Heart's Desire Page 6

  CHAPTER V

  EDEN AT HEART'S DESIRE

  _This being the Story of a Paradise; also showing the ExceedingLoneliness of Adam_

  Two months had passed since the wedding of Curly and the Littlest Girl,and nothing further had happened in the way of change. The man fromPhiladelphia had not come, and, to the majority of the population ofHeart's Desire at least, the railroad to the camp remained a thing asfar distant as ever in the future. Life went on, spent in the open forthe most part, and in silent thoughtfulness by choice. Blackman, J.P., now languished in desuetude among the fallen remnants of anerstwhile promising structure of the law; and there being no furtheroccupation for the members of the bar, the latter customarily spentmuch of the day sitting in the sun.

  "You might look several times at me," said Dan Andersen one day,without preface or provocation, "and yet not read all my past in thesefair lineaments."

  This seemed unworthy of notice. A man's past was a subject tabooed inHeart's Desire. Besides, the morning was already so warm that we wereglad to seek the shade of an adobe wall. Conversation languished. DanAnderson absent-mindedly rolled a _cigarrillo_ with one hand, his gazethe while fixed on the horizon, on which we could see the faint loom ofthe Bonitos, toothed upon the blue sky, fifty miles away. His mindmight also have been fifty miles away, as he gazed vaguely. There wasnothing to do. There was only the sun, and as against it the shade.That made up life at Heart's Desire. It was a million miles away toany other sort of world; and that world, in so far as it had referenceto a past, was a subject not mentioned among the men of Heart's Desire.Yet this morning there seemed to be something upon Dan Andersen's mind,as he edged a little farther along into the shade, and felt in hispocket for a match.

  "No, you wouldn't think; just to look at me, my friend," said he, "youwouldn't think, without runnin' side lines, and takin' elevations fordips, spurs, and angles, that I had ever been anything but a barrister;now, would you? Attorney and Counsellor-at-law, all hours of the dayand night: that bill of specifications is engraved on my brow, ain'tit? You like enough couldn't believe that I was ever anythingelse--several things else, could you?"

  His speech still failed of interest, except as it afforded additionalproof of the manner in which Yale, Harvard, Princeton, and the likedisappeared from the speech of all men at Heart's Desire. Dan Andersonsat down in the shade, his long legs stretched out in front of him."My boy," said he, "you can gaze at me if you ain't too tired. As amatter of fact, in this pernicious age of specialization I stand out asthe one glitterin' example of success in more than one line. Why, onceI was a success as a journalist--for a few moments."

  There was now a certain softness and innocence in his voice, which hadportent, although I did not at that time suspect that he really hadanything of consequence upon his soul. Without more encouragement hewent on.

  "My brother," said he, "when I first came out of Princeton I wasburnin' up with zeal. There was the world, the whole wide world,plunged into an abyss of error and wrongdoin'. I was the sole andremainin' hope. Like all great men, I naturally wanted to begin thesavin' as early as possible; and like everybody else who comes out ofPrinceton, I thought the best medium for immediate salvation wasjournalism. I wasn't a newspaper man. I never said that at all. Iwas a journalist.

  "Well, dad got me a place on a paper in New York, and I worked on thedog-fight department for a time, it havin' been discovered that I wasnoted along certain lines of research in Princeton. I knew thepedigree and fightin' weight of every white, black, or brindle pup infour States. Now, a whole lot of fellows come out of college who don'tknow that much; or if they do, they don't know how to apply theirknowledge. Now dogs, that's plumb useful.

  "I was still doin' dogs when the presidential campaign came along, orrather, that feature of our national customs which precedes theselection of the People's Choice. First thing, of course, the People'sChoice had to take a run over the country--which was a good thing, too,because he didn't know much about it--and let the people in generalknow that he was their choice. I went along to tell the other peoplehow he broke it to them."

