GIFT OF YET SPEAKETH HE BY GERTRUDE CAPEN WHITNEY BOSTON SHERMAN, FRENCH & COMPANY 1910 : .. ; : /: : "' Copyright, 1910 SHERMAN FRENCH & COMPANY XT TO MRS. N. L. WILLET WHOSE MUSIC LIVES IN THE LIVES OF THOUSANDS AS SHE TEACHES THE PRINCIPLES OF GOD THROUGH SOUND CHAPTER ONE The clanging of the great bell re- verberated through the palpitating air, and the operatives of the cotton mill oozed out from the building as sluggish water drains through the muck that serves to obstruct its on- ward flow. From the opposite direction, over the high bridge, with a semblance of the vitality supposed to belong to childhood, came running a baby girl to meet her mother, one of the out- comers from the mill. It had been raining, and as the little one's flying feet left the wood work of the bridge they slipped upon the slimy clay. YET SPEAKETH HE Down the steep declivity she spun into the turgid water of the canal. Then from the ranks shot forth the stuff of which heroes are made. A tall, lithe fellow distanced the crowd by bounds and leaped into the stream. But the race-way was not far off, and seething torrents cf water were pouring down. He struggled fruit- lessly, and sank at last with the baby in his arms, to sleep in the ochre- colored bed which nature provided beneath the waves for her beloved who had given his life for another. Thence the two were taken, in pity and in love, later in the day. Soon the green earth covered them with its emerald turf, and a rough slab of stone, with a bronze plate com- [2] YET SPEAKETH HE memorating the deed, was placed at the head of the perilous, twisting path beyond the bridge, where the baby fell and the young man gave up his life. A gaunt and ugly monu- ment it was, an unshaped boulder turned on end, distorted in its angu- larities to the average onlooker, but to the frail twelve-year-old little brother of the child strangely like a hand with blunt finger pointing sug- gestively upwards. He had been turned out of the mill because an unusually careful in- spector had seen in him signs of the great white plague, too apparent not to arouse alarm in the minds of the other workers, who were being inoc- ulated with the virus of fear, for all the world as dangerous as ever the plague itself could be. [3] YET SPEAKETH HE And so the child came often to view the spot where the great tragedy was enacted, and to medi- tate, as many children do, upon the mystery of life. "He gave up his life for Essie," he thought, watching the ugly stone by the side of the dusty road, "Then where has that life gone? Not into Essie, for Essie is dead too," and he haltingly puzzled out the words on the bronze plate, for he was of better stock than some, and could read and write, though only after a sorry fashion. " 'Greater love than this hath no man, that he give up his life for his friend,' ' he deciphered slowly. "But if he has given it up it must be somewhere. Where is it?" he pon- dered. [*] YET SPEAKETH HE Suddenly there came to his mind in a wholly disconnected way some words he had heard at the mission Sunday School, and as he repeated the question, "Where is his life?" and fixed his eyes upon the cold, bare stone, the words seemed to echo in his ears, "Which being dead, yet speaketh." "This is his voice," he exclaimed, convincingly. "He is trying to speak through the stone. As long as it stands here, that man's deed speaks to those who pass. He gave his life, so it still must live. I am going to help it speak more beautifully than it does now." Strange philosophy for a young mill boy of twelve? Nay, thoughts are free to all; in all hearts the seed [5] YET SPEAKETH HE is sown; in some, thought grows to leaf and flower and fruit. Amardo, for such was this strange child's name, began that day to work out his promise to help bring to recognition in the world's conscious- ness the life that, because given for another, still lived somewhere; that it, speaking, might impel the care- less world to realize who it was which, being dead, yet spake, and: who, having given his life, had not lost it to the world. He was frail, this little Amardo, but he borrowed a trowel, and loos- ened the earth about the stone for some space. Painstakingly then, to protect the spot he hoped to culti- vate, he drove stakes and fastened across them clapboards from a build- [6] YET SPEAKETH HE ing which was being torn down not far away. He begged rich earth from kindly neighbors and then brought vines from the woods. The first ones died, for he had no knowledge of time, season, or method of transplanting; the second died, too, for the weather was dry and the earth parched. Then one day he found some roots which, imbedded in moister soil, yielded themselves more willingly to his entreaties, and as he pulled them, noting how the roots lay, he drew all the soil he could with the stems, and in replanting them gave moisture and space and depth to taproots and to rootlets; and so the plants lived. "More life," said Amardo, as the tendrils came shyly forth, "more m YET SPEAKETH HE speech 1 The stone speaks; the vines, and soon the flowers, will speak of him who gave his life, for which rea- son it can not be lost." Day by day he brought water for refreshing the earth; and there one afternoon, the perspiration pouring from his fragile little body, the president of the mill, as he was speeding away from the stress of business to the green of the country beyond, found him hard at work. "What are you doing, son?" he said, bringing his car to a standstill as the strange little figure, straight- ening itself from its stooping posi- tion at the foot of the crude monu- ment, attracted his attention. "I'm helping him to speak, and hunting for the life he gave; for, be- [8] YET SPEAKETH HE cause he gave it, somebody or some- thing has it; it is not lost," he replied, setting down the water bucket from which he had been refreshing the vines which, now firmly rooted, were sending forth leaf and stem reluc- tantly, but none the less surely. "The mischief you are!" said the president. "See here, son, do you want to elucidate your theory from the seat of this motor car?" Amardo looked doubtfully at the president. He did not know what the big words meant. "In other words, do you want to tell me what you mean by that speech of yours, and at the same time take a spin with me out to the Reformatory?" Amardo's face grew radiant, but [9] YET SPEAKETH HE he looked thoughtfully at the water bucket. "Can you wait, sir, I'd so like to go, till I return this bucket?" "Oh, let it stay there. It's an old thing, and by the way trash is left about here, I doubt if anyone touches it." "Yes, sir, excuse me, sir, but it's borrowed, and it seems honester to take care of