Kindred of the Dust Read online

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  At the front of Caleb Brent's little house there was a bench uponwhich the old man was wont to sit on sunny days--usually in themorning, before the brisk, cool nor'west trade-wind commenced to blow.Following Hector McKaye's departure, Nan sought this bench until shehad sufficiently mastered her emotions to conceal from her fatherevidence of a distress more pronounced than usual; as she sat there,she revolved the situation in her mind, scanning every aspect of it,weighing carefully every possibility.

  In common with the majority of human kind, Nan considered herselfentitled to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, and now, at aperiod when, in the ordinary course of events, all three of thesenecessary concomitants of successful existence (for, to her, lifemeant something more than mere living) should have been hers inbounteous measure, despite the handicap under which she had been born,she faced a future so barren that sometimes the distant boom of thebreakers on Tyee Head called to her to desert her hopeless fight andin the blue depths out yonder find haven from the tempests of hersoul.

  In an elder day, when the Sawdust Pile had been Port Agnew'sgarbage-dump, folks who clipped their rose bushes and thinned outtheir marigold plants had been accustomed to seeing these slips takeroot again and bloom on the Sawdust Pile for a brief period aftertheir ash-cans had been emptied there; and, though she did not knowit, Nan Brent bore pitiful resemblance to these outcast flowers. Here,on the reclaimed Sawdust Pile, she had bloomed from girlhood intolovely womanhood--a sweet forget-me-not in the Garden of Life, she hadbeen transplanted into Eden until Fate, the grim gardener, had casther out, to take root again on the Sawdust Pile and ultimately towither and die.

  It is terrible for the great of soul, the ambitious, the imaginative,when circumstances condemn them to life amid dull, uninteresting,drab, and sometimes sordid surroundings. Born to love and be loved,Nan Brent's soul beat against her environment even as a wild bird,captured and loosed in a room, beats against the window-pane. From themoment she had felt within her the vague stirrings of womanhood, shehad been wont to gaze upon the blue-back hills to the east, to thehorizon out west, wondering what mysteries lay beyond, and yearning toencounter them. Perhaps it was the sea-faring instinct, the_Wanderlust_ of her forebears; perhaps it was a keener appreciation ofthe mediocrity of Port Agnew than others in the little town possessed,a realization that she had more to give to life than life had to giveto her. Perhaps it had been merely the restlessness that is the twinof a rare heritage--the music of the spheres--for with such had Nanbeen born. It is hard to harken for the reedy music of Pan and hearonly the whine of a sawmill or the boom of the surf.

  Of her mother, Nan had seen but little. Her recollections of hermother were few and vague; of her mother's people, she knew nothingsave the fact that they dwelt in a world quite free of Brents, andthat her mother had committed a distinctly social _faux pas_ inmarrying Caleb Brent she guessed long before Caleb Brent, in his bravesimplicity, had imparted that fact to her. An admiral's daughter,descendant of an old and wealthy Revolutionary family, the males ofwhich had deemed any calling other than the honorable profession ofarms as beneath the blood and traditions of the family, Nan's motherhad been the pet of Portsmouth until, inexplicably, Caleb Brent, achief petty officer on her father's flag-ship, upon whom the hero'smedal had just been bestowed, had found favor in her eyes. The ways oflove, as all the philosophers of the ages are agreed, are beyonddefinition or understanding; even in his own case, Caleb Brent was notequal to the task of understanding how their love had grown, burgeonedinto an engagement, and ripened into marriage. He only knew that, froma meek and well-disciplined petty officer, he had suddenly developedthe courage of a Sir Galahad, and, while under the influence of astrange spell, had respectfully defied the admiral, who had foolishlyassumed that, even if his daughter would not obey him, his junior inthe service would. Then had come the baby girl, Nan, thedivorce--pressed by the mother's family--and the mother's death.

  If his wife had discerned in him the nobility that was so apparent tohis daughter--Poor old hero! But Nan always checked her meditations atthis point. They didn't seem quite fair to her mother.

  Seated on the bench this afternoon, Nan reviewed her life from hersixth year, the year in which her father had claimed her. Until hereighteenth year, she had not been unhappy, for, following theirarrival in Port Agnew, her father had prospered to a degree whichpermitted his daughter the enjoyment of the ordinary opportunities ofordinary people. If she had not known extravagance in the matter ofdress, neither had she known penury; when her feminine instinctimpelled her to brighten and beautify the little home on the SawdustPile from time to time, she had found that possible. She had beengraduated with honors from the local high school, and, being abook-lover of catholic taste and wide range, she was, perhaps, moresolidly educated than the majority of girls who have had opportunitiesfor so-called higher education. With the broad democracy of sawmilltowns, she had not, in the days gone by, been excluded from the sociallife of the town, such as it was, and she had had her beaus, such asthey were. Sometimes she wondered how the choir in the Presbyterianchurch had progressed since she, once the mezzo-soprano soloist, hadresigned to sing lullabys to a nameless child, if Andrew Daney stillwalked on the tips of his shoes when he passed the collection-plate,and if the mortgage on the church had ever been paid.

  She rose wearily and entered the little house. Old Caleb sat at thedining-room table playing solitaire. He looked up as she entered,swept the cards into a heap and extended his old arm to encircle herwaist as she sat on the broad arm of his chair. She drew his gray headdown on her breast.

  "Dadkins," she said presently, "Donald McKaye isn't coming to dinnerto-morrow after all."

  "Oh, that's too bad, Nan! Has he written you? What's happened?"

  "No; he hasn't written me, and nothing's happened. I have decided tosend him word not to come."

  SHE STOLE TO THE OLD SQUARE PIANO AND SANG FOR HIM.]

  "Aren't you feeling well, my dear?"