  I confess I sat up at this, for there was now so supreme an innocencein Dan Anderson's eye that one might have been morally certain thatsomething was coming. "From dogs to politics--wasn't that a littlesingular?" I asked.

  "Yes," said he; "but you have to be versatile in journalism. Theregular man who was to have gone on that special presidential car gotslugged at an art gatherin'. I didn't ask for the place. I just wentand told the managin' editor I was ready if he would give me an orderfor expense money. It wouldn't have been good form for him to look upand pay any attention to me, so I got the job. I needed to see thecountry just as much as the People's Choice did.

  "Three other fellows went along,--newspaper men. I was the only realjournalist. We did the presidential tour for ten towns a day. Iwatched what the other fellows did, and in about two hours it was easy.Everything's easy if you think so. Folks made a lot of fuss aboutgettin' along in the world. That's all a mistake.

  "People's Choice tore it off in fine shape. Comin' into BasswoodJunction he turns to his Honorable Secretary, and says he, 'Jimmy,what's this?' Jimmy turns to his card cabinet, and says he: 'Prexie,this is Basswood Junction. Three railroads come in here--and get awayas soon as they can. Four overall factories and a reaper plant.Population six thousand, and increasin' satisfactory. Hon. Charles D.Bastrop, M.C., from this district, on the straight Republican ticketfor the last three hundred years; world without end.'

  "Then the train would pull into this station to the sad sweet notes ofthe oompah horn, and the delegation of leadin' citizens would file inbehind the car, and the first leadin' citizen would get red in the facewith his Welcome talk, while we four slaves of the people were hustlingthe President's speech to the depot telegraph wire before he said it.People's Choice, he stands on the back platform with one hand in hisbosom, and says he: 'Fellow-citizens of Basswood Junction, I am proudto see before me this large and distinguished gatherin' of our nobleNorth American fauna. My visit to your pleasant valley is whollywithout political significance. These noble et cetera; these smilin'et cetera; these beautiful et cetera, fill me with the proudestemotions of et cetera. This, our great and glorious et cetera;Basswood Junction has four magnificent factories, and is the centreof three great trunk lines of railroad which radiate et cetera; itis destined to be a great commercial et cetera. And what could bemore confirmatory of the sober, practical judgment of the citizens ofthis flourishing community than the fact that they have produced andgiven to the world that distinguished statesman and gentleman, theHon. Charles D. Bastrop, who is your representative in the Congressof the United States and who has always et cetera, et cetera?'Fellow-citizens, the issue before this country to-day--' and thatwas where he would hit his gait.

  "He had three of these, and on the schedule laid out by the chairman ofthe Central Committee he couldn't spring any two alike closer togetherthan a hundred miles. The whole business would take about five minutesto a station. We would put number Two, or number Three, or whicheverit was, on the wire, while the People's Choice was talkin', provided wecould catch the station agent, who on such occasions was bigger thanthe President. Then, toot! toot! and we were off for the next BasswoodJunction, to show 'em who was their spontaneous choice.

  "Well, that was all right, and it was easy work to report. The onlything was not to get number One speech mixed up with number Two ornumber Three at any given point. The Honorable Secretary had to attendto that. So all the time we were bored for something to do. What wewas hopin' and longin' for all the time was that some one in theopposition at some station would haul off and throw a brick at the car.Then we would have had some News."

  "Oh," said I, "you got to wanting news! You had a narrow escape."

  "Maybe," said Dan Anderson. "I admit I got to likin' the game. Ithink, too, I did get to understandin' what news was. So one day, whenI was mighty tired of th
e four-factory, railroad-centre,leadin'-citizen business, I mixed up the speeches on the HonorableSecretary between stations." Dan Anderson blew a faint wreath of bluesmoke up toward the blue sky and remained silent for a time.

