The Way of a Man

  CHAPTER XXIX

  THE GARDEN

  Soon now we would be able to travel; but whither, and for what purpose?I began to shrink from the thought of change. This wild world was enoughfor me. So long as we might eat and sleep thus, and so long as I mightnot lose sight of her, it seemed to me I could not anywhere gain inhappiness and content. Elsewhere I must lose both.

  None the less we must travel. We had been absent now from civilizationsome three weeks, and must have been given up long since. Our party musthave passed far to the westward, and by this time our story was known atLaramie and elsewhere. Parties were no doubt in search of us at thattime. But where should these search in that wilderness of the unknownPlains. How should it be known that we were almost within touch of thegreat highway of the West, now again thronging with wagon trains? Byforce of these strange circumstances which I have related we wereutterly gone, blotted out; our old world no longer existed for us, norwe for it.

  As I argued to myself again and again, the laws and customs of thatforgotten world no longer belonged to us. We must build laws again, lawsfor the good of the greatest number. I can promise, who have been inplace to know, that in one month's time civilization shall utterly fadeaway from the human heart, that a new state of life shall within thatspace enforce itself, so close lies the savage in us always to the skin.This vast scheme of organized selfishness, which is called civilization,shall within three weeks be forgot and found useless, be rescinded as acontract between remaining units of society. This vast fabric of wasteand ruin known as wealth shall be swept away at a breath within onemonth. Then shall endure only the great things of life. Above thoseshall stand two things--a woman and a man. Without these society is not,these two, a woman and a man.

  So I would sit at night, nodding under the stars, and vaguely dreamingof these matters, and things came to me sweetly, things unknown in ourignorance and evil of mind, as we live in what we call civilization.They would become clear underneath the stars; and then the dawn wouldcome, and she would come and sit by me, looking out over the Plains atthe shimmering pictures. "What do you see?" she would ask of me.

  "I see the ruins of that dome known as the capitol of our nation," Isaid to her, "where they make laws. See, it is in ruins, and what I seebeyond is better."

  "Then what more do you see," she would ask.

  "I see the ruins of tall buildings of brick and iron, prisons wheresouls are racked, and deeds of evil are done, and iron sunk into humanhearts, and vice and crime, and oppression and wrong of life and loveare wrought. These are in ruins, and what I see beyond is better."Humoring me, she would ask that I would tell her further what I saw.

  "I see the ruins of tall spires, where the truth was offered by boldassertion. I see the ruins of religion, corrupt because done for gain.

  "I see houses also, much crowded, where much traffic and bartering andevil was done, much sale of flesh and blood and love and happiness,ruin, unhappiness. And what I see now is far better than all that."

  "And then--" she whispered faintly, her hand upon my sleeve, and lookingout with me over the Plains, where the mirage was wavering.

  "I see there," I said, and pointed it out to her, "only a Garden, avast, sweet Garden. And there arises a Tree---one Tree."

  This was my world. But she, looking out over the Plains, still saw withthe eye of yesterday. Upon woman the artificial imprint of heredity isset more deeply than with man. The commands of society are wrought intoher soul.