Lydia of the Pines Part 60

"'Wreathe me no gaudy chaplet; Make it from simple flowers Plucked from the lowly valleys After the summer showers.'"

"'Sweet and low, sweet and low, wind of the western sea . . .'"

"'I've reached the land of corn and wine And all its riches surely mine.

I've reached that heavenly, s.h.i.+ning sh.o.r.e My heaven, my home, for evermore.'"

Suddenly the nurse s.h.i.+fted John's head and Doc Fulton lifted Lydia to her feet. "Take her home, Amos," he said.

John Levine had finished the Great Search.

Curiously enough, nothing could have done so much toward reinstating Lake City in the good opinion of the country at large as did Levine's tragic death. There was felt to be a divine justice in the manner of his taking off that partook largely of the nature of atonement. He had led the whites in the despoiling of the Indians. For this the Indians had killed him.

That a white life extinguished for a tribe destroyed might not be full compensation in the eyes of that Larger Justice which, after all, rules the Universe, did not seriously influence the reaction of public opinion toward thinking better of Lake City. And John Levine, known in life as an Indian Graft politician, became in his death a Statesman of far vision.

Levine's will was not found at first. Distant cousins in Vermont would be his heirs, if indeed after his estate was settled, it was found that there was left anything to inherit.

Kent for a month or so after the tragedy was extremely busy helping to disentangle Levine's complicated real estate holdings. It was found that he held heavily mortgaged second growth timber lands in the northern part of the State and Kent spent a month superintending a re-survey of them. He was very much broken up by Levine's death, and welcomed the heavy work.

In spite of Lydia's deep affection for Levine, she did not feel his death as much as Amos did. For after all, Lydia was young, gloriously young, and with a forward-turned face. Amos had lost in John his only real friend, the only human being who in some ways had helped to fill in the hopeless gap left by his wife's death. And Amos, though still a young man, kept his face turned backward.

After her first wild grief had expended itself, Lydia found that, after all, Levine's tragic death had not surprised her. She realized that ever since she had known Charlie Jackson, she had been vaguely haunted by a fear of just such an ending.

July slipped into a breathless, dusty August. Lydia worked very hard, making herself tasks when necessary work was done. She put up fruit.

She worked in the garden. She took up the dining-room carpet and oiled the floor and made rugs. After she had had her swim in the late afternoon, she would take up her old position on the front doorstep, to sew or read or to dream with her eyes on the pine.

How silently, how broodingly it had stood there, month in, month out, year after year! What did it feel, Lydia wondered, now that the Indians were gone? Was it glad that Levine had been punished?

Billy, trundling up the dusty road from the law office on his bicycle, late each afternoon, would stop for a moment or two. Since the tragedy, not a day had gone by that Lydia had not seen him.

"The drought is something frightful," he said to Lydia one afternoon in late August, wiping the sweat and dust from his face. "This is the ninth week without rain. The corn is ruined. I never knew anything like this and Dad says he hasn't either."

"Our garden died weeks ago," said Lydia, listlessly.

Billy looked at her keenly. "Are you feeling any more cheerful, Lyd?"

Lydia turned her gaze from the burning brown meadows to Billy's tanned, rugged face.

"I shall always have a gap in my life, where he went out," she said, slowly. "I shall never get over missing him. Oh, he was so dear to me! And yet, Billy, it isn't at all like little Patience's death. He didn't depend on me and I didn't live with him so that everything doesn't cry his absence to me. And I've got more resources than I had then--"

She laid her hand on the open book in her lap.

"What're you reading?" asked Billy.

"Emerson--Compensation. Listen, Billy--'We cannot part with our friends. We cannot let our angels go. We do not see that they only go out that archangels may come in.'

"And so," Lydia's voice trembled, but she went on bravely, "I'm trying to understand--trying to see how I can make something good come out of his poor lost life. Somehow I feel as if that were my job. And--and the idea helps me. Oh, my dear John Levine!"

Billy cleared his throat. "Let's see that pa.s.sage, Lyd." He took the book and read on: "'The death of a dear friend--wife, lover, brother--terminates an epoch of infancy or of youth that was waiting to be closed, breaks up a wonted occupation or style of living and allows the formation of new ones more friendly to the growth of character.'"

The two young people sat staring at the distant hills.

"Don't you see," Lydia burst out, "that I've got to do something, be something, to make all the loss and trouble of my life worth while?"

"I understand," answered Billy. "What are you going to do?"

"I'm not quite sure, yet," replied Lydia, "but I'll tell you as soon as I've made up my mind. Billy, ask your father to come over this evening. Dad is so desperately blue."

Billy rose to go. "One thing I will tell you, Billy," Lydia went on, "I'm going to take the short dairy course this winter, besides my other work."

Billy looked at the sweet, resolute face curiously, then he chuckled.

"Whenever you deign to unravel the workings of the mystery you call your mind, I'll be crazy to listen," he said.

Early in September, John Levine's will was found. He had left his entire property, unconditionally, to Lydia.

Amos, at first, was frantic with delight. Lydia was appalled.

"All my life," she half sobbed to her father, "I've been fighting to get away from Indian lands. And Mr. Levine knew how I felt. Oh, how could he do this to me!"

"Don't talk like a fool, Lydia!" roared Amos.

Lydia turned to Kent, who was sitting on the back steps with them. He leaned over and patted her hand.

"Why worry about it, Lyd? Your father and I'll look out for it all."

"Do I _have_ to keep it?" asked Lydia, tensely. "Will the law make me?"

"I should say not! You can give it to me, if you want to," laughed Kent.

"But don't you see how I feel?" cried Lydia. "Don't you see that all John Levine's lands up there are haunted by death--his own--and all the starving Indians? Oh, why did he do this to me!"

"I suppose you feel the same way about the cottage," said Amos, sarcastically.

"I don't either," contradicted Lydia. "I'm as happy as I can be that we've got that. But all the rest! I won't have it, I tell you! I'd rather be poverty stricken all my life."

"Well, don't worry too much about that," said Kent. "Dave Marshall thinks there won't be anything left after the estate is settled, but the Indian lands."

"Oh, Kent, you aren't having anything to do with Dave Marshall, are you?" exclaimed Lydia.

Kent flushed a little. "Well, his advice can't hurt me. If it's bad, I don't have to take it. You ought to go out and see his farm, Lydia.

They're getting the house all fitted with modern conveniences. Dave's going to make a model stock farm."

"Bought with money earned by the Last Chance!" said Lydia.

"You can't be so darned squeamish about where a man gets his money these days, Lyd. Of course, there was no excuse for the Last Chance.

But Dave's done what he could about it."

Lydia made no reply and Kent looked at her quizzically. "A New England conscience must be something awful to own, eh, Lyd?"