Eden

Eden By Albert R. Lyman Starting from camp that second morn¬ ing. with my solitary trail reaching wearily on through desert silence, strange mem¬ ories seemed perculiarly ready to awake from mysterious, old chambers in my subconsciousness. I wondered if it could be a dream which had drifted to my drowsy brain as I slept in that midnight solitude, — a remarkable dream arousing emotions and ambitions for something im¬ mortal. lYet, the same thing had hung on the echoes of the cavernous gulches the day before: I had almost caught it in the wildly sweet notes of a thrush nesting in tall greasewoods. Within us “there rises an unspeakable desire after a knowledge of our buried life,” and I attributed my vague longings to that desire. Whatever it was, coming in ithe sacred hush of that splendid isola¬ tion, it aroused instincts strangely prime¬ val, making the coarse realities of my sur¬ roundings bitter in contrast. I would have given a horse to recall it all clearly, as I followed my pack along that dusty trail. The gray sentinel rocks gazing solemnly down upon me, and their brother sentinels shrouded in mists and haze of distance, no doubt, held the secret un¬ clouded in their ancient hearts as a heritage of their vigil through the long ages, and they seemed ready to speak wondrous things. I had never been there before. Away yonder, by the point of that sombre nose on the desert’s solemn profile, I was to find Scarecrow Springs, and meet a rep¬ resentative of Snide and Smithers. I gazed at that portentous nose, tracing ominous lips on the horizon below it, and a flow¬ ing beard as of a hoary oracle. Sleeping memories stirred feebly in their tombs from an ancient world: a hush fell on the whisperings of the desert. The face of a certain man came to my recollection — the face and form of a man I had known as the chief florist — the florist of the palace. But why his charm, why I loved him, what palace, or what this man of strange memories was to me, I would not pause to consider lest the spell be broken. His name — ^his name — it hung stub¬ bornly just beyond reach of my tongue’s eager effort to speak it. Yet, I had sure¬ ly known and spoken it as I gazed in the friendly eye of the florist by the vine-cov¬ ered wall. His eyes came plainer still to my recollection, eyes with a keen twinkle or humor and brows of firmness and chivalry. His glance inspired courage, his smile gave cheer and kind lines ran around his resolute lips. The chief florist resembled no man in my recent acquaintance, for I recalled him clearly, — six feet in height, commanding and beautiful in appearance. And, inex¬ plicable but sweet to contemplate, I loved him. I recalled the assuring grip of his hand, his friendly arm around me, and my glad response to his magnificent courage. But why? What could it mean? Why should these unusual things engross me in the remoteness of this wilderness till my natural environments became trifling mat¬ ters far away? I was sure his name and whole situation stood imperishably there in the undying archives of my psychic self, as sure of it as of words or names I cannot for the moment recall though they have been common to my speech for years. Then, in those rising memories, 1 caught the outline of a woman’s face! The love of man is dear to the heart, but. Oh, the charm of a lovely woman — especially this woman! — this woman revealed to me by the sentinel rocks of the ages! — this wom¬ an called back, by the portentous oracle of the desert, from the realms “of our buried life” ! Who was she? Where could she be found in narrow earth or the vast border-

EDEN 697 land? Was she the florist's friend? Yes, the florist's friend, but more to me than to him — more to me than to any other man. Her eyes resembled his, her lips showed strength and kindness sweetly blended. Was she his sister? I could recall meeting her in a leafy arcade from which we rowed our light bark over a clear lake, the bright moon re¬ flected in the blue depths beneath us. Her name — Oh. that dear name of her's, rich in lovable suggestion, it came nearer than his name to my power of speech; it tor¬ tured me with its nearness by coming no nearer. But from it I remembered the touch of her hand, the mighty lure of her deep-brown eyes, her voice gentle and low with persuasion of music echoed from hidden bowers. The inexorable commonplace of the desert persisted in heartless antipathy to all these immortal intuitions; “the thee in me which works behind the veil.” longed to disengage from dense elements and fly in