Solomon Part 7

Wilhelmina was not in the pasture; I sought for her everywhere, and called her name. The poor child had hidden herself, and whether she heard me or not she did not respond. All day she kept herself aloof; I almost feared she would never return; but in the late twilight a little figure slipped through the garden-gate and took refuge in the house before I could speak; for I was watching for the child, apparently the only one, though a stranger, to care for her sorrow.

'Can I not see her?' I said to the leathery mother, following to the door.

'Eh, no; she's foolish; she will not speak a word; she has gone off to bed,' was the answer.

For three days I did not see Mina, so early did she flee away to the hills and so late return. I followed her to the pasture once or twice, but she would not show herself, and I could not discover her hiding place. The fourth day I learned that Gustav and Karl were to leave the village in the afternoon, probably forever. The other soldiers had signed the articles presented by the anxious trustees, and settled down into the old routine, going afield with the rest, although still heroes of the hour; they were all to be married in August. No doubt the hardships of their campaigns among the Tennessee mountains had taught them that the rich valley was a home not to be despised; nevertheless, it was evident that the flowers of the flock were those who were about departing, and that in Gustav and Karl the Community lost its brightest spirits. Evident to us; but possibly, the Community cared not for bright spirits.

I had made several attempts to speak to Gustav; this morning I at last succeeded. I found him polishing his bugle on the garden bench.

'Why are you going away, Gustav?' I asked. 'Zoar is a pleasant little village.'

'Too slow for me, miss.'

'The life is easy, however; you will find the world a hard place.'

'I don't mind work, ma'am, but I do like to be free. I feel all cramped up here, with these rules and bells; and, besides, I couldn't stand those trustees; they never let a fellow alone.'

'And Wilhelmina? If you do go, I hope you will take her with you or come for her when you have found work.'

'Oh no, miss. All that was long ago. It's all over now.'

'But you like her, Gustav.'

'O so. She's a good little thing, but too quiet for me.'

'But she likes you,' I said desperately, for I saw no other way to loosen this Gordian knot.

'O no, miss. She got used to it, and has thought of it all these years; that's all. She'll forget about it and marry the baker.'

'But she does not like the baker.'

'Why not? He's a good fellow enough. She'll like him in time. It's all the same. I declare it's too bad to see all these girls going on in the same old way, in their ugly gowns and big shoes! Why, ma'am, I could'nt, take Mina outside, even if I wanted to; she's too old to learn new ways, and everybody would laugh at her. She could'nt get along a day.

Besides,' said the young soldier, coloring up to his eyes, 'I don't mind telling you that--that there's some one else. Look here, ma'am.'

And he put into my hand a card photograph representing a pretty girl, over dressed, and adorned with curls and gilt jewelery. 'That's Miss Martin,' said Gustav with pride; 'Miss Emmeline Martin, of Cincinnati.

I'm going to marry Miss Martin.'

As I held the pretty, flashy picture in my hand, all my castles fell to the ground. My plan for taking Mina home with me, accustoming her gradually to other clothes and ways, teaching her enough of the world to enable her to hold her place without pain, my hope that my husband might find a situation for Gustav in some of the iron-mills near Cleveland, in short, all the idyl I had woven, was destroyed. If it had not been for this red-cheeked Miss Martin in her gilt beads! 'Why is it that men will be such fools?' I thought. Up sprung a memory of the curls and ponderous jet necklace I sported at a certain period of my existence, when John--I was silenced, gave Gustav his picture, and walked away without a word.

At noon the villagers, on their way back to work, paused at the Wirthshaus to say good bye; Karl and Gustav were there, and the old woolly horse had already gone to the station with their boxes. Among the others came Christine, Karl's former affianced, heartwhole and smiling, already betrothed to a new lover; but no Wilhelmina. Good wishes and farewells were exchanged, and at last the two soldiers started away, falling into the marching step and watched with furtive satisfaction by the three trustees, who stood together in the shadow of the smithy apparently deeply absorbed in a broken-down cask.

It was a lovely afternoon, and I, too, strolled down the station road embowered in shade. The two soldiers were not far in advance. I had pa.s.sed the flour-mill on the outskirts of the village and was approaching the old quarry, when a sound startled me; out of the rocks in front rushed a little figure and crying 'Gustav, mein Gustav!' fell at the soldier's feet. It was Wilhelmina.

I ran forward and took her from the young men; she lay in my arms as if dead. The poor child was sadly changed; always slender and swaying, she now looked thin and shrunken, her skin had a strange, dark pallor, and her lips were drawn in as if from pain. I could see her eyes through the large-orbed thin lids, and the brown shadows beneath extended down into the cheeks.

'Was ist's?' said Gustav, looking bewildered. 'Is she sick?'

