Friendship Village Love Stories

the river, and Little Child went wit

in the midst of an elm or linden sentence and curtly interrupted by a sidewalk. If a grove of trees is allowed to remain in a north dooryard it is almost certainly because the trees break the wind. Likewise, Nature's unfoldings in our turf and clover we incline to regard as merely lawns, the results of seeds and autumn fertilizing. Our vines[Pg 44] are for purposes of shade, cheaper and prettier than awnings or porch rollers. With our gardens, where our "table vegetables" are grown, Nature is, I think, considered t

t. But this river of mine to the west is a thing of whims and eddies and shifting sand bars, and here not many boats adventure. So the river is accepted as a kind of pleasant hermit living on the[Pg 45] edge of the village. It draws few of us as Nature can draw to herself. We know the water as a taste only and not yet as an emotion. We say that we should enjoy going there if we had the time. I know, I know. You see that we do not yet live the river, as an ancient people would live their moor. But in our launches, our camping par

nd a tamer instinct. She has this f

d seem, of the blood of shepherd kings with certain corpuscles of modernity. And when we are in the woods sh

g

ove to hear her pretty treble in "Who is Sylvia? What is she?" and "She dwelt among th' untrodden ways," and "April, April, laugh thy girlish laughter," and in Pippa's song. Last night, to be sure, the lyrics rather gave way

to me last night,

safe keeping so that "They" would not throw the things away: that threatening "They" which overhangs childhood, casting away its treasures, despoiling its fastnesses, laying a ladder straight through a distinct and recognizable fairy ring in the back yard. I can visualize that "They" as I[Pg 47] believe it

y carts, not one face, it had chanced, turned to the west even to utilize it to forecast the weather. Such a procession I want to see painted upon a sovereign sky and called "The Sunset." I want to have painted a giant carpenter of the village as I once saw him, his great bare arms upholding a huge white pillar, while blue figures h

mes the old witch of the wood tries to blow into the garden a thistle of discord or bubbles of delight to be followed, and these must be warded away. All day the spirit of the child to come wanders through the garden, telling the girl what to do here or here, keeping her from guile or from idleness-without-dreams. She knows its presence and I think that she has even named it. If it shall be a little girl, then it is to be Dagmar, Mother of Day, or Dawn; but if a little boy, then it shall be called for one whom she has not yet seen. Meanwhile, outside the door

ittle Child, as she always says

I tel

that garden," she

f the other shore, roof upon roof pricked

' good," she says, "but I'd l

ttle-child of your

ents, "an' mak

round so lifeless to youth. But quicken every desert space with "It must be done so for the sake of the little child you will have some day," and there rises a living spirit. Morals, civics, town and home

something of what I thought to do—breaking in upon the old woman's talk of li

her worried turn of head, "I'm real glad you

en the schools and the universities shall speak for the state the cosmic truths, and when by comparison b

o the north; to the south was a crouching hop hou

where you think a princess

verywhere an

r tower in t

the old witch l

's hop house,"

g

pirit of the little ch

ong out acro

st. And then of her own will she said o

stand in th

the sun

a bright v

h a pre

see a play

n Splend

hand every little way in that fashion of children who, I think, are hoping thus to save the moment that has just died. I have known times when I

its garments. And it slipped lingeringly away as if the riot of[Pg 52] colour were after all the casual part, and the real business of the moment were to stay on with everybody. In the tenuity of the old anthropomorphisms I marvel that they did not find the sunset a living thing, tender of mortals

ers on their account, then last night it was lingering partly for

I was yet disappointed. I take an old-fashioned delight in women whose high spirit is compatibl

duced Peter wit

"is Peter. His l

Peter?" I said

ned to Miggy and said "Thank you." Secretly[Pg 53] I congratulated him on his embarrassment. In a

can do some reading aloud." For I will not ask the mere cake and lemonade folk to

o rise from his need to reply. Inst

n lesson," he ex

r of translating. I took note of this faint manner of proprietorship, for it is m

from his heart; "I was just h

late and you'll have to pay just the same anyway." I took note of this frank fashion of protection of interests, for it is my belief that matters are advancing when the

to go in yet anyway. I'll walk back with you." And of this I took

al conduct which to some of us provides a pleasant medium and for some of us furnishes fetters. When will they manage a wireless society? I am tired waiting. For be it a pleasant medium or be it fetters, the present communication keeps us all apart. "I hope," I said once at dinner, "tha

Miggy observed. "There's Liva Vese

g

be married, are t

f I had said some

nswered, "not

-morrow in their new buckboard," she volunteered. And I find in Friendship that

was looking down at her and straightway looking away again when Liva had summoned her courage to look up. They were ext

y said; "but I like to walk around by

to congratulate you that

up with p

," she said; "he seeme

many such fine young fellows as Peter seems

g

aid Miggy, earnestly

may be allowed—I hope yo

ghed out

know that much about society. Party you eit

ore amazed if the rose

ng to you, child?"

olemnly. "You live along and you live a

and dogwood when I had walked that road through the gateway into an earthly paradise. Have I not said that since that time we two have been, as it were, set to music and sung

on her some vagu

g

women who marry people. Most of 'em tha

mean, child

any of the styles very much, and they've wore out everything else. Women like some things about somebody, and tha

this, "I should think you

d me by her

up," she said; "Aunt Effie hasn't anything

y not, but I

ter a pause, "there's Peter'

d me of him I had myself seen him singing through the village streets,

all the time,

of resistance in my voice,

g

ve told Peter. I've told him both reasons...." Miggy threw out her arms and stood still, f

nt to share it is, like the panther grace in the tread of the cat, a survival of the ancient immunity from accountabilit

thing of wings and doors ajar and fair corridors. I saw the great freedoms of sunset in her face—the sunset where Little Child and I had agreed that a certain spirit lived.... Perhaps it was that that little v

le Child.[Pg 59] It is almost as if she

he sunset. It was rather as

pretend she is,

uietly, "is plea

anged as if some one ha

er name, then, would most likely be

well to have it Ma

uickened as by

imes I most think of—her, till she seems in t

y was reading it. This has sometimes happened to me with a definiteness which would be surprising if the supernatural were to me l

she look

o be pretty and I'm[Pg 60] not. But when I think of her running 'round in

the way my neighbour had put it. Perhaps

ike you, too?" I

"learning to play on the piano and not

pretend about

ook he

ver can think him out real pl

rden and the spirit of that one to be call

do as I did then: I keep my impulse silent and I see if that vague Custodian within, somewhere between the see

and tell me the most bea

an instant

g

nset," s

And that after to-night, when you see a sunset—always, alwa

I am always selecting them and knowing, as if I had tied a knot in them, that I will remember. These times become the moments at which I keep waving my hand in the hope that they will never turn

ning upon the winged light, the calm stretches of the Pump pasture, the brown sand bar, the Caledonia hills. And the lovers and the quiet river and the village, roof upon roof, in the trees