The Claim Jumpers

On his way to keep the appointment of the afternoon, Bennington de

Laney discovered within himself a new psychological experience. He

found that, since the evening before, he had been observing things

about him for the purpose of detailing them to his new friend. Little

beauties of nature--as when a strange bird shone for an instant in

vivid contrast to the mountain laurel near his window; an unusual

effect of pine silhouettes near the sky; a weird, semi-poetic

suggestion of one of Poe's stories implied in a contorted shadow cast

by a gnarled little oak in the light of the moon--these he had noticed

and remembered, and was now eager to tell his companion, with full

assurance of her sympathy and understanding. Three days earlier he

would have passed them by.

But stranger still was his discovery that he had always noticed such

things, and had remembered them. Observations of the sort had

heretofore been quite unconscious. Without knowing it he had always

been a Nature lover, one who appreciated the poetry of her moods, one

who saw the beauty of her smiles, or, what is more rare, the greater

beauty of her frown. The influence had entered into his being, but had

lain neglected. Now it stole forth as the odour of a dried balsam bough

steals from the corner of a loft whither it has been thrown carelessly.

It was all delightful and new, and he wanted to tell her of it.

He did so. After a little he told her about Aliris: A Romance of all

Time, in which she appeared so interested that he detailed the main

idea and the plot. At her request, he promised to read it to her. He

was very young, you see, and very inexperienced; he threw himself

generously, without reserve, on this girl's sympathies in a manner of

which, assuredly, he should have been quite ashamed. Only the very

young are not ashamed.

The girl listened, at first half amused. Then she was touched, for she

saw that it was sincere, and youthful, and indicative of clear faith

in what is beautiful, and in fine ideals of what is fitting. Perhaps,

dimly, she perceived that this is good stuff of which to make a man,

provided it springs from immaturity, and not from the sentimentalism of

degeneracy. The loss of it is a price we pay for wisdom. Some think the

price too high.

As he talked on in this moonshiny way, really believing his ridiculous

abstractions the most important things in the world, gradually she too

became young. She listened with parted lips, and in her great eyes the

soul rose and rose within, clearing away the surface moods as twilight

clears the land of everything but peace.

He was telling of the East again with a certain felicity of

expression--have we not said he had the gift of words?--and an abandon

of sentiment which showed how thoroughly he confided in the sympathy of

his listener. When we are young we are apt to confide in the sympathy

of every listener, and so we make fools of ourselves, and it takes us a

long time to live down our reputations. As we grow older, we believe

less and less in its reality. Perhaps by and by we do not trust to

anybody's sympathy, not even our own.