At the Sign of the Jack O'Lantern

Harlan rummaged through the cellar and found a bottle of Uncle Ebeneezer’s old port, which, for some occult reason, had hitherto escaped. Mrs. Smithers, moved to joyful song, did herself proud in the matter of fried chicken and flaky biscuit. Dorothy had taken all the leaves out of the table, so that now it was cosily set for four, and placed a battered old brass candlestick, with a tallow candle in it, in the centre.

“Seems like living, doesn’t it?” asked Harlan. Until now, he had not known how surely though secretly distressed he had been by Aunt Rebecca’s persistent kin. Claudius Tiberius apparently felt the prevailing cheerfulness, and purred vigorously, in Elaine’s lap.

Afterward, they made a fire in the parlour, even though the night was so warm that they were obliged to have all the windows open, and, inspired by the portrait of Uncle Ebeneezer, discussed the peculiarities of his self-invited guests.

The sacrificial flame arising from the poet’s bed directed the conversation to Mr. Perkins and his gift of song. Dick, though feeling more deeply upon the subject than any of the rest, was wise enough not to say too much.

“I found something under his mattress,” remarked Dick, when the conversation flagged, “while I was taking his blooming crib apart to chop it up. I guess it must be a poem.”

He drew a sorely flattened roll from his pocket, and slipped off the crumpled blue ribbon. It was, indeed, a poem, entitled “Farewell.”

“I thought he might have been polite enough to say good bye,” said Dorothy. “Perhaps it was easier to write it.”

“Read it,” cried Elaine, her eyes dancing. “Please do!”

So Dick read as follows:

All happy times must reach an endSometime, someday, somewhere,A great soul seldom has a friendAnyway or anywhere.But one devoted to the IdealMust pass these things all by,His eyes fixed ever on his Art,Which lives, though he must die.Amid the tide of cruel greedWhich laps upon our shore,No one takes thought of the poet’s needNor how his griefs may pourUpon his poor, devoted headAnd his sad, troubled heart;But all these things each one must take,Who gives his life to Art.His crust of bread, his tick of strawHis enemies deny,And at the last his patron saintWill even pass him by;The wide world is his resting place,All o’er it he may roam,And none will take the poet in,Or offer him a home.The tears of sorrow blind him now,Misunderstood is he,But thus great souls have always been,And always they will be;His eyes fixed ever on the IdealWill be there till he die,To-night he goes, but leaves a poemTo say good bye, good bye!

“Poor Mr. Perkins,” commented Dorothy, softly.

“Yes,” mimicked Harlan, “poor Mr. Perkins. I don’t see but what he’ll have to work now, like any plain, ordinary mortal, with no ‘gift’.”

“What is the Ideal, anyway?” queried Elaine, looking thoughtfully into the embers of the poet’s bedstead.

“That’s easy,” answered Dick, not without evident feeling. “It’s whatever Mr. Perkins happens to be doing, or trying to do. He fixes it for the rest of us.”

“I think,” suggested Dorothy, after a momentary silence, “that the Ideal consists in minding your own business and gently, but firmly, assisting others to mind theirs.”

All unknowingly, Dorothy had expressed the dominant idea of the dead master of the house. She fancied that the pictured face over the mantel was about to smile at her. Dorothy and Uncle Ebeneezer understood each other now, and she no longer wished to have the portrait moved.

Before they separated for the night, Dick told them all about the midnight gathering in the orchard, which he had witnessed from afar, and which the others enjoyed beyond his expectations.

“That’s what uncle meant,” said Elaine, “by ‘fixing a surprise for relations.’” “I don’t blame him,” observed Harlan, “not a blooming bit. I wish the poor old duck could have been here to see it. Why wasn’t I in on it?” he demanded of Dick, somewhat resentfully. “When anything like that was going on, why didn’t you take me in?”

“It wasn’t for me to interfere with his doings,” protested Dick, “but I do wish you could have seen Uncle Israel.”

