Judith of the Godless Valley/Chapter 11
CHAPTER XI
THE LOG CHAPEL
"Don't take any responsibility that you don't have to. That's my idea of a happy life."
BY eight o'clock the next morning they had broken camp and had started homeward, with their kicking, squealing herd of wild horses. The little black mare alone led docilely. It was a difficult trip back to the valley and Douglas was grateful for this, for it kept Charleton from airing the cynical comments Douglas knew he was evolving in regard to the preacher. And Douglas was filled with a new purpose fulness that was almost happiness. He did not want Charleton to obtrude himself upon this new-found content.
They reached Lost Chief late one afternoon and Douglas found himself and the trembling mare at home in time for supper. The family came out to the corral to examine the prize.
"She's got some mighty good points," said John; "but I doubt if you'll ever be able to do anything with her. She's wild. And she'll die of homesickness for the range. Once in a while you see 'em like that."
"She has an intelligent eye." Judith was going over the horse eagerly.
Douglas smiled a little. The range horse, with its slender, hard-muscled beauty, was no finer drawn than Judith circling carefully about the corral, the wind whipping her black hair across her thin, vivid face.
"I don't believe she'll eat with us all watching her," said Mary. "Let's go in to our own supper."
"She'll have to eat pretty soon or give up." Douglas followed Judith into the kitchen. "She hasn't eaten a pound since I caught her."
"Poor little thing!" exclaimed Judith.
At supper Douglas gave the details of the hunt, which were greeted by the family with considerable hilarity.
"One no-account horse to show for a week's hard work!" laughed John.
But Douglas was not perturbed.
"I don't mind," he said. "Wild horses was the least of what I went after and, as it turned out, the least of that I got. I met Mr. Fowler."
"The old preacher?" exclaimed Judith. "Where was he?"
"He starved out at preaching and is herding sheep down in the Green Thimble country. He fed Charleton and me and we had a long talk."
"You had nerve to eat with him after what you did to him!" John was grinning.
"I felt that way myself," agreed Douglas. "But he didn't hold a grudge against me. He's not that kind. And I think he was so lonely he'd have been glad to feed the Old Nick himself."
"Who is he herding for?" asked Mary.
"Some one in Denver. He's going to give it up in the fall."
"What for? Got a church?" John was still grinning.
Douglas nodded slowly. "Yes, he's got a church."
"Did he tell you where?" asked Mary.
"Yes; it's in Lost Chief," replied Douglas.
"Lost Chief!" roared John. "What are you giving us?"
"I'm giving it to you straight. I asked him if he would come if I'd build him a little church up on my part of the ranch and he said he would."
There was a stunned silence while the audience of three considered this reply. Judith eyed Doug intently, then said, "I bite! What is the joke, Douglas?"
"No joke. I asked him to come. I want to hear what he has to say."
"What did Charleton say about it?" asked Mary.
"Charleton doesn't know. I certainly wouldn't give him a chance to spoil the trip." Douglas tossed the thick yellow hair from his forehead and waited for his father's comment. He could not recall ever having carried on a more difficult conversation than this. There were beads of sweat on his upper lip. Old Fowler had warned him of the antagonism he would meet. And here it was. The air was black with it before a hundred words had been spoken.
John scratched his head. "You mean you actually asked that old fool to come here and preach in Lost Chief?"
Douglas nodded over a piece of pie. "Only," he added, "he's not a fool. Far from it. We may not agree with him, but he's a wise man. A very wise old man."
"And you are going to build a church for him?" John went on.
Again Douglas nodded.
"Are you plumb loco?" John's voice began to rise.
Douglas' color was deepening but he had himself well in hand. "Maybe I am loco. But it can't hurt any one to have Fowler here, can it?"
"I guess he won't stay long enough to do any actual harm!" Judith laughed.
"He's going to stay quite a spell," returned Doug. "I'm going to see that he does."
"But everybody will make fun of him and of you too," volunteered Mary.
"Probably," agreed Douglas. "But even at that I doubt if they have as much fun as I do. My sense of humor is my strong point!"
"Huh!" sniffed Judith. "You'll need more than what you have, Douglas, in this campaign."
"Look here, Doug," urged his father with an obvious effort to be patient, "just what is the joke?"
