TURNED OUT TO GRASS

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1831, 10 April 1907, Page 8

TURNED OUT TO GRASS

(By George Wood Pangborn, in “Harper’s Magazine.”)

John Blaisdell looked out over th© soft-bosomed mountains, glimmering river and crude green of a near strip of woodland which made up the “view” from Walter Harkness’s new house, and said, “I envy you.” If the passion of envy always left a man’s face so placidly kind, it would hardly need placing on the list of deadly sins. Perhaps he should have said “congratulate,” yet that would not have been all the truth. No—it was envy, rarefied and harmless.

The city lay behind him like a foul dream. The muxky office where he had worked half-heartedly these many empty years—-he thought of it with the distaste of one who has cracked a bad nut between his teeth. And the heat! He had fled to the hills that morning with the consciousness of heat apoplexy perched upon his shoulder like black care, not leaving him until he had tumbled into the inchoate but welcoming bosom of the Harkness family, saying feebly, “I—thought you wouldn’t mind.” Hark, ness having relieved him of collar and coat, stretched him in a hammock on the unfinished verandah, where Mrs Harkness, with maternal purring, brought him a lhint julep and a palmleaf fan. The children were down by the brook, she said, and would go crazy as soon as they caught sight of him.

Harkness had bought the wonderful old farm in March. Orchards, meadows, and wood-lot of a hundred yoars’ cultivation, old Dutch farmhouse to make an architect’s eyes shine over the remodelling of it, so much could be done without injuring its fine strong lines. It was long, low 7 , rooted to the soil, with a giant of a chimney w 7 hose fireplaces—in the kitchen the crane and hooks had been bricked in just as they hung—were already restored to their old uses. The roof would bear a discreet* pair of dormers, and a wide verandah would in no way hurt the solid and primitive dignity of style. Then, with the cellar cemented and the water brought up from the brook with a ran:., tu'.ere seemed little left in this w 7 orld for a man’s desire, particularly when one ranged in the foreground of these possessions the five pretty faces which belonged to Harkness —rlie prettiest of the five being that under the busy sun-bonnet in the berry-patch, whither Mrs Harkness had departed after administering the julep. The changes were now progressing, the noise of them having just subsided for the day. _ Blaisdell, having lit a cigar, nestled deeper into the hammock like a tired child, and drowsily repeated his placid declaration of envy. To his surprise, Harkness, after drawing on his pipe for a moment in silence, blurted out, “Well, I don’t know —” Blaisdell raised himself on his elbow and stared. “Not a fly in the ointment so so-.m ?” “Flies have a way of getting into ointment,” grumbled Harkness. “One must expect it, 1 suppose.” Blaisdell studied his downcast face anxiously. “The title’s all right. ’ That was his first thought, the responsibility of searching it having lain upon his own shoulders. “Legally, yes. Practically, there seems to be two opinions, and if old Van Ander pesters me much more, lie’ll have me doubting whether I’ve any moral right to the place at all.” ‘‘Van Ander? What kick has he got? You paid him in full.” “He wants to eat his cake and have it too. He offered to buy it back the day the men began to rip things open; but, hang it! I’d signed the . contract for the repair work—even if I’d been willing otherwise to .give it up. You have to draw the line ah altruism somewhere, and he didn’t even have the full sum that I’d paid him. His daughters—a sort of Goneril and Regan pair—had already got away with about a third of it. Ho lives with Goneril, down the hill a bit. You can see the chimney and the window of his little attic room.” He pointed with the stem of his pipe. “There, between the cedars. It wasn’t visible when we first came, but he had a big cedar cut down so that he could watch us better. He has a spyglass. It’s trained on us now, unless lies sneaking around the farm, mourning over weeds in the corn and potatoes.”

In the far-away black eye of the window Blaisdell fancied he detected some kind of movement, a lighter blur the size of a face, and then, like the light in the pupil of an es r e, a gleam as of sun striking on glass. i

“Comes here and snarls at the workmen for spoiling the house,” mourned Harkness. “A dozen times a ckt-y I’d hear him tune up, always beginning the same way. For instance: ‘lts none of my business, but you never can keep warm at them fireplaces in winter. We

had ’era. bricked up a-purpose. I done it myself, me an’ the hired man, thirty year ago, come Thanksgiving. You’ll be mighty glad to come back to, stoves, I can tell ye.’ Or: ‘lt’s none of. my business'’—ihis was when the furnace came —‘but I wouldn’t have one o’ them infernal machines In my cellar for a thousand dollars. Forget to put water in ’em some day, and then where’ll ye be? Powder-mill blew up, over yonder, ten year ago; killed two men. You could see the smoke twenty mile.’ And if it’s all I can do to keep civil, you can imagine the effect oil the workmen. One of them came down from the roof the other, day, and stuck liis chin in the old man’s face. ‘lf it’s none of your business, dry up’ an go hornet Your mother oughtn’t to let you out.’ Van Ander got white, and turned tail. But., the carpenter . , repented, being Irish, and next day, when Van Ander canie slinking up, they sat on a pile of lumber, smoking sociably through the noon hours. What the old fellow said I, don’t know, but as -the Irishman climbed up to the roof again, I heard him say, ‘Looney!’ Maybe he’s right; I don’t know. Van Ander tjiinks I am. He spreads accounts of my .insanity through the neighbourhood, helps himself to my fruit, prowls around the house at. night—l’ve often looked out and seen him in moonlight oiv early sunrise sitting all huddled up on a pile of lumber.” , “Have you threatened to arrest him for tresoass?”..

