“Nate, honestly I believe if I had two or three million dollars, and could give every girl in South Harvey a good education–teach her how to cook and keep house and care for babies before she is eighteen, that we could change the whole aspect of South Harvey in a generation. If I had just two or three million dollars to spend–I could fill that town just as full as Harvey of happy couples like us. Of course there’d be the other kind–some of them–just as there are the other kind in Harvey–people like the Van Dorns–but they would be the exception in South Harvey, as the Van Dorns are the exception in Harvey. And two or three million dollars would do it.”
“Yes, mamma,–that’s the hell of it–the very hell of it that grinds my gizzard–your father and my father and the others who haven’t done a lick of the work–and who are entitled only to a decent interest and promoters’ profits, have taken out twenty million dollars from South Harvey in dividends in the last thirty years–and this is the result. Hell for forty thousand people down there, and–you and I and a few dozen educated happy people are the fruit of it. Sometimes, Anne, I look at our little flock and look at you so beautiful, and think of our life so glorious, and wonder how a just God can permit it.”
They looked at the waving acres of blue-grass, dotted with trees, at the creek winding its way through the cornfields, dark green and all but ready to tassle, then up at the clear sky, untainted with the smoke of Harvey.
Then they considered the years that lay back of them. 477“I think, Nate,” she answered, “that to love really and truly one man or one woman makes one love all men and women. I feel that way even about the little fellow that’s coming. I love him so, that even he makes me love everything. And so I can’t just pray for him–I have to pray for all the mothers carrying babies and all the babies in the world. I think when love comes into the world it is immortal. We die, but the sum of love we live, we leave; it goes on; it grows. It is the way God gets into the world. Oh, Nate,” she cried, “I want to live in the next world–personally–with you–to know the very you. I don’t want the impersonal immortality–I want just you. But, dear–I–why, I’d give up even that if I could be sure that the love we live would never leave this earth. Think what the love of Christ did for the earth and He is still with us in spirit. And I know when we go away–when any lovers go away, the love they have lived will never leave this earth. It will live and joy–yes, and agonize too at the injustice of the world–live and be crucified over and over again, so long as injustice exists. Only as love grows in the world, and is hurt–is crucified–will wrongs be righted, will the world be saved.”
He patted her hand for a minute.
“Kyle, Nate, Annie–come here, children,” cried the father. After some repetition of the calling, they came trooping up, asking: “What is it?”
“Nothing at all,” answered the father, “we just wanted to kiss you and feel and see if your wings were sprouting, so that we could break them off before you fly away,” whereupon there was a hugging bee all around, and while every one was loving every one else, a golf ball flew by them, and a moment later the white-clad, unbent figure of Mrs. Bedelia Satterthwaite Nesbit appeared, bare-headed and bare-armed, and behind her trotted the devoted white figure of the Doctor, carrying two golf sticks.
“Chained to her chariot–to make a Roman holiday,” piped the Doctor. “She’s taking this exercise for my health.”
“Well, James,” replied his wife rather definitely, “I know you need it!”
“And that settles it,” cried the little man shrilly, “say, 478Nate, if we men ever get the ballot, I’m going to take a stand for liberty.”