If You Touch Them They Vanish

"Good God, no," said the Poor Boy. "As long as I live I don't want to see any one but you. Tell her, will you? See that she understands. Tell her—gently, so as not to hurt her feelings, but firmly, that she has only to show herself to be dismissed. The day I see her—she goes."

"She'll not thank you," said old Martha. "Ye may safely leave that to me."

"And if she isn't a real help to you, Martha, she goes. Another thing, I'd rather she didn't talk very loud or sing, if she can help it. I don't want to know that she's here."

To Martha's discerning and suspicious eyes the Poor Boy seemed nervous, ill at ease, and eager to be off somewhere. He was dressed for deep snow-going, and kept swinging his mittens by the wrists and beating them together. He stood much on one foot and much on the other.

"What's vexing you?" she asked.

"Nothing," he said. "I've found something off here," he waved toward the valley, "that amuses me—just a silly game, Martha, that goes on in my head. The minute I get out of sight of the house it begins. It's done it every day since you left."

"What kind of a game will that be?"

"It's just making believe," he said with a certain embarrassment, "pretending things—and it makes me forget other things. I'll be back by dark."

He literally bolted, and could be heard saying sharp things to the straps of his skis, which had become stiffened with the cold.

Old Martha stood for a while staring at the door which he had closed behind him. She wondered if by any possible chance his mind was beginning to go. To relieve her own she hurried back to Joy in the kitchen, and began a conversation that had not flagged by tea-time.

The Poor Boy had found a long diagonal by which he could descend from the top of the cliff to the bottom in one swift silent slide. More than half-way down there was a dangerous turn, but he had learned to ski at St. Moritz when he was little, and never thought of the danger at all. The chief thing, turn or no turn, was to get to the bottom of the cliff as quickly as possible. Everything that was bitter and tragic in his life ended there, in an open glade among towering white pines.

The day that Martha had left for New York, the Poor Boy, standing very lonely on the top of the cliff and looking out over the valley, had been struck with a whimsical thought.

"If I had the power," he thought, "I'd settle this region with innocent people who have been accused of crimes."

At this suggestion the component parts of his nature began a discussion.

Reason: How would you know they were innocent?

Truthfulness: They'd tell me. And I'd know.

Snobbishness: Very few people in your station of life are accused of crime.

Cynicism: And very few of them are innocent.

Snobbishness: You wouldn't care to associate with people of lower station than yourself.

Affection: I love Martha better than anybody in the world.

Reason: Think of something more sensible.

Love of Detail: I wonder how we could dispose of sewage without polluting lakes and streams? I must send for books on the disposal of sewage.

Love of the Beautiful: I should like to settle the whole valley without changing the look of it—from here.

Eyes (roving from one group of screening trees to the next): It can be done. Put your village on the east side of the big lake, back of the hardwood ridge. Do you remember Placid Brook? That will flow through the main street. It will be kept clean and well stocked with trout, so that the old men can fish from the bridges. Above the village there shall be a path along the brook, all in the shade. Can't you see the girls and boys walking, two and two?

Love of Detail: All the houses in the village must be white. Who is going to make the laws?

Ego: I am. Because I own the valley. And put up the money.

Modesty: But there will be lots of men wiser than I am. And they will help.

Sudden Impulse: The women shall have votes.

Childishness: The men shan't.

Reason: Now I wonder. It's never been tried, and maybe it's what the world is waiting for and striving for.

Touch of Genius and Prophecy: It shall be tried. It is what the world needs. No votes for men. No men on juries....

Memory: (Things too recent and poignant for utterance.)

Vague Idea Gathered at School: Am I going to stand for being taxed without representation?

Sense of Justice: No.

Self-confidence: But if I can't influence some woman's vote I may as well drown myself.

Reason: Some men have no influence over anybody. They won't stand for taxation without representation.

The Poor Boy (as a whole) gives up with reluctance the idea of a government of the ladies, by the ladies, and for the ladies.

Wish to Do the Next Best Thing: Let it be a government by commission—a commission of three. A man and a woman—and—

Touch of Genius: The children must be represented. They shall elect a child.

Sense of the Ridiculous: Upon a platform of "Baseball in the streets—longer vacations, and more of them."

Reason: The child must not be related to the other members of the commission. We are against affairs of state being influenced by a slipper.

