AT THE CROSSROADS

“It might have seemed an empty house but for the appearance
of care and a curl of smoke from the chimney.”

COPYRIGHT, 1922, BY
DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED, INCLUDING THAT OF TRANSLATION
INTO FOREIGN LANGUAGES, INCLUDING THE SCANDINAVIAN

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES
AT
THE COUNTRY LIFE PRESS, GARDEN CITY, N.Y.

AT THE CROSSROADS

1

AT THE CROSSROADS

The great turning points of life are often rounded unconsciously. Invisible tides hurry us on and only when we are well past the curve do we realize what has happened to us.

Brace Northrup, sitting in Doctor Manly’s office, smoking and ruminating, was not conscious of turning points or tides; he was sluggish and depressed; wallowing in the after-effects of a serious illness.

Manly, sitting across the hearth from his late patient––he had shoved him out of that category––regarded him from the viewpoint of a friend.

Manly was impressionistic in his methods of thought and expression. Every stroke told.

The telephone had not rung for fifteen minutes but both men knew its potentialities and wanted to make the most of the silence.

“Oh! I confess,” Northrup admitted, “that my state of gloom is due more to the fact that I cannot write than to my sickness. I’m done for!”

Manly looked at his friend and scowled.

“Rot!” he ejaculated. Then added: “The world would not perish if you didn’t write again.”

“I’m not thinking about the world,” Northrup was intent upon the fire, “it’s how the fact is affecting me. The world can accept or decline, but I am made helpless. You see my work is the only real, vital thing I have clawed out of life, by my own efforts, Manly; that means a lot to a fellow.”

Manly continued to scowl. Had Northrup been watching him he might have gained encouragement, for Manly’s scowls were proof of his deeply moved sympathies.

2

“The trouble with you, old man,” he presently said, “is this: You’ve been dangerously ill; you thought you were going to slip out, and so did I, and all the others. You’re like the man who fell on the battlefield and thought his legs were shot off. You’ve got to get up and learn to walk again. We’re all suggesting the wrong thing to you. Go where people don’t know, don’t care a damn for you. Take to the road. That ink-slinging self that you are hankering after is just ahead. You’ll overtake it, but it will never turn back for you––the self that you are now.”

Manly fidgeted. He hated to talk. Then Northrup said something that brought Manly to his feet––and to several minutes of restless striding about the room.

“Manly, while I was at my worst I couldn’t tell whether it was delirium or sanity, I saw that Thing across the water, the Thing that for lack of a better name we call war, in quite a new light. It’s what has got us all and is shaking us into consciousness. We’re going to know the true from the false when this passes. My God! Manly, I wonder if any of us know what is true and what isn’t? Ideals, nations, folks!”

Northrup’s face flushed.

“See here, old man,” Manly paused, set his legs wide apart as if to balance himself and pointed a finger at Northrup, “You’ve got to cut all this out and––beat it! Whatever that damned thing is over there, it isn’t our mess. It’s the eruption of a volcano that’s been bubbling and sizzling for years. The lava’s flowing now, a hot black filth, but it’s going to stop before it reaches us.”

“I wonder, Manly, I wonder. It’s more like a divining rod to me, finding souls.”

“Very well. Now I’m going to put an ugly fact up to you, Northrup. Your body is all right, but your nerves are frayed and unless you mind your step you’re going to go dippy. Catch on? There are places where nothing happens. Nothing ever has happened. Go and find such a hole and stay in it a month, six weeks––longer, if you can. Be a part of the nothingness and save your life. Break all the 3 commandments, if there are any, but don’t look back! I’ve seen big cures come from letting go! I’ll look after your mother and Kathryn.”

The telephone here interrupted.

“All right! all right!” snapped Manly into the receiver, “set the operation for ten to-morrow and have the hair shaved from the side of her head.”

Then he turned back to Northrup as if disfiguring a woman were a matter of no importance.

“The fact is, Northrup, most of us get glued to our own narrow slits in the wall, most of us are chained to them by our jobs and we get to squinting, if we don’t get blinded. I’m not saying that we don’t each have a slit and should know it; but your job requires moving about and peering through other fellows’ slits, and lately, ever since that last book of yours, you’ve kept to your hole; the fever caught you at the wrong time and this mess across seas has got mixed up with it all until you’re no use to yourself or any one else. Beat it!”

Something like a wave of fresh air seemed to have entered the quiet, warm room. Northrup raised his head. Manly took heed and rambled on; he saw that he was making an impression at last.

“Queer things jog you into consciousness when you detach yourself from your moorings. A mountain-top, a baby’s hold on your finger, when you’re about to hurt it. A sunset, a woman’s face; a moment when you realize your soul! You’re never the same after, Northrup, but you do your job better and your slit in the wall is wider. Man, you need a jog.”

“What jogged you, Manly?”

This was daring. People rarely questioned Manly.

“It was seeing my soul!” Quite simply the answer came.

There was a long, significant silence. Both men had to travel back to the commonplace and they felt their way gingerly.

“Northrup, drop things. It is your friend speaking now. Go where the roar and rumble of what doesn’t concern you haven’t reached. Good-night.”

4

Northrup got up slowly.

“I wonder if there is such a place?” he muttered.

“Sure, old man. Outside of this old sounding-board of New York, there are nooks where nothing even echoes. Usually you find good fishing in them. Come now, get out!”

5

CHAPTER I

Brace Northrup received the first intimation of his jog when he knocked on the door of a certain little yellow house set rakishly at the crossroads, a few miles from King’s Forest.

The house gave the impression of wanting to go somewhere but had not decided upon the direction. Its many windows of shining glass were like wide-open eyes peering cheerfully forth on life, curiously interested and hopeful. The shades, if there were any, were rolled from sight. It might have seemed an empty house but for the appearance of care and a curl of smoke from the chimney.

Northrup walked across the bit of lawn leading, pathless, to the stone step, and knocked on the door. It was a very conservative knock but instantly the door swung in––it was that kind of a door, a welcoming door––and Northrup was precipitated into a room which, at first glance, appeared to be full of sunlight, children, and dogs.

As a matter of fact there were two or three little children and an older girl with a strange, vague face; four dogs and a young person seated on the edge of a table and engaged, apparently, before Northrup’s arrival, in telling so thrilling a story that the small, absorbed audience barely noted his entrance. They turned mildly interested eyes upon him much as they might have upon an unnecessary illustration adorning the tale.

