Will Lillibridge

“ The keen joy of life was warmly flooding Ichabod Maurice this spring day. Not life for the sake of an ambition or a duty, but delight in the mere animal pleasure of existence. He had risen early, and, a neighbor with him, they had driven forth: stars all about, perpendicular, horizontal, save in the reddening east, upon their long day’s drive to the sawmill. The two teams plodded along steadily, their footfall muffled in the soft prairie loam; the earth elsewhere soundless, with a silence which even yet was a marvel to the city man. ”

“ Once more on an early evening, a man turned out from a weather-stained prairie farm-house, through the frosted grass, arriving presently at the dusty public road. As before, he walked slowly along between the tall cottonwoods; but not, as on a memorable former occasion, because it would be for the last time. He was tired, tired with that absolute abandon of youth that sees no hope in the future, and has no philosophy to support it. Only thirty odd days since he went that way before! That many years would not add more to his life in the future. ”

“ It all conformed so perfectly with the brown, quiet prairie, and the sun shining, slanting and sleepy.
The swinging tassel grew indistinct, and the patter, patter, patter of the teams behind came as from a distance. He closed his eyes, and the events of the past two days drifted through his mind. Already they seemed indistinct, as a dream. He wondered dully that they could be true and yet seem so foreign to his life, now. He even began to doubt their verity, and opened his eyes slowly, half expecting to see the cool, green campus, and the big college buildings. ”

“ In the low places tiny streams of snow-water, melted yesterday, sing low under the lattice-work blanket the frost has built in the night. Nearby and in the distance prairie-chickens are calling, lonely, uncertain. Wild ducks in confused masses, mere specks in the distance, follow low over the winding curves of the river. High overhead, flocks of geese in regular black wedges, and brant, are flying northward, and the breezy sound of flapping wings and of voices calling, mingle in the sweetest of all music to those who know the prairies––Nature’s morning song of springtime. ”

“ The earth was not silent, now. The falling of the sleet and snow was as the striking of fine shot, and the sound of the wind a steady unceasing moan, resembling the sigh of a big dynamo at a distance.
Slowly, inch by inch, during that day the snow crept up the window panes until, before the coming of darkness without, it fell within. Banked though they were on three sides, on the fourth side, unprotected, the cold penetrated bitterly,––a cold no living thing could withstand without shelter. Then it was that Ichabod and Camilla feared to sleep, and that the long vigil began. ”

“ That instant the amphitheatre went wild. “Bravo!” yelled a hundred voices over the clamor of cheering hands.
“Three cheers for the freshman!” shrilled a voice over the tumult; and the “rah, rah, rah” that followed made the skylight rattle.
Landers stepped back and looked up bewildered; then a realization of the thing came to him and his face burned as no sun could make it burn, and his knees grew weak. He gladly would have given all his present earthly belongings, and all in prospect for the immediate future for a kindly earth to open suddenly and swallow him. ”

“ The sharp bark of the coyote, near or far away; soft as an echo, the gently cadenced tremolo of the prairie owl. To these, the mere opening numbers of the nightly concerts, the two exotics would listen wonderingly; then, of a sudden, typical, indescribable, lonely as death, there would boom the cry which, as often as it was repeated, recalled to Ichabod’s mind the words of the little man in the land-office, “loneliest sound on earth”––the sound which, once heard, remains forever vivid––the night call of the prairie rooster. ”

“ When 323 Burr chose, neither man nor woman could resist him. He chose now and Ellis, by habit and by nature silent, told of his life and of his thoughts. It was a new tale to Burr, these dream products of a strong man, and of solitude; and so, listening, he forgot his own trouble. The hard look that had formed over his face in the three years past vanished, leaving him again the natural, fascinating man who had first taken the drawing-room of the rare old Jumel mansion by storm. ”

“ She groped desperately, but overwhelming, insistent, there had developed in her a sudden, preventing tumult––in paradox, a confusion in rhythm––like the beating of a great hammer on an anvil, only incredibly more swift than blows from human hands. Over and over again she repeated to herself the one word: “wait,” “wait,” “wait,” but mechanically now, without thought 176 as to the reason. Then, all at once, soft, all-enfolding, kindly Nature wrapped her in darkness.
She awoke with the big collie licking her hand, and a numbness of cramped limbs that was positive pain. ”

“ They drove on without a word, the frost-bound road ringing under the horses’ feet, the stars above smiling sympathetic indulgence at this last repetition of the old, old tale of man.
The gentle voice of the collegian broke the silence.
“You say it would be selfish to leave. Is it not right, though, and of necessity, that we think first of self?” He paused, then boldly sounded the keynote of the universe.
“Is not selfishness the first law of nature?” he asked.
Landers opened his lips to answer, but closed them without a word. ”

“ Camilla stood up in the doorway; uncertain, dazed. A great lump was on her forehead, which she stroked absently, without surprise at its presence. She looked about the yard, and, her breath coming more quickly, at the prairie. A broad green plain, parted by the road squarely in the centre, smiled at her in the sunlight. That was all. She stepped outside and shaded her eyes with her hand. Not a wagon nor a human being was in sight. ”

