Honoré Morrow

“ Ernest looked at Charley—"I've got to talk about her, Charley, to make them understand."
Charley moistened her lips, but nodded and Dick put his hand over his eyes.
"She was like Charley too in that she was the kind of a girl that decent men instinctively love—not with one of these headlong, unreasoning loves, you understand. But with the kind of a deep-seated adoration for beauty and goodness and brain that gets a man where he lives and never leaves him. That's the way I got to caring for Charley and that's the way, in embryo, we all loved Felicia. ”

“ The loneliness of the untouched wilderness is not so great as that of the deserted habitation. Roger had not felt the desert's solitude until he dropped on a bench outside the cook house and began to examine the lost endeavor about him. There were bunk houses and office buildings, shaft and engine houses, aerial tramways and car tracks, all the many and costly appurtenances of desert mining. Sand lay thick over everything. The silence was complete save for the flopping of the torn canvas that had been fastened over a hoist. ”

“ Then Charley smiled and said uncertainly:
"While I'm taking my own share of you, I think I'll take Felicia's too. Then I'll have all of you!"
"Charley! Oh, Charley! My dearest love! My dearest!" Roger jumped up, pulled Charley to her feet and clasping the slender body in his arms laid his lips hungrily to hers. He kissed her eyes, her hair. "Charley! Charley! I'm a selfish brute, but you'll never know what you're doing for me. You ought to have a man worth ten of me but I'm going to have you just the same. Now I can bear even Ernest's failure. Do you really love me, my darling?" ”

“ Charley went on, carefully, "and he's been very kind to me. But he's never mentioned you. He's quick and queer, he's been alone so much, and very quick with his gun."
"He won't touch me," answered Mrs. von Minden. "He's afraid of me, the German bully."
"Tut, madam, tut!" exclaimed Gustav. "Germans no more mistreat their vomen than other peoples."
Madam opened her eyes. "Tell that to some one who hasn't been married to one."
"There are brutes in all nations," said Ernest. "You certainly have had more than your share of trouble." ”

“ Roger was to learn, before he achieved success, that a man's genius can go no higher than his character permits it to go. He was to learn that only out of a man's will to conquer himself can come the finest accomplishment of his work. And he was to learn that for most of us fate works with curious indirection. So that the story of Roger's dream deals not with a struggle between capital and labor, but with a man's struggle with solitudes; it deals not so much with machinery as with nature ”

“ No grief, no anger can bring to the human mind the depth of suffering that self-loathing can. Roger lay with his forehead pillowed on his arm, for the first time in his life facing his own weaknesses. Just in the degree that his brain was clearer, his mind more honest, his nerves more highly strung than other men's, just in that degree did he suffer more.
Perhaps, after a time, he slipped into a half doze. But it seemed to him that the touch on his forehead was his mother's. No, it was Felicia's or was it Charley's? Again Charley and Felicia merged in his mind. ”

“ Dick and Charley laid down certain laws of the summer desert. No one was to go to bed without examining the bedding for tarantulas or centipedes. No one was to dress without subjecting every article of apparel to the same scrutiny. No one was to go out at night without a "bug" for fear of the blind striking of a rattler. Every one must learn to kill a snake with a snake stick. And every one, even Felicia, must learn to treat snake bites.
Elsa, clear-headed and matter of fact, was very little annoyed by all this gliding venomous summer life. ”

“ When I had finished he asked what you had said and I told him and he sort of groaned, 'You women should have let Roger beat me to death. Why did you interfere?' Poor Dick!"
Elsa drew a long breath and was silent for a moment before she began again. "He's in a most awful frame of mind. He's like a man who knows he has fits of insanity and feels perfectly helpless to prevent them. He cried and cried while he told me how he had fought drink. I never knew any one could suffer so. He's much more to be pitied than Charley." ”

“ The alfalfa grew amazingly. One morning Elsa electrified the ranch by announcing that the second field now in blossom was full of wild bees. No one believed her. Every one decamped at once to the field. It was quite true. Far and wide swept the burning barrens of the desert. But close about corral and pumping plant crowded the unbelievable verdure of alfalfa with the fringed green lines of cottonwoods on its borders silhouetted against the sullen yellow sand. ”

