Part 4

As I write, at my left hand is a basket of letters. I have just taken from the basket the last nice one you wrote me and the awfully mean one you wrote afterward. The others run back a month or two and none are answered yet. My right arm is resting on a cushion, and I am writing with three fingers.

I have been away. In my accumulated mail there were a couple of letters from you, and the photo you sent in the lot. The next morning after I got back I had to send for a doctor. I had got a knock on my blamed old elbow and she swelled up as big as a prize beet at the Roseboro County Fair.

Well, old doc said it was cellulitis, which didn’t sound very reassuring. It comes from having the cellular tissues hurt. And every day he done that arm up in plaster and eight miles of bandages. And three or four times he brung along his knives and lancets and was going to carving at it, but I wouldn’t let him. I haven’t been able to write any more than a rabbit. I’m getting so I can use a small quantity of my fingers now, and this is the first answer to any letter in the basket.

And that is why I haven’t written to thank you for the photo, which I appreciate highly, and shall not return as you suggest in your P. M. (Particularly Mean) letter. What’s the matter with it? It looks all right to me. I can’t suggest any improvement in it. It has lots of your old expression in it, and although the fool photographer did all he could to spoil it by making you turn your head as if you were looking to see if your dress was buttoned all down the back, it’s a ripping nice picture, and you needn’t want to be “any better to look at than the picture.” (Can’t you say the mean things when you want to!)

Now, I wish you’d behave, and take your finger out of your mouth and stand right there—turn your toes out—and say you are sorry.

Lemme see!—there was another dig—oh, yes—if I “had been a pauper or a millionaire.”

You bet I’m a pauper now, Miss Carrie. Blowed all my money in on my trip, and ain’t made any to speak of since except what doc would carry away with him every day.

Getting along all right again, though, now. How’s your writing coming on?

Now will you shake hands again, although it’s my left one this time?

Yours as ever, R. H.

_December 20th._

I have another letter from Bobby. And I didn’t answer his last letter. As I read it a wicked little joy steals in on me and grows and _grows_.

_New York, December 18th._

MY DEAR MISS CARRIE:

Now get mad if you want to, but couldn’t you agree to let somebody call you that? (Bobby has scratched out the “Miss.”) That’s the way I think of you, and if you insist on being called by your golf and automobile name of Carrie, why, tear up this letter and throw it out the kitchen window over the cliff.

Why didn’t you answer my last letter? Rowing on the lake, I suppose, with the gent that comes to see you. I hope the lake will freeze. And I hope the gent—won’t freeze. So, there!

I am looking over your last letter to-night, and it’s like the breath of a spring wind through a laurel thicket. I’m going to take it page by page and answer it.

The first page contains a quotation from a letter to you from an insect known as a “literary agent.” Dear Carrie, listen to the chirp of the crickets on the mountain, but don’t pay any attention to the noise of that tribe. I am fortunate enough not to know this particular duffer that has written such “piffle” (as they say in Chicago), but I’ve heard about him—and you cut him out. He’s an insufferable, measly kid, at the Sweet Caporal cigarette age, and his graft is to stuff you provincial writers (I’m speaking impersonally now) with his taffy so he can get your stuff to peddle around. Don’t you believe his trick; and you quit sending him your stuff. He’s trying to make you think you’ve got George Eliot and Mrs. Humphry Ward beat to a batter, when you know yourself it ain’t so. Isn’t that a sage, oh, what a wonderfully sage remark when he says “you must write your best!”

Don’t you believe “that the editors are asking about you constantly, and are more than anxious to see your work.” It’s not so.

Now get mad again, and when that old-time smile comes back, read on further.

Mein Gott! what a recollection you have of me! “A tall, slender lad with nice eyes—awfully quiet, and——Oh, I’ll admit the exceedingly fond.” Was it a mystery why? Well, I dunno, except because you were so sweet and devilish.

To-day I am as slender as anybody five feet eight and weighing 175 pounds could be, and I’ve sharp, mean eyes. (I told Bobby that he had nice eyes because I couldn’t remember the colour.) I’ve been taken for a detective lots of times, but I haven’t changed so much inside, and if you were on the twentieth floor of the Waldorf-Astoria to-night, and had a string long enough, I’ll bet I’d have a magnolia or two and a box of candy to tie to the end of it.

You speak of meeting old Tom in your letter. Well, just a few days afterward I got a letter from him talking about old days. Said he’d been in New York often and might be back. Lordy! I’d like to see him again. (Back in the old days at Roseboro Tom was one of the whistlers under my window the night I got the magnolias.)

