VIII
Louis Goeth on a Journey
Early in the summer of ’70, Henri List felt an impelling desire to visit his second daughter, Jennie, whom he had not seen in a number of years. In 1862, she was married to a certain Walter Whittlesey, a contracting railway engineer, and they lived on 300-acre farm at Lyons Falls, N.Y. On the 29th day of February, 1864, she added to the world’s population a daughter, in due time named Anna, under Presbyterian auspices. Mrs. Whittlesey at the time we are considering, was 34 years of age—one year younger than her sister, Andrienne, greatly beloved mother of Louis Sullivan. When Henri List’s desire had ripened into a resolve and was so announced, there was “the devil to pay,” as was said at times in those days. Louis became frantic. He must go too. He, also, had not seen his Tante Jennie in many years. He must see where she lived and how she lived. He must see his dear little cousin Anna, and Uncle Walter too. He must see the farm, and the river and the great waterfall.
“Grandpa, I have never seen a waterfall, only in pictures, and in pictures they don’t move and they don’t roar; I want to live with a real waterfall; and I want to see the Berkshire Hills; and the Hudson; you know, Grandpa, pictures don’t give you any real idea; why Grandpa, a picture of a tree isn’t anything at all when you see a real tree, like our great Ash at Cowdry’s; and to think, Grandpa, I’ve never been farther away than Newburyport; take me with you, Grandpa. I want to see something big; everything in Boston and Wakefield has grown so small; we are so shut in; my geography says there are big things as you go west, that outdoors gets bigger and bigger; I want to go Grandpa; now is the time; I may never have another chance.”
Grandpa, at first was angry and obdurate. He thought only of what a pest, of what a continuous nuisance his growing grandson would be, and the thought became a nightmare; for Henri List, conforming to custom, was growing older, was acquiring nerves; his easygoing humor showed occasional thin spots of temper. He roared at the “dear little Cousin Anna” business, but the possible significance of the pleadings concerning a “shut-in life” and “big things as you go west” dawned upon him, grew stronger, and he came finally to believe that what he had heard was not altogether boyish nonsense but a rising cry for expansion, a defining hunger for larger vision, bigger things; that his grandson, as it were, was outgrowing his cocoon. Upon second and third thoughts he agreed; whereupon the few remaining sane ones also agreed that Louis needed kennel, collar and chain.
The day came. They departed via the Boston and Albany Railway in the evening. Sleepless, restive, Louis awaited, as best he might, the coming of the Berkshire Hills into his growing world. He knew he would see them near dawn. The hour came; he entered the foothills and began winding among them, as with labored breath the engines, like heavy draft horses, began a steady pull, the train dragging reluctantly into steadiness as succeeding hills grew taller—with Louis eagerly watching. The true thrill of action began with the uprearing of imposing masses as Louis clung to the solid train now purring in the solitudes in ever-lengthening swings—deep valleys below—until, amid mists and pale moon gleaming, arose the mighty Berkshires, their summits faint and far, their immensities solemn, calm, seeming eternal in the ghostly fog in the mild shimmer, clad in forests, uttering great words, runic words revealing and withholding their secret to a young soul moving as a solitary visitant, even as a wraith among them, the engines crying: “We will!” the mountains replying: “We will!” to an expanding soul listening within its own mists, its own shimmering dream, to the power without and within, amid the same echoes within and without, bereft of words to reply, a bare hush of being, as though through mists of mind and shimmer of hope, sublimity, in revelation, had come to one wholly unprepared, had come to one as a knock on the door, had come to one who had known mountains only in books. And Louis again, in wonder, felt the power of man. The thought struck deep, that what was bearing him along was solely the power of man; the living power to wish, to will, to do. That man, in his power, with broad stride, had entered the regioned sanctity of these towering hills and like a giant of Elfinland had held them in the hollow of his hand. He had made a path, laid the rails, builded the engines that others might pass. Many saw engines and rails, and pathway, and one saw what lay behind them. In the murky mist and shimmer of moon and dawn, a veil was lifted in the solitude of the Berkshires. Louis slept, his nerves becalmed, amid the whistle’s sonorous warnings, the silence of the engine, the long, shrill song of the brakes, with mingling echoes, as the train, with steady pace, wound slowly downward toward the Hudson, leaving the Berkshires to their silence and their solitude—and Louis slept on, under the wand of the power of man.
