Miss Primrose: A Novel

III

A POET OF GRASSY FORD

The lesser Primrose was a poet. It was believed in Grassy Ford, though the grounds seem vague enough now that I come to think of them, that he published widely in the literary journals of the day. Letitia was seen to post large envelopes, and anon to draw large envelopes from the post-office and hasten home with them. The former were supposed to contain poems; the latter, checks. Be that as it may, I never saw the Primrose name in print save in our Grassy Ford Weekly Gazette. There, when gossip lagged, you would find it frequently in a quiet upper corner, set "solid," under the caption "Gems" – a terse distinction from the other bright matters with which our journal shone, and further emphasized by the Gothic capitals set in a scroll of stars. Thus modestly, I believe, were published for the first time – and I fear the last – David Buckleton Primrose's "Agamemnon," "Ode to Jupiter," "Ulysses's Farewell," "Lines on Rereading Dante," "November: an Elegy Written in the Autumn of Life," as well as those stirring bugle-calls, "To Arms!" "John Brown," and "The Guns of Sumter," and those souvenirs of more playful tender moods, "To a Lady," "When I was a Rugby Lad," "Thanksgiving Pies," and "Lines Written in a Young Lady's Album on her Fifteenth Birthday." Now that young lady was Letitia, I chance to know, for I have seen the verses in her school-girl album, a little leathern Christmas thing stamped with forget-me-nots now faded, and there they stand just opposite some school-mate's doggerel of "roses red and violets blue" signed Johnny Gray. The lines begin, I remember:

and they are written in a flourished, old-fashioned hand. These and every other line her father dreamed there in his chair Letitia treasures in a yellow scrap-book made of an odd volume of Rhode Island statutes for 18 – . There, one by one, as he wrote them, or cut them with trembling fingers from the fresh, ink-scented Gazette– "Gems," scroll and all, and with date attached – she set them neatly in with home-made paste, pressing flat each precious flower of his muse with her loving fingers.

Editor Butters used to tell me of the soft-eyed girl, "with virtue in her modest glance," slipping suddenly into his print-shop, preferably after dusk had fallen, and of the well-known envelope rising from some sacred folds, he never quite knew where, to be laid tremblingly upon his desk.

"Something from father, sir."

It was a faint voice, often a little husky, and then a smile, a bow, and she had fled.

Editor Nathaniel Butters had a weakness of the heart for all tender things – a weakness "under oath," however, as he once replied when I charged him with it, and as I knew, for I myself heard him one summer afternoon, as he sat, shirt-sleeved and pipe in mouth, perched on a stool, and setting type hard by a window where I stood beneath fishing with a dogwood wand.

"The-oc-ri-tus! Humpf! Now, who in thunder cares a tinker's damn for Theocritus, in Grassy Ford? Some old Greek god, I suppose, who died and went to the devil; and here's a parson – a Christian parson who ought to know better – writing an ode to him, for Hank Myers to read, and Jim Gowdy, and Old Man Flynn. And I don't get a cent for it, not a blank cent, Sam – well, he doesn't either, for that matter – but it's all tommy-rot, and here I've got to sweat, putting in capitals where they don't belong and hopping down to the darned old dictionary every five minutes to see if he's right – Sam [turning to his printer] there's some folks think it's just heaven to be a country editor, but I'll be – "

He was a rough, white-bearded, little, round, fat man, who showed me type-lice, I remember (the first and only time I ever saw the vermin), and roared when I wiped my eyes, though I've forgiven him. He was good to Letitia in an hour of need.

Dr. Primrose, it seems, had written his masterpiece, a solemn, Dr. Johnsonian thing which he named "Jerusalem," and reaching, so old man Butters told me once, chuckling, "from Friday evening to Saturday night." The muse had granted him a longer candle than it was her wont to lend, and Letitia trembled for that sacred fire.

"Print it, child? Of course he'll print it. It's the finest thing I ever did!"

"True, father, but its length – "

"Not longer than Milton's 'Lycidas,' my dear."

"I know, but – he's so – he looks so fierce, father." She laughed nervously.

"Who? Butters?"

"Yes."

