CHAPTER X
A BIT OF EDEN
"This is my first entrance into Eden," I said, as we passed through therustic gate made of cedar branches and between posts green withAmerican ivy.
"Like another man, you won't stay here long."
"Like Adam, I shall certainly go out when you do."
"That will be before very long, since I have promised Mr. Yocomb somemusic."
"Even though a Bohemian editor, as you may think, I am conscious of aprofound gratitude to some beneficent power, for I never could havechosen so wisely myself. I might have been in Sodom and Gomorrah--forNew York in contrast seems a union of both--receiving reports of thecrimes and casualties of the day, but I am here with this garden in theforeground and music in the background."
"You don't know anything about the music, and you may yet wish it sofar in the background as to be inaudible."
"I admit that I will be in a dilemma when we reach the music, for nomatter how much I protest, you will know just what I think."
"Yes, you had better be honest."
"Come, open for me the treasures of your ripe experience. You have beena week in the country. I know you will give me a rosebud--a rareold-fashioned one, if you please, with a quaint, sweet meaning, for Isee that such abound in this garden, and I am wholly out of humor withthe latest mode in everything. Recalling your taste for homely, honestworth, as shown by your passion for Old Plod, I shall seek a blossomamong the vegetables for you. Ah, here is one that is sweet, white, andpretty," and I plucked a cluster of flowers from a potato-hill. "By theway, what flower is this?" I asked demurely.
She looked at it blankly for a moment, then remarked, with a smile,"You have said that it was sweet, white, and pretty. Why inquirefurther?"
"Miss Warren, you have been a week in the country and don't know apotato-blossom."
"Our relations may be changed," she said, "and you become the teacher."
"Oh, here comes Zillah. We will settle the question according toScripture. Does it not say, 'A little child shall lead them'? Who areyou so glad to see, little one, Miss Warren or me?"
"I don't know thee very well yet," she said shyly.
"Do you know Miss Warren very well?"
"Oh, yes, indeed."
"How soon did you come to know her well?"
"The first day when she kissed me."
"I think that's a very nice way of getting acquainted. Won't you let mekiss you good-night when you get sleepy."
She looked at me with a doubtful smile, and said, "I'm afraid thymustache will tickle me."
The birds were singing in the orchard near, but there was not a notethat to my ear was more musical than Miss Warren's laugh. I stoopeddown before the little girl as I said:
"Suppose we see if a kiss tickles you now, and if it don't now, youwon't mind it then, you know."
She came hesitatingly to me, and gave the coveted salute with adelicious mingling of maidenly shyness and childish innocence andfrankness.
"Ah!" I exclaimed, "Eden itself contained nothing better than that. Tothink that I should have been so honored--I who have written therecords of enough crimes to sink a world!"
"Perhaps if you had committed some of them she wouldn't have kissedyou."
"If I had to live in a ninety-nine story tenement-house, as so many do,I think I would have committed them all. Well, I may come to it. Lifeis a risky battle to such as I, but I'm in heaven now."
"You do seem very happy," she said, looking at me wistfully.
"I am very happy. I have given myself up wholly to the influences ofthis day, letting them sway me, lead me whithersoever they will. Ifthis is a day of destiny, no stupid mulishness of mine shall thwart thehappy combination of the stars. That the Fates are propitious I havesingular reason to hope. Yesterday I was a broken and dispirited man.This evening I feel the influence of all this glad June life. Good Mrs.Yocomb has taken me in hand. I'm to study topography with a teacher whohas several other bumps besides that of locality, and Zillah is goingto show us the garden of Eden."
"Is this like the garden of Eden?" the little girl asked, looking up atme in surprise.
"Well, I'm not sure that it's just like it, but I'm more than contentwith this garden. In one respect I think it's better--there are nosnakes here. Now, Zillah, lead where you please, I'm in the followingmood. Do you know where any of these birds live? Do you think any ofthem are at home on their nests? If so, we'll call and pay ourrespects. When I was a horrid boy I robbed a bird's nest, and I oftenhave a twinge of remorse for it." "Do you want to see a robin's nest?"asked Zillah excitedly.
"Yes, indeed."
"Then come and walk softly when I do. There's one in that lilac-bushthere. If we don't make a noise, perhaps we can see mother robin on thenest. Sh--, sh--, very softly; now lift me up as father did--there,don't you see her?"
I did for a moment, and then the bird flew away on a swift, silentwing, but from a neighboring tree the paternal robin clamored loudlyagainst our intrusion. Nevertheless, Zillah and I peeped in.
"Oh, the queer little things!" she said, "they seem all mouth andswallow."
"Mrs. Robin undoubtedly thinks them lovely. Miss Warren, you are notquite tall enough, and since I can't hold you up like Zillah, I'll geta box from the tool-house. Isn't this the jolliest housekeeping youever saw? A father, mother, and six children, with a house six inchesacross and open to the sky. Compare that with a Fifth Avenue mansion!"