They reached Albany in broad daylight. The Hudson, to Louis’s dismay, did not impress him as greatly as he had hoped and believed it would. Its course was straight instead of broadly curving, and the clutter of buildings along its western flank seemed to belittle it. It appeared to him as a wide waterway, not unpleasant of its kind. It seemed to lack what Louis had come to believe the character of a river. The bridge crossing it, with its numberless short spans and lack of bigness, beauty and romance he gazed upon in instant disdain. It appeared to creep, cringing and apologetic, across the wide waters which felt the humiliation of its presence.
Yet he received a shock of elation as the train had moved slowly along the bridge, carrying him with it; and as he gazed downward upon flowing waters, again he marvelled at what men could do; at the power of men to build; to build a bridge so strong it would carry the weight of a great train, even with his own precious and conscious weight added thereto. And Louis mused about the bridge; why was it so mean, so ugly, so servile, so low-lived? Why could not a bridge perform its task with pride? Why was not a proud bridge built here? Was not New York a great state? Was it not called in his geography “The Empire State”? Was not Albany the Capital City of that state? Then why so shabby an approach? Was not the broad Hudson figuratively a great aqueous frontier between Massachusetts and New York, each state proud in sovereignty? And was not this bridge a presumptive greeting between sovereign states? For surely, the railroad train came straight from proud Boston to exalted Albany? And a veil lifted as there came to his mind a striking verse he had read:
“Why were they proud?
Again I cry aloud
Why in the name of glory
Were they proud?”
And there came up also to him the saying: “By their fruits ye shall know them,” as, lost in imagery, he visioned forth the great Bay State, saluting the great Empire State, saying solemnly: “The Sovereign State of Massachusetts greets the Sovereign State of New York. Let this noble bridge we herewith present you be a sign and a bond of everlasting amity between us, even as Almighty God proclaimed unto Noah of old and his sons: ‘I do set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be for a token of a covenant between me and the earth.’ ” Thus Louis, ruminating rather fiercely, wished to know what was behind the pestiferous bridge. He keenly felt that man’s amazing power to do, should, in all decency and all reason, be coupled with Romance in the deed. And even more keenly he felt, as his eyesight cleared, that this venomous bridge was a betrayal of all that was best in himself, a denial of all that was best in mankind.
That day they took the New York Central train for Utica. After traversing the roughage, the Mohawk Valley opened to them its placid beauty as in welcome to a new land. And to Louis it was in verity a new land, known to him up to this very present hour as a geographical name—an abstraction—unknown to him and wholly unimagined, in its wealth of open rarity, its beauteous immensity of atmosphere. Here was freedom; here was expanse! Louis ranged with his eyes from near to far, following the sweep of the valley floor from the Mohawk to the distant low-flowing hills, and to and fro caressingly; and as mile after mile of valley passed by, and again mile upon mile Louis’s peaceful mind passed into wonder that such an open world could be; and now he marvelled, not at man’s power and his works, but at the earth itself, and a reverential mood claimed him for its own, as he began in part to see with his own calm eyes what Mother Earth, in her power, had done in her varied moods, and to surmise as best he could what more she had done that he knew not of. And all this while the Mohawk wound its limpid way, gentle as all else; and Louis, softening into an exquisite sympathy, cast his burden upon the valley, and there he found rest; rest from overintrospection, rest from overconcentration; freed from suppression and taboo.
Thus Louis became freshened with new growth as a tree in spring, and a new resilience came to take the place of the old. He was cleansed as by a storm, and purified as by fire; but there was no storm, no fire, no whirlwind—there arose from the valley a still, small voice, and Louis heard the voice and recognized it as his own returning to him, and he was overjoyed and strengthened in his faith and became as one translated into the fresh, free joy of living; for in this valley, this wilderness of light and earth he had found surcease.
Louis turned to Grandpa, whom he found dozing. The hills were coming together; a lurch of the train awakened Grandpa; he regarded Louis with a lazy smile and asked him if he had found the “big things,” and how about the “shut-in life.” Louis at once overflowed concerning the Berkshires, the Hudson, and the Bridge, but said not a word about the valley—that was sacred. When he had finished, Grandpa’s face spread into one of those grimaces that Louis knew but too well as a preliminary to speech; and Grandpa said: “As to your bridge, young man, I know nothing; as to the Hudson, you know nothing; as to your Berkshires, they are an impertinence.”