At the recollection he went off into a spasm of merriment which bid fair to prove fatal. The rest laughed with him, not knowing just what it was about, such was the infectious quality of Dick’s mirth.

“They’ve all gone,” laughed Elaine, happily, taking her bedroom candle from Dorothy’s hand, “they’ve all gone, every single one, and now we’re going to have some good times.”

Dick watched her as she went upstairs, the candlelight shining tenderly upon her sweet face, and thus betrayed himself to Dorothy, who had suspected for some time that he loved Elaine.

“Oh Lord!” grumbled Dick to himself, when he was safely in his own room. “Everybody knows it now, except her. I’ll bet even Sis Smithers and the cat are dead next to me. I might as well tell her to-morrow as any time, the result will be just the same. Better do it and have it over with. The cat’ll tell her if nobody else does.”

But that night, strangely enough, Claudius Tiberius disappeared, to be seen or heard of no more.

XX

The Love of Another Elaine

When Dick and Harlan ventured up to the sanitarium, they were confronted by the astonishing fact that Uncle Israel was, indeed, ill. Later developements proved that he was in a measure personally responsible for his condition, since he had, surreptitiously, in the night, mixed two or three medicines of his own brewing with the liberal dose of a different drug which the night nurse gave him, in accordance with her instructions.

Far from being unconscious, however, Uncle Israel was even now raging violently against further restraint, and demanding to be sent home before he was “murdered.”

“He’s being killed with kindness,” whispered Dick, “like the man who was run over by an ambulance.”

Harlan arranged for Uncle Israel to stay until he was quite healed of this last complication, and then wrote out the address of Cousin Betsey Skiles, with which Dick was fortunately familiar. “And,” added Dick, “if he’s troublesome, crate him and send him by freight. We don’t want to see him again.”

Less than a week later, Uncle Israel and his bed were safely installed at Cousin Betsey’s, and he was able to write twelve pages of foolscap, fully expressing his opinion of Harlan and Dick and the sanitarium staff, and Uncle Ebeneezer, and the rest of the world in general, conveying it by registered mail to “J. H. Car & Familey.” The composition revealed an astonishing command of English, particularly in the way of vituperation. Had Uncle Israel known more profanity, he undoubtedly would have incorporated it in the text.

“It reminds me,” said Elaine, who was permitted to read it, “of a little coloured boy we used to know. A playmate quarrelled with him and began to call him names, using all the big words he had ever heard, regardless of their meaning. When his vocabulary was exhausted, our little friend asked, quietly: ‘Is you froo?’ ‘Yes,’ returned the other, ‘I’s froo.’ ‘Well then,’ said the master of the situation, calmly, turning on his heel, ‘all those things what you called me, you is.’”

“That’s right,” laughed Dick. “All those things Uncle Israel has called us, he is, but it makes him a pretty tough old customer.”

A blessed peace had descended upon the house and its occupants. Harlan’s work was swiftly nearing completion, and in another day or two, he would be ready to read the neatly typed pages to the members of his household. Dorothy could scarcely wait to hear it, and stole many a secret glance at the manuscript when Harlan was out of the house. Lover-like, she expected great things from it, and she saw the world of readers, literally, at her husband’s feet. So great was her faith in him that she never for an instant suspected that there might possibly be difficulty at the start – that any publisher could be wary of this masterpiece by an unknown.

The Carrs had planned to remain where they were until the book was finished, then to take the precious manuscript, and go forth to conquer the City. Afterward, perhaps, a second honeymoon journey, for both were sorely in need of rest and recreation.

Elaine was going with them, and Dorothy was to interview the Personage whose private secretary she had once been, and see if that position or one fully as desirable could not be found for her friend. Also, Elaine was to make her home with the Carrs. “I won’t let you live in a New York boarding house,” said Dorothy warmly, “as long as we’ve any kind of a roof over our heads.”

