It takes a long time for the full beauty of the flat lands to reach a man’s soul; once there, nor hills, nor sea, nor growing fan leaves of palm shall suffice him. It is like the beauty in the word “Indiana.” It may be that there are people who do not consider “Indiana” a beautiful word; but once it rings true in your ears it has a richer sound than “Vallombrosa.”
There was a newness in the atmosphere that day, a bright invigoration, that set the blood tingling. The hot months were done with, languor was routed. Autumn spoke to industry, told of the sowing of another harvest, of the tawny shock, of the purple grape, of the red apple, and called upon muscle and laughter; breathed gaiety into men’s hearts. The little stations hummed with bustle and noise; big farm wagons rattled away and raced with cut-under or omnibus; people walked with quick steps; the baggage-masters called cheerily to the trainmen, and the brakemen laughed good-bys to rollicking girls.
As they left Gainesville three children, clad in calico, barefoot and bareheaded, came romping out of a log cabin on the outskirts of the town, and waved their hands to the passengers. They climbed on the sagging gate in front of their humble domain, and laughed for joy to see the monstrous caravan come clattering out of the unknown, bearing the faces by. The smallest child, a little cherubic tow-head, whose cheeks were smeared with clean earth and the tracks of forgotten tears, stood upright on a fence-post, and blew the most impudent of kisses to the strangers on a journey.
Beyond this they came into a great plain, acres and acres of green rag-weed where the wheat had grown, all so flat one thought of an enormous billiard table, and now, where the railroad crossed the country roads, they saw the staunch brown thistle, sometimes the sumach, and always the graceful iron-weed, slender, tall, proud, bowing a purple-turbaned head, or shaking in an agony of fright when it stood too close to the train. The fields, like great, flat emeralds set in new metal, were bordered with golden-rod, and at sight of this the heart leaped; for the golden-rod is a symbol of stored granaries, of ripe sheaves, of the kindness of the season generously given and abundantly received; more, it is the token of a land of promise and of bounteous fulfilment; and the plant stains its blossom with yellow so that when it falls it pays tribute to the ground which has nourished it.
From the plain they passed again into a thick wood, where ruddy arrows of the sun glinted among the boughs; and, here and there, one saw a courtly maple or royal oak wearing a gala mantle of crimson and pale brown, gallants of the forest preparing early for the October masquerade, when they should hold wanton carnival, before they stripped them of their finery for pious gray.
And when the coughing engine drew them to the borders of this wood, they rolled out into another rich plain of green and rust-colored corn; and far to the south John Harkless marked a winding procession of sycamores, which, he knew, followed the course of a slender stream; and the waters of the stream flowed by a bank where wild thyme might have grown, and where, beyond an orchard and a rose-garden, a rustic bench was placed in the shade of the trees; and the name of the stream was Hibbard’s Creek. Here the land lay flatter than elsewhere; the sky came closer, with a gentler benediction; the breeze blew in, laden with keener spices; there was the flavor of apples and the smell of the walnut and a hint of coming frost; the immeasurable earth lay more patiently to await the husbandman; and the whole world seemed to extend flat in line with the eye — for this was Carlow County.
All at once the anger ran out of John Harkless; he was a hard man for anger to tarry with. And in place of it a strong sense of home-coming began to take possession of him. He was going home. “Back to Plattville, where I belong,” he had said; and he said it again without bitterness, for it was the truth. “Every man cometh to his own place in the end.”
Yes, as one leaves a gay acquaintance of the playhouse lobby for some hard-handed, tried old friend, so he would wave the outer world God-speed and come back to the old ways of Carlow. What though the years were dusty, he had his friends and his memories and his old black brier pipe. He had a girl’s picture that he should carry in his heart till his last day; and if his life was sadder, it was infinitely richer for it. His winter fireside should be not so lonely for her sake; and losing her, he lost not everything, for he had the rare blessing of having known her. And what man could wish to be healed of such a hurt? Far better to have had it than to trot a smug pace unscathed.