Grandpa was an incorrigible tease. With inward chuckle, with sweet, succulent sinfulness, he gazed his fill upon a crestfallen face, knowing the while how quickly and how well he could restore its color; then, having gloated long enough, he, as always, relented—but slowly, for effect, he began: “Louis, what good does the study of your stupid geography do you? Suppose you can bound all the states, you haven’t an idea of what the states are. You see a crooked black line on your map and it is marked such or such a river; what do you know about that river? Have your teachers ever told you anything of value about a river? Any river? Have they ever told you that there are rivers and rivers each with its special character? Have they ever given you a word-picture of a river, so that you might at least summon up an image of it, however short of reality? They have not. They can not. They are not inspired. They are victims of routine, wearied on the daily treadmill until they can no longer see into the heart of a child. Now, I have watched you since you were a babe in arms, and I have mostly let you alone for fear of meddling with nature’s work; for you were started right by my daughter, the mother who carried you and yearned for you. She is sound to the core. She alone of my children might fittingly wear the red cap of liberty. Yet you do not know your own mother. I know you. I know your abominable selfishness—come from your father; and your generosity and courage—come from my proud daughter. You have a God-given eye and a dull heart. You are at one and the same time incredibly industrious and practical, and a dreamer of morbid dreams, of mystic dreams, sometimes clean, brilliant dreams, but these are too rare.
“What you have said, from time to time, concerning man’s power to do, has astounded and frightened me, coming from you. That idea you never got from any of us. There shines the light of the seer, of the prophet, leading where?—to salvation or destruction? I dare not think how that flame may grow into conflagration, or mellow into a world-glow of wisdom. But I know, worst of all, that adolescence is at hand; that you are in grave danger of a shakeup. Hard work and clear straight thinking may pull you through; that is my sincere hope. I regret, now, having spoken harshly: I did not intend to, but one thought led to another as a river flows. Now let us return to earth and I will tell you about the Hudson.”
Then Grandpa, aroused to eloquence, made a splendid, flowing, word-picture of the Hudson, from Albany to the sea, that brought out all the rare qualities of his fine mind, and so aroused Louis that he made the journey with him—lost to all else. Just then the train slowed up and came to a full stop. Louis looked out of the window. They were in a ravine, with high walls of rock, jagged and wild, and through this gorge came dashing, plunging, swirling, sparkling, roaring over the ledges in cascade after cascade, laughing and shouting in joy, the same Mohawk River that had flowed as gently as the footstep of a veiled nun, through the long, quiet valley they had traversed. Louis was exultant, he leaped from the train, waved his hat, and in spirit sang with the waters the song of joy. The bell clanged its warning note, Louis was aboard with a swing, and as the train moved on, from the rear platform he waved his farewell to Little Falls.
They soon arived at Utica; and Grandpa, who had begun to feel the fatigue of the journey; announced that they would spend the night there in order to be fresh on the morrow. Louis, still restless, took a long, evening stroll. Utica had not impressed him. It seemed staid and somnolent, giving out an air of old and settled complacence, differing however, in kind and quality, from that of New England. So he strolled; his thoughts reverting to Grandpa and his extraordinary monologue; and for the first time, since he had begun think such thoughts, he asked himself, what lies hidden behind Grandpa?
The Black River at that time flowed irregularly northward, as presumably it does today. Originating in hills not far northeast of Utica, it finally, after much argument with the lay of the land, debouched into Lake Ontario, not far beyond Watertown. About midway in its course it picked up the Moose River, and a short distance beyond their junction broke into a rough and tumble waterfall of perhaps forty feet descent, beyond which, its surface at first much ruffled, it went smoothly on its way as far as the eye could comfortably follow. The water-tumult was named Lyons Falls. Near the falls, on a narrow flat, close to the west bank of the river, sat dismally, in true American style, in the prevailing genius of ugliness, a hamlet or village, also called Lyons Falls. It was occupied at the time by what were then known as human beings and was the terminus of a canal, already in decay, that had somehow found its way from the city of Rome. At a level higher than the village flat, ran, substantially north and south, a railway, named, if memory serves, the Rome, Carthage & Watertown. During what time the village had served as the terminus of the railway, it flourished; when the line moved on, the village drooped and withered into what has eminently been set forth as a state of innocuous desuetude. At the station was a dirt road at right angles to the railroad, that quickly fell around a curve down to the village. To the westward, however, it ran straight as a section line over the hills and vanished.
