th pink roses blossoming through them, you would have
known that Robert Halarkenden is a poet and no common man. Of course
we have known it all along, but in thirteen years one gets to take
miracles for granted. Yesterday I went down into the wild garden which
lies between the woods and the flowers--this is a large place--and I
got into the corner under the pines, and lay flat on the pink-brown
needles, all warm with splashes of September sunlight, and looked at
the goldenrod and purple asters swinging in the breeze and wondered if
I could forget my blessed bones and live in the beauty and joy of just
things, just the lovely world. Or whether it wouldn't be simpler to
pull a trigger when I went back to my room, instead of kicking and
struggling day after day to be and feel some other way. I get so sick
and tired of fighting myself--you don't know. Anyhow, suddenly there
was a rustle in the gold and purple hedge, and there was Robert
Halarkenden. I wish I could make you see him as he stood there, in his
blue working blouse, a pair of big clippers in his hand, his thick,
half-gray, silvery thatch of hair bare and blowing around his scholar's
forehead, his bony Scotch face solemn and quiet. His deep-set eyes
were fixed with such a gentle gaze on me. We are good friends, Robin
and I. I call him Robin; he taught me to when I was ten, so I always
have. "You're no feeling well, lassie?" he asked; he has known me a
long time, you see. And I suddenly sat up and told him about my old
bones. I didn't mean to; I have told no one but you; not Uncle Ted
even. But I did. And "Get up, lassie, and sit on the bench. I will
talk to you," said Robin. So we both sat down on the rustic bench
under the blowy pines, and I cried like a spring torrent, and Robin
patted my hand steadily, which seems an odd thing for one's uncle's
gardener to do, till I got through. Then I laughed and said, "Maybe
I'll shoot myself." And he answered calmly, "I hope not, lassie."
Then I said nothing and he said nothing for quite a bit, and then he
began talking gently about how everybody who counted had to go through
things. "A character has to be hammered into the likeness of God," he
said. "A soul doesn't grow beautiful by sunlight and rich earth," and
he looked out at his scarlet and blue and gold September garden and
smiled a little. "We're no like the flowers." Then he considered
again, and then he asked if it would interest me at all to he