SPRING

Spring came all too soon for Philip after his gloriously solitary and absorbed winter.

One Saturday morning, even from his sunless north window, it proclaimed itself and would not be denied. The tint of the sky, the scanty glimpses of waving green, and the jubilant song of birds in the park, all spoke of the annual miracle.

"Just the day for a sketch," thought Phil, and buttoning his collar, he went to the head of the stairs and called Pat.

"Here," responded the Irishman, "and sure I wish it was there, thin."

"Where's that?"

"Annywhere in the country-side where I couldn't see a pavement the day."

"Just what I was thinking, Pat. I'm going to borrow the key to the park again. I wonder if you'd go over to Streeter's on Fourth Avenue for me. You remember the place you bought the framed Madonna for your sister. I'd like you to get a package of materials they were to have sent me yesterday. I don't want to miss a minute of this weather for a sketch, and I can be making my coffee while you're gone."

"Sure I will. I've got to go that way for a pair o' boots annyway."

"If I get a good sketch," called Phil after him, "you may look at it for nothing."

Pat was privately not at all sure that it would be worth looking at, even if the artist thought it good. He had seen a number of Phil's efforts which looked like nothing to him, and the artist's explanation that they were merely impressions did not bring them within Pat's comprehension as being worth the paper they spoiled. Nevertheless his devotion to the artist was steadfast and he hastened on his errand.

Phil ate his breakfast, and primed two canvases for the Monday pose. Then his Streeter package having arrived, he hurriedly transferred a few pieces of charcoal and some pans of water-color to his sketch-box, and was off down the stable steps into the mellow light of spring, the park key in his hand.

"What a morning!" he thought, as he passed through the gate and snapped the lock after him. At different times when he had visited this enclosure with his scratch-pad, he had made mental notes of advantageous points for sketching, and he now moved straight to a chosen spot.

The gravel path winding between the patches of fresh spring green crunched under his feet and reminded him of the tar and pebble roof he had put on a barn in Montana. How different this life! How glorious! If only his mother could sit beside him while he sketched this morning.

The day was joyous as his spirit, and the park was soon alive with children and their capped and aproned nurses, truly distinguished in their right of eminent domain, while outside the hedges and railings sauntered those with no proprietary rights in Gramercy Park. A child often peeped through the fence at coveted dandelions, like a little peri at the gates of paradise.

Phil worked away, paying no attention to the more inquisitive youngsters who dared from a well-bred distance to stretch and strain for a look at what was being done in art.

He was hastily washing in a soft rose grey that was eventually to take the form of several charming old brick houses. They had dormer windows above and fascinating iron grilled balconies with long drawing-room windows and great masses of spring flowers growing in front of the basements.

Philip was working with an intensity of interest and absorption, and suddenly he threw a quantity of color and water from his brush with a quick backward motion which sent a flood over one of the youngsters who had ventured quite near. A shout of glee went up from the others of the group and he turned quickly to see what had happened, just as a girl, not capped or aproned, seized the little color-target, and wiped the moisture from the boy's face with her handkerchief.

"You, Miss Manning!" cried the artist, "and I can't spare time to rise and fall on my knees in apology."

"Ernest is the one who should apologize," said Violet, laughing, "but you know an artist out of doors is common property."

"Of course," returned Phil, washing away industriously. "Come here, little chap. I'm sorry I doused you. Come and see what I'm doing—no, not the rest of you. I can't have a heavy weight on my sword arm."

Upon this, Ernest, who had been scarlet under his companions' amusement, gave them a glance of superiority and moved to Phil's side.

"What's that?" he asked, pointing to the object in the sketch which had been the cause of the present smooches on his blouse.

"What?" asked Phil encouragingly.

"That big tall thing that looks kind of rough, like a rock or something."

"Why, that's the Metropolitan Tower. See it there over those roofs?" Phil directed the boy's gaze with his brush-handle.

"Doesn't look much like it, does it?"

"Oh, you wait and see."

"Are those going to be trees there?"

"Yes; and those spots are going to be filled with red and pink and yellow and white. You know what a tulip is? Those are the tulip beds."

Ernest leaned comfortably against the green park bench. "What are you going to make the picture for?"

"Enough questions," said Violet brightly. She was standing away a little, but mounting guard over her small charge and taking notes of the sketch for the benefit of Rex. Now she stepped forward and took the child's hand with intent to lead him away; but Phil looked smiling at the boy, and said:—

"I'm going to try to paint this picture so that when any one studies it he will get its message and feel as I do to-day."

The child looked back into the man's eyes, and discerned a fellow child.

"Is it your birthday?" he asked gravely.

Phil laughed softly. "I shouldn't wonder," he answered. "What made you think so?"

"You look happy—and you said—" the boy didn't finish, and Phil nodded.