"Now listen, Dad! It's not a joke. I'm in deadly earnest. I haven't got a particle of religion in me but I'm interested in that line of talk to see if I can discover what other folks get out of it. Peter Knight is not a fool. He knows the world and he says Lost Chief needs a church. All right, it's going to have one."
"Peter Knight is some advocate, all right!" growled John. "He's always saying he had a religious up-bringing, and look at him! Fourth-class postmaster in a cow valley!"
"I don't suppose his religious up-bringing had a thing to do with that," said Douglas.
"Then what's the good of a religion?" John's voice was triumphant. Douglas said nothing and his father went on. "You'll be the laughing-stock of the Valley. You can let on you won't care, but I know you will."
"Yes, I'll care," admitted Douglas. "But that can't be helped. It seems to be a part of the game."
"Well, he can't come to this house!" roared John. "I wouldn't have one of that breed on the place. Mind you keep him off this ranch, Doug."
"I expected you to say that." Douglas' jaw was set. "That's why I plan to build him a cabin up on my section. Grandfather's old cabin isn't worth fixing up."
He did not look at Judith as he spoke. Had he done so he would have been puzzled by the wistfulness in her eyes.
"I sure wonder, Doug," said John irritably, "where you get your crazy notions!"
"He's exactly like his grandfather Douglas!" exclaimed Mary.
"His grandfather Douglas!" cried John. "Why, the old man would kick the stones off his grave if he knew what his grandson was up to. He used to boast that he came West just to get rid of the Presbyterians and the Allopaths. Nothing he hated like a sky pilot!"
Douglas rose and shrugged his shoulders. "Well," he said, "if I'm as popular with the rest of the Valley as I am with my family, I'm liable to have my head turned before this thing is over," and he went out to attend to his chores.
As he paused by the corral fence to watch the little wild horse standing motionless over the untasted hay, Judith joined him.
"Looks as if Dad might be right about her," he said.
"I'd like to try my hand at her, Douglas." Judith's voice was eager.
"You may have her, Jude. I was hoping to bring you in two or three, but Fate said otherwise."
"I'm much obliged to you, Douglas," said Judith soberly. "You are always mighty generous—" She hesitated for a moment. "I wish you weren't going in for this thing with the preacher, Doug."
"O well, let's drop the matter!" said Douglas wearily, and without a word further Judith turned away.
The next morning at breakfast, John was irritable and would not let the subject of Fowler's coming rest.
"What did Charleton say?" he asked.
"Charleton doesn't know," replied Douglas, patiently. "He wasn't there when I talked it over with the preacher."
"I'll bet he wasn't or you never would have gotten away with it," growled John.
"Sure! I'm a nervous man about Charleton," grinned Douglas. "Come now, Dad! Why should you be sore at the idea?"
"Lots of reasons! I hate a man who thinks he's enough superior to me to tell me how to behave. And I feel sore as a pup that my son should be bringing such a man into the Valley. All the folks will say you are criticizing them. I'm not going to let you do it, Douglas!"
Douglas gave a short laugh, which was echoed by Judith.
John grew red. "My father would have thrashed me when I was a grown man if I'd laughed at him like that!"
"O well, look at the man he was!" chuckled Judith.
"Don't you speak that way to me!" roared John. "The children of this generation certainly are a bad lot! But one thing you two will remember. I'm master of this house and as long as you stay here you'll obey me! And you just let me hear you telling anybody, Doug, of your crazy plan and you'll learn for the first time what I am!"
"Then you won't help me put up my buildings?" asked Douglas.
"Not for the use of any fool preacher!" shouted his father.
Douglas lighted a cigarette and went out. For the first time a sense of disappointment marred the beauty of the plan he had perfected with the preacher. He realized now that he had counted on Judith's being interested even were she antagonistic. But she was indifferent. He would have preferred that she be resentful like his father. There was nothing tangible there to struggle against. One could neither fight nor urge indifference. Then he set his jaws. Judith should see! He knew whither he was going now. He had found the fine straight line of which Peter had spoken, long ago, and he would hew to it, at whatever cost. And Judith could not, must not fail him. If only he knew the things she really thought! His jaw was still set as he watched the little wild mare, now ceaselessly circling the corral fence, her face to the hills. Judith crossed to the bars and Douglas turned away.