From the railway station the ascent was gradual for a space, and at a distance, say of a hundred yards from the railway, and close to the northern side of the dirt road, rested the home of Walter Whittlesey, a rather modern structure for that day, surrounded by spruce trees that looked as though they had been dragged there and chained. Across the road from the family residence was the ice house, secreted in a lovely and refreshing glen of wildwood; at a decorous distance northeast of the “Mansion” was a big barn with its outbuildings, all in a state of dilapidation, and adjacent thereto was a worn and weary apple orchard, lichen-covered and rheumatic with age. Beyond this orchard was sheer stubble over a vast acreage.
Not very far west of the house, however, was a charming valley, quite incidentally berthed between the looming earth-billows. Throughout the length of this ever-to-be-hallowed spot busily ran a rivulet to the encouragement of a swath of herbage, and of thankful shrubbery clinging to its edges. Part way up the western slope was a long horizontal outcropping of limestone ledge, along which, in comparative safety, grew a slender grove of tall, hardwood trees, with inviting undergrowth. One cannot drive a plow through a limestone ledge, and it is too much trouble to drain a low spot where there are plenty of hills. The grove-land paid its rent in firewood, the rivulet paid no rent at all—thus were they tolerated in their beauty. Hay was the general crop.
The Black River was crossed by a wagon bridge at a point between the Moose River and the falls. The road continued on to Lyonsdale. This same Black River gave an impression of performing a bold, high-handed deed. It split its territory sharply in halves. From its left bank rose wave upon wave of smooth hills mounting to a high plateau, while, as sharply from its right bank spread a huge, somber, primeval hemlock forest, mounting in turn upon its hills beyond the range of vision. Out of this forest rushed the Moose River, its waters icy and dark. Into this forest ran no road for long. The Black River appeared to have done this big, high-handed act; but the recurrence of the name Lyons, and the presence of a baronial seat at Lyonsdale, just within the edge of the forest, might have offered a diverging explanation to one intent upon what lies beyond appearances. However, such was the lay of the land.
The train bearing Grandpa and Louis, after the preliminary whistle and bell clanging of ceremony, slowed up at the station. Grandpa, clean shaven, erect, aglow, descended with dignity; Louis, somewhat begrimed because of his fixed belief that the place for his head lay outside the car window, jumped after him, already excited by the Black River. He wanted to investigate everything at once or immediately; oh—yes—he must kiss Tante Jennie.
They were greeted at the station by Walter Whittlesey, a sizeable man, swarthy, grave, full bearded—black sprinkled with gray, wearing the wide felt hat of a landowner who knew horses. He had given instructions, and had so notified Grandpa, that all baggage and luggage would be cared for, extraneously, by menials. He was a calm, courteous man, whose bearing suggested a lineage of colonels on horseback, blue grass, bourbon, blooded stock, beauteous women, and blacks.
The three walked leisurely up the road, to the white house with green blinds where Tante Jennie, otherwise Mrs. Jenny List Whittlesey, awaited them with the reserve of a gentlewoman whom long practice had enabled to speak with delicate precision in a voice scarcely audible, and to inhale her smiles.
As the trio mounted the steps leading to the veranda, Louis in his rough and ready way casually noticed, not far from the doorway, a young lady reclining in an easy chair, quietly rocking, deeply absorbed in a book. Scarcely had he entered the open door but she had affirmed: “I’m going like that boy.”
Within the “spare room” of the house, Grandpa folded his daughter in fervent arms, kissed her with the profound affection of an ageing father, and wept. Auntie did not weep; she amiably returned her father’s greeting, and said something in very pure French that seemed to satisfy. Louis went through the performance, awkwardly, and as hastily as possible. Auntie gave him the dry kiss of superculture and assured him in very pure English of her gratification at his arrival within her home.