Well, now, Carrie, what do _you_ care if Tom pays attention to somebody and likes her? Ain’t that the only thing there is that’s worth two cents? Doesn’t the gentleman that takes you out driving and boat riding ever—ever—talk about how nice the moon looks? Oh, Carrie, never get so you feel like running down such foolishness. After everything is added and subtracted, _that_ is the only remainder.

On the next page I find the very wise remark of your friend Miss Baxter (whom I would be glad to consider mine—I mean mein freund!) that you can’t write a love story because you know nothing about it. Miss Baxter is altogether wrong but none the less charming. That led me to inclose you a little story of mine—a thing that is apparently egotistical to do—that settles the question beyond all controversy. Read it some time when you are up in the arbour about twilight when they are calling you to supper—but don’t go.

On page three of your letter I observe a reference to your picture. Sure, Mike! I asked you for your picture. And I’ve got it, ain’t I? I’d like to see you get it back!

Oh, Carrie, if you “knowed” how folks try to get letters from me and can’t, you’d appreciate the delightful toil I take in writing to you. Ordinarily it’s just like laying bricks for me to write even a business letter, but when I write to you—lemme see what to say—it’s like lifting the lightest feather from the breast of an eider duck and watching it float through the circumambient atmosphere. (That strike you hard enough?)

I’ll tell you what, Carrie—(now don’t get mad, Caroline) I need a boss. For the last month I’ve been so no-account and lazy that I haven’t turned out a line. And yet, I don’t think it’s exactly my fault. I’ve felt kind of melancholy and dreamy and lonesome, and I don’t sleep well of nights. Once I dreamed that I had a magnolia for you and you turned up your nose at it and went away with Jeff—you remember Jeff?

_Everybody’s Magazine_ sent down the editor’s automobile and took me uptown to a distinguished nerve specialist, who decided that I had been working too hard, and advised me either to take a trip to Europe or some tablets he had in a box. I took the tablets. They didn’t taste bad, so I kept on taking ’em, and I ain’t a bit worse to-day.

But none of ’em knew that what I needed was just somebody to fix a cushion for me on the sofa, and tell the man with the gas bill that I wasn’t in.

You asked me what I get for short stories. I get ten, fifteen, sometimes twenty cents a word, and everything engaged long before it’s written.

Now, I’ll tell you what to do: kick the mountains over and hurry to New York. It’s 50 per cent. of the game to see the editors in person. Right here is the only place on the American Continent where you can live. What are the mountains compared to it? Dear Carrie, kick the mountains over and take my advice. You are far enough advanced to make your way from the start. And I assure you, as I said, being on the ground is 50 per cent of the game.

They call it a lonely city. Lonely! with every masterpiece of art, music, and beautiful things within a block of you! Say, Carrie, chop down the tomato vines and come on. I can get you into every editorial office in town (where you are not already appreciated), and you will make a success. Attend, oh, Princess of the Bluest Ridge, these are not the words of one D. Hudson the adolescent, but of Bob the Perspicacious, who has seen and who knows. If I didn’t think you had the genius to win the game I’d never advise you to try.

There’s a line in your letter—“I couldn’t know what the boy had developed into.” I can only say into one surely no better, unsatisfied, and always remembering the little girl next door.

Please, Carrie, write to me soon, and if you don’t like my letter say you condone it, for there ain’t nobody up here like you, and I’m awfully lonesome to-night. And so, may I sign myself,

Yours as ever, BOB.

P.S. I’m awfully glad to see by the weather reports that there’s a freeze coming. I hope the gent that rows you on the lake will have to buy tacks to put in his oars.

P.P.S. I was in a thanksgiving party where we had a flashlight photo taken. I’ll send you one when they are printed.

Do I condone Bobby’s letter? The wicked, contraband little joy grows and _grows_.

_Christmas Eve. Midnight._

It is snowing—a real snow. The night outside my windows is one soft whirling blur. At dusk John came in from the twenty-mile-away town. He shook the snow from his clothes like the traditional Santa Claus, and he was just as full of bundles. Two express packages for me in the big, bold hand grown so familiar set my heart to beating and my cheeks to blushing furiously under John’s scalpel eyes.

Since nine o’clock, when John went to bed tired out with his hard day’s journey, I have sat here in my bedroom, dim save for the light of the leaping flames and silent save for the sift of the snow piling high and higher on the window-panes. Luxuriously I dive again into the most wonderful box of candy I ever dreamed of; luxuriously I sniff the perfume of the most exquisite flowers I ever saw, across the snow-filled air the village bells ring their faint, “Peace on earth, good-will to men.”

