If You Touch Them They Vanish Read online

  VII

  "Well, Martha," said the Poor Boy, when he had kissed her and welcomedher back, "did you find some one to help you?"

  "She's a plain old thing," said Martha, "but honest and with goodreferences. Would ye care to see her for yourself?"

  "Good God, no," said the Poor Boy. "As long as I live I don't want tosee any one but you. Tell her, will you? See that she understands. Tellher--gently, so as not to hurt her feelings, but firmly, that she hasonly to show herself to be dismissed. The day I see her--she goes."

  "She'll not thank you," said old Martha. "Ye may safely leave that tome."

  "And if she isn't a real help to you, Martha, she goes. Another thing,I'd rather she didn't talk very loud or sing, if she can help it. Idon't want to know that she's here."

  To Martha's discerning and suspicious eyes the Poor Boy seemed nervous,ill at ease, and eager to be off somewhere. He was dressed for deepsnow-going, and kept swinging his mittens by the wrists and beating themtogether. He stood much on one foot and much on the other.

  "What's vexing you?" she asked.

  "Nothing," he said. "I've found something off here," he waved towardthe valley, "that amuses me--just a silly game, Martha, that goes on inmy head. The minute I get out of sight of the house it begins. It's doneit every day since you left."

  "What kind of a game will that be?"

  "It's just making believe," he said with a certain embarrassment,"pretending things--and it makes me forget other things. I'll be back bydark."

  He literally bolted, and could be heard saying sharp things to thestraps of his skis, which had become stiffened with the cold.

  Old Martha stood for a while staring at the door which he had closedbehind him. She wondered if by any possible chance his mind wasbeginning to go. To relieve her own she hurried back to Joy in thekitchen, and began a conversation that had not flagged by tea-time.

  The Poor Boy had found a long diagonal by which he could descend fromthe top of the cliff to the bottom in one swift silent slide. More thanhalf-way down there was a dangerous turn, but he had learned to ski atSt. Moritz when he was little, and never thought of the danger at all.The chief thing, turn or no turn, was to get to the bottom of the cliffas quickly as possible. Everything that was bitter and tragic in hislife ended there, in an open glade among towering white pines.

  The day that Martha had left for New York, the Poor Boy, standing verylonely on the top of the cliff and looking out over the valley, had beenstruck with a whimsical thought.

  "If I had the power," he thought, "I'd settle this region with innocentpeople who have been accused of crimes."

  At this suggestion the component parts of his nature began a discussion.

  _Reason:_ How would you know they were innocent?

  _Truthfulness:_ They'd tell me. And I'd know.

  _Snobbishness:_ Very few people in your station of life are accused ofcrime.

  _Cynicism:_ And very few of them are innocent.

  _Snobbishness:_ You wouldn't care to associate with people of lowerstation than yourself.

  _Affection:_ I love Martha better than anybody in the world.

  _Reason:_ Think of something more sensible.

  _Love of Detail:_ I wonder how we could dispose of sewage withoutpolluting lakes and streams? I must send for books on the disposal ofsewage.

  _Love of the Beautiful:_ I should like to settle the whole valleywithout changing the look of it--from here.

  _Eyes_ (roving from one group of screening trees to the next): It can bedone. Put your village on the east side of the big lake, back of thehardwood ridge. Do you remember Placid Brook? That will flow through themain street. It will be kept clean and well stocked with trout, so thatthe old men can fish from the bridges. Above the village there shall bea path along the brook, all in the shade. Can't you see the girls andboys walking, two and two?

  _Love of Detail:_ All the houses in the village must be white. Who isgoing to make the laws?

  _Ego:_ I am. Because I own the valley. And put up the money.

  _Modesty:_ But there will be lots of men wiser than I am. And they willhelp.

  _Sudden Impulse:_ The women shall have votes.

  _Childishness:_ The men shan't.

  _Reason:_ Now I wonder. It's never been tried, and maybe it's what theworld is waiting for and striving for.

  _Touch of Genius and Prophecy:_ It shall be tried. It is what the worldneeds. No votes for men. No men on juries....

  _Memory:_ (Things too recent and poignant for utterance.)

  _Vague Idea Gathered at School:_ Am I going to stand for being taxedwithout representation?

  _Sense of Justice:_ No.

  _Self-confidence:_ But if I can't influence some woman's vote I may aswell drown myself.

