The Heart's Kingdom

y spring moonlight around us, and talked garden until after ten o'clock. He was brilliant

ted both the cosmopolitan and the insular interest with astonishing equity, and I told him that I considered that it took at least six generations of insular mind culture to see any kind of national equity. The same thing holds good with a garden. It takes the sixth generation on a piece of land to produce a garden, and then it has to be laid out around a library full of the ide

her's candle until the white wool above shone like a halo as it appeared from out the gloom. And I sat and watche

years, but which I had not seen him carry before since I came home. "And that's how you help him fight to come back," I arraigned myself with bitter scorn. "You have no faith nor sp

gossamer mist. Above, I heard father pacing up and down his rooms, slowly, almost feebly. Sometimes he would hesitate; then I would hear him stop beside the window, where I knew the ice bowl and the decanter were placed upon a table which had stood beside the

rough the dark dining room groping pitifully, and down the side steps out into the beloved garden. Silently I watched the tall figure with the white hair silvered radiantly by the moonligh

of fear pursuing me, while also something of the Methodist grandmo

he swung the long handle, each blow upon the soft earth became more decided. I crept down behind the old snowball bush to be nearer him; I didn't dare go to him in his fight, because I had in my selfish heedlessness brought it all on, but in a little while he was not alone, for a bent old figure with grizzled white wool sticking out from unde

u and rub you down so as you'll sleep like a bug in a rug," the staunch old comrade crooned

ignity and command come back into his voice. "Put both those hoes in the tool hou

e tool house under the back steps, deposited the garden implements where he was directed, and

sped hands. As I sat there alone, with the dark house yawning behind me in its emptiness, someone sat down

e dumplings and the hard sauce,"

iously offered in return for that about the apple dumplings. "But I'd pay fifty dollars for a tenth row seat to hear you sing Tristan in the Metropolitan any day if I had to go hungry for a we

Mother Spurlock for the Children's Day Picnic. And it'll be a b

la ice cream to boot,"

is great gold head until his face was just off my left shoulder, and in his powerful, rich, fascinating voice, which he muted down in a way that made it sound as if he were singing through a golden c

ed, as I seized his wrist in my s

held on desperately to his wrist. I felt that I must be comforted. And I was! Again the gentle fingers were laid over mine for a st

chanted, and then waited while my sobs died aw

rit down,' as she describes those gymnastics to me. I hate you and I hate my friends for indulging in religion, because it is just as 'potent an agent of intoxication' as exists to-day, and it blinds us to the need of work along scientific lines for the immedia

you combine the two the eyes of your soul are open, whereas they had been closed. Nobody can tell you about it, but you begin really to live when you see and comprehend. Yes, it is going to take

nd who does not believe as you do, st

and on Wednesday night, and I'm in my study behind the altar every afternoon that I'm not playing tennis. I'll be there any time by appointment." The worldly and protective

on with my floundering. "If a man is blind, how ca

gentle answer in which was that queer note of apostolic surety w

y recognize as my own. "Oh, I mean that we are all floundering, and where can we get th

e that Tristan's love song had opened for us, and I knew that with ruthless feet I

e me,"

again bent his dull gold head closer to mine. In a second I knew why in my mind I had been calling him a Harpeth jaguar. It was just my pictorial expression for t

eard before, and that came from something that I felt to be strangel

babe, and it-it lighted the flame he had almost let go out. As I read, the apostolic call came to me and I answered. I was starting to the front in France, and I went on. My year there was a series of experiences that gave me my surety. One day it came more clearly than ever. I had gone out into one of the trenches of the first line, because I am so strong that I can carry any man back to the stretchers across my back or in my arms. I have carried two at a time. There were nineteen men in the trench, and I made the twentieth. Suddenly a machine gun found the range and mowed them all down like cornstalks or wheat heads. Only I was left standing, bleeding und

e and I both rose and I put out my hand as if to force

is the only real and dispassionate America, with no foreign pull on its vitals. You

ying with my hand still outstretched against him, when suddenly the still p

that always draws me to the edge of his world. "And Greg