Rare Earth

Front matter

Rare Earth

The Wind that Tramps the World

The House Mother

Chapter I

Chapter I

But for Scobee Trent sitting by his attic window there was no spring. The coldness of winter still remained. He could not see the glory of the awakening world about him. For Scobee did not live in Galvey. He dwelt in a Sad Country, a country where there was no sun, a weird black country of fog and fear and endless mystery. In the space of a year his life had changed completely. From a life of happiness and love, of dreams and friendship he had plunged into utter despair. Scobee had returned blind from the War.

His tragedy perhaps had its counterpart in countless other homes throughout the world. There is no genuine civilization. It is merely a sham, portières behind which countless menaces of treachery and hatred hide. Men have learned to build more elaborate buildings, splendid cathedrals and theatres. They have learned to travel faster, to drag music from the air, to explore the bottoms of oceans and the farthest realms of space. But man has advanced but little in his conscience and in his soul. Men do not think on a higher plane today than they did a hundred years ago. Throughout the world bigger and better churches have been built but there are no bigger and better religions. The simple folk told about in many of the Biblical parables have never been improved upon. While such fright wars can come to blight the world, to make of it a shambles of chaos and horrors such as ripped the world apart from 1914 till 1918, men cannot call themselves civilized. And what has all that carnage accomplished? What has the world gained? Today we sit back and wonder what it was all about. If it were a moral war that whitened the soul of humanity, it was a failure. If it were a purely commercial war to help along the destinies of huge corporations, it was a towering success.

Hung Long Tom, faithful servitor, guardian, dreamer, sat beside Scobee at the window in the attic of the great house and sighed softly to himself. At that moment he realized the futility of war, the futility of happiness, the futility of life. It is always the best people who bear the heaviest burdens. No use to say that God is testing their strength and courage for it is not true. God does not strike men down. If He exists at all He is a God of love and mercy. His presence is proclaimed by the wind sighing through willows, the blue wide stretch of the cool night sky, the perfume of garden flowers. God to be real must be a God of Mercy. Men of the present day shape everything to suit themselves. They even would remake God into the strange image they would wish Him to be.

All through the years Hung Long Tom had watched over Scobee. He had raised him from babyhood. The lovely mother of Scobee had died in giving birth to him. Never had he beheld her face, never had he known the warm clasp of her arms. And yet by some strange twist of fate he had seemed to always have her close to him. His mother had built the house in which he dwelt. The plans she had made and every detail of the building had been under her supervision. And as she walked through the halls and rooms she sang snatches of songs that were caught by the walls and absorbed even as fields absorb moisture. Sometimes she told the house all the dreams which she had for the baby that was to come. The house listened and was in sympathy with her. Then, as her boy was born, she died. Her physical person was carried away and buried but her sweet personality still lived. It remained in the house to watch over her boy, to guide his footsteps, to see that no harm ever might befall him.

In his loneliness the odd little Scobee grew up thinking of the house as his mother. It was a rarely beautiful reverence which old Hung Long Tom, tranquil dreamer, did much to foster. Hung Long Tom was like a father to the boy but the house was his mother.

Meanwhile Jethro Trent, taciturn, grim, gaunt figure, had gone about his farm, planting, ever planting, trying to drag life from the soil to make up for the life of his wife, Ardell Trent, who had fallen under the scourge of the soil. What Jethro's true feeling for Ardell was no one ever knew. Certainly he had not looked after her as carefully as his broad fields of wheat and the animals in his stables. He had not been unkind to her. Within his capacity he had given her every material thing that she desired. He had permitted her to build a house to her liking, he had supplied her with abundant money, but all the real passion of his life was given to the soil. The soil was his mistress. When he was upon his knees in the fields his face glowed. He touched the lush warm earth with a reverent hand. Like his father and his father's father he was as much a part of the soil as the earth itself. He was a product of the soil, the soil had given him life, it had given him strength. From it he drew all the peace which his life had ever known. He was immensely wealthy. Each year his crops were bounteous, more abundant than the last as he slowly steadily added to his vast holdings. But he never thought of himself as rich. He still lived on in the simple manner of his boyhood. There was nothing that mere money could give him that he could not find in the soil. The wheat was more valuable in his eyes than the gold he got for it. He was not a religious man. Seldom did he go to church although on several occasions he rebuilt the little church in Galvey to which his wife Ardell had always gone. Ardell had been the daughter of John Fleming, the pastor. For some reason unknown to himself Jethro always looked upon that church as belonging to him. It must never appear shabby. Constantly he kept it painted and in repair. It was the shrine which he erected to Ardell although such a thought never entered his mind.