it." The president stared. "It would take me 'most ten min- utes to return it." "Why don't you say a minute? I would wait for you a minute." "Because I know it would take longer than a minute." "Does that make any difference?" "Why, yes, sir! Don't you think it does?" [10] YET SPEAKETH HE "Well, well! It's a pity to lose a ride in a motor car just for the sake of returning an old thing like that. Probably the lender has another and will never miss this one." "That isn't anything to do with it to me, sir. If she had ten, this is the one I'm responsible for. I'm sorry," he continued, choking, "for I've never ridden in an automobile, and it looks mighty jolly; but I thank you for asking me." "I'm sorry, too. Where does this woman live?" "The third door from the end of the block on the left upper side, near the street that crosses this, sir." "Quite a walk for you. Well, good-bye," and the president rolled away, tooting his horn most tantaliz- ingly as he went. [11] YET SPEAKETH HE Several tears rolled straight down from Amardo's eyes, and in at the corners of his mouth, but he rubbed them away. His task of watering finished, he started back to Mrs. Raymond's to return the bucket. No thought of deviating from his plan, or of criticizing the president suggested itself to him. It would have been easy for the president to turn back and let him leave the uten- sil at the house, but it never occurred to Amardo to blame anyone or to lay plans for the president's conduct, however much he might lay them for his own. As he walked wearily and disap- pointedly up the street to Mrs. Ray- mond's, a big motor car came whirl- ing round the corner just above, and YET SPEAKETH HE drew up in fine form in front of the door he was approaching, and lo, sitting within it, was the president. "Hurry up, and leave your bucket/' he shouted cheerily, "and we will have our ride yet." "Oh, you are very kind," choked Amardo, though the choke came in a different place this time somehow, and did not hurt as it had when the motor car left him by the monument a minute or two before; but it was difficult for him to hurry as the presi- dent directed, for the wonder of the thing almost paralyzed his move- ments. It was really but a minute, however, before he was seated beside the president in the big machine; the horn tooted vigorously, but with a personal note of comradeship and [13] YET SPEAKETH HE friendliness it had not had before, and off they went. [14] CHAPTER TWO "You don't expect the boys will leave that little fence of yours there, do you?" said the president, after he had let Amardo toot the horn and even put his hands on the guiding wheel of the motor car. "Why, yes. They all know Dick Trencheon gave his life for another and they will be as interested as I in finding what has become of it and in trying to hear it speak." "But everybody doesn't think of death as you do, yoti queer fellow. What set you to having such no- tions?" "I'm supposed to be dangerous," [15] YET SPEAKETH HE replied Amardo, a trifle whimsically; "so they won't let me into the mill." "I wish to God they wouldn't let any of you babies in," muttered the president under his breath, "but what can we do when there is no compulsory education and such com- petition! So you have time to fancy things, do you?" again speaking to Amardo. "I have time to wonder" replied Amardo, "and when you wonder very much, don't you think you like to hunt round to find out things?" "Do you ever wonder what is to become of you? Are you afraid to die?" "Why, I never think anything about it. I heard the inspector say I was dangerous, and it made me wonder." [16] YET SPEAKETH HE "It was a nut to crack. Did your wonder help you?" "Yes. I went off by myself and thought of all the dangerous things I knew about, so as to find out what he meant, and I found they were most all big things worth lots in the world. There's electricity; that's dangerous, but it does pretty much everything these days. There's fire; that's dangerous, but it's a great help. There's the canal" (and he shuddered a little) ; "that's danger- ous, but I heard a man say one day that it was the making of the city and provided livings for thousands. So I decided that my being danger- ous meant I was good for too much to stay in the mill. You could turn it that way, you see, couldn't you?" [17] YET SPEAKETH HE The president gasped. "The only thing I didn't like after I had decided so much was, that peo- ple fear dangerous things, and I didn't want to be feared. I won- dered about that for a while, but then I watched and made up my mind that people didn't fear dangerous things when they once were made to understand they were to be used right The district nurse was tell- ing my mother one day that even the poisons in snakes have their helpful uses. The thing I am wondering about now is, just what to do to use the things in me that might be hurtful or frightening if I don't use than right, but will be powerful and helpful like electricity, if I find out what to do with them; and while I'm [18] YET SPEAKETH HE wondering and waiting to get at what I want to know, I am helping Dick Trencheon to speak through his stone. Stone must be hard to speak through. Shouldn't you think it might be easier to speak through vines and flowers and the ideas these things put into the hearts of those who know what it all stands for? I am going to try to get the boys to wonder, too, for the more they won- der, really wonder, you know, where that life has gone, the more life will be in them; don't you think so? Wondering, with a determina- tion to find out, it seems to me, makes you feel sort of alive, just in itself." The president nearly ran into a cow, he was so amazed at this strange creature beside him. [19] YET SPEAKETH HE "Who has been talking to you?" he asked abruptly, the cow having been passed in safety. "No one, in a way; but you see, Essie died, and nobody dies belong- ing to you without its setting you to wondering." "Yes, but it doesn't bring answers to your questions," said the president sadly. "Of course not. YouVe got to an- swer your questions yourself, most generally. You wouldn't want any- body else to do your wondering and finding out or to have it made easy, any more than you'd want anybody to do your work as president or to make it so easy there wouldn't be any fun in 'tending to it." Then, with a sudden lapse into [20] YET SPEAKETH HE childish vernacular, bred of his age and his surroundings, and which, by its contrast, amazed the president nearly as much as the boy's philoso- phy had done, he said excitedly, "Please, sir, might I toot the horn just once again? It does sound so perfectly beautiful." CHAPTER THREE The president had been to