Sense of Decency, Good Form, Breeding, etc.: Candidates shall not vote for themselves; nor stump the valley proclaiming at the top of their lungs that they alone can keep the country from going to the dogs.

Fondness for an Occasional Glass of Champagne: How about liquor?

Self-control: If everybody else will do without it, I will.

Human Nature: We must encourage early marriages.

Ego: Of course, you exempt yourself.

Whole System of Nerves and Circulation: I do not!

Fastidiousness: She must be so and so and so (but he only succeeded in conjuring up a vague shadow of a girl).

Beginning like this (or something like it), deliberately, and thinking up things as he went along, the Poor Boy's imagination suddenly stepped in and took such a terrific grip of the situation that little by little the idea of a model settlement became as real as the most vivid and logical dream.

The valley was under three feet of snow. There was four feet of snow upon the surrounding hills and mountains, but already the engineers, headed by the Poor Boy, had been at work, and the masons and the carpenters. And many miles of ditches had been dug, and dams built, and a powerhouse, and roads (always among trees—so that the natural beauty of the valley was not so much as scratched), and already the village was complete, with its white houses and white school (with its longer holidays and more of them), its white library with the long lovely colonnade, commission house facing it, gardens in front of every dwelling, and pairs of lovers strolling by Placid Brook.

Furthermore the village was full of people already, and half a dozen of them had been so clearly designed by the Poor Boy's imagination that he could see them, every line of their faces, every detail of their clothes. He knew every intonation of their voices. When he talked with them, he did not have to make up their answers—they just came. And better, other people, at first dim figureheads, were becoming clearer and more vivid all the time, so it seemed sure that before long he would know even the dogs of his settlement by sight.

The greatest difficulty in the game that he was playing lay in the imperfection of his memory. As he built each house in the village he saw it as plainly as I see the pages on which I am writing, but leaving it to go at the next house he had to return again and again to fix the image of the first. For instance, he got the whole village built, and lying in his bed that night could only remember with real distinction the commission house, the library, and one dwelling house, far down the main street. The rest was vague—houses—white houses—not high—not crowded, but all blurred and without detail, as if seen through tears.

He built the village, parts of it, four or five times before it became a definite thing to him. Before he could stop, let us say, before the Browns' house and take pleasure in the trim of their front door, before he could see the heliotrope growing in the snow-white jardinière in the living-room window, before he knew that Mrs. Brown made cookies every Friday, and that if you went round to the kitchen door and were very hungry and polite she gave them away while they were still hot and crisp.

It was precisely to call on Mrs. Brown that the Poor Boy had been so eager to leave his own house. Realities began for him at the bottom of the cliff. The road to the village crossed the glade in the pine woods—the snow was packed and icy with much travel, with the sliding of runners and the semicircular marks of horses' hoofs. As the Poor Boy sped along on his skis, he met people in sleighs and was overtaken and passed by others. They were his people—his alone. He had cheerful words for all of them, and they for him. They were hazy—a little—to the eye, but here and there he caught a face clearly and did not forget it again—a baby in a blue-and-white blanket coat, that had bright red cheeks and that smiled and showed two brand-new teeth; a boy with bare hands and red knuckles (the Poor Boy sent him a pair of warm mittens from the village store), and ears (one bigger than the other) which stuck straight out.

The Poor Boy came to a halt suddenly where a stream too vigorous to be ice-bound crossed the road (under a concrete bridge that had been built only the day before), ran out over a ledge of smooth granite and fell thirty feet with a roar.

"Yes," said the Poor Boy, "there's got to be a sawmill with a red roof and flower-boxes in the windows, and this is just the place for it or I'm very much mistaken.... I wonder ... I wish to the deuce Mr. Tinker was here, he's the best man we've got on water-power. The woods are full of trees that ought to be cut for the benefit of the others. Yardsley was showing me about them only yesterday. But this is a matter for Tinker."

The Poor Boy listened and heard sleigh-bells. They came swiftly nearer.

"Wonder who this is?"

Around the nearest turn of the road toward the village came a powerful roan horse, drawing a cutter; in the cutter sat an enormous man, but the Poor Boy had already recognized the horse.

"I'm damned," said he; "Tinker!"

He waved both arms and called a joyous greeting. The cutter came to a halt on the bridge.

"Just the man I wanted to see," said the Poor Boy. "I want advice and help. Yardsley says we're letting a lot of timber go to waste. Now how about a sawmill—right here?"

