Npened THE ORIONS How They Came and Bloomed and Vanished EDNA YOST OBODY knows what has happened to the Orions. They moved away last fall. Most of us expected them back in the spring; but here it is July-the little house is still closed, and more and more its air becomes one of permanent desertion. The Orions, I think, have gone for good. I must tell you about the Orions, who, though they were Americans, gave their family name the nasalized, unaccented French pronunciation-O-Ree-On, they called it. Ours is one of the small artistic colonies that run to New England water-fronts. On the shore-line of Connecticut, on one of those everso-gentle elevations sloping down to an inlet of the Sound, we have painted and sculptured and written for years in a seclusion that has doubtless had a touch of snobbery in it. When the Orions appeared that first spring of the war and pitched their tent by the side of our one little road (a private one, too) we were more amused than annoyed. The utter nonchalance with which Papa and Mama Orion planted themselves and their small family on other people's land and started a vegetable garden without so much as a "By-your-leave" was artistically perfect. Then, to be sure, there was the war. From the beginning it was hard to get labor. Our lawns and kitchens were beginning to be problems, and there was no one of us who did not see in the Orions a possible escape, for the summer, from menial tasks we were unfitted for. True, Papa Orion was a bit temperamental about work. But he had a family to support, which was doubtless his inner persuasion. He had the habit (we soon learned they all had the habit, though in a lesser degree) of picking things up and taking them home. There was never any secrecy about it. It was so very open and aboveboard that we could never bring ourselves to the point of calling what they did, stealing. The Orions had a magnificent conception of "The earth is the Lord's, and the fulness thereof," and helped themselves in generous innocence to God's bounty. It must have been very real with them; else, why should we all have accepted it? When fall came, with no apparent thought of asking permission, they stored their tent and scanty possessions in Mrs. Adams' barn, and left. Our conjecture was that they had found a place to live and work on one of the estates nearby, but we never actually knew. The next spring they were back early, planting their garden and setting up housekeeping as before. As before, yes; but with a difference. Almost before we knew it, they had begun to build a stone house. Now there are stones enough in Connecticut to go around and no one begrudged the Orions their share; but the permanent aspect of the house jolted us into recognition of the fact that the Orions, by a cheap and simple process, had become landowners in our exclusive community. To explain: the adjoining Adams and Bouton places had been in the families for all but two hundred years. Due to some faulty surveying, a century or two ago, the deeds to the two places left an irregular-shaped strip of land unclaimed between them. Legally, that land belonged to the State of Connecticut, though actually, had the owners concerned but taken the trouble to go to law, it would doubtless have been apportioned between them. But the Adamses and the Boutons had been neighbors for generations and the land lay as a hostage of friendliness between them. To this day we do not know how Papa Orion found out about that legally State-owned strip of land, but by squatter's rights it passed into his hands, and on it he built a house of Connecticut stones picked up from wherever he found them. I said we did not begrudge them the stone. Still, there were times that we were annoyed when we found holes in our stone walls or an occasional bare spot in our rock gardens. But that summer of 1918 was a hectic, unhappy one for us all. Young Arden, brilliant with artistic promise, was reported "missing" one morning in July and his wife gave premature birth to their son. Jo Bensley came home with a leg gone but with both hands, thank God! intact. It was difficult to be wrought up about little things that summer. Besides, with day's labor as scarce as it was and wages what they were, we each hesitated to cut ourselves off from the opportunity of having Papa Orion for a day now and then, or young Jean, who was big enough that summer to keep a lawn in order. 22 By the time the war was over we had become accustomed to the Orions. We were delighted with the pride they took in their little house. There had been the fear among us that the place might be an eyesore in the simple beauty of our community. Not so! Bit by bit it grew in loveliness. A few crocuses from my bed, syringa from the Boutons, window-boxes made out of some lumber being stored in the Adams's barn, and some geraniums for them, again from me. The Orions loved beauty and they felt as if it, too, belonged to them. They never made the mistake of actually despoiling our flower gardens. A plant here and there, scarcely to be noticed; yet, as the years passed, sufficient to make of the Orion home by the side of the road a spot to which strangers would point with: "And whose delightful little place is that?" In a way, you see, the Orions belonged. It is true. There was an affinity between us and Papa Orion. I recognized it first in the picture Jo Bensley painted of him. Saw it, strangely enough, not in the face but in his hands. Jo has a way of catching the expression in hands, and Papa Orion's, underneath their callousness, called poignantly for sculptor's clay or palette and brushes. An odd combination of esthetic languor and restless activity was in those hands, and the warping of work had neither removed nor concealed it. As years passed and home comforts grew, Papa Orion became more and more temperamental about work. He would send Mama with the message that he could not come that day—maybe to-morrow. Or maybe, would Jean do? Jean was growing into a fine big boy. He wanted to be an architect and go into the city soon to study. We talked to Papa Orion about Jean. He must educate him. And he would dutifully go to work for a few days, and then the message would come again-Papa Orion could not come that day. No, he was not ill; he just felt as if he could not work. And like as not we would meet him on the road a few hours later with a mess of fresh vegetables picked casually