Thus near the peach tree in full bloom, Louis’s tortured mind was stilled. He accepted death as an evanishment, he accepted Life as the power of powers. It seemed, indeed, as standing near his friend, gazing fondly round about and upward through the invisible firmament, that this great power, Life, in gesture and in utterance through the song of spring, had set its glowing rainbow in the passing cloud as a token of a covenant that the pure of eye might see. And indeed it seemed to him as quite lucid that the cloud with the glowing rainbow in its heart might well stand forever as a symbol of a token of a covenant between Life, and Man’s proud spirit, and the Earth. Thus Louis dreamed. And it seemed as though a small voice coming from afar, said: “If one must dream let the dream be one of happiness.”
For the second time the house of Henri List had collapsed and gone down. This time in fragments. Soon the farm was sold. Julia, she of flaming hair, bewitching fairy tales, and temper of Iseult, cook and companion for nine long years, vanished in turn; Julius, the son, now twenty-five, offered a place, “in Philadelphia,” went there; his father followed.
Louis found welcome and shelter with the next door neighbors, the John A. Tompsons, whose son George for years had been his playmate. And the earth resumed its revolution about its own private axis as before; day following night as usual. Daily, George Tompson went to Tech to pursue his studies in railway engineering. Daily, Louis paid his renewed respects to Moses Woolson. Daily, John A. Tompson returned from Boston at an exact hour, removed his hat, walked to a glass cabinet, took exactly one stiff swig of bourbon straight, smacked his lips, twinkled his eyes, sank into an easy chair which had remained in the same place for exactly how many years no one knows, dozed off for exactly ten minutes, arose, stretched his short muscular body, smiled widely, displaying false teeth, dyed-black side whiskers and moustache, a fine high forehead and dark fine eyes with as merry a twinkle as one could wish; then he went forth to see if each cultivated tree and shrub and bush and vine were exactly where they were in the morning. This man, gifted with extraordinary deftness of hand and a high-spirited intelligence, became a wonder and an inspiration to Louis, who spent the following two years in this charming household where epicureanism prevailed.
That spring and summer, Louis botanized and mineralized with incessant ardor, and he saw what it signified that each thing should have a name, and what order and classification meant in the way of organized intelligence, and increased power of manipulation of things and thoughts. His insight into the relationship of function and structure deepened rapidly. A thousand things now began to cohere and arrange into groups which hitherto had seemed disparate and wide apart. To be sure, Moses Woolson was the impelling cause and it was up to Louis to do the work and to search and find and see these things objectively and clearly for himself. Thus logical connections began to form a plexus in his growing mind, beside which also upgrew a sense of equal logic and order in action. Now, John A. Tompson had this faculty of order and delicate precision in so marked a degree that Louis kept a close eye on his doings. In the fall Louis returned to the English High School and entered the Second Class under a sub-master named Hale. Mr. Hale was a scholar and a gentleman, a shining light of conscientious, conventional, virtuous routine.
With that clear and ruthless faculty, which boys possess, of spotting the essentials of their elders, Louis at the first session so sized up Hale; and dismay and despair swept through him in an awful wave of depression; it seemed as though the light of life had gone out. What was this tallow dip to the hot sun of Woolson? What could this mannikin accomplish? What could this respectable and approved lay figure do for one who had been trained intensively for a year by Moses Woolson? Let us therefore quickly draw the veil; and forget.
At the end of this school year, George Tompson asked Louis why he did not try for Tech. And Louis replied that he supposed that he must first finish “High.” “Nonsense,” said George, “You can pass easily.” And thus encouraged, Louis passed easily.
It should be mentioned that at the time of the great Chicago fire, Louis received prompt word that the family were safe and sound beyond the reach of its fearsome ravages. And
