第42章 A Lady of Yesterday(2)

They are as much bidden to build up this valley,this storehouse for the nations,as coral insects are bidden to make the reefs with their own little bodies,dying as they build.Is it not so?""We are the creatures of God's will,Isuppose,"said one of her visitors,piously.

She had given them little confidences in return.

"I make my bread,"she said,with childish pride,"pray see if you do not think it excellent!"And she cut a flaky loaf to dis-play its whiteness.One guest summoned the bravado to inquire,--"Then you are not used to doing house-work?""I?"she said,with a slow smile,"I have never got used to anything,--not even liv-ing."And so she baffled them all,yet won them.

The weeks went by.Elizabeth Astrado attended to her bees,milked her cow,fed her fowls,baked,washed,and cleaned,like the simple women about her,saving that as she did it a look of ineffable content lighted up her face,and she sang for happiness.

Sometimes,amid the ballads that she hummed,a strain slipped in of some great melody,which she,singing unaware,as it were,corrected,shaking her finger in self-reproval,and returning again to the ballads and the hymns.Nor was she remiss in neighborly offices;but if any were ailing,or had a festivity,she was at hand to assist,condole,or congratulate,carrying always some simple gift in her hand,appropriate to the occasion.

She had her wider charities too,for all she kept close to her home.When,one day,a story came to her of a laborer struck down with heat in putting in a culvert on the railroad,and gossip said he could not speak English,she hastened to him,caught dying words from his lips,whispered a reply,and then what seemed to be a prayer,while he held fast her hand,and sank to coma with wistful eyes upon her face.

Moreover 'twas she who buried him,raising a cross above his grave,and she who planted rose-bushes about the mound.

"He spoke like an Italian,"said the phy-sician to her warily.

"And so he was,"she had replied.

"A fellow-countryman of yours,no doubt?""Are not all men our countrymen,my friend?"she said,gently."What are little lines drawn in the imagination of men,dividing territory,that they should divide our sympathies?The world is my country --and yours,I hope.Is it not so?"Then there had also been a hapless pair of lovers,shamed before their community,who,desperate,impoverished,and bewildered at the war between nature and society,had been helped by her into a new part of the world.There had been a widow with many children,who had found baskets of cooked food and bundles of well-made clothing on her step.And as the days passed,with these pleasant offices,the face of the strange woman glowed with an ever-increasing con-tent,and her dark,delicate beauty grew.

John Hartington spent his vacation at Des Moines,having a laudable desire to see something of the world before returning to his native town,with his college honors fresh upon him.Swiftest of the college runners was John Hartington,famed for his leaping too,and measuring widest at the chest and waist of all the hearty fellows at the university.His blond curls clustered above a brow almost as innocent as a child's;his frank and brave blue eyes,his free step,his mellow laugh,bespoke the perfect animal,unharmed by civilization,unperplexed by the closing century's falla-cies and passions.The wholesome oak that spreads its roots deep in the generous soil,could not be more a part of nature than he.Conscientious,unimaginative,direct,sincere,industrious,he was the ideal man of his kind,and his return to town caused a flutter among the maidens which they did not even attempt to conceal.

They told him all the chat,of course,and,among other things,mentioned the great sensation of the year,--the coming of the woman with her mystery,the purchase of the sunny upland,the planting it with clover and with mignonette,the building of the house of logs,the keeping of the bees,the barren rooms,the busy,silent life,the charities,the never-ending wonder of it all.And then the woman --kind,yet different from the rest,with the foreign trick of tongue,the slow,proud walk,the delicate,slight hands,the beautiful,beau-tiful smile,the air as of a creature from another world.

Hartington,strolling beyond the village streets,up where the sunset died in daffodil above the upland,saw the little cot of logs,and out before it,among blood-red poppies,the woman of whom he had heard.Her gown of white gleamed in that eerie radi-ance,glorified,her sad great eyes bent on him in magnetic scrutiny.A peace and plenitude of power came radiating from her,and reached him where he stood,sud-denly,and for the first time in his careless life,struck dumb and awed.She,too,seemed suddenly abashed at this great bulk of youthful manhood,innocent and strong.

She gazed on him,and he on her,both chained with some mysterious enchant-ment.Yet neither spoke,and he,turning in bewilderment at last,went back to town,while she placed one hand on her lips to keep from calling him.And neither slept that night,and in the morning when she went with milking pail and stool out to the grassy field,there he stood at the bars,waiting.Again they gazed,like creatures held in thrall by some magician,till she held out her hand and said,--"We must be friends,although we have not met.Perhaps we ARE old friends.

They say there have been worlds before this one.I have not seen you in these habili-ments of flesh and blood,and yet --we may be friends?"John Hartington,used to the thin jests of the village girls,and all their simple talk,rose,nevertheless,enlightened as he was with some strange sympathy with her,to understand and answer what she said.