He had been a dullard; he had lain prostrate in the wretchedness of his loss. “A girl you could put in your hat — and there you have a strong man prone.” He had been a sluggard, weary of himself, unfit to fight, a failure in life and a failure in love. That was ended; he was tired of failing, and it was time to succeed for a while. To accept the worst that Fate can deal, and to wring courage from it instead of despair, that is success; and it was the success that he would have. He would take Fate by the neck. But had it done him unkindness? He looked out over the beautiful, “monotonous” landscape, and he answered heartily, “No!” There was ignorance in man, but no unkindness; were man utterly wise he were utterly kind. The Cross-Roaders had not known better; that was all.
The unfolding aisles of corn swam pleasantly before John’s eyes. The earth hearkened to man’s wants and answered; the clement sun and summer rains hastened the fruition. Yonder stood the brown haystack, garnered to feed the industrious horse who had earned his meed; there was the straw-thatched shelter for the cattle. How the orchard boughs bent with their burdens! The big red barns stood stored with the harvested wheat; and, beyond the pasture-lands, tall trees rose against the benign sky to feed the glance of a dreamer; the fertile soil lay lavender and glossy in the furrow. The farmhouses were warmly built and hale and strong; no winter blast should rage so bitterly as to shake them, or scatter the hospitable embers on the hearth. For this was Carlow County, and he was coming home.
They crossed a by-road. An old man with a streaky gray chin-beard was sitting on a sack of oats in a seatless wagon, waiting for the train to pass. Harkless seized his companion excitedly by the elbow.
“Tommy!” he cried. “It’s Kim Fentriss — look! Did you see that old fellow?”
“I saw a particularly uninterested and uninteresting gentleman sitting on a bag,” replied his friend.
“Why, that’s old Kimball Fentriss. He’s going to town; he lives on the edge of the county.”
“Can this be true?” said Meredith gravely.
“I wonder,” said Harkless thoughtfully, a few moments later, “I wonder why he had them changed around.”
“Who changed around?”
“The team. He always used to drive the bay on the near side, and the sorrel on the off.”
“And at present,” rejoined Meredith, “I am to understand that he is driving the sorrel on the near side, and bay on the off?”
“That’s it,” returned the other. “He must have worked them like that for some time, because they didn’t look uneasy. They’re all right about the train, those two. I’ve seen them stand with their heads almost against a fast freight. See there!” He pointed to a white frame farmhouse with green blinds. “That’s Win Hibbard’s. We’re just outside of Beaver.”
“Beaver? Elucidate Beaver, boy!”
“Beaver? Meredith, your information ends at home. What do you know of your own State if you are ignorant of Beaver. Beaver is that city of Carlow County next in importance and population to Plattville.”
Tom put his head out of the window. “I fancy you are right,” he said. “I already see five people there.”
Meredith had observed the change in his companion’s mood. He had watched him closely all day, looking for a return of his malady; but he came to the conclusion that in truth a miracle had been wrought, for the lethargy was gone, and vigor seemed to increase in Harkless with every turn of the wheels that brought them nearer Plattville; and the nearer they drew to Plattville the higher the spirits of both the young men rose. Meredith knew what was happening there, and he began to be a little excited. As he had said,
there were five people visible at Beaver; and he wondered where they lived, as the only building in sight was the station, and to satisfy his curiosity he walked out to the vestibule. The little station stood in deep woods, and brown leaves whirled along the platform. One of the five people was an old lady, and she entered a rear car. The other four were men. One of them handed the conductor a telegram.
Meredith heard the official say, “All right. Decorate ahead. I’ll hold it five minutes.”
The man sprang up the steps of the smoker and looked in. He turned to Meredith: “Do you know if that gentleman in the gray coat is Mr. Harkless? He’s got his back this way, and I don’t want to go inside. The — the air in a smoker always gives me a spell.”
“Yes, that’s Mr. Harkless.”
The man jumped to the platform. “All right, boys,” he said. “Rip her out.”