It had always been the wish of Jethro Trent to have a son who would follow in his footsteps, turn to the soil, carry on the Trent tradition. It would be a marvelous thing if the strain of Trent blood should be a part of the soil of America for hundreds of years. As long as America should last the family of Trent should be farmers, handing on the ruling of those vast acres as though it were a monarchy from father to son endlessly. For a farmer to be successful he must love the soil, he must make of it a friend. Then only will the soil respond and give its best. The soil is a living, pulsating thing. If it were not, how then could it be the source of all life? Although Jethro Trent seldom stopped to reflect much about it, these were his beliefs. He worshipped the soil, he adored it. The first buds of spring pushing up through the sun-bathed earth always were a miracle to him. Hung Long Tom was right. Here was the fruit of the wedding of the sun and the soil upon the bridal bed of earth.

Jethro desired a son to carry on the Trent tradition.

But Scobee failed to measure up to his father's expectations. Scobee loved the countryside, Watson's Marsh, the flowing acres of wheat, the monstrous barns and stables. To him they helped make a beautiful landscape. He loved Galvey as an artist might love a picture in an impractical way. The fields never attracted him as much as clouds flying low on the distant horizon. From boyhood he had thought of them as little white ships, golden galleons with white sails racing out to sea. The gray and black clouds were pirate vessels cruising about in quest of plunder. Sometimes when Scobee and Hung Long Tom grew tired of leading an honorable existence they made believe that they were bold bad pirates. They had a favorite pirate song which they had fashioned themselves after the general model of Stevenson.

"Sixteen men On the Sky-Waves' Crest, Ho! Ho! Ho! And a bottle of ink— A pearl-like moon And a couple of stars, A planet or two And the sun's gold bars. Quite a nice haul—Don't you think?"

Hung Long Tom with his folklore and legends had helped to make real the images which the tiny boy created.

Scobee was a colossal dreamer. Had dreams been banished from his life there wouldn't have been much left. But he dreamed in an impractical way. He wondered who had written the song which the wind played at night in the willows? Who invented language? And how did other people first understand him when he talked it? Who made the first hammer so that they could use it to make other hammers? What changed the color of the sky? Why should the sunset be such a splash of lavish color? But to the planting and productive aspect of the soil he never gave a thought. Always he had considered his father a legendary figure, less real than the Pied Piper of Hamelin or Pinocchio. The gaunt silent man who spoke so seldom failed to awaken in him any paternal love. He looked up to his father and admired him but it was upon Hung Long Tom that he lavished his affection.

Jethro could not believe that Scobee would never turn to the soil. Hope is the hardest thing to kill in a man. If it were not the world would soon die out. Somehow Jethro believed eventually Scobee's attitude would change. As the years advanced he would grow cognizant of the wealth of the soil. He must. It was in his blood. The call of all the long line of ancestors who had labored in the fields would be heard and answered. Then the War had come and Scobee had gone away to return sightless. He had been home several weeks before Jethro realized that his son was blind. Scobee had tried to hide it from everyone. Then one day suddenly Jethro knew what it was that accounted for the unnatural quietude that had descended upon the house. There was something wrong with Scobee. He commenced studying him at every opportunity without Scobee's being aware of his scrutiny. And then at last he knew. As full comprehension came to him of the awful horror that had come to his house, he did not cry out, nor did he even make known to anyone his discovery. His face became a trifle more gaunt and sad.

He rose to his feet and strode from the dining-room, his meal untouched. Out into the fields he went, trying to escape reality. But one cannot escape the unescapable. At last he was far out in the fields. There was no one near him. There were no houses nearby. He was utterly alone. The sun streamed down brightly despite the fact that it was early winter. Everything appeared the same as ever, yet everything had changed. He flung out his arms in mute supplication. For months and months he had worked in these fields raising wheat to give to the War. In return the War had destroyed the sight of his son. And though he stood there with arms extended as if he were praying, the words that came from his lips were curses. And because he had never cursed in his life the torrent which poured from his lips was frightful to an extreme. He cursed humanity, civilization, life. Nothing in the universe was worth one's struggle to live. Until he was exhausted the vile curses fell from his lips. It must have been hours that he stood in the midst of those silent fields utterly without reason.

