THE SIMPLEST SOLUTION OF AN ANCIENT PROBLEM
In the silence befitting such an extraordinary occasion the company formed a circle about the camp-fire.
Presently Professor Rawson looked sharply at the damp dragon. "Child!" she exclaimed, "you ought to take that off this instant!"
"But—but I haven't very much on," protested Molly Sandys with a shiver. "I'm only dressed as a—a page."
"It can't be helped," retorted the professor with decision; "that dragon is nothing but soaking pulp except where the tail is on fire!"
Ellis hastily set his foot on the sparks, just as Molly Sandys jumped. There was a tearing, ripping sound, a stifled scream, and three-quarters of a page in blue satin and lisle thread, wearing the head and shoulders of a dragon, shrank down behind Professor Rawson's poncho-draped figure.
"Here's my poncho," cried Ellis, hastily; "I am awfully sorry I ripped your gown—I mean your pasteboard tail—but you switched it into the fire and it was burning."
"Have you something for me?" inquired Miss Gay, coloring, but calm; "I'm not very comfortable, either."
Jones's enraptured eyes lingered on the slim shape in mail; he hated to do it, but he brought a Navajo blanket and draped in it the most distractingly pretty figure his rather nearsighted eyes had ever encountered.
"There," explained Ellis, courteously, "is the shanty. I've hung a blanket over it. Jones and I will sleep here by the fire."
"Sleep!" faltered Molly Sandys. "I think we ought to be starting——"
"The forests are flooded; we can't get you back to the Summer School to-night," said Ellis.
Professor Rawson shuddered. "Do you mean that we are cut off from civilization entirely?" she asked.
"Look!" replied Ellis.
The ridge on which the camp lay had become an island; below it roared a spreading flood under a column of mist and spray; all about them the water soused and washed through the forest; below them from the forks came the pounding thunder of the falls.
"There's nothing to be alarmed at, of course," he said, looking at Molly Sandys.
The grey eyes looked back into his. "Isn't there, really?" she asked.
"Isn't there?" questioned Miss Gray's brown eyes of Jones's pleasant, nearsighted ones.
"No," signalled the orbs of Jones through his mud-spattered eyeglasses.
"I'm hungry," observed Professor Rawson in a patient but plaintive voice, like the note of a widowed guinea-hen.
So they all sat down on the soft pine-needles, while Ellis began his culinary sleight-of-hand; and in due time trout were frying merrily, bacon sputtered, ash-cakes and coffee exhaled agreeable odors, and mounds of diaphanous flapjacks tottered in hot and steaming fragrance on either flank.
There were but two plates; Jones constructed bark platters for Professor Rawson, Ellis and himself; Helen Gay shared knife and fork with Jones; Molly Sandys condescended to do the same for Ellis; Professor Rawson had a set of those articles to herself.
And there, in the pleasant glow of the fire, Molly Sandys, cross-legged beside Ellis, drank out of his tin cup and ate his flapjacks; and Helen Gay said shyly that never had she tasted such a banquet as this forest fare washed down with bumpers of icy, aromatic spring water. As for Professor Rawson, she lifted the hem of her poncho and discreetly dried that portion of the Rhine-maiden's clothing which needed it; and while she sizzled contentedly, she ate flapjack on flapjack, and trout after trout, until merriment grew within her and she laughed when the younger people laughed, and felt a delightful thrill of recklessness tingling the soles of her stockings. And why not?
"It's a very simple matter, after all," declared Jones; "it's nothing but a state of mind. I thought I was leading a simple life before I came here, but I wasn't. Why? Merely because I was not in a state of mind. But"—and here he looked full at Helen Gay—"but no sooner had I begun to appreciate the charm of the forest"—she blushed vividly "no sooner had I realised what these awful solitudes might contain, than, instantly, I found myself in a state of mind. Then, and then only, I understood what heavenly perfection might be included in that frayed and frazzled phrase, 'The Simple Life.'"
"I understood it long ago," said Ellis, dreamily.
"Did you?" asked Molly Sandys.
"Yes—long ago—about six hours ago"—he lowered his voice, for Molly Sandys had turned her head away from the firelight toward the cooler shadow of the forest.
"What happened," she asked, carelessly, "six hours ago?"
"I first saw you."
"No," she said calmly; "I first saw you and took your picture!" She spoke coolly enough, but her color was bright.
"Ah, but before that shutter clicked, convicting me of a misdemeanor, your picture had found a place——"
"Mr. Ellis!"
"Please let me——"
"No!"
"Please——"
A silence.
"Then you must speak lower," she said, "and pretend to be watching the stream."