"I think it compares very favorably with many mansions on the Avenue,"she said, after I returned with a box and she had peered for a momentinto the roofless home.
"I thought you always spoke the truth," I remarked, assuming a look ofblank amazement.
"Well, prove that I don't."
"Do you mean to say that you think that a simple house, of which thisnest is the type, compares favorably with a Fifth Avenue mansion?"
"I do."
"What do you know about such mansions?"
"I have pupils in some of the best of them."
"I hear the voices of many birds, but you are the _rara avis_ of themall," I said, looking very incredulous.
"Not at all; I am simply matter-of-fact. Which is worth the more, afurnished house or the growing children in it?"
"The children ought to be."
"Well, many a woman has so much house and furniture to look after thatshe has no time for her children. The little brown mother we havefrightened away can give nearly all her time to her children; and, bythe way, they may take cold unless we depart and let her shelter themagain with her warm feathers. Besides, the protesting paterfamilias onthe pear-tree there is not aware of our good-will toward him and his,and is naturally very anxious as to what we human monsters intend. Themother bird keeps quiet, but she is watching us from some leafy coverwith tenfold his anxiety."
"You will admit, however, that the man bird is doing the best he can."
"Oh, yes, I have a broad charity for all of his kind."
"Well, I am one of his kind, and so shall take heart and bask in yourgeneral good-will. Stop your noise, old fellow, and go and tell yourwife that she may come home to the children. I differ from you, MissWarren, as I foresee I often shall. You are not matter-of-fact at all.You are unconventional, unique--" "Why not say queer, and give yourmeaning in good plain English?"
"Because that is not my meaning. I fear you are worse--that you areromantic. Moreover, I am told that girls who dote on love in a cottageall marry rich men if the chance comes." She bit her lip, colored, andseemed annoyed, but said, after a moment's hesitation, "Well, whyshouldn't they, if the rich men are the right men?"
"Oh, I think such a course eminently proper and thrifty. I'm notfinding fault with it in the least. They who do this are a littleinconsistent, however, in shunning so carefully that ideal cottage,over which, as young ladies, they had mild and poetic raptures. Now, Ican't associate this kind of thing with you. If you had 'drawings orleadings,' as Mrs. Yocomb would say, toward a Fifth Avenue mansion, youwould say
so in effect. I fear you are romantic, and are under thedelusion that love in a cottage means happiness. You have a very honestface, and you looked into that nest as if you liked it."
"Mr. Morton," she said, frowning and laughing at the same time, "I'mnot going to be argued out of self-consciousness. If we don't know whatwe know, we don't know anything. I insist upon it that I am utterlymatter-of-fact in my opinions on this question. State the subjectbriefly in prose. Does a family exist for the sake of a home, or a homefor the sake of a family? I know of many instances in which the formerof these suppositions is true. The father toils and wears himself out,often gambles--speculating, some call it--and not unfrequently cheatsand steals outright in order to keep up his establishment. The motherworks and worries, smooths her wrinkled brow to curious visitors,burdens her soul with innumerable deceits, and enslaves herself thather house and its belongings may be as good or a little better than herneighbor's. The children soon catch the same spirit, and their soulsbecome absorbed in wearing apparel. They are complacently ignorantconcerning topics of general interest and essential culture, but wouldbe mortified to death if suspected of being a little off on 'good form'and society's latest whims in mode. It is a dreary thraldom to merethings in which the soul becomes as material, narrow, and hard as theobjects which absorb it. There is no time for that which gives idealityand breadth."
"Do you realize that your philosophy would stop half the industries ofthe world? Do you not believe in large and sumptuously furnishedhouses?"
"Yes, for those who have large incomes. One may live in a palace, andyet not be a slave to the palace. Our home should be as beautiful asour taste and means can make it; but, like the nest yonder, it shouldsimply serve its purpose, leaving us the time and means to get all thegood out of the world at large that we can."
A sudden cloud of sadness overcast her face as she continued, after amoment, half in soliloquy:
"The robins will soon take wing and leave the nest; so must we. Howmany have gone already!"
"But the robins follow the sun in their flight," I said gently, "andthus they find skies more genial than those they left."
She gave me a quick, appreciative smile as she said:
"That's a pleasant thought."
"Your home must be an ideal one," I remarked unthinkingly.
She colored slightly, and laughed as she answered:
"I'm something like a snail; I carry my home, if not my house, aroundwith me. A music-teacher can afford neither a palace nor a cottage."