At last he slipped to the ground and placed his face against the frozen soil. But now even on the breast of the earth there was no warmth. For the first time in his life the soil failed to comfort him. What good was the future? Scobee was part of his own flesh. Blindness to Scobee was blindness to him. Scobee in all his fine young manhood not to be able to see. Where, oh, where was there a God of justice? Scobee who since infancy had never harmed even a cat to have such a frightful doom bound about his neck? Jethro, lying there on the dry earth, commenced to sob. His whole body shook. But there were no tears in his eyes. Just dry, hard sobs that were awful to hear. This was his reward for all the years that he had given to the soil. Such was the ultimate end of the family of Trent.

Chapter II

Chapter II

The grim, taciturn man appealed very little to him. He was a type hard for the tiny brain to understand. Now anybody could love Hung Long Tom, who told the most delightful fairy tales and recited odd bits of Chinese verse that were haunting.

"The Green Sea Is a glowing emerald That lies beyond the Kansu border Where the wind is warm With scents of countless flowers. It is the child Of the Yellow Sun And Blue Night Sky. Sometimes when Winter Comes across the Jade Pass Bits of snow Like pearls Fall into the glowing sea, Mute tributes From the Fairies of the Frost."

Scobee did not understand such poetry but he loved it. It sounded beautiful as Hung Long Tom recited it and beauty was all that Scobee lived for. Beauty in the sky, beauty in a garden, beauty in a picture or in a fragrant song. He never tired of the verses which the old Chinaman was forever muttering meditatively, scarcely conscious that the boy was listening to him.

"The Milky Way Is a Milky River That winds through The cold night sky. It is the river Up which Flowers go To realms of lasting fragrance When they die."

For the first time in his life the soil had not brought comfort to Jethro Trent. Even after Ardell's death, he had found a sort of peace from toiling in the fields. So had it been when his father died. But now in this supreme moment, the soil failed him. It was a traitor that turned from him when he needed it most Of course it was a momentary hallucination but he thought of it as a huge monster from which he wished to escape. It was an octopus that had sucked for years at his blood until he was a dried, broken, colorless man. And now where could he turn? A root cannot dig itself up and flee from its mother earth simply because it rebels against the course of its life. Thus, Jethro, too, like a root had no source of life other than the soil.

Suddenly the surge of his thoughts was stilled. He listened intently. Within the earth he imagined he could hear a faint, soft murmuring. It was as though there were voices whispering under the frozen loam. What caused that odd murmuring? Was it pure fancy? Or was he listening to the distant murmurings of spring from far down beneath the breast of the earth? Were the buds commencing to yawn and awaken? Were they turning in their sleep and murmuring? Jethro knew not, nor did he care. At least the faint sounds allayed the tumult in his soul. They changed the trend of his thoughts that were driving him mad.

And as he listened, his eyes closed and he slept. And now soft veils of cloud commenced to drift across the sky. Silently like sentinels they marched majestically into place. At last it commenced to snow. The white flakes fell on the sleeping form of Jethro Trent. Slowly bit by bit the coverlet of white spun itself about his body. When he awakened he was nearly covered by the snow. Wearily he rose to his feet and gazed about him. It was night. A lonesome crescent moon lifted slantwise into the sky. The snow had ceased to fall. The clouds were scurrying off into the distant shadows. Gradually the night grew very clear and the cold moon reflecting on the frozen snow made a picture that was breath-taking in its simple beauty. The air was cold but not extremely so. Although Jethro felt stiff and tired he had not suffered to any measurable extent from exposure. As ever the soil had been kind to him. The momentary fit of anger had departed. He was wrong to blame the soil for a condition for which it was in no way responsible. Whatever the future might bring he must remain true to the soil. It was his only hope of salvation. Perhaps there was a chance for his boy. Somehow his vision might be restored. It is well that tomorrow is always beyond our finger tips. It holds promise. If we caught up with it, then indeed would our lives be desolated. Happiness does not come from the things we have but from the things we expect to get.

In the whiteness of the night Jethro walked slowly back to the house.

Roma, his second wife, a splendid woman, a born mother who had always been childless, met him at the door. She had been rather worried. Never had she known him to stay away for so long a period without explanation.

"What is the matter?" she asked anxiously.

Jethro drew his hand wearily across his eyes as though he had been scarcely conscious of her presence. He smiled a trifle wearily.