the dis- trict nurse and to Amardo's mother and to the best physician in town, and now Amardo slept in a little tent all his own. He lay there night after night, looking out into the wonderful Southern sky, limpid with moonlight and scintillant with stars, or watching the velvet blackness, palpitant and luminous with the strange night light, unrecognized except by those eyes that see, piled depth upon depth, full of life and vibrant with mystery. "How still it is, and yet it seems alive because even in its stillness it [22] YET SPEAKETH HE moves," said Amardo. "Why, life is motion, and if everything moves nothing dies, it only changes. The form of Dick Trencheon's life changed when he gave it up; but peo- ple say a life is lost when really it is just showing itself differently. Now the puzzle is, to find how and where his life is revealing itself. That will be hard to do, perhaps, but if I'm de- termined to hunt it out I shall get at it sometime." He was made by the nurse and the doctor to lead rather a lazy life for a while; and with the breezes electrify- ing and revitalizing him the finer es- sence of life bathed him also, and everything grew more intensely in- teresting to him as his wonder grew. He appeared at the mill one day and asked for the president. [23] YET SPEAKETH HE "Howdy, sonny," said the big man, turning in his swivel chair as the office door opened. "You don't look quite so peaked as you did. How does that happen?" "I live in a tent now, sir," said Amardo happily, "and it's lots of fun. I used to see things in the smoke on the plaster walls in the house, but now I can lie and see the great pines change as night comes on; and I see the dark and I see the light, and there's as much to see in the dark as in the light, if you only know how to look, sir, and more, too, I think some- times. I've seen life since I've been out there alone in the dark. I never saw it before. I've felt it, but in the dark I can just see it change shape, [24] YET SPEAKETH HE and it shows me that I'm not to look for Dick Trencheon's life as I saw it in him or to hear that which is dead or changed speak in the same way as before, for death and life are both life. Some we can feel, some we can hear, some we can see, and some we can only know, without be- ing able to tell just how." "Boy, where do you get these ideas?" "Out of my mind, sir, and the night helps, and being alone helps. Maybe that's one advantage in being dangerous," he smiled. "But, Mr. President, I've come to ask you if you will let me clear up that piece of ground outside your office window; it isn't pretty for you to look at." "Lord, yes, boy; and when you [25] YET SPEAKETH HE come to a place where you need it, I'll send a man to plow it up for you. What are you going to do with it, put in flowers?" "No, sir, I never saw anything so beautiful as these rows of vegetables in the picture of this garden," and he pulled a few sheets of a magazine from his pocket. "Where did you get that?" "I picked it up in the road. I can't bear to see waste paper flying over the streets, and I generally pick up pieces I see blowing about. Aren't these lovely? Here's great hedges of tomatoes. I'd like to get those sorts of vines and train them up on the fence. Aren't those big, handsome things as pretty as roses? Then I'd like to make a row of ar- YET SPEAKETH HE bors for pin-headed cucumbers like these here, and I could sit and think in them when the sun was too hot for me to be in the garden. I'd plant onions, too. They look so pretty waving with their fluffy white blos- soms, and the smell isn't so bad if you don't mind. I would lay it out like a picture and grow pretty things as I come to know about them, and I would keep it clean as a floor, like this garden in the magazine; and when it had paid for the seed and what else I had to have to run it, I would give their life to change into the lives of those who need food and dainties." "You would give their lives? What right would you have to do that?" YET SPEAKETH HE "It is all mixed up in a way, sir. Perhaps I can't explain. But Dick Trencheon has spoken to me that he has changed the form of his life, and is using it in lots of places, and that all our life goes into everyone else's life. For instance, some of his life has gone into me to make me desire other things to live. So I put some of my life into them so they can change their forms and mix into other people's lives, making them stronger or brighter, or better, oh, sir, I can't explain; but life doesn't stop." "No, my boy, it doesn't stop," said the president soberly, "and you shall have what help I can give you in making your dream garden come true." CHAPTER FOUR Amardo sat down and cried. It looked so easy, in a picture, to have vegetable gardens like parlor floors; and Mr. Stanten, the president, had told him that they really were that way in other places. But he didn't even know how to clean Up the ground so it looked clean, and the colored man Mr. Stanten had sent in to help him knew still less, for he had neither taste nor knowledge; while Amardo did possess intuitive taste. If he only had the strength of that stupid black man he was sure he could make things like his picture. But there! he had neither strength YET SPEAKETH HE nor skill. A lot he saw in dreams he was sure others, older and wiser than he, had dreamed about and worked out too, if he could only meet with some of them who could and would tell him how to go on. But the strength! the strength! he had none! and he flung himself upon his face and cried and cried, deep, gulping sobs that shook him to the depths of his lungs. In the midst of it, he laughed. "I am glad I can wonder at things," he said, rubbing his knuck- les into his eyes, "for even when I feel bad, I forget it in wondering. Now, I am wondering if that crying spell might not be like rain to the earth and make ideas grow like peas and beans do in the ground. Rain [30] YET SPEAKETH HE storms must not be too often or too violent, though, or the ideas, like the beans, will be drowned out. After a shower like that I ought to be able to make some sort of an idea shoot. It takes the sunshine after the rain, though, to make leaves sprout. I will wait for the sunshine." He sat perfectly still on a wooden box at hand, while a tiny breeze played about him lovingly. The sunshine came in a few minutes under the guise of Mr. Stanten. From his office window he had seen the cyclonic outburst succeeded by the calm, and his interest in the boy's quaint ideas made him curious as to what the child was evolving out of the incident. "How do you come on, Amardo?" he said cheerily. [31] YET SPEAKETH HE "I'm waiting to sprout ideas," re- torted Amardo soberly, yet with a little smile of amusement behind his eyes. "Don't anything else seem to be sprouting here." "Speaking of ideas, did you ever know that it was 'the whisper of an eternal idea that broke the sceptre of Rome and crushed the weight of the Caesars'?" " 'The whisper of an eternal idea that ." Amardo tried to repeat but could stumble no farther through the labyrinth of unaccustomed words. "Remember just that then, don't try to recall the rest. 