"Did you ever see a chrysalis, Ernest? Well, I think I've been expanding all winter. I feel sort of wingy this morning. This is a good sort of day for a chrysalis to burst, don't you think so? Perhaps this is my birthday and you guessed it before I did."

"Come, Ernest, we must go," said Violet, smiling. "We're a load on the butterfly's wings."

"Do you live here in the park, Miss Manning?"

"No. I spent last night with a friend here, and one of the maids fell ill, so Ernest and I thought we could walk about a bit and smell the lilacs."

"I don't want to go away," said Ernest. "I like to see him paint."

"Just move some of that paraphernalia from the end of the bench and sit down, can't you, Miss Manning?" suggested Phil. "I piled it there in self-defence, but it's for show. Keep away from my arm, old man, and you may watch me all you like."

"Come here, Ernest, you can see just as well," and Violet, seating herself, drew the child against her knee.

The scent of moist lilacs was in the air.

"There's a robin," cried Ernest—"oh, two! Look."

"Quiet, don't frighten them," said Violet, as the bright-eyed birds ran beneath the bushes.

"Put them in, won't you, Mr.——" began the child eagerly.

"That is Mr. Sidney, Ernest," said Violet. "It is time you were introduced and this is Ernest Tremaine, Mr. Sidney."

"I'll make you a sketch of the robin in a minute."

One of the birds ran toward the seated group, and stood a moment, proud and high-chested, his sleek head gleaming in the sun. Phil laughed to himself as his busy hand worked.

"What are you laughing at?" asked the little boy.

"Cock robin. He reminded me of somebody I know. Don't you think he looks very pleased with his red vest and his smooth feathers?"

"Yes," replied the child. "Perhaps it's his birthday, too." He laughed, delighted that his big friend was amused.

"Perhaps; and see there! He has found a birthday present."

The robin had suddenly pounced upon a worm and was digging it from its earthy stronghold.

Violet had to put her hand over the child's mouth to still his mirth. The bird was sitting on his tail, claws dug in the ground as he leaned back, dragging at his prey.

"How good of the robins to stray away from Central Park, and bring spring to all these little places," said Violet. "I heard one last night. Perhaps this is the very fellow. Their notes always make me think of links in a chain, link after link, alike, yet so fresh. Wouldn't it be great, Ernest, if this pair are hunting for a place to build here, and would take a tree that you could see from your windows, and you could watch them with an opera-glass?"

"Do you think they will?" The child looked up into the golden-green of tender new leaves through which the mellow light was sifting.

"We must ask them to hurry up," said Violet, "before the foliage grows heavy and makes it hard to watch them."

"What news from the island, Miss Manning?" asked Phil.

"Oh, spring is peeping in on them, too, once in a while. Aunt Amy says their hill will soon be white with strawberry blossoms, and blue with violets."

"And what of my friend, Eliza Brewster? I believe you told me you have never seen her."

"Aunt Amy always speaks of her in her letters. She has been a great comfort to them, so helpful and kind."

"Mrs. Fabian will have it that I am to see this wonderful island."

"You should go. It would be paradise for an artist."

"And how about yourself?" asked Phil. "You also have an aunt and a home on that green mound I hear about."

"Oh, I'm going for the whole summer," replied Violet. "I had two weeks last year, and it created an inordinate appetite."

"Then you knew the Fabians there."

"Yes, a little. In two weeks one doesn't make much headway with a girl like Kathleen."

"Is she difficult for a girl, too?" asked Phil.

"Oh, yes—at least for a new girl. She reminds me of a series of locked doors. You succeed in unlocking one, and the small room within merely leads to another door. You must strive to unlock that, and you succeed only to find another waiting. Such wholesome, clean, airy rooms, but small—always small. She is fascinating to me, perhaps for that very reason. Did you ever notice that even her hair is reserved?"

Phil smiled, as his busy hand worked. "Christmas night is the only time I ever saw her with her hat off," he answered. "I'm afraid you're too subtle for me."

"Oh, you'll see," said Violet; "an artist couldn't help seeing in the daytime. What color do you think it is?"

"Dark brown."

"I knew you would say that. Wait till you see her in the sunshine. It's almost red; and that's just like her. Even her hair keeps everything to itself as long as it can."

Phil laughed. "Quite different from brother, eh?"

"You mean that he is frank?" asked Violet, with a perceptible indrawing of her own frankness.

"Well, that's a mild word for it," answered Phil. "I don't know Edgar's family crest, but the inscription should read, freely translated, 'I give myself away.'"

The speaker laughed at his own folly, and glanced up for sympathy. The baby bachelor's full lips were grave and her eyes a little dark.

"I like people to be frank," she said briefly.

Phil drew his own lips together in a noiseless whistle and his eyes twinkled at the Metropolitan Tower in the sketch.