The figure on the table wore rough knickerbockers, high, rather muddy boots, a loose jacket, and a cap set crookedly on the head. When Northrup spoke, the young person turned and he saw that it was a woman. There was no surprise, at first, in the eyes which met Northrup’s––the door of the little yellow house was constantly admitting visitors––but suddenly 6 the expression changed to one of startled wonder. It was the expression of one who, never expecting a surprise, suddenly is taken unawares.

“I beg your pardon!” stammered Northrup. “I assure you I did knock. I merely want to ask the direction and distance of Heathcote Inn. Crossroads are so confusing when one is tired and hungry and–––”

Once having begun to speak, Northrup was too embarrassed to stop. The eyes confronting him were most disconcerting. They smiled; they seemed to be glad he was there; the girl apparently was enjoying the situation.

“The inn is three miles down the south road; the lake is just beyond. Follow that. They serve dinner at the inn at one.”

The voice was like the eyes, friendly, vital, and lovely.

Then, as if staged, a clock set on a high shelf announced in crisp, terse tones the hour of twelve.

“Thank you.”

That was all. The incident was closed and Northrup backed out, drawing the humorous door after him. As the latch caught he heard a thin, reedy voice, probably belonging to the vague girl, say:

“Now that he’s gone, please go on. You got to where–––”

Northrup found himself at the crossroads where, five minutes before, he had stood, and there, in plain sight of any one not marked by Fate for a turning-point, was a sign-board in perfectly good condition, stating the fact that if one followed the direction, indicated by a long, tapering finger, for three miles, he would come to Heathcote Inn, “Open All the Year.”

“The girl must take me for a fool, or worse!” thought Northrup. Then he was conscious of a feeling that he had left something behind him in that room he had just invaded. But no! His gripsack was securely fastened on his back, his walking stick was in his hand, his hat upon his head. Still he felt that lack of something.

“It’s the air!” Northrup sniffed it. “I’m as hungry as a wolf, too. Hungry as I used to be twenty years ago.” Northrup was twenty-seven. “Lord! what a day.”

7

It was a day with which to reckon, there was no doubt about that. An autumn day of silence, crispness, and colour. Suddenly, something Manly had said came hurtingly into Northrup’s consciousness: “... or a woman’s face!”

Then, because of the day and a certain regained strength, Northrup laughed and shook off that impression of having left something behind him and set off at a brisk rate on the road to the inn. He soon came to the lake. It lay to the right of the road. The many-coloured hills rose protectingly on the left. All along the edge of the water a flaming trail of sumach marked the curves where the obliging land withdrew as the lake intruded.

“I might be a thousand miles from home,” Northrup thought as he swung along.

In reality, he had been only a week on his way and had taken it easy. He had made no plans; had walked until he was weary, had slept where he could find quarters, and was doing what he had all his life wanted to do, and which at last Manly had given him courage to do: leave the self that circumstances had evolved and take to the open trail, seeking, as Manly had figuratively put it, his real self.

During his long illness reality seemed to have fallen from his perceptions––or was it unreality? He knew that he must find out or he could never again hope to take his place among men with any assurance. As far as he could he must cut himself off from the past, blot out the time-honoured prejudices that might or might not be legitimate. He must settle that score!

Northrup was a tall, lean man with a slant of the body that suggested resistance. His face, too, carried out the impression. The eyes, deep set and keenly gray, brooded questioningly when the humour of a situation did not control them. The mouth was not an architectural mouth; the lines had been evolved; the mouth was still in the making. It might become hard or bitter: it could never become cruel. There was hope in the firm jaw, and the week of outdoor air and sun had done much to remove the pallor of sickness and harden the muscles.

8

With every mile that set him apart from his old environment the eyes grew less gloomy; the lines of the mouth more relaxed: in fact, Northrup’s appearance at that moment might have made Manly sympathize with the creator of Frankenstein. The released Northrup held startling possibilities.

Striding ahead, whistling, swinging his stick, he permitted himself to recall the face of the woman in the yellow house. He had taken the faces of women in the past largely for granted. They represented types, ages, periods. Only once before had he become aware of what Life, as he had not known it, could do to women’s faces: While he was writing his last book––the one that had lifted him from a low literary level and set him hopefully upon a higher––he had lived, for a time, on the lower East Side of New York; had confronted the ugly results of an existence evolved from chance, not design.

But this last face––Life had done something to it that he could not comprehend. What was it? Then Northrup suddenly concluded that Life had done nothing to it––had, in fact, left it alone. At this point, Northrup resorted to detail. Her eyes were almost golden: the lashes made them seem darker. The face was young and yet it held that expression of age that often marks the faces of children: a wondering look, yet sweetly contemptuous: not quite confident, but amused.

Now he had it! The face was like a mirror; it reflected thought and impression. Life had had nothing to do with it. Very good, so far.

“And her voice! Queer voice to be found here”––Northrup was keen about voices; they instantly affected him. “Her voice had tones in it that vibrated. It might be the product of––well, everything which it probably wasn’t.”

This was laughable.

Northrup would not have been surprised at that moment to have seen The Face in the flaming bushes by the roadside.

“I wonder if there is any habitation between that yellow house and the inn?” He pulled himself together and strode on. Hunger and weariness were overcoming moods and 9 fancies. There was not. The gold and scarlet hills rose unbroken to the left and the road wound divertingly by the lake.

There was no wind; scarcely a stirring of the leaves, but birds sang and fish darted in the clear water that reflected the colour and form of every branch and twig.

In another half hour Northrup saw the inn on ahead. He knew it at once from a picture-card he had bought earlier in the day. It set so close to the lake as to give the impression of getting its feet wet. It was a long, low white building with more windows, doors, and chimneys than seemed necessary. Everything looked trim and neat and smoke curled briskly above the hospitable house. There were, apparently, many fires in action, and they bespoke comfort and food.

Northrup, upon reaching the inn, saw that a mere strip of lawn separated it from the road and lake, the piazza was on a level with the ground and three doors gave choice of entrance to the wayfarer. Northrup chose the one near the middle and respectfully tapped on it, drawing back instantly. He did not mean to have a second joke played upon him by doors.

There was a stirring inside, a dog gave a sleepy grunt, and a man’s voice called out:

“The bolt’s off.”

It would seem that doors were incidental barriers in King’s Forest. No one was expected to regard them seriously.

Northrup entered and then stood still.

He was alive to impressions, and this second room, within a short space of time, had power, also, to arouse surprise. There was no sunlight here––the overshadowing piazza prevented that––but there were two enormous fireplaces, one at either end of the large room, and upon the hearths of both generous fires were burning ruddily.