To-morrow when I wear my flowers to church, I’ll feel like a princess—orchids and lilies of the valley—your princess, Bobby.

_Christmas Day. Afternoon._

When my eyes opened this morning the flaming beauty of the east took me to the window—such a marshalling of sunrise banners to do honour to the day. Not waiting for my fire, judging from the sounds in that direction that mammy was having a holiday nap, anyway, I dressed rapidly, high shoes, short skirt, coat and cap, and sallied forth. The landscape stretched before me like a vast white sea, its purity unbroken by footstep of man. It seemed to belong solely to me and a few noisy crows. I marched straight to the post-office. It was closed when John passed last night. I had a sneaking little hope—but it wasn’t there. I got a little note from Dicky, though. She writes that her gift is delayed. It is always. I could never teach Dicky timeliness—always, like Bobby Haralson, she has been superior to time.

The day that I began joyously has been a restless one. I have climbed to the hilltop. Below me the village lies, a crystal toy town in the lap of crystal hills. My eyes travel down the chain of glistening hills to Camel Back. Wise old comrade, I do believe he knows. Anyway, it is a relief to tell him. “Camel Back,” she writes, “A chance encounter at the theatre with Bobby Haralson in which I still conceal my identity.” Camel Back’s snowy hump twinkles as though he laughs; above him the clouds that have seemed to drift aimlessly form a fairy castle. Its turrets and dome glitter in the sunset’s dying fire. I can trace a door—a vast, closed portal. How ridiculous that a trick of the clouds could thrill me! Slowly the door has opened. I can’t explain the lovely magic of it, but there in the white stillness some words that Bobby wrote rolled over me in a great, mounting, singing wave.

“You have sympathy and a deep and true humanness.” If Bobby is not mistaken! If it could be! Almost solemnly I turn from my mountain, with its castle fading from the sky, and take my way home.

_January 20th._

Every minute that I can spare from my school duties I work at my book in a fury of enthusiasm. Just as the snow made the village so beautiful on Christmas day, something within me no longer sees the frailties of the mountain people with whom my lot is cast. Their kindness through all the long years comes to me instead. So I call my little book “The Window.” I look out and see beauties I never saw before, and the sun pours in and warms me.

_January 25th._

I am working at it night and day. It grows amazingly. “Child,” some one said to me yesterday, “I heard ye was writin’ a book. Ain’t plenty o’ books in the worl’, ’thout rackin’ yore pore brains to write anuther?”

Almost, I gave back indignant answer; but I have learned of my little book—of my little book that flows in my veins and runs down through my finger-tips, sometimes to laugh and exult, sometimes to sob and sigh.

_February 15th._

My book is written. It was pure joy. It is very simple—just the hopes and fears, the joys and sorrows of this spot isolated from the big world by its wall of mountains. I owe much to my book. Winter still holds the world, but flowers bloom inside me. Not the orchids and roses I demanded of life when I wanted to dynamite my garden plot, it is true, but some old-fashioned pinks that make these February days sweet and smelly ones.

_March 1st._

Did it ever happen to anybody before? I have knocked and knocked at editors’ doors; I have waited months and got my stories back, too. Two weeks, and I hold in my hand a telegram from Bobby’s publishers: “Your little book is ours, and it’s love at first sight.”

_April 1st._

It is advertised in the magazine section of the _Times_. How it flashes out to meet my eyes: “The Window”—a certain simplicity of expression—a realism that touches with delicacy and pathos things that we feel are the actualities of life.

John comes in and brings Dicky’s letter: “Caroline Howard! And not to tell me! Such a peach of a heroine, Caroline. How’d a sedate old thing like you catch that spirit of youth? Your heroine flames like a red, red rose. And what do you know of love’s sweetness and its fierceness?”

What do I know? I go indoors and gaze soberly at the sedate old thing that is I. Then I go in search of mammy. “Mammy,” I call, “I _must_ have somebody to talk to. They say you can look right into the shadowy interiors of the mountaineers’ cabins; that you can see the vague objects take shape in them because I’ve got the atmosphere so well.” Mammy is feeding the chickens. “What is atmosphere, honey?” she asks calmly. “Oh, feed your chickens,” I say, disgustedly, and, calmly, she obeys.