I answered 'Yes,' but nothing more. I could see that he had no suspicion of the truth, believing as he did that the 'good fellow' of a baker would do very well for this 'good little thing' who was 'too quiet' for him. The memory of Miss Martin sealed my lips. But if it had not been for that pretty, flashy picture, would I not have spoken!

'You must go; you will miss the train,' I said after a few minutes. 'I will see to Mina.'

But Gustav lingered. Perhaps he was really troubled to see the little sweetheart of his boyhood in such desolate plight; perhaps a touch of the old feeling came back; and perhaps also it was nothing of the kind, and, as usual, my romantic thoughts were carrying me away. At any rate, whatever it was, he stooped over the fainting girl.

'She looks bad,' he said, 'very bad. I wish-- But she'll get well and marry the baker. Good bye, Mina.' And bending his tall form, he kissed her colorless cheek, and then hastened away to join the impatient Karl; a curve in the road soon hid them from view.

Wilhelmina had stirred at his touch; after a moment her large eyes opened slowly; she looked around as if dazed, but all at once memory came back and she started up with the same cry, 'Gustav, mein Gustav!' I drew her head down on my shoulder to stifle the sound; it was better the soldier should not hear it, and its anguish thrilled my own heart also.

She had not the strength to resist me, and in a few minutes I knew that the young men were out of hearing as they strode on towards the station and out into the wide world.

The forest was solitary, we were beyond the village; all the afternoon I sat under the trees with the stricken girl. Again, as in her joy her words were few; again as in her joy her whole being was involved. Her little rough hands were cold, a film had gathered over her eyes; she did not weep, but moaned to herself, and all her senses seemed blunted. At nightfall I took her home, and the leathery mother received her with a frown; but the child was beyond caring, and crept away, dumbly, to her room.

The next morning she was off to the hills again, nor could I find her for several days. Evidently in spite of my sympathy I was no more to her than I should have been to a wounded fawn. She was a mixture of the wild, shy creature of the woods and the deep-loving woman of the tropics; in either case I could be but small comfort. When at last I did see her, she was apathetic and dull; her feelings, her senses, and her intelligence seemed to have gone within, as if preying upon her heart.

She scarcely listened to my proposal to take her with me; for in my pity I had suggested it, in spite of its difficulties.

'No,' she said, mechanically, 'I'se better here'; and fell into silence again.

A month later a friend went down to spend a few days in the valley, and upon her return described to us the weddings of the whilom soldiers. 'It was really a pretty sight,' she said, 'the quaint peasant dresses and the flowers. Afterwards, the band went round the village playing their odd tunes, and all had a holiday. There were two civilians married also; I mean two young men who had not been to the war. It seems that two of the soldiers turned their backs upon the Community and their allotted brides, and marched away; but the Zoar maidens are not romantic, I fancy, for these two deserted ones were betrothed again, and married, all in the short s.p.a.ce of four weeks.'

'Was not one Wilhelmina, the gardener's daughter, a short, dark girl?' I asked.

'Yes.'

'And she married Jacob the baker?'

'Yes.'

The next year, weary of the cold lake-winds, we left the icy sh.o.r.e and went down to the valley to meet the coming spring, finding her already there, decked with vines and flowers. A new waitress brought us our coffee.

'How is Wilhelmina?' I asked.

'Eh,--Wilhelmina? O, she not here now; she gone to the Next Country,'

answered the girl in a matter-of-fact way. 'She die last October, and Jacob he have anoder wife now.'

In the late afternoon I asked a little girl to show me Wilhelmina's grave in the quiet G.o.d's Acre on the hill. Innovation was creeping in, even here; the later graves had mounds raised over them, and one had a little head-board with an inscription in ink.

Wilhelmina lay apart, and some one, probably the old gardener, who had loved her in his silent way, had planted a rose-bush at the head of the mound. I dismissed my guide and sat there in the sunset, thinking of many things, but chiefly of this: 'Why should this great wealth of love have been allowed to waste itself? Why is it that the greatest of power, unquestionably, of this mortal life should so often seem a useless gift?'

No answer came from the sunset clouds, and as twilight sank down on the earth I rose to go. 'I fully believe,' I said, as though repeating a creed, 'that this poor, loving heart, whose earthly body lies under this mound, is happy in its own loving way. It has not been changed, but the happiness it longed for has come. How we know not; but the G.o.d who made Wilhelmina understands her. He has given unto her not rest, not peace, but an active, living joy.'

I walked away through the wild meadow, under whose turf, unmarked by stone or mound, lay the first pioneers of the Community and out into the forest road, untravelled save when the dead pa.s.sed over it to their last earthly home. The evening was still and breathless, and the shadows lay thick on the gra.s.s as I looked back. But I could still distinguish the little mound with the rose-bush at its head, and, not without tears, I said, 'Farewell, poor Wilhelmina; farewell.'

ST. CLAIR FLATS