By the one nearer to Northrup sat a man with a bandaged leg stretched out before him on a stool, and a gold-and-white collie at his side. The man was elderly, stout, and imposing. His curly gray hair sprang––no other word conveyed the impression of the vitality and alertness of the hair––above a 10 rosy, genial face; the eyes were small, keen, and full of humour, the voice had already given a suggestion of welcome.

“You are Mr. Heathcote, I suppose?”

Northrup was subconsciously aware of the good old mahogany furniture; the well-kept appearance of everything.

“You’ve struck it right. Will you set?”

“Thanks.”

Northrup took the chair opposite the master of the inn.

“My name is Northrup, Brace Northrup from New York.”

“Footing it?” Heathcote was rapidly making one of his sudden estimates; generally he did not take the trouble to do this, but some people called forth his approval or disapproval at once.

“Yes. I’ve taken my time, been a week on the way and, incidentally, recovering from an illness.”

“Pausing or staying on?”

Northrup meant to say “pausing”; instead he found himself stating that he’d like to stay on if he could be accommodated.

“We’ll have to consult Aunt Polly as to that,” said Heathcote. “You see I’m rather off my legs just now. Gander! Great bird, that gander. He lit out two weeks ago and cut me to the bone with his wing. He’s got a wing like a hatchet. I’ll be about in a day or two and taking command, but until then I have to let my sister have her say as to what burdens she feels she can carry.”

For a moment Northrup regarded himself, mentally, as a burden. It was a new sensation and he felt like putting up a plea; but before he could frame one Heathcote gave a low whistle and almost at once a door at the rear opened, admitting a fragrance of delectable food and the smallest woman Northrup had ever seen. That so fragile a creature could bear any responsibility outside that due herself, was difficult to comprehend until one looked into the strange, clear eyes peering through glasses, set awry. Unquenchable youth and power lay deep in those piercing eyes; there was force that could command the slight body to do its bidding.

“Polly, this is Mr. Northrup, from New York”––was there 11 lurking amusement in the tone?––“He wants to stop on; what do you say? It’s up to you and don’t hesitate to speak your mind.”

The woman regarded the candidate for her favour much as she might have a letter of introduction; quite impersonally but decidedly judicially.

“If Mr. Northrup will take pot luck and as is, I think he can stay, brother.”

Northrup had an unreasoning sense of relief. All his life his pulses quickened when what he desired seemed about to elude him. He smiled, now, like a boy.

“Thank you,” he ventured, “you’ll find me most grateful and adaptable.”

“Well, since that’s settled,” Aunt Polly seemed to pigeonhole her guest and label him as an individual, “I’ll run out and lay another plate. You just go along upstairs and pick out your room. They are all ready. The front ones open to the lake and the west; the back ones are east and woodsy; outside of that there isn’t much choice. It’s one o’ clock now, but I can put things back a spell and give you a chance to wash before dinner.”

Northrup picked up his bag and hat and started for the stairs at the far end of the room. The sense of unreality was still upon him. He felt like breathing low and stepping light. The sensation smacked of magic. So long as one could believe it, it would hold, but once you doubted, the old, grim existence would snatch you!

Upstairs the hall ran from north to south of the rambling house, on either side the doors opened, leading to small, orderly rooms, apparently alike except in detail of colour and placing of furniture. There was a hearth in every room, upon which lay wood ready to light and beside which stood huge baskets of logs giving promise of unlimited comfort. Fresh towels and water were on stands, and the beds fairly reached out to tired bodies with assurances of rest and sleep. Northrup went, still treading light and believing, from door to door, and then he chose a west room because the lapping of the lake sounded like a lullaby.

12

It was the work of a few moments to drop dust-stained garments and plunge one’s head into the icy water; a few moments more and a refreshed man emerged from a vigorous rubbing and gave a laugh of sheer delight.

“I’m in for it!” he muttered, still clinging to the mood of unreality. “I bet my last nickel that something’s going to happen and by the lord Harry! I’m going to see it through. This is one of those holes Manly prophesied about. Looks as if it had been waiting for me to come.”

He was downstairs in time to help his host to the head of his table, in the adjoining room. They made rather an imposing procession, Aunt Polly leading, the golden collie bringing up the rear.

Heathcote in a fat whisper gave some staccato advice en route: “Better call sister ‘Aunt Polly’ at once. If you don’t suggest offishness, none will be suspected. Fall in line, I say! Dog’s name is Ginger. Animals like to be tagged, more human-like. Act as if you always had been, or had come back. If there’s one thing Polly can’t abide, it’s hitting a snag.”

Devoutly Northrup vowed he’d be no snag.

He took his place on the east side of the table, so to speak, and the lake was in front of him. The lake was becoming a vital feature in the new environment.

The water was ruffled now; the reflections trembled and the lapping was more insistent.

The food was excellent. Aunt Polly had prepared it and watched, with a true artist’s eye, her guest’s appreciation of it.

“Food is just food to some folks,” she confided, casting a slantwise glance at her brother, “just what you might call fodder. But I allas have held that, viewed rightly, it feeds body and soul.”

Heathcote chuckled.

“And right you are, Aunt Polly!” Northrup said, watching the effect of his familiarity. Nothing occurred. He was being taken for granted.

Bits of history crept into the easy conversation during the 13 meal. Apparently meal-time was a function at the inn, not an episode.

Heathcote and his sister, it appeared, had come to King’s Forest for his health, fifty years before. He was twenty then; Aunt Polly eighteen.

“Just like silly pioneers,” Polly broke in, “but we found health and work and we grew to love the place. We feel toward it as one does to an adopted child, less understanding, but more responsible. Every once so often, when we got into ruts, God Almighty made us realize that He was keeping His hand on the reins,” the dear old soul chuckled happily. “Peter got himself made into a magistrate and that was something to work with. We made a home and friends, but the Forest isn’t an easy proposition. It ain’t changed much. It’s lazy and rough, and I often tell Peter that the place is like two old folks over on the Point, Twombley and Peneluna. Still and scroogy, but keeping up a mighty lot of thinking. If anything ever wakes the Forest up it’s going to show what it’s been cogitating about.”

“Is there a village?” Northrup asked.