"Matter?" he repeated vaguely. "Matter? Nothing is the matter. I have been far off over the fields, much farther than I had intended going, but everything is all right. I think I shall go straight to bed. I am very tired." Before mounting the stairs, he turned to her once more. "I heard the promise of spring whispering in the soil," he said. "I think next year our crops will be heavier than ever. I wonder how one measures the capacity which man must reach to be satisfied."

Long after Jethro had gone Roma sat buried in thought before the open-fire. There had been a suggestion of tragedy in her husband's voice. She sensed that at last he was aware that his boy was blind. She loved Jethro so intensely that it was almost worship. Grim, gaunt, silent, never showing love or sentiment, there was still something grand about him. The way he went about his fields, the way the soil responded to his efforts. There was something big about Jethro. His splendor lay not in a thin veneer, a worthless polish, but in his very being. He was like a gnarled oak tree. That night she knew that he was suffering more acutely than he had ever suffered in his life. All the love which he had for his boy, long dormant, had been awakened by that dim realization of blindness. Roma longed to go to him, to take his head in her arms, to comfort him. But men like Jethro must be left alone in their sorrow. They must suffer in silence. And she knew it. No woman, not even his wife, could bring peace to his soul, only the soil could do that, God speaking to him through the soil.

Chapter III

Chapter III

The wish of her life was to be a real mother to the queer little boy but she was frustrated at every turn. He was polite to her. He treated her as a friend that was all. In time she grew resigned to his attitude. When he had gone to war on that last night before leaving for camp, she had been very close to him. For one brief moment she had felt as though he were really her son. Softly she had kissed him on the forehead.

"Now close your eyes," she had said. "Forget that I am here. Think only of your mother. Say a silent farewell to her. She is in this room. Her heart is almost broken. Now I will go so that you may be alone with her."

In the morning Scobee had left while all the house was still sleeping. He had joined his chum, Rad Graham, who had gone with him never to return. Rad had been killed in the Argonne, happy-go-lucky Rad who always had a joke and a smile for everyone. What had happened to that joyous spirit that returned no more to Galvey?

All this Roma thought of as she sat there alone before the open-fire. Her whole life had been rather tragic. She had been brought up on a bleak farm in Wolf Run in Western Pennsylvania. Her father had been possessed of a mania to find oil. For oil he had sacrificed everything, happiness that was far more dear. To escape from a drab existence Roma had married Hans Geist who had bought a rough farm in Galvey, Illinois.

During the first winter they had labored in the fields like beasts, for they had no money. Then Hans was found frozen in the snow. Afterward Roma went on living alone on that silent farm. For companionship she bought a dog, a dog that barked. She had plowed her own fields, sown her own wheat and done the most arduous tasks about the farm. Then Jethro Trent had noticed her. She was following a plow across the fields. It was the most beautiful vision he had ever beheld. Soon afterward they were married.

But even then happiness eluded her. Scobee whom she loved, rebelled against her. Finally after years of patient waiting he acknowl her as a friend. Even then she could not find peace. For the War had come taking away all the young men of Galvey, killing Rad Graham and blinding Scobee, sending him home a poor broken soldier with a hurt in his heart that could not heal. He had lost his eyesight and his greatest pal. Could Roma ever be happy again?

It seemed to her that night as she sat before the blazing embers that the clouds of war would never lift from over their home. And now Jethro was passing through a period of anguish which was infinite.

Once more she sighed. As she did so old Hung Long Tom crept slowly down the stairs. He had been sitting by Scobee's bedside. The two had always been inseparable companions.

"Old fellow," Scobee often said, "you must never leave me now. I see everything through the eyes of Hung Long Tom. Perhaps I see things even more beautifully than I ever did in my life. You are a mighty comfortable sort of person to have about."

Scobee was very brave. He had been through horrors which are unprintable. They had taught him to be stoic. Quite his hardest ordeal had been that hour when Dallis Graham, the girl to whom he was engaged, had discovered that he could not see. It had taken place in the attic. He had not told her. She had noticed that he did not know when she left the chair in which she had been sitting and went to the window. Although realization of the awful fact had been a severe blow to her, in that moment she had loved him more than ever. For now she could be of definite help to him. She wished to marry at once but Scobee would not listen to her.