"Tut! Butters has brains enough – "

"It isn't his brains," replied Letitia. "It's his whiskers, father."

"Whiskers?"

"Yes; they bristle so."

"Don't be foolish, child. Butters has brains enough to know it is worth the printing. Worth the printing!" he cried, with irony. "Yes, even though it isn't dialect."

Dialect was then in vogue; no Grassy Ford, however small, in those days, but had its Rhyming Robin who fondly imagined that he might be another Burns.

"Dialect!" the doctor repeated, scornfully, his eyes roving to the shabby ancients on his shelves. "Bring me Horace – that's a good girl. No – yes." His hand lingered over hers that offered him the book. "Child," he said, looking her keenly in the eyes, "do you find it so hard to brave that lion?"

"Oh no, father. I didn't mean I was afraid, only he's so – woolly. You can hardly make out his eyes, and fire sputters through his old spectacles. I think he never combs his hair."

"Does he ever grumble at you?"

"Oh no" – and here she laughed – "that is, I never give him time; I run away."

The old poet made no reply to her, but went on holding that soft little hand with the Horace in it, and gazing thoughtfully at his daughter's face.

"We can send it by mail," he said at last.

That roused Letitia.

"Oh, not at all!" she cried. "Why, I'm proud to take it, father. Mr. Butters isn't so dreadful – if he is fuzzy. I'm sure he'll print it. There was that letter from Mr. Banks last week, a column long, on carrots."

He smiled dryly at her over his opened book.

"If only my 'Jerusalem' were artichokes instead of Saracens!" he said.

The fuzzy one was in his lair, proof-reading at his unkempt desk. The floor was littered at his feet. He was smoking a black tobacco in a blacker pipe. He wore no coat, no cuffs, and his sleeves were – um; it does not matter. He glared ("carnivorously," Letitia tells me) at the opening door.

"Evening," he said, and waited; but the envelope did not arise. So he rose himself, offering a seat in the midst of his clutter, a plain, pine, rope-mended chair, from which he pawed soiled sheets of copy and tattered exchanges that she might sit.

"Looks some like snow," he said.

"Yes," she assented. "I called, Mr. Butters – "

She paused uncertainly. It was her own voice that had disconcerted her, it was so tremulous.

"Another poem, I suppose," he said, fondly imagining that he had softened his voice to a tone of gallantry, but succeeding no better than might be expected of speech so hedged, so beset and baffled, so veritably bearded in its earward flight.

"You – you mentioned snow, I think," stammered Letitia. He had frightened her away, or she may have drawn back, half-divining, even in embarrassment, that the other, the more round-about, the snowy path, was the better way to approach her theme.

"Snow and east winds are the predictions, I believe, Miss Primrose."

"I dread the winter – don't you?" she ventured.

"No," he replied. "I like it."

"That's because you are – "

"Because I'm so fat, you mean."

"Oh no, Mr. Butters, I didn't even think of that; I meant so – "

And then – heavens! – it flashed across her that she had meant "woolly"! To save her soul she could think of no synonyme. Her cheeks turned red.

"I meant – why, of course, I meant – you're so well prepared."

"Well prepared," he grumbled.

"Why, yes, you – men can wear beards, you know."

"Egad! you're right," he roared. "You're right, Miss Primrose. I am well mufflered, that's a fact."

"But, really, it must be a great assistance, Mr. Butters."

"Oh yes; it is – and it saves neckties."

And this, mark you, was the way to Poetry! Poor Letitia, with the manuscript hidden beneath her cloak, was all astray. The image of the poet with Horace in his lap rose before her and rebuked her. She was tempted to disclose her mission, dutifully, there and then.

"How is Mrs. Butters?" she inquired instead.

"About as well as common, which is to say, poorly – very poorly, thank you."

"Oh, I'm sorry."

Editor Butters seemed downcast.

"She's tried everything," he said. "Even had a pocket made in her gown to hold a potato and a horse-chestnut – but this rheumatism does beat all, I tell you. How's the old gentleman?"

"The doctor says he will never walk."

"Yes, so I heard," muttered the editor. "It's a damned shame."

He was fumbling with his proofs and did not see her face – yet, after all, she could feel the sympathy even in his rudeness.