“There’s one seven miles from here,” Heathcote replied; “stores, post office, a Methodist minister––necessary evils, you know,” this came with a fat chuckle, “but the Forest ain’t anything but the Forest. Houses sorter dropped down carelesslike where someone’s fancy fixed ’em. There used to be a church and school. The school burned down; the church, half finished, stands like a hint for better living, on a little island a half mile down the line. There’s the Point where the folks live as can’t get a footing elsewhere. There’s always a Point or a Hollow, you know. And there’s the Mines, back some miles to the south. Iron that used to be worked. Queer holdings!”

Peter paused. Sustained conversation always made him pant and gave Polly an opportunity to edge in.

“As I was saying,” she began calmly, “every once so often God Almighty made us realize that He had His hand on the reins. When me and Peter got to acting as if we owned things, someone new happened along and––stuck.

14

“First there was old Doctor Rivers. We never rightly knew where he came from, or why. By and by we got to feeling we best showed our love and respect by not wondering about him.

“Then after the doctor did his stint and left his mark, Maclin came. We’re studying over Maclin yet. He bought the Mines and kinder settled down on us all like a heavy air that ain’t got any set of the wind.”

Aunt Polly was picturesque. Peter eyed her admiringly and gave his comfortable chuckle.

“Sister holds,” he explained, “that the Forest isn’t the God-forsaken place it looks to be, but is a rich possibility. I differ, and that is what queers Maclin with us. His buying those wore-out mines and saying he’s going to make the Forest is damaging evidence against him. He ain’t no fool: then what is he? That’s what we’re conjuring with. Maclin ain’t seeing himself in partnership with the Almighty, not he! One-man firm for Maclin.”

“Now, brother!” Polly remarked while Heathcote was catching his breath, “I say give a good doubt to a man till you have to give a bad one. We’ve no right to judge Maclin yet, he’s only just begun to have his say-so out loud, and put out feelers.”

“And now”––Peter put his plate down for the faithful Ginger to lap clean, and prepared to rise––“and now, you’ve come, stranger. When you hesitated a time back as to whether you was pausing or staying on, I just held my breath, and when you slapped out, ‘staying on,’ I thought to myself, ‘Now, which is he, a dispensation of Providence or just a plain passer-by?’”

Northrup smiled grimly. This all fitted into his own vague mood of unreality.

“You mustn’t take me seriously,” he said, going around the table to help his host. “I’m as ordinary as the majority. I like the looks of things here. I stop and enjoy myself, and pass on! That’s the usual way, isn’t it?”

“Yes”––Polly began gathering the dishes––“it’s what happens while one stops, that counts. That, and what one 15 leaves behind, when he passes on. It’s real queer, though, to have any one staying on this season of the year.”

During the afternoon Northrup wandered in the woods which rose abruptly from behind the house. So still was the brilliant forest that a falling leaf startled him and a scurrying creature among the bushes set his nerves tingling. Then it was that the haunting face and voice of the girl in the little yellow house rose again with an insistence that could not be disregarded. It dominated his thought; it was part of this strange sense of shadowy and coming events; it refused to be set aside.

It did not mock him––he could have dealt with that phase––it pleaded. It seemed to implore him to accept it along with his quickened pulses; the colour of the autumn day; the sweetness of the smell of crushed leaves; the sound of lapping water; the song of birds.

“I wonder who she is, and why she looks as she does?”

Northrup ceased to scoff at his fancy; he wooed it. He pictured the girl’s hair loose from the rough cap––curly, rather wild hair with an uplift in every tendril. What colour was it? Gold-brown probably, like the eyes. For five minutes he tried to decide this but knew that he would have to see it again to make sure.

The face was a small face, but it was strong and unutterably appealing. A hungry little face; a face whose soul was ill-nourished, a contradictory face.

Northrup called himself to order just here. He wasn’t going to be an ass, not if he could help it!

“Strange voice!” he thought on. “It had calls in it. I am an ass!” he admitted, and in order to get the better of the situation he turned sharply and went back to the inn.

16

CHAPTER II

Northrup decided to refrain from asking questions. Long ago he discovered that he could gain more from a receptive state of mind than an inquiring one.

He began to understand his peculiar mental excitement. Manly was right. All that was needed to bring about complete recovery was detachment and opportunity for his machinery to get into action. He knew the signs. The wheels were beginning to turn!

Now from Northrup’s point of view this was all right; but his sudden appearance in a place where bad roads and no reason for coming usually kept people out, caused a ripple to reach from the inn to the Point and even the Mines, twelve miles away.

The people took time before accepting strangers; they had not yet digested Maclin, and in silent disapproval they regarded Northrup as in some way connected with Maclin.

The mine owner had been more or less familiar to the Forest for several years: his coming and going were watched and speculated upon. Recently he had imported foreign labour, much to the sneering contempt of the natives whose philosophy did not include the necessity of perpetual work and certainly repudiated the idea of outsiders originating a new system. But Northrup was not a foreigner. He must be regarded from a different angle.

Aunt Polly made it her business, after the first few days, to start propaganda of a safe and inspiring character about her guest. While not committing herself to any definite statement, she made it known that if Northrup had any connection with Maclin, he was against him, not for him.

Maclin just then was the hub from which the spokes of curiosity led.

17

“He couldn’t be for Maclin,” Polly had said to Peter. “You know that as well as I do, Peter Heathcote. And getting facts signed and witnessed is an awful waste of time. The Lord gave women a sixth sense and it’s a powerful sight surer than affidavits.”

Peter grunted. So long as Polly hinted and made no statements he was content. He believed she was partly right. He thought Northrup might be on Maclin’s trail, and from appearances Peter had confidence in his guest’s ability to run his quarry to earth where, heretofore, others of the Forest had failed.

He liked Northrup, believed in him, and while he sat and nursed his leg, he let Polly do her hinting.

It was the evening of Northrup’s third day at the inn when the three, with Ginger blinking contentedly, sat by the fire. Polly knitted and smiled happily. She had drifted that day into calling Northrup “Brace” and that betokened surrender. Peter puffed and regarded his bandaged leg––he had taken a few steps during the afternoon, leaning on Northrup’s arm, and his mood was one of supreme satisfaction.

Breaking the silence, now and again, an irritating sound of a bell intruded. It was a disconcerting note for it had a wild quality as if it were being run away with and was sending forth an appeal. Loud; soft; near; distant.

“Is there a church around here?” Northrup asked at last.

“There is,” Heathcote replied, taking the pipe from his lips. “It’s the half-built church I mentioned to you. A bit down the line you come to a bridge across an arm of the lake. On a little island is the chapel. It ain’t ever used now. Remember, Polly,” Heathcote turned to his sister, “the last time the Bishop came here? Mary-Clare was about as high as nothing, and just getting over the mumps. She got panicky when she heard of the Bishop, asked ole Doc if she could catch it. I guess the Bishop wasn’t catching! Yes, sir, the church is there, but it’s deserted.”