Dick had discovered that, as he expressed it, he must “quit fooling and get a job.” Hitherto, Mr. Chester had preferred care-free idleness to any kind of toil, and a modest sum, carefully hoarded, represented to Dick only freedom to do as he pleased until it gave out. Then he began to consider work again, but as he seldom did the same kind of work twice, he was not particularly proficient in any one line.

Still, Dick had no false ideas about labour. At college he had canvassed for subscription books, solicited life and fire insurance, swept walks, shovelled snow, carried out ashes, and even handled trunks for the express company, all with the same cheerful equanimity. His small but certain income sufficed for his tuition and other necessary expenses, but for board at Uncle Ebeneezer’s and a few small luxuries, he was obliged to work.

Just now, unwonted ambition fired his soul. “It’s funny,” he mused, “what’s come over me. I never hankered to work, even in my wildest moments, and yet I pine for it this minute – even street-sweeping would be welcome, though that sort of thing isn’t going to be much in my line from now on. With the start uncle’s given me, I can surely get along all right, and, anyhow, I’ve got two hands, two feet, and one head, all good of their kind, so there’s no call to worry.”

Worrying had never been among Dick’s accomplishments, but he was restless, and eager for something to do. He plunged into furniture-making with renewed energy, inspired by the presence of Elaine, who with her book or embroidery sat in her low rocker under the apple tree and watched him at his work.

Quite often she read aloud, sometimes a paragraph, now and then an entire chapter, to which Dick submitted pleasantly. He loved the smooth, soft cadence of Elaine’s low voice, whether she read or spoke, so, in a way, it did not matter. But, one day, when she had read uninterruptedly for over an hour, Dick was seized with a violent fit of coughing.

“I say,” he began, when the paroxysm had ceased; “you like books, don’t you?”

“Indeed I do – don’t you?”

“Er – yes, of course, but say – aren’t you tired of reading?”

“Not at all. You needn’t worry about me. When I’m tired, I’ll stop.”

She was pleased with his kindly thought for her comfort, and thereafter read a great deal by way of reward. As for Dick, he burned the midnight candle over many a book which he found inexpressibly dull, and skilfully led the conversation to it the next day. Soon, even Harlan was impressed by his wide knowledge of literature, though no one noted that about books not in Uncle Ebeneezer’s library, Dick knew nothing at all.

Dorothy spent much of her time in her own room, thus forcing Dick and Elaine to depend upon each other for society. Quite often she was lonely, and longed for their cheery chatter, but sternly reminded herself that she was being sacrificed in a good cause. She built many an air castle for them as well as for herself, furnishing both, impartially, with Elaine’s old mahogany and the simple furniture Dick was making out of Uncle Ebeneezer’s relics.

By this time the Jack-o’-Lantern was nearly stripped of everything which might prove useful, and they were burning the rest of it in the fireplace at night. “Varnished hardwood,” as Dick said, “makes a peach of a blaze.”

Meanwhile Harlan was labouring steadfastly at his manuscript. The glowing fancy from which the book had sprung was quite gone. Still, as he cut, rearranged, changed, interlined, reconstructed and polished, he was not wholly unsatisfied with his work. “It may not be very good,” he said to himself, “but it’s the best I can do – now. The next will be better, I’m sure.” He knew, even then, that there would be a “next one,” for the eternal thirst which knows no quenching had seized upon his inmost soul.

Hereafter, by an inexplicably swift reversion, he should see all life as literature, and literature as life. Friends and acquaintances should all be, in his inmost consciousness, ephemeral. And Dorothy – dearly as he loved her, was separated from him as by a veil.

Still, as he worked, he came gradually to a better adjustment, and was very tenderly anxious that Dorothy should see no change in him. He had not yet reached the point, however, where he would give it all up for the sake of finding things real again, if only for an hour.

Day after day, his work went on. Sometimes he would spend an hour searching for a single word, rightly to express his meaning. Page after page was re-copied upon the typewriter, for, with the nice conscience of a good workman, Harlan desired a perfect manuscript, at least in mechanical details.