Professor Rawson gleefully scraped her plate and snuggled up in her poncho. She was very happy. When she could eat no more she asked Jones what his theory might be concerning Wagner's influence on Richard Strauss, and Jones said he liked waltzes, but didn't know that the man who wrote The Simple Life had anything to do with that sort of thing. And Professor Rawson laughed and laughed, and quoted a Greek proverb; and presently arose and went into the shanty, dropping the blanket behind her.
"Don't sit up late!" she called sleepily.
"Oh, no!" came the breathless duet.
"And don't forget to feed the swan!"
"Oh, no!"
A few minutes later a gentle, mellow, muffled monotone vibrated in the evening air. It was the swan-song of Professor Rawson.
Ellis laid fresh logs on the blaze, lighted a cigarette, and returned to his seat beside Molly Sandys, who sat, swathed in her poncho, leaning back against the base of a huge pine.
"Jones is right," he said; "the simple life—the older and simpler emotions, the primal desire—is a state of mind."
Molly Sandys was silent.
"And a state of—heart."
Miss Sandys raised her eyebrows.
"Why be insincere?" persisted Ellis.
"I'm not!"
"No—no—I didn't mean you. I meant everybody——"
"I'm somebody——"
"Indeed you are!"—much too warmly; and Molly Sandys looked up at the evening star.
"The simple life," said Ellis, "is an existence replete with sincerity. Impulse may play a pretty part in it; the capacity for the enjoyment of simple things grows out of impulse; and impulse is a child's reasoning. Therefore, impulse, being unsullied, unaffected in its source, is to be respected, cherished, guided into a higher development, so that it may become a sweet reasonableness, an unerring philosophy. Am I right, Miss Sandys?"
"I think you are."
"Well, then, following out my theorem logically, what is a man to do when, without an instant's warning, he finds himself——"
There was a pause, a long one.
"Finds himself where?" asked Molly Sandys.
"In love."
"I—I don't know," she said, faintly. "Doesn't the simple life teach him what is—is proper—on such brief acquaintance——"
"I didn't say the acquaintance was brief. I only said the love was sudden."
"Oh—then I—I don't know——"
"M-Mo-Mi-M-M——"
He wanted to say "Molly," and he didn't want to say "Miss Sandys," and he couldn't keep his mouth shut, so that was the phonetic result—a muttering monotone which embarrassed them both and maddened him till he stammered out: "The moment I saw you I—I can't help it; it's the simplest thing to do, anyhow—to tell you——"
"Me!"
"You, M-M-Mo-Mi-M——" He couldn't say it.
"Try," she whispered, stifling with laughter.
"Molly!" Like a cork from a popgun came the adored yet dreaded name.
Molly turned scarlet as Miss Gay and Jones looked up in pure amazement from the farther side of the camp-fire.
"Don't you know how to make love?" she whispered in a fierce little voice; "don't you? If you don't I am going off to bed."
"Molly!" That was better—in fact, it was so low that she could scarcely hear him. But she said: "Doesn't Helen Gay look charming in her tin armour? She is the dearest, sweetest girl, Mr. Ellis. She's my cousin. Do you think her pretty?"
"Do you know," whispered Ellis, "that I am in dead earnest?"
"Why, I—I hope so."
"Then tell me what chance I stand. I am in love; it came awfully quickly, as quickly as you snapped that kodak—but it has come to stay——"
"But I am not in—love.
"That is why I speak. I can't endure it to let you go—Heaven knows where——"
"Only to New York," she said, demurely, and, in a low voice, she named the street and the number. "In an interval of sanity you shall have an opportunity to reflect on what you have said to me, Mr. Ellis. Being a—a painter—and a rather famous one—for so young a man—you are, no doubt, impulsive—in love with love—not with a girl you met six hours ago."
"But if I am in love with her?"
"We will argue that question another time."
"In New York?"
She looked at him, a gay smile curving her lips. Suddenly the clear, grey eyes filled; a soft, impulsive hand touched his for an instant, then dropped.
"Be careful," she said, unsteadily; "so far, I also have only been in love with love."
Stunned by the rush of emotion he rose to his feet as she rose, eye meeting eye in audacious silence.
Then she was gone, leaving him there—gone like a flash into the camp-hut; he saw the blanket twitching where she had passed behind it; he heard the muffled swan-song of her blanket-mate; he turned his enchanted eyes upon Jones. Jones, his elbows on the ground, chin on his palms, was looking up into the rapt face of Helen Gay, who sat by the fire, her mailed knees gathered up in her slim hands, the reflection of the blaze playing scarlet over her glittering tin armour.