“What is the bell ringing for?” Northrup roused, more because 18 the name of Mary-Clare had been introduced than because the bell interested him.

He knew, now, that the girl in the yellow house was Mary-Clare. Her name slipped into sound frequently, but that was all.

“Who is ringing the bell?”

Aunt Polly rolled her knitting carefully and set her glasses aslant on the top of her head. Northrup soon learned that the angle and position of Aunt Polly’s spectacles were significant.

“No human hands are ringing the bell,” she remarked quietly. “I hold one notion, Peter another. I say the bell is ha’nted; calling, calling folks, making them remember!”

“Now, Polly!” Peter knocked the ashes from his pipe on to Ginger’s back. “Don’t get to criss-crossing and apple-sassing about that bell.” He turned to Northrup and winked.

“Women is curious,” he admitted. “When things are flat and lacking flavour they put in a pinch of this or that to spice them up. Fact is––there’s a change of wind and it ain’t sot yet. While it’s shifting around it hits, once so often, a chink in the belfry that’s got to be mended some day. That’s the sum and tee-total of Polly’s ha’nted tower.”

Then, as if the question escaped without his sanction and quite to his consternation, Northrup spoke again:

“Who lives in the yellow house by the crossroads?”

This was not honest. Northrup knew who. What he wanted to say, but had not dared, was: “Tell me about her.”

“I reckon you mean Mary-Clare.” Aunt Polly shook a finger at Ginger. “That dog,” she added, “jest naturally hates the bell ringing. Animals sense more than men!”

This slur escaped Peter, he was intent upon Northrup’s question.

“Seen that girl in the yellow house?” he asked. “Great girl, Mary-Clare. Great girl.”

“I stopped there on my way here to ask directions. Rather unusual looking girl.”

“She is that!” Peter nodded. Mary-Clare was about 19 the only bit of romance Peter permitted himself. “Remember the night Mary-Clare was born, Polly?”

Of course Polly remembered. Northrup felt fully convinced that Polly knew everything in King’s Forest and never forgot it. She nodded, drew her spectacles over her eyes, and continued her knitting while Peter hit the high spots of Mary-Clare’s past. Somehow the shallows Northrup was filling while he listened.

Peter was in his element and drawled on:

“The wildest storm you ever saw round these parts––snow and gale; they don’t usually hang together long, but they did that night. It was a regular night if there ever was one. Nobody stirring abroad ’less he had to. Ole Doc was out––someone over the mine-way had got mussed up with the machinery. Ole Doc was a minister as well as a doctor. He’d tried both jobs and used to say it came in handy, but he leaned most to medicine as being, what you might say, more practical.”

“You needn’t be sacrilegious, brother,” Polly interjected. “The story won’t lose anything by holding to reverence.”

“Oh, well,” Heathcote chuckled, “have it any way you want to. Ole Doc had us coming and going, that’s what I’m getting over. If he found he couldn’t help folks to live, he plumped about and helped ’em to die. Great man, ole Doc! Came as you did, son, and settled. We never knew anything about his life before he took root here. Well, that night I’m telling you about, he was on his way back from the mines when he spied a fire on the up-side of the lake. He said it looked mighty curious shining and flaming in the blinding whiteness. It was Dan Hamlin’s shack. Later we heard what had happened. Dan had come home drunk––when he wasn’t drunk you couldn’t find a decenter man than Hamlin, but liquor made him quarrelsome. His wife was going to have a baby––Mary-Clare, to be exact––and when he came in with Jack Seaver, the mail-carrier, there was a row on concerning something Seaver hadn’t brought that Hamlin had ordered for his wife. There never was any reasoning with 20 Hamlin when he was drunk, so Seaver tried to settle the question by a fight. Seaver was like that––never had any patience. Lamp turned over, set the shack on fire!” Peter breathed hard.

“Mrs. Hamlin ran for her life and the two men ran from justice. Seaver came back later and told the story. Hamlin shot himself the following day when he heard what had happened. Blamed fool! Mary-Clare was left, but she didn’t seem to amount to much in the beginning. It was this way: Mrs. Hamlin ran till she fell in a snowdrift. Ole Doc found her there.” Heathcote paused. The logs fell apart and the room grew hot. Northrup started as if roused from a dream.

“Yes, sir!” Heathcote went on. “Ole Doc found her there and, well, sir, he was doctor and minister for sure that night. There wasn’t no choice as you might say. Mary-Clare was born in that snowdrift, and the mother died there! Ole Doc took ’em both home later.”

“Good God!” ejaculated Northrup. “That’s the grimmest tale I ever listened to. What came next?”

“The funeral––a double one, for they brought Hamlin’s body back. Then the saving of Mary-Clare. Polly and I wanted her––but ole Doc said he’d have to keep an eye on her for a while––she seemed sorter petering out for some time, and then when she took a turn and caught on, you couldn’t pry her away from ole Doc. He gave her his name and everything else. His wife was dead; his boy away to school, his housekeeper was a master hand with babies, and somehow ole Doc got to figuring out that Mary-Clare was a recompense for what he’d lost in women folks, and so he raised her and taught her. Good Lord, the education he pumped into that girl! He wouldn’t let her go to school, but whenever he happened to think of anything he taught it to her, and he was powerful educated. Said he wanted to see what he could do by answering her questions and letting her think things out for herself. Remember, Polly, how Mary-Clare used to ride behind ole Doc with a book braced up against his back?”

21

Aunt Polly lifted the sock she was knitting and wiped her eyes.

“Mary-Clare just naturally makes you laugh and cry at once,” the old voice replied, “remembering her is real diverting. She came from plain, decent stock, but something was grafted onto her while she was young and it made a new kind of girl of Mary-Clare. So loving and loyal.” Again Aunt Polly wiped her eyes.

“And brave and grateful,” Heathcote took up his story, “and terrible far-seeing. I don’t hold with Polly that Mary-Clare became something new by grafting. Seems more like she was two girls, both keeping pace and watching out and one standing guard if the other took a time off. I never did feel sure ole Doc was quite fair with Mary-Clare. Without meaning to, he got a stranglehold on that girl. She’d have trotted off to hell for him, or with him. She’d have held her head high and laughed it off, too. I don’t suppose any one on God’s earth actually knows what the real Mary-Clare thinks about things on her own hook, but you bet she has ideas!”

