when wade came to himself he discovered that he was standing with folded arms staring blankly at the declaration of independence which, framed in walnut and gilt, adorned the wall of the sitting-room. how long he had been standing there he didn't know. he swung around in sudden uneasiness and examined the room carefully. then he gave a deep sigh of relief. it was all right this time; this was his own house! he sank into the green rocker and mechanically began to fill his pipe. from the floor above came the swish of the broom and zephania's voice raised in joyful song:
"'i was a wand'ring sheep, i did not love the fold;
i did not love my shepherd's voice, i would not be controlled.
i was a wayward child, i did not love my home;
i did not love my father's voice, i loved afar to roam.'"
wade lighted his pipe, and when he had filled the adjacent atmosphere with blue smoke he groaned. after that he gazed for a long time at his hands, turning them this way and that as though he had never really noticed them before. then he laughed shortly a laugh seemingly quite devoid of amusement, and got up to wander aimlessly about the room. at last he caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror and walked over to it, and glared fiercely at the reflection for a full round minute. twice he opened his mouth, only to close it again without a sound. at length, however, the right words came to him. he looked himself witheringly in the eyes.
"you blundering, god-forsaken ass!" he enunciated.
that seemed to cheer him up quite a bit, for he turned away from the mirror with a less hopeless expression on his face and began to unpack his valise and distribute the contents about the room. later he borrowed some of zephania's hot water from the singing kettle and shaved himself. no matter to what depths of degradation a man may fall, shaving invariably raises him again to a fair level of self-respect. he ate luncheon with a good appetite, and then wandered down to prout's store, ostensibly to ask if his trunk had arrived, but in reality to satisfy a craving for human intercourse. the trunk had not come, mr. prout informed him, but, as wade couldn't well expect it before the morning, he wasn't disappointed. he purchased one of mr. prout's best cigars—price one nickel—and sat himself on the counter.
"yes," said mr. prout, "them two houses is a good deal alike. in fact i guess they're just alike. anyway, old colonel selden phelps built 'em alike, an' i guess they ain't been much changed. i recollect my mother tellin' how the old colonel had them two houses built. the colonel lived over near redding and folks used to say he was land-crazy. every cent the colonel would get hold of he'd up an' buy another tract of land with it. owned more land hereabouts than you could find on the county map, and they say he never had enough to eat in the house from one year's end to t'other. family half starved most of the time, so they used to tell. the boy, nathan, he up an' said he couldn't stand it; said he might's well be a roman catholic, because then he would be certain of a full meal once in awhile, but as it was every day was fast day. so he run away down to boston an' became a sailor. the colonel never saw him again, because he was lost at sea on his second voyage. that just left the two girls, mary and evelyn. my mother used to say that every one pitied them two girls mightily. always looked thin and peaked, they did, while as for mrs. phelps, why, folks said she just starved to death. anyway, she died soon after nathan was drowned. just to show how pesky mean the old colonel was, mr. herrick, they tell how one night the women folks was sewing in the sittin'-room. seems they was workin' on some mighty particular duds and mrs. phelps had lighted an extra candle; the colonel never would allow a lamp in his house. well, there they was sittin' with the two candles burnin' when in stomps the colonel. 'hey,' says he, blowin' out one of the candles, 'what's all this blaze of light? want to ruin your eyes?
"folks liked the colonel, too, spite of his meanness. he was a great church man, an' more'n half supported the baptist church over there. seemed as if he was willin' to give money to the lord an' no one else, not even his own family. mary was the first of the girls to get married, she bein' the eldest. she married george craig, from over portsmouth way, an'—"
"craig? then she was ed's mother?" interrupted wade.
"yes. about a month after the engagement was given out the colonel drew up the plans of those two houses. he made the drawin's himself, and then sot down an' figured out just how much they'd cost; so much for stone an' masonry; so much for lumber and carpentry; so much for brick an' so much for paint. then he went to a carpenter over in redding an' showed him the plans with the figures writ on 'em an' asked him if he'd put up the houses. the carpenter figured an' said he'd be switched if he'd do it for any such price. so the colonel he goes to another feller with like results. they say most every carpenter between here an' portsmouth figured on those houses an' wouldn't have anything to do with them. then, finally, the colonel found a man who'd just settled down in tottingham and opened a shop there. came from biddeford, maine, i believe, and thought he was pretty foxy. 'well,' he says, 'there ain't any money in it for me at those figures, colonel, but work's slack an' i'll take the contract.' you see, he thought he could charge a little more here an' there an' make something. but he didn't know the colonel. every time he'd talk about things costin' more than he'd thought the colonel would flash that contract on him. when the houses was finished he sued the colonel for a matter of four hundred dollars, but there was the contract, plain as day, an' he lost his suit. just about put him out of business an' he had to move away. the colonel gave one of the houses to mary—mrs. craig she was by that time—and the other to evelyn when she married irv walton a year afterwards."