There still was too much frost in the ground for spring work on the ranch and it would be a month before the cattle could be driven up into the Reserve. It was during this month that Douglas had planned to put up two cabins on his ranch, one for the church, the other for himself and Fowler to occupy. He had accumulated a sufficient number of logs to more than supply his needs and he had counted on his father's help in erecting the buildings. He wondered now if Peter would help him, and old Johnny Brown. That afternoon he rode down to the post-office.
Peter was breathlessly interested. "You'd better keep it quiet, Doug, till the old man gets here," he said. "If you get old Johnny up there, don't give him an inkling."
Douglas nodded. "Then I can count on you, Peter?"
The postmaster eyed the young rider keenly. John Spencer had never been the man his son had grown to be!
"Do you mean count on me for the plan or the cabins?" asked Peter.
"Both!"
"Yes, you can, Douglas! I don't know whether the plan is a good one or not. But I'm delighted to see you taking a step like this. It's gratifying to me, Doug. It is indeed; and I know your mother would have been delighted." Peter's voice broke, and he said harshly, "Now, get along, Doug. I've got to sort the mail."
For the first time that day, Douglas' lips wore a little smile. He whistled to Prince, who had grown too lazy of late to propitiate Sister as he had in his younger days and who was keeping that growling old Amazon at her distance by snapping at her viciously. Prince lunged over to Pard's heels and Doug started off for his call on Johnny Brown.
"I deponed I'd come, didn't I?" asked old Johnny. "It's been a gregus long time and I'm only half-muscled as well as half-witted now. But I'll come. I'd help you build a cabin in hell if you wanted me to. Honest, I would, Doug."
Douglas did not laugh. "Thanks, Johnny! Then I'll look for you to-morrow."
"I deponed I'd come, didn't I?" repeated the old fellow, and he was still deponing when Douglas started homeward.
Peter inveigled Young Jeff into taking the post-office for a couple of weeks. Post-office keeping did not accord at all with the ideas of pleasant living of the native-born of Lost Chief. Undoubtedly if Peter had not offered his services year after year there would have been, a great part of the time, no post-office in the Valley. But Peter had means of his own with which to piece out the salary and for some inscrutable reason he clung to the sort of prestige he enjoyed in the community as a Federal employee. His friends always protested violently at substituting for him, but always gave in, fearful lest Peter carry out his threat of giving up the job. So he appeared at Douglas' ranch, bright and early, bringing a graphic account of Young Jeff's despair over a pile of second-class mail.
Lost Chief Creek bordered one edge of Douglas' acres. Dead Line Peak pushed an abrupt shoulder into the stream at the northwest corner. Below this shoulder lay a grove of silvery aspens and of blue spruce, dripping with great bronze cones. Just above the flood line of the creek, Douglas trimmed out enough trees from the grove to give elbow-room for the cabins and corrals. By the end of Peter's two weeks, the heaviest part of the building had been done.
On the last day of the fortnight—it had been a very pleasant fortnight for Peter—he and Douglas dawdled long over their noon meal while old Johnny began the work he loved, the chinking of the log walls. Leaning against a log at the edge of the clearing, Lost Chief Valley sloped below them. A blue line of smoke rose from the Spencer chimney.
"Dad is sure sore at me this time," said Douglas. "He's hardly spoken to me for a week."
"About Fowler, I suppose."
"Yes. He feels that I am disgracing him. He's sure I'm going to turn religious. I can't make him believe that that is not why I'm bringing Fowler in."
"What is your real reason, Doug?" asked Peter, taking a huge bite of cold fried beef.
"I don't want to turn religious. I don't want to be anything that's queer or unreasonable. What I want is to get to believe—in a future life."
Peter laughed. "Isn't that religion?"
"I don't think so! You can believe in immortality without believing in miracles and that Eve was made out of a man's rib, and without being goody-goody."
Peter made no comment for a moment. He finished his beef and lighted his pipe before he said, "I have an idea that the kind of a mind that can believe in the soul's floating around in space can swallow the rib story without much choking. What I want to see in Lost Chief is the kind of ethics that Christ taught."
"Ethics! Ethics!" scoffed the younger man. "Who gives a hang about ethics if they aren't going to help us live again? You can bet I don't! Ethics may do for a cold-blooded guy like you, Peter. But me! I want something as big and as real and as warm-looking as Fire Mesa."
"Poor old Fowler!" groaned Peter.