from the Adams's garden. They were apparently very happy together, these two. Mama was somewhat of the peasant type. Young Katherine was like her a nice child, but with no particular promise. Jean was promise. Jean was more like his father. It was decided that Jean should go to Columbia last fall-that is, the fall of 1927. He had been graduated from the neighboring high school in the spring, and Papa Orion seemed eager to work that summer to help Jean get money for college. Money, by the way, was the one thing we never left around to tempt them with. As far as we knew, they worked for whatever cash they had to have. Four dollars a day we were paying Jean that summer and six to Papa Orion. And, so that there might be no lack of funds for Jean in the fall, Mrs. Adams decided to landscape some more of her grounds that summer and let Papa Orion and Jean do the work. All went well until the latter part of July. Then Papa Orion began to be temperamental again. There were days when nothing could induce him to work. Fanning himself "Our peas did not do so well this with a Panama hat which had once year." It was by no means an apology! "The land is better over that way," and his long, restless hands would indicate the direction in which the Adams's garden lay. "They are going to have a good crop of corn, too." Nor would he admit that fertilizers had helped God's plan. "No. Some just have better land than others," he would say; and Mama Orion, were she with him as was likely, would nod her head emphatically at her liege lord's wisdom. surveying the possibilities for tomorrow, his languidly feverish hands pointing their suggestions for improvements in her plan. 229 Came the latter part of August and Mrs. Adams began to lose patience. For a whole week Papa Orion had loafed. The torn-up grounds were getting on her nerves. Jean was doing his best which was far from good enough. She went down to the Orion home one hot morning. No, Papa Orion was not going to work that day. Their artistic temperaments clashed seriously for the first time and there were insinuations about vegetables and flowers and lumber-even about the Italian scarf that had somehow found its way to Katherine's shoulders that summer. Papa Orion was deeply hurt. Without another word he picked up the Panama hat and his gloves and started for the Adams's grounds. It was a blistering day. Papa Papa Orion worked sullenly. About three o'clock Jean noticed him straighten up over his shovel, reach up as if for his head and then crumple in a heap. He never spoke a word. The doctor said it was apoplexy. We called at the Orion home frequently those next few days with Papa Orion lying stiffly in the parlor and Mama Orion shattered and completely crushed in the kitchen. I have never seen such utter collapse in a human being. "It is the curse of God. The curse of God is on this house!" she moaned over and over again. Nor could we in any way give her help or comfort. Jean and Katherine became cringing, unbeautiful things under her hysteria. It was a horrible sight to "The curse of God is on us," she shrieked; and as we tenderly carried Papa Orion out the front door of the little house he had so completely created and loved, she fell into a faint that required the services of Dr. Colton, and could not go on to the cemetery. We did what we could for them that next week. It was apparent that Mama Orion was uncomfortable in our presence. Never, never have I seen such collapse in family morale! The living-room was stripped of inconsequential trinkets Papa Orion had brought in-we all knew how. Katherine's scarf was kept out of sight. It was obvious that an attempt was being made to clear all the little sins away. And the sight of Mama Orion was enough to break the heart. There was nothing we could find to do. On the thirteenth of September a small van came. They moved away. No one knows where they went. And, in time, the little strip of land between the Adams and Bouton places will doubtless, by way of unpaid taxes, revert to the State of Connecticut. WHY MOVE TO NEW YORK America Will Never Reach Its Finest Development by Parting Its Civilization in the Middle F ELIZABETH CORBETT OREIGN immigration used to be a great American problem. It had loomed on the horizon for some time, and the World War brought it sharply into the foreground. Our country had started business as a refuge for the oppressed; but when other nations went into the wholesale manufacture of the oppressed, they threatened to swamp us with that line of merchandise. Immigration became a political issue. It was not the sort of issue politicians relish. They couldn't talk long on the subject without offending somebody, and they saw that sooner or later they would have to do something about it. Politicians much Politicians much prefer an issue on which they can talk everlastingly and never do anything. Give them a good old standby like the tariff. But when immigration lost its first syllable, we took it to our hearts and homes. Migration has passed into the hands of our native population. Leaving home has become our greatest national industry. Some Easterners content themselves with commuting between America and Europe. Some Californians, it is whispered, are more than contented with being Californians: they embrace it as a life-work. But for the central half of our wide country, the principal industry is moving. Somewhere between the Appalachian Mountains and the Rockies is the country's center of population. Only no one knows where the center of population is, because it doesn't stand still long enough to be caught. By the time a Middle Westerner is breeched, he is a Middle Westerner no longer. His first pair of long trousers is his passport to go to New York. To be sure, if he stayed at home he would stay there alone. Father has already migrated to Florida, where the income tax is low I mean, where the climate is good for winter golf. Grandpa has sold the "home" he built to last his descendants for generations, and has gone to California to join Uncle Ezra. Day before yesterday the Middle West was the country's frontier. Yesterday it was America's factory, warehouse and theater of practical achievement. To-day there is danger of its being regarded as merely the hinterland. The impression is spreading that the Middle West is an excellent place to come from, but no place at all to live in. Some small part of this feeling is |