'The whisper of an eternal idea.' ' "What idea?" "The idea that you ponder over [32] YET SPEAKETH HE so much, the giving of life. You yourself said it had no end." "But how's one to keep it agoing? Look at this piece of ground. It's cleaned up about like most places round here, but it isn't what I've dreamed about!" "If it is as good as the rest, why not let that do?" queried the presi- dent. "I guess not! I just guess not! Do you 'spose I could dream and see in my mind that beautiful garden, and then come out here and see this? No sir! Either I'd be sick and disgusted at what I'm trying to do and stop working to get it, or little by little I'd lose my picture and think this is what I'd been dreaming all the time. I've gone just as far as I know how, [33] YET SPEAKETH HE and that man doesn't know as much as I do. If I had some one just to give me the least hint to set me go- ing, not so much on ideas as how to work 'em out p'raps I know I could do something." "There is a school, not like these schools we have here, but built on purpose to help boys and girls like you bring their visions true a won- derful school that shows you how to be well and strong and gives you just the knowledge and advice you want to carry out your plans. Would you like to go? It is three thousand miles away, across the continent." Amardo caught his breath and was still. "I love my mother," he said at last. "Yes, but as you are now, she [34] YET SPEAKETH HE worries night and day about you and your future. If you love her, which will be the better way to show your love: to stay here and be constantly on her heart to grieve over, or to be brave and go away from her that you may come back with life more abundant, to help renew in her some of the life she gave in bringing you here?" There was perfect silence in the bare expanse of rugged ground. The president watched the boy's face. At last Amardo lifted it and looked at the president. "Love hurts!" he said. The president bowed his head. "Often, Amardo." "Life hurts!" Again the president nodded with- out speaking. [35] YET SPEAKETH HE "And there's no way to get rid of it." The president slowly shook his head. "Even if you give it, you've got it. If you give it for another or to another, it's bound to be reckoned with. If you seem to lose it, it only lies in waiting for you to come up with it again." The president bowed. "But love can follow me. It can start from my mother's heart and go three thousand miles with me?" "Yes." "And stay with me. I can't lose it. I've got it whatever happens. Love and Life!" "You have." "Then, Mr. President, I'll go; [36] YET SPEAKETH HE and please, sir, I know you'll excuse me that I was sad before I remem- bered to thank you." [87] CHAPTER FIVE Taken into the loom of the wise child builder, for twelve years the beginnings of Amardo's life spun out their threads, drawing unex- pected material from the storehouse of his mind and weaving it into vis- ible form with his body mechanism, the potentiality of which constantly expanded in utility and accuracy of transmission. Then he went into the world, without money, but with the equipment of a symmetrically un- folding brain, transmitting healthily and accurately the power of his mind to desire, the power to will, the power to create, and the power to perform. [38] YET SPEAKETH HE Enf ibred in his very being was the dream of the garden, which years ago he had found pictured in the scrap of magazine and which had be- come the rough draught of the broad and exalted vision to which the dream had grown: that of taking waste places and liberating their crushed and broken, crowded, strug- gling inmates, be they plants or per- sons, as he himself had been liber- ated at the crucial moment and in- fused with life which enabled him to grow out of his half dead embryo into his present world of well di- rected motive and attainment. His equipment easily won for him the position of landscape gardener on the estate of a multi-millionaire, whose orders were to excel nature's [39] YET SPEAKETH HE best and to spare not in the spend- ing. "All I ask is results," said the owner. "Here are a thousand acres; and don't leave a half dead thing on the place, plant or tree or animal or man. Get them out of the way at once and reinforce from the best." "Let me try with what I find at hand," he said pleadingly; "it can be done," and he spoke convincingly, as he had spoken when at twelve he recognized the message sent him through Dick Trencheon's monu- ment. "Mr. Lamonte, from the bleeding wounds of plants and chil- dren come often, in time, the roots of efficiency, far exceeding in intrinsic value the growth of the present fit." "Take the position or leave it," said [40] YET SPEAKETH HE the millionaire. "I've given you my bank account that you may gather in this garden types only from the best. I want this place to be a world-wide marvel. Let the scurf die: it is the law of the survival of the fittest. I want a show place and not an asy- lum." "I was a scurf at twelve," said Amardo; "yet you have chosen me as one of the fittest instruments for realization of your ideals!" "That is all right," reiterated La- monte, "but the growth of the world onward and upward can come only by propagating from the best stock. Let the trash die. Boy, you don't know your capabilities. You can't deal with inferior stuff. It isn't in you. The best would leap from the [41] YET SPEAKETH HE worst at your approach. Think what, with such power, you can do with selected materials and ample funds to compel conditions most conducive to success." "The best is often unseen and in- tangible; and as for life, it is always built on so called wreckage and death. Even the physical upbuild- ing of the earth shows that. To cast aside the broken and the wounded will be, as I read it, to fill the world with strength without endurance and a sort of crass beauty without soul." "And while you are nursing these anaemic pets of yours, what about the best, which likewise needs your care and would give you credit? Amardo, you must destroy. As you yourself said, there must be death to YET SPEAKETH HE support life; and to force the strong to give place to the weak is to cause retrogression in nature. I offer you any sums you please for your