"Keep off the grass," he mused. "I thought you said reserve fascinated you," he remarked aloud, mildly.

"One thing I don't like Mr. Fabian to reserve," said Violet, "and that is his voice."

"Great, isn't it?" agreed Phil. "I was glad he sang for us Christmas night."

"Oh, I supposed you had heard him many times. If he were my cousin I would give him no rest."

"He's not mine, you see. I'm only a step-relation, and such a long step!"

Violet bit her lip and looked at the speaker reflectively. She felt there was no rhyme or reason in his amused expression.

"Then, that is why you haven't seen Miss Kathleen's hair in the daylight," she said. "Have you discovered her locked doors?"

"She let me into her ballroom, at Christmas, and I think I must have been so pleased with that I didn't try to get any further."

"I see," returned Violet. "Well, if you go to the island you'll have a chance to explore. Of course your experience with her may be different from mine. Perhaps an artist will have the open sesame to her doors. I'm not a bit intellectual. I have to dance my way into people's confidence, or I don't get there."

"I hear you teach that very pretty art."

"She teaches me," put in Ernest, who was tired of being left out of the conversation. "I can dance a jig."

"Bully for you," said Phil. "Go ahead, right here on the path."

"Oh, I can't without any music."

"There's the music." Phil pointed with his brush-handle to a lofty branch where the robin was pouring forth linked sweetness, long drawn-out.

"The pebbles are too rolly," said the child. "You said you'd make me a picture of the robin."

"So I did."

Phil pulled toward him another block of paper and swiftly washed in the green of the lilac bush and its purple pendants. Before it, on a little stretch of green sward, grew the robin, high-chested, alert.

"How proud he looks!" said the child, delighted.

"Yes, he is saying: 'I own the earth, and the worms therein.'" The artist laughed to himself. "'If a worm shows his head, I gobble him up! and I can sing as beautifully as I gobble. The world stops to watch and listen. I am cock robin! Look at me!'"

Artist and child laughed together as Phil handed over the wet sketch to the eager little hands. Violet's eyes were glued to it. She was wondering if later she could make a surreptitious purchase of it for Rex.

"I had heard of you before Christmas," she said. "One of my housemates goes to your art school. Regina Morris."

Phil shook his head. "I've not met any of the girls. Are you a housekeeper?"

"Three of us live together in a tiny apartment. I wish you might come to see us sometime."

Phil looked up with his frank smile. "I'll call on you at the island if you'll let me, and if I come—that last is such a big If, though Mrs. Fabian is determined."

"Oh, then you'll go. I've seen enough of Mrs. Fabian to know that."

"Then it must be but for a week or two. I mustn't stay where I can't work."

"You'll stay," nodded Violet. "You'll live under a rock if necessary and catch fish for food."

"Are you so enthusiastic?"

"Isn't everybody?"

"Nobody, that I have heard. Eliza spoke of it like facing grim death. Edgar says it gives him the 'Willies,' whatever they may be. Aunt Isabel goes because her husband wants to sail."

"Did Mr. Fabian say it gave him the 'Willies'?" asked Violet, her cheeks rose and her eyes dark again. "Why does he go, then?"

"I didn't ask him; but a bare hill lying in a wet fog doesn't sound inviting even if one may occasionally catch a glimpse of the sea. You know the sea and I are strangers."

"Did Kathleen talk to you about it?" asked Violet, the hurt spot in her pride still smarting, as memory showed her pictures of waves sparkling in moonlight, and song that turned the scene into enchantment.

"No, I believe we never mentioned the summer. She talked to me of college and I talked to her of my one dissipation of the autumn, an evening over there at the Players' Club,"—Phil nodded over his shoulder toward the club windows,—"and the wit and wisdom I heard."

"I judge you have friends in the park," said Violet.

"Yes, I have a work-room over here," replied Phil vaguely. His wits were about him when he contemplated the disconcerting possibility of Ernest's sturdy little legs finding their way up his stable stair.

"I want to show this to mother," said the child, gloating over his sketch. Phil had used no anÆmic colors in that. The lilacs were of a generous purple, the robin's vest a royal red. When he had thanked the artist and they had parted, Ernest prattled of his treasure as he walked on beside Violet.

"He's a proud bird," he said, half-soliloquizing after his kind. "He wants the world to listen when he sings; and his eyes are so bright, when he sees a worm coming along he gobbles him quick, and then he looks prouder than ever."

Violet's thoughts were busy, and somewhat gloomy. Edgar had spoken patronizingly to her of the big Western artist who had fallen into their family circle.

Of whom was Phil thinking that gave him so much amusement while he sketched the robin?

Violet was not sure whether her mental disturbance was more resentment toward the artist, or hurt that Edgar Fabian should declare that he had been bored at the island.