The doors of the freight-room were thrown open, and a big bundle of colored stuffs was dragged out and hastily unfolded. One of the men ran to the further end of the car with a strip of red, white and blue bunting, and tacked it securely, while another fastened the other extremity to the railing of the steps by Meredith. The two companions of this pair performed the same operation with another strip on the other side of the car. They ran similar strips of bunting along the roof from end to end, so that, except for the windows, the car was completely covered by the national colors. Then they draped the vestibules with flags. It was all done in a trice.
Meredith’s heart was beating fast. “What’s it all about?” he asked.
“Picnic down the line,” answered the man in charge, removing a tack from his mouth. He motioned to the conductor, “Go ahead.”
The wheels began to move; the decorators remained on the platform, letting the train pass them; but Meredith, craning his neck from the steps, saw that they jumped on the last car.
“What’s the celebration?” asked Harkless, when Meredith returned.
“Picnic down the line,” said Meredith.
“Nipping weather for a picnic; a little cool, don’t you think? One of those fellows looked like a friend of mine. Homer Tibbs, or as Homer might look if he were in disgrace. He had his hat hung on his eyes, and he slouched like a thief in melodrama, as he tacked up the bunting on this side of the car.” He continued to point out various familiar places, finally breaking out enthusiastically, as they drew nearer the town, “Hello! Look there — beyond the grove yonder! See that house?”
“Yes, John.”
“That’s the Bowlders’. You’ve got to know the Bowlders.”
“I’d like to.”
“The kindest people in the world. The Briscoe house we can’t see, because it’s so shut in by trees; and, besides, it’s a mile or so ahead of us. We’ll go out there for supper to-night. Don’t you like Briscoe? He’s the best they make. We’ll go up town with Judd Bennett in the omnibus, and you’ll know how a rapid-fire machine gun sounds. I want to go straight to the ‘Herald’ office,” he finished, with a suddenly darkening brow.
“After all, there may be some explanation,” Meredith suggested, with a little hesitancy. “H. Fisbee might turn out more honest than you think.”
Harkless threw his head back and laughed; it was the first time Meredith had heard him laugh since the night of the dance in the country. “Honest! A man in the pay of Rodney McCune! Well, we can let it wait till we get there. Listen! There’s the whistle that means we’re getting near home. By heaven, there’s an oil-well!”
“So it is.”
“And another — three — five — seven — seven in sight at once! They tried it three miles south and failed; but you can’t fool Eph Watts, bless him! I want you to know Watts.”
They were running by the outlying houses of the town, amidst a thousand descriptive exclamations from Harkless, who wished Meredith to meet every one in Carlow. But he came to a pause in the middle of a word.
“Do you hear music?” he asked abruptly. “Or is it only the rhythm of the ties?”
“It seems to me there’s music in the air,” answered his companion. “I’ve been fancying I heard it for a minute or so. There! No — yes. It’s a band, isn’t it?”
“No; what would a band — —”
The train slowed up, and stopped at a watertank, two hundred yards east of the station, and their uncertainty was at an end.
From somewhere down the track came the detonating boom of a cannon. There was a dash of brass, and the travellers became aware of a band playing “Marching through Georgia.” Meredith laid his hand on his companion’s shoulder. “John,” he said, “John — —” The cannon fired again, and there came a cheer from three thousand throats, the shouters all unseen.
The engine coughed and panted, the train rolled on, and in another minute it had stopped alongside the station in the midst of a riotous jam of happy people, who were waving flags and banners and handkerchiefs, and tossing their hats high in the air, and shouting themselves hoarse. The band played in dumb show; it could not hear itself play. The people came at the smoker like a long wave, and Warren Smith, Briscoe, Keating, and Mr. Bence of Gaines were swept ahead of it. Before the train stopped they had rushed eagerly up the steps and entered the car.
Harkless was on his feet and started to meet them. He stopped.
“What does it mean?” he said, and began to grow pale. “Is Halloway — did McCune — have you — —”
Warren Smith seized one of his hands and Briscoe the other. “What does it mean?” cried Warren; “it means that you were nominated for Congress at five minutes after one-o’clock this afternoon.”
“On the second ballot,” shouted the Judge, “just as young Fisbee planned it, weeks ago.”