Northrup was more interested than he had been in many a day. The story thrilled him. The girl of the yellow house loomed large upon his vision and he began to understand. He was not one to scoff at things beyond the pale of exact science; his craft was one that took much for granted that could not be reduced to fact. Standing at the door of the little yellow house he had become a victim of suggestion. That accounted for it. The mists were passing. He had not been such an ass, after all.

“So! that is your old doctor’s place down by the crossroads?” he said with a genuine sense of relief.

“It was. Ole Doc died seven years back.”

“What became of his son––you said he had a boy?” Northrup was gathering the threads in his hands. Nothing must escape him; it was all grist.

“Oh! Larry came off and on the scene. There are them as think ole Doc didn’t treat Larry fair and square. I don’t know, but anyway, just before ole Doc was struck with that 22 stroke that finished him, Larry came home and seemed to be forgiving enough, if there had been any wrong done. He had considerable education; ole Doc had given him that chance, but Larry drifted––allas was, and still is, a drifter. We all stand pat for the feller on account of his father and Mary-Clare. It was a blamed risky thing, though, Larry’s marrying Mary-Clare! I allas will hold to that!”

Once, when Northrup was a young boy, he had been shocked by electricity. The memory of his experience often recurred to him in moments of stress. He had been standing within a few yards of the tree that had been shattered, and he had fallen unconscious. When he came to, he was vividly aware of the slightest details of sight and sound surrounding him. His senses seemed to have been quickened during the lapse of time. He winced at the light; the flickering of leaves above him hurt; the song of birds beat against his brain with sweet clamour, and he vaguely wondered what had happened to him; where he had been?

In like manner Northrup, now, was aware of a painful keenness of his senses. Heathcote looked large and his voice vibrated in the quiet room; Aunt Polly seemed dwindling, physically, while something about her––the light playing on her knitting needles and spectacles, probably––radiated. The crackling logs were like claps of thunder. Northrup pulled himself to an upright position as one does who resists hypnotism.

“I’m afraid you’re tiring Brace, brother.”

Aunt Polly’s voice, low, even, and calm, got into the confusion as a soft breeze had, that day so long ago, and brought full consciousness in its wake.

“On the other hand,” Northrup gave a relieved laugh, “I am intensely interested. You see, she looks so young, that Mrs.––Mrs.–––”

“Rivers?” suggested Heathcote refilling his pipe. “Lord! I wonder if any one ever called Mary-Clare Mrs. Rivers before, Polly?” Heathcote paused, then went on:

“Yes; Mary-Clare holds her own and her boy-togs help the idea. Mary-Clare ain’t properly grown up, anyway. 23 Some parts of her are terrible strong and thrifty; parts as has caught the sunlight, so to speak, and been sheltered from blasts. The other parts of her ain’t what you might say shrivelled, but they’ve kept hid and they ain’t ever on exhibition.”

“How ridiculous you are, brother.” Aunt Polly was enjoying her brother’s flights, but felt called upon to keep him in order.

“Oh! it’s just a blamed amusing fancy of mine,” Heathcote chuckled, “to calculate ’bout Mary-Clare. You see, being a magistrate, I married Mary-Clare to Larry, and I’ve never been at ease about the thing, though I had to put it through. There lay ole Doc looking volumes and not being able to speak a word––nothing to do for him but keep him company and try to find out what he wanted. He kept on wanting something like all possessed. Larry and Mary-Clare hung over him asking, was it this or that? and his big, burning eyes sorter flickering, never steady. I recall old Peneluna Todd was there and she said the young uns were pestering the ole Doc. Then, it was ’long about midnight, Larry rose up from asking some question, and there was a new look on his face, a white, frozen kind of look. Mary-Clare kinder sprang at him. ‘What is it?’ she whispered, and I ain’t never forgot her face. At first Larry didn’t answer and he began shaking, like he had the chills.

“‘You must tell me, Larry!’ Mary-Clare went up close and took Larry by the shoulders as if she was going to tear his secret from him. Then she went on to say how he had no right to keep anything from her––her, as would give her soul for the ole Doc. She meant it, too. Well, Larry sort of dragged it out of himself. Ole Doc wanted him and Mary-Clare to marry! That was what was wanted! There wasn’t much time to consider things, but Mary-Clare went close to the bed and knelt down and said slowly and real tender:

“‘You can hear me, can’t you, Daddy?’ The flicker in ole Doc’s eyes steadied. I reckon any call of Mary-Clare’s could halt him, short of the other side of Jordan. ‘Then, 24 dearie Dad, listen.’ Just like that she said it. I remember every word. ‘You want me to marry Larry––now? It would make you––happy?’ The steady look seemed to kinder freeze. I called it a listening look more than an understanding one. I’ll allas hold to that, but God knows there warn’t much time to calculate. Peneluna began acting up but Mary-Clare set her aside.

“‘All right, Daddy darling!’ she whispered, and with that she stood up and said to me, ‘You marry us at once! Come close so that he can see and know!’

“Things go here in the Forest that don’t go elsewhere; I married them two because I couldn’t help it––something drew me on. And then just when I got to the end, ole Doc rose up like he was lifted––he stared at what was passing; tried to say something, and sank back smiling––dead!”

Northrup wiped his forehead. There were drops of perspiration on it, and his breath came roughly through his throat; he seemed part of the dramatic scene.

“Satisfied, I say!” broke in Aunt Polly. “It was a big risk, but the dying see far, and the doctor had left all he had to Mary-Clare, which didn’t seem just right to his flesh-and-blood boy, and I guess he wanted to mend a bad matter the only way he could.”

“Maybe!” sighed Peter. “Maybe. But he took big chances even for a dying man. I couldn’t get rid of the notion that when he cottoned to what had been done, he sorter threw up his hands! But what happened to Mary-Clare just took my breath. ’Pon my soul, as I looked at her it was like I saw her going away after ole Doc and leaving, in her place, a new, different woman that really didn’t count so long as she looked after things while the real Mary-Clare went about her business. It was disturbing and I felt downright giddy.”

“You’re downright silly, Peter Heathcote”––Polly tossed her knitting aside and shifted the pillows of the couch––“making Mary-Clare out the way you do when she’s ordinary enough and doing her life tasks same as other folks.”

25

“How has it worked out?” Northrup heard the words as if another spoke them.

