In the Border Country | Page 4

bees, child," said the old woman. "They have come
home."
She was slender, with brown eyes like brook water, and though she was
wrinkled finely, she was straight and strong, for she lifted up her guest
and half carried her to the opposite corner of the hut.
"Now wash," she said, "and then you must eat."
A cold, deep spring welled up in that corner, and as she plunged her
face into it she opened her hot eyes to let the icy water cool them--and
gazed at the white moon far below her and the small stars.
All space seemed spread before her and she drew out, frightened, but
when she glanced quickly at the spring from above, she thought she
must have dreamed, for it was like any other spring, only a little deeper.
Then she washed her hands till they tingled and warmed. When she had
braided her hair afresh she turned and saw that the old woman had set
out a meal for her on the low stool; a brown loaf, a comb of golden
honey and an earthen jug of milk.

"Eat, my child," she said.
She fell upon the food and it was like wine and meat to her. The blood
ran swiftly through her veins again and she forgot the terror and fatigue
and the cloud in her mind.
"You are most kind to me, mother," she said, for she had lived in the
old countries where it is easy to speak kindly to the old; "how do you
happen to live here? I should have died but for you. All my courage had
gone and it seemed that some terrible thing must be true, but I dared
not think what it might be. Now I am strong again and I will thank you
and go on."
"Where will you go, my child?" said the old woman.
She looked out of the door and saw that the wood was so dense that
only a dim light pierced through the boughs far above her head.
"It is always twilight here," said the old woman.
"But you can tell me the way, surely you know the way out?" she
begged.
"I know my way," said the old woman, "but not your way. I come from
the other side."
"And how do you come?" she asked, almost fearfully, for something
about the old woman began to frighten her.
"I follow my bees," said the old woman.
"But I cannot wait for your bees," she cried, vexed and alarmed. "I
must get back--I was mad to have come here. I have work to do.
Everything has gone wrong with me since--since--oh, I must go back
and get at my work!"
"And what is your work?" the old woman asked.
"I am an artist," she said.

"What is that?"
"I paint pictures," she said.
"Why do you do that?" asked the old woman.
"Why? Why?" she repeated. "Why does anyone do his work? Because I
am told by good workmen that I do it well, and that I shall every year
do it better. Because I would give up food and sleep for it. Because I
shall, if I live, some day do some one thing that will be remembered
after I am past all work."
"You will never do that with a picture," said the old woman quietly.
She stamped her foot upon the earthen floor.
"How dare you say so, you?" she cried. "What do you know of art or
the great world of cities beyond this horrible wood? What are you?"
"They call me the Bee-woman, in this part of the wood," she answered,
"but I have many duties. What are yours?"
"I have told you," she said sullenly, for under the other's eyes her own
fell.
"Not so," said the Bee-woman quickly, a hand on her shoulder, "you
have told me only your pleasures. I do not ask you for what you would
sacrifice food and sleep--though you seem unable to go without either
for very long--but for what you should sacrifice them?"
She clasped her hands and faced the Bee-woman proudly.
"Art is the one thing in this world that makes these two the same," said
she, "to the artist his art is both his pleasure and his duty."
"That is the reason that artists are not women, then," replied the
Bee-woman, "for their duties cannot be their pleasures very long or
very often."

At this she would have run away, but her knees were still weak, and the
thought of the trackless woods stopped her heart a moment with fear.
"A Bee-woman may know much of bees," she said coldly, "but the
world beyond this wood has a wider space to overlook, and while you
have been growing old in the wood, mother, the humming of