The Poet — Key Ideas to Explore

tripped away with Marjorie, and joined with her in the mazes of a dance that enmeshed the whole company of children in bright ribbons and then freed them again. The Poet, beating time to the music with his hat, wished that Herrick might have been there; it was his habit to think, when something pleased him particularly, that “Keats would have liked that!”--“Shelley would have made a golden line of this!” He felt songs beating with eager wings at the door of his own heart as his glance followed the fair girl who had so easily turned a child’s tears to laughter. For Marjorie was laughing with the rest now; in ten minutes she was one of them--had found friends and seemed not to mind at all when her good angel dropped out to become a spectator of her happiness.

“I have saved my trousers,” remarked the Poet to Mrs. Waring, who had watched the transformation in silence; “but that girl has spoiled her frock kneeling to Marjorie. I suppose I couldn’t with delicacy offer to reimburse her for the damage. If there were any sort of gallantry in me I would have sacrificed myself, and probably have scared Marjorie to death. If a child should put its arms around me that way and cry on my shoulder and then run off and play, I should be glad to endow laundries to the limit of my bank account. If the Diana who rescued Marjorie has another name--”

“I thought you knew! That’s Marian Agnew, Marjorie’s aunt.”

“I’ve read of her in many books,” said the Poet musingly, “but she’s an elusive person. I might have known that if I would sit in a pleasant garden like this in June and watch children at play, something beautiful would pass this way.”

Mrs. Waring glanced at him quickly, as people usually did to make sure he was not trifling with them.

“You really seem interested in the way she hypnotized Marjorie! Well, to be quite honest, I sent for her to come! She was playing tennis a little farther up the street, but she came running when I sent word that Marjorie was here and that we had all given her up in despair.”

“My first impression was that she had dropped down from heaven or had run away from Olympus. Please don’t ask me to say which I think likelier!”

“I’m sorry to spoil an illusion, but after all Marian is one of the daughters of men; though I remember that when she was ten she told me in solemn confidence that she believed in fairies, because she had seen them--an excellent reason! She graduated from Vassar last year, and I have an idea that college may have shaken her faith in fairies. She’s going to begin teaching school next fall,--she has to do something, you know. She’s an eminently practical person, blessed with a sound appetite, and she can climb a rope, and swim and play tennis all day.”

“The Olympians ate three meals a day, I imagine; and we shouldn’t begrudge this fair-haired Marian her daily bread and butter. Let me see; she’s Marjorie’s aunt; and Marjorie’s father is Miles Redfield. I know Redfield well; his wife was Elizabeth Agnew. I saw a good deal of them in their early married days. They’ve agreed to quit--is that the way of it?”

“How fortunate you are that people don’t tell you gossip! I suppose it’s one of the rewards of being a poet! The whole town has been upset by the Redfields’ troubles;--they have separated. I’ve sent Elizabeth up to Waupegan to open my house--made an excuse to get her away. Marjorie’s with her grandmother, waiting for the courts to do something about it;--as though courts could do anything about such cases!” she ended with feeling.

The Poet, searching for Marjorie in the throng of children, made no reply.

“You are a poet,” Mrs. Waring resumed tauntingly, with the privilege of old friendship, “and have a reputation for knowing the human heart. Why can’t you do something about the Redfields’ troubles?--there’s a fine chance for you! It begins to look as though sentiment, romance, love--all those things you poets have been writing about for thousands of years--have gone out with the old-fashioned roses. I confess that it’s because I’m afraid that’s true that I’m clinging to all the flowers my grandmother used to love--and I’m nearly seventy and a grandmother myself.”