Douglas glanced at the postmaster questioningly; then his eyes wandered back toward the ranch house. A tiny figure in blue leaped on a horse and was off at a gallop.
"Judith's going to Inez' place," said Douglas.
"She sees too much of Inez!" Peter scowled. "Her mind is getting exactly Inez' twist to it."
"There was a time when you told me Inez could give Judith good advice." Doug's voice was bitter.
"So she could. But I never said Inez and Jude should be buddies, did I?"
Douglas threw his cigarette into the creek and rolled over on his face with a groan. "I'm sick of worrying about it!" he said.
"Does she still talk about going the round of the rodeos with a string of buckers?"
"No. She says that was just kid stuff. She has an idea now she'll breed thoroughbred horses." Douglas turned over on his back and gazed up into the heavens, where an eagle hung, motionless.
"Lord! Breeding horses is no work for Jude!" cried Peter.
Douglas did not reply. Peter eyed the young man's clean, hawk-like profile and went on. "What does she say about you and Fowler?"
"She laughs at me."
"Do you think you can get her in touch with Fowler?"
Douglas sat up with a jerk. "Get her in touch with him? Say, what do you think I'm bringing that sky pilot in here for? You can bet she'll get in touch with him! I'll show that girl I haven't played all my cards yet!"
Peter stared long and unblinkingly at Douglas. "Well, I'll be damned!" he muttered and filled his pipe again.
The summer passed for Douglas with extraordinary rapidity. Profiting by the experience of the previous winter, every rancher put in as heavy a grain crop as he could handle and there was little leisure in the Valley during July and August. Lost Chief was, of course, immensely interested in Doug's building operations. He was accused of planning to be married and conjecture ran rife. When he began work in the interior of the log chapel, he hung burlap bags over the windows and locked the doors. But his precautions were futile. By the middle of June, every ranch in the valley was talking about Douglas Spencer's motion-picture hall and wondered why he was building it so far from the center of the community. The truth came out in an entirely unexpected manner.
About a week before he expected the preacher, Douglas rode down in the evening for his mail. Peter had gone to Mountain City on a rare visit and Young Jeff was acting as postmaster again. Scott Parsons was helping him sort the mail and it was Scott who fell upon a battered suitcase, tied with frayed rope.
"What's this mess?" he exclaimed. "Let's see this tag." He shoved the suitcase close to the lamp. "'The Rev. Mr. James Fowler. Care of Douglas Spencer.'" Scott looked up with an oath. "What do you know about this!" he gasped.
Douglas, standing with his back to the cold stove, said nothing.
Young Jeff dropped the handful of letters he was distributing, and examined the tag for himself. "Old Fowler, eh? Thought he was dead long ago. What's he coming to see you for, Doug? Going to preach—" He paused and his eyes grew round. "Doug's motion-picture theater! The sky pilot! That cabin is a church!"
Scott gave a gasp, followed by a shout of laughter. "How about it, Doug?"
Douglas grinned.
"What are you doing, Douglas? Starting a ranch for broken-down sky pilots?" asked Young Jeff.
Still Douglas made no reply. He strode over to the table and put his hand on the suitcase.
"Hold on!" protested Scott. "Answer a few questions. What are you trying to put over on us, Douglas?"
"You'll know, pretty soon," answered Doug.
"Well, you always were loco but I never thought you'd get real dangerous, till now!" exclaimed Young Jeff. "Listen, don't try to put that guy over on us, Doug!"
Scott stood eying Douglas with a mixture of curiosity and impatience in his hard eyes. He had just parted his lips to speak when the door opened and Charleton and Jimmy came in.
"Look at here, Charleton!" roared Young Jeff. "Look at the address on this bag!"
The two newcomers scrutinized the tag. "Well," said Jimmy, "I'll be everlastingly dehorned, vaccinated and branded!"
Charleton's mouth twisted. "So the old fool got you, Doug! You've got hard nerve, that's all I have to say!"
"Nerve! I'll say so!" cried Scott. "What's the great idea, Doug? Going to bring Lost Chief up to your level, huh?"
Douglas' cheeks were burning. He jerked the suitcase from the table and started for the door.
"Believe me, cowman," called Scott after him, "you and the sky pilot have laid out a course of trouble for yourselves."
Douglas paused with his hand on the latch. "You are a pack of coyotes!" he said and he slammed the door after himself.