  "It isn't that, popsy-wops. He's the new laird of Tyee now, and hemust be careful of the company he keeps."

  Old Caleb growled in his throat.

  "Much he cares what people think."

  "I know it. And much I care what people think, for I've grownaccustomed to their thoughts. But I do care what his father thinks,for, of course, he has plans for Donald's future, and if Donald, outof the kindness of his heart, should become a frequent visitor here,The Laird would hear of it sooner or later--sooner, perhaps, for itwould never occur to Donald to conceal it--and then the poor lairdwould be worried. And we don't owe The Laird that, father Brent!"

  "No; we do not." The old face was troubled.

  "I met Mrs. Daney on the beach, and it was she who gave me theintimation that The Laird had heard some cruel gossip that wasdisturbing him."

  "I'm sorry. Well, use your own judgment, daughter."

  "I'm sure Donald will understand," she assured him. "And he will notthink the less of us for doing it."

  She got up and went to the peculiar and wholly impractical little deskwhich Mrs. McKaye had picked up in Italy and which Donald, calm in theknowledge that his mother would never use it or miss it, had given herto help furnish the house when first they had come to the SawdustPile. On a leaf torn from a tablet, she wrote:

  THE SAWDUST PILE, Saturday Afternoon.

  DEAR DONALD:

  I had planned to reserve my thanks for the books and the candy until you called for dinner to-morrow. Now, I have decided that it will be better for you not to come to dinner to-morrow, although this decision has not been made without father and me being sensible of a keen feeling of disappointment. We had planned to sacrifice an old hen that has outlived her margin of profit, hoping that, with the admixture of a pinch of saleratus, she would prove tender enough to tempt the appetite of a lumberjack, but, upon sober second thought, it seems the part of wisdom to let her live.

  We honor and respect you, Dona
ld. You are so very dear to us that we wish to cherish always your good opinion of us; we want everybody in Port Agnew to think of you as we do. People will misunderstand and misconstrue your loyalty to the old friends of your boyhood if you dare admit your friendship. Indeed, some have already done so. I thank you for the books and the candy, but with all my heart I am grateful to you for a gift infinitely more precious but which is too valuable for me to accept. I shall have to treasure it at a distance. Sometimes, at colors, you might wave to

  Your old friend,

  NAN BRENT.

  Her letter completed, she sealed it in a plain white envelop, afterwhich she changed into her best dress and shoes and departed up-town.

  Straight to the mill office of the Tyee Lumber Company she went, herappearance outside the railing in the general office being the signalfor many a curious and speculative glance from the girls and young menat work therein. One of the former, with whom Nan had attended highschool, came over to the railing and, without extending a greeting,either of word or smile, asked, in businesslike tones,

  "Whom do you wish to see?"

  In direct contrast with this cool salutation, Nan inclined her headgraciously and smilingly said:

  "Why, how do you do, Hetty? I wonder if I might be permitted a minuteof Mr. Daney's time."

  "I'll see," Hetty replied, secretly furious in the knowledge that shehad been serenely rebuked, and immediately disappeared in the generalmanager's office. A moment later, she emerged. "Mr. Daney will seeyou, Miss Brent," she announced. "First door to your right. Go rightin."

  "Thank you very much, Hetty."

  Andrew Daney, seated at a desk, stood up as she entered.

  "How do you do, Nan?" he greeted her, with masculine cordiality, andset out a chair. "Please be seated and tell me what I can do to obligeyou."

  A swift scrutiny of the private office convinced her that they werealone; so she advanced to the desk and laid upon it the letter she hadaddressed to Donald McKaye.

  "I would be grateful, Mr. Daney, if you would see that Mr. DonaldMcKaye receives this letter when he comes in from the woods to-night,"she replied. Daney was frankly amazed.

  "Bless my soul," he blurted, "why do you entrust me with it? Would itnot have been far simpler to have mailed it?"

  "Not at all, Mr. Daney. In the first place, the necessity for writingit only developed an hour ago, and in order to be quite certain Mr.McKaye would receive it this evening, I would have had to place aspecial-delivery stamp upon it. I did not have a special-deliverystamp; so, in order to get one, I would have had to go to thepost-office and buy it. And the instant I did that, the girl on dutyat the stamp-window would have gone to the mail-chute to get theletter and read the address. So I concluded it would be far moresimple and safe to entrust my letter to you. Moreover," she added, "Isave ten cents."

  "I am very greatly obliged to you, Nan," Daney answered soberly. "Youdid exactly right," Had she conferred upon him a distinct personalfavor, his expression of obligation could not have been more sincere.He took a large envelop of the Tyee Lumber Company, wrote Donald'sname upon it, enclosed Nan's letter in this large envelop, and sealedit with a mighty blow of his fist. "Now then," he declared, "whatpeople do not know will not trouble them. After you go, I'll placethis envelop in Don's mail-box in the outer office. I think weunderstand each other," he added shrewdly.

  "I think we do, Mr. Daney."

  "Splendid fellow, young Donald! Thundering fine boy!"

  "I agree with you, Mr. Daney. If Donald has a fault, it is hisexcessive democracy and loyalty to his friends. Thank you so much, Mr.Daney. Good-afternoon."

  "Not at all--not at all! All this is quite confidential, of course,otherwise you would not be here." He bowed her to the door, opened itfor her, and bowed again as she passed him. When she had gone, hesummoned the young lady whom Nan had addressed as "Hetty."

  "Miss Fairchaild," he said, "'phone the local sales-office and tellthem to deliver a load of fire-wood to the Brent house at the SawdustPile."

  Two minutes later, the entire office force knew that Nan Brent hadcalled to order a load of fire-wood, and once more the world saggedinto the doldrums.