When the birds fly south

by Stanton A. Coblentz

Beneath the trees, which were already tinged with the buff and yellow of autumn, I drew forth two large fibrous bags supplied by Yasma, and began to collect the nuts that lay scattered on the ground. But she, with a disapproving gesture, halted me. Almost before I could guess her intentions, she had sprung cat-like up one of the trees, and sat perched acrobatically among the middle branches. Then, while I stood gaping at her in amazement, I became aware of a storm amid the foliage. The boughs began to shake as if in a tempest, and dead and half-dead leaves drifted down to the accompaniment of a shower of little missiles.

Half an hour later, after Yasma had raided a second tree and I had collected all the nuts I could carry, we sat side by side with our backs against a tree-trunk, recovering from our exertions. I cannot say why, but, in contrast to our previous exuberance, a silence had fallen over us; we each seemed wrapped up in our own thoughts, almost like strangers who have never been introduced. What was passing through her mind I shall never know; but, for my own part, I was noticing as never before what an extraordinarily fascinating girl Yasma was; how utterly unspoiled, with a wild blossoming beauty that would have made most fair women of my acquaintance seem paper roses by comparison. A warm, romantic desire was taking possession of me, a desire such as I had not known for years and believed I had outgrown—a desire to take Yasma in my arms, and hold her close, and whisper tender, meaningless things. And while I was repressing that longing and telling myself what a fool I was, an insidious question wormed its way into my mind: what if I were to marry this girl, and take her away with me to civilized lands, and surround her with the graces and refinements she could never have among these remote mountains? As one dreams of paradise and rejects the dream, so I thought of linking Yasma's life with mine, and thrust the idea aside. Imagine trying to civilize this wild creature, this creature with the ways of the deer and the dove!

In the midst of my reveries, I was startled by hearing Yasma's voice. "Strange," she was saying, in low thoughtful tones, "strange, isn't it, how you came here to us?"

"Yes, it is strange."

"And stranger still," she continued, as much to herself as to me, "how little we know of you now that you are here. Or, for that matter, how little you know of us."

Then, turning to me with a sudden passionate force, she demanded, "Tell me, tell me more about yourself! I want to know more—to know more about you!"

Often before she had asked such a question; but never with quite the same eagerness. On the former occasions I had replied briefly, with a vagueness half forced upon me by my poor knowledge of the language; but now I saw that I must answer in detail. It would not do to state, as previously, that I came from a land beyond the wide waters, where the cities were high as hills and the people many as flies in autumn; and it would not suffice to explain that I had passed my days in acquiring dark knowledge, knowledge of the rocks and of things that had happened on earth before man came. From her earnest, almost vehement manner, it was clear that Yasma would not be put off with generalities, but wished to know of intimate and personal things.

Picking my way cautiously, I answered as well as I knew how. I told of my boyhood in New England; of how I had wandered among the stony hills, interested even then in the rocks; of how my father and mother had sent me to a great university, where I had studied the earth's unwritten story; of how I had been a teacher in that same university, and later a member of the scientific staff of a famous museum, by which I had been sent on expeditions into the far places of the world. These and similar facts I reported to the best of my ability, finding it difficult if not impossible to express my meaning in the simple Pushtu vocabulary. But while Yasma listened as well as she was able, she did not appear satisfied. I might almost say she did not even appear interested, for often her face expressed a total lack of comprehension.

It may have been after ten or fifteen minutes that she broke in impatiently, "That's all very well, what you are saying—all very well. But you are not telling me about yourself—this might all be true of a thousand men. What is there that's true only of you? What are you like deep down? What do you think? What do you feel? Oh, I know you cannot explain outright—but do say something to show what you are like!"

"You put a hard question," I objected, just a little embarrassed. "I simply don't know how to answer."