The Cassowary; What Chanced in the Cleft Mountains

by Stanley Waterloo

  CHAPTER XXVIII

  LOVE'S INSOLENCE

  The easy impudence, the loving insolence, the large, feudal lord air ofproprietorship, of the man who has just come into possession of the onewoman is sometimes a development beyond belief. Reprehensible,certainly.

  Stafford had not slept much. All night he had lain awake, trying torealize what it was that had come to him, the beneficence of Providence,the magnitude of what earth has sometimes to give. It was only with dawnthat he slept at all, and his dreams were good. As for her, the Far AwayLady, who shall tell what thoughts or dreams were hers?

  He came into the dining car that morning, refreshed and exalted, andoverlooking and sweeping as an eagle in his first morning swing from hiseyrie. He was splendidly intolerable, this triumphant lover who hadrecovered his equipoise and was himself of the years ago. Any loftysimile would do for him. He came stalking in like a king to acoronation, with but one redeeming feature to the look upon his face,an expression which resembled gratitude. And who was it that entered thecar a moment or two after he had seated himself at the breakfast table?Could this flush-faced, slender creature, bright and almost challengingof eye, be the Far Away Lady, she of the sad and dreamy look! It wasshe, certainly. Dr. Love, you are a wonder! All the other physicians ofthe world, all the health resorts of the world, can neither advise norhave effect toward swift recuperation in comparison with you unhampered!They are but as vapors, or as the things which are not.

  The greetings of the morning were exchanged--it was nearly noon, by theway, for they had lain long at Denver--the breakfast was ordered andthen he leaned back and looked in her face, smilingly: "Where shall welive?" he asked blandly, as if it were but a resumed conversation. "Haveyou fallen in love with lotus-eating in Southern California, or arethere other regions, still?"

  Did my lady lately, so "sober, steadfast and demure," blanche or startat this daring, overbearing opening? Not she. She may have blushed alittle, but well she knew the ways of her whimsical, perplexing lover.Her eyes flashed back at his with the tender, quizzical look in them andshe laughed. Then a soberer expression came, and she spoke earnestly andthoughtfully:

  "I have heard homesick people, living among the oranges, speak longinglyof a place they called 'God's country.' I think we should make our homesomewhere in 'God's country,' do you not?"

  "Yes, dear," he exclaimed delightedly, "but where and what is 'God'scountry?' We hear about it, but its boundaries seem undefined. I take itthat each individual has his or her ideal. I am confident, though, thatours are the same. Is not that so?"

  "To me," she spoke bravely, "'God's country' is, first of all, where youare, and," she added reverently, "of course God is everywhere."

  "Bless you," he said, "but, go on. Let us consider what we two think theessentials for our own 'God's country.'"

  "It must be a country where the grass grows, where sod, turf,close-woven grass, cover the ground," she answered promptly. "The raw,unkempt plains and hills of the arid regions are not for us, nor is thestormless life of the land of oranges and grapes. We want, first ofall, the good green sod, and, next, trees, waving, luxuriant elms andoaks and ash and beech and all their kindred, and their vines as well,wild grapes and ivy and bitter-sweet."

  He smiled. "You have begun with the command in Genesis, instructing theEarth to bear, and so on, but I should go one step back in the epic ofCreation and say, let us live by the waters where they are 'gatheredtogether unto one place.' We must have a great body of water near usand, we must have rain."

  "Yes, in summer, rain; in winter, snow. I want the four seasons."

  "I don't know where we are to find four, that is an absolutely completefour," he said. "We can rarely boast a spring in its entirety. It seemsto exist only in the dreams of the poets, or in England. I saw a realspring in England. But there are some pretty fair imitations of it, I'lladmit, in many of our states, notably, for instance, in Michigan andWisconsin." Adroit, time-serving man!

  "Well, we can get along without an elaborate spring," she laughed, "ifwe can have a June, a real June, once a year."

  And so they considered deliciously until it was decided that "God'scountry" for them, implied a green country in summer and a white countryin winter, with vast water near, if possible, and that from Maine to theWestern Mountains it existed, all without prejudice to other "God'scountries" for other mortals elsewhere born.

  Straightforward, reckless, trusting confidence, was it not, thisconversation between the man and woman thus rejoined, but he was of thesort who do things, and she was a woman given fully. Besides--though ina world which ended--they had dreamed before.