"but look here," said wade. "do you mean that ed craig's mother and miss walton's mother were sisters?"
"yes, ed and eve was first cousins."
"well, i'll be hanged!" sighed wade. "i never savvied that. what became of mr. walton, ed's uncle?"
"dead. irv was what you call a genius, a writer chap. came of a good family over to concord, he did, an' had a fine education at exeter academy. he an' his wife never lived much at the cedars—that's what they called their place—but used to come here now and then in the summer. they lived in new york. he had something to do with one of those magazines published down there. irv walton was a fine lookin' man, but sort of visionary. made a lot of money at one time in mines out west an' then lost it all about four years ago. that sort of preyed on his mind, an' somethin' like a year after that he up an' died."
"and his wife?"
"oh, she died when eve was a little girl. an' ed's mother died about ten years ago. miss eve's the last one of the old colonel's folks."
wade sat silent for a minute, puffing hard on his cigar and trying to arrange his facts.
"does she know of ed's death?" he asked.
"miss eve? oh, i guess so. i told doctor crimmins myself last night an' i guess he's been up to the cedars by this time. i guess ed's death wouldn't affect her much, though."
"why is that?"
"well, the brothers-in-law never got on very well together in the old days, an' far as i know miss eve never saw ed except, perhaps, when they were both babies. ed went away to school, winters down to boston, to a school of tech—tech—well, a place where they taught him engineerin' an' minin' an' such. summers he worked in a mill over to lansing."
"is miss walton well off?"
"only tolerable, i guess. she's got that house and what little money was saved out of her father's smash-up."
"where does she live when she's not here, mr. prout?"
"new york. she does some sort of writing work, like her father. inherited some of his genius, i guess likely."
later wade walked leisurely back to the cottage. the afternoon sunlight lay in golden ribbons across the deserted street. up in the high elms the robins were swaying and singing. an ancient buggy crawled past him and here and there an open window framed a housewife busy with her needle. but save for these signs of life, he reflected, he might be walking through the original deserted village. come to think of it, craig's camp was a busy metropolis compared to eden village, only—wade paused in front of his garden hedge and peered pleasurably up into the leafy golden mists above him—only for some reason the absence of human beings didn't make for loneliness here. nature was more friendly. there was jovial comradeship in every mellow note that floated down to him from the happy songsters up there.
"'the cheerful birds of sundry kind do sweet music to delight his mind.'"
wade swung around with a start and found himself looking over the hedge-top into a smiling, ruddy, gold-spectacled countenance.
"spenser, i think, sir," continued the stranger, "but i'll not he certain. perhaps you recall the lines?"
"i'm afraid i don't," replied wade, passing through the gateway.
"no? but like enough the poets aren't as much to a busy, practical man like you, mr. herrick, as they are to me. even i don't find as much time to devote to them as i'd like, however. but i haven't introduced myself nor explained my presence in your garden. my name is crimmins, doctor crimmins."
"glad to know you, doctor," replied wade, as they shook hands. "it was friendly of you to call, sir."
the doctor tucked his gold-headed cane under his arm and thrust his hands into the pockets of his slate-colored trousers, a proceeding which brought to view the worn satin lining of the old black frock-coat.
"wait until you know us better, sir, and you'll not speak of it as kindness. why, 'tis a positive pleasure, a veritable debauch of excitement, mr. herrick, to greet a newcomer to our mislaid village! the kindness is on your side, sir, for dropping down upon us like—like—"
"a bolt from the blue," suggested wade.
"like a dispensation of providence, sir."
"that's flattering, doctor. won't you come in?"
"just for a moment." at the sitting-room door the doctor paused. "well! well!" he exclaimed, reverently under his breath. "nothing changed! it's ten years ago since i stood here, mr. herrick. dear me! a fine christian woman she was, sir. well! well! 'time rolls his ceaseless course.' bless me, i believe i'm getting old!" and the doctor turned his twinkling gray eyes on wade with smiling dismay.
"try the rocking chair, doctor crimmins. let me take your hat and cane."
"no, no, i'll just lay them here beside me. i see you've chosen the best room for your chamber, sir. you're not one of us, mr. herrick, that's evident. here we make the best room into a parlor, the next into a sitting-room, the next into a spare room and sleep in what's left. we take good care of our souls and let our bodies get along as best they may. you, i take it, are a southron."
"from virginia, doctor, and, although i've been in the west for some six years, i hope i haven't entirely forgotten southern hospitality. unfortunately my sideboard isn't stocked yet, and all the hospitality i can offer is here." he indicated his flask.
