Rose MacLeod Part 44

"It isn't good for you." He spoke seriously. "I know all about the preservatives of life, the medicines that keep us sane. I know we mustn't go and smell strong lilies at ten o'clock at night. We must go home and say our prayers and brush our hair and go to bed."

"Do you say your prayers?"

"Not exactly."

"But almost?"

"Well, since I have known you, I say something or other to the heathen G.o.ds at night about making you safe and sleepy."

"The heathen G.o.ds?"

"Well, not precisely. Grannie's unknown G.o.d, I guess it is. Unknown to me!"

"Why do you say we must brush our hair?"

He laughed a little, yet soberly.

"I read it in a novel, the other day. There were two young women talking together while they brushed their hair. Then I thought of yours and how it must hang down your back like a golden fleece."

"That's in Shakespeare."

"It's in me, too. A golden mane, then."

"Do you like novels?" Suddenly she had back her absorbing curiosity over him.

"Not much. I haven't read many."

"Why?"

"It's best not. They make me discontented. Seed catalogues are better."

"But you are reading them now!"

"That's because you have come."

"What's that to do with it?"

"For the manners and customs. I want to know how young women behave."

"You know how Electra behaves."

"Electra behaves like a Puritan's G.o.d. If an early colonist had hewn him a deity out of stone, it would be like Electra."

"Poor Electra!"

"Yes. You're far happier, all fire and frost."

"But why do you read novels to find out about me? Why don't you observe me?"

"Because I don't see you in the light."

"But you will."

"Never!"

"Never, playmate? You hurt my feelings. What if we should meet face to face in the lily field at twelve o'clock to-morrow?"

He answered sternly, and she believed him.

"I should never speak to you again. You must keep faith with me, or we shall both be sorry."

"Why, of course!" Rose said it gently, as if she wondered at him. "Of course I shall keep faith with you."

She heard him rising from his place.

"Now," he said, "you must go home."

"Why must I? The little side door is never locked."

"No, but you have been through a good deal. We must take care of you."

"I feel as if I had all the strength in the world. I could waste it and waste it, and then have enough to waste again."

"It isn't altogether strength. It's fire--the fire of youth. Bank it up and let it smoulder, or it will burn you up."

"How are you so wise, playmate? You are as wise as dear grannie."

He stretched up his hands in the darkness. The face he lifted to the shrouded heavens only the unseen citizens of the night could see, the beneficent powers that nurse and foster.

"It has been my study," he said, in a tone of awe, as if he had not before thought how strange it is never to squander. "All these years I have done nothing but think of my body, how to build up here, how to husband there. So much exercise, so much sleep, so much turning away from what burns up and tears. Well, I have done it. I have made myself into something as solid as the ground, as enduring as the rocks."

"Has it been--easy?" she ventured. "Have you liked to do it?"

"No, I have not liked to do it." Afterwards, in her own room, she thought of that question and understood the answer better. "I have never lavished anything," he said. "As soon as I saw what grannie was about, trying to give me a body to live in, I began to help her. We have done it. Sometimes I think she did it sitting there in her chair and praying to her G.o.d. I haven't done any spending. It has been all saving. But when the time comes, I shall spend it all at once."

She felt very far away from him.

"How, playmate?" she asked timidly.

He roused himself. "Never mind," he said. "That's not for us to think about to-night. Now run home, child, and go to bed."

"But we haven't decided about me. What must I do?"

He was silent for a moment and then he said,--

"A long time ago, grannie told me what to do. She said, 'Do the thing you think G.o.d wishes you to do.'"

"But I don't know anything about G.o.d."