The Cost [57]
"I don't care to try it again, thank you," he went on. "But it made me able to understand what sort of comfort you were getting. For--YOU don't cry easily."
The katydids were clamoring drowsily in the tops of the sycamores. From out of sight beyond the orchard came the monotonous, musical whir of a reaper. A quail whistled his pert, hopeful, careless "Bob White!" from the rail fence edging the wheat field. A bumblebee grumbled among a cluster of swaying clover blossoms which the mower had spared. And the breeze tossed up and rolled over the meadow, over the senses of the young man and the young woman, great billows of that perfume which is the combined essence of all nature's love philters.
Pauline sank on the hay, and Scarborough stretched himself on the ground at her feet. "For a long time it's been getting darker and darker for me," she began, in the tone of one who is talking of some past sorrow which casts a retreating shadow over present joy to make it the brighter by contrast. "To-day--this afternoon it seemed as if the light were just about to go out--for good and all. And I came here. I found myself lying on the ground--on the bosom of this old cruel--kind mother of ours. And--" She did not finish--he would know the rest. Besides, what did it matter--now?
He said: "If only there were some way in which I could help."
"It isn't the people who appear at the crises of one's life, like the hero on the stage, that really help. I'm afraid the crises, the real crises of real life, must always be met alone."
"Alone," he said in an undertone. The sky was blue now--cloudless blue; but in that word alone he could hear the rumble of storms below the horizon, storms past, storms to come.
"The real helpers," she went on, "are those who strengthen us day by day, hour by hour. And when no physical presence would do any good, when no outside aid is possible--they--it's like finding a wall at one's back when one's in dread of being surrounded. I suppose you don't realize how much it means to--to how many people--to watch a man who goes straight and strong on his way--without blustering, without trampling anybody, without taking any mean advantage. You don't mind my saying these things?"
She felt the look which she did not venture to face as he answered: "I needed to hear them to-day. For it seemed to me that I, too, had got to the limit of my strength."
"But you hadn't." She said this confidently.
"No--I suppose not. I've thought so before; but somehow I've always managed to gather myself together. This time it was the work of years apparently undone--hopelessly undone. They"--she understood that "they" meant the leaders of the two corrupt rings whose rule of the state his power with the people menaced--"they have bought away some of my best men--bought them with those `favors' that are so much more disreputable than money because they're respectable. Then they came to me"--he laughed unpleasantly--"and took me up into a high mountain and showed me all the kingdoms of the earth, as it were. I could be governor, senator, they said, could probably have the nomination for president even,--not if I would fall down and worship them, but if I would let them alone. I could accomplish nearly all that I've worked so long to accomplish if I would only concede a few things to them. I could be almost free. ALMOST--that is, not free at all."
She said: "And they knew you no better than that!"
"Now," he continued, "it looks as if I'll have to build all over again."
"I think not," she replied. "If they weren't still afraid of you they'd never have come to you. But what does it matter? YOU don't fight for victory, you fight for the fight's sake. And so"--she looked at him proudly--"you can't lose."
"Thank you. Thank you," he said in a low voice.
She sighed. "How I envy you! You LIVE. I can simply be alive. Sometimes I feel as if I were sitting in a railway station waiting to begin my journey--waiting for a train that's late--nobody knows how late. Simply alive--that's
The katydids were clamoring drowsily in the tops of the sycamores. From out of sight beyond the orchard came the monotonous, musical whir of a reaper. A quail whistled his pert, hopeful, careless "Bob White!" from the rail fence edging the wheat field. A bumblebee grumbled among a cluster of swaying clover blossoms which the mower had spared. And the breeze tossed up and rolled over the meadow, over the senses of the young man and the young woman, great billows of that perfume which is the combined essence of all nature's love philters.
Pauline sank on the hay, and Scarborough stretched himself on the ground at her feet. "For a long time it's been getting darker and darker for me," she began, in the tone of one who is talking of some past sorrow which casts a retreating shadow over present joy to make it the brighter by contrast. "To-day--this afternoon it seemed as if the light were just about to go out--for good and all. And I came here. I found myself lying on the ground--on the bosom of this old cruel--kind mother of ours. And--" She did not finish--he would know the rest. Besides, what did it matter--now?
He said: "If only there were some way in which I could help."
"It isn't the people who appear at the crises of one's life, like the hero on the stage, that really help. I'm afraid the crises, the real crises of real life, must always be met alone."
"Alone," he said in an undertone. The sky was blue now--cloudless blue; but in that word alone he could hear the rumble of storms below the horizon, storms past, storms to come.
"The real helpers," she went on, "are those who strengthen us day by day, hour by hour. And when no physical presence would do any good, when no outside aid is possible--they--it's like finding a wall at one's back when one's in dread of being surrounded. I suppose you don't realize how much it means to--to how many people--to watch a man who goes straight and strong on his way--without blustering, without trampling anybody, without taking any mean advantage. You don't mind my saying these things?"
She felt the look which she did not venture to face as he answered: "I needed to hear them to-day. For it seemed to me that I, too, had got to the limit of my strength."
"But you hadn't." She said this confidently.
"No--I suppose not. I've thought so before; but somehow I've always managed to gather myself together. This time it was the work of years apparently undone--hopelessly undone. They"--she understood that "they" meant the leaders of the two corrupt rings whose rule of the state his power with the people menaced--"they have bought away some of my best men--bought them with those `favors' that are so much more disreputable than money because they're respectable. Then they came to me"--he laughed unpleasantly--"and took me up into a high mountain and showed me all the kingdoms of the earth, as it were. I could be governor, senator, they said, could probably have the nomination for president even,--not if I would fall down and worship them, but if I would let them alone. I could accomplish nearly all that I've worked so long to accomplish if I would only concede a few things to them. I could be almost free. ALMOST--that is, not free at all."
She said: "And they knew you no better than that!"
"Now," he continued, "it looks as if I'll have to build all over again."
"I think not," she replied. "If they weren't still afraid of you they'd never have come to you. But what does it matter? YOU don't fight for victory, you fight for the fight's sake. And so"--she looked at him proudly--"you can't lose."
"Thank you. Thank you," he said in a low voice.
She sighed. "How I envy you! You LIVE. I can simply be alive. Sometimes I feel as if I were sitting in a railway station waiting to begin my journey--waiting for a train that's late--nobody knows how late. Simply alive--that's