It was one of the great crowds of Carlow’s history. They had known since morning that he was coming home, and the gentlemen of the Reception Committee had some busy hours; but long before the train arrived, everything was ready. Homer Tibbs had done his work well at Beaver, and the gray-haired veterans of a battery Carlow had sent out in ‘61 had placed their worn old gun in position to fire salutes. At one-o’clock, immediately after the nomination had been made unanimous, the Harkless Clubs of Carlow, Amo, and Gaines, secretly organized during the quiet agitation preceding the convention, formed on parade in the court-house yard, and, with the Plattville Band at their head, paraded the streets to the station, to make sure of being on hand when the train arrived — it was due in a couple of hours. There they were joined by an increasing number of glad enthusiasts, all noisy, exhilarated, red-faced with shouting, and patriotically happy. As Mr. Bence, himself the spoiled child of another county, generously said, in a speech, which (with no outrageous pressure) he was induced to make during the long wait: “The favorite son of Carlow is returning to his Lares and Penates like another Cincinnatus accepting the call of the people; and, for the first time in sixteen years, Carlow shall have a representative to bear the banner of this district and the flaming torch of Progress sweeping on to Washington and triumph like a speedy galleon of old. And his friends are here to take his hand and do him homage, and the number of his friends is as the number given in the last census of the population of the counties of this district!”
And, indeed, in this estimate the speaker seemed guilty of no great exaggeration. A never intermittent procession of pedestrians and vehicles made its way to the station; and every wagon, buckboard, buggy, and cut-under had its flags or bunting, or streamer of ribbons tied to the whip. The excitement increased as the time grew shorter; those on foot struggled for better positions, and the people in wagons and carriages stood upon seats, while the pedestrians besieged them, climbing on the wheels, or balancing recklessly, with feet on the hubs of opposite wagons. Everybody was bound to see him. When the whistle announced the coming of the train, the band began to play, the cannon fired, horns blew, and the cheering echoed and reechoed till heaven’s vault resounded with the noise the people of Carlow were making.
There was one heart which almost stopped beating. H
elen was standing on the front seat of the Briscoe buckboard, with Minnie beside her, and, at the commotion, the horses pranced and backed so that Lige Willetts ran to hold them; but she did not notice the frightened roans, nor did she know that Minnie clutched her round the waist to keep her from falling. Her eyes were fixed intently on the smoke of the far-away engine, and her hand, lifted to her face in an uncertain, tremulous fashion, as it was one day in a circus tent, pressed against the deepest blush that ever mantled a girl’s cheek. When the train reached the platform, she saw Briscoe and the others rush into the car, and there ensued what was to her an almost intolerable pause of expectation, while the crowd besieged the windows of the smoker, leaning up and climbing on each other’s shoulders to catch the first glimpse of him. Briscoe and a red-faced young man, a stranger to Plattville, came down the steps, laughing like boys, and then Keating and Bence, and then Warren Smith. As the lawyer reached the platform, he turned toward the door of the car and waved his hand as in welcome.
“Here he is, boys!” he shouted, “Welcome Home!” At that it was as if all the noise that had gone before had been mere leakage of pent-up enthusiasm. A thousand horns blared deafeningly, the whistles of the engine and of Hibbard’s mill were added to the din, the court-house bell was pealing out a welcome, and the church bells were ringing, the cannon thundered, and then cheer on cheer shook the air, as John Harkless came out under the flags, and passed down the steps of the car.
When Helen saw him, over the heads of the people and through a flying tumult of flags and hats and handkerchiefs, she gave one frightened glance about her, and jumped down from her high perch, and sank into the back seat of the buckboard with her burning face turned from the station and her eyes fixed on the ground. She wanted to run away, as she had run from him the first time she had ever seen him. Then, as now, he came in triumph, hailed by the plaudits of his fellows; and now, as on that long-departed day of her young girlhood, he was borne high over the heads of the people, for Minnie cried to her to look; they were carrying him on their shoulders to his carriage. She had had only that brief glimpse of him, before he was lost in the crowd that was so glad to get him back again and so proud of him; but she had seen that he looked very white and solemn.
Collected Works of Booth Tarkington Page 29