  "The next particular Basswood Junction happened to be a Democraticminin' town, instead of a Republican agricultural community. It didn'thave any overall factories at all. They didn't relish bein' told thatthey had voted the straight Republican ticket ever since AlexanderHamilton, and that they had given to the public that distinguishedcitizen, James K. Blinkensop, when the man they had really given to thepublic was Dan G. Healy. Oh, the whole thing got all mixed up! Now,that was News! And they fired me by wire that night! The People'sChoice was awful hostile. And me raised tender, too!"

  "Well, then, what did you do?" asked I, getting interested in spite ofmyself.

  "I was far, far from home. But not thus easily could I be shaken outof my chosen profession. In thirty-eight minutes I was at work asmanagin' editor of a mornin' paper. That particular Basswood Junctionwas just startin' a daily, the kind the real-estate men and the localcongressman have to support or go out of the business. Their editorhad been raised on a weekly, and had been used to goin' to sleep ateight o'clock in the evening. The rumor spread that a metropolitanjournalist had fallen out of a balloon into their midst. Thatmorning's paper was two days late. So I just went in and went to work.I sent every one else home to bed, and sat down to write the paper.

  "Of course, I began with dogs, for on account of my early trainin' Iknew more about that. Two columns of dogs as a Local Industry. Then Itook up Mineral Resources, about half a column. Might have played thatup a little stronger, but I was shy on facts. Then I did the Literaryand Dramatic. I shuddered when I struck that, because when a man on apaper gets put on Literary and Dramatic, it usually isn't far to hisfinish. He don't have to send out after trouble--it comes to himspontaneous. Next, I had to do Society. Didn't know anybody there, sothat was a little hard. Had to content myself with theBeautiful-and-Accomplished-Who-Shall-be-Nameless,--that sort of thing.Why," said Dan Anderson, plaintively, "it's awful hard to write societyand local news in a town when you've only been there fifteen minutes.But a real metropolitan journalist ought to be able to, and I did.

  "By this time the office force was standin' around some awed. I sentthe foreman of the pressroom out for a bottle of fizz. Sarsaparillawas the nearest he could come to it, but it went. Then I turned my hotyoung blood loose on the editorial page. 'This,' said I, 'is myopportunity to save the country, and I'm goin' to save it, right here.'It was then eleven hours, forty-five minutes, and eight seconds by thegrandpa clock which adorned the newly furnished sanctum." Dan Andersonagain sat silent a few moments, the stub of his _cigarrillo_ betweenhis fingers.

  "Oh, well," said he, "it might, perhaps, have been worse, although Iadmit that was unlikely. I couldn't prove an alibi, but there wereextenuatin' circumstances. The fact was, I got the politics of theplace mixed up almost as bad as the People's Choice. That communitywoke up as one man at six-thirty the next morning, and turned out tosee the evidence of their progress. I never did see so many Democratsin my life. Or was it Republicans? I forget. I had given 'em a good,hot, mixed Princeton paper,--dog, international law, society,industrial progress, footlight favorites, and the whole business; hadSermons from Many Lands, and a Conundrum Department, as well as aHousehold Corner--How to get Beautiful for the ladies, How to get Richfor the men, How to get Strong for the advertisers--why, if I do sayit, I don't believe any one fellow was ever much more cosmopolitan inall his life, inside the space of one night's writin'. But they didn'tlike me. I was too good for them. Ah, well!"

  Dan Anderson sighed softly. The lazy sun crawled on. Nobody came intothe street. There was nothing to happen. It might have been an hourbefore Dan Anderson leaned over, picked up a splinter to whittle, andwent on with his story, back of which I was long before this wellconvinced there remained some topic concealed, albeit beneathinconsequent and picturesque details.

  "At that state of my _entwickelung_, as the French say, I still woremy trousers with a strong crimp at the bottom and cut pear-shaped atthe hips. That pair was. The next one wasn't. It was a long, longway to that next pair. I forgot how many years.

