before:

  So clean and cold it was from floor to floor,

  So lifelike and so deathlike, with the thrill

  Of hours when life and death encountered still

  Passionate in it. They that lay below

  The tangled grasses or the drifted snow,

  Husband and wife, mother and little one,

  From that sad house less utterly were gone

  Than they that living had abandoned it.

  In moonless nights their Absences might flit,

  Homesick, from room to room, or dimly sit

  Around its fireless hearths, or haunt the rose

  And lily in the neglected garden close;

  But they whose feet had borne them from the door

  Would pass the footworn threshold nevermore.

  We read the moss-grown names upon the tombs,

  With lighter melancholy than the glooms

  Of the dead house shadowed us with, and thence

  Turning, my heart was pierced with more intense

  Suggestion of a mystical dismay,

  As in the brilliance of the summer day

  We faced the vast gray barn. The house was old,

  Though so well kept, as age by years is told

  In our young land; but the barn, gray and vast,

  Stood new and straight and strong — all battened fast

  At every opening; and where once the mow

  Had yawned wide-windowed, on the sheathing now

  A Cross was nailed, the bigness of a man,

  Aslant from left to right, athwart the span,

  And painted black as paint could make it. Hushed,

  I stood, while manifold conjecture rushed

  To this point and to that point, and then burst

  In the impotent questionings rejected first.

  What did it mean? Ah, that no one could tell.

  Who put it there? That was unknown as well.

  Was there no legend? My friend knew of none.

  No neighborhood story? He had sought for one

  In vain. Did he imagine it accident,

/>   With nothing really implied or meant

  By the boards set in that way? It might be,

  But I could answer that as well as he.

  Then (desperately) what did he guess it was:

  Something of purpose, or without a cause

  Other than chance? He slowly shook his head,

  And with his gaze fixed on the symbol said:

  “We have quite ceased from guessing or surmising,

  For all our several and joint devising

  Has left us finally where I must leave you.

  But now I think it is your part to do

  Yourself some guessing. I hoped you might bring

  A fresh mind to the riddle’s unraveling.

  Come!”

  And thus challenged I could not deny

  The sort of right he had to have me try;

  And yielding, I began — instinctively

  Proceeding by exclusion: “We agree

  It was not put there as a pious charm

  To keep the abandoned property from harm?

  The owner could have been no Catholic;

  And yet it was no sacrilegious trick

  To make folks wonder; and it was not chance

  Assuredly that set those boards askance

  In that shape, or before or after, so

  Painted them to that coloring of woe.

  Do you suppose, then, that it could have been

  Some secret sorrow or some secret sin,

  That tried to utter or to expiate

  Itself in that way: some unhappy hate

  Turned to remorse, or some life-rending grief

  That could not find in years or tears relief?

  Who lived here last?”

  “Ah,” my friend made reply,

  “You know as much concerning that as I.

  All I could tell is what those gravestones tell,

  And they have told it all to you as well.

  The names, the dates, the curious epitaphs

  At whose quaint phrase one either sighs or laughs,

  Just as one’s heart or head happens to be

  Hollow or not, are there for each to see.

  But I believe they have nothing to reveal:

  No wrong to publish, no shame to conceal.”

  “And yet that Cross!” I turned at his reply,

  Fixing the silent symbol with my eye,

  Insistently. “And you consent,” I said,

  “To leave the enigma uninterpreted?”

  “Why, no,” he faltered, then went on: “Suppose

  That some one that had known the average woes

  Of human nature, finding that the load

  Was overheavy for him on life’s road,

  Had wished to leave some token in this Cross,

  Of what had been his gain and been his loss,

  Of what had been his suffering and of what

  Had also been the solace of his lot?

  Whoever that unknown brother-man might be,

  I think he must have been like you and me,

  Who bear our Cross, and when we fail at length,

  Bow down and pray to it for greater strength.”

  I mused, and as I mused, I seemed to find

  The fancy more and still more to my mind.

  “Well, let it go at that! I think, for me,

  I like that better than some tragedy

  Of clearer physiognomy, which were

  In being more definite the vulgarer.

  For us, what, after all, would be the gain

  Of making the elusive meaning plain?

  I really think, if I were you and yours,

  I would not lift the veil that now obscures

  The appealing fact, lest I should spoil the charm

  Deeding me for my own the Black Cross Farm.”

  “A good suggestion! I am glad,” said he,

  “We have always practised your philosophy.”