“I guess, friend, that’s what no one actually knows.” Peter pulled on his pipe. “Larry is on and off. Maclin, over to the mines, seems to do the ordering of Larry’s coming and going. Darned funny business, I say. However, there you are. When Larry is home I guess the way Mary-Clare holds her head and laughs gets on his nerves. No man likes to feel that he can’t clutch hold of his wife, but it comes to that, say what you will, Mary-Clare keeps free of things in a mighty odd fashion; I mean the real part of her; the other part goes regular enough.

“She don’t slacken up on her plain duty. What the ole Doc left she shares right enough with Larry; she keeps the house like it should be kept, and she’s a good second to Polly here, where fodder is concerned. But something happened when Larry was last home that leaked out somehow. A girl called Jan-an let it slip. Not a quarrel exactly, but a thing that wasn’t rightfully settled. Larry was ordered off, sudden, by Maclin, but take it from me, when Larry comes back he’ll get his innings. Larry isn’t what you could call a sticker, but he gets there all the same. He ain’t going to let any woman go too far with him. That’s where Larry comes out strong––with women.”

“I don’t know as you ought to talk so free, brother.” Polly looked dubious.

“In the meantime,” Northrup said quietly, “the little wife lives alone in the yellow house, waiting?” He hadn’t heard Polly’s caution.

He was thinking of Mary-Clare’s look when she confronted him the day of his coming. Was she expecting her husband? Had she learned to love him? Was she that kind of woman? The kind that thrives on neglect and indifference?

“Not alone, as you might say,” Heathcote’s voice drawled. “There’s Noreen, her little girl, you know. Noreen seems at times to be about a thousand years older than her mother, but by actual count she’s going on six, ain’t that it, Polly?”

26

Again Northrup felt as he had that day by the lightning-shattered tree.

“Her little girl?” he asked slowly, and Aunt Polly raised her eyes to his face. She looked troubled, vaguely uneasy.

“Yep!” Peter rose stiffly. He wanted to go to bed. “Noreen’s the saving from the litter. How many was there, Polly?”

Polly got upon her feet, the trouble-look growing in her eyes.

“Noreen had a twin as was dead,” she said tenderly. “Then the last one lived two hours––that’s all, brother.” She walked to the window. “The storm is setting this way,” she went on. “Just listen to that lake acting up as if it was the ocean.”

The riotous swish of the water sounded distant but insistent in the warm, quiet room, and faintly, at rare intervals, the bell, rung by unseen forces, struck dully. It had given up the struggle.

Northrup, presently, had a strong inclination to say to his host that he had changed his mind and must leave on the morrow. That course seemed the only safe and wise one.

“But why?” Something new and uncontrolled demanded an answer. Why, indeed? Why should anything he had heard cause him to change his plans? This hectic story of a young woman had set his imagination afire, but it must not make a fool of him. What really was taking place became presently overpoweringly convincing.

“I am going to write!”

That was it! The story had struck his dull brain into action and he had been caught in time, before running away. He had gained the thing he had been pursuing, and he might have let it escape! The woman of the yellow house became a mere bearer of a rare gift––his restored power! He was safe; everything was safe. The world had righted itself at last. It wasn’t the woman with the dun-coloured ending to her story that mattered; it was the story.

“I think I’ll turn in,” he said, stifling a yawn, “Good-night.”

27

“Don’t hurry about breakfast,” Aunt Polly said gently. “Breakfast is only a starter, I always hold. It’s like kindlings to start the big logs. Sleep well, and God bless you!”

She smiled up at her guest as if he were an old friend––come back!

Up in his room Northrup had difficulty in keeping himself from work. He dared not begin; if he did he would write all night. He must be sure. In the meantime, he wrote to his mother:

By the above heading you’ll see how far I’ve got on my way, searching for my lost health. I’m really in great shape. Manly was right: I had to let go! I’m struggling now between two courses. Apparently I was in a blue funk; all I needed was to find it out. Well, I’ve found it out. Shall I come home and prove it by doing the sensible thing, or shall I go on and make it doubly sure? If anything important turns up I would telegraph, but in case I do go on I want to do the job thoroughly and for a time lose myself. I will wait your word, Mother.

Northrup was not seeking to deceive any one. He might strike out for new places in a week, or he might, if the mood held, write in King’s Forest. It all depended upon the mood. What really mattered was an unfettered state.

The vagrant in him, that had been starved and denied, rose supreme. Now that he was sure that he was going to write, had a big theme, there was excuse for his desire to be free. He would return to his chink in the wall, as Manly explained, better fitted for it and with a wider vision. He had a theory that a writer was, more or less, like a person with a contagious disease: he should be exiled until all danger to the peace and happiness of others was past. If only the evenly balanced folks would see that and not act as if they were being insulted!

While he undressed, Northrup was sketching his plot mentally. In the morning it would be fixed; it would be more like copying than creating when a pen was resorted to.

“I’ll take that girl in the yellow house and do no end of things with her. Dual personality! Lord, and in this stagnant 28 pool! All right. Dual personality. Now she must get a jog about her husband and wake up! Two men and one woman. Triangle, of course. Nothing new under God’s heaven. It’s the handling of the ragged old things. I can make rather a big story out of the ingredients at hand.”

Northrup felt that he was going to sleep; going to rise to the restored desire for work. No wonder he laughed and whistled––softly; he had overtaken himself!

Three days later a telegram came from Mrs. Northrup.

“Go on,” it said simply. Mrs. Northrup knew when it was wisest to let go. But this was not true of Kathryn Morris, the other woman most closely attached to Northrup’s life. Kathryn never let go. When she lost interest in any one, or anything, she flung it, or him, from her with no doubtful attitude of mind. Kathryn meant to marry Northrup some day and he fully expected to marry her, though neither of them could ever recall just when, or how, this understanding had been arrived at.

It was, to all appearances, a most fitting outcome to close family interests and friendships. It had just naturally happened up to the point when both would desire to bring it to a culmination. The next step, naturally, must be taken by Kathryn for, when Northrup had ventured to suggest, during his convalescence, a definite date for their wedding, Kathryn had, with great show of tenderness, pushed the matter aside.

The fact was, marriage to Kathryn was not a terminal, but a way station where one was obliged to change for another stretch on a pleasant and unhampered journey, and she had no intention of marrying a possible invalid or, perhaps, a dying man.

So while Northrup struggled out of his long and serious illness, Kathryn played her little game under cover. Some women, rather dull and stupid ones, can do this admirably if they are young enough and lovely enough to carry it through, and Kathryn was both. She had also that peculiar asset of looking divinely intuitive and sweet during her silences, and it would have taken a keen reader of human 29 nature to decide whether Kathryn Morris’s silences brooded over a rare storeroom of treasure or over a haunted and empty chamber.

