Hempfield Part 9

[Ill.u.s.tration]

CHAPTER VII

PHAeTON DRIVES THE CHARIOT OF THE "STAR"

I find myself loitering unaccountably over every memory of those days in the office of the _Star_. Not a week pa.s.sed that I did not make two or three or more trips from my farm to Hempfield, sometimes tramping by the short cut across the fields and through the lanes, sometimes driving my old mare in the town road, and always with the problems of Anthy and Nort uppermost in my mind. Sometimes when I could get away, and sometimes when I couldn't (Harriet smiling discreetly), I went up in the daytime to lend a hand in the office (especially on press days), and often in the evening I went for a talk with Nort or Anthy or the old Captain, or else for a good comfortable silence with Fergus while he sat tipped back in his chair on the little porch of the office, and smoked a pipe or so--and the daylight slowly went out, the moist evening odours rose up from the garden, and the noises in the street quieted down.

As I have said, the incident of the fan marked the end of the era of Nort the subdued. From that time onward, for a time, it was Nort the ascendant--yes, Nort the obstreperous! As I look back upon it now I have an amusing vision of one after another of us hanging desperately to the coat tails of our Phaeton to prevent him from driving the chariot of the _Star_ quite to destruction.

It was this way with Nort. He had begun to recover from the remorse and discouragement which had brought him to Hempfield. If he had been in the city he would probably have felt so thoroughly restored and so virtuous that he would have sought out his old companions and plunged with renewed zest into the old life of excitement. But being in the quiet of the country he had to find some outlet for his high spirits, some food for his curious, lively, inventive mind. What a fascinator he was in those days, anyway! I think he put his spell upon all of us, even to a certain extent upon Ed Smith at first. To me, in particular, who have grown perhaps too reflective, too introspective, with the years of quietude on my farm, he seemed incredibly alive, so that I was never tired of watching him. He was like the boy I had been, or dreamed I had been, and could never be again.

And yet I did not then accept him utterly, as the loyal old Captain had done. I was not sure of him. His att.i.tude toward life in those days, while I dislike the comparison, was similar to that of Ed Smith, though the end was different. If Ed was looking for his own aggrandizement, Nort was not the less eagerly in pursuit of his own amus.e.m.e.nt and pleasure. I had a feeling that he would play with us a while because we amused him, and when he got tired or bored--that would be the end of us.

Up to that moment Nort had never really become entangled with life: life had never hurt him. Things and events were like moving pictures, which he enjoyed hotly, which amused him uproariously, or which bored him desperately.

As fate would have it--Ed Smith's fate--Nort's opportunity came in August. It was the occasion, as I remember it, of some outing of the State Editors' a.s.sociation, and Ed planned to be absent for two weeks.

He evidently felt that he could now entrust the destinies of the _Star_ for a brief time to his a.s.sociates. But he tore himself away with evident reluctance. How could the _Star_ be safely left to the mercies of the old Captain (who had been its t.i.tular editor for thirty years), or to Anthy (who was merely its owner), to say nothing of such disturbing elements as Fergus and Nort and me?

A deep sigh of relief seemed to rise from the office of the _Star_. One fancied that d.i.c.k, the canary, chirped more cheerfully, and Fergus swore that he found Tom, the cat, sleeping in the editorial chair within three hours after Ed departed. As for the Captain, he came in thumping his cane and clearing his throat with something of his old-time energy, and even Anthy wore a different look.

I can see Nort yet leaning against the imposing stone, one leg crossed over the other, his bare inky arms folded negligently, his thick hair tumbling about on his head--and amus.e.m.e.nt darkening in his eyes. Fergus was c.o.c.ked up on a stool by the cases; the Captain, who had just finished an editorial further pulverizing the fragments of William J.

