Blue-Bird Weather

by Robert W. Chambers

interest andpleasure, scarcely turning for a glance at the water or sky, save whenold Uncle Dudley made insulting remarks to some slow-drifting gull orsoaring bird of prey.

  All the pent-up and natural enthusiasm of years was fairly bubbling toher lips; all the long-suppressed necessity of speech with one of herown kind who was not of her own kin.

  It seemed as though they conversed and exchanged views on every topicwhich concerned heaven and earth, flashing from one subject to anotherwhich had nothing at all to do with anything yet discussed.

  Out around them the flat leagues of water turned glassy and calm as amillpond; the ducks and geese were asleep on their stools; even oldUncle Dudley stood sentinel, with one leg buried in the downy plumage ofhis belly, but his weather eye remained brilliantly open to any stir inthe blue vault above.

  "They ate their luncheon there together."]

  They ate their luncheon there together, he serving her with hot coffeefrom the vacuum bottle, she plying him with sandwiches.

  And now, to her beauty was added an adorable friendliness andconfidence, free from the slightest taint of self-consciousness or theleast blemish of coquetry. Intelligent, yet modest to the verge ofshyness, eager yet reserved, warm hearted yet charmingly impersonal withhim, he realized that she was finding, with him, only the happiness ofspeech with mankind in the abstract. And so she poured out to him herheart, long stifled in the abyss of her isolation; and, gazing into hiseyes, she was gazing merely toward all that was bright and happy andyouthful and responsive, and he was its symbol, God-sent from those busyhaunts of men which already, to her, had become only memories of ablessed vision.

  And all the while the undercurrent of his own thoughts ran onunceasingly: "What can I do for her? I am falling in love--in love,surely, hopelessly. What can I do for her--for her brother--her father?I am falling in love--in love--in love."

  The long, still, sunny afternoon slipped away. Gradually the waterturned to pearl, inlaid with gold, then with glowing rose. And now, farto the north, the first thrilling clangor of wild geese, high in theblue, came to their ears, and they shrank apart and lay back, staringupward. Nearer, nearer, came the sky trumpets, answering faintly each toeach--nearer, nearer, till high over the blind swept the misty wedge;and old Uncle Dudley flapped his wings and stretched his neck, callingup to his wild comrades of earthly delights unnumbered here under theshadow of death. And every wild goose answered him, and the decoysflapped and clamored a siren welcome; but the flying wedge glided onwardthrough the blue.

  "They've begun to move," whispered the girl. "But, oh, dear! It isblue-bird weather. Hark! Do you hear the swans? I can hear swans comingout of the north!"

  Marche could not yet hear them, but the tethered swans and geese heard,and a magnificent chorus rose from the water. Then, far away asfairyland, faintly out of the sky, came a new murmur--not the martialclangor of wild geese, but something wilder, more exquisitelyunearthly--nearer, nearer, enrapturing its weird, celestial beauty. Andnow, through the blue, with great, snowy wings slowly beating, the swanspassed over like angels; and like angels passing, hailing each other asthey winged their way, drifting on broad, white pinions, they called,each to the other in their sweet, unreal voices, gossiping, garrulous,high in the sky. And far away they floated on until they became only asilver ribbon undulating against the azure; and even then Marche couldhear the soft tumult of their calling: Heu! Heu! Hiou! Hiou-oo! untilsound and snowy flecks vanished together in mid-heaven.

  Again, coming from the far north, the trumpets of the sky squadron weresounding; they passed, wedge after wedge, sometimes in steady formation,sometimes like a wavering band of witches, and again in shiftingbattalions, sternly officered, passing through intricate aerialmaneuvers, and greeted by Uncle Dudley and the other decoys with wildbeseeching mixed with applause.

  Snowy, angelic companies of swans came alternately with the geese; thena whimpering, whispering flight of wild ducks, water-fowl in thousandsand tens of thousands, rushing onward through the aerial lanes.

  But none came to the blind. Occasionally a wedge of geese wavered,irresolute at the frantic persuasions of Uncle Dudley, but their leaderalways dragged them back to their course, and the sagging, hesitatingranks passed on.