  "You see, by that time--although I did still say 'rully,' account ofhaving roomed with a man who had been in Harvard for a while--I wasreally beginning to wake up just a little bit. My dad still supposed Iwas doing dog on the dramatic page in New York, whereas the facts wereI had been fired twice. But that did me good. I sort of woke up aboutthen, and realized there were such things in the world as folks. Iwasn't the People's Choice,--not yet,--but I was learnin' a heap moreabout the Basswood Junctions of this world. And I want to say to youthat after all's said and done, Princeton hasn't got Basswood Junctionskinned no ways permanent. There's several kinds of things in life,when you come to find it out. It ain't all in the gay metropolis.

  "At half-past four one afternoon I turned the roll down out of mytrousers and took account of the world. Says I to myself: 'Journalismis not a science. It ain't exact enough.' Then I thought of studyin'medicine. Bah! That's not a science. It's a survival. I clerked fora while, but I couldn't stand it. What I was lookin' for was ascience. At last I concluded to take up law, because I thought it wasmore of a science than any of these other things. I wanted some placewhere I could sort of reason things out, and have them fit and hangtogether. Well, the law--well, you know the law isn't just exactlythat way. But it's a beautiful thing if you just hang to theprinciples, and don't believe too much of the practice. The law isdisgraced--but at bottom what the law meant to do was to give humanitysome sort of a square deal; which, of course, it doesn't. It ain't ascience; but I love it, because it might have been."

  He fell silent once again for a time, after his fashion, but now hisgaze was softened, although he went on with his light speech. "Irather thought I would take up the science of the law as the mostpossible line of activity for a man of my attainments. I began to reada little on the side. Then I didn't know whether to have contempt forus fools who live and endure the eternal folly, or whether I ought topity Basswood Junction and Princeton, because life is all so awfullyhard and hopeless. Meantime, Old Mr. World went right on--didn't stopto ask me anything.

  "You can understand these things took a little time. Meantime, my dadhad sized me up as one more young man ruined by college life. The oldman had a heap of sense in him, and he did the right thing. He told meto go to the devil."

  "So you came West?"

  "So I came West. Same pants."

  "But you haven't told me about the girl," said I, quietly.

  Ah, that was it, then! I could see his eyelids twitch. A moisturebroke out on his lower lip, in that country where perspiration was solittle known. "And you!" he said. "But then, it didn't take muchbrains to guess that. It was the same way with you. We all of us camehere to Heart's Desire because some time, some where, there was a Girl."

  So now we both were silent. Indeed, all the world was silent. Thecalm valley lay unwinking in the sun. The grave mountains stood aboutunperturbed, unagitated, calm. The blue sky swept above, peaceful,unflecked by any moving cloud. There was not a leaf in all that landto give a rustle, nor any water which might afford a ripple. It was aworld silent, finished, past and beyond life and its frettings, withnothing to trouble, and with nothing which bade one think of any worldgone by. Here was no place for memories or dreams. The rush ofanother world might go on. Folk might live and love, grieve and joy,and sorrow and die, and it mattered nothing. These things came not toHeart's Desire.

  Presently Dan Anderson was guilty of a thing revolutionary, horrible!He sat silent as long as he could, but at length there broke from him agroan that was half a sob. He rose and flung out an arm at the greatblue heaven. "Girl!" he cried. "Girl!" Then he sank down, buryinghis face in his hands. One might have heard falling, faint and faroff, the
shattered crystals of the walls that had long hedged sacredlyabout the valley of Heart's Desire. One might have heard, sweeping thesoft and silken curtains of its oblivion, the rough rush of adisturbing wind!

  Dan Anderson's back was in shame turned to me as he gazed down thevalley. "Friend," said he, "I swore never to think of her once more.Of course, the old ways had to end. Her people wouldn't have it. Shetold me she could not be happy with a dreamer; that it was no time fordreamers; that the world was run by workers. She told me--well, I cameWest, and after a while a little farther West.