Louis at the earliest moment escaped to the veranda. He had forgotten all about the young lady, and was startled and abashed to find her still there, gently rocking, absorbed in her book. Before he could retreat she arose in greeting with a smile known otherwhere only in Paradise; she said in glee: “My name is Minnie! I am eighteen, and a ‘young lady’ now. Oh Louis! I have waited for you so impatiently, and here you are at last. I am sure we shall like each other; don’t you think we will? I’m in society in Utica and I’m going to tell you lots of things. See, I wear long skirts and do up my hair, but I can’t climb trees any more; isn’t that a shame? But I’ll run races with you and we’ll have lots of fun; and I’ll tell you all about the books I’ve read and all about society. Here I’ve been for a month reading French books and speaking French with Aunt Jenny and have grown weary of myself; now you and I are to be chums! Don’t you think you’ll like me?”
And Louis, taken thus unawares, and thus caressed with words, dared at last to look into gray Scotch eyes that seemed endowed with an endless fund of merriment, of badinage, of joy, of appeal, of kindness, and saturated with an inscrutable depth beyond all of these. He gazed steadily at a tender face, narrow, tapering, slender, and very pale, delicately freckled; at nostrils trembling; at a wide thin-lipped supersensitive mouth; at large ears; at thin, vagrant, dark, sandy hair; at a sprightly medium figure, all alive. She was clad in dark blue silk. He found in her not beauty but irresistible pervading charm. As he was thus absorbed Minnie said: “Sit down beside me, Louis dear, and watch me die. Sit very still and watch.” Whereupon, leaning back in her easy chair, she closed her eyes, deepened her pallor, closed her nostrils, made a thin line of her mouth, elongated her face, and lay deathly still, as though in veritable rigor mortis, until Louis’s nerves were on edge. Then, still dead and rigid, the fine line indicating her closed lips slowly widened across her face, the thin lips parting slightly as of themselves, cadaverously, the teeth also, a little later; after a seemingly endless wait, from this baleful rictus there came out moans, wails, gurgles, the ears began to crawl as of themselves. Then of a sudden the corpse sat bolt upright, with wide glaring eyes, grasped Louis by the shoulders and in fierce, frothy words forecast for him the direst of misfortunes by sea and land. Then she patted Louis’s pale cheek, fell back into her chair and giggled softly, casting at Louis the funniest, merriest, glances.
“How old are you, Louis?”
“Fourteen.”
“Oh, I knew that. I asked your auntie. But isn’t it lovely, fourteen and eighteen; fourteen and eighteen!—and to think that I have died for you, and have come back to you!
“Tomorrow we’ll go to church. The new minister’s a rather nice chap. I like to hear him pray, he’s so genteel about it; and he’s sound in doctrine, so your auntie says, and you know she’s a blue Presbyterian.” And Minnie immediately took Louis under her wing.
Next day she took him to church, leading him by a string, as it were, set him down beside her in the family pew, and their whisperings mingled with other whisperings in the repressive silence. Then the minister appeared in the pulpit, a fairly young man with mien and countenance betoking earnestness, piety and poverty. Louis thought he prayed well, as with quiet fervor he set forth his belief that God was within his temple, and assuredly within the hearts of his flock. When it came to the sermon, Louis sat up straight and took eager notice, for the good man had just read from the big Bible this text: “And the Lord went before them by day in a pillar of cloud, to lead them on the way, and by night in a pillar of fire, to give them light to go by day and night.” Louis needed no sermon; in a flash he knew that all his life he had been led in by a pillar of gleaming cloud, and a pillar of fire; and his far-reaching instant vision forecast it would be thus until the end. Yet he took much heart in listening to the youngish man in the pulpit grasp the totality of this simple story, transmute it into a great symbol, and in impassioned voice lift it to the heights of idealism and of moral grandeur, refashioning it into a spiritual pillar of cloud and a pillar of fire ever present in the hearts, the minds, the souls of all humans, as he urgently, yea, piteously, besought the blind to see.