search of beloved hopes prime¬ val. The dust from my horses' hoofs rose up in stifling clouds to attest the unre¬ mitting claims of earth upon me. But I knew this was no echo of a wild dream, no caprice of a meaningless fancy; it dwelt too deep in my incorporeal self, its sway was too mighty, it was too sweetly teal to be a dream. My intense desire had found response in the repository of profound memories, soul-records of wondrous worlds long, long ago. Something broke the mysterious spell, "it faded into light of common day.” The sombre nose on the desert's rugged profile lost form as I approached it, the hoary oracle disappeared. Dusty and weary, with the sun sinking low, I saw what I took to be Scarecrow Springs at the foot of the mountain. A man with two horses had already camped there and kindled a fire. While my tired animals drank feverish¬ ly of the cool water, the stranger came down from his fire and held out his hand, “I'm Dan - .” he said, “I represent Snide and Smithers.” I took his hand, but my jaw dropped as I drew in a long breath of surprise and bewilderment He was the chief florist! — the eyes, the mouth, the brows and all, unless he lacked something of being as tall as I had seen him. He was the very man I remembered seeing in the flowers by the palace wall, or my mind had become terribly twisted. “Excuse me, — “ he hesitated, studying my face, “but I've seen you before.” “There's no doubt about that,” I an¬ swered, relieved with his assurance of still being in safe mental balance, “but where was it?” “I'd like to know,” he declared, eyeing me eagerly. “I was in Cuba two years and I've been in most of the states east of Texas.” “I was in the British Isles, and I've been in most of the states east of Utah,” I suggested. “That's mighty strange,” he affirmed, shaking his head,” for I’ve seen you be¬ fore.” “I’v'e been in New Mexico a number of times,” I said, gazing in wonder at his familiar features. “I was never in New Mexico till this trip.” mused the florist, trying to fathom the mystery. A continuous fire of questions and an¬ swers, till we got our horses hobbled in the grass on the hillside, convinced us our pathways in life had never touched before. He went to his panniers for frying-pan and canned stuff, wondering deeply on the strangeness of our mutual acquaintance. “But the most remarkable feature of this whole affair,” he reflected, coming back to the fire, “is that you remember me as a florist. It’s been the secret of my life that I want to raise flowers more than I want to do anything else. I just simply can’t get that flower phase of it out of my mind.” “I’m as sure I saw you in the flowers as that I see you by this fire,” I declared, the reality of it returning in a measure as I spoke. “I can almost call your name. but not the name Dan - . What I can't account for, is that you’re six inches shorter than you were then.” "Well.” he pondered, seeming to view it from my angle, “I could have been

698 IMPROVEMENT ERA taller and heavier, but for severe sickness in early childhood. My father stood six feet or more.” “Then it’s just the failure of your body to reach your former size,” I commented. "But the flowers — ” he persisted. “I had a little flower bed at home, — ” he paused, looking down in the flame, and the kind lines around his resolute lips seemed to twitch with emotion. “I used to take Rill and the baby out to look at and smell the blossoms in the morning and when the sun went down.” He paused again. “You see Rill was my wife — she died — 1 kept the flowers for the little girl.” He brushed his eyes and looked away at our horses, just visible in the fall¬ ing shadows. “The little girl was run over by a team and has to live in a hospi¬ tal, I had no heart to keep the flowers.” The poor little girl, — a choking lump came in my throat as I thought of the motherless cripple, living her cheerless life in that weary prison. He said she was ten years old, and he seemed hungry to tell me all about her, but I must have turned him at a tangent back to the flowers. While he talked and looked at me from under those familiar brows, I repressed a strong impulse to put my arm around him as he had sometime done with me, but I feared he would misunderstand. He would have to learn more of the primeval existence and grasp by slow degrees the things I had been taught from infancy. Those principles would console him for his empty home and the motherless child, and he might take heart to marry again instead of thinking in despair that all love ties have the inevitable