Mr. Tinker was a joyous bachelor of forty-five. He had been cashier of a bank. A deficit arising, he had been wrongfully accused of direct responsibility, and from prison he had come straight to the Poor Boy's settlement on special (most special) invitation. He had taken a room (and bath) in the village inn, and had made a little money out of contracts which the Poor Boy had thrown his way.

"What's the flow here in summer?" asked Mr. Tinker doubtfully.

"About half what it is now," said the Poor Boy.

"Hum—that would be width so and so—depth so and so.... What's the fall?"

"Thirty feet."

"Can't use it all, can we?"

The Poor Boy shook his head.

"Well—I tell you, I'll bring a tape-measure to-morrow and go into the thing thoroughly. By the way, you know Mrs. Caxton, who's staying at the inn?"

"Yes—yes," said the Poor Boy, "they accused her of shoplifting and it wasn't she at all."

"Damn them," said Tinker.

"By all means," said the Poor Boy.

"But what about her?" His eyes twinkled.

Mr. Tinker blushed and beamed.

"She's given up her rooms."

"What!" exclaimed the Poor Boy.

"And we're going to move to the little house on the corner."

"Then," said the Poor Boy, "what are you doing alone in the woods?"

"Came to find you," said Tinker. "Couldn't get married without you."

"Turn around," cried the Poor Boy. "I'm with you."

He knelt swiftly and took off his skis.

He started to slide an affectionate arm round the older man's shoulders, but jerked it back before it was too late.

"No," he muttered, "you mustn't try to touch them or they vanish."

"What's that?"

"Just that this is the best thing that ever happened. You're just made for each other, you two."

They sped on through the pine forest, talking of village matters, of school matters, and hitching-posts, of politics, of sewers—but mostly of love.

It was dark when the Poor Boy got back to his own house. But he was very happy and (in spite of many hot crisp cookies at Mrs. Brown's kitchen door) very hungry.

After he had dressed and dined, he soaked his hands in hot water to make them supple, and played Beethoven till far into the night.

Martha went boldly into the room to listen, and sat in a deep chair by the fire, as was her right. But Miss Joy listened without the door, and during the Adagio from the Pathetique her hands covered her bowed face and tears came through the fingers.

Then she crept off to bed, but Martha came before she was asleep to say good-night.

"Miss Joy," she said, "it's the first time since he came that he's played; other times he's only fooled and toyed."

"Martha," said Miss Joy, "I think it's the first time that anybody ever played."

"It's what the Poor Boy does best," said Martha, "and takes the least pride in. Listen now—he's making up as he goes—there's voices—only listen—there's one that insists and one that denies—but both their hearts are breakin'—breakin' in their breasts."

Miss Joy sat straight up in bed. "Listen, Martha—there's a third voice—things are going to come right for the other two—"

Thus the two women. As for the Poor Boy, he made music because he had been to a wedding that day and knew that if he got to thinking about it alone in the dark he might get so unhappy that he would remember where he had hidden his revolver and his rifles, and get up to look for them.

He played until he was exhausted in body and mind. Then he rose from the piano, closed it gently, and went to bed. He was very sad and unhappy, but quite sane again.

It had developed that there were enough people wrongfully accused of some crime or other in the world to settle the Poor Boy's lands from the big lake all the way to the salt sea. And the main object of his long excursions was to locate upon deep water, navigable for great ships, a site, not for a village, but for a city.

Already his first village had suburbs, and here and there, dotted about among the foot-hills, were villas belonging to a wealthier class of people: Bradleys, Godfreys, Warrens, Warings, etc., families of position and breeding, among whom was a constant round of little dinners and dances to which the Poor Boy dearly loved to be invited.

Government by a commission of three was an established and successful fact. Though it must be owned that as the man member and the woman member could never agree about anything, all reins of policy were gathered into the hands of the child.

"A child leads us," was often in the mouths of the village elders, and often anxiety expressed as to what would happen when the child grew up. But that he would grow up was not likely, since he was the very image of what the Poor Boy himself had been at the same age—a charming, straightforward, most honorable boy, touched by the fairy godmother of justice, music, and fancy.

