Then the three went out into the crisp January air–father and son and little Kenyon bundled to the chin. They walked over the prairies under the sunshine and talked together through the short winter afternoon. At its close they were in the timber where the fallen leaves were beginning to pack against the tree trunks and in the ravines. The child listened as the wind played upon its harp, and the rhythm of the rising and falling tide of harmony set his heart a-flutter, and he squeezed his father’s fingers with delight. A redbird flashing through the gray and brown picture gave him joy, and when it sang far down the ravine where the wind organ seemed to be, the child’s eyes brimmed and he dropped behind the elders a few paces to listen and be alone with his ecstasy. And so in the fading day they walked home. The quail piped for the child, and the prairie chicken pounded his drum, and in the prairie grass the slanting sun painted upon the ripples across the distant, rolling hills many pictures that filled the child’s heart so full that he was still, as one who is awed with a great vision. And it was a great vision that filled his soul: the sunset with its splendors, the twilight hovering in the brown woods, the prairie a-quiver with the caresses of the wind, winter-birds throbbing life and ecstasy into the picture, and above and around it all a great, warm, father’s heart symbolizing the loving kindness of the infinite to the child’s heart.
187CHAPTER XVIII
OUR HERO RIDES TO HOUNDS WITH THE PRIMROSE HUNT
Going home from the Adamses that afternoon, John Dexter mused: “Curious–very curious.” Then he added: “Of course this phase will pass. Probably it is gone now. But I am wondering how fundamental this state of mind is, if it will not appear again–at some crisis later in life.”
“His mother,” said Mrs. Dexter, “was a strong, beautiful woman. She builded deep and wide in that boy. And his father is a wise, earnest, kindly man, even if he may be impractical. Why shouldn’t Grant do all that he dreams of doing?”
“Yes,” returned the minister dryly. “But there is life–there are its temptations. He is of the emotional type, and the wrong woman could bend him away from any purpose that he may have now. Then, suppose he does get past the first gate–the gate of his senses–there’s the temptation to be a fool about his talents if he has any–if this gift of tongues we’ve seen to-day should stay with him–he may get the swelled head. And then,” he concluded sadly, “at the end is the greatest temptation of all–the temptation that comes with power to get power for the sake of power.”
The next morning Amos Adams and Grant went in to Market Street to sell their home. Grant seemed a stranger to that busy mart of trade: the week of his absence had taken him so far from it. His eyes were caught by two tall figures, a man and a woman, walking and talking as they crossed the street–the man in a heavy, long, brown ulster, the woman in a flaring red, outer garment. He recognized them as Margaret Fenn and Thomas Van Dorn. They had met entirely by chance, and the meeting was one of perhaps half a dozen chance meetings which they had enjoyed during the winter, and these meetings were so entirely pleasurable 188that the man was beginning rather vaguely to anticipate them–to hope for another meeting after the last. Grant was in an exalted mood that morning, and the sight of the two walking together struck him only as a symbol and epitome of all that he was going into the world to fight–in the man intellect without moral purpose, in the woman materialism, gross and carnal. The Adamses went the rounds of the real estate dealers trying to sell their home, and in following his vision Grant forgot the two tall figures in the street.
But the two figures that had started Grant’s reverie continued to walk–perhaps a trifle slower than was the wont of either, down Market Street. They walked slowly for two reasons: For her part, she wished to make the most of a parade on Market Street with so grand a person as the Judge of the District Court, and the town’s most distinguished citizen; and for his part, he dawdled because life was going slowly with him in certain quarters: he felt the lack of adventure, and here–at least, she was a stunning figure of a woman! “Yes,” she said, “I heard about them. Henry has just told me that Mr. Brotherton said the Adamses are going to sell their home and give it to the miners’ widows. Isn’t it foolish? It’s all they’ve got in the world, too! Still, really nothing is strange in that family. You know, I boarded with them one winter when I taught the Prospect School. Henry says they want to do something for the laboring people,” she added naïvely.
As she spoke, the man’s eyes wandered over her figure, across her face, and were caught by her eyes that looked at him with something in them entirely irrelevant to the subject that her lips were discussing. His eyes caught up the suggestion of her eyes, and carried it a little further, but he only said: “Yes–queer folks–trying to make a whistle–”
“Out of a pig’s tail,” she laughed. But her eyes thought his eyes had gone just a little too far, so they drooped, and changed the subject.