He stood on the steps and watched the young fellow’s vigorous stride as he hurried out of the tranquil street. Oftener than not his pilgrims left nothing behind, but the Poet was aware of something magnetic and winning in Fulton. Several times during the evening he found himself putting down his book to recur to their interview. He had not overpraised Fulton’s verses; they were unusual, clean-cut, fresh, and informed with a haunting music. Most of the young poets who sought the Poet’s counsel frankly imitated his own work; and it was a relief to find some one within the gates of the city he loved best of all who had notched a different reed.
The Poet preferred the late hours for his writing. Midnight found him absorbed in a poem he had carried in his heart for days. Some impulse loosened the cords now; it began to slip from his pencil quickly, line upon line. It was of the country folk, told in the lingua rustica to which his art had given dignity and fame. The lines breathed atmosphere; the descriptive phrases adumbrated the lonely farmhouse with its simple comforts as a stage for the disclosure of a little drama, direct, penetrating, poignant. He was long hardened to the rejections of rigorous self-criticism, and not infrequently he cast the results of a night’s labor into the waste-paper basket; but he experienced now a sense of elation. Perhaps, he reflected, the various experiences of the day had induced just the right mood for this task. He knew that what he had wrought was good; that it would stand with his best achievements. He made a clean copy of the verses in his curiously small hand with its quaint capitals, and dropped them into a drawer to lose their familiarity against the morrow’s fresh inspection. Like all creative artists, he looked upon each of his performances with something of wonder. “How did I come to do that, in just that way? What was it that suggested this?” If it were Marjorie and Marian, or Elizabeth Redfield!... Perhaps young Fulton’s enthusiasm had been a contributing factor.
This association of ideas led him to open a drawer and rummage among old letters. He found the one he sought, and began to read. It had been written from Lake Waupegan, that pretty teacupful of blue water which, he recalled, young Fulton had chosen as the scene for his story. The Redfields had gone there for their honeymoon, and Elizabeth had written this letter in acknowledgment of his wedding gift. It was not the usual formula of thanks that brides send fluttering back to their friends; and it was because it was different that he had kept it.
“We are having just the June days that you have written about, and Miles and I keep quoting you, and saying over and over again, ‘he must have watched the silvery ripple on the lake from this very point!’ or, ‘How did he know that clover was like that?’ And how did you?... Miles brought his painting-kit, and when we’re not playing like children he’s hard at work. I know you always thought he ought to go on; that he had a real talent; and I keep reminding him of that. You know we’ve got a little bungalow on the edge of Nowhere to go to when we come home and there’ll be a line of hollyhocks along the fence in your honor. Miles says we’ve got to learn to be practical; that he doesn’t propose to let me starve to death for Art’s sake! I’m glad you know and understand him so well, for it makes you seem much closer; and the poem you wrote me in that beautiful, beautiful Keats makes me feel so proud! I didn’t deserve that! Those things aren’t true of me—but I want them to be; I’m going to keep that lovely book in its cool green covers where I shall see it the first and last thing every day. Your lines are already written in my heart!”
The Poet turned back to the date: only seven years ago!
The sparrows under the eaves chirruped, and drawing back the blind he watched the glow of dawn spread through the sky. This was a familiar vigil; he had seen many a dream vanish through the ivory portals at the coming of day.
III
A certain inadvertence marked the Poet’s ways. His deficiencies in orientation, even in the city he knew best of all, were a joke among his friends. He apparently gained his destinations by good luck rather than by intention.