Without any one being aware of the reasons for his reappearance, a certain Alexander Arnold materialized while Northrup had been at his worst. Sandy Arnold had figured rather vehemently in the year following Kathryn’s “coming out,” but had faded away when Northrup began to show signs of becoming famous.

Arnold was a man who made money and lost it in a breath-taking fashion, but gradually he was steadying himself and was more often up than down––he was decidedly up at the time of Northrup’s darkest hour; he was still refusing to disappear when Northrup emerged from the shadows and showed signs of persisting. This was disconcerting. Kathryn faced a situation, and situations were never thrilling to her: she lacked the sporting spirit; she always played safe or endeavoured to. Sandy was still in evidence when Northrup disappeared from the scene.

Mrs. Northrup read Brace’s letter to Kathryn, and something in the girl rose in alarm. This ignoring of her, for whatever reason, was most disturbing. Brace should have taken her, if not his mother, into his confidence. Instead he had “cut and run”––that was the way Kathryn thought of it. Aloud she said, with that ravishing look of hers:

“How very Brace-like! Getting material and colour I suppose he calls it. I wish”––this with a tender, yearning smile––“I wish, for your sake and mine, dear, that his genius ran in another direction, stocks or banking––anything with an office. It is so worrying, this trick of his of hunting plots.”

“I only hope that he can write again,” Mrs. Northrup returned, patting the letter on her knee. Once she had wanted to write, but she had had her son instead. In her day women did not have professions and sons. They chose. Well, she had chosen, and paid the price. Her husband had cost her much; her son was her recompense. He was her interpreter, also.

“Where do you think he’ll go?” Kathryn asked.

30

“He’ll tell us when he comes home.” There was something cryptic about Helen Northrup when she was seeking to help her son. Kathryn once more bridled. She was direct herself, very direct, but her advances were made under a barrage fire.

Her next step was to go to Doctor Manly. She chose his office hour, waited her turn, and then pleaded wakefulness and headache as her excuse for the call.

Manly hated wakefulness and headaches. You couldn’t put them under the X-ray; you couldn’t operate on them; you had to deal with them by faith. Kathryn was not lacking in imagination and she gave a fairly accurate description of long, black hours and consequent pain––“here.” She touched the base of her brain. She vaguely recalled that the nerve centres were in that locality.

Manly was impressed and while he was off on that scent, somehow Northrup got into the conversation.

“I cannot help worrying about Brace, more for his mother’s sake than his.” Kathryn looked very sweet and womanly, “He has been so ill and the letter his mother has just received is disturbing.”

Here Kathryn quoted it and Manly grinned.

“That’s all right,” he said, shaking a bottle of pills. “It does a human creature no end of good to run away at times. I often wonder why more of us don’t do it and come back keener and better.”

“Some of us have duties.” Kathryn looked noble and self-sacrificing.

“Some of us would perform them a darned sight better if we took the half holiday now and then that the soul, or whatever you call it, craves. Now Northrup ought to look to his job––it is a job in his case. You wouldn’t expect a travelling salesman to hang around his shop all the time, would you?”

Kathryn had never had any experience with travelling salesmen––she wasn’t clear as to their mission in life. So she said doubtfully:

“I suppose not.”

31

“Certainly not! An office man is one thing; a professional man, another; and these wandering Johnnies, like Northrup, still another breed. He’s been starving his scent––that’s what I told him. Too much woman in his––and I don’t mean to hurt you, Kathryn, but you ought to get it into your system that marrying a man like Northrup is like marrying a doctor or minister; you’ve got to have a lot of faith or you’re going to break your man.”

Kathryn’s eyes contracted, then she laughed.

“How charming you are, Doctor Manly, when you’re making talk. Are those pills bitter?” Kathryn reached out for them. “Not that I mind, but I hate to be taken by surprise.”

“They’re as bitter as––well, they’re quinine. You need toning up.”

“You think I need a change?” The tone was pensive.

“Change?” Manly had a sense of humour. “Well, yes, I do. Go to bed early. Cut out rich food; you’ll be fat at forty if you don’t, Miss Kathryn. Take up some good physical work, not exercises. Really, it would be a great thing for you if you discharged one of your maids.”

“Which one, Doctor Manly?”

“The one who is on her feet most.”

And so, while Northrup settled down in King’s Forest, and his mother fancied him travelling far, Kathryn set her pretty lips close and jotted down the address of Helen Northrup’s letter in a small red book.

32

CHAPTER III

Mary-Clare stood in the doorway of the little yellow house. Her mud-stained clothes gave evidence that the recent storm had not kept her indoors––she was really in a very messy, caked state––but it was always good to breathe the air after a big storm; it was so alive and thrilling, and she had put off a change of dress while she debated a second trip. There was a stretching-out look on Mary-Clare’s face and her eyes were turned to a little trail leading into the hilly woods across the highway.

Noreen came to the door and stood close to her mother. Noreen was only six, but at times she looked ageless. When the child abandoned herself to pure enjoyment, she talked baby talk and––played. But usually she was on guard, in a fierce kind of blind adoration for her mother. Just what the child feared no one could tell, but there was a constant appearance of alertness in her attitude even in her happiest moments.

“I guess you want the woods, Motherly?” The small up-turned face made the young mother’s heart beat quicker; the tie was strong between them.

“I do, Noreen. It has been ten whole days since I had them.”

“Well, Motherly, why don’t you go?”

“And leave my baby alone?”

“I’ll get Jan-an to come!”

“Oh! you blessed!” Mary-Clare bent and kissed the worshipping face. “I tell you, Sweetheart. Mother will take a bite of lunch and go up the trail, if you will go to Jan-an. If you cannot find her, then come up the trail to Motherly––how will that do?”

33

“Yes,” Noreen sweetly acquiesced. “I’ll come to the––the–––” she waited for the word.

“Yawning Gap,” suggested the mother, reverting to a dearly loved romance.

“Yes. I’ll come to the Yawning Gap and I’ll give the call.”

“And I’ll call back: Oh! wow!––Oh! wo!” The musical voice rose like a flute and Noreen danced about.

“And I’ll answer: wo wow!––oh!” The piping tones were also flute-like, an echo of the mother’s.

“And then, down will fall the drawbridge with a mighty clatter.” Mary-Clare looked majestic even in her muddy trousers as she portrayed the action. “And over the Gap will come the Princess Light-of-my-Heart with her message.”