The Nest Builder

himself to remember the America he had known before his Paris days. He recalled his birthplace-a village in upper Mic

irty windows, and the lopsided sign which proclaimed from the porch roof in faded gilt on black the name of "C. E. Trench, Prop." He could see the swing-doors of the bar, and hear the click of balls from the poolroom advertising the second of the town's distractions. He could smell th

hes parched vines crept-the town's enthusiasm for horticulture went as far as that-and upon them concentrated the feminine social life of the place. Of this intercourse the high tones seemed to be giggles, and the bass the wooden thuds of rockers. Street after street he could recall, from the square about the "de

s it the roads ran straight as rulers. In the winter wolves were not unknown there; in the summer there were tramps of many strange nationalities, farm hands and men bound for th

little girl with starched white skirts, huge blue bows over blue eyes, and yellow hair, whom he had admired to adoration. She wanted desperately to bathe in the hole, and he demanded of her mother that this be permitted. Stefan smiled grimly as he recalled the horror of that lady, who had boxed his ears for trying to lead her gi

enish eyes, entirely alien, absolutely lonely, completely critical. He saw himself in too large, ill-chosen clothes, the butt of his playfellows. He saw the sidelong, interested glances of little girls change to curled lips and tossed heads at the grinning nudge of their boy companions. He saw the harassed eyes of an anaemic teacher stare uncomprehendingly at him over the pages of an exercise book filled with colored drawings of George III and the British flag, instead of a description of the battle of Bunker Hill. He remembered the hatred he had felt even then for the narrowness of the local patriotism wh

face was young and very round, the forehead beautifully low and broad under black waves of hair. The nose was short and proud, the chin small but square, the mouth gaily curving around little, even teeth. But the eyes were deep and somber; there was passion in th

He watched while she drew from her bureau drawer a box of paints and some paper. She painted for long hours, day after day through the winter, while he played beside her with longing eyes on her brushes. She painted always one thing-flowers-using no pencil, drawing their shapes with the bru

he tried to paint a rose, but he had never seen such roses as her brush drew, and he tired quickly. Then he drew a bird. His mother nodded and smiled-it was good. After

wings spread across the paper, wider and more sweepingly. They pointed upward sharply, or lay flat across the page. Flights of tiny birds careened from corner t

a dark smudge in the lower l

at?" asked

fully for a moment, unwilling to

) "Look!" And rapidly he drew a bird flying high above th

hugged him quickly. "Ye

hand lower corner there was usually a blob of dark brow

h sighs, with-as it now seemed to him-a wild longing. Knowing nothing of it, he had pictured it a paradise, a land of roses. He seemed to have no knowledge of why she had left it; but years later his father spoke of finding her in Boston in the days when h

ith ice-blue eyes, would hang above them. Instantly, the man remembered, the boy would cower like a fledgling beneath the sparrow-hawk, but with as much distaste as fear in his cringing. The words that followed

etter to do? Where is your sewing? And

ered, hesitating and low. "Surely it do

y being encouraged in it. This of course you know perfectly well. Under or

e up his companionship. It is too cold for me to be outdoo

d not know the meaning of it. He was g

heir husbands for self-indulgence," said the man, turning to go.

ith me, I'm doing the best I can, Henry-the very best I can."

, and you cannot expect me to condone in my wife habits of frivolity and idleness wh

, "when you married me

. The door shut, his mother would begin to cry, quietly at first, then with deep, catching sobs that seemed to stifle her, so that she rose and paced the roo

full of mysterious bustle. Presently he heard moans, and rushed upstairs thinking his mother was crying and needed him. The gray-haired woman thrust him from the bedroom door, but he re

nge new word passed between them, and, in his high-strung state, impressed the boy's memory

f us approve of it. It is contrary to the intent

a. "Exactly," his father replied, "and for that, self-control is nee

He fled in spirit as he had fled then-out of the window, down the roaring, swimming street, where he knew not, pursued by a writhi

d his father-now he hated him, blindly and intensely. He saw him as the cause not only of his mother's tears and death, but of all the ugliness in the life about him. "Bohemia," he thought, would have been theirs but for this man. He even blamed him, in a sullen way, for the presence in their house of a tiny little red and wizened obj

che of loss. Slowly he forgot his mother's companionship, but not her beauty, nor her roses, nor "Bohemia," nor his hatred of the "America"

s, but dogs and horses, boys and girls, all creatures that had speed, that he could draw in action, leaping, flying, or running against the wind. Even now Stefan could warm to the triumph he felt the day he discovered the old barn where he could summon these shapes undetected. His triumph was over the arch-enemy, his father-who had forbidden him paint and brushes and confiscated the poor little fragments of h

ll-cut clothes were packed. On a day of late summer he stepped for the first

d's great art. The first sight, even in a poor copy, of the two Discoboli-Diana with her swinging knee-high tunic-the winged Victory of Samothrace-to see them first at seventeen, without warn

and divinity, he read only the English and classic subjects-because they contained beauty-and drew, copying and creating, in every odd moment. The storm began to threaten, but it never broke; for in his second yea

e of savings-bank accounts, but through some fissure of vanity or carelessness in the granite of his propriety, he left no will. The sums, amounting in all to something over

session, other than a few necessities, he planned to carry with him, he found his mother's picture gone. Dying, his father, it appeared, had wandered from his bed, detached the portrait, and with his own hands burnt it in the stove. The motive of the act Stefan could not comprehend. He only knew that th