It was wonderful how much the school-children learned with three hours' schooling a day (except Wednesday, Saturday, and Sunday, when they had none), and how outdoor play the rest of the time was rapidly developing them physically and in the sense of responsibility and judgment. There were no recorded cases of weak eyes, nerves, or hysteria. There were no suicides among the children upon the occasion of failures to pass examinations.

Nor was morbid curiosity allowed to stalk among them, destroying as it went. They were brought up on a newer and more scientific catechism, beginning:

Teacher: Who made you?

Answer: My father and mother.

And among themselves they were encouraged to raise up questions and bring them to their elders for simple and instructive answers. And the punishment for lying to children and frightening them with mysteries was very terrible.

Upon his second long excursion the Poor Boy and his jolly companions (except Wangog, who was taciturn) came to the end of the Poor Boy's lands, a coast of granite sheathed with ice, and beyond, great broken cakes of ice heaving slowly with groans and grinding roars upon the tranquil winter ocean.

Back of the granite barriers the river spread right and left, and then went out to sea in a deep and narrow stream, curiously free from ice. Indeed, there was but little ice in the main basin, and a kind of steam hung over it so that the Poor Boy was compelled and delighted to conclude (with the aid of his companions) that the river toward its mouth must be swollen by warm springs.

"I wonder if ships couldn't come in all the year round?"

He was going to wonder about other things, when the taciturn Wangog grunted and pointed to where the smoke of a steamer lay black along the horizon, and after that, to them closely watching, little by little her black hull rose from the grays and whites and greens of the ice.

She proved to be many kinds of a ship, in rapid succession, but last of all she was a yacht, huge and black and glittering with much brass. She was owned by a great statesman, who, with nothing but his country's welfare at heart, had been accused of high treason, and who, having heard of the Poor Boy's asylum for unfortunates, was making for it as fast as he could.

She came slowly between the headlands and to anchor at last with a splendid splash that glittered in the sun like diamonds....

It was very disappointing. If the Poor Boy, searching a more than half-emptied knapsack, was ever to get home to his own house he must postpone his visit to—Lord Harrow's (yes, that was the name forever and ever) yacht. Why had the Poor Boy and his companions wasted so much time over an empty harbor, when they might just as well have had the yacht arrive in the early morning, giving time for visits, explanations, and lunch?

The Poor Boy began to stamp his feet. There was no sensation in them, and he found that they were frozen. He had come too far, he had exposed himself too much—the sea with its burden of ice groaned and clashed. His companions, so jolly but now (except Wangog, who was taciturn), looked pityingly upon him and began to fade. They vanished. He was all alone. A shrill wind was rising, dusk was descending. He stood and stamped his feet, and two plans fought in his head for recognition and acceptance.

He could board Lord Harrow's great black yacht and be welcomed into the light and the warmth of the great satin-wood saloon with its open fireplace and its Steinway grand. Lord Harrow's daughter, that lovely girl, would minister to him, and Warinaru, the steward, would bring him hot grog in cut crystal, upon a heavy silver tray of George the First's time. They would give him the best state-room, the green and white—white for winter, green for summer—and he would sleep—such a long sleep—with no dreams in it, no worries, no memories—no awakening!

That was one plan—a delightful plan. So easy of accomplishment! He had but to sit in the snow and wait; Lord Harrow would see him and send a boat. No. Lord Harrow's daughter should be the first.... No ... No. How foolish! Don, the spaniel, begins to whine and fret, to put his paws on the bulwarks and bark toward a spot on the shore.

A boat is lowered; Don, the spaniel, leaps in—they row, following the point of his nose, and the Poor Boy is found just in the nick of time....

But the other plan, which was not delightful, was best.

"I told old Martha," the Poor Boy murmured, "to look for me at such a time. Why break her heart for a pair of bright eyes and a glass of hot grog? Why not keep my word? It's only two or three days of torture."

He turned from the river and ran upon his skis, stamping at each step, until he found shelter from the wind. His feet began to tingle and he knew that they were not frozen. But by the time he had a fire going they were numb again.

Between the Poor Boy and his old Martha was not two or three days of torture, but four. During part of the time snow fell, and wind flew into his face from the north.

Late on the fourth day he climbed the cliff upon which his house stood, not because it was the cliff upon which his house stood, but because it was an obstacle in his way. His house might be a month's journey beyond, for all he knew.

