At the Crossroads Part 1

At the Crossroads.

by Harriet T. Comstock.

The great turning points of life are often rounded unconsciously.

Invisible tides hurry us on and only when we are well past the curve do we realize what has happened to us.

Brace Northrup, sitting in Doctor Manly's office, smoking and ruminating, was not conscious of turning points or tides; he was sluggish and depressed; wallowing in the after-effects of a serious illness.

Manly, sitting across the hearth from his late patient--he had shoved him out of that category--regarded him from the viewpoint of a friend.

Manly was impressionistic in his methods of thought and expression.

Every stroke told.

The telephone had not rung for fifteen minutes but both men knew its potentialities and wanted to make the most of the silence.

"Oh! I confess," Northrup admitted, "that my state of gloom is due more to the fact that I cannot write than to my sickness. I'm done for!"

Manly looked at his friend and scowled.

"Rot!" he e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed. Then added: "The world would not perish if you didn't write again."

"I'm not thinking about the world," Northrup was intent upon the fire, "it's how the fact is affecting me. The world can accept or decline, but I am made helpless. You see my work is the only real, vital thing I have clawed out of life, by my own efforts, Manly; that means a lot to a fellow."

Manly continued to scowl. Had Northrup been watching him he might have gained encouragement, for Manly's scowls were proof of his deeply moved sympathies.

"The trouble with you, old man," he presently said, "is this: You've been dangerously ill; you thought you were going to slip out, and so did I, and all the others. You're like the man who fell on the battlefield and thought his legs were shot off. You've got to get up and learn to walk again. We're all suggesting the wrong thing to you.

Go where people don't know, don't care a d.a.m.n for you. Take to the road. That ink-slinging self that you are hankering after is just ahead. You'll overtake it, but it will never turn back for you--the self that you are now."

Manly fidgeted. He hated to talk. Then Northrup said something that brought Manly to his feet--and to several minutes of restless striding about the room.

"Manly, while I was at my worst I couldn't tell whether it was delirium or sanity, I saw that Thing across the water, the Thing that for lack of a better name we call war, in quite a new light. It's what has got us all and is shaking us into consciousness. We're going to know the true from the false when this pa.s.ses. My G.o.d! Manly, I wonder if any of us know what is true and what isn't? Ideals, nations, folks!"

Northrup's face flushed.

"See here, old man," Manly paused, set his legs wide apart as if to balance himself and pointed a finger at Northrup, "You've got to cut all this out and--beat it! Whatever that d.a.m.ned thing is over there, it isn't our mess. It's the eruption of a volcano that's been bubbling and sizzling for years. The lava's flowing now, a hot black filth, but it's going to stop before it reaches us."

"I wonder, Manly, I wonder. It's more like a divining rod to me, finding souls."

"Very well. Now I'm going to put an ugly fact up to you, Northrup.

Your body is all right, but your nerves are frayed and unless you mind your step you're going to go dippy. Catch on? There are places where nothing happens. Nothing ever has happened. Go and find such a hole and stay in it a month, six weeks--longer, if you can. Be a part of the nothingness and save your life. Break all the commandments, if there are any, but don't look back! I've seen big cures come from letting go! I'll look after your mother and Kathryn."

The telephone here interrupted.

"All right! all right!" snapped Manly into the receiver, "set the operation for ten to-morrow and have the hair shaved from the side of her head."

Then he turned back to Northrup as if disfiguring a woman were a matter of no importance.

"The fact is, Northrup, most of us get glued to our own narrow slits in the wall, most of us are chained to them by our jobs and we get to squinting, if we don't get blinded. I'm not saying that we don't each have a slit and should know it; but your job requires moving about and peering through other fellows' slits, and lately, ever since that last book of yours, you've kept to your hole; the fever caught you at the wrong time and this mess across seas has got mixed up with it all until you're no use to yourself or any one else. Beat it!"

Something like a wave of fresh air seemed to have entered the quiet, warm room. Northrup raised his head. Manly took heed and rambled on; he saw that he was making an impression at last.

"Queer things jog you into consciousness when you detach yourself from your moorings. A mountain-top, a baby's hold on your finger, when you're about to hurt it. A sunset, a woman's face; a moment when you realize your soul! You're never the same after, Northrup, but you do your job better and your slit in the wall is wider. Man, you need a jog."

"What jogged you, Manly?"

This was daring. People rarely questioned Manly.

"It was seeing my soul!" Quite simply the answer came.

There was a long, significant silence. Both men had to travel back to the commonplace and they felt their way gingerly.

"Northrup, drop things. It is your friend speaking now. Go where the roar and rumble of what doesn't concern you haven't reached.

Good-night."

Northrup got up slowly.

"I wonder if there is such a place?" he muttered.

"Sure, old man. Outside of this old sounding-board of New York, there are nooks where nothing even echoes. Usually you find good fishing in them. Come now, get out!"

CHAPTER I

Brace Northrup received the first intimation of his jog when he knocked on the door of a certain little yellow house set rakishly at the crossroads, a few miles from King's Forest.

The house gave the impression of wanting to go somewhere but had not decided upon the direction. Its many windows of shining gla.s.s were like wide-open eyes peering cheerfully forth on life, curiously interested and hopeful. The shades, if there were any, were rolled from sight. It might have seemed an empty house but for the appearance of care and a curl of smoke from the chimney.

Northrup walked across the bit of lawn leading, pathless, to the stone step, and knocked on the door. It was a very conservative knock but instantly the door swung in--it was that kind of a door, a welcoming door--and Northrup was precipitated into a room which, at first glance, appeared to be full of sunlight, children, and dogs.

As a matter of fact there were two or three little children and an older girl with a strange, vague face; four dogs and a young person seated on the edge of a table and engaged, apparently, before Northrup's arrival, in telling so thrilling a story that the small, absorbed audience barely noted his entrance. They turned mildly interested eyes upon him much as they might have upon an unnecessary ill.u.s.tration adorning the tale.

The figure on the table wore rough knickerbockers, high, rather muddy boots, a loose jacket, and a cap set crookedly on the head. When Northrup spoke, the young person turned and he saw that it was a woman. There was no surprise, at first, in the eyes which met Northrup's--the door of the little yellow house was constantly admitting visitors--but suddenly the expression changed to one of startled wonder. It was the expression of one who, never expecting a surprise, suddenly is taken unawares.

"I beg your pardon!" stammered Northrup. "I a.s.sure you I did knock. I merely want to ask the direction and distance of Heathcote Inn.

Crossroads are so confusing when one is tired and hungry and----"

Once having begun to speak, Northrup was too embarra.s.sed to stop. The eyes confronting him were most disconcerting. They smiled; they seemed to be glad he was there; the girl apparently was enjoying the situation.

"The inn is three miles down the south road; the lake is just beyond.

Follow that. They serve dinner at the inn at one."

The voice was like the eyes, friendly, vital, and lovely.

Then, as if staged, a clock set on a high shelf announced in crisp, terse tones the hour of twelve.