Finally, he came to the last page and printed “The End” in capitals with deep satisfaction. “When it’s sandpapered,” he said to himself, “and the dust blown off, I suppose it will be done.”

The “sandpapering” took a week longer. At the end of that time, Harlan concluded that any manuscript was done when the writer had read it carefully a dozen times without making a single change in it. On a Saturday night, just as the hall clock was booming eleven, he pushed it aside, and sat staring blankly at the wall for a long time.

“I don’t know what I’ve got,” he thought, “but I’ve certainly got two hundred and fifty pages of typed manuscript. It should be good for something – even at space rates.”

After dinner, Sunday, he told them that the book was ready, and they all went out into the orchard. Dick was resigned, Elaine pleasantly excited, Dorothy eager and aflame with triumphant pride, Harlan self-conscious, and, in a way, ashamed.

As he read, however, he forgot everything else. The mere sound of the words came with caressing music to his ears. At times his voice wavered and his hands trembled, but he kept on, until it grew so dark that he could no longer see.

They went into the house silently, and Dick touched a match to the fire already laid in the fireplace, while Dorothy lighted the candles and the reading lamp. The afterglow faded and the moon rose, yet still they rode with Elaine and her company, through mountain passes and over blossoming fields, past many dangers and strange happenings, and ever away from the Castle of Content.

Harlan’s deep, vibrant voice, now stern, now tender, gave new meaning to his work. His secret belief in it gave it a beauty which no one else would ever see. Dorothy, listening so intently that it was almost pain, never took her eyes from his face. In that hour, if Harlan could have known it, her woman’s soul was kneeling before his, naked and unashamed.

Dick privately considered the whole thing more or less of a nuisance, but the candlelight touched Elaine’s golden hair lovingly, and the glow from the fire seemed to rest caressingly upon her face. All along, he saw a clear resemblance between his Elaine and the lady of the book, also, more keenly, a closer likeness between himself and the fool who rode at her side.

When Harlan came to the song which the fool had written, and which he had so shamelessly revised and read aloud at the table, Dick seriously considered a private and permanent departure, like the nocturnal vanishing of Mr. Perkins, without even a poem for farewell.

Elaine, lost in the story, was heedless of her surroundings. It was only at the last chapter that she became conscious of self at all. Then, suddenly, in her turn, she perceived a parallel, and quivered painfully with a new emotion.

“Some one, perchance,” mused the Lady Elaine, “whose beauty my eyes alone should perceive, whose valour only I should guess before there was need to test it. Some one great of heart and clean of mind, in whose eyes there should never be that which makes a woman ashamed. Some one fine-fibred and strong-souled, not above tenderness when a maid was tired. One who should make a shield of his love, to keep her not only from the great hurts but from the little ones as well, and yet with whom she might fare onward, shoulder to shoulder, as God meant mates should fare.”

Like the other Elaine, she saw who had served her secretly, asking for no recognition; who had always kept watch over her so unobtrusively and quietly that she never guessed it till now. Like many another woman, Elaine had dreamed of her Prince as a paragon of beauty and perfection, with unconscious vanity deeming such an one her true mate. Now her story-book lover had gone for ever, and in his place was Dick; sunny-hearted, mischievous, whistling, clear-eyed Dick, who had laughed and joked with her all Summer, and now – must never know.

In a fierce agony of shame, she wondered if he had already guessed her secret – if she had betrayed it to him before she was conscious of it herself; if that was why he had been so kind. Harlan was reading the last page, and Elaine shaded her face with her hand, determined, at all costs, to avoid Dick, and to go away to-morrow, somewhere, anywhere.

But Prince Bernard did not hear, read Harlan, nor see the outstretched hand, for Elaine was in his arms for the first time, her sweet lips close on his. “My Prince, Oh, my Prince,” she murmured, when at length he set her free; “my eyes did not see but my heart knew!”