  _Reason:_ Some men have no influence over anybody. _They_ won't standfor taxation without representation.

  The Poor Boy (as a whole) gives up with reluctance the idea of agovernment of the ladies, by the ladies, and for the ladies.

  _Wish to Do the Next Best Thing:_ Let it be a government bycommission--a commission of three. A man and a woman--and--

  _Touch of Genius:_ The children must be represented. They shall elect achild.

  _Sense of the Ridiculous:_ Upon a platform of "Baseball in thestreets--longer vacations, and more of them."

  _Reason:_ The child must not be related to the other members of thecommission. We are against affairs of state being influenced by aslipper.

  _Sense of Decency, Good Form, Breeding, etc.:_ Candidates shall not votefor themselves; nor stump the valley proclaiming at the top of theirlungs that they alone can keep the country from going to the dogs.

  _Fondness for an Occasional Glass of Champagne:_ How about liquor?

  _Self-control:_ If _everybody_ else will do without it, _I_ will.

  _Human Nature:_ We must encourage early marriages.

  _Ego:_ Of course, you exempt yourself.

  _Whole System of Nerves and Circulation:_ I do not!

  _Fastidiousness:_ She must be so and so and so (but he only succeeded inconjuring up a vague shadow of a girl).

  Beginning like this (or something like it), deliberately, and thinkingup things as he went along, the Poor Boy's imagination suddenly steppedin and took such a terrific grip of the situation that little by littlethe idea of a model settlement became as real as the most vivid andlogical dream.

  The valley was under three feet of snow. There was four feet of snowupon the surrounding hills and mountains, but already the engineers,headed by the Poor Boy, had been at work, and the masons and thecarpenters. And many miles of ditches had been dug, and dams built, anda powerhouse, and roads (always among trees--so that the natural beautyof the valley was not so much as scratched), and already the village wascomplete, with its white houses and white school (with its longerholidays and more of them), its white library with the long lovelycolonnade, commission house facing it, gardens in front of everydwelling, and pairs of lovers strolling by Placid Brook.

  Furthermore the village was full of people already, and half a dozen ofthem had been so clearly designed by the Poor Boy's imagination that hecould see them, every line of their faces, every detail of theirclothes. He knew every intonation of their voices. When he talked withthem, he did not have to make up their answers--they just came. Andbetter, other people, at first dim figureheads, were becoming clearerand more vivid all the time, so it seemed sure that before long he wouldknow even the dogs of his settlement by sight.

  The greatest difficulty in the game that he was playing lay in theimperfection of his memory. As he built each house in the village he sawit as plainly as I see the pages on which I am writing, but leaving itto go at the next house he had to return again and again to fix theimage of the first. For instance, he got the whole village built, andlying in his bed that night could only remember with real distinctionthe commission house, the library, and one dwelling house, far down themain street. The rest was vague--houses--white houses--not high--notcrowded
, but all blurred and without detail, as if seen through tears.

  He built the village, parts of it, four or five times before it became adefinite thing to him. Before he could stop, let us say, before theBrowns' house and take pleasure in the trim of their front door, beforehe could see the heliotrope growing in the snow-white jardiniere in theliving-room window, before he knew that Mrs. Brown made cookies everyFriday, and that if you went round to the kitchen door and were veryhungry and polite she gave them away while they were still hot andcrisp.

  It was precisely to call on Mrs. Brown that the Poor Boy had been soeager to leave his own house. Realities began for him at the bottom ofthe cliff. The road to the village crossed the glade in the pinewoods--the snow was packed and icy with much travel, with the sliding ofrunners and the semicircular marks of horses' hoofs. As the Poor Boysped along on his skis, he met people in sleighs and was overtaken andpassed by others. They were his people--his alone. He had cheerful wordsfor all of them, and they for him. They were hazy--a little--to theeye, but here and there he caught a face clearly and did not forget itagain--a baby in a blue-and-white blanket coat, that had bright redcheeks and that smiled and showed two brand-new teeth; a boy with barehands and red knuckles (the Poor Boy sent him a pair of warm mittensfrom the village store), and ears (one bigger than the other) whichstuck straight out.

  The Poor Boy came to a halt suddenly where a stream too vigorous to beice-bound crossed the road (under a concrete bridge that had been builtonly the day before), ran out over a ledge of smooth granite and fellthirty feet with a roar.

