In this way a couple of weeks had passed when one evening it occurred to me that I could kill a dull hour or two, and discharge a somewhat neglected filial duty, by writing a letter to my father. Investigation proved, what I greatly suspected, that I had no writing paper, so I went over to Jack's to borrow some. They had none either, but Jack produced an old account book with some blank sheets in it, which we decided would do quite well. In those days we weren't particular about stationery.
Jean was in her room while I was there, and did not come out, so in a few minutes I returned to Fourteen. There I set the lamp on the table and spread the old account book out before me. It once had been owned by Jack's father; the first pages were filled with items which apparently had to do with the purchase of the Lane farm, and with Mr. Lane's services in the woolen mill. I glanced over them with casual interest and as I did so a loose slip fell from the pages. I picked it up from the floor and found a number of lines in Jean's handwriting:
When through the livelong day I sigh And ponder on my sad estate, I would my Nemesis defy And burst the bounding cords of Fate. Now would I tear each bond away; Now would I risk your sad reproof; Come, let us live and love who may: Come to me . . . Spoof.
"So it has come to that," I said to myself. "Love-sick doggerel!" I crushed the sheet of paper in my hand in a rage, even while a hot flush of color ran up my face at the realization of the fact that I had read something never intended for my eyes—for my eyes least of all. So she could tear the bonds away; she could risk his "sad reproof"; she could do anything but find words to fill out the feet of the last line. "Come to me . . . Spoof!" With a sudden stabbing at my heart the question interrogated me, Could Jean be ingenious enough to use those dots, after the manner of our modern writers, to suggest something which she shrank from saying in plain English? Here will I use some of them myself . . .
CHAPTER XX.
I resolved to have it out with Jean. There was no sense in letting things go on like this. Jean had happiness within her grasp, for the taking, but she persisted in writing moon-struck doggerel to a man who apparently cared no more for her than for the post that marked the corner of his section. Spoof's continued and deliberate neglect—I called it neglect now——admitted no other explanation.
I spent a wakeful night thinking about this, and toward morning I got up and retrieved the crumpled bit of paper which I had thrown into a corner of the kitchen. I spread it out and read the lines again. A night of reflexion had worn the edge from my indignation, and I admitted that, from an artistic point of view, the verses were perhaps not so hopeless as I had thought them. Indeed, they suggested a certain germ of poetic ability. A little devil of conscience began an insurrection in my sense of fair play, demanding to know if I could write as well myself. But I am no poet. I took a pencil and put down the word Jean, and then set about hunting for rhymes for it, but I could think of only two—"lean" and "bean." Neither of these seemed to lend itself to poetic treatment.
Suddenly a whiff of memory rushing in from somewhere sent me scuttling among old school books at the bottom of my trunk. It was a whim of mine to keep my old school books, if only that in after years I might read and appreciate the little gems of literature which, with the assistance of a phlegmatic teacher, I cordially hated when a child. Here it was—an old Ontario Reader with a sensational story about an Indian woman who killed a bear with a butcher knife, or some such weapon. My sympathy, I remember, had always been with the bear, doubtless because of the picture which was made to represent the Indian woman. I had read this story again and again, when all other passages in the book had failed to interest me, and some little long-forgotten cell of memory said I would find a fragment of paper tucked between these pages. Sure enough, there it was! I drew it out eagerly, but tenderly and almost reverently, and held it under the lamp. How that strange, childish scrawl seemed to run all over my heart and pucker it into little gasping pockets! I could feel a thumping between my lungs and the hard beating of my pulse went throbbing through the paper in my fingers.
When I am old And very tall I hope my name Will be Mrs. Hall.
A mist came up out of the past and blurred the scrawly letters until they swam before my eyes and faded out of sight. They had carried me back to the dear dead days of childhood—that Eden of life which comes before the disillusionment which is the Fall. The years between had gone out with a gulp that filled my throat, and again we were little children playing together, solemnly mating ourselves for the future under the witnessing murmur of the great pine. That had been one of the great days in my life, and I had not known it then. I wonder how often we know the great day when it is actually upon us! But in that day I had drunk in something which had become part of my system; part of my flesh and bone and brain; part of my hope, my aspiration, my life. And now would I give it up? Never—never! I pressed the previous missive to my lips and suddenly the dam of my overwrought nerves gave way, and tears rushed down upon me. With a man's shame I would have checked them if I could, but the flood would not be stopped—and there was none to see. I fell on my bed and let the storm sweep over me.