Appreciations of Richard Harding Davis | Page 4

in proximity that he could distribute energy, but from afar,

by letter and cable. He had some intuitive way of knowing just when
you were slipping into a slough of laziness and discouragement. And at
such times he either appeared suddenly upon the scene, or there came a
boy on a bicycle, with a yellow envelope and a book to sign, or the
postman in his buggy, or the telephone rang and from the receiver there
poured into you affection and encouragement.
But the great times, of course, were when be came in person, and the
temperature of the house, which a moment before had been too hot or
too cold, became just right, and a sense of cheerfulness and well-being
invaded the hearts of the master and the mistress and of the servants in
the house and in the yard. And the older daughter ran to him, and the
baby, who had been fretting because nobody would give her a double-
barrelled shotgun, climbed upon his knee and forgot all about the
disappointments of this uncompromising world.
He was touchingly sweet with children. I think he was a little afraid of
them. He was afraid perhaps that they wouldn't find out how much be
loved them. But when they showed him that they trusted him, and,
unsolicited, climbed upon him and laid their cheeks against his, then
the loveliest expression came over his face, and you knew that the great
heart, which the other day ceased to beat, throbbed with an exquisite
bliss, akin to anguish.
One of the happiest days I remember was when I and mine received a
telegram saying that he had a baby of his own. And I thank God that
little Miss Hope is too young to know what an appalling loss she has
suffered. . . .
Perhaps he stayed to dine. Then perhaps the older daughter was
allowed to sit up an extra half-hour so that she could wait on the table
(and though I say it, that shouldn't, she could do this beautifully, with
dignity and without giggling), and perhaps the dinner was good, or R.
H. D. thought it was, and in that event he must abandon his place and
storm the kitchen to tell the cook all about it. Perhaps the gardener was
taking life easy on the kitchen porch. He, too, came in for praise. R. H.
D. had never seen our Japanese iris so beautiful; as for his, they
wouldn't grow at all. It wasn't the iris, it was the man behind the iris.
And then back he would come to us, with a wonderful story of his
adventures in the pantry on his way to the kitchen, and leaving behind
him a cook to whom there had been issued a new lease of life, and a

gardener who blushed and smiled in the darkness under the Actinidia
vines.
It was in our little house at Aiken, in South Carolina, that he was with
us most and we learned to know him best, and that he and I became
dependent upon each other in many ways.
Events, into which I shall not go, had made his life very difficult and
complicated. And he who had given so much friendship to so many
people needed a little friendship in return, and perhaps, too, he needed
for a time to live in a house whose master and mistress loved each other,
and where there were children. Before he came that first year our house
had no name. Now it is called "Let's Pretend."
Now the chimney in the living-room draws, but in those first days of
the built-over house it didn't. At least, it didn't draw all the time, but we
pretended that it did, and with much pretense came faith. From the
fireplace that smoked to the serious things of life we extended our
pretendings, until real troubles went down before them--down and out.
It was one of Aiken's very best winters, and the earliest spring I ever
lived anywhere. R. H. D. came shortly after Christmas. The spiraeas
were in bloom, and the monthly roses; you could always find a sweet
violet or two somewhere in the yard; here and there splotches of deep
pink against gray cabin walls proved that precocious peach-trees were
in bloom. It never rained. At night it was cold enough for fires. In the
middle of the day it was hot. The wind never blew, and every morning
we had a four for tennis and every afternoon we rode in the woods. And
every night we sat in front of the fire (that didn't smoke because of
pretending) and talked until the next morning. He was one of those
rarely gifted men who find their chiefest pleasure not in looking
backward or forward, but