At the Age of Eve

by Kate Trimble Sharber

At home, back of the village, and extending so far away that I had never yet explored the uttermost reaches of it, lies a long, low hill. It is wooded in places with patriarchal oaks, so stately and far-reaching that they call to mind the tales of fairy forests, where knights in glittering armor rode through; or giants lived in hidden houses in the midst of them.

With the varying seasons this hill always seems to tell the silent story of the feelings in nature called forth by the changes. It speaks of joy in the spring; a gentle sadness in the summer; a glorious renunciation when the living green must give way to the gorgeous, though dying, red; and in winter there seems to be a spirit of patience.

Back of the actual summit of the hill, and partly shut in by its crest, which runs along half of its rounding curve, and skirted on the other side by the woods, where the oaks and chestnuts grow, is an expansive depression, wide, rolling, beautiful. The ground, which is barren red clay, is thickly coated over with a scrubby growth, green for only a short while every spring, when there are millions of minute blue blossoms deep-set in its mazes. Later, it takes on a dull brown which lasts until fall, when it changes to a withered yellow.

A few small cedar trees, growing sometimes singly, sometimes in sparse clumps, are dotted around over the ground, but the only actual beauty of the place is its look of great space. It is the only spot I know of where I can see sky enough.

The sky! Yes, that is its charm. It seems to close down upon this cup with such a nearness that on summer days you can almost reach up and touch the clouds. And they are unbelievably lovely at such times. Then on other days, when the heavens are hidden by long, sweeping bars of heavy gray cloud, and the wind comes tearing over the crest, like a monster knowingly cruel and relentless—then the expanse of earth and sky indeed seem to run together; but the look of nearness is lost. The feeling of immensity is crushing; and you have the sense of being brought face to face with an unseen Presence.

Cathedrals hold this Presence, but tamed, trained and refined sometimes out of all semblance to its mighty prototype of the wilds.

Years ago, when I was a child, Cousin Eunice used to take me up here, for she was the first one of our family ever to discover the place. To be sure, it had always been there, and we had driven around it whenever it had been necessary, but nobody ever dreamed of wanting to take walks there, for it is a wild, lonesome-looking spot, besides being cut up in places by great gulches. In the exact center of the depression there is the bed of a prehistoric lake. The stone basin is there, with all signs of water, at a tremendous distance in the past.

"Isn't it great!" Cousin Eunice exclaimed, as we came upon the spot for the first time in our rambles. "Why, it is like being in another world, where everything is fresh, and free, and primitive. Let us pretend that this is our sacred garden, where we can carry only happy thoughts; where we can look at this immensity and learn the true value of things!" So we would often walk here, sometimes with Rufe; and then they would discuss the mysteries of Life and Death and Abiding Love.

On the Monday morning after the events of Sunday which I have just recorded, I awoke with an overpowering desire to get away to this "garden." I wanted to get out to where there was sky enough! To a place so immense that I could think it all out and get a true value of things! I wanted to dwell on the great happiness that has come to me; to take in, if I could, the unbelievable fact that I have been whirled away through the infinite spaces of human longing until I have come upon and possessed the star of my heart's desire. Star of my heart's desire! King or sultan, he is the "god of my idolatry,"—Richard Chalmers, my lover!

And while I craved this sight of a wild, free nature, I felt keenly that I should wish, on a morning like this, that the clouds and sky and trees should shrink into their proper place in the background of the mighty stage. They should move back and make room for me; and my triumphant ego should come and place itself in the limelight for me to review. I wanted to see myself at the age of Eve.