parting of death ahead of them. Also, and perhaps it impaired the qual¬ ity of my sympathy, I wanted very much to know about his sister: surely he must have a sister. “You see,” he objected, regarding me from the keen eyes I had recalled that forenoon in the shadow' of the desert sentinels, "I was never taught this re¬ markable doctrine; instead, I was poisoned against it and against your people. If the practice of your principles gives you any unusual privileges, you have that ad¬ vantage over me. I really wish I could believe and accept it, but it would be mighty hard to make so tremendous a change.” The business of Snide and Smithers took but twenty minutes of our time, and we reverted at once to our former conversa¬ tion, discussing it with spirit till long after midnight. "That idea of my having known Rill before I met her and married her here, and then of having her again for my wife in an endless hereafter; — Oh, I wish I could grasp and accept that. And the idea of the little girl suffering all these things for some wonderful, immortal pur¬ pose: — in a way, that is supremely sweet; I like it. — but something in me revolts un¬ compromisingly at the very name of ‘Mormonism’.” My dear florist had been “blinded by the craftiness of men:” he wanted the truth under some popular name. But he had a sister, an only sister, Jane - - . She was single — twenty-four years of age. Without being at all impertinent, I as¬ certained that much early in the evening. Since her mother died she had lived and traveled with him much of the time, and right now she awaited his return in Palude, a little Mexican town the other side of the mountain. I could pacify myself with nothing short of a resolution to accompany him next to Palude. If it had been to Chicago, to New York, or to Liverpool, my resolution to go would have been formed quite as readily, for I wanted to see the florist's sister more than I wanted to see any other person. Yet, for some un¬ known reason, I blamed myself for the plan, especially since I led the florist to believe my trip over the mountain was undertaken for quite another purpose. Still, he welcomed my company and we devoted every foot of that long trail to the vital matters we had considered by our midnight fire. At the little adobe hotel in Palude, I met his sister. That meeting in the stuffy lobby was the apex of some tremendous anticipations, and he introduced me with

EDEN 699 flattering compliments. Under other cir¬ cumstances I would have been delighted to meet such a girl, beautiful, intelligent, re¬ fined, and I hope I betrayed no improper signs of disappointment, for bitter disap¬ pointment settled upon me as a dark cloud. Jane - was only a stranger to me. From nowhere on the palmiest of old mem¬ ories could I find an echo of her voice, a shadow of her face. I spent the evening with them in the hotel, trying to make the best of a very unpleasant situation. Bidding them good¬ bye next morning. I rode back, to camp alone at Scarecrow Springs and to make the three-days’ ride separating me from Utah. I tried, in the solitude, to crystal¬ lize my conclusions about that wild-goose chase to Palude, and to solve the per¬ plexing paradox of the florist's only sister not being the woman I had remembered. When I reached that part of the trail where the sombre nose and the face of the hoary oracle could be seen on the profile of the desert behind me, the strange mem¬ ories awakened again; the florist's mysterious friend became real, so real that the very thought of there being no such person was too terrible to entertain. I longed to see the florist again, and, after reaching home, I wrote him, sending books and literature on the truths I wanted so much to have him know, but he made no reply. Years passed and my meeting with him became one of the strange rid¬ dles in my memory of experiences. After ten years. I was registering one day in a hotel in a busy center of eastern Colorado and a man's arm fell across my shoulders. I looked up in surprise at the face of the florist, my name on his firm lips. A cloud of gloom hung over him. his eyes showed sleeplessness and sorrow. “Come with me.” he said in a hoarse whisper, hardly allowing me time to give my suitcase to the clerk before hurrying me to his car at the curb. “It’s the little girl," he sighed, smother¬ ing bitter thoughts as he set the machine in motion, “she’s made a long fight, but it’s no use; — I’ll soon be alone.” I said little, though I learned that his sister had married in the distant East. He begged