The Idyl of Twin Fires

by Walter Prichard Eaton

All that next June day I worked in my garden, in a dream, my hands performing their tasks mechanically. I ran the wheel hoe between the rows of newly planted raspberries and blackberries, to mulch the soil, without consciousness of the future fruit which was supposed to delight me.

Avoiding Mike, who would have insisted on conversing had I worked near him, I next went down to the brook below the orchard, armed with a rake, brush scythe, and axe, and located the spot on the stone wall which exactly faced my front door. I marked it with a stake, and thinned out the ash-leaved maples which grew like a fringe between the wall and the brook, so that the best ones could spread into more attractive trees, and so that a semicircular space was also cleared which could surround the pool, as it were, and in which I could place a bench, up against the foliage, to face the door of the house. From the door you would look over the pool to the bench. From the bench you would look over the pool and up the slope through the orchard to the house entrance. After I had the bench site correctly located, I saw that the four flower beds which Miss Goodwin and I had made were at least four feet out of centre, and would all have to be moved. But that was too much of a task for my present mood. I left them as they were, and busied myself with rooting out undeniable weeds and carting off the slash and rubbish.

My mind was not on the task. Over and over I was asking myself the question, “Do I love her? What permanence is there in a spring passion, amid gardens and thrush songs, for a girl who caresses the sympathies by her naïve delight in the novelty of country life? How much of my feeling for her is passion, and how much is sympathy, even pity?”

Over and over I turned these questions, while my hands worked mechanically. And over and over, too, I will be honest and admit, the selfish incrustations of bachelor habits imposed their opposition to the thought of union. I had bought the farm to be my own lord and master; here I was to work, to create masterpieces of literature, to plan gardens, to play golf, to smoke all over the house, to toil all night and sleep all day if I so desired, to wear soft shirts and never dress for dinner, to maintain my own habits, my own individuality, undisturbed. What had been so pleasant, so tinglingly pleasant, for a day, a week–the presence of the girl in the garden, in the house, the rustle of her skirt, the sound of her fingers on the keys–would it be always pleasant? What if one wished to escape from it, and there were no escape? Passions pall; life, work, ambitions, the need of solitude for creation, the individual soul, go on.

“All of which means,” I thought, laying down my brush scythe and gazing into the brook, “that I am not sure of myself. And if I am not sure of myself, do I really love her? And if I am not sure of that, I must wait.”

That resolution, the first definite thing my mind had laid hold on, came to me as the sun was sinking toward the west. I went to the house, changed my clothes, and hastened up the road to meet her, curiously eager for a man in doubt.

She was coming out of the door as I crossed the bit of lawn, dressed not in the working clothes which she had worn on our gardening days, but all in white, with a lavender ribbon at her throat. She smiled at me brightly and ran down the steps.

“Go to New York–but see Twin Fires first,” she laughed. “I’m all ready for the tour.”

I had not quite expected so much lightness of heart from her, and I was a little piqued, perhaps, as I answered, “You don’t seem very sorry that you are seeing it for the last time.”

She smiled into my face. “All pleasant things have to end,” she said, “so why be glum about it?”