“ Never did a soldier advancing upon a breach in the enemy’s breastworks more certainly confront the grinning face of Death, than did this trio in their progress across the singing prairie; but where the plaudits of the world spelled glory for the one, the three in the wagon knew that for them Death meant oblivion, extinction, a blotting out that must needs be utter and inevitable. ”

“ Thus three months passed by, and man’s work for the year was nearly done. The face of the prairie had become one of many colors; eternal badge of civilization as opposed to Nature, who paints each season with its own hue. Beside the roadways great, rank sunflowers turned their glaring yellow faces to the light. In every direction stretched broad fields of flax; unequally ripening, their color scheme ranging from sky blue of blossoms to warm browns of maturity. Blotches of sod corn added here and there a dash of green to the picture. ”

“ Over the face of the sun a faint haze began to form and, unnoticeable to one not prairie-trained, the air took on a sympathetic feel, almost of dampness. A native would have sensed a warning; but Calmar Bye, one time writer, paid no heed. An instinct of his life, one he had thought suppressed, a necessity imperative as hunger, was gathering upon him strongly––the overwhelming instinct to portray the unusual. ”

“ Calmar Bye, the one time listless, had learned many things in this unheard-of world.
First of all, most insistent of all, he was impressed with the overwhelming predominance of the physical over the mental. Later, in practical knowledge, he grew inured to the “feel” of a native bucking broncho and the sound of 72 mocking, human laughter after a stunning fall; in direct evolution, the method of throwing a steer and the odor of burnt hair and hide which followed the puff of smoke where the branding iron touched ceased to be cruel. ”

“ I told her what every man tells some woman some time in his life. For once I felt the power of a master, and I spoke well.
She did not answer; I asked her not to. I could not tell her all, and I would have no reply 356 before. Her face was turned from me as I spoke, but her ears turned pink and her breath came quickly. I looked at her and the magnitude of my presumption held me dumb; yet a warm happy glow was upon me, and the tapping of feet on the pavement below sounded as sweetest music.
As I watched her she turned, her eyes glistening and her throat all a-tremble. ”

“ But youth is ever tractable, and even this short time had accomplished much. Already the warm, contagious, college comradeship possessed him. Violent attacks of homesickness that made gray the brightest fall days, like the callous spots on his palms, were becoming more rare. The old existence was already a dream, as yet a little sad, but none the less a thing without a substance. The new life was a warm, magnetic reality; the future glowed bright with limitless promise.
“The first day of the second month,” remarked Landers, meeting a fellow-classman on the way to college hall one morning. ”

“ Of a sudden, loping easily over the frost-bound prairie and following the winding trail of a cowpath, appeared the approaching figure of a horse and rider. It came on steadily, clear to the gathered group, and stopped. An instant and the newcomer understood the scene and a curse sprang to his lips. Another instant and his own mustang was spurred in close by the strugglers. His right hand raised in air and bearing a heavy quirt, descended; not upon the broncho, but far across the cursing, devilish face of the man, its rider. ”

“ There was a sudden, confused trampling, as of cattle in stampede; a musical creaking of heavy saddles; a knife-like swish of many quirts through the air; a chorus of dull, chesty groans as the rowels of long spurs bit the flanks of the mustangs, and they were gone––down the narrow street, out upon the prairie, their hoof beats pattering diminuendo into silence; a cloud of 229 dust, grayish in the starlight, marking the way they had taken.
Jim Donovan, the blacksmith, came running excitedly up from a side street. ”

“ In turn, the men, hours apart, with active brains, and eyes wide open, sent their challenges to Death––each man his own messenger.
The months slipped by. Suns became torrid hot, and cooled until it seemed there was light but not heat on earth. Days grew longer, and in unison, earth waxed greener; then in descending scale, both together waned. Migratory wings fluttering at night, and passing voices calling in the darkness––most lonely sounds of earth––gave place to singers of the day. The robin, the meadow-lark, the ubiquitous catbird, all born of prairie and of summer, came and went. ”

“ Ground squirrels whistled cheerily from newly broken fields and roadways. Coveys of quail, tame as barn-yard fowls, played about the beaten paths, and ran pattering in the dust ahead of each passing team. Again, from its winter’s rest, lonely, uncertain as to distance, came the low, booming call of the prairie rooster. Nature had awakened, and the joy of that awakening was upon the land. ”

“ Ichabod had forgotten himself, and he rushed on, far above the head of the gaping Swede.
“There’s one instinct in the world, the instinct of parenthood, which advances eternal, stronger, infinitely, as man’s mind grows stronger. So unvarying the rule that it’s almost an index of civilization itself, advancing from a crude instinct of the body-base and animal––until it reaches the realm of the mind: the highest, the holiest of man’s desires: yet stronger immeasurably, as with the educated, things of the mind are stronger than things of the body. ”

“ Her smart brougham waits in front of a new and resplendent down-town office building on a certain afternoon, while Miss Willis ascends in one of the elevators to the tenth floor. She proceeds with assurance, but leisurely––mayhap she is a trifle bored––to a door which somehow manages to convey an impression of prosperity beyond. It bears upon its frosted glass the name of Dr. Leonard, a renowned specialist in diseases of the throat, besides the names of a half-dozen assistants––in much smaller lettering––who, doubtless, are in the ferment of struggling for positions of equal renown. ”