By some queer trick our publishers, Bobby’s and mine, have put us together—my little book by his big book. I have not heard from Bobby since Christmas. No doubt all his fingers are now out of commission.

Just after Christmas I was in town and I saw a big splendid picture of Bobby in a bookdealer’s window. I know the man, and, shamelessly, I told him Bobby was my first cousin—my favourite cousin. He gave me the picture. Bobby is in his old place on my mantel. And, as before, he dominates the room. There are times when I almost feel his presence, distinct, encompassing. My life has not many idle moments, but when these little lazy let-down minutes do come, when I sit by the fire at night, the school papers all corrected, just before I go to bed, I find awaiting me, giving me the feeling that it is always there, patiently abiding its moment, this nearness to Bobby. It draws near, not like an alien thing unsure of its welcome, but it comes as if in answer to a call. How well I know Bobby Haralson! Times spent together, when apart, how close they come. If disaster overwhelmed him he’d hide his hurt under a froth of gayety, his lips would mock with smiles. Once my mother laughingly called my father to see the pretty picture a little sewing girl made as she slept—her beads of prayer in her hands. Smilingly my father shook his head. My mother loved my father for that chivalry to a little sleeping work girl. Bobby is like that—human enough to advertise through a newspaper for a girl “pal” and then too chivalrous to meet her. The subtle gradations that make a gentleman!

_April 1st._

All the way from school this afternoon I kept telling myself there would be a letter from Bobby on the hall table, and then I would tell myself it was preposterous after this long silence that I should look for his letter. But there it was. And he has been sick. I feel his nerves in the letter.

If Bobby has been reading my last two letters, which he hopes I won’t make my two last, one was most certainly an old one. Of course I thanked him for the Christmas flowers and candy. It’s a bad sign, Mr. Book-writer, for a man to con over old letters. He’s either in his dotage, or he is in love. Is Bobby in love?

Here’s his letter:

_West 20th Street._ _New York. April 1st._

DEAR, DEAR CARRIE:

(Dear, dear Carrie, indeed! And not a line from him since Christmas.)

Here’s my right hand being held up:—Please listen!

To-day for the first time in six weeks I’ve had my trunks unpacked and have sat down at my desk clothed in my ordinarily sane mind, and been able to find pen ’n ink ’n paper to write with and on. I’ve moved four times since I lived in Waverly Place; and have been driven from post-office to pillow by the—noise of elevated trains, waggons (notice the English two g’s), trams (also English), and cries of hucksters (mostly Dagoes). At last I have found a quiet haven; and the first thing I do (of course) is to dig your last two (please don’t make it “two last”) letters and read ’em some more.

I have answered your letters and written you dozens in the spirit; but when it comes to spreading the ink, I know I’ve been as the old darky song goes, “A liar and a conjurer, too.” There are periods of time when the sight of a pen or an ink bottle strikes me to stone. Will it be some slight excuse for not having written to one of whom I have thought by every mail, if I assert that not for months have I written a line for publication except one little short 2,000-word _rotten_ story? It be true.

Oh, some sort of nervous condition—can’t sleep nor nothin’! Oh, yes, ma’am, thank you; feelin’ heaps better now. I live within a few doors of Broadway, but on such a quiet street that the little clock on my desk ticking sounds as loud as a cricket chirping under the honeysuckle vine on your porch on a fall night.

Don’t you think you might come up this way some time? Ain’t there some of your folks that live around here? Seems to me there was. I’d rather see you than to have a bushel of diamonds. And if I can get a string on you I’ll tie more magnolias and gumdrops to it than Roseboro ever saw. Say—please come, won’t you? I do so long to see a human—a Heaven-sent, home-bred, ideal-owning, scrumptious, sweet, wholesome human with a heart such as I know you are—or, in the words of the poet, “one of whom you are which.” The folks up here are all right and lots of ’em are good to know, but—they ain’t got tar on their heels, Miss Carrie, ma’am.

I’ve been thinking of running down to the Bluest Ridge for two or three weeks as soon as it gets warmer here. I want to go up somewhere in the mountings and have a quiet time with the sunrises and the squirrels, and I want to see some morning glories on a board fence. I’ve tried the dinky little hills they call mountains up here, and they ain’t no good. You can’t take forty steps in the wildwood without stumbling over a sardine box or a salmon can; and the quantity of Ikeys and Rebeccas that you scare up in the shady dells is sure something fierce.

If I happen down in your range of mountings may I drop in and see you? I need to get away from town for a while, and I certainly would rather be there than anywhere I know of.