  "I hadn't begun, I know that. It was fair enough to suppose I neverwould begin. But at least I didn't holler. I sat down to read law.Ah, don't let's talk of it. Her face was on the pages. I would brushit off, and read over a page a dozen times. I had to force it into mymind. I worked so hard--but maybe it was all the better for me. I notonly learned my law, but I remember to this minute every misplacedcomma and every broken type on every page I read; and I know how typelooks, irregularly set around a roll of brown hair and a pair of grayeyes that look straight at you. My boy, when the principles of law areback and under that kind of a page illustration, they are hard to get,and you don't forget them when they're yours. It wasn't hard to learnthings in Princeton. It's the things out of college that are hard tolearn.

  "Well, you know how that is. A fellow lives because this physicalmachine of ours is wound up for threescore years and ten, and unlessthe powers of evil get their fingers in the works, it runs. Well, onetime, after I was admitted to the bar back there, I was sitting onenight reading Chitty on Pleading. That was the worst of all the books.Contracts, notes and bills, torts, replevin, and ejectment--all thosethings were easy. But when I got to Chitty, the girl's face wouldalways get on the page and stick there. So one night, seeing that Iwas gone, I took Chitty on Pleading, girl's face and all, and screwedit shut, tight and fast in the letter-press. I allowed she couldn'tget out of there! Then I pulled my freight. I punched a burro intoHeart's Desire, two hundred miles, just as you did. I have lived here,just as you have. No life, no trouble, no woman--why, you know, thisis Heart's Desire!"

  "It was," said I; "God bless it."

  "And amen! We'd all have been in the Army, or burglary, or outlawry,if it hadn't been for Heart's Desire. God bless it."

  "But she got out," said I. "Some one unscrewed the press?"

  "Yes," said Dan Anderson. "She's out. They're out. I tell you,they're out, all over the world!

  "We were three hundred men here, and it was Heaven. One vast commune,and yet no commune. Everything there was if you asked for it, andnothing you could take if you didn't ask. Not a church, because therewasn't a woman. Not a courthouse, because there wasn't any crime, andthat because there wasn't a woman. Not a society--not a home--and Ithank God for it. I knew what it was back there--every man suspicious,every man scared, every man afraid of his own shadow--not a clean, truenote in all the world; and incidentally a woman behind every tree, inevery corner, whichever way you turned. Life in the States was being a_peon_ with a halter around your neck. But it was never that wayhere. There never was any crime in Heart's Desire. It's no crime toshoot a man when he's tired of living and wants you to kill him. Why,this was Heart's Desire until--"

  "Until the press got loose?"

  "It's loose all over the world!" cried Dan Anderson. "They've got out.You can't keep them in. How did Charlie Allen get killed over atSumner? Woman in it. When the boys arrested this fellow Garcia overat the Nogales, what was it all about? A woman. What set thedesperado Arragon on the warpath so the boys had to kill him? That wasa woman, too. What made Bill Hilliard kill Pete Anderson? Woman movedin within fifty miles of them on the Nogales. Here's Curly; good manin his profession. Night-wrangler, day-herder, bog-rider, buster,top-waddy--why, he'd be the old man on the range for his company ifthat Kansas family hadn't moved down in here and married him. It'sParadise Lost, that's what it is. Arizona next, and it's full ofcopper mines and railroads. Where shall we go?" The sweat stood fullon his lip now, and a deep line ran across his forehead. "Where shallwe go?" he repeated insistently. "Come!"

  In my own bitterness at all this I grew sarcastic with him. "Sitdown," said I. "Why all this foolishness about a college girl with ashirtwaist and a straw hat?"

  "Oh, now," and his forehead puckered up, "don't you be deceived for oneminute, my friend. This wasn't ordinary. No plain woman; no common orcrimping variety. Just a specimen of the great 'North American Girl!"He took off his hat. "And may God bless her, goin' or comin'!" said he.

  This was the most untoward situation ever yet known in the valley ofHeart's Desire. Dan Andersen was proving recreant to our creed. Andyet, what could be done?