At the top of the cliff, among the pines was a young woman. She was by no means the first he had seen that day. But her face was clearer than the other faces had been, and when she darted behind a tree and tried to escape without being seen or spoken to, he ran after her, not knowing why he ran nor why he called her Joy—Joy—Joy! And he did not understand why she in her turn kept calling, "Martha—Martha—come quick—come quick!"

He knew best that she suddenly stopped running, and turned and waited for him, and that as he fell forward she caught him in her arms and began to drag him toward a bright light.

It was a most vivid hallucination. And when he woke in his bed, so warm and all, and Martha bending over him, the first thing he told her—smiling sleepily—was that he had mistaken her for Miss Jocelyn Grey.

"It was the realest sort of an hallucination," he said, "she caught me as I was falling—and of course she was you."

"How do you feel, Deary? We—I had a devil of a time with ye."

But the Poor Boy's mind was still upon the vision of Miss Grey.

"I saw her," he said, "and there was a look in her eyes that told me she'd never—never believed I'd done it.... And I was so glad, I tried to run to her for comfort, and all the time she was you. It was all so real—so real. It was a lot realer than some things that really did happen to me yesterday—yesterday morning, before I began to get snow-foolish."

"'Twas the day before yesterday ye came home," said Martha. "And all yesterday ye raved like a lunatic until night, when ye fell asleep, and I knew that all was well."

"Have you sat up with me all the time?"

"Ye forget I have an old female to help me. We took turns."

"You must thank her for me, Martha."

"I'll do that."

"Tell her I am grateful to her, and I think we should give her quite a lot of money, don't you?"

"But if she believed in me, why didn't she write and say so? We were such good friends until we had a sort of misunderstanding."

"You never told me about that."

"Oh, it was silly. We were both staying with the Brettons; and one day Miss Joy turned her ankle and I wanted to carry her back to the house, and she wouldn't let me. Every step she took hurt her a lot, and me more. I was a spoiled boy. I always did what I wanted to do. It seemed to me that I wanted to carry her more than anything I'd ever wanted to do. And she wouldn't let me. So we managed to misunderstand each other very thoroughly, and then things began to happen—things began to happen."

The Poor Boy sighed. Then he looked up with a smile and a blush.

"I've always thought," he said, "that if she had let me carry her, I would have asked her to marry me. Anyway, it's the nearest I ever came to asking any one."

"And not very near," said Martha, "since she wouldn't be bothered with a lift."

"She was a good kid," said the Poor Boy. And then, more than half to himself: "I think I'll have her up for a visit."

"Fwaat!" exclaimed Martha.

"I'll have her stay with some of my make-believe people," he said. "She'll be the first person to come here that I ever knew before. She shall stay with—with? I have it, she's a guest of Lord Harrow's daughter, and they've just moved into Harrow Hall. That's the new Georgian House, on Lilly Pond...."

"When I was in New York I saw Miss Joy."

"You did!"

"She was prettier than any picture. She come up and give me both hands and says: 'Why, Martha!' And then we talked.—And she never believed you did it, never!"

"Ah! She might have written!"

"Troubles came on her poor father. He lost his money, and he died. She lost thought for any one but him."

"Miss Joy—poor! How dreadful! How wrong! What is she doing?"

"She's a sort of companion and helper to a rich old woman, and she's saving her wages against a rainy day."

The Poor Boy was terribly troubled about his old friend. She had been so generous, so debonair, such a gay and charming spender.

"Oh!" he cried. "Can't I do anything?"

"Once before," said old Martha, "ye tried for to give her a lift, and you know well what came of it."

His eyes flashed.

"She shall stay at Harrow Hall," he said. "Every day I shall take her walking, and every day she shall turn her ankle, and I shall carry her back to her house. And when I find out how poor she is I shall kill an old uncle of hers in the southwest—she never heard of him—his name is Eliphalet Pomfret Grey, and he shall leave her a pot of money.—Did she send me any message, Martha?"

"She did not."

He was sorry—inside.

Miss Joy thought that the Poor Boy was a very long time at his luncheon. She was feeling rather blue and lonely. She wanted to talk to Martha, and here it was half past two o'clock, and Martha still in the dining-room with the Poor Boy.

She could hear the sound of their voices but not the words. She could have heard the words by listening at the pantry door. But it never entered her head to do so. She was working at a marble-topped table trying to compose a cake according to a very complicated inspiration in a cookbook that weighed seven pounds. Miss Joy had a vague idea that her cake, not a large cake, was going to weigh more. It was going to be very dark and rich, something like a wedding-cake.

