From: Arden Town (1913; Unpublished MS)
Author: Scott Nearing
Published:
Life took on a new aspect for Fred Allen. There was his business, as usual, but his business was transacted as a clearly secondary consideration. He worked—he had never gone at it more strenuously or successfully in his life, but while his brain pursued office routine with avidity, his soul, possessed of a sickly unrest, tormented every moment. His sleep was broken; he did not care to eat. He no longer enjoyed the books in his well-stocked library.
It is the heat, he told himself one stuffy evening, as he threw down Balzac’s “Eugenie Grandet” in disgust. How can a human being do any thing this weather?
He left his apartment, climbed into a trolley car, and rode about until midnight. Even then, between snatches of fevered sleep, he stared anxiously into the darkness, watching for that ever-returning trim figure with wavy brown hair and wonderful eyes. Then he dreamed, and it was Ruth Wade who led him through the gates of paradise, which, in their detail, looked surprisingly like the gate posts of his country club.
Once he heard from Eleanor—a dignified, half-supercilious note, in which she treated him like an old friend who might be interested in some of her doings at the shore. Among other things, she wrote him that they were starting for California in September. “We will stop off in Minneapolis until November,” she wrote, “and then spend the winter months in Los Angeles. I have lost interest in the East. Perhaps the West will reawaken me.” That was the only hint the letter contained of her disappointment, yet, reading between the lines, Fred Allen knew that it was very harsh and deep.
This was a mere incident, however, in the languishing weeks which passed between his letter to Ruth Wade and the date which he had set upon. Ruth Wade had written a tiny note. “The Inn has a place for you on the 28th. We shall all welcome you to Arden.” After that the days crept by with a leisureliness that was maddening.
Why had he not said the 21st instead of the 28th? He asked himself the question a hundred times. Business was languishing, as it always did in July. He knew that things would be slow about town, and yet he had not hit upon an earlier date. How long summer days could be in a great city when a man was waiting for something!
At length the 28th did come, despite many evidences to the contrary, and Fred Allen boarded the five-thirty train. He had reached the station at five promptly. Perhaps the time-table has been changed, he explained to himself, and it would never do to miss that train. Never had minutes seemed longer than the twenty which elapsed between his arrival at the station and the opening of the gate.
Five-thirty was there at last, however, and the train, filled with tired, hot commuters, made its run to Arden Town, where Fred Allen, together with fifty other passengers, stepped out into the fading heat of the late July day.
A quick-moving man, with something in his face which reminded Fred Allen of a race that he had been seeing ever since his trip to the shore, caught him by the lapel of his coat, and asked quizzically,—
“Aren’t you Mr. Allen?”
“Yes—”
“Well, I’m awfully glad to meet you, Ruth told me you were to take this train, and asked me to look out for you. I am Will Evans, the only man in Arden who has the honor of calling dear little Ruthie niece. So you see, if you’ll wait a minute, we can walk up together. Had the city entirely wilted when you left it?” Without waiting for a reply, Will Evans began greeting the other passengers. Everyone seemed to know him. From all sides came the most cordial words—“Hello Will” “Howdy.” “Well, old Willy—Willy.”
“Baggage transferred, sir?”
A bare-footed urchin with sandy hair and a freckle on every spot that was large enough to hold one, had been trying for two minutes to secure possession of Fred Allen’s bag.
“Baggage transferred, sir? Take your bag up for ten cents. Arden Transfer Company, sir.”
The company, which had already secured four bags through the activity of its other member, deposited Fred Allen’s bag on top of the pile.
“Where should it go, sir?”
“To the Inn.”
“Yes sir. Come along, Dick.” And the two boys bent their small backs over the problem of taking five bags up a steep hill on one small express wagon.
“Hold on,” said Fred Allen, “what’s that?”
He was pointing to a legend on one side of the express wagon,—“For advertising space, apply to the proprietors.”
“What are your rates?” he asked.
“Forty cents a week for one side; two sides, seventy-five cents,” replied Dick. “Will you have one or two sides, sir?”
“Who prints the ads?”
“We do, sir.”
“Well, if they are as well printed as your own ad, I’ll take both sides for two weeks. I have no doubt that such an expenditure will greatly increase the use of gas and electric fixtures in Arden.”
“Indeed it will, sir. Thank you, we’ll get your sign up to-night. Come on, Reds.”
Both boys bent again to their task, and the express wagon moved slowly up the sharp incline that ran from the station. Fred Allen noticed that another express wagon, with only three bags, had taken over one of the five from the other wagon, and the two were proceeding side by side up the incline.
“Looks like combination, doesn’t it,” said Will Evans, coming up at that moment.
“Are they rival companies?” asked Fred Allen, greatly amused by the proceedings.
“Yes—indeed. Didn’t you hear them scrapping for business? They have a traffic agreement, however, regarding rates and territory. They both meet this train because business is heavier on it than on any rain during the day. Most trains, however, are met by one or the other company in pursuance of their agreement.”
“Are they boys who need the money?”
“No, and yes. Of course, all boys need money in a general way. The father of the red-headed boy owns the only automobile in Arden. That little one on the right has no mother, and must shift for himself a great deal.”
They had caught up with the express companies, and were passing them at that moment.
“Oh, Mr. Evans,” cried Dick, “we’ve sold all of our advertising space for two weeks.”
“Good for you. Did this wealthy city man buy it?”
“Sure.”
“I thought so.” He turned to Fred Allen. “I am not sure just how much you will stimulate the gas and electric light trade, as we have neither in Arden; but you have stimulated the boys, and that counts for a great deal.” Then he added, “I’m truly glad to see you. I feel as if I knew you—I have heard your name so often. I think I know some friends of yours, and then Ruth has spoken of you since she met you so accidentally at the shore.”
“Is Miss Wade well?” Fred Allen asked, for lack of something better to say.
“Come, man,” rebuked Will Evans, “you mustn’t ask that question here. At Arden we are always well and happy. If you want to be polite, there is only one thing that you may ask—‘Is she in town’—and she is.”
“Always well and happy. Then you don’t have doctors here?”
“Only one, and he has quit the pill business and gone to farming. By the way, you knew that you were not to stay at the Inn?”
“No, indeed, since when?”
“Well the Inn is rather overcrowded. At best, the accommodations are not extraordinarily good, and as I have an extra bed, I thought you might like to stay with me.”
“But, my dear sir,” protested Fred Allen, “I can’t put you to any such inconvenience.”
“Inconvenience? It’s a pleasure, I assure you. You can take your meals at the Inn. I am eating there now myself—but for your sleeping apartment, come with me.”
They had reached the top of the ridge, up whose incline the express companies were still toiling.
“There is Arden Town,” said Will Evans, pointing to a cluster of red and brown roofs set against a wall of tall, dark-green treetops. The sun was low in the west. Its rays illuminated the whole landscape, bringing out in sharp contrast the bright roofs and the purple shadows of the forest.
“It is beautiful,” said Fred Allen musingly.
“More than that,” answered Will Evans. “Compare what you see here with the sullen glare of the city, and you will see that it is infinitely restful. That restfulness bespeaks the spirit of the country.”
On the left, as they walked on, was a meadow backed by a wood. In the distance a great black structure stood out against the gently rising hill.
“That is the Club House—not yet completed,” explained Will Evans, “and yonder in the wood across the meadow is the children’s playground. You can see the swings, and here,” he turned to the right and paused before a stile, “is the only kind of ‘well’ we talk about.” He pointed upward, and Fred Allen saw an inscription, carved in old English lettering, on an oak board.
You are welcome hither.”
“And whom does that welcome include?” he asked.
“It includes the world,” answered Will Evans.
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