A Man's World. Edwards Albert
to literature, Malory and Tennyson's "Idylls" were the first written stories or poems I ever enjoyed. And I think my first impression of Beauty, was the sight of Mary nursing the baby. I am sure she did not realize with what wondering eyes I watched her. I was only a little shaver and she could not have guessed what a novel sight it was for me. At home, everything human, which could not be suppressed, was studiously hidden. I think some of the old Madonnas in which the Mother is suckling the Child would have seemed blasphemous to the Father. Art has always seemed to me at its highest when occupied with some such simple human thing.
IV
I had two playmates in those days, Margaret and Albert Jennings. Their father had been on "Stonewall" Jackson's staff. "Al" was my own age, but seemed older and Margot was a year younger. Until I went away to school we were almost inseparable. Only in affairs of the church were we apart, for they were Episcopalians.
Our biggest common interest was a "Chicken Company." We had built an elaborate run in the back yard of the parsonage and sometimes had as many as thirty hens. This enterprise led us into the great sin of our childhood – stealing.
Why I stole I cannot explain. I never pretended to justify it. We would sell a dozen eggs to my household and then take as many out of the pantry as were necessary to complete a dozen for Mrs. Jennings. We did this off and on for four or five years. When the hens laid freely we did not have to. But if there were not eggs to satisfy the demands of the two families, we stole. I think we blamed it on the chickens. Al and I were always full of great projects for improving the stock or the run and so needed money. There was little danger of discovery, because housekeeping was a very unexact science in our southern homes. And just because the chickens refused to lay as they should, seemed a very trivial reason for sacrificing our plans. But we did not like to do it. We always searched the nests two or three times in the hope of finding the eggs we needed.
Al was a queer chap. I remember one time we were two eggs short.
"We'll have to steal them from your mother," I said.
"You may be a thief," he retorted angrily, as we started after the spoils. "But I intend to pay it back. It's just a loan."
There was a weak subterfuge to the effect that Margot knew nothing of our dishonesty. The three of us had decided upon this in open council, to protect her in case we were caught. If there were to be any whippings, it was for the masculine members of the firm to take them. But Margot knew, just as well as we did, how many eggs were laid and how far our sales exceeded that number. But the candy she bought did not seem to trouble her conscience any more than it did her digestion. I have met no end of older women, in perfectly good church standing, who are no more squeamish about how their men folk gain their income.
There was another very feminine trait about Margot. We divided our profits equally, in three parts. Al and I always put most of our share back into the business. Margot spent hers on candy. Al used to object to this arrangement sometimes, but I always stood up for her.
This was because I expected to marry her. I do not remember when it was first suggested, but it was an accepted thing between us. Col. Jennings used laughingly to encourage us in it. I spoke of it once at home, but the Father shook his head and said it would grieve him if I married outside of our denomination. The Baptists were his special aversion, but next to them he objected to Episcopalians, whom he felt to be tainted with popery.
This led to a quarrel with Margot. I told her flatly that I would not marry her, unless she became a Presbyterian. She was a little snob and, as the most considerable people of the county belonged to her church, she preferred to give me up rather than slip down in the social scale. For several days we did not speak to each other. I refused to let any misguided Episcopalians in my yard. As the chicken run was in my domain, Al, who was smaller than I, became an apostate. But Margot held out stubbornly, until her mother intervened and told us, with great good sense, that we were much too young to know the difference between one sect and another, that we had best suspend hostilities until we knew what we were fighting about. So peace was restored.
This calf-love of mine was strangely cold. Some of the boys and girls in school used to "spoon." But "holding hands" and so forth seemed utterly inane to me. I do not know what Margot felt about it, but I no more thought of kissing her than her brother. The best thing about her was that she also loved King Arthur. Mary had given me a copy of Malory. Up in our hay-loft, Margot and I used to take turns reading it aloud and acting it. Only once in a long while could we persuade Al to join us in these childish dramatics. I was generally Launcelot. Sometimes she would be Elaine, but I think she loved best to be the Queen.
At fourteen I discovered Froissart's Chronicles in the Father's library. It had a forbidding cover and I might never have unearthed it, if he had not set me to work dusting his books in punishment for some minor delinquency. On the bottom shelf there were three big lexicons, Latin, Greek, and Hebrew. Next to them was the great family Bible. Then came Cruden's Concordance, a geography of Palestine, "The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire," Motley's "Dutch Republic" – and Froissart! As I was dusting it gloomily, it slipped from my hands and fell open to an old engraving of the Murder of Richard II. There were twenty-four plates in that volume. Never did boy enter into such a paradise.
I can only guess what the Father would have thought of my filling my mind with such lore. I took no chances in the matter. With great pains, I arranged the books so that the absence of Froissart would not be noticed. Until I went East to school at sixteen, it reposed in the bottom of the bran bin in the loft, and when at last I went, I gave it to Margot as my choicest treasure.
When I saw her ten years ago, she showed me the old book. The sight of it threw us both under constraint, bringing back those old days when we had planned to marry. The funeral of a dream always seem sadder to me than the death of a person.
Permanent camp meetings, the things which grew into the Chautauqua movement, were just beginning their popularity. One had been started a few score miles from our village and the year I went away to school, the Father had been made director. We left home early in the summer, and I was to go East without coming back.
On the eve of my departure, I went to see Margot. It was my first formal call and, in my new long trousers, I was much embarrassed. For an hour or so we sat stiffly, repeating every ten minutes a promise to write to each other. I remember we figured out that it would take me ten years to finish the Theological Seminary and be ready to marry her. It was ordained that I was to study for the ministry. No other career had ever been suggested to me.
The constraint wore off when I asked her for a photograph to take with me to school. From some instinct of coquetry she pretended not to want me to have one. Boys at school, she said, had their walls covered with pictures of girls, she would not think of letting hers be put up with a hundred others. When I solemnly promised not to have any picture but hers, she said she had no good one. There was one on the mantel, and I grabbed it in spite of her protest.
She was a bit of a tomboy and a hoydenish scuffle followed. In the scramble my hand fell accidentally on her breast. It sent a dazzling thrill through me. The vision came to me of Mary nursing the baby and the beauty of her white breast. The idea connected itself with Margot, struggling in my arms. I knew nothing of the mystery of life. I cannot tell what I felt – it was very vague – but I knew some new thing had come to me.
Margot noticed the change. I suppose I stopped the struggle with her.
"What's the matter?" she asked.
"Nothing."
But I went off and sat down apart.
"What's the matter?" she insisted, coming over and standing in front of me. "Did I hurt you?"
"No," I said. "But we mustn't wrestle like that. We aren't children any more."
She threw up her head and began to make fun of me and my new long trousers. But I interrupted her.
"Margot! Margot! Don't you understand?"
I took hold of her hands and pulled her down beside me and kissed her. It was the first time. I am sure she did not understand what I meant – I was not clear about it myself. But she fell suddenly silent. And while I sat there with my arm about her, I saw a vision of Mary's home and the warm joy of it. Margot and