"There is a famous eye surgeon in Chicago," he said slowly. "His name is Steinlin, you must have heard of his work. Hung Long Tom is endeavoring to arrange a meeting for us. If Steinlin can do anything for me, I'll marry you at once. If not—well, I couldn't bear to think that you were married to a man who could not see."

"You are unfair," she said. "I want you more than anything in life. You are mean to me when you refuse to make me happy."

He leaned back in his chair and closed his sightless eyes. His mind seemed doubly acute now that his eyes had failed. He was passing through the gravest crisis of his life. Willfully he was giving up the girl he loved. The War had separated them as completely as though he had been dung to a distant planet. He lived in a Sad Country. In such a country there was no place for Dallis. Of course it was hard for her. It had been hard when her brother Rad had been killed. Still eventually she would get over it. Some other fellow would come along and Scobee would be forgotten. Not pleasant to contemplate but inevitable.

At last he said, "For awhile at least let's forget everything and pretend we are children once more without a single care or trouble in the world."

"All right," she agreed. It was better to adopt his mood. "But if we are children, you have rather broken my doll, you know."

A month later Scobee and Hung Long Tom had gone to Chicago. Doctor Steinlin had made a thorough examination of Scobee's eyes. His verdict was rather disquieting. Scobee had asked for the truth and Steinlin had respected his wishes.

"I can do nothing," he said. "Apparently there is little the matter with your eyes. The nerves are shocked in some peculiar manner. Perhaps some day your sight may return of its own accord."

"However," broke in Scobee, "you believe that if such a thing should occur it would be a miracle."

"That's putting it rather bluntly," said Steinlin hesitantly.

"But truthfully nevertheless," persisted Scobee.

"Yes," was the reluctant admission. "I would indeed consider it a miracle. I have had much experience with cases almost similar to yours. I have never been able to effect a cure."

For awhile Scobee sat in silence. His life was growing to be nothing but one shock after another. It meant that all romance for him was over. There was no future. Only a past that was a wistful memory. He must resign himself to the permanent loss of Dallis. Of course she was true to him but he refused to accept sacrifices from her.

Fifteen minutes later as they left Steinlin's office, Scobee said, "What is to become of me?"

"Who knows?" replied Hung Long Tom. He was more deeply shaken than he cared to admit. "For myself I refuse to lose hope. Somehow I feel that your life is not yet done. Somewhere there is a brilliant future for you. We must ponder the matter deeply, study it from every angle. Have courage. Why, you're not much more than a child, not half your life has been lived. This is a momentary lull. Although it is broad daylight we are lost in the weird blackness of night thoughts. What is it that the poet has written about night?

'The night blackness Is a velvet curtain That descends in great folds Upon the fields of tea,

So that grave spirits Of the sky and hills And dragons from beneath The mountains high May walk the earth And stretch their limbs and cry, Making strange sounds For which the wind is blamed. Where is the man Whose eye is trained so keen That he can see Beyond the screen of Night? What strange tales lurk Within the velvet folds; Only the moon And cold night wind May know.'

There is much in life that man does not understand. The material world is only the owner of one-third of our lives. Two-thirds is spiritual. The material world in the person of Doctor Steinlin has evidently failed. But from the spiritual we have not heard. In spiritual things there is promise. That is why so many people in an emergency turn to religion. The subject is a big one. It is well worth mulling over. Your future is of vast importance. What we do now may change the current of your life. I would not admit to anyone how bad things are, not for the present anyway. It would be too cruel. Truth is often harsh. Dallis, it seems to me, has suffered enough. To all who ask we will say there is nothing we can do but wait. If necessary, gradually we can let the truth seep out. But after all we ourselves do not know the truth. We know what one well-known doctor has told us. Only time can verify his beliefs. I myself have beliefs that are contrary to his. I prefer to think on a spiritual plane. In spiritual things there is always hope. It is a question of faith. That is the true worth of any religion. In its faith it justifies its being. I cannot explain my feelings to you, but I would wait. As yet in any case we know but little."

Chapter IV

Chapter IV

If only he could pierce those curtains of blackness. There had been an instance when for one brief moment as he walked across the fields with Hung Long Tom he had beheld the sky. But it was a fleeting interlude. Then once more he was blind. It was in this little moment of happiness that he and Hung Long Tom had put such great store. But Steinlin had not given the incident much consideration. He was a cold, unsentimental, methodical man of science, so absorbed with the material facts of the war he had scant time for the spiritual. Still he was a world-famous eyesurgeon. One could not totally disregard his opinions.