“Oh, no; you couldn’t, you know.” “Shucks! Tell him to go and buy another farm. You can’t blame yourself for anything.” . . “I - do’t blame myself, exactly; Yes, why /doesn’t he buy. another /farm? That’sfiat I asked himi.U//He. says he’sn too- old to begin s:overY again. Seeffis-to blame me fof 'that:>;. vYet he’s .only.fifty-five.” ■/ ‘‘But —fifty-five—I’m forty nine*' rayself Fifty-five isn’t old.’” r -’ ‘ “And s I’m forty-five. No. You’d think he could begin again.” “Fifty-five! That isn’t old. You’re just ready to settle down and enjoy things at fifty-five. At fifty-five you ought to have done enough Drudgery so that you can sit down with a good appetite to the—well, the essential things that one can only give half an eye'to while ono is hurrying about: on the business of daily bread. For'instance, I’ve? been planning—how would you likeime for a neighbour P , I ;just ache to /-scratch around in the ~ dirt and make/ things grow. And we-hould get up golf-links and a tennis court for

the kiddies, and winters I’d put in Avriting law bocks —”

He had Avandered from the Van Ander problem, his enthusiasm haA T ing broken aAvay coltishly into imaginary green pastures. He sat up astride of the hammock and looked about

the landscape, now taking on the vague yellow and purple bloom of late afternoon. “What’s the use of staying shut up in an office when you can have all this? ‘Go out and possess the land.’ I thought I’d build a lodge of about four rooms with a big fireplace. I suppose I could get a native female to come in and clean up.” • Harkness brightened, then grew doubtful. “It sounds good, and your headpiece is enough better than Van Ander’s, so you might stand it all right, but—giving up one’s occupation—for myself, I’d be afraid to stop painting.” “But you artisti fellows—that’s different. That’s the way your brain is made in the beginning. You can’t stop. But a profession, like law, is accident and environment,”

“Maybe. It would be great luck having you for a neighbour. But Van Ander was so chipper at the idea of quitting work. Said he was being turned out to grass. Always believed in turning old horses out to grass when they’d worked hard all their lives. His children were married, and he was lonesome all by liimseif. He’d board around with them. ''They could take care of the old man, he guessed, seeing as lioav he’d made ’em each a present of a house and a lot when they got married. Well, he lias stayed with Goneril ever since. Her attic window gives- him a view of us.” “Goneril and Regan—are they so terrifically Shakespearean as all that?”

- “Shakespeare knew most things—among others the singular effect which somebody else’s money has on the primitive mind. The Van Ander Goneril and Regan aren’t good looking, as one imagines the Misses Lear to have been. Regan—wlio might not be so bad if he’d give her a chance —is fat and snubby, and lias eight or ten children. Her real name is Lj r ddy Ann. Goneril’s name is Claribel, and she’s built like a hat-rack. She hasn’t any children, only a cat, who comes up here now and then after a chicken. She called on Lucy when we first came, and stayed all the afternoon. Lucy nearly went crazy trying to entertain her. She kissed Lucy when she went away. Lucy said it was like being caressed:by a file or a dried her-

ring, except that it was slimy as well as dried up. “She wears a very blue silk shirtwaist, and a picture-hat with pink roses, and white cotton gloves and sings in the choir. Hereabout she’s considered quite stylish. And she’s a good housekeeper, with all kinds of mats to wipe your feet on; and she wouldn’t let poor old Van Ander take Moses, his dog, to her house, because dogs clutter ’round. You’ll remember Lear’s daughters wouldn’t let him have followers, either. I’ve been reading Lear lately; thought I might get points from it. That’s what they finally split on—the followers. Goneril thinks her cat is enough pets for the family, and doesn’t see why her father needs his dog around, when the cat is willing arid ready to sit in his lap at any time. He came up here and gave me the dog and told me his troubles. That, was before he went back on me. He was grateful to mo then for taking the beast. Now he seems to think I won him away by craft and guile. Strange thing, a point of view! They live on coffee and ham and canned tomatoes down at Gor.eril’s.”

A long and elaborate peal upon a Japanese gong —this manner of an nouncing dinner was the familiar task of a small Harkness —called them into the house. The glow of sunset struck across the dinner table, emphasising the shining chafing-dish and the large glass dish of red and yellow raspberries. The children kept up an incessant chirping, while Mrs Harkness, busy and content, extended her motherly care even to Blaisdell and to the dog Moses, who watched from the doorway.