Bryan, was leaning back in his chair comfortably smoking his pipe; and Anthy, having slipped off her ap.r.o.n, was preparing to go home for supper.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "_Well!" exclaimed Nort, drawing a long breath, "I never imagined it would feel so good to be orfunts_"]

"Well!" exclaimed Nort, drawing a long breath, "I never imagined it would feel so good to be orfunts."

The laugh which followed this remark was as irresistible as it was spontaneous. It expressed exactly what we all felt. I glanced at Anthy.

She evidently considered it her duty to frown upon such disloyalty, but couldn't. She was laughing, too. It seemed to break the tension and bring us all close together.

It will be seen from this how Nort had been growing since he came with us, a mere vagabond, to help Fergus. He had become one of us.

"Don't see how we're ever goin' to get out a paper," remarked Fergus.

This bit of irony was lost on the old Captain.

"Fudge!" he exclaimed indignantly. "Get out a paper! We were publis.h.i.+ng the _Star_ in Hempfield before ever Ed Smith was born."

"I'll tell you what, Cap'n--and Miss Doane," said Nort, "we ought to get out a paper this week that will show Ed a thing or two, stir things up a bit."

I saw Anthy turn toward him with a curious live look in her eyes. Youth had spoken to youth.

"We could do it!" she said, with unexpected energy. "We could just do it."

Nort unfurled his legs and walked nervously down the office.

"What would you put in her?" asked the practical Fergus.

"Put in her!" exclaimed Nort. "What couldn't you put in her? Put some life in her, I say. Stir things up."

"I have just written an editorial on William J. Bryan," remarked the Captain with deliberation.

"My father always used to say," said Anthy, "that the little things of life are really the big things. I didn't used to think so; it used to hurt me to see him waste his life writing items about the visits of the Backuses--you know what visitors the Backuses are--and the big squashes raised by Jim Palmer, and the meetings of the Masons and the Odd Fellows; but I believe he was successful with the _Star_ because he packed it full of just such little personal news."

"Your father," I said, "was interested in people, in everything they did. It was what he _was_."

"I see that now," said Anthy.

"And when you come to think of it," I said, "we are more interested in people we know than in people we don't know. We can't escape our own neighbourhoods--and most of us don't want to."

"That's all right," said Nort; "but it seems to me since I've been in this town that it is just the things that are most interesting of all that don't get into the _Star_. Why, there's more amusing and thrilling news about Hempfield published every day up there on the veranda of the Hempfield House than gets into the _Star_ in a month. I could publish a paper, at least once, that would----"

"I have always said," interrupted the Captain, "that the basic human interest was politics. Politics is the life of the people. Politics----"

Fergus's face cracked open with a smile.

"We might print a few poems."

He said it in such a tone of ironical humour and it seemed so absurd that we all laughed, except Nort.

Nort stopped suddenly, with his eyes gleaming.

"Why not, Fergus?" he exclaimed. "Great idea, Fergus."

With that he took up an envelope from the desk.

"Listen to this now," he said, "it came this morning; the Cap'n showed it to me."

He read aloud with great effect:

A PLEA FOR THE BALLOT

There was a maiden all forlorn, Who milked a cow with a crumpled horn, She churned the b.u.t.ter, and made the cheese, And taught her brothers their A B C's.

She worked and scrubbed till her back was broke, And paid her tax, but she couldn't vote.

Oh! you men look wise and laugh us to scorn, We'll get the ballot as sure as you're born.

"I can guess who wrote _that_!" laughed Anthy. "It was Sophia Rhinehart."

"You're right," said Nort, "and I say, print it."

"There's a whole drawer full of poetry like that here in the desk,"

observed the Captain.

"I'll tell you, let's print it all!" said Nort. "This town is full of poetry. Let's let it out. That's a part of the life of Hempfield which the _Star_ hasn't considered."

For the life of me I could not tell at the moment whether Nort was joking or not, but Fergus was troubled with no such uncertainty. He took his pipe out of his mouth, poked down the fire with his thumb, and observed:

"'Tain't poetry."