tests in promoting better from best. It is as if you held your fortune in your hands without the trouble of making it. Your investigations will give you fame, and satisfy to any extent your scientific curiosity. Nobody will give you a cent for what you want to do. You will give up your life for a chimera and to what end?" Amardo went away thoughtfully. Must he deal with the selected, the best in life, when his dream had been to lay his hand on what seemed to be the death of things and say to them, Arise! What Mr. Lamonte had said was true. He must have money for [43] YET SPEAKETH HE the fulfilment of his dreams. He saw the very ragged spot of ground where he wanted his vision first to become reality, acres stretching back from the canal to the west of Dick Trencheon's constant call to him acres scarcely worth paying taxes on but close to the hundreds who, as he himself had done, held so feebly to life and knew so little what to do with it. He could do, there, for those children what the master builder of children, Macaire, was doing here on this side the continent. He would go at once to fulfil his de- sire of enabling souls better to mani- fest themselves in the flesh. Then, as in a vision, he saw him- self sitting in the ragged bit of ground outside the president's office [44] YET SPEAKETH HE with the perfect garden nowhere in sight excepting on the tumbled paper in his hands. Had the time come, even now, when he had strength and skill to accomplish his heart's desire? If he made the at- tempt, might he not now, as then, face the fact that he could not go on because he was not ready? "Things grow! I cannot expect to realize at once my heart's desire any more than I anticipate imme- diate results from the seeds I plant. I have sprouted, it is true," he laughed, "but I am only half grown yet," and he went back to the multi- millionaire who desired the best from the best the world can give. [45] CHAPTER SIX "It is the old story," he said whim- sically, as he neared Mr. Lamonte's; we work seven years for Rachel and then generally have to put up with Leah! Seven years is none too much to wait for what I have to do. Come to think," he stopped abruptly, "am I waiting? Here in my garden of emotions I have several inferior seeds from which I can strive to evolve better stuff than the embryos promise. Dissatisfaction is a poison- ous weed. Infuse into it recognition of the truth that dealing with the best will fit me better to know the world's need, and evolving the plans [46] YET SPEAKETH HE of another man will give me scope of comprehension which I could not gain otherwise., Let me see if, in- stead of poison berries, I can bring this seed to bear sweet sustenance for the world's needs. Waiting for my visions to materialize! a deadly seed is waiting, with fruit that shriv- els before it ripens! This seed must be inoculated with the joy of present attainment and of watching results and studying them, instead of wait- ing for them. A half dead root is the manner of my acceptance of this princely opportunity. I must trans- plant that into the joy corner where the sun shines, and fertilize it with the juices of enthusiasm." He lingered a moment on the hill- top in the light of the descending [47] YET SPEAKETH HE sun before ascending still farther to Mr. Lamonte's castle, situated among wooded crags and overlook- ing water-fall and forest. As he stood there, the strangely luminous atmosphere palpitating in the blaze of the low hanging sun vibrated about the head of the sinewy figure, embodiment of health and grace, and seemed to assume faint shape as of a dove with outspread wings. Life immanent was in him and about him ; and as he looked upon the scene of beauty, there pulsed through his listening soul in word- less music, "This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased." [48] CHAPTER SEVEN As Amardo went still farther up the mountain side, he overtook a young girl. Her habit was of cor- duroy of heaven's blue, and long braids of golden hair fell from be- neath the riding hat. They had evidently been decorously pinned be- low its brim at the beginning of the trip, but had tumbled down and reached now to her knees. Her horse stood near by; but the girl was sitting by the path and weeping bit- terly. "Miss Lamonte," said Amardo, hastening forward, "how can I assist you?" [49] YET SPEAKETH HE " Oh, you are Mr. Monte, are you not ? Mr. Monte, a snake was fas- cinating a little bird and I chased it away; hut the poor thing, I fear, is dying from the shock." Amardo stooped over the kindly hand that held the frightened bird, and together the young man and the maid watched it, while the flutterings of the little creature grew fainter and finally ceased, the girl sobbing violently the while. "Now it is dead," she mourned, when at last it lay quiet in its resting place, "and I have made myself so sick I cannot go to an important din- ner tonight and have lingered here so long I shall be too late for my vio- lin lesson." "The roots of sympathy and of [50] YET SPEAKETH HE obligation," said Amardo uncon- sciously aloud. "I do not understand what you say," queried the girl curiously, for she had caught the words but not their connection with what had been taking place. "Pardon me if I do not repeat," said Amardo, embarrassed. "It would be an impertinence to ex- plain." "Never mind! Impertinence is apt to be so much more interesting than conventionalities that one will- ingly forgives a taste of it, if not too extreme," she hastened to add, "and I know yours will not be." "It really would take so much time," he deprecated, "and it wouldn't be wise to begin unless I [51] YET SPEAKETH HE could bring the explanation to a conclusion with you." "I've oceans of time," said the girl, guilelessly. "The sun is still high, and though it looks rough and wild I am rather close to the house, you know, and the grounds are pa- trolled; so I am perfectly safe." "I was on the way to see your fa- ther." "He won't be home for an hour or more. He told me so as he passed me, going down the mountain on horseback not long ago, so we need not hurry; and as you are going to the house I shall have escort. We must bury this poor little victim be- fore we leave here, anyway." An almost human cry of pain sud- denly broke from the throat of the [52] YET SPEAKETH HE gentle thoroughbred, and both turned to discover the cause of his distress. The little mistress, in her agony over the bird, had carelessly tethered the horse so that, step which way he would, his hind legs came into cruel contact with a bed of cacti whose sharp thorns were mak- ing havoc with his comfort. Already streams of blood were disfiguring his handsome coat above the fetlocks; but