A Daughter of the Middle Border. Garland Hamlin
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a committee to outline a Constitution and By-laws, and I set down in my diary this comment, "Only a few men were out and these few were chilled by a cold room but nevertheless, this meeting is likely to have far-reaching consequences."
In these months of my stay in New York I had a very busy and profitable time with Howells, Burroughs, Stedman, Matthews, Herne and their like as neighbors but after all, my home was in the West, and many times each day my mind went back to my mother waiting in the snow-covered little village thirteen hundred miles away. As I had established her in Wisconsin to be near me, it seemed a little like desertion to be spending the winter in the East.
My thoughts often returned to the friendly circle in Taft's studio, and late in February I was keenly interested in a letter from Lorado in which he informed me that Wallace Heckman, Attorney for The Art Institute, had offered to give the land to found a summer colony of artists and literary folk on the East bank of Rock River about one hundred miles west of Chicago. "You are to be one of the trustees," Lorado wrote, "and as soon as you get back, Mr. Heckman wants to take us all out to look at the site for the proposed camp."
My return to Chicago on the first day of March landed me in the midst of a bleak period of raw winds, filthy slush and all-pervading grime—but with hopes which my new contract with Macmillans had inspired I defied the weather. I rejoined Lorado's circle at once in the expectation of meeting his sister, and in this I was not disappointed.
Lorado referred at once to Heckman's offer to deed to our group a tract of land. "He wants you to be one of the trustees and has invited us all to go out at once and inspect the site."
Upon learning that Miss Taft was to be one of the members of the colony I accepted the trusteeship very readily. With three thousand dollars advance royalty in sight, I began to imagine myself establishing a little home somewhere in or near Chicago, and the idea of an inexpensive summer camp such as my artist friends had in mind, appealed to me strongly.
Alas for my secret hopes!—Whether on this tour of inspection or a few days later I cannot now be sure, but certainly close upon this date Lorado (moved by some confiding remark concerning my interest in his sister Zulime) explained to me with an air of embarrassment that I must not travel any farther in that direction. "Sister Zuhl came back from Paris not to paint or model but to be married. She is definitely committed to another man." He finally, bluntly said.
This was a bitter defeat. Although one takes such blows better at thirty-nine than at nineteen, one doesn't lightly say "Oh, well—such is life!" I was in truth disheartened. All my domestic plans fell with a crash. My interest in the colony cooled. The camp suppers lost their charm.
It is only fair to me to say that Miss Taft had never indicated in any way that she was mortgaged to another, and no one—so far as I could see, was more in her favor than I, hence I was not entirely to blame in the case. My inferences were logical. So far as her words and actions were concerned I was justified in my hope that she might consent.
However, regarding Lorado's warning as final I turned to another and wholly different investment of the cash with which my new contract had embarrassed me. I decided to go to England.
For several years my friends in London had been suggesting that I visit them and I had a longing to do so. I wanted to see Barrie, Shaw, Hardy, Besant, and other of my kindly correspondents and this seemed my best time to make the journey.
Rose of Dutcher's Coolly had won for me many English friends. Henry James had reviewed it, Barrie had written to me in praise of it and Stead had republished it in a cheap edition which had gained a wide circle of readers. "In going abroad now I shall be going among friends," I said to Fuller who was my confidant, as usual.
Henry James in a long and intimate letter had said, "It is high time for you to visit England. I shall take great pleasure in having you for a week-end here at Old Rye"—and a re-reading of this letter tipped the scale. I took the train for Wisconsin to see my mother and prepare her for my immediate trip to London.
Dear soul! She was doubly deeply disappointed, for I not only failed to bring assurance of a new daughter, I came with an avowal of desertion in my mouth. Pathetically counting on my spending the summer with her, she must now be told that I was about to sail for the Old World!
It was not a happy home-coming. I acknowledged myself to be a base, unfilial, selfish wretch, "and yet—if I am ever to see London now is my time. Each year my mother will be older, feebler. The sooner I make the crossing the safer for us all. Furthermore I am no longer young—and just now with Barrie, Shaw, Zangwill, Doyle and Henry James, England will be hospitable to me. The London Macmillans are to bring out my books and so——"
Mother consented at last, tearfully, begging me not to stay long and to write often, to which I replied, "You may count on me in July. I shall only be gone three months—four at the outside. I shall send Frank to stay with you—and I shall write every day."
Just before coming to West Salem (with a feeling of guilt in my heart) I had purchased a mechanical piano in the hope that it would cheer her lonely hours, and as this instrument had arrived I unboxed it and set it up in the music room, eager to please the old folks to whom it was an amazing contrivance.
It was on Sunday and Uncle Will came in together with several of the neighbors, and while I manipulated the stops and worked the pedals, they all sat in silence, marveling at the cunning of the mechanism rather than enjoying "The Ride of the Valkyries." However as I played some simpler things, a song of MacDowells, a study by Grieg, my Uncle's head bowed, and on his face came that somber brooding look which recalled to me the moods of David, his younger brother, whose violin had meant so much to me when as a boy, I lay before the fire and listened with sweet Celtic melancholy to the wailing of its strings.
Something in these northern melodies sank deep into my mother's inherited memories, also, and her eyes were wide and still with inward vision, but my Aunt Susan said, "That's a fine invention, but I'd rather hear you sing," and in this judgment Maria concurred. "It's grand," she admitted, "but 'tain't like the human voice."
In the end I put the machine back in the corner and sang for them, some of the familiar songs. The instrument was surprising and new and wonderful but it did not touch the hearts of my auditors like "Minnie Minturn" and "The Palace of the King."
On the day following I set the date of my departure and at the end of my announcement mother sat in silence, her face clouded with pain, her eyes looking away into space. She had nothing to say in opposition, not a word—she only said, "If you're going I guess the quicker you start the better."
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