If You Touch Them They Vanish Page 5

  V

  The power of imagining returned to him slowly. There were whole dayswhen his inner eyes and ears remained obstinately blind and deaf. When a

  "Primrose by the river's brim A yellow primrose was to him, And it was nothing more"

  (only there were no primroses at this season); when the southing birdsin the ivy outside his window only made noises and were a nuisance; andwhen the burden of his thoughts was one long "done for--done for--donefor." It was the affection of many people that he missed most, and thefaith that so many people had had in him--shattered forever. But hemissed their voices, too, and their faces; the cheerful sounds of"talking at once"; the massing of fresh, lovely gowns, the scintillationof jewels, the smell of gardenias, the music of violins, hidden byscreens of palms and bay-trees.

  What had he done to deserve exile and ostracism? He asked himself thatquestion thousands of times. He knew, of course, what he was believed tohave done, but he was in search of some committed sin, to account forhis having been punished for one that had only been circumstantiallyalleged. And in the whole memory that he had of his life and acts hecould not find an answer. Every life is full of little sins, but ofmajor ones the Poor Boy had no recollection.

  On the days when his imagination was "no good" he had the face of onewho is worried over something important that has been lost and that cannot be found. And, indeed, the gift was of tremendous importance to him,and he knew it. It was the weapon with which he must fight off insanity;the tongs with which he must snatch from the fires of experiencewhatever bright fragments of life were not yet consumed.

  Now this imagination of the Poor Boy's was not a servant that came andwent at command, but a master. He could not say to himself, "now I willlie back upon the wings of my imagination and fly a pleasant hour"--orrather he could say just that if he liked, but nothing would happen. Itwas he who served; he was an abode in which his imagination might lodgewhenever it so pleased, and whence it might also fare forth. In the olddays it had found lodgment in the Poor Boy's head decidedly comfortable,and had made long stays; but since society had wreaked its vengeanceupon him, it seemed as if his head, as a dwelling-place, had lost itscomforts and advantages.

  His imagination was not of the kind which makes for literature or music.It could not, in other words, shake itself clear of experience, andjourney into the unknown and the untried. It was not creative, but itwas of a quality so intense and vivid as to wage, sometimes, successfuldisputes with the tangible and the real. Its action was a kind ofdreaming of dreams, whose direction and outcome lay within the option ofthe dreamer.

  Old Martha found him one day sitting on the kitchen steps with his feetin the first snow of the winter. But the Poor Boy was really at PalmBeach with a car-load of his friends, and he was not at all cold, hethanked her, but hot--positively hot.

  Notwithstanding, she ordered a change of shoes and socks, and listenedat his door half a dozen times that night for sounds of incipient cold.

  The old woman's mirror told her that she was getting thin, that the workshe had undertaken was too hard for her, and sometimes when the mendrove in from the village with supplies (and the Poor Boy hid himself)she blarneyed them into lending a hand here and there. For a good jokesweetened with a little base flattery she got coals carried now andthen, or heavy pieces of furniture moved when she was house-cleaning;but to the Poor Boy's constant appeals that she bring into the house apermanent helper she turned a deaf ear. As a matter of fact, havinglived the best part of her life for the Poor Boy, she proposed, ifpossible, to die for him.

  But when ("on top of the thinness," as he put it) she caught a heavycold, he took the matter in dispute wholly out of her jurisdiction.

  The cold having run its course and gone its way, he appeared to her onemorning dressed for the winter woods. He had on moccasins and manythicknesses of woolens; he carried a knapsack and a light axe. He laidthese on the kitchen table, and went into the cellar, where his longskis had passed the summer. He brought them, turning the corner of thecellar stairs with difficulty, back to the kitchen, and began to examinethe straps with which they are adjusted to the feet. He asked for alittle oil with which to dress the leather. She brought him oil in asaucer.

  He dressed the straps of his skis and talked, more to himself than toher.

  "Killing is bad, but in case I do actually run out of food I'd bettertake a rifle. I suppose the sleeping-bag will keep me warm, still I'dtake along an extra blanket if it weren't so heavy. I'm not as fit as Iused to be. Seems to me this compass acted queerly the last time I usedit. Didn't I tell you once, Martha, about getting lost up here because acompass played me tricks? There were people to find me that time--butwhat's the odds? I can't get lost twice on my own acres. And what's theodds if I do?--"

  Old Martha couldn't stand it any longer.

  "Is it for fun you're scaring me out of my wits, young man?"

  "_Scaring_ you, Martha?" His face was innocent of any guile.

  "Where do you think you're going, and when do you think you're comin'back--and me all alone in the house?"

  Now his eyes gleamed way down in their brown depths with a spark apieceof malice.

  "I don't know where I'm going," he said, "but I know that I'm not comingback until a little bird tells me that you have hired some one to helpyou with the housework."

  She was furious.

  "Faith, then," she said, "you'll not come back till Doom's Day."

  He concluded his preparations in silence, and carried his skis outdoorsto put them on.

  "I say, Martha," he called, "hand me my pack and things, will you?"

  "I will not."

  He laughed, and managed, with more laughter and some peril, to come upthe steps and into the kitchen on his skis.

  He adjusted the pack to his shoulder, put on his mittens, and took uphis rifle and his axe. Malice still gleamed in his eyes.

  He went out as he had entered, but with more difficulty and peril. Hecrossed the kitchen-yard with long, easy strides.

  But Martha was running after him, bareheaded. She lost a carpet slipperin the deep snow.

  "Only come back, darlint"--she fought against tears--"and I'll fill thehouse with helpers from attic to cellar."

  "One," said the Poor Boy judicially, "will do. The nearest employmentbureau will be in Quebec. Isn't there somebody in the village?"

  "In the village! In Quebec!"

  "Only come back, darlint"--she fought against tears--"andI'll fill the house with helpers from attic to cellar."]

  Her indignation was tremendous.

  "This side of New York there's not a gentleman's servant to be had,"said she, "and but few there. I'll have to go meself."

  "Couldn't you write?"

  "Full well you know that I can only make me mark, and never the twicetalike."

  "Well," said the Poor Boy, "the change will do you good, and I'll campout in the house instead of in the woods till you come back. It will beeasier, and ever so much safer."

  The next day, looking very grand in her furs and feathers, old Marthastarted for New York. As the man from the village drove her through thewoods to the little railroad station the tears froze on her veil.