"Still hatching poems, I suppose?"

Her heart, which had warmed even as her cheeks had colored at his other words, grew cold at these. What manner of toil it was that brought forth things so pure and beautiful in her sight, what labor of love and travail of spirit it was to him, she alone would ever know who watched beside him, seeing his life thus ebbing, dream by dream. She sat silent, crumpling those precious pages in her hands.

"Well," Butters went on, gruffly, clearing his throat, "he's a good hand at it." He was not looking at Letitia, but kept his eyes upon a ring of keys with which he played nervously; and now when he spoke it was more spasmodically, as if reluctant to broach some matter for which, however, he felt the time had come. "Yes, he's a good hand at it. Used to be even better than he is now – but that's natural. I wish, though – you'd just suggest when it comes handy – just in a quiet sort of way, you know – some day when you get the chance – that he's getting just a leetle bit – you can say it better than I can – but I mean long-winded for the Gazette. It's natural, of course, but you see – you see, Miss Primrose, if we print one long-winded piece, you know – you can see for yourself – why, every other poet in Grassy Ford starts firing epics at us, which is natural, of course, but – hard on me. And if I refuse 'em, why, then, they just naturally up and say, 'Well, you printed Primrose's; why not mine?' and there they have you – there they have you right by the – yes, sir, there they have you; and there's the devil to pay. Like as not they get mad then and stop their papers, which they don't pay for – and that's natural, too, only it causes feeling and doesn't do me any good, or your father either."

"But, Mr. Butters, you printed Mr. Banks's letter on carrots, and that was – "

The editor fairly leaped in his chair.

"There, you have it!" he cried. "Just what I said! There's that confounded letter of Jim Banks's, column-long on carrots, a-staring me in the face from now till kingdom come when any other idiot wants to print something a column long. Just what I say, Miss Primrose; but you must remember that the readers of the Gazette do raise carrots, and they don't raise – well, now, for instance, and not to be mean or personal at all, Miss Primrose – not at all – they don't raise Agamemnons or Theocrituses. I suppose I should say Theocriti – singular, Theocritus; plural, Theocriti. No, sir, they don't raise Theocriti – which is natural, of course, and reminds me – while we are on the subject – reminds me, Miss Primrose, that I've been thinking – or wondering – in fact, I've been going to ask you for some time back, only I never just got the chance – ask you if you wouldn't – just kind of speak to your father, to kind of induce him, you know, to – to write on – about – well, about livelier things. You see, Miss Primrose, it's natural, of course, for scholars to write about things that are dead and gone. They wouldn't be scholars if they wrote what other people knew about. That's only natural. Still – still, Miss Primrose, if the old gentleman could just give us a poem or two on the – well, the issues of the day, you know – oh, he's a good writer, Miss Primrose! Mind, I'm not saying a word – not a word – against that. I'd be the last – Good God, what's the matter, girl! What have I done? Oh, I say now, that's too bad – that's too bad, girlie. Come, don't do that – don't – Why, if I'd a-known – "

Letitia, "Jerusalem" crushed in her right hand, had buried her face among the proof-sheets on his desk. Woolier than ever in his bewilderment, the editor rose – sat – rose again – patted gingerly (he had never had a daughter), patted Letitia's shaking shoulders and strove to soothe her with the only words at his command: "Oh, now, I say – I – why, say, if I'd a-known" – till Letitia raised her dripping face.

"You m-mustn't mind, Mr. B-Butters," she said, smiling through her tears.

"Why, say, Miss Primrose, if I'd a-dreamed – "

"It's all my f-fault, Mr. B-Butters."

"Damn it, no! It's mine. It's mine, I tell you. I might a-known you'd think I was criticising your father."

"Oh, it's not that exactly, Mr. Butters, but you see – "

She put her hair out of her eyes and smoothed the manuscript.

"Egad! I see; you had one of the old gentleman's – "

Letitia nodded.

"Egad!" he cried again. "Let's see, Miss Primrose."

"Oh, there isn't the slightest use," she said. "It's too long, Mr. Butters."

"No, no. Let's have a look at it."