So ended the Quest of the Lady Elaine.

The last page of the manuscript fluttered, face downward, upon the table, and Dorothy wiped her eyes. Elaine’s mouth was parched, but she staggered to her feet, knowing that she must say some conventional words of congratulation to Harlan, then go to her own room.

Blindly, she put out her hand, trying to speak; then, for a single illuminating instant, her eyes looked into Dick’s.

With a little cry, Elaine fled from the room, overwhelmed with shame. In a twinkling, she was out of the house, and flying toward the orchard as fast as her light feet would carry her, her heart beating wildly in her breast.

By the sure instinct of a lover, Dick knew that his hour had come. He dropped out of the window and overtook her just as she reached her little rocking-chair, which, damp with the Autumn dew, was still under the apple tree.

“Elaine!” cried Dick, crushing her into his arms, all the joy of youth and love in his voice. “Elaine! My Elaine!”

“The audience,” remarked Harlan, in an unnatural tone, “appears to have gone. Only my faithful wife stands by me.”

“Oh, Harlan,” answered Dorothy, with a swift rush of feeling, “you’ll never know till your dying day how proud and happy I am. It’s the very beautifullest book that anybody ever wrote, and I’m so glad! Mrs. Shakespeare could never have been half as pleased as I am! I – ,” but the rest was lost, for Dorothy was in his arms, crying her heart out for sheer joy.

“There, there,” said Harlan, patting her shoulders awkwardly, and rubbing his rough cheek against her tear-wet face; “it wasn’t meant to make anybody cry.”

“Why can’t I cry if I want to?” demanded Dorothy, resentfully, between sobs. Harlan’s voice was far from even and his own eyes were misty as he answered: “Because you are my own darling girl and I love you, that’s why.”

They sat hand in hand for a long time, looking into the embers of the dying fire, in the depths of that wedded silence which has no need of words. The portraits of Uncle Ebeneezer and Aunt Rebecca seemed fully in accord, and, though mute, eloquent with understanding.

“He’d be so proud,” whispered Dorothy, looking up at the stern face over the mantel, “if he knew what you had done here in his house. He loved books, and now, because of his kindness, you can always write them. You’ll never have to go back on the paper again.”

Harlan smiled reminiscently, for the hurrying, ceaseless grind of the newspaper office was, indeed, a thing of the past. The dim, quiet room was his, not the battle-ground of the street. Still, as he knew, the smell of printer’s ink in his nostrils would be like the sound of a bugle to an old cavalry horse, and even now, he would not quite trust himself to walk down Newspaper Row.

“I love Uncle Ebeneezer and Aunt Rebecca,” went on Dorothy, happily. “I love everybody. I’ve love enough to-night to spare some for the whole world.”

“Dear little saint,” said Harlan, softly, “I believe you have.”

The clock struck ten and the fire died down. A candle flickered in its socket, then went out. The chill Autumn mist was rising, and through it the new moon gleamed faintly, like veiled pearl.

“I wonder,” said Harlan, “where the rest of the audience is? If everybody who reads the book is going to disappear suddenly and mysteriously, I won’t be the popular author that I pine to be.”

“Hush,” responded Dorothy; “I think they are coming now. I’ll go and let them in.”

Only a single candle was burning in the hall, and when Dorothy opened the door, it went out suddenly, but in that brief instant, she had seen their glorified faces and understood it all. The library door was open, and the dimly lighted room seemed like a haven of refuge to Elaine, radiantly self-conscious, and blushing with sweet shame.

“Hello,” said Dick, awkwardly, with a tremendous effort to appear natural, “we’ve just been out to get a breath of fresh air.”

It had taken them two hours, but Dorothy was too wise to say anything. She only laughed – a happy, tender, musical little laugh. Then she impulsively kissed them both, pushed Elaine gently into the library, and went back into the parlour to tell Harlan.

THE END