And so the secret was out! Nothing that had occurred in the Valley for years had stirred the ranchers so deeply. There was much joking and derisive laughter but beneath this was a sense of resentment that grew day by day. Grandma Brown, Peter of course, and Frank Day were sympathetic to the idea. Some of the older women wondered if it might not be a good thing in giving the young fry a place to go on Sundays. But the young fry, with huge enjoyment not untinged with malice, planned to run the preacher out of the Valley in short order and to mete out such treatment to Douglas as would prevent his making a like fool of himself again.
Douglas had set up housekeeping in the new cabin now, and on the night before he expected Mr. Fowler, Judith rode up to see his new home. Old Johnny had gone down to the post-office and Douglas finished his supper and was sitting on the doorstep when Judith galloped up, with the Wolf Cub under the heels of her mount.
"This is my first real ride on the little wild mare," she said, dropping from the saddle.
"Has she gotten over her homesickness, yet?" asked Douglas.
"I think so. At least, she follows me around about as close as Wolf Cub does."
"You are a wonder, Judith! I wish you thought as much of me as you do of your horses and dog."
"You wouldn't let me train you, Doug," said Judith plaintively.
Douglas laughed. "A whole lot you'd think of a man you could train!"
Judith laughed, too, sitting down on the step beside Douglas. For a moment she was silent, then she said softly: "How you must love it up here!"
"I do! But I'll be glad when old Johnny can be with me all the time. I don't like this bachelor stuff."
"You and Scott ought to join forces," Judith's voice was mischievous. "By the way, Scott's heard of a standard bred mare he can get me for five hundred dollars."
"I wouldn't trust Scott to pick a horse for me," grunted Douglas.
"And you'd be foolish if you did," agreed Judith. "But he'll play fair enough with me."
"He will if it's to his interest to do so. If he can make anything off you by being crooked, he'll be crooked. But I suppose there's no use in me warning you. Have you got the money for the mare?"
"Only half of it. All the stock I've been able to raise and sell in the last five years amounts to about two hundred and fifty-six dollars."
"I'll lend you the rest," offered Douglas.
"Dad said he'd let me have it, and so did Inez. But I'd rather borrow from you."
Douglas flushed with pleasure. "Had you, Judith? Tell me why!"
"I don't like to be under obligations to Dad; and Inez' money—well, I don't feel keen about her money. As for you—Doug, it's queer, but I'd just as soon ask you for anything. I don't know whether it's a compliment to you or not."
"I consider it a compliment," said Douglas softly. "I had no idea you had that sort of confidence in me."
"O, I'm not such a wild woman that I don't know a real man when I see one, Doug,—even if you are making an idiot of yourself just now! You should have planned to be more tactful about bringing your old sky pilot in here."
"Tactful! What a word!" exclaimed Douglas, "For heaven's sake, Jude, don't you get the idea better than that? This is a matter of—" He hesitated, at a loss for a moment for a word that should tell Judith something of the yearning conflict that obsessed him. "This is a battle," he said finally, "a fight to the finish for—for—" then he blurted out the word that in Lost Chief was taboo—"for souls!" exclaimed Douglas.
Judith looked at him quickly; but to Douglas' vast relief she did not laugh. Instead, her eyes were deep with some emotion he could not name.
"I don't think I understand you, Doug," she said at last. "I couldn't get so worked up over anything that had to do with religion. But I do see that it means a lot to you and I think you're foolish to trust to a man like Fowler to put anything over in this valley for you."
"You don't know my old sky pilot like I do," insisted Doug.
"Yes, you must have got a deep knowledge of him in one night!"
"I sure did!" said Douglas simply.
"You are sure that you realize how bitterly the Valley resents your doing this?"
"Yes. And the Valley had better realize, if it plans trouble, that I'm neither soft, nor easy."
"I just wish you weren't trying to do it," repeated Judith.
"What do you want me to do?" asked Douglas.
"Why, be a first-class rancher, make money, and travel and learn something about life."
"That's what I plan to do. But I want to do more than that. I want to fix Lost Chief so that a couple of kids like you and me don't have to learn all they know about real things from a woman like Inez and a man like Charleton. And if a sky pilot can answer those questions right, why I'm going to have one in here if I have to mount guard on him, day and night. My kids are going to grow up right here in Lost Chief and they aren't going round like little wild horses when it comes to asking questions about love and death. No, ma'am!"