  Sometimes, in a nearer flight of swans, some long-necked, snowy creaturewould bend its head to look curiously down at the tethered swans on thewater, but always they continued on, settling some two miles south ofFoaming Shoals, until there was half a mile of wild swans afloat there,looking like a long, low bank of snow, touched with faintest pink by theglow of the westering sun.

  IV

  Marche, pacing the shabby sitting room after supper, an unlightedcigarette between his fingers, listened to Jim recite his Latin lesson.

  "_Atque ea qui ad efeminandos animos pertinent important_," repeated theboy; and Marche nodded absently.

  "Do you understand what that means, Jim?"

  "Not exactly, sir."

  Marche explained, then added smilingly: "But there is nothing luxuriousto corrupt manhood among the coast marshes down here. Barring fever andmoccasins, Jim, you ought to emerge, some day, into the larger worldequipped for trouble."

  "I shall go out some day," said the boy.

  Marche glanced up at the portrait of the boy's mother in its pale-giltoval. Near it, another nail had been driven, and on the faded wall paperwas an oval discoloration, as though another picture had once hungthere.

  "I wish I might see your father before I go North," said Marche, half tohimself. "Isn't he well enough to let me talk to him for a few minutes?"

  "I will ask him," said the boy.

  Marche paced the ragged carpet until the return of Jimmy.

  "Father is sorry, and asks you to please excuse him," he said.

  Marche had picked up the boy's schoolbook and was looking at the writingon the flyleaf again. Then he raised his head, eyes narrowing on the boyas though searching for some elusive memory connected with him--with hisname in the Latin book--perhaps with the writing, which, somehow, hadstirred in him, once more, the same odd and uncomfortable sensationwhich he had experienced when he first saw it.

  "'Jim,' he said, 'where did you live?'"]

  "Jim," he said, "where did you live when you lived in New York?"

  "In Eighty-seventh Street."

  "West?"

  "Yes, sir."

  "Do you remember the house--the number?"

  "No, sir."

  "Was it a private house?"

  "I don't know. It was very tall. We lived on one floor and used anelevator."

  "I see. It was an apartment house."

  The boy stood, with blonde head lowered, silently turning over theleaves of an old magazine.

  Marche walked out to the porch; his brows were bent slightly inward, andhe bit the end of his unlighted cigarette until the thing becameuseless. Then he flung it away. A few stars watched him above the blackramparts of the pines; a gentle wind was abroad, bringing inland therestless voice of the sea.

  In Marche's mind a persistent thought was groping in darkness, vainlystriving to touch and awaken memories of things forgotten. What was ithe was trying to remember? What manner of episode, and how connectedwith this place, with the boy's book, with the portrait of his mother inits oval frame? Had he seen that portrait before? Perhaps he had seen ithere, five years ago; yet that could not be, because Herold had not beenhere then.

  Was it the writing on the flyleaf that had stirred some forgottenmemory? It had seemed to him familiar, somehow--yet not like thehandwriting in Herold's business letters to him. Yet it _was_ Herold'swriting--"Jim, from Daddy"--that was the inscription. And thatinscription had riveted his attention from the first moment he saw it.

  Who was Herold? Who was this man whose undoubtable breeding and personalcultivation had stamped his children with the same unmistakabledistinction?

  Somehow or other there had been a great fall in the world for him--aterrible tumble from higher estate to land him here in this desolationof swamp
-bound silence--here where only the dark pines broke the vastsky line, where the only sound was the far rumor of the sea. Sick,probably with coast fever, poor, dependent, no doubt, on the salaryMarche paid him, isolated from all in the world that made the worldendurable to intelligence, responsible for two growing children--onealready a woman--what must be the thoughts of such a man on a night likethis, for instance?

  "I want to see that man," he kept repeating to himself. "I want to seehim; and I'm going to."

  Restless, but now always listening for the sound of a light tread whichhe had come to know so well--alas!--he began to walk to and fro, withkeen glances toward the illuminated kitchen window every time he passedit. Sometimes his mind was chaotic; sometimes clear. The emotions whichhad awakened in him within the week were complex enough to stagger amore