“ You are bad for Ernest."
"Pshaw, Papa, don't talk like a goose," protested Elsa, her cheeks crimson. "All the initiative Ernest's got, Roger gave him. Why not let Ernest see a little of life before he settles down forever? Let him have just one adventure, for goodness sake."
"Will you be still, Elsa?" asked her father sternly.
"Hush, Elschen," whispered Mamma Wolf.
"Roger should be settling down and finding a wife for himself," Papa Wolf went on. "He'd soon get over his absentminded ways."
Ernest suddenly laughed. "Why, Papa, Roger looks on women about the way you look on inventors." ”

“ A dream, vastly better financed than his own, had come to naught in the face of the distances and the difficulties of the desert. Was there any greater hell, he wondered than to be hounded by a creative desire for which there was no outlet; to have stored within one's brain gifts indispensable to humanity's best development, of which humanity would take heed only after the creator had been crucified by desperate handicaps and indifference.
As Roger brooded, his eyes fell on the engine house and a carefully locked shed beside it. ”

“ Far to the west lay a jagged line of blue mountains, against a blue sky. To the east, the barren tortured peaks of Coyote Range, brown and black in the blazing morning sun, so near that they could see the smoke rising from Charley's kitchen chimney, so far that the adobe looked like a doll house against the range. Between them and Coyote Range lay the desert valley, a rich yellow, thick dotted with fantastic growths of cactus and cat's claw. ”

“ The horses plodded slowly through the sand. Dick pulled up before the living tent.
"She's come! Here she is!" shouted Ernest, as if the watching group in the burning western sun could doubt its eyes. Roger lifted Elsa down from the wheel.
"Never knew I could be so glad to see you, Elsa," he said. "And you're prettier than ever even if your nose is peeling. Look! Here's Charley Preble and Felicia and Dick and Gustav." ”

“ The unutterable silence of the desert was about them. Roger, eyes bloodshot, face unshaven, lips cracked, turned to Charley whose great eyes were sunk in her head, her lip colorless and drawn.
"Come," he said. "I'll cook the bacon and you unpack the rest of the grub. We simply haven't strength to get home without rest and food."
Charley had the remainder of the food ready for Roger when the bacon was cooked. They ate in silence, then Charley lay down on the pack blanket while Roger stretched out in a drift of sand beyond the spring. ”

“ They clambered back to the top of the trail, without a word until the camp was out of sight, then Roger said with a half smile,
"You are some girl, Charley dear."
"And you are some boy, Roger."
"I? Why Charley, I'm just beginning to realize that I have gone through life with my eyes shut. The man with one idea misses most of life. I went up there with the intention of threatening a lot of savages. I've come away feeling as if I'd met a group of intelligent and kind hearted fellow humans." ”

“ Papa, what I want is that you repudiate Werner and all his works, and undertake to finance Roger's project."
"My heavens, Ern!" cried Roger.
"Tut! Tut! Rog—you be quiet. Dean, your job is to sell the Plant to my father, after you've both made your decision."
"I cannot understand your talking to me in this manner, Ernest," shouted Papa Wolf, pounding on the table till the belated breakfast dishes rattled.
"I'll explain," said Ernest, imperturbably. "There's love of human beings. There's love of work. There's love of country. They make up a man's life. ”

“ And he had learned in one bitter lesson that unhappiness and economic inequality go hand in hand.
And so Roger dreamed his dream. For many years it was such a mad seeming dream that he was ashamed to speak of it, even to Ernest. And yet it was simple enough in its first outlines.
This was, Roger told himself, a machine age. The more perfect became man's use of machinery, the more leisure could he have and the more wealth. Ultimately man's efforts must concentrate on the effort to find power with which to drive the world's machinery. Coal was disappearing, water power was coming into its own. ”