  He smiled, we laughed; we sighed and turned away,

  And left the mystery to the summer day

  That made as if it understood, and could

  Have read the riddle to us if it would:

  The wide, wise sky, the clouds that on the grass

  Let their vague shadows dreamlike trail and pass;

  The conscious woods, the stony meadows growing

  Up to birch pastures, where we heard the lowing

  Of one disconsolate cow. All the warm afternoon,

  Lulled in a reverie by the myriad tune

  Of insects, and the chirp of songless birds,

  Forgetful of the spring-time’s lyric words,

  Drowsed round us while we tried to find the lane

  That to our coming feet had been so plain,

  And lost ourselves among the sweetfern’s growth,

  And thickets of young pine-trees, nothing loath,

  Amidst the wilding loveliness to stray,

  And spend, if need were, looking for the way,

  Whole hours; but blundered into the right course

  Suddenly, and came out upon our horse,

  Where we had left him — to our great surprise,

  Stamping and switching at the pestering flies,

  But not apparently anxious to depart,

  When nearly overturning at the start,

  We followed down that evanescent trace

  Which, followed up, had brought us to the place.

  Then, all the wayside scenes reversing, we

  Dropped to the glimpses of the distant sea,

  Content as if we brought, returning thus,

  The secret of the Black Cross back with us.

  THE CRITICAL BOOKSTORE

  It had long been the notion of Frederick Erlcort, who held it playfully, held it seriously, according to the company he was in, that there might be a censorship of taste and conscience in literary matters strictly affiliated with the retail commerce in books. When he first began to propose it, playfully, seriously, as his listener chose, he said that he had noticed how in the great department stores where nearly everything to supply human need was sold, the shopmen and shopwomen seemed instructed by the ownership or the management to deal in absolute good faith with the customers, and not to misrepresent the quality, the make, or the material of any article in the slightest degree. A thing was not to be called silk or wool when it was partly cotton; it was not to be said that it would wash when it would not wash, or that the color would not come off when it would come off, or that the stuff was English or French when it was American.

  When Erlcort once noted his interest in the fact to a floor-walker whom he happened to find at leisure, the floor-walker said, Yes, that was so; and the house did it because it was business, good business, the only good business. He was instantly enthusiastic, and he said that just in the same way, as an extension of its good faith with the public, the house had established the rule of taking back any article which a customer did not like, or did not find what she had supposed when she got it home, and refunding the money. This was the best sort of business; it held custom; the woman became a customer for life. The floor-walker laughed, and after he had told an anxious applicant, “Second aisle to the left, lady; three counters back,” he concluded to Erlcort, “I say she because a man never brings a thing back when he’s made a mistake; but a woman can always blame it on the house. That so?”

  Erlcort laughed with him, and in going out he stopped at the book-counter. Rather it was a bookstore, and no small one, with ranks of new books covering the large tables and mounting to their level from the floor, neatly piled, and with shelves of complete editions and soberer-looking volumes stretching along the wall as high as the ceiling. “Do you happen to have a good book — a book that would read good, I mean — in your stock here?” he asked the neat blonde behind the literary barricade.

  “Well, here’s a book that a good many are reading,” she answered, with prompt interest and a smile that told in the book’s favor; it was a protectingly filial and guardedly ladyl
ike smile.

  “Yes, but is it a book worth reading — worth the money?”

  “Well, I don’t know as I’m a judge,” the kind little blonde replied. She added, daringly, “All I can say is, I set up till two last night to finish it.”

  “And you advise me to buy it?”

  “Well, we’re not allowed to do that, exactly. I can only tell you what I know.”

  “But if I take it, and it isn’t what I expected, I can return it and get my money back?”

  “That’s something I never was asked before. Mr. Jeffers! Mr. Jeffers!” she called to a floor-walker passing near; and when he stopped and came up to the counter, she put the case to him.

  He took the book from Erlcort’s hand and examined the outside of it curiously if not critically. Then he looked from it to Erlcort, and said, “Oh, how do you do again! Well, no, sir; I don’t know as we could do that. You see, you would have to read it to find out that you didn’t want it, and that would be like using or wearing an article, wouldn’t it? We couldn’t take back a thing that had been used or worn — heigh?”

  “But you might have some means of knowing whether a book is good or not?”

  “Well, yes, we might. That’s a point we have never had raised before. Miss Prittiman, haven’t we any means of knowing whether a book’s something we can guarantee or not?”

  “Well, Mr. Jeffers, there’s the publisher’s advertisement.”

  “Why, yes, so there is! And a respectable publisher wouldn’t indorse a book that wasn’t the genuine article, would he now, sir?”

  “He mightn’t,” Erlcort said, as if he felt the force of the argument.

  “And there are the notices in the newspapers. They ought to tell,” Miss Prittiman added, more convincingly. “I don’t know,” she said, as from a sensitive conscience, “whether there have been any about this book yet, but I should think there would be.”

  “And in the mean time, as you won’t guarantee the book so that I can bring it back and get my money if I find it worthless, I must accept the publisher’s word?” Erlcort pressed further.

  “I should think you could do that,” the floor-walker suggested, with the appearance of being tired.

  “Well, I think I will, for once,” Erlcort relented. “But wait! What does the publisher say?”