"No," she answered. "No, it's altogether too long, Mr. Butters."

"But let's have a look at it."

She hesitated. His hand was waiting; but she shook her head.

"No. It's the longest poem he ever wrote, Mr. Butters. It's his masterpiece."

"By George! let's see it, then. Let's see it."

"Why, it's as long, Mr. Butters – it's as long as 'Lycidas.'"

"Long as – hm!" he replied. "Still – still, Miss Primrose," he added, cheerfully, "that isn't so long when you come to think of it."

"But that's not all," Letitia said. "It's about – it's called – oh, you'll never print it, Mr. Butters!"

She rose with the poem in her hand.

"Print it!" cried Butters. "Why, of course I'll print it. I'll print it if every cussed poet in Grassy – "

"Oh, will you, Mr. Butters?"

"Will I? Of course I will."

He took it from her unresisting fingers.

"Je-ru-sa-lem!" he cried, fluttering the twenty pages.

"Yes," she said, "that's – that's the name of it, Mr. Butters," and straightway set herself to rights again.

IV

THE SEVENTH SLICE

It was the editor himself who told me the story years afterwards – Butters of "The Pide Bull," as he ever afterwards called his shop, for in her gratitude Letitia had pointed out to him how natural it was that he of all men should be the patron of poets, since beyond a doubt, she averred, he was descended from that very Nathaniel Butter for whom was printed the first quarto edition of King Lear. Indeed, with the proofs of "Jerusalem" she brought him the doctor's Shakespeare, and showed him in the preface to the tragedy the record of an antique title-page bearing these very words:

"Printed for Nathaniel Butter, and are to be sold at his shop in Paul's Churchyard at the signe of the Pide Bull neere St. Austin's Gate, 1608."

"Egad!" said Butters, "I never heard that before. Well, well, well, well."

"I think there is no doubt, Mr. Butters," said Letitia, "that he was your ancestor."

"You don't say so," mumbled the delighted editor. "Shouldn't wonder. Shouldn't wonder now at all. I believe there was an 's' tacked on our name, some time or other, now that I come to think of it, and printer's ink always did run in the Butters blood, by George!"

He even meditated hanging up a sign with a pied bull upon it – or so he said – but rejected the plan as too Old English for Grassy Ford. He never ceased, however, to refer to "my old cousin – Shakespeare's publisher, you know," and in the occasional dramatic criticisms that embellished the columns of the Gazette, all plays presented at our Grand Opera-House in the Odd Fellow's Block were compared, somehow, willy-nilly, to King Lear.

Butters of "The Pide Bull," I say, first told me how that young Crusader with the tear-wet face had delivered "Jerusalem," saving it from the stern fate which had awaited it and setting it proudly among the immortal "Gems." Then I sought Letitia, whose briefer, more reluctant version filled in wide chinks in the Butters narrative, while my knowledge of them both, of their modesty and their tender-heartedness, filled in the others, making the tale complete.

I was too young when the poet wrote his masterpiece to know or care about it, or how it found its way to the wondering world of Grassy Ford – nay, to the whole round world as well, "two hemispheres," as old man Butters used to remind me with offended pride in his voice, which had grown gruffer with his years. Did he not send Gazettes weekly, he would ask, to Mrs. Ann Bowers's eldest son, a Methodist missionary in the Congo wilds, and to "that woman in Asia"? He referred to a Grassy Ford belle of other days who had married a tea-merchant and lived in Chong-Chong.

Who knows what befell the edition of that memorable Gazette which contained "Jerusalem," set solid, a mighty column of Alexandrine lines? One summer's afternoon, tramping in an Adirondack wilderness, I came by chance upon the blackened ashes of a fire, and sitting meditatively upon a near-by log, poking the leaf-strewn earth with my stick, I unearthed a yellow, half-burned corner of an old newspaper, and, idly lifting it to read, found it a fragment of some Australian Times. Still more recently, when my aunt Matilda, waxing wroth at the settling floors of her witch-colonial house in Bedfordtown, had them torn up to lay down new ones, the carpenters unearthed an old rat's nest built partially of a New York Tribune with despatches from the field of Gettysburg.