I looked at her with eager eyes as I said, "Pardon me if I am undulyfrank; but on this day I'm inclined to follow every impulse, and sayjust what I think, regardless of the consequences. You make upon me adecided impression of what we men call comradeship. I feel as if I hadknown you weeks and months instead of hours. Could we not have beenrobins ourselves in some previous state of existence, and have flown ona journey together?"
"Mrs. Yocomb had better take you in hand, and teach you sobriety."
"Yes, this June air, laden with the odors of these sweet old-styleroses and grape-blossoms, intoxicates me. These mountains lift me up.These birds set my nerves tingling like one of Beethoven's symphonies,played by Thomas's orchestra. In neither case do I know what the musicmeans, but I recognize a divine harmony. Never before have I beenconscious of such a rare and fine exhilaration. My mood is the productof an exceptional combination of causes, and they have culminated inthis old garden. You know, too, that I am a creature of the night, andmy faculties are always at their best as darkness comes on. I may seemto you obtuseness itself, but I feel as if I had been endowed with aspiritual and almost unerring discernment. In my sensitive and highlywrought condition, I know that the least incongruity or discord insight or sound would jar painfully. Yes, laugh at me if you will, butnevertheless I'm going to speak my thoughts with no more restraint thanthese birds are under. I'm going back for a moment to the primitivecondition of society, when there were no disguises. You are the mysteryof this garden--you who come from New York, where you seem to havelived without the shelter of home life, to have obtained yourlivelihood among conventional and artificial people, and to whom thefalse, complicated world must be well known, and yet you make no morediscord in this garden than the first woman would have made. You are inharmony with every leaf, with every flower, and every sound; with thatchild playing here and there; with the daisies in the orchard; with thelittle brown mother, whose children you feared might take cold. Hush!"I said, with a deprecatory gesture, "I will speak my mind. Never beforein my life have I enjoyed the utter absence of concealment. In the cityone must use words to hide thoughts more often than to express them,but here, in this old garden, I intend to reproduce for a brief momentone of the conditions of Eden, and to speak as frankly as the first mancould have spoken. I am not jesting either, nor am I irreverent. I say,in all sincerity, you are the mystery of this garden--you who come fromNew York, and from a life in which your own true womanhood has beenyour protection; and yet if, as of old, God should walk in this gardenin the cool of the day, it seems to me you would not be afraid. Such isthe impression--given without reserve--that you make on me--you whom Ihave just seen, as it were!"
As she realized my sincerity she looked at me with an expression ofstrong perplexity and surprise.
"Truly, Mr. Morton," she said slowly, "you are in a strange, unnaturalmood this evening."
"I seem so," I replied, "because absolutely true to nature. See how farastray from Eden we all are! I have merely for a moment spoken mythoughts without disguise, and you look as if you doubted my sanity."
"I must doubt your judgment," she said, turning away.
"Then why should such a clearly defined impression be made on me? Forevery effect there must be a cause."
She turned upon me suddenly, and her look was eager, searching, andalmost imperious in its demand to know the truth.
"Are you as sincere as you are unconventional?" she asked.
I took off my hat, as I replied, with a smile, "A garden, Miss Warren,was the first sacred place of the world, and never were sincerer wordsspoken in that primal garden."
She looked at me a moment wistfully, and even tearfully. "I wish youwere right," she said, slowly shaking her head; "your strange mood hasinfected me, I think; and I will admit that to be true is the struggleof my life, but the effort to be true is often hard, bitterly hard, inNew York. I admit that for years truthfulness has been the goal of myambition. Most young girls have a father and mother and brothers toprotect them: I have had only the truth, and I cling to it with theinstinct of self-preservation."
"You cling to it because you love it. Pardon me, you do not cling to itat all. Truth has become the warp and woof of your nature. Ah! here isyour emblem, not growing in the garden, but leaning over the fence asif it would like to come in, and yet, among all the roses here, whereis there one that excels this flower?" And I gathered for her two orthree sprays of sweetbrier.
"I won't mar your bit of Eden by a trace of affectation," she said,looking directly into my eyes in a frank and friendly manner; "I'drather be thought true than thought a genius, and I will make allowancefor your extravagant language and estimate on the ground of yourintoxication. You surely see double, and yet I am pleased that in yourtranscendental mood I do not seem to make discord in this old garden.This will seem to you a silly admission after you leave this place andrecover your everyday senses. I'm sorry already I made it--but it wassuch an odd conceit of yours!" and her heightened color and glowingface proved how she relished it.
It was an exquisite moment to me. The woman showed her pleasure asfrankly as a happy child. I had touched the keynote of her character asI had that of Adah Yocomb's a few hours before, and in her supremeindividuality Emily Warren stood revealed before me in the garden.
She probably saw more admiration in my face than she liked, for hermanner changed suddenly.
