"Well, Jesse found out somehow that I was at Spite House. He sent me the value of them ponies, with only a receipt for me to sign. I reckon, mum, that ruined and well-nigh starving, he rode a hundred and sixty miles through the black pines, because he's honest. That's why I spent the money comin' to you. I wants to help."
CHAPTER II
THE IMPATIENT CHAPTER
Kate's Narrative
This chapter is so difficult to start. It deals with a time when life had become impossible unless one could jump from here to Wednesday next, and thence to Monday fortnight. Of course the book is only meant for Jesse, for David, for me, and for those to come who may revere us as their ancestors. Thank goodness, I am not a novelist! Think of the fate of the professional writer whose hosts of "characters," the bodiless papery creatures of his brain, will rise up in judgment to accuse their petty creator, to gibber at him, to make his dreams a nightmare. What novelist would escape that condemnation? Dickens might be saved, perhaps Balzac. Tourguenieff maybe, even Kipling, but in Heaven the writers will not be overcrowded.
My characters are ready to hand, and my events are real, but how can I possibly weld the notes in waiting, to make an harmonious, sane, restful chapter, whose very motif is worry? I give it up, for what am I that I should do this thing?
To three-fourths' pound of artistic temperament, add one cup Celtic blood; stir in a tablespoon of best Italian melody, add humor and laziness to taste; then fry in moonlight over a slow anthem, and there you are. That's me!
As a little girl I would prefer a hobgoblin I couldn't see, to a real doll stuffed with the best sawdust. If there happened to be any day-dreams about, visions or reveries, I would play hostess and be well amused; but fend me from accounts, from business men, and from all the things you catch, such as trains and influenza. Hateful practical affairs have to be faced, but I rush them to get through quick.
Have you noticed that artists who vend feelings as a grocer sells sugar, are always accused of being callous? I sent David with his nurse to stay with Father Jared, so mother called me a cold-blooded wretch. I abandoned my part at the opera to a weird ravening female who can't sing, so my manager called me an atheist. My maids had to pack and run to escape storage with the furniture at the "Pecking and Tootham Emporiums"; my little home passed to a gentleman with mourning nails, diamonds, and a lisp; my bits and scraps of stock were sold and the proceeds banked with the Hudson's Bay Company. Then came casual farewells to baby and Father Jared, and, just as the train pulled out, the district nurse threw a bunch of violets. So I broke down and howled, wondering damply why. Even then I longed for my dear wilderness where every wind blows clean, for the glamour of an austere land braving the naked eternities, the heart of a lonely man who dared to do his duty, all, all that was real and great in life, calling me, calling me home.