it was when in his attempts to free himself he had struck farther back into a higher growth and felt the attack in his sensitive flanks, that he called appealingly for aid. "The root of discrimination," said Amardo, as he hastened to rescue the beautiful creature. "I heard what you said that time, [53] YET SPEAKETH HE but I don't in the least understand. Please explain," entreated Murillio. "I am naming over seeds and roots for my garden." "A very strange time to think of them, and peculiar names for plants," persisted the girl, taking her handkerchief and wiping the blood from the glossy leg of her favorite. "Sympathy, obligation and discrim- ination! No such flora ever existed, I feel very sure. Are you going to put them in my father's garden?" "No, in my own. Yes, in your father's, also." "Father told me the place was to be a sort of botanical garden for all the flora that can be made to grow in this region. Are the plants indige- nous to this section?" [54] YET SPEAKETH HE Amardo laughed. "I told you it would take a long time to explain what I mean, and I cannot do it all in one conversation." "What's to prevent your talking to me again! I know you human beings, evolved into god-men by that wonderful educator, Macaire, always have exordiums and perorations and sequences to the least subject in hand. I'm willing to give you lots of chance for conversation, that you may carry your premises to their conclusions with elephantine dig- nity!" she said, looking daringly into his eyes. The young man's face flooded. "I am only too willing to spin out many chapters in interpretation of my work, but I am only your f a- [55] YET SPEAKETH HE ther's workman, Miss Lamonte, and it won't do for me to be arranging Socratic lectures with you unless he himself includes that delightful duty in my list of instructions." "Begin Chapter One," she said impatiently. "I know, f ihe present, ever the present' is one of your spe- cial mantras down in that wonder- ful school; and here you are consid- ering the advisability of delivering a course to extend indefinitely into futurity. You know father can't object to an accidental encounter like this, and according to your the- ories you shouldn't worry over any next ones. I am not at all inclined to believe he would object to the course; but whatever his opinion, I am sure he would remind you not [56] YET SPEAKETH HE to eat all the plums out of the pud- ding at one mouthful. Now all this time you are floating in an aeroplane. It is time to land. What do you mean?" Her eyes flashed into his with win- some imperiousness and an adorable charm. So he told her all about things from the days of Dick Trencheon's heroism and the president's kindness and his training with wonderful Professor Macaire, on to the present; of his attitude towards all things suffering; of his disappointment that he could not at once leap to the heart of his desire; and of his deter- mination to cultivate still more care- fully the garden of his emotions, as the Professor so impressed upon his [57] YET SPEAKETH HE pupils to do; and to plant in his character seeds he would need in his equipment for greater things. "Why did you say obligation and sympathy, when I saw I had cried myself ill and missed my engage- ment?" "Because, while we are using our capabilities in bringing health to the bruised, our sympathies may prove vampires and suck our own lives. They must be trained to bring ful- ness of life, rather than depletion, to ourselves and others. Moreover, sympathy should never be allowed so to control us that we forget or neg- lect obligations in honor made and dim the vision of discrimination, " "I see," interrupted Murillio eag- erly. "I grieved over the bird, which [58] YET SPEAKETH HE really was beyond my responsibility, and so upset myself that I felt I could not keep an engagement made in good faith. I disturbed the plans of a good many persons, didn't I, by doing that, and did injury to myself, a human being, by releasing grief poisons with no advantageous results to balance the injury? In not ful- filling my obligations I was guilty of a moral dereliction, and overlooked in my intemperate distress over the bird, for which I was not responsible, the distress of my own horse, which deserved from me at least humane watch care. Here comes father over the incline; and about your anaemic pets, as he calls them, the kind he won't have in his garden I have a scheme !" [59] CHAPTER EIGHT " I like the naive impudence of that landscape gardener of yours, papa," said Murillio to her father that night at dinner. "He overtook me on the bridle path and tabulated my attributes for future evolution in a most impersonal way. I felt at first as if invited by the anatomy professor to study bones with the as- sistance of my own skeleton. The attributes to be considered were not my beauty, grace and charm: they were moral ones which seemed called to his attention rather by their ab- sence than their dazzling presence; and he planted a garden with them in his mind!" [60] YET SPEAKETH HE "Yes," returned Mr. Lamonte, "he longs to plant a garden of some sort with queer things. I am very glad he has found one in the confines of his own self to experiment in, in- stead of in my garden." "I have suggested that he give me a course of lectures in which to de- scribe his ideas to me; but he said you might object. He even seemed to think it wasn't the correct thing to stop to talk with me, then; but I de- tained him on the flimsy pretext that I needed an escort." "Why did he think I would object to his talking with you?" "He said he was your workman." " You may inform Amardo Monte that I may be rich but that I am not a snob," responded Mr. Lamonte. [61] YET SPEAKETH HE "Talk with him all you please; he's a fine man." "He told me all about himself, and his longing to help the wounded of body and of heart. Have you ever noticed, father, that love for the unfortunate is so apt to breed antag- onism toward the fortunate? He had really been thinking he was quite condescending to deal with types from the best only." "That's the world's idea, and its image, though nearly effaced from his brain, still leaves a faint impress, but he knows better/' said Mr. Lamonte. "The images growing through these twelve years of life with Macaire will be thoroughly es- tablished now he can manifest them without restriction." YET SPEAKETH HE "I myself wotild better love to help the weak than the strong. The strong are self -sufficing." "That they are not. Everything needs bolstering, and the greater the subject the stronger and mightier must be the props." "You wouldn't object, father, if I were to take up that work, would you?" "No indeed. But to have my full and