Mr. Sanders Visits Some of His Old Friends
Mr. Sanders Receives a Message
Prelude
"Cephas! here is a letter for you, and it is from Shady Dale! I know you will be happy now."
For several years Sophia had listened calmly to my glowing descriptions of Shady Dale and the people there. She was patient, but I could see by the way she sometimes raised her eyebrows that she was a trifle suspicious of my judgment, and that she thought my opinions were unduly coloured by my feelings. Once she went so far as to suggest that I was all the time looking at the home people through the eyes of boyhood—eyes that do not always see accurately. She had said, moreover, that if I were to return to Shady Dale, I would find that the friends of my boyhood were in no way different from the people I meet every day. This was absurd, of course—or, rather, it would have been absurd for any one else to make the suggestion; for at that particular time, Sophia was a trifle jealous of Shady Dale and its people. Nevertheless, she was really patient. You know how exasperating a man can be when he has a hobby. Well, my hobby was Shady Dale, and I was not ashamed of it. The man or woman who cannot display as much of the homing instinct as a cat or a pigeon is a creature to be pitied or despised. Sophia herself was a tramp, as she often said. She was born in a little suburban town in New York State, but never lived there long enough to know what home was. She went to Albany, then to Canada, and finally to Georgia; so that the only real home she ever knew is the one she made herself—out of the raw material, as one might say.
Well, she came running with the letter, for she is still active, though a little past the prime of her youth. I returned the missive to her with a faint show of dignity. "The letter is for you," I said. She looked at the address more carefully, and agreed with me. "What in the world have I done," she remarked, "to receive a letter from Shady Dale?"
"Why, it is the simplest thing in the world," I replied. "You have been fortunate enough to marry me."
"Oh, I see!" she cried, dropping me a little curtsey; "and I thank you kindly!"
The letter was from an old friend of mine—a school-mate—and it was an invitation to Sophia, begging her to take a day off, as the saying is, and spend it in Shady Dale.
"Your children," the letter said, "will be glad to visit their father's old home, and I doubt not we can make it interesting for the wife." The letter closed with some prettily turned compliments which rather caught Sophia. But her suspicions were still in full play.
"I know the invitation is sent on your account, and not on mine," she said, holding the letter at arm's length.
"Well, why not? If my old friend loves me well enough to be anxious to give my wife and children pleasure, what is there wrong about that?"
"Oh, nothing," replied Sophia. "I've a great mind to go."
"If you do, my dear, you will make a number of people happy—yourself and the children, and many of my old friends."
"He declares," said Sophia, "that he writes at the request of his wife. You know how much of that to believe."
"I certainly do. Imagine me, for instance, inviting to visit us a lady whom you had never met."
Whereupon Sophia laughed. "I believe you'd endorse any proposition that came from Shady Dale," she declared.
She accepted the invitation more out of curiosity than with any expectation of enjoying herself; but she stayed longer than she had intended; and when she came back her views and feelings had undergone a complete change. "Cephas, you ought to be ashamed of yourself for not going to see those people," she declared. "Why, they are the salt of the earth. I never expected to be treated as they treated me. If it wasn't for your business, I would beg you to go back there and live. They are just like the people you read about in the books—I mean the good people, the ideal characters—the men and women you would like to meet." Here she paused and sighed. "Oh, I wouldn't have missed that visit for anything. But what amazes me, Cephas, is that you've never put in your books characters such as you find in Shady Dale."
The suggestion was a fertile one; it had in it the active principle of a germ; and it was not long before the ferment began to make itself felt. The past began to renew itself; the sun shone on the old days and gave them an illumination which they lacked when they were new. Time's perspective gave them a mellower tone, and they possessed, at least for me, that element of mystery which seems to attach to whatever is venerable. It was as if the place, the people, and the scenes had taken the shape of a huge picture, with just such a lack of harmony and unity as we find in real life.
Let those who can do so continue to import harmony and unity into their fabrications and call it art. Whether it be art or artificiality, the trick is beyond my powers. I can only deal with things as they were; on many occasions they were far from what I would have had them to be; but as I was powerless to change them, so am I powerless to twist individuals and events to suit the demands or necessities of what is called art.
Such a feat might be possible if I were to tell the simple story of Nan and Gabriel and Tasma Tid during the days when they roamed over the old Bermuda hills, and gazed, as it were, into the worlds that existed only in their dreams: for then the story would be both fine and beautiful. It would be a wonderful romance indeed, with just a touch of tragic mystery, gathered from the fragmentary history of Tasma Tid, a child-woman from the heart of Africa, who had formed a part of the cargo of the yacht Wanderer, which landed three hundred slaves on the coast of Georgia in the last months of 1858. You may find the particulars of the case of the Wanderer in the files of the Savannah newspapers, and in the records of the United States Court for that district; but the tragic history of Tasma Tid can be found neither in the newspapers nor in the court records.
But for this one touch of mystery and