Remembering how pale and winterkilled those ruddy faces had been before the farm was bought, Blaisdell rejoiced in the clear tan which now masked them all. Even the pink-and-white of the two-year-old had taken on a golden tinge. He was a quiefi person, but with a tendency to put his fist in the sugar bowl! The air Avas hot arid dry; plants, e\ r en weeds, Avere dying of the drought, but the pressure of Rlaisdell’s neck Avas gone, and that terror of ambulances, hospitals, and the “Death List for the Day,’* had departed.

“We’ve lost cur blackcaps,” said Mrs Harkness. Her face Avas burned more richly than the children’s particularly the capable-looking nose. “The heat has Avithered them on the bushes—like dried-up mummies. But the yellow raspberries do very Avell, and some red ones are left, and next Aveek there’ll be blackberries—monsters ! There’s simply no end to the fruit. Have you seen the quince orchard? We’ll to sell some. It Avould be a sin to let it waste, and if I put it all up, there’d be enough for a regiment. I’m going to start a cannery—home-made jams, you lcnoAv, and that sort of thing. I’ve read of Avomen Avho made money that Avay, and paid off mortgages and things—”

She stopped and blushed, not having meant to mention mortgages before Blaisdell, since it was he who held the mortgage on the house, and she suspected (but Blaisdell knew) that the likelihood of its early payment was small.

Bufi when they reached the box hedge, there he stood with elbows on tlie gate, intent upon the shadowy bulk of masons’ paraphernalia set out upon the disordered lawn. He pointed a finger that shook with anger. “It’s none of my business, but them fellows o’ your’n got their bags of cement right onto my wife’s lily-o’-the-valley bed. I don’t care about flowers myself, but I suppose all proi per womenfolks did,;” and with this innuendo against Mrs Harkness, whose pleasant profile at that moment passed the window, intent on some little fragment of household business, Mr \an Ander took liis dark way down the hill to his daughter’s house, and the hot, unsavoury attic, whence the lights of liis old house would be visible until he slept, and its roof the first thing he would see in the fresh grey and pink of the morning. “We might move that cement,” said Blaisdell, eyeing doubtfully the pile of twelve bags, each of them of the bulk and more than the weight of a man. Harkness groaned. “No. It might as well be that as anything else. The drought had killed the plants, anyway, and there’s so little space just here to put things. They’ll probably come up another year. The cement won’t be there more than a week, anyway. Last week we had to take down a vine so that the men could break in for the dormer. We didn’t hurt it any more than we could possibly help. It will be as good as ever in a year or two; but he came up and watched. ‘lt’s none of my business, but I j planted that creeper myself, thirty year ago, when I was first marned. I couldn’t get it into his head that I wasn’t hurting it.” “Why don’t you send her to the shore or somewhere until this business is over. Perhaps he’ll settle down when the building is done. Of course that keeps him riled.”

“You couldn’t budge her with dynamite. She’s in love with the place, and thriving like a A\ r eed.” “I think, in your place, I’d budge somebody.”

But Harkness responded with the placidity of experience, ‘You don’t know her.”

. The voice of a phonograph suddenly cut through the night, from the direction in which the old man had gone, dominating all the smaller raspings of insects like some brazen cicada:

“’Way down upon the Suwannee Ribber—” ‘Yes,” said Harkness, dayly, “they’ve been getting all the, latest improvements down at Goneril’s since Van Ander’s money Avent to live there. The phonograph is new. Last Aveek it was a crayon enlargement of her photograph. She wanted me to come down and give my opinion as an artist.”

But silence came at last, and _ hd fell asleep. Once, towards morning, Moses lifted his voice and clanked his chain. But his alarmed threats changed quickly to appealing Avhimpers, a regular thudding indicating that his tail, in violent agitation, was whacking his kennel. “V an Ander,” thought Baisdell, sleepily, and droAVsed off while wondering whether he had curiosity enough to got up and peep at this midnight colloquy between the old man and his dog. “The little dogs and all,

Tray, Blanch, and Sweetheart, see, they bark at me,” he quoted in his dream, and thought ho was watching Lear on the stage, and that Goneril wore a blue silk shirt-waist, and objected to dogs. Harkness’s insistent hand on hia shouldei woke him. At first he was indignant to see the sunrise colour still in the sky, then suddenly became alert and cool, and very wide aAvake. Harkness was stammering and shivering. f< You’ve got to help me. 5—T cut him down, but he was already cold, so I’ve locked the door.” “What!”

“It’s a way f-farmers have. I’ve read of such things, and I ought to have known. Th-they are always hanging themselves in. barns ” Blaisdell dressed with speed. “You’re sure you locked the barn, door ? And Lucy ?”

“She has waked up, and will be getting breakfast. She’ll want to go and hunt for eggs.”

“I’ll get the eggs,” said Blaisdell, quickly, “and hitch up the horses at the same time. Keep close watch on the house while I get ready. I’ll take her and the kids on a picnic for the day You’ll be free then to—see to things. The vvorkmen will be coming —and Goneril and Regan, I suppose. To-morrow morning, by the first train, I’ll take Lucy and the kids to the shore. I know of a cottage. And they needn’t know—not for a long time, anyway—”