As they walked home Minnie remarked that it was an extra-fine sermon, but as Louis did not reply she scented danger and tactfully chatted about little things, until her joyous sweetness detached him from his pillar of ravishing cloud and the pillar of wondrous fire. Soon she had him laughing as gaily as herself and plucking wayside flowers for her. For Minnie was intuitive to a degree. She knew that Louis had been deeply stirred, that he had been dreaming somberly as they left the church: and this she would not countenance. She believed that if one must dream it should be of happiness, and the dreamer wide awake to the joy of living. They sat for a while by the falls, but Louis was not content. There seemed to be something purposeless in this clumsy tumbling about of dark waters, losing their balance, falling helplessly over ledges and worn boulders, lost in their way among them, and reeling absurdly off at the bottom. It all seemed to lack order and singleness of purpose. Near the falls was a small wooden mill afflicted with the rickets, and this alone seemed in tune with the falls.
So they trudged home and Aunt Jenny said the blessing. Grandpa had just returned from a long walk, his favorite pastime—fifteen or twenty miles—nothing for him. It became his daily habit. He always went barehead, always got lost and always found his way back.
Next day Minnie told Louis, in confidence, she knew of a charming spot not very far away, where there were ledges of rock and tall trees, and a darling rivulet with green along its banks. She took him there, and would not even let him help her over the lichen and moss covered rocks. With Louis in tow she found a shady spot, with ferns and undergrowth forming a nook, and the wide-branching trees a canopy. She had taken books with her, and on a large, ancient stone which she called her pulpit, she perched with her slave. Below them ran the rivulet, and above the opposite crest there showed a bit of the roof of the dwelling. Minnie clapped her hands with joy. “Louis, don’t you think I’m good to bring you here? It is the solitary oasis in this desert of hayland. There is hay, hay, hay, for miles.”
Presently she opened a book and read from Tennyson, making her selections carefully varied, feeling her way through Louis’s responses to see where she could reach his heart, how she could bare it, and then keep her secret. She read from Byron, recited many other poems with a skill unknown to elocutionists, and a stealthy, comfortable look came into her eyes now turned green, her face wreathed in a Mona Lisa smile, as she said: “Louis, this is a great, beautiful, good world if but we knew it, and to this very spot I have often come in thankful mood, and from this very pulpit prayed to these trees to make me pure in heart.” And then she told Louis about the many books she had read, largely French novels—for practice, she said; and then Louis told her he had read all of Captain Mayne Reid’s books, all the Leather Stocking Tales, some by Maryatt, and some wonderful and beautiful stories in the Bible; and he recited for her, verbatim, the story of Elijah, the whirlwind, and the still small voice.
The smile on Minnie’s pale face became luxurious, her gleaming eyes about to close, as she said half-warningly: “Louis, Louis, you are in danger!” and refused to explain. Then suddenly coming to herself she cried: “We must go back to the house at once; if we are late at supper, your auntie will give me just one look, and I will know exactly what that one look means; but you won’t.” And she took Louis by the hand, her books under the other arm, resumed her jaunty mood and led him to the house, delivering to his Auntie a human package not merely stirred, but churned into butter and whey.
Auntie again said grace; the thoughts of all bowed heads but hers were on supper. The evening was spent by the family on the dark veranda singing old-fashioned hymns; after which the peace of night came over all—but one.
Next day, Minnie, repentant of her wickedness, appeared as a fresh blown morning glory, gave hearty, cheerful greetings to all, and to Louis talked as might an ordinarily affectionate sister. Her eyes were crystalline, her carriage buoyant. Then, at the appointed time, she began her hour of French with Auntie; and as Louis, nearby, listened, he framed a desire and a resolve to learn the language which Minnie seemed to read and speak as easily as Auntie. The lesson over, Minnie came to Louis, took a place beside him and as one wooing, said, “Dear protégé: the hour is at hand. I have much to say. The woods are calling, the birds are waiting. Let us now repair to the pulpit and be two sensible humans.” To the pulpit they repaired, that day and many a day. Once seated on the great stone, Minnie put Louis at his ease and began rapid-fire questions, about Louis’s home and school life. She wished every detail; and Louis answered faithfully. He told her not only the story of his life, but the story of everyone and everything therewith connected: Minnie saying: “Fine, fine, how well you tell it,” in running comment. He even told Minnie one of Julia’s fairy tales, the tale of the “Good People,” and Minnie cried: “Oh, what a lovely brogue, isn’t it sweet?” and Louis said yes, it was, and added that Julia had taught him some real Gaelic words, but he had forgotten the meaning of most of them. “That gives me a bright idea, Louis; you don’t know French, so I will give you a password, in French, that is better than any Gaelic. Say to me, once every day, Je t’aime”; and Louis said to her once every day Je t’aime—deeming it a secret. And Minnie would gravely say each time, in approval, that he pronounced it beautifully.