  This matter of great importance settled, there was silence for a time.He looked upon her with devouring eyes. At last he broke forth:

  "Now I want to draw my breath, but find it difficult. I am going to leanback and study you and try to think of the world as it has rearrangeditself. I have not grasped it all yet. It is odd; it is great! I haveyou and you can't get away from me now! It is wonderful, this suddenpossession, the possession rightly, even in all the conventional, in allthat the weakling centuries dictate. No wonder that I am dazed. Ever asthe world revolves, come new revelations of thought and of allexistence. I dreamed that I knew things, but I didn't.

  "What are you going to do about it, dearie? My heart is like a kettle inwhich everything is boiling, and it is foaming over the top with lovefor you. Can you not help me? What are you going to put into the kettleto stop this unseemly boiling? I don't want you to pour in cold water,or take the kettle off, or put the fire out. Oh, well, let 'er boil! Iam afraid, my dear, that you will have to take care of me most of thetime. I'm irresponsible.

  "Let us talk about something practical, my dear woman," he rambled on."You look at me with your great eyes, and you know what the inevitableis. You know that you and I must face the world and all its dragonstogether after this. What fun it will be! Have you any suggestions tomake? By the way, I like the trick of the top of your garments, thearrangement about your throat. You have tact and taste, and sense, mydear, yet you lack a mountain of judgment and discretion. You haveintrusted yourself to me, reckless person! Now, cut loose and tell mesomething. I think that expression 'cut loose' is one of the best of allour Americanisms. Tell me something."

  What could the woman say? She was puzzled over this wild,fumbling-thoughted lover, with his commingled gleams of fact and fancy.But ever to the more admirable of the sexes comes divination. There cameinto this gentle woman's mind a sudden radiance of comprehension. Sheknew what he was seeking. He wanted her, with all the selfishness oflove, to be foolish with him. And this is what she said:

  "I don't know. I only know what I think of his heart and soul, of theresources and qualities of one man in the world and that I am but thedependent woman--and I am most content, dear."

  Then she became more venturesome and spoke more definitely andpractically, as she knew he wished her to. She looked him squarely inthe eyes:

  "Make that place for us across the lake, the place of which we dreamed.Never mind now about the town house. That will take care of itself, butthe dream place, the 'Shack,' will not. When you were working with yourcoolies in another hemisphere I hope and believe you had your dreamsabout me, hopeless as they may have seemed. I want to tell you, greatheart, that men do not dream all the dreams. Is it unwomanly, is it notjust to you and as it should be that I should say to you now that thewoman in America"--and her voice was tremulous--"was dreaming quite asconstantly and sadly as the man upon the Russian steppes."

  She was looking at him steadfastly and in her eyes were tears and thelight which gleams only when the dearest of all fires is burning, alight reflected and intensified, if that were possible, in the eyes ofhim who was leaning silently forward and hardly breathing. She hadgratified his wish. She had "cut loose."

  They looked out upon the Kansas prairie, across which the train wasscurrying. There were occasional houses, far apart, but the notableobjects of the landscape were gaunt windmill
s which in midsummer drewwater for the herds of cattle which even at this season could be seenhuddled, more or less comfortably, here and there. The wind had sweptbare great patches of pasture land and some of the cattle were browsingcontentedly upon the dried grass left in autumn. There were many herdsof them but the simile of "cattle on a thousand hills" did not apply,for there were no hills. The travelers looked out upon what was but anillimitable white blanket, with dots upon it. They looked upon a greatcountry, but it was not for them.

  They left the dining car and visited the Cassowary, where were stillassembled a number of the group for whom through the days ofimprisonment the luxurious sleeper had been a gathering-place, but theydid not linger there. They sought the sleeping-car of the Far Away Ladywhere they lingered until night fell, for what they had said to eachother was only the beginning. They had much to tell, and when Staffordslept that night there came to him no vexing or distempered dreams. Hehad come to a full realization of his new world and all its points ofcompass. To this strong, almost turbulent character a great peace andcontent had come. Though he was lying in the berth of a sleeping carthere were in his ears, vague and incomplete words of the hackneyed butpleasant benediction:

  "Sleep sweet within this quiet room, * * * whoe'er thou art, * * * no mournful yesterdays * * * disturb thy heart."