They were tired and ravenously hungry; but their happiness of soul was keener even than any physical sensation, and they sat leaning upon their elbows and gazing across the table, reading the wonder in each other's eyes.
"It has been a year since we parted!" whispered Cory-don.
"Just a year!" he said. "It seems like ten of them."
"And do you remember, Thyrsis, how we prayed! How we prayed for this very hour!"
He took her hands in his. Once more they renewed their pledges of devotion; once more the vision of their hopes unrolled before them. "From now on," he whispered, "our life is our own! We can make it whatever we will. Let us make it something beautiful."
And so there they made a compact. They would speak no more of the year that was past; it was a bad dream, and now it was gone. Let it be swept from their thoughts, and let them go on to make the future what they desired it to be.
BOOK XII THE TREADMILL
They sat in the little cabin, where she had been reading some lines from the poem again —
"0 easy access to the hearer's grace
When Dorian shepherds sang to Proserpine!"
"Ah, yes!" he said. "But our lot was cast in a different time."
She put her hand upon his. "Even so" she said; and then turned the page, and read once more —
..
What though the music of thy rustic flute Kept not for long its happy, country tone; Lost it too soon, and learnt a stormy note Of men contention-tost, of men who groan,
Which task'd thy pipe too sore, and tired thy
throat —
It failed, and thou wast mute! Yet hadst thou always visions of our light!"
§ 1. T he mise-en-scene of their new adventure in domesticity was a tent eighteen feet by twelve; but as the side-walls were low, they could walk only in the centre, and must range their belongings at the sides. To the left, as one entered the tent, there stood a soapbox with a tiny oil-stove upon it; and then a stand, made out of a packing-box, to hold their dishes, their cooking-utensils and their limited supply of provisions. Next down the line came a trunk, and in the corner the baby's crib —which had been outgrown by the farmer's children, and purchased by Thyrsis for a dollar. At the rear was a folding-table, and above it a board from which Corydon hung her clothing; along the other wall were her canvas cot, and a little stand with some books, and a wash-stand and another trunk.
Some distance off in the woods stood a second tent, seven feet square, in which Thyrsis had a cot for himself, and also a canvas-chair in which he .sat to receive the visits of his muse. They got their drinking water from a spring near by; there was a tiny stream beside the tent which provided their washing-water. In this stream Thyrsis hollowed out a flat basin, in which they might set their butter-crock, and a pail of milk, and a larger pail that held their meat. Below that was a deeper pool from which they dipped water, and lower yet a third pool, with a board on which Corydon might sit and wash diapers, to her heart's content and her back's exhaustion.
The tent had been old when Thyrsis got it, and as
this was the third season he had used it, it was dark and dun of hue. They had not noticed this at the outset, as they had put it up on a bright, sunshiny day, and also before the trees had put out all their foliage. But now, when rain came, they found that they had to light a lamp in order to read in the tent; and, of course, it was on rainy days that they had to be inside. Thyrsis did not realize the influence which this tent had upon his wife's spirits; it was only after he saw "her made physically ill by having to live in a room with yellow wall-paper, that he came to understand the power which her surroundings had over Corydon.
If they *so much as touched a finger to the roof of the tent while it was raining, a steady dripping would come through at that point. Then, as the rains grew heavier, water took to running down the pole that stood in the centre of the tent, and formed a pool in the middle of the floor, so that Thyrsis had to get the axe and cut a hole there. And, of course, there was no way to dry anything; the woods, which were low, were turned into a swamp, and one's shoes became caked with mud, and there was no keeping the tent-floor clean.
In this place they had to keep an nble-bodied, year-and-a-half-old baby! There was no other place to keep him. He could not be allowed on the damp floor, nor where he could touch the top of the tent; so Thyrsis set up sticks at all four corners of his crib, and tied strong twine about them, making a little pen; and therein they put the baby, and therein he had to stay. He had his rattle and his rubber-doll and his blocks and the rest of his gim-cracks; and after he had howled long enough to satisfy himself that there was no deliverance from his prison, he settled back and accepted his tragic fate. There came occasions when Corydon
was sick, and unable to move; then Thyrsis would put up his umbrella and take Cedric to his own tent, where he would draw a chalk-line across the floor. One-half of the forty-nine square feet of space was his, and in it he would sit and read and study; in the other half the baby would play. After long experience he came to realize that at such times Papa would not pay any attention to him, and that crossing the chalk-line involved getting one's "mungies" spanked.
There were other troubles that fell upon them. At first, it being April, it was cold at night; and they had no stove, and no room for a stove. Later on the ceaseless rains brought a plague of mosquitoes; and so Thyrsis had to rig up a triangular door and cover the entrance to the tent with netting; and when the weather grew better, he had to get more netting and construct a little house, in which the baby could play outdoors.. And then there had to be more spankings of "mungies", to teach the infant that this mysterious mosquito-bar must not be walked through, nor pulled at, nor poked with sticks, nor even eaten.
They prayed for fair days, and a little sunshine; and it seemed as if the weather-demons had discovered this, and were playing with them. There would come a bright morning, and they would spread a rug in the baby's cage, and hang out all their damp belongings to dry; and then would come a sudden shower, and baby and rug and belongings would all have to pile back into the tent. And then it would clear again, and everything would go out once more; and they would prepare dinner, and be comfortably settled to eat, when it would begin to sprinkle again. They would move in the clothing and the baby, and when it began to rain harder, they would move in
the table and the food; and forthwith the rain would cease. Because it was poor fun eating in a dark tent by lamp-light, amid the odor of gas-stove and cooking, they might move out once more—but only to repeat the same experience over again.
For six weeks after their arrival there was not a day without rain, and it would rain sometimes for half a week without ceasing. So everything they owned became damp and mouldy—all their clothing, their food, the very beds upon which they slept. One of their miseries was the lack of place to keep things; all their odds and ends had to be stowed away under the cots —where one might find clothing, and books, and manuscripts, and a hammock, and an umbrella, and some shoes, and a box of prunes, and a sack of potatoes, and half a ham. When water got in at the sides of the tent and wet all these objects, and the bedclothing hung over the floor and got into them, it was trying to the temper to have to rummage there.
•§ 2. BEFORE she left the city Corydon had taken the baby to consult a famous "child-specialist"—at five dollars per consultation; she had received the dreadful tidings that Cedric was threatened with the "rickets". So she had come out to the country with one mighty purpose in her soul. "Under-nourishment", the doctor had said; and he had laid out a regular schedule. Six times daily the unhappy infant was to be fed; and each time some elaborate concoction had to be got ready— practically nothing could be eaten in a state of nature. The first meal would consist of, say a poached egg on a piece of toast, and the juice of an orange, with the seeds carefully excluded; the next of some chicken broth with a cracker or two, and the pulp of prunes