"Sneer not at the power of the press," old man Butters used to say, stuffing the bowl of his black pipe from my tobacco-jar and casting the match into my wife's card-tray. "Who knows, my boy? Davy Primrose's 'Jerusalem' may turn up yet."

It is something to ponder now how all those years that I played away, Letitia, of whom I thought then only as the young lady who lived next door and occasional confidante of my idle hours, was slaving with pretty hands and puzzling her fair young mind to bring both ends together in decent comfort for that poor dependent one. Yet she does not sigh, this gray Letitia among the petunias, when she talks of those by-gone days, but is always smiling back with me some happy memory.

"You were the funniest boy, Bertram," she tells me, "always making believe that it was old England in Grassy Ford, and that you were Robin Hood or Lord Somebody or Earl Somebody Else. How father used to laugh at you! He said it was a pity you would never be knighted, and once he drew for you your escutcheon – you don't remember? Well, it had three books upon it —Tom Brown's School-days, Tales of a Grandfather, and the Morte d'Arthur."

Then I remind her that Robin Saxeholm was half to blame for my early failure as an American. He was a Devonshire lad; he had been a Harrow boy, and was a Cambridge man when he came, one summer of my boyhood, to Grassy Ford to visit the Primroses. His father had been the doctor's dearest friend when they were boys together in Devonshire, and when young Robin's five-feet-eleven filled up the poet's doorway, Letitia tells me, the tears ran down the doctor's cheeks and he held out both his arms to him:

"Robin Saxeholm! – you young Devon oak, you – tell me, does the Dart still run?"

"He does, sir!" cried the young Englishman, speaking, Letitia says, quite in the Devon manner, for those who dwell upon the banks of that famous river find, it seems, something too human in its temper and changeful moods to speak of it in the neuter way.

They sat an hour together, the poet and his old friend's son, before Letitia could show the guest to the room she had prepared for him.

That was a summer!

Robin taught me a kind of back-yard, two-old-cat cricket with a bat fashioned by his own big hands. Sometimes Letitia joined us, and the doctor watched us from his chair rolled out upon the garden walk, applauding each mighty play decorously, in the English fashion, with clapping hands. Robin Goodfellow, the doctor called our captain, "though a precious large one, I'll be bound," he said. Letitia called him Mr. Saxeholm, first – then Mr. Robin, and sometimes, laughingly, Mr. Bobbin – then Robin. I called him Mr. Bob.

I made up my mind to one thing then and there: I should be happier when I grew old enough to wear white cricket flannels and a white hat like Mr. Bob's, and I hoped, and prayed too on my knees, that my skin would be as clear and pinkish – yes, and my hair as red. Alas! I had begun all wrong: I was a little beast of a brunette.

I taught Mr. Bob baseball, showed him each hill and dale, each whimpering brook of Grassy Ford, and fished with him among the lilies in shady pools while he smoked his pipe and told me of Cambridge and Harrow-on-the-Hill and the vales of Devon. He had lived once, so he told me, next door to a castle, though it did not resemble Warwick or Kenilworth in the least.

"It was just a cah-sle," said Mr. Bob, in his funny way.

"With a moat, Mr. Bob?"

"Oh yes, a moat, I dare say – but dry, you know."

"And a drawbridge, Mr. Bob?"

"Well, no – not precisely; at any rate, you couldn't draw it up."

"But a portcullis, I'll bet, Mr. Bob?"

"Well – I cahn't say as to that, I'm sure, Bertram."

He had lived next door to a castle, mind you, and did not know if it had a portcullis! He had never even looked to see! He had never even asked! Still, Mr. Bob was a languid fellow, Bertram Weatherby was bound to admit, even in speech, and drawled out the oddest words sometimes, talking of "trams" and "guards" and "luggage-vans," which did seem queer in a college man, though Bertram remembered he was not a Senior and doubtless would improve his English in due time. Indeed, he helped him, according to his light, and the credit is the boy's that the young Britisher, after a single summer in Grassy Ford, could write from Cambridge to Letitia: "I guess I will never forget the folks in Grassy Ford! Remember me to the little kid, my quondam guide, philosopher, and friend."