"h'm," said the doctor, placing his finger-tips together and eying the temptation over his spectacles. "i believe i've heard that it is an insult to refuse southern hospitality. but just a moment, mr. herrick." he arose and laid a restraining hand on. wade's arm. "let's not fly in the face of providence, sir." he guided his host into the dining-room and softly closed the door, cutting off the view from the front window. then he drew a chair up to the table and settled himself comfortably. "we are a censorious people, mr. herrick."
"as bad as that, is it?" laughed wade as he placed glasses on the cloth and brought water from the kitchen.
"we are strictly abstemious in eden village," replied the doctor, gravely, "and only drink in dark corners. your very good health, sir. may your visit to our edenic solitude prove pleasant."
"to our better acquaintance, doctor."
"thank you, sir, thank you. ha! h'm!" and the doctor smacked his lips with relish, wiped them carefully on his handkerchief and led the way back to the sitting-room.
"and now, mr. herrick, to come to the second object of my call, the first being to extend you a welcome. zenas—i refer to our worthy merchant prince, mr. zenas prout—zenas informed me last evening that you had been a close friend of ed craig's, had, in fact, been in partnership with him in some western mining-enterprise; that ed had died and that you had come into his property. that is correct?"
"quite, sir."
"i brought him into the world. i'm sorry to hear of his death. well, well! 'our birth is nothing but our death begun, as tapers waste that instant they take fire.' young's 'night thoughts,' mr. herrick. full of beautiful lines, sir." the doctor paused a moment while he cleaned his spectacles with a corner of his coat. "let me see; ah, yes. i wonder if you know that you have next door to you ed's only surviving near relative?"
"i learned it only an hour ago, doctor."
"i see. i felt it my duty to inform miss walton of her cousin's death and called on her at noon. miss walton's parents and ed's were not intimate when the two were children; some silly misunderstanding in regard to a division of old colonel phelps's property after he died. as it turned out they might have spared themselves the quarrel, for a later will was afterwards found leaving his entire estate to churches and schools. well, i was going to say that ed's death was not much of a grief to miss walton because she had really never known him, but, nevertheless, she would naturally wish to hear the particulars. i came to suggest that you should give me the honor of allowing me to present you to miss walton, mr. herrick."
"i shall be very glad to meet her," replied wade, "and tell her all i can about ed. we were very close friends for several years and a finer chap never breathed."
"i'm delighted to hear you say so. i've brought a good many into this world, mr. herrick, but very few have ever made me proud of the fact."
"i fear you're a bit of a pessimist, doctor."
"no, no, i'm only honest. with myself, that is. in my dealings with others, sir, i'm—just an ordinary new englander."
"that sounds hard on new englanders," said wade with a smile. "do you mean to say that they're not honest?"
"new englanders are honest according to their lights, mr. herrick, but their lights are sometimes dim. shall we say this evening for our call on the ladies? miss walton has with her a miss mullett, a very dear and estimable girl who resides with her in the role of companion. i say girl, but you mustn't be deceived. when you get to sixty-odd you'll find that any lady under fifty is still a girl to you. miss mullett, through regrettable circumstances, was overlooked by the seekers after wives and is what you would call a maiden lady. she plays a remarkable hand of cribbage, mr. herrick."
"this evening will suit me perfectly, doctor."
"then shall we say about half-past seven? we don't keep very late hours in eden village. we sup at six, make our calls at seven or half-past, and go to bed promptly at ten. a light in a window after ten o'clock indicates but one thing, illness."
"how about burglars?" laughed wade.
"burglars? bless my soul, we never have 'em, sir. sometimes a tramp, but never a burglar. even tramps don't bother us much." the doctor chuckled as he rescued his hat and cane from beside his chair. "zenas prout tells a story to show why eden village is exempt. we have a lady here, mr. herrick, who should have been of rights a descendant of old colonel phelps, ed's grandfather on his mother's side. the old colonel's name was synonymous for—let us say self-denial. the lady in question is a very estimable lady, sir, oh, very estimable, but, while she is probably our richest citizen, she is extremely careful and saving. zenas says a tramp stopped at her door once and asked for food. miss cousins—there, i didn't mean to give her name! but no matter—miss cousins brought him a slice of stale bread thinly spread with butter. zenas says the tramp looked from the bread to miss cousins, who, i should explain is extremely thin in face and figure, and back to the bread. then he held it out to her. 'lady,' he said, 'i haven't the heart to take this from you. you need it more than i do. eat it yourself!'"
under cover of wade's appreciative laughter the doctor made his adieux, promising to call again at half-past seven. wade watched him depart down the street, very erect and a trifle pompous, his gold-headed stick serving no other purpose than that of ornament. then he went indoors and walked to the mirror.
"gee!" he muttered, "i wish my trunk were here!"
