Michael O'Halloran. Stratton-Porter Gene
I want, while I've no idea what I shall do for a basket. I saw osiers yellow and red in quantities, but where are the orchids?"
"We must make our way farther in and search," he said.
"Douglas, listen!" breathed Leslie.
"I hear exquisite music," he answered.
"But don't you recognize it?" she cried.
"It does seem familiar, but I am not sufficiently schooled in music——"
The girl began softly to whistle.
"By Jove!" cried the man. "What is that Leslie?"
"Di Provenza, from Traviata," she answered. "But I must stop listening for birds Douglas, when I can scarcely watch for flowers or vines. I have to keep all the time looking to make sure that you are really my man."
"And I, that you are my woman. Leslie, that expression and this location, the fact that you are in competition with a squaw and the Indian talk we have indulged in lately, all conspire to remind me that a few days ago, while I was still a 'searcher' myself, I read a poem called 'Song of the Search' that was the biggest thing of its kind that I have yet found in our language. It was so great that I reread it until I am sure I can do it justice. Listen my 'Bearer of Morning,' my 'Bringer of Song——'"
Douglas stood straight as the tamaracks, his feet sinking in "the little moss," while from his heart he quoted Constance Skinner's wonderful poem:
"I descend through the forest alone. Rose-flushed are the willows, stark and a-quiver, In the warm sudden grasp of Spring; Like a woman when her lover has suddenly, swiftly taken her. I hear the secret rustle of little leaves, Waiting to be born. The air is a wind of love From the wings of eagles mating—— O eagles, my sky is dark with your wings! The hills and the waters pity me, The pine-trees reproach me. The little moss whispers under my feet, "Son of Earth, Brother, Why comest thou hither alone?" Oh, the wolf has his mate on the mountain—— Where art thou, Spring-daughter? I tremble with love as reeds by the river, I burn as the dusk in the red-tented west, I call thee aloud as the deer calls the doe, I await thee as hills wait the morning, I desire thee as eagles the storm; I yearn to thy breast as night to the sea, I claim thee as the silence claims the stars. O Earth, Earth, great Earth, Mate of God and mother of me, Say, where is she, the Bearer of Morning, My Bringer of Song? Love in me waits to be born, Where is She, the Woman?
"'Where is she, the Woman?' The answer is 'Here!' 'Bearer of Morning,'
'Bringer of Song,' I adore you!"
"Oh Douglas, how beautiful!" cried Leslie. "My Man, can we think of anything save ourselves to-day? Can we make that basket?"
"It would be a bad start to give up our first undertaking together," he said.
"Of course!" she cried. "We must! We simply must find things. Father may call any minute. Let go my hand and follow behind me. Keep close, Douglas!"
"I should go before to clear the way," he suggested.
"No, I may miss rare flowers if you do," she objected.
"Go slowly, so I can watch before and overhead."
"Yes!" she answered. "There! There, Douglas!"
"Ah! There they are!" he exulted.
"But I can't take them!" she protested.
"Only a few, Leslie. Look before you! See how many there are!" he said.
"Douglas, could there be more wonderful flowers than the moccasins and slippers?" she asked.
"Scarcely more wonderful; there might be more delicate and lovely!"
"Farther! Let us go farther!" she urged.
Her cry closed the man's arms around her.
Then there was a long silence during which they stood on the edge of a small open space breathlessly worshipping, but it was the Almighty they were now adoring. Here the moss lay in a flat carpet, tinted deeper green. Water willow rolled its ragged reddish-tan hoops, with swelling bloom and leaf buds. Overflowing pitcher plants grew in irregular beds, on slender stems, lifting high their flat buds. But scattered in groups here and there, sometimes with massed similar colours, sometimes in clumps and variegated patches, stood the rare, early fringed orchis, some almost white, others pale lavender and again the deeper colour of the moccasins; while everywhere on stems, some a foot high, nodded the exquisite lavender and white showy orchis.
"Count!" he commanded.
Leslie pointed a slender finger indicating each as she spoke: "One, two, three—thirty-two, under the sweep of your arms, Douglas! And more! More by the hundred! Surely if we are careful not to kill them, the Lord won't mind if we take out a few for people to see, will He?"
"He must have made them to be seen!" said Douglas.
"And worshipped!" cried the girl.
"Douglas, why didn't the squaw——?" asked Leslie.
"Maybe she didn't come this far," he said. "Perhaps she knows by experience that these are too fragile to remove. You may not be able to handle them, Leslie."
"I'm going to try," she said. "But first I must make my basket. We'll go back to the osiers to weave it and then come here to fill it. Oh Douglas! Did you ever see such flower perfection in all your life?"
"Only in books! In my home country applied botany is a part of every man's education. I never have seen ragged or fringed orchids growing before. I have read of many fruitless searches for the white ones."
"So have I. They seem to be the rarest. Douglas, look there!"
"There" was a group of purple-lavender, white-lipped bloom, made by years of spreading from one root, until above the rank moss and beneath the dark tamarack branch the picture appeared inconceivably delicate.
"Yes! The most exquisite flowers I ever have seen!"
"And there, Douglas!" She pointed to another group. "Just the shade of the lavender on the toe of the moccasin—and in a great ragged mass! Would any one believe it?"
"Not without seeing it," he said emphatically.
"And there, Douglas! Exactly the colour of the moccasins—see that cluster! There are no words, Douglas!"
"Shall you go farther?" he asked.
"No," she answered. "I'm going back to weave my basket. There is nothing to surpass the orchids in rarity and wondrous beauty."
"Good!" he cried. "I'll go ahead and you follow."
So they returned to the osiers. Leslie pondered deeply a few seconds, then resolutely putting Douglas aside, she began cutting armloads of pale yellow osiers. Finding a suitable place to work, she swiftly and deftly selected perfect, straight evenly coloured ones, cutting them the same length, then binding the tip ends firmly with raffia she had brought to substitute for grass. Then with fine slips she began weaving, gradually spreading the twigs while inwardly giving thanks for the lessons she had taken in basketry. At last she held up a big, pointed, yellow basket.
"Ready!" she said.
"Beautiful!" cried Douglas.
Leslie carefully lined the basket with moss in which the flowers grew, working the heads between the open spaces she had left. She bent three twigs, dividing her basket top in exact thirds. One of these she filled with the whitest, one with stronger, and one with the deepest lavender, placing the tallest plants in the centre so that the outside ones would show completely. Then she lifted by the root exquisite showy orchis, lavender-hooded, white-lipped, the tiniest plants she could select and set them around the edge. She bedded the moss-wrapped roots in the basket and began bordering the rim and entwining the handle with a delicate vine. She looked up at Douglas, her face thrilled with triumph, flushed with exertion, her eyes humid with feeling, while he gazed at her stirred to the depth of his heart with sympathy and the wonder of possession.
"'Bearer