The Trail of the Hawk: A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life
"Perhaps, my Hawk.... Don't you think, though, that we might be bored
in your Rocky Mountain cabin, if we were there for months and months?"
"Yes, I suppose so," Carl mused. "The rebellion against stuffy
marriage has to be a whole lot wider than some little detail like
changing from city to country. Probably for some people the happiest
thing 'd be to live in a hobohemian flat and have parties, and for
some to live in the suburbs and get the missus elected president of
the Village Improvement Society. For us, I believe, it's change and
_keep going_."
"Yes, I do think so. Hawk, my Hawk, I lay awake nearly all night last
night, realizing that we _are_ one, not because of a wedding ceremony,
but because we can understand each other's make-b'lieves and
seriousnesses. I knew that no matter what happened, we had to try
again.... I saw last night, by myself, that it was not a question of
finding out whose fault a quarrel was; that it wasn't anybody's
'fault,' but just conditions.... And we'll change them.... We won't be
afraid to be free."
"We won't! Lord! life's wonderful!"
"Yes! When I think of how sweet life can be--so wonderfully sweet--I
know that all the prophets must love human beings, oh, so terribly, no
matter how sad they are about the petty things that lives are wasted
over.... But I'm not a prophet. I'm a girl that's awfully much in
love, and, darling, I want you to hold me close."
* * * * *
Three months later, in February, 1915, Ruth and Carl sailed for Buenos
Ayres, America's new export-market. Carl was the Argentine Republic
manager for the VanZile Motor Corporation, possessed of an unimportant
salary, a possibility of large commissions, and hopes like comets.
Their happiness seemed a thing enchanted. They had not quarreled
again.
* * * * *
The S.S. _Sangrael_, for Buenos Ayres and Rio, had sailed from snow
into summer. Ruth and Carl watched isles of palms turn to fantasies
carved of ebony, in the rose and garnet sunset waters, and the vast
sky laugh out in stars. Carl was quoting Kipling:
"The Lord knows what we may find, dear lass,
And the deuce knows what we may do--
But we're back once more on the old trail, our own trail, the
out trail,
We're down, hull down on the Old Trail--the trail that is always new."
"Anyway," he commented, "deuce only knows what we'll do after
Argentine, and I don't care. Do you?"
Her clasping hand answered, as he went on:
"Oh, say, bles-sed! I forgot to look in the directory before we left
New York to see if there wasn't a Society for the Spread of Madness
among the Respectable. It might have sent us out as missionaries....
There's a flying-fish; and to-morrow I won't have to watch clerks
punch a time-clock; and you can hear a sailor shifting the
ventilators; and there's a little star perched on the fore-mast;
singing; but the big thing is that you're here beside me, and we're
_going_. How bully it is to be living, if you don't have to give up
living in order to make a living."
THE END