The Way of the Wind Part 24

"Seth Lawson," they explained to some newcomers. "He's got a place at last. Drivin' the baggage wagon from Burgin to Harrodsburg and back again."

Tom Grums, the grocer, puffed a few whiffs of his pipe.

"That's the man," he explained succinctly, "whut was goin' to conquer the West. That's the man whut said he was goin' to build the Magic City at the forks of two rivahs wheah the wind didn't blow."

By and by, when he had unhitched and fed his horse Seth came down the street, pa.s.sed the whittlers of the little sticks and went on up the Lexington Pike to his home and Celia's.

He walked laggingly. There was something that he must tell Celia and he was afraid. It was impossible for him to keep the place.

He was not young enough. He was not sufficiently nimble. They wanted a younger man, they told him, to lift the trunks. He had been months getting the place and now he had lost it. He had lost it within a week.

He walked slowly through the hall to the kitchen where Celia stood at the old stove, cooking their supper. He sat by the window presently, watching her.

No. He wouldn't tell her. He could not. He hadn't the courage to face the scorn of her eye, to face the cold steely blue of it.

He ate the supper she set silently before him slowly. It had the taste to sawdust.

After supper he went out on the porch awhile and sat looking into the dusk, looking over the fine soft green of the dim gra.s.s on the opposite lawns, his mind going back to the scorched and parched gra.s.ses of the prairie.

How quiet it was! How windless. There came to him the memory of the wind as it soothed him that day of Celia's home coming. He had not hated the wind. He had loved it. There came also the memory of the wind as it soughed around the dugout on those lonely nights, when he and Cyclona had planned the beautiful house for Celia. In a flash of light he seemed to see Cyclona.

With this rose by his side, he had gone sighing after the roses of memory.

He arose and began to walk up and down, up and down to the gate and back, to the gate and back, thinking of Cyclona and the wind. A restlessness began to possess him, a longing for the sound of the wind, for the sound of the voice of Cyclona which had mingled from the first, from first to last, with the sound of the wind. The windless stillness oppressed him. He stopped at the gate and looked again across at the quiet gra.s.s of the still, dim lawns, then he walked back into the house, along the hall and up into the low-roofed garret, which had been set apart for him by Celia.

He closed the door of the garret very carefully behind him. He walked to the window and looked out. The stillness weighed upon him. If only he could run into the wind! If only he could hear again its wail, its sob, its grief, its moaning.

Oh, no. It was impossible to tell Celia that he no longer had work. He had no courage to face the steel blue of her eye.

Impossible, too, to face the sarcastic whittlers of the little sticks who sat around the corner grocery in the morning, he who was to have conquered the West and build the Magic City. They were total strangers to him. All his old friends in the town seemed to be dead.

He took a pistol down from the shelf and looked at it. He turned it around and around, the dim light coming in at the window playing on it. Since the first night of his arrival he had had it ready.

"A man who cannot earn his salt," he said softly, "enc.u.mbers the earth."

He held the thing, playing with it. He smiled as he played with it. He went to the window and stood for a long while, looking out, thinking of Cyclona, thinking very lovingly of Cyclona, that beautiful girl who had cared for him and the child. He would like to see Cyclona once more before,--but that was impossible. In the other world, perhaps.

G.o.d was not to blame. How could He look after so many? If he put them here with all their faculties, was it His fault if they failed?

He was very tired. His fingers rested lovingly upon the weapon that was to send him to the other world. He was very tired. He was very tired.

By and by he placed the weapon to his temple, taking careful aim.

In a blinding flash of light he saw Cyclona.

There was the heavy roar of the wind, the wild and woeful wind of the prairies,--and stillness.

CHAPTER x.x.x.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

Some visitors from the East to the Magic City, whose fame was now widespread, were driving gaily by the beautiful house, which was one of the choice show places of the town.

Cyclona, sitting by the window, turned her wide, soft eyes their way.

"How beautiful she is," sighed one of the girls, "but how strange her eyes are! How vacant they are! There is no expression in her eyes,"

she said and sighed again.

"She has built the house," explained the guide, "for someone she says who ought to own it. She sits there waiting for him, taking care of the house, keeping it beautiful for him."

"She is very gentle and mild," he added, as they pa.s.sed out of sight of the beautiful house, "and so they let her live there instead of locking her up in an asylum with all those other pioneer prairie people whose minds went the way of the wind."