unqualified consent to the plan, you will have to learn how to do it. I don't want you doddering about adding to the incapables, making paupers, and assisting in the propa- gation of criminals and imbeciles through ill-advised charity. That is what many of the hospitals and char- itable institutions are doing today. [W] YET SPEAKETH HE But if you can hunt out of the waste places any more such stuff as Stan- ten did when he sent that little runt to Macaire's school twelve years ago, go on, and God bless you." "I should like to take a normal course in that same school." "You may if you please. But don't bring any test cases into my garden. They must be proven which enter there, men and plants." Mr. Lamonte gave his daughter's rose-leaf cheek a tender caress as he passed her, looking deep down into the eyes she raised lovingly to his. Then, as he flung himself astride his horse and clattered down the moun- tain road, he straightened his should- ers as if he had settled a question be- yond a doubt. [64] YET SPEAKETH HE "Yes," he said aloud to the cres- cent moon in its first quarter, peep- ing at him through trees, "yes, I'm willing. He is a fine fellow, one of the best." [65] CHAPTER NINE The seasons and the years wove out in turn fabrics of the world's growth; for Murillio and Amardo, seven joyous years of watching and of attaining. The great spaces of land had been cleared and, like a canvas, spread before Amardo. He was to put in his picture, not with paints, but with living things, made things, which he had only to group picturesquely and toss aside when they did not fulfil his purpose in the general effect. Full-grown trees were transplanted by night into their new surroundings, which as far as possible were made to idealize [66] YET SPEAKETH HE native conditions. Fruits, flowers, vegetables and trees found place in this wonderful garden; and with his testing stations in charge of the most experienced scientists of the world, each year found the fruits larger and more extraordinary, the vegetables more immense, and the flowers more ornate. Each season thousands of incapables were carted away without an attempt to retain them; the moment they showed signs of drooping they were replaced by others. The forced growth of these seven years did what decades had not done; and the place was riotous with size and ablaze with color. Meanwhile Murillio had taken up with earnest enthusiasm the course at Macaire's famous school. Day by [67] YET SPEAKETH HE day she was instructed in transmut- ing, without self depletion, tender- ness and compassion into helpfulness for those who suffer or whose lives are abridged through birth or cir- cumstance. It was wonderful how soon Mu- rillio, emotional though she was, learned, without in any sense losing her tenderness, to see the impersonal or the universal in the experiences brought before her, and to teach those who were broken or incapa- citated to send from awakened life- centres the essence of vitality through the heretofore enervated nerves and emaciated muscles and to infuse them with manifest health and consequent desire and will to construct, as well as the physical and mental power to perform. [68] YET SPEAKETH HE With each deeper initiation into the sentient Oneness of all the more lovingly personal did she seem. Heretofore, the pain belonging to another had enclosed her and incor- porated itself into her being, to the detriment of her bodily tissues and to the incapacitating of her willing but paralyzed mentality and the an- guish of her soul. In truth, the less she affiliated to herself their failures, sorrows, and depletion, the more others felt her strength and helpful- ness. The school was near Mr. La- monte's; and though Murillio's work held her in the institution, she was often at home. Then, in habit of heaven's blue, she would ride on her thoroughbred to the garden and [69] YET SPEAKETH HE talk with Amardo about the vital issues of their lives. After they had been through the magnificent, stately spaces full of perfection, being per- fected, they both would mount and together disappear down the road towards the afternoon sun, leaving behind them a dust like red gold pul- verized and suspended in the air, through which, as if caught up in clouds of fire, floated Murillio in her habit of blue and Amardo with sin- ewy form, while the bronze of the horses' glossy sides reflected a cop- pery iridescence as they sped along. Then Mr. Lamonte would look after them and smile and ride through the great garden, aglow with satisfaction as he watched the large grow larger and the richly col- ored become more brilliant still. [70] YET SPEAKETH HE But as the years passed, the atti- tude of complete satisfaction at this monumental work changed and his face wore a puzzled look. What was it he missed? Whatever the unknown thing was, its absence made him sigh with a sense of desolation in the midst of magnificence, and a feeling of loneliness that made him shudder. Nothing in that vast expanse seemed to answer to his moods, to rejoice with his happiness; nothing seemed capable of joy, for nothing seemed to know sorrow. No broken sapling needed his assistance back to life and health, for if perchance one were wounded, it was dug up and cast aside. No trampled rose lay hi his path to call forth tender impulses. Nothing needed his sympathy. ' YET SPEAKETH HE One day, with a heart-breaking sense of some great loss, he followed the two riders as they rode on towards the west. He came up with them after a while and galloped to their side. "May I ride with you, children?" he said wistfully. "Somehow I need brightness about me today." "Most gladly, father," said Mu- rillio; "but do you not find bright- ness enough to inspire you in that wonderful garden?" "That is not brightness," sighed the millionaire; "it is glare!" "Then can you not seek the shade?" "There is no shade," shuddered the father; "it is gloom, dense Stygian gloom!" [W] YET SPEAKETH HE "Everything is succeeding so well, father; all is growing so mag- nificently." "Magnificent! It is becoming monstrous! And something I used to find in woodlands is not there. I miss it, but cannot tell what it is. Ah! It comes to me now," and he drew in his horse suddenly, threw up his head, dilated his nostrils, and sniffed the air. They rode on now over a tangled bridle path, the horses' hoofs strik- ing and bruising the sweet briar by the way. Murillio and Amardo did not speak. The something grew upon them all, impalpable, yet tan- gible. Life grew glad within the tired man's heart; memories stirred, which, though they brought a pang, brought yet a joy. [73] YET SPEAKETH HE "What is it?" said Lamonte, still puzzled. "It is bringing back