Martha came at last from the dining-room, and examined the mixture which Miss Joy had made.

"What is that?" she asked.

"Lady Godiva."

"Lady God help us! And what is the antidote?"

"Hard work in the open air. Why were you so long?"

"We got talking!"

"What about?"

"Mostly about the dangers of falling down and hurting yourself."

"Why," asked Miss Joy innocently, "is it so slippery out?"

Martha was overjoyed, and began to execute a sort of cautious tiptoe dance.

"What are you doing?"

"I'm showing ye how an old woman walks on thin ice," said Martha. She stopped dancing. "The Poor Boy is off to his playground, and it's time you got ready for your walk."

"Did he say when he was coming back?"

"'Not before dark,' he said."

"Then I can go as far as the Three Beeches," said Miss Joy. She drew a long breath.

"'Tis a pity ye have to walk alone."

"But it's doing me so much good. I'd hate to know what I weigh."

"Be careful you don't fall and hurt yourself," said Martha. "And be careful your red cheeks don't set the woods on fire."

"Oh, Martha, are they—too red?"

"Miss Joy"—this with solemn and heartfelt faith—"unless it is for a nose now and then, the Lord Gawd never made anything too red in his life—"

The Poor Boy hurried to the beautiful new Georgian home that Lord Harrow had built on Lilly Pond, and was already occupying. As befitted a great man he had the whole lake to himself. His house, backed by noble beeches and pines, faced south, and was a wonderful deep red, with white trim. The house opened directly on a terrace, which in turn was built out over the lake. It was formally planted to box and roses. It was all under snow now, but white mounds marked the positions of the box-bushes, and neat stakes and straw jackets showed where the roses would bloom.

The terrace garden would be a great show in June. And the Poor Boy had no difficulty in closing his eyes for a moment and so seeing it.

The Poor Boy, privileged old friend that he was, entered without ringing, and started through the ground floor of the house, stopping at times to admire a mantel-piece, a ceiling, or a painting. Lord Harrow's new hothouses being in full blast, there were flowers everywhere, and great logs of birch roared and crackled in all the fireplaces. The Poor Boy peeped into the dining-room and drew back, his eyes almost drunk with mahogany, and gold and Spanish leather. Under a table in the hall stood a great silver punch-bowl in which water was kept for Don, the spaniel, to drink. There were stags' heads on the walls, and on each side of the stairway stood a splendid suit of Gothic armor. One suit was inlaid with enamel, black as ebony, and the other with red gold.

The Poor Boy lifted his voice and called up the columned wall of the stair:

"Anybody home!"

Lord Harrow's daughter leaned over the rail. She had a very white face and very wonderful red hair. Her way of speaking always reminded the Poor Boy of pearls falling from a string one by one.

"Joy Grey's just come," she said. "She's changing into outdoor things. Do you mind waiting?"

"How is she?" asked the Poor Boy eagerly.

"Oh, she's white and tired after all she's been through, poor duck; don't let her overdo at first. Where are you going to take her?"

"Aren't you coming with us?"

Three pearls fell.

"How—you—talk!"

"But—but—"

"Nonsense," exclaimed Lord Harrow's daughter. "You're head over ears in love with her, and she with you."

"What!" exclaimed the Poor Boy. "Do you mean that!"

"Mean it? Of course I do. And everybody knows it—except you two. I was in the village yesterday, and the people had heard that she was coming—to you—to you—and they were hanging wreaths in the windows as if for Christmas. When we drove through the village on our way here they lined the main street and cheered her."

"What did she do?"

"She was delighted. She thought they were cheering my father and me, and she said she was so glad that she had been asked to visit such wonderful distinguished people. The little duck!"

"The little goat," cried the Poor Boy. "The darling little goat!"

"Only call her that to her face—and she's yours."

"I daren't," said the Poor Boy, "now that I know that I love her—"

"Lucky I told you!" This with pearly sarcasm.

"Now that I know—I'm afraid—I'm afraid.... But I've always loved her. It began in Arcadia, that is, Central Park. You roller-skate there when you are little. She was knee-high to a grasshopper, and I was shoulder-high. She wore a coat of gosling-green with facings of primrose-yellow, and when she fell and barked the knee of one stocking I took her to old Martha, and old Martha mended her. Her knee itself wasn't really hurt, but it was all rough and gritty from the asphalt. She didn't cry. And so I loved her. Why is she so long changing into outdoor things?"