pardon for failure to answer my letters. “I intended to do it,” he ex¬ plained, “but I delayed, and then there was my stupid prejudice. Oh, we are strange creatures.” "We must have broken the speed limit along those busy streets, and when we stopped at a hospital he took me with him as if my presence were as necessary as his own. We entered a little chamber with but one bed where a young woman, thin and pale, lay silently in white sheets, her brown hair spread in rich profusion on the linen pillow; but, from the look of her pinched, quiet features and closed eyes, I thought she was dead. The florist kneeled beside her, taking her thin hand in his and whispering softly in her ear. She looked wearily at him, and at me. Then her eyes opened wide and she bright¬ ened as if to speak. It was the face of sacred memories — the florist’s friend! — the woman of the green bower with whom I crossed the lake, the moon above, the blue depths beneath. “Oh, is it really you?” she exclaimed in soulful voice, raising her wasted hands towards me in love and delight. That voice, gentle and low and rich with irresistable persuasion; the suffering and anguish of years could not disguise it, nor could the shrunken flesh and lines of pain disguise that face. “I knew you’d come,” she said in a glad ecstasy, trying to rise, “I dreamed Papa brought you.” Arising, the florist took me in his arm as he used to do in the remote past, draw¬ ing me firmly, yet tenderly, to the bed¬ side of his daughter, “You’re the man she’s waited for and longed for all this time," he whispered with a sob. “Don’t fear me,” and he placed her slender hand in mine. “O Eden!” I groaned, the wondrous name returning with a rich glory of old memories: dear scenes and words and hopes and loves of a radiant long ago came back, as the light of a world from which I had wandered afar. The wonderful things of those worlds cannot be spoken in our

700 IMPROVEMENT ERA barbarous language, — but tears, poor, humble tears of love, are our only means remaining to express the dear memories when they return. I could but give my silent tears in renewal of my love pledges to Eden in the leafy bowers of the other life. “I have longed and prayed to see you.” she sobbed, tightening her feeble grip on my hand. “In this silent, lonely room for long days, and months, and years: — Oh, I wondered why it should be, and I listened and prayed, and the light broke into my prison house — I remembered — I remembered you. I know my soul hath elsewhere had its setting and cometh from afar; — you know what I mean. I have looked wearily for your face, but always, till now, I have been disappointed.” 'Tve looked for you, Eden, but I had no idea where to go.” "I had to see you,” she panted, already having overdone her weakened powers, and seeming to feast her eyes upon me, "I couldn’t go till you came. I don’t know dlanding, Utah why — you know why, you understand — something must be done for me when I’m gone, I can trust you — you’ll do it.” “Yes, I know it, Eden, I’ll never rest till it’s done,” and I caught from her steady gaze thrilling memories of what had been, thrilling forecast of things yet to be. “Kiss me,” she gasped, drawing me to her, “I have no wish to stay and suffer longer — you know what I would tell you — I’ll tell you when you come — ” She settled back in exhaustion on the pillow and closed her eyes, her lips pressed together in firm satisfaction — the toiling pulse in her wrist grew still. The florist’s friend — but more to me than to him! “I have rebelled long enough,” sobbed the florist, smoothing her brown hair back from her white brow, “I believe every dear word you have told me. Tell me about it again, that what you do for the dear little girl, I can do for Rill and be prepared to enter the joy of the old home again when this weary pilgrimage is over.” When You Look at the Stars We all have vision of worlds afar. What do you see when you look at a star? Some gaze only in wonderment At the studded gems in a firmament: Some see only the lantern eye That searches deep where our follies lie; Some see loneliness, cold despair; Some see the eyes of a loved one there; Some see only a candle gleam: Some see worlds and a Maker’s scheme: Some see far on the misty way. Where the star-dust arches from night to day; Some see only the falling star; Some gaze on where the fixed orbs are; Some see hope and its ecstasy: Some see God in his majesty. We all have vision of worlds afar. What do you see when you look at a star? hdesa. Arizona Bertha a. Kleinman