  Dan Anderson presently made the situation more specific. "May old JackWilson just be damned!" said he. "If he hadn't found that goldprospect up on the Homestake, we might have lived here forever.Besides, there's the coal fields yonder on the Patos, no one knows howbig."

  Coal! That meant Eastern Capital. I could have guessed the restbefore he told it.

  "Oh, of course, we've got to sell our coal mines, and get a lot ofStates men in here monkeyin' around. And, of course, it couldn't havebeen anybody else but the particular daddy of this particular girl whohad to come pokin' in here to look at the country! He's got moneyliterally sinful."

  "But, man," I cried, "you don't mean to say that the girl's coming,too?"

  He nodded mutely. "They're out," said he, at last. "You can't getaway from 'em. They're all over the world."

  Here, indeed, was trouble, and no opportunity for speech offered for along time, as we sat moodily in the sun. At about this time, Tom Osbydrove his freight wagon down the street and outspanned at the corral ofWhiteman the Jew, just across the street. Tom tore open a bale of hay,and threw down a handful of precious oats to each of his hump-backedgrays, and then sat down on the wagon-tongue, where, as he filled apipe, he began to sing his favorite song.

  "I never _loved_ a fond gazel-l-l-e,"

  he drawled out. Dan Andersen drew his revolver and fired a swift shotthrough the top of Tom Osby's wagon. Tom came up, rifle in hand, likea jack-in-the-box, and bent on bloodshed.

  "Shut up," said Dan Anderson.

  "Well, I ain't so sure," said Tom, judicially rubbing his chin. "It'sa new wagon-bow for you fellers; and next time just you don't get quiteso funny, by a leetle shade."

  I interfered at this point, for trouble had begun in Heart's Desireover smaller things than this. "Don't you know it's Sunday?" I askedTom Osby.

  "I hadn't noticed it," said he.

  "Well, it is," said Dan Anderson. "You come here, and tell me whattime the stage gets in from Socorro."

  "I ain't no alminack," said Tom Osby, "and I ain't no astrollyger."

  "He's _loco_, Tom," said I.

  "Well, I reckon _so_. When a man begins to worry about what time theStage'll come in, he's gettin' too blamed particular for this country."

  "This," said I, "is a case of Eastern Capital--Eastern Capital, Eve andthe Serpent, all on one stage. The only comfort is that no EasternCapital has ever been able to stay here more than one day. She'll goback, shirtwaist and all, and you can begin over again." But the dumbsupplication in Dan Anderson's eye caused me swift regret.

  There was no telegraph at Heart's Desire. It was ninety miles to thenearest wire. The stage came in but occasionally from the distantrailroad. Yet--and this was one of the strange things of that strangecountry, which we accepted without curiosity and withoutargument--there was, in that far-away region, a mysterious fashion bywhich news got about over great distances. Perhaps it was a rider inby the short trail over Lone Mountain who brought the word that he hadseen, thirty miles away by the longer road up the canon, the whitesmoke of the desert dust that said the stage was coming. This newsbrought little but a present terror to Dan Anderson, as I looked at himin query.

  "Man," said he, as he gripped my arm, "you se
e, up there on Carrizo,the big canon where we hunt bear. You know, up there at the end,there's a big pine tree. Well, now, if you or any of the citizens ofthis commercial emporium should require the legal services of the lateDaniel Anderson, you go up the canon and look up the tree. I'll bethere. I'm scared."

  By this I knew that he would, in all likelihood, meet the stage andhelp Eve to alight at Heart's Desire. Moreover, I reproached him ashaving been deliberately a party to this invasion. "You've beenwriting back home to the girl," I said. "That is not playing the game.That's violation of the creed. You're renegade. Then go back home.You don't belong here!"

  "I'm not! I won't! I didn't!" he retorted. "I didn't write--at leastonly a few times. I tried not to--but I couldn't help it. Man, I tellyou I couldn't _help_ it."