"Hush!" pearled Lord Harrow's daughter. "She's coming."

And the Poor Boy's heart echoed: "She's coming—she's coming."

At the last moment reason and experience whispered in his ear: "Don't be a fool—don't spoil everything. If you tell her you love her and she says she loves you, why the least you can do is to kiss her, and you know as well as I do that if you touch them they vanish."

So the Poor Boy walked with Joy that day and the next and the next, and they were never very far apart, and he got to love her more and more. And the more he loved her the more dangerous was it to tell her so, for things got to such a point that if she had suddenly vanished, the blow would almost have broken his heart.

But it was the heart of winter, not the Poor Boy's that was to be broken. March came, and a wind from the south. Snow melted in sunny corners, to freeze again at night, and melted and froze; and April came, and wherever the Poor Boy went with his love there was a sound of water falling, running, and roaring. The ice in lakes and streams wore thin along the shores, broke, lost its grip, tinkled in the brooks, clashed and cracked in the river. In the lakes the margin of water between the ice islands and the shore grew wider and wider. In open spaces, faced south, the snow melted and thinned until black soil showed in patches. Rain came, more and more frequently, until no day passed without rain, and the land was washed clean of winter, and rinsed, and became deep mud, that oozed and gasped under foot.

The Poor Boy had been happier than he had ever hoped to be again. And since Joy's coming (she still stopped with Lord Harrow's daughter, who conversed pearls) there had been an ecstasy in his happiness and a thrilling quality of romance. No man who has not endured solitude in long doses knows how vivid, real, and necessary people and things of the imagination may become. Sometimes the Poor Boy laughed at himself, but more often he surrendered to his inventions, his people, his dams, powerhouses, and schemes of amelioration, as you surrender to an opiate.

His valley from his own house to the sea was a thriving and virtuous state; on terms with other governments. Ships came and went; there were exports and imports, newspapers, news. News of inventions, of romances, of misunderstandings righted by Solomonian judgments; of successes, promotions; and almost every day in the foreign columns were to be found reversals of those judgments by which his friends and the citizens of his little state had been convicted of sins and crimes of which they had never been guilty.

But daily and sometimes nightly through the complex evolutions of his dreams the Poor Boy never lost grip upon his own personal love-affair. It had become more real, and with the bursting of woods and meadows into carpets of spring flowers more necessary to him than anything in life. It was joy for him, and rapture—a dizzy path into unknown lands where only the footprints of the "True Romance" marked the way. But suddenly sometimes in the very heyday of his ecstasy the tragedy of it smote him, you may say, between the eyes—so that villages vanished, homes, institutions, and all the creatures of his brain, and he saw himself, as another might have seen him, a very young man, all alone, thrust out forever and ever.

The thought that all unknown to him the real Miss Grey might love another, belong to another, tortured him. Tortured him, too, the knowledge that if this was so he had no right to entertain that beloved phantom that he had made of her in his North Woods. Or it tortured him to remember that his love for her could come to nothing—nothing. He must not tell her that he loved her; he must not, upon a night flooded with moonlight and the odor of flowers, so much as touch her hand, because he knew too well—too well—that "when you touch them they vanish."

Old Martha and Joy will never forget a certain June night. The Poor Boy did not come home for his dinner; supper of the most tempting nature and variety did not tempt him. He was drunk, ethereally drunk with the beauty of the night and with love. He opened many windows, and sat at his piano in the moonlight. The two women drew as near as they dared, to listen, while the Poor Boy's tantalized soul went out in splendid, beseeching singing. Until after midnight Schubert and Schumann and other lovers sang through the Poor Boy to their loves, and the women listened and cried and trembled, or were carried upward as it were upon angel wings into regions of pure and disembodied bliss.

At last there fell a long silence.

It was now the Poor Boy who listened. He had sent forth his questing, questioning soul, and he waited for an answer. But in those regions, that night, all things were still; and not so much as the hoot of an owl answered him nor the chirp of a cricket.

"Oh," he thought, "there is no answer for me in all the world, no answer. I have said all that I can say. And she—she doesn't hear—she will not hear—she can not hear."