to me a sense of life. I began to feel stag- nated in the midst of motion, desper- ate in the midst of success, desolate in the midst of things" They now dismounted and, Amardo leading, they entered a space where, massed in natural pro- fusion, were plants in bloom; and the wonder grew. "I have it," cried Lamonte. "It is the odor of sweet flowers. Amardo, your boasted garden has no odors. It is arrogant and superior and SOULLESS. It rouses no aspirations as I look upon its flowers and gaze into the sinister gloom of those mam- moth trees. The sweetness of this garden recalls to me life with its [74] YET SPEAKETH HE loves and its experiences, the ten- der sorrows, the tragedies of life, as well as its happiness and its joys." They entered now an expanse that seemed like an immense grotto floored and arched with flowers. Masses of natural blooms fell fleecy and cloudlike from hidden supports high in the air, or like living stalac- tites drooped to kiss the blossoms that like flower stalagmites rose from earth to meet them. The air was filled with etherial fragrance of such sort as called forth sentiments of love of most celestial type in the hearts of all. Birds jubilant with the joy of it sang to the atmosphere of blessedness exuding from the heart of every bloom. "Why have you done nothing of [W] YET SPEAKETH HE this sort for me, Amardo?" said La- monte, turning to the man who stood beside him. "These are the heart-broken things you bade me cart away," said Amardo simply. The odor which first brought back to you the sense of comradeship and love that you felt slipping from you was the sweet briar we were crushing under foot. That plant that sends forth such wealth of odor was broken by a wagon's wheel and bled almost unto death. It was a cruel sight to see when I took it from your garden, Mr. Lamonte. This root was torn in half when it was moved from its place of birth. I brought it here with scarce a chance for life. This was blown by the winds till it was [76] YET SPEAKETH HE crooked and misshapen, and was cut down and stamped all but to death; but I brought it here, and see its blos- soms and note its fragrance." "But there are no birds in my gar- den," said Lamonte. "We cannot allow the plants to be crossed, so no birds or bees or winged things may enter there: neither do they care to come, for the highly bred flowers which grow so large and beautiful have lost in corresponding degree their odor, which is the ex- pressed essence of their comradeship with the rest of the nature world." "Who cares for this place? Evi- dently some one who loves it." Murillio blew on a silver whistle and from different parts of the gar- den came its caretakers, little boys [77] YET SPEAKETH HE and girls and women and men whose faces and bodies, marked with the suffering of great experiences, car- ried through all the atmosphere of blessedness. "These are the children of my heart, father, and I have brought them here with sickness in their bodies and in their hearts to revital- ize these dying plants; and so doing, they are being revitalized and re- formed." "The essence of life is coming back to me," said Lamonte; and he threw himself upon the ground and wept. When he lifted his face it shone as with a great joy. [78] CHAPTER TEN "I do not know what I should have done without the blessedness of your 'scheme,' evolved from your sense of my needs the day I met you on the mountain side," said Amardo to Murillio as they wandered alone, the next day, in the garden built of their love. "In that terrible and beautiful garden where emotion is stifled and sympathy non-existent I believe I should have gone insane, had I not been able to pour out here my yearnings over life." "Yes, emotions are messengers of the soul to be guided into pure and noble spaces, not to be destroyed," replied Murillio. [79] YET SPEAKETH HE There was a long silence. Then Amardo spoke. "I know a ragged waste of life and land that needs us. It is across the mountains, almost over to the other sea. Will you go with me, Murillio?" Again there was stillness, vibrant with the spirit of love. Then Mu- rillio spoke. "Yes, Amardo, I will go." [80] CHAPTER ELEVEN Twice seven years again had woven the fabric of life in their looms. The door of President Stan- ten's office opened. The president turned as of yore in his swivel chair. "Howdy, sonny," he said cheerily. "How you come on!" "Mr. President," returned Amar- do, "I've come to ask you if you will let me clean up that piece of ground outside your office window? It isn't pretty for you to look at." The president laughed joyously, and rising seized both Amardo's hands. "Boy, life is a great thing when [81] YET SPEAKETH HE bodies can be apart for thirty years, and souls keep hold of the threads without ever dropping them. And to think of it! The garden out- side my window is just about where you left it. Perhaps the same box is there that you sat on waiting for ideas to sprout, who knows." [82] CHAPTER TWELVE And still the years wove the fabric of events by which life is manifested. The vast expanse of ragged land to the west of Dick Treneheon's monu- ment was now a great college of agri- culture and applied arts. Gardens spread over rich and arable land in- stead of dying on lifeless soil. Boys and girls came here and were infused with new vitality and knowledge of how to handle it. President Stanten, Mr. Lamonte, Murillio and Amardo were on the roof of one of the buildings watching the great field of industry spread below. [83] YET SPEAKETH HE "It is better than my garden, Amardo," said Mr. Lamonte at last. "Perfection with coldness of heart is not possible. Life manifest must be like the face of the earth, fed with rivers of mercy." The red sun blazed behind them, sinking to its rest. Its slanting rays fell on Dick Trencheon's monument, which, backed by vines, stood like a sentinel at the gateway. The eyes of all turned toward the blunt, strange stone. "Have you found his life yet, Amardo?" said Mr. Stanten rever- ently. "Yes, I find it still holding its identity but in constant expansion, inseparably linked with all of ours and enfibred with them," said [84] YET SPEAKETH HE Amardo tenderly. "Life and death are manifest phases of the one great Spirit which is moving in and among us all." "And as you once said, it doesn't stop, my hoy," said the old man. It goes right on. It doesn't stop. Who can doubt the continuity and recognizance of life and its con- stantly unfolding blessedness, when every one of the thousands whom the influence of his deed has touched and changed gives demonstration of "That, which being dead, still speaks/' YET SPEAKETH HE! [85] YC 53525 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY