The Claim Jumpers

Bennington read to her certain rewritten parts of Aliris: A Romance of

all Time, which would have been ridiculous to any but these two. They

saw it through the glamour of youth; for, in spite of her assertions of

great age, the girl, too, felt the whirl of that elixir in her veins. You

see, he was twenty-one and she was twenty: magic years, more venerable

than threescore and ten. She gave him sympathy, which was just what he

needed for the sake of his self-confidence and development, just the

right thing for him in that effervescent period which is so necessary a

concomitant of growth. The young business man indulges in a hundred wild

schemes, to be corrected by older heads. The young artist paints strange

impressionism, stranger symbolism, and perhaps a strangest other-ism,

before at last he reaches the medium of his individual genius. The young

writer thinks deep and philosophical thoughts which he expresses in

measured polysyllabic language; he dreams wild dreams of ideal motive,

which he sets forth in beautiful allegorical tales full of imagery; and

he delights in Rhetoric--flower-crowned, flashing-eyed, deep-voiced

Rhetoric, whom he clasps to his heart and believes to be true, although

the whole world declares her to be false; and then, after a time, he

decides not to introduce a new system of metaphysics, but to tell a plain

story plainly. Ah, it is a beautiful time to those who dwell in it, and

such a funny time to those who do not!

They came to possess an influence over each other. She decided how they

should meet; he, how they should act. She had only to be gay, and he

was gay; to be sad, and he was sad; to show her preference for serious

discourse, and he talked quietly of serious things; to sigh for dreams,

and he would rhapsodize. It sometimes terrified her almost when she saw

how much his mood depended on hers. But once the mood was established,

her dominance ceased and his began. If they were sad or gay or

thoughtful or poetic, it was in his way and not in hers. He took the

lead masterfully, and perhaps the more effectually in that it was done

unconsciously. And in a way which every reader will understand, but

which genius alone could put into words, this mutual psychical

dependence made them feel the need of each other more strongly than any

merely physical dependence ever could.

There is much to do in a new and romantic country, where the imminence

of a sordid, dreary future, when the soil will raise its own people and

the crop will be poor, is mercifully veiled. The future then counts

little in the face of the Past--the Past with its bearded strong men of

other lands, bringing their power and vigour here to be moulded and

directed by the influences of the frontier. Its shadow still lies over

the land.