"Why may I not call you Helen?" he was saying.
"Why should you, Mr. Jones?"
The infatuated pair were oblivious of him. Should he sneeze? No; his own case was too recent; their attitude fascinated him; he sat down softly to see how it was done.
"If—some day—I might be fortunate enough to call you more than Helen——"
"Mr. Jones!"
"I can't help it; I love you so—so undauntedly that I have got to tell you something about it! You don't mind, do you?"
"But I do mind."
"Very much?"
Ellis thought: "Is that the way a man looks when he says things like that?" He shuddered, then a tremor of happiness seized him. Molly Sandys had emerged from the hut.
Passing the fire, she came straight to Ellis. "It's horrid in there. Don't you hear her? It's muffled, I know, because she's taken the swan to bed with her, and it's asleep, too, and acting as though Professor Rawson's head were a nest-egg. I am not sleepy; I—I believe I shall sit up by this delightful fire all night. Make me a nest of blankets."
Jones and Helen were looking across the fire at them in silence; Ellis unrolled some blankets, made a nest at the foot of the pine full in the fire-glow. Swathed to her smooth white throat, Molly sank into them.
"Now," she said, innocently, "we can talk. Helen! Ask Mr. Jones to make some coffee. Oh, thank you, Mr. Jones! Isn't this perfectly delicious! So simple, so primitive, so sincere"—she looked at Ellis—"so jolly. If the simple life is only a state of mind I can understand how easy it is to follow it to sheerest happiness." And in a low voice, to Ellis: "Can you find happiness in it, too?"
Across the fire Helen called softly to them: "Do you want some toasted cheese, too? Mr. Jones knows how to make it."
A little later, Jones, toasting bread and cheese, heard a sweet voice softly begin the Swan-Song. It was Helen. Molly's lovely, velvet voice joined in; Ellis cautiously tried his barytone; Jones wisely remained mute, and the cheese sizzled a discreet tremolo. It was indeed the swan-song of the heart-whole and fancy-free—the swan-song of the unawakened. For the old order of things was passing away—had passed. And with the moon mounting in silvered splendor over the forest, the newer order of life—the simpler, the sweeter—became so plain to them that they secretly wondered, as they ate their toast and cheese, how they could have lived so long, endured so long, the old and dull complexity of a life through the eventless days of which their hearts had never quickened to the oldest, the most primitive, the simplest of appeals.
And so, there, under the burnished moon, soberly sharing their toasted cheese, the muffled swan-song of the incubating maiden thrilling their enraptured ears, began for them that state of mind in the inviolate mystery of which the passion for the simpler life is hatched.
"If we only had a banjo!" sighed Helen.
"I have a jew's-harp," ventured Jones. "I am not very musical, but every creature likes to emit some sort of melody."
Ellis laughed.
"Why not?" asked Helen Gay, quickly; "after all, what simpler instrument can you wish for?" And she laughed at Jones in a way that left him light-headed.
So there, in the moonlight and the shadows of the primeval pines, Jones—simplest of men with simplest of names—produced the simplest of all musical instruments, and, looking once into the beautiful eyes of Helen, quietly began the simplest of all melodies—the Spanish Fandango.
And for these four the simple life began.
I waited for a few moments, but Williams seemed to consider that there was nothing more to add. So I said:
"Did they marry those two girls?"
He glanced at me in a preoccupied manner without apparently understanding.
"Did they marry 'em?" I repeated, impatiently.
"What? Oh, yes, of course."
"Then why didn't you say so?"
"I didn't have to say so. Didn't you notice the form in which I ended?"
"What's that got to do with it? You're not telling me a short story, you're telling me what really happened. And what really happens never ends artistically."
"It does when I tell it," he said, with a self-satisfied smile. "Let Fate do its worst; let old man Destiny get in his work; let Chance fix up things to suit herself. I wait until that trio finishes, then I step in and tell the truth in my own way. And, by gad! when I get through, Fate, Chance, and Destiny set up a yell of impotent fury and Truth looks at herself in the mirror in delighted astonishment, amazed to discover in herself attractions which she never suspected."
"In other words," said I, "Fate no longer has the final say-so."
"Not while the short-story writer exists," he grinned. "It's up to him. Fate slaps your face midway in a pretty romance. All right. But when I make a record of the matter I pick, choose, sort, re-assort my box of words, and when things are going too rapidly I wink at Fate with my tongue in my cheek and round up everybody so amiably that nobody knows exactly what did happen—and nobody even stops to think because everybody has already finished the matter in their own minds to their own satisfaction."