"Oh! What does old Fowler know about such things?" cried Judith.
"That's what I aim to find out," replied Doug.
Twilight was up on the valley, though Falkner's Peak still glowed crimson in outline, and the Forest Reserve to the east was silver blue, shot with lines of flame. The evening star trembled above Fire Mesa. Up on Dead Line Peak behind them, a pack of coyotes barked.
"We miss you down at the house," said Judith suddenly.
Douglas' heart suddenly lifted. There was a sweetness in Judith's voice that he never before had heard there.
"I miss you, Judith! Every moment of the day I'm missing you. The ache for you in my heart is as much a part of my life as my very heart-throbs."
"I wish you wouldn't, Douglas! I wish you wouldn't! I'm not ready to talk of those things!"
"What do you mean, Judith?"
"I mean that I don't see love as you see it; that even if I did care for any one, I'm not ready to give way to it."
She paused as if she too were struggling to express the inarticulate. "O, I am so disappointed in life! It isn't at all what I thought it would be! People aren't what I dreamed they were. Everything is hard and rough and difficult. I don't like life a bit!"
"I don't like it as it is, either," agreed Douglas. "That's why I'm trying to change it, here in Lost Chief. But I wouldn't change my love for you, no matter how it hurts. That's the one beautiful thing in Lost Chief and in me."
He turned to the face, so dimly rebellious, so vaguely sweet in the dark, and his whole soul was in his steady deep voice.
"Judith, won't you marry me? You are my whole life!"
Judith's voice rose passionately. "Don't talk about it! Don't! I don't believe in marriage. I tell you I don't, Douglas!"
"Why not?"
"I've told you again and again. Marriage is too hard on a woman. Why should I want to cook your meals and darn your socks and wash your clothes for you the rest of my life? Yes, and listen to you swear and lay down the law and spit tobacco juice? And when I'm a little older and beginning to get knotty with the hard work, see you take notice of girls who are younger and prettier than I. No, Doug!"
"O, love isn't like that!" exclaimed Douglas vehemently.
"My love won't be like that, I can tell you!" The excitement still was evident in Judith's voice. "I'm not going to kill it, by marrying."
"I wish that Inez were dead and in hell!" cried Douglas, with such an accumulation of bitterness in his voice that Judith drew a quick breath. "And I wish I could quit loving you! I tried my best to, all the time I was at Charleton's. But I can't! It just grows as I grow and every day it's a bigger pain and trouble to me. I wish I could have peace!"
"I wish I could have it myself!" ejaculated the girl. She rose suddenly. "I'm so tired of this burning struggle. But I won't settle down to being an old horse on a ranch. I will do something that gives me a chance to use my brain. I will!"
She leaped into the saddle.
Douglas seized the mare's bridle. "Just what do you mean by being tired of a burning struggle?" he demanded tensely. "Are you caring for somebody, Jude?"
"Let me go, Douglas," said Judith.
For a moment, the two stared at each other in the fading light, then Douglas released the bridle and Judith galloped away.
He stood very still for a long time, gazing down the dim line of the trail. How lonely, how very lonely Judith appeared to be! How lonely, for that matter, were most people, pondering in the solitude of their own minds on all the matters of life that really counted. And how utterly impossible it seemed to be for him and Judith to cross the threshold of each other's reticences. More difficult perhaps for Judith than for him. That, perhaps, was because she did not love him. Or perhaps, because she was not capable of feeling sympathy for spiritual hunger. But he put aside this thought, impatiently. No one could have lived with Judith and not have learned that below her tempestuous nature must be deeps greater than even she herself had realized. Why, O why, could he never have more than a glimpse of those deeps! Evidently something more than love was demanded as a password.
He had been able, quickly enough, at her request to formulate his own demands on life. What were Judith's demands? Were they only for a love that should be unhampered by the ordinary facts of life? He knew that this could not be so. Yet, he had grown up with Judith, had asked her to marry him, and had no idea of what her actual mental and spiritual needs might be. Perhaps they were such that he never could satisfy them. Perhaps Judith recognized this. Of course, she recognized it!—as a bitter memory of her picture of marriage in Lost Chief returned to him. With a groan he bowed his head against the smooth trunk of an aspen. How utterly inexplicable women were! How bitter and how beautiful was this scourging fire, called love!