“ Do you realize fully that in living with Dick you jeopardize both yours and Felicia's lives?"
"Oh, no, Roger! He never touched us before. It was the poison in that cologne."
Roger shrugged his shoulders.
"How can you be so hard?" pleaded Charley. "Dick's my own flesh and blood. It might have been I instead of Dick with this appetite. You're hard, Roger."
"I'm not hard. I'm disappointed. I didn't think you were a sentimentalist."
"I wonder," exclaimed Elsa, "how women will ever get time to vote when it takes all their time to make men endurable to live with. My word! ”

“ Just before the girls called breakfast on Monday morning, there sounded a soft chug, chug from the new engine house. It was so very soft that at first Charley thought she must be mistaken. Then she slipped out to see. Roger, his hot face tense and eager, was standing before his engine watching the perfect mechanism play.
"Look at her, Charley! Look at her! Isn't she a dream? Ernest, look at that indicator—does she do any work? Has she power? Why man, she could pull the waters of the Yangtse Kiang up through the bowels of the earth and throw 'em on Dick's alfalfa fields!" ”

“ God! What I have known of heat. Blistering, burning, blinding! Nights when the very star rays scorch and the moon's a caldron of white lava. Ten years of it, Moore, ten years!"
Roger looked at his guest with interest. "You aren't an American? There's just a little accent in your speech."
"Me? No. I'm German born and bred. What are you going to do with your solar heat?"
"Harness it," replied Roger, "and see if I can make it work for me."
"There's a fool born every minute," said Von Minden.
"You're quite right," returned Roger, cheerfully. ”

“ Roger was tired and stiff. He was dirty and unshaven. But he was happy; happy as he had never dreamed of being; too happy, too utterly brain weary to think. He only knew that he was going home to Charley.
They reached the mesa that evening, at sundown. With all the desire in the world, Roger could not go on. So he made camp in a little draw and lay down to sleep. He did not waken until morning.
It was well toward supper time when Roger reached the ranch. There was no one to be seen. Roger turned Peter into the corral and fed him, then went into the living tent, shaved and changed his clothing. ”

“ Both men hurried out to the porch. Seated in a solemn row on the steps were Charley, Dick and Elsa.
Ernest looked at Roger pleadingly. "You tell them, Rog. I want to attend to something in the tent."
Roger sat down beside Charley and told the story. When it was finished, Dick said, "Are you sure he's not German, Roger?"
"Certainly he's not any longer!" exclaimed Elsa. "The strongest thing in Ernest's life is his love for Roger. He'll never give any woman what he's given Roger. That love has saved Ernest and will keep him safe. Oh, I'm so thankful! So thankful!" ”

“ An oriole, balancing itself on Dick's line fence, poured forth a melody of transporting sweetness.
"O, by Jove!" exclaimed Roger suddenly, "look at Dick's alfalfa!"
The oriole fluttered away as they approached the fence. The field had not drifted badly. The draw to the north had prevented that. But the bright green shadow on the yellow sand of which Gustav had told them in the morning, was no more. A huge blight lay on the field with every tender plant blackened and dead.
"Poor old Dick!" groaned Ernest. Then he added plaintively, "But he's no tenderfoot. He knows desert storms. ”

“ And somehow Elsa put full faith in Ernest's bringing his father around.
No one talked business or politics at dinner. There were many details of the camp life to be told and many stories of the Von Mindens that invariably brought Papa Wolf to the verge of apoplexy with laughter. Ernest never had been more charming than he was now. And by some magic of his own, he drew Dick out to tell the story of his turquoise mining. Like almost any story of desert endeavor it was full of drama, of quiet heroism, and of weird humor. ”

“ See if I don't!"
"I'll trust you fast enough, old man, if you'll assure me that you're through with this superman stuff. Are you an American or a German, Ern?"
With a smile of extraordinary sweetness, Ernest put a hand on Roger's shoulder and said in a voice of utter sincerity, "I'm whatever you are, Roger. Thy country shall be my country and thy God, my God. After all, what is a man's country but the place of his loves and his friendships? And America has all of mine, Roger, all of mine." ”