sat down, caught her in his arms, drew her to his knee, and held her close.
"You ain't going to scold?" she asked wonderingly.
He shook his head. He couldn't say any more just then; but when his tears touched her face she seemed to understand and to be content.
So, while the boy slept, they waited together for someone to take Joe's place.
FOOTNOTES:
[6] Copyright, 1920, by The Metropolitan Magazine Company. Copyright, 1921, by Charles Wadsworth Camp.
THE PARTING GENIUS[7]
By HELEN COALE CREW
From The Midland
"The parting genius is with sighing sent." Milton's Hymn on the Nativity.
It was high noon, blue and hot. The little town upon the southern slope of the hills that shut in the great plain glared white in the intense sunlight. The beds of the brooks in the valleys that cut their way through the hill-clefts were dry and dusty; and the sole shade visible lay upon the orchard floors, where the thick branches above cast blue-black shadows upon the golden tangle of grasses at their feet. A soft murmur of hidden creature-things rose like an invisible haze from earth, and nothing moved in all the horizon save the black kites high in the blue air and the white butterflies over the drowsy meadows. The poppies that flecked the yellow wheat fields drooped heavily, spilling the wine of summer from their cups. Nature stood at drowsy-footed pause, reluctant to take up again the vital whirr of living.
At the edge of the orchard, near the dusty highway, under a huge misshapen olive tree sat a boy, still as a carven Buddha save that his eyes stood wide, full of dreams. His was a sensitive face, thoughtful beyond his childish years, full of weariness when from time to time he closed his eyes, full of dark brooding when the lids lifted again. Presently he rose to his feet, and his two hands clenched tightly into fists.
"I hate it!" he muttered vehemently.
At his side the grasses stirred and a portion of the blue shadow of the tree detached itself and became the shadow of a man.
"Hate?" questioned a golden, care-free voice at his side. "Thou'rt overyoung to hate. What is it thou dost hate?"
A young man had thrown himself down in the grass at the boy's side. Shaggy locks hung about his brown cheeks; his broad, supple chest and shoulders were bare; his eyes were full of sleepy laughter; and his indolent face was now beautiful, now grotesque, at the color of his thoughts. From a leathern thong about his neck hung a reed pipe, deftly fashioned, and a bowl of wood carved about with grape-bunches dangled from the twisted vine which girdled his waist. In one hand he held a honey-comb, into which he bit with sharp white teeth, and on one arm he carried branches torn from fig and almond trees, clustered with green figs and with nuts. The two looked long at each other, the boy gravely, the man smiling.
"Thou wilt know me another time," said the man with a throaty laugh. "And I shall know thee. I have been watching thee a long time—I know not why. But what is it thou dost hate? For me, I hate nothing. Hate is wearisome."
The boy's gaze fixed itself upon the bright, insouciant face of the man with a fascination he endeavored to throw off but could not. Presently he spoke, and his voice was low and clear and deliberate.
"Hate is evil," he said.
"I know not what evil may be," said the man, a puzzled frown furrowing the smooth brow for a swift moment. "Hunger, now, or lust, or sleep—"
"Hate is the thing that comes up in my throat and chokes me when I think of tyranny," interrupted the boy, his eyes darkening.
"Why trouble to hate?" asked the man. He lifted his pipe to his lips and blew a joyous succession of swift, unhesitant notes, as throbbing as the heat, as vivid as the sunshine. His lithe throat bubbled and strained with his effort, and his warm vitality poured through the mouthpiece of the pipe and issued melodiously at the farther end. Noon deepened through many shades of hot and slumberous splendor, the very silence intensified by the brilliant pageant of sound. A great hawk at sail overhead hung suddenly motionless upon unquivering wings. Every sheep in the pasture across the road lifted a questioning nose, and the entire flock moved swiftly nearer on a sudden impulse. And then the man threw down his pipe, and the silence closed in softly upon the ebbing waves of sound.
"Why trouble to hate?" he asked again, and sank his shoulder deeper into the warm grass. His voice was as sleepy as the drone of distant bees, and his dream-filmed eyes looked out through drooping lids. "I hate nothing. It takes effort. It is easier to feel friendly with all things—creatures, and men, and gods."
"I hate with a purpose," said the child, his eyes fixed, and brooding upon an inward vision. The man rose upon his elbow and gazed curiously at the boy, but the latter, unheeding, went on with his thoughts. "Some day I shall be a man, and then I shall kill tyranny. Aye, kill! It is tyranny that I hate. And hatred I hate; and oppression. But how I shall go about to kill them, that I do not yet know. I think and think, but I have not yet thought of a way."
"If," said the man, "thou could'st love as royally as thou could'st hate, what a lover thou would'st become! For me, I love but lightly, and hate not at all, yet have I been a man for aeons. How near art thou to manhood?"
"I have lived nearly twelve years."
Like a flash the man leaped to his feet and turned his face westward towards the sea with outstretched arms, and a look and gesture of utter yearning gave poignancy and spirit to the careless, sleepy grace of his face and figure. He seized the boy's arm. "See now," he cried, his voice trembling upon the verge of music, "it is nearly twelve years that I have been a wanderer, shorn of my strength and my glory! Look you, boy, at the line of hills yonder. Behind those hills lie the blue sea-ridges, and still beyond, lies the land where I dwelt. Ye gods, the happy country!" Like a great child he stood, and his breast broke into sobs, but his eyes glowed with splendid visions. "Apollo's golden shafts could scarce penetrate the shadowy groves, and Diana's silver arrows pierced only the tossing treetops. And underfoot the crocus flamed, and the hyacinth. Flocks and herds fed in pastures rosy with blossoms, and there were white altars warm with flame in every thicket. There were dances, and mad revels, and love and laughter"—he paused, and the splendor died from his face. "And then one starry night—still and clear it was, and white with frost—fear stalked into the happy haunts, and an ontreading mystery, benign yet dreadful. And something, I know not what, drove me forth. Aie! Aie! There is but the moaning of doves when the glad hymns sounded, and cold ashes and dead drifted leaves on the once warm altars!"
A sharp pull at his tunic brought his thoughts back to the