She told him conversationally about herself and her home. She described in detail her finishing school, and mimicked its follies. She raved over her adored brother Ed, fresh from Yale. Told of her coming out, of Utica society, and her set, and of the landed aristocracy, the old families, the exclusive, best people; said her father was a big grain forwarder, and had plenty of money, as far as her simple needs were concerned, and described minutely her trip to Europe. She travelled this ground to and fro with many a mimicry, flippancy, wise saw, and splendid enthusiasms.
So Louis began to see that people were graded. He was pained at many things Minnie casually described. She was revealing too much. She was unconscious of lifting many veils, as Louis was unconscious of repeating world-truth when he said, every day, Je t’aime. He was not lifting any veil for Minnie; this selfsame Minnie having one small devil peeping through each eye. Their talk, throughout that livelong day, was gossip.
When Minnie came, through questioning, to a full sense of the depth of Louis’s ignorance of the world, of social organization both in its ephemeral and its momentous inert and stratified aspects, that he was provincial, that he was honest, frank, and unsuspecting, she became alarmed at the new danger, and determined to prepare him; and in so doing, she lifted at least a corner of a sinister and heavy veil that lay behind appearances. This she did with skill, and a little at a time, proving her case in each instance, by direct illustration and remarks none too complimentary. But Minnie could not be serious for long at a time; she preferred frivolity, nonsense and high spirits—never for a moment neglecting to keep Louis dazed in her land of enchantment.
Minnie became Louis’s precious teacher. She made him feel he was not being taught, but entertained with gossip. She knew that what she said in persiflage, would later sink in deep, and she knew why it would do so.
Minnie was both worldly and unworldly. With nature she was dreamy; but when it came to people, she became a living microscope, her sharp brain void of all illusion, for her true world was of the world of people—there she lived—as Louis’s world had been a world of the wide open—of romance. Hence, with Louis she was ever gentle, even though she dangled him as though he were a toy balloon.
An aching in her guarded heart was soothed by him; and he became for her a luxury—a something to remain awhile a precious memory. Thus Minnie filled the air with laughter, and with debonnaire delight—meanwhile feeding honey drop by drop—just to see upon a human face the rare, the precious witching aspect of idolatry.
So came a day when Minnie, on the pulpit, talked of things pertaining to herself. Among other words she said the young men of her set were grossly stupid; incapable of thought above the level of the sty. Their outlook upon life she said was vapid, coarse and vain. That they held women to be property, their appendage, their vehicle of display. They were all rich, she said, and this made matters worse. To be anchored to such brutes, scarcely decent in their evening clothes, she said, was horror. She would be owned, she said, by no man rich or poor. She must be free, she said; free as air. Knowing all this now, she had marked her course in life, and she said that never would she marry—the risk of sorrow was too great. All this she said as lightly as a swallow on the wing.
At these last words, something fell away in Louis’s solar plexus, sometimes known as the sensorium, and Minnie said: “Never mind, never mind, you’ll outgrow it, Louis, you are fourteen, I’m eighteen. While it lasts, let us be dear friends together; the dearest comrades ever known. Your heart’s in mine and mine in yours, I know. Let these great oaks, as witnesses, betrothe us in such way, and prophesy a lovely memory.”
Louis with unheard-of stoicism held back his tears. And Minnie said: “Come now, let’s be going; don’t refer to this again. Let’s be as we’ve always been, together, carefree—and let laughter ring again.”
Such was Minnie’s way of doing and of saying. She was Louis’s loyal friend. She mothered him in sprightly malice and in tenderness alike. All her vagaries and sweetness came from one constant nature. She was ever thoughful of the needs of others. She was exquisitely human. To Louis, long adapted to the elderly, she was held by him as in a shrine, to be the only truly human he had ever known; and her kindness in adopting him, and making him her own, not for a day, but for all the glad summer long, made him feel as though his life, before her floating into it, had been but a blank. How could he ever repay! She had come, it seemed to him, out of the invisible that lies behind all things, all dreams, to be his faerie queen.
And now it seems as though a half a century had stood still.