  "Yes," said the Poor Boy, "there's got to be a sawmill with a red roofand flower-boxes in the windows, and this is just the place for it orI'm very much mistaken.... I wonder ... I wish to the deuce Mr. Tinkerwas here, he's the best man we've got on water-power. The woods are fullof trees that ought to be cut for the benefit of the others. Yardsleywas showing me about them only yesterday. But this is a matter forTinker."

  The Poor Boy listened and heard sleigh-bells. They came swiftly nearer.

  "Wonder who this is?"

  Around the nearest turn of the road toward the village came a powerfulroan horse, drawing a cutter; in the cutter sat an enormous man, but thePoor Boy had already recognized the horse.

  "I'm damned," said he; "Tinker!"

  He waved both arms and called a joyous greeting. The cutter came to ahalt on the bridge.

  "Just the man I wanted to see," said the Poor Boy. "I want advice andhelp. Yardsley says we're letting a lot of timber go to waste. Now howabout a sawmill--right _here_?"

  Mr. Tinker was a joyous bachelor of forty-five. He had been cashier of abank. A deficit arising, he had been wrongfully accused of directresponsibility, and from prison he had come straight to the Poor Boy'ssettlement on special (most special) invitation. He had taken a room(and bath) in the village inn, and had made a little money out ofcontracts which the Poor Boy had thrown his way.

  "What's the flow here in summer?" asked Mr. Tinker doubtfully.

  "About half what it is now," said the Poor Boy.

  "Hum--that would be width so and so--depth so and so.... What's thefall?"

  "Thirty feet."

  "Can't use it all, can we?"

  The Poor Boy shook his head.

  "Well--I tell you, I'll bring a tape-measure to-morrow and go into thething thoroughly. By the way, you know Mrs. Caxton, who's staying at theinn?"

  "Yes--yes," said the Poor Boy, "they accused her of shoplifting and itwasn't she at all."

  "Damn them," said Tinker.

  "By all means," said the Poor Boy.

  "Now how about a sawmill--right here?"]

  "But what about her?" His eyes twinkled.

  Mr. Tinker blushed and beamed.

  "She's given up her rooms."

  "What!" exclaimed the Poor Boy.

  "And _we're_ going to move to the little house on the corner."

  "Then," said the Poor Boy, "what are you doing alone in the woods?"

  "Came to find you," said Tinker. "Couldn't get married without you."

  "Turn around," cried the Poor Boy. "I'm with you."

  He knelt swiftly and took off his skis.

  He started to slide an affectionate arm round the older man's shoulders,but jerked it back before it was too late.

  "No," he muttered, "you mustn't try to touch them or they vanish."

  "What's that?"

  "Just that this is the best thing that ever happened. You're just madefor each other, you two."

  They sped on through the pine forest, talking of village matters, ofschool matters, and hitching-posts, of politics, of sewers--but mostlyof love.

  It was dark when the Poor Boy got back to his own house. But he was veryhappy and (in spite of many hot crisp cookies at Mrs. Brown's kitchendoor) very hungry.

  After he had dressed and dined, he soaked his hands in hot water to makethem supple, and played Beethoven till far into the night.

  Martha went boldly into the room to listen, and sat in a deep chair bythe fire, as was her right. But Miss Joy listened without the door, andduring the Adagio from the Pathetique her hands covered her bowed faceand tears came through the fingers.

  Then she crept off to bed, but Martha came before she was asleep to saygood-night.

  "Miss Joy," she said, "it's the first time since he came that he'splayed; other times he's only fooled and toyed."

  "Martha," said Miss Joy, "I think it's the first time that _anybodyever_ played."

  "It's what the Poor Boy does best," said Martha, "and takes the leastpride in. Listen now--he's making up as he goes--there's voices--onlylisten--there's one that insists and one that denies--but both theirhearts are breakin'--breakin' in their breasts."

  Miss Joy sat straight up in bed. "Listen, Martha--there's a thirdvoice--things are going to come right for the other two--"

  Thus the two women. As for the Poor Boy, he made music because he hadbeen to a wedding that day and knew that if he got to thinking about italone in the dark he might get so unhappy that he would remember wherehe had hidden his revolver and his rifles, and get up to look for them.

  He played until he was exhausted in body and mind. Then he rose from thepiano, closed it gently, and went to bed. He was very sad and unhappy,but quite sane again.