"Being honest doesn't mean being made of glass," she said brusquely;"you don't know anything about me, Mr. Morton
. You have simplydiscovered that I have not a leaning toward prevarication. That's allyour fine words amount to. Since I must keep up a reputation fortelling the truth, I'm obliged to say that you don't remind me of Adamvery much."
"No, I probably remind you of a night editor, ambitious to be smart inprint."
She bit her lip, colored a little. "I wasn't thinking of you in thatlight just then," she said. "And--and Adam is not my ideal man."
"In what light did you see me?"
"It is growing dusky, and I won't be able to see you at all soon."
"That's evasion."
"Come, Mr. Morton, I hope you do not propose to keep up Eden customsindefinitely. It's time we returned to the world to which we belong."
"Zillah!" called Mrs. Yocomb, and we saw her coming down the gardenwalk.
"Bless me! where is the child!" I exclaimed.
"When you began to soar into the realms of melodrama and forget thegarden you had asked her to show you, she sensibly tried to amuseherself. She is in the strawberry-bed, Mrs. Yocomb."
"Yes," I said, "I admit that I forgot the garden; I had good reason todo so."
"I think it is time we left the garden. You must remember that Mrs.Yocomb and I are not night editors, and cannot see in the dark."
"Mother," cried Zillah, coming forward, "see what I have found;" andher little hands were full of ripe strawberries. "If it wasn't gettingso dark I could have found more, I'm sure," she added,
"What, giving them all to me?" Miss Warren exclaimed, as Zillah heldout her hands to her favorite. "Wouldn't it be nicer if we all hadsome?"
"Who held you up to look into the robin's nest?" I asked reproachfully.
"Thee may give Richard Morton my share," said the little girl, tryingto make amends.
I held out my hand, and Miss Warren gave me half of them.
"Now these are mine?" I said to Zillah. "Yes!"
"Then I'll do what I please with them."
I picked out the largest, and stooping down beside her, continued: "Youmust eat these or I won't eat any."
"Thee's very like Emily Warren," the little girl laughed; "thee getsaround me before I know it."
"I'll give you all the strawberries for that compliment."
"No, thee must take half."
"Mrs. Yocomb, you and I will divide, too. Could there possibly be amore delicious combination!" and Miss Warren smacked her lipsappreciatively.
"The strawberry was evolved by a chance combination of forces," Iremarked.
"Undoubtedly," added Miss Warren, "so was my Geneva watch."
"I like to think of the strawberry in this way," said Mrs. Yocomb."There are many things in the Scriptures hard to understand; so thereare in Nature. But we all love the short text: 'God is love.' Thestrawberry is that text repeated in Nature."
"Mrs. Yocomb, you could convert infidels and pagans with a gospel ofstrawberries," I cried.
"There are many Christians who prefer tobacco," said Mrs. Yocomb,laughing.
"That reminds me," I exclaimed, "that I have not smoked to-day. I fearI shall fall from grace to-morrow, however."
"Yes, I imagine you will drop from the clouds by tomorrow," Miss Warrenremarked.
"By the way, what a magnificent cloud that is rising above the horizonin the southwest. It appears like a solitary headland in an azure sea."
"Ah--h!" she said, in satirical accent.
"Mrs. Yocomb, Miss Warren has been laughing at me ever since I came. Imay have to claim your protection."
"No! thee and father are big enough to take care of yourselves."
"Emily Warren, is thee and Richard Morton both lost?" called Mr. Yocombfrom the piazza. "I can't find mother either. If somebody don't comesoon I'll blow the fish-horn."
"We're all coming," answered Mrs. Yocomb, and she led the way towardthe house.
"You have not given me a rose yet," I said to Miss Warren.
"Must you have one?"
"A man never uses the word 'must' in seeking favors from a lady."
"Adroit policy! Well, what kind of a one do you want?"
"I told you long ago."
"Oh, I remember. An old-fashioned one, with a pronounced meaning. Hereis a York and Lancaster bud. That has a decided old-style meaning."
"It means war, does it not?"
"Yes."
"I won't take it. Yes I will, too," I said, a second later, and I tookthe bud from her hand. "You know the law of war," I added: "To thevictor belong the spoils."
She gave me a quick glance, and after a moment said, a trifle coldly,
"That remark seems bright, but it does not mean anything."
"It often means a great deal. There, I'm out of the garden and in theordinary world again. I wonder if I shall ever have another bit of Edenin my life."
"Oh, indeed you shall. I will ask Mr. Yocomb to give you a day'sweeding and hoeing there."
"What will you do in the meantime?"
"Sit under the arbor and laugh at you."
"Agreed. But suppose it was hot and I grew very tired, what would youdo?"
"I fear I would have to invite you under the arbor."
"You fear?"
"Well, I would invite you if you had been of real service in thegarden."
"That would be Eden unalloyed."
"Since I am not intoxicated, I cannot agree with you."
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