A T EMPE R E DW I N D

BENNY SIMMONS had spent most ofthe night in going up and down stairswith a broken- lipped pitcher

,which, how

ever often he took it down empty, must oncemore be brought up full. Even an emptytwo- quart pitcher is a notable burden for oneof Benny’s stature, but when full the processof bringing it successfully to port, up fiveflights of stairs

,is a matter to require the

closest navigation. If the ascent is hastenedby impatient calls from the top, there isdanger ofcatastrophe, complete and terrific.When this at last happened, Benny, staying for no court of inquiry to take up thematter, fled at once, crept under a bench ina moth- eaten bit ofpark near by, and thereremained until morning

,within the black

shadow cast by the electric light.At sunrise, hunger sent him home with asharp command

,which be obeyed with some[ 3 ]

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hesitation,remembering how he had left the

glimmering white fragments of the pitcher‘ crying aloud for vengeance in the lower hall.Yet— even so— one must eat. With a smallsighhe turned the corner of his own alleyway. Lo ! a crowd, a patrol wagon, and asudden friendly hiss in his ear :

“Ru n, kid ! The S

’

iety’safter you se l

So he ran, as his kind can run at the soundof that name of dread , tu rned the cornerwithout pursuit

,and was straightway face to

face with the world .

What his thoughts were, or howframedto himself

,it would be difficult to guess. A

pariah puppy,chased with unmistakable

finality from the stable of its meagre youthmay reflect along the same lines, withthoughts equally inarticulate . So huge aproblem probably does not lose in terrorbecause one does not know with whatwords to discuss it in his own mind .

Heretofore , aside from carryingthe pitcherup and down stairs, his chief occupation hadbeen dragging a tin can about by a string.

(If some skill is brought to the manipulation[ 4 ]

A TemperedWind

of this contrivance, and advantage taken ofall obstructions to emphasize the rhythmofthe sound, the result is pleasing.! Whenthe hydrant was blown off

,he had also

successfully conducted irrigation operationsin the gutter. At either of these tasks hecould have held his own

,but neither was

lucrative .However, he was already reasonably fa

miliar with garbage- cans, and here, at theoutset, fortune favored him ; for quite at thetop ofthe first one he investigated , there layhalf ofa loaf ofbread

,perfectly good but for

a crack of green mould through its middle.Yet his problem was not to admit of such

easy solution, for hardly had he grasped thebread when a tattered shadow was sweptacross him by the early sunlight, and theloaf was snatched by a larger hand— tremu lou s, bony, and soiled .

Turning about, not for argument, butbecause his eyes insisted on following thebread, he beheld a figure such as has beendescribed by primitive adventurers . Once,we may believe

,a company of such settled[ 5]

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upon and spoiled the dinner of that otherwanderer, Ulysses. Thus it was accordingto precedent and dramatic fitness, that onthe threshold of his errantry Benny Simmonsshould be met by this dreary and sinisteremissary from the House of a HundredSorrows.” So they stared at each other, theproblem of how to live in the world lying between them, Benny at the beginning of it,the old woman at the conclusion of it, andneither having any advantage over the otherworth mentioning, as to the understandingof it. Aflicker of hesitation crossed the faceof a hundred sorrows. Thru sting back intoBenny’s hands the small remainder of thebread, she trailed away, muttering, in searchof other ash- cans.

“Half a loaf,” was Benny’s inarticulate

comment,“ is better than no bread .

”

He watched the old woman kindly as heate, and hoped gratefully that she would findall sorts of good things.Having finished breakfast

,he wandered

westward— hisshadow leading the way, thinand blue upon the already softening asphalt.

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A TemperedWind

At Washington Square, for the first timehis adventure began to please him

,for

here the world opened out as he hadnever dreamed . His shadow led him to agreen bench where a gentleman of limitlessleisure was reading a many- pictured paperwhich had become his at fourth or fifthhand .

Benny was so lost in surprise at the u nexpected size of the sky in this region, andthe lavish supply of trees, that for awhile heforgot graver matters. When at last he temembered them— or his stomach did— hisshadow had shrunk to nothing at all, andcould lead him no further, and the sun wasvery hot indeed— the sparrows hopping langu idly about, open- billed, with wings ou tspread and drooping. Where the leisurelygentleman had sat remained only the paperthat he had been reading, and out of this,after Benny’s eyes had drowsily rested uponit for some time, an idea evolved . One might

,

he remembered, sell papers . Before the episode of the pitcher there had been stormydiscussion of it (but all discussions were

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stormy! , which he had notmu ch heeded, asa future occupation for himself.He seized upon the windfall, carefullybrushed oflthe dirt, smoothed the creases,held it flatly under his armashe hadseenother boysdo, and went purposefully towardSix th Avenue, where he marked such signsoftraffic as argued it a good place todo business.Bu t, as often happens in the undertaking

ofa new enterprise, he was nowblocked byunsuspected minutiae and ignorance of acceptedforms. At first it looked well, for afat man in a red- smeared white apron,whostood in a doorway of the market, seized hispaper and gave him a penny, but hardly hadhe gone an arm’s- length in the direction ofabakery across the street when he was sweptbackward by a strong fat hand upon hiscollar, the penny was forced from his fingers

,

and the paper thrust in his face violently,while overhead raged words with which hewas quite familiar, but which could be applied so impartially to any situation that theycarried bu t little explanation with them, ih

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dicating merely that the speaker was in anunpleasant frame of mind .

Papers were papers, so far as Benny knew,

and salable. It had never been brought to hisnotice that yesterday’s paper had less valuethan to- day’s. That something was verywrong he understood, but connected it withhis own personality rather than with hisstock intrade . At any rate, whether the paperin itself was right or wrong, it was his onlyasset, and as such he restored to it whatgrace he might, as soon as he was safelyacross the street from his angry customer.Perhaps, seen thus at a distance, his ex tremesmallness became more apparent

,and the

violent contrast between himself and the fatman appealed to that person’s good- nature.

“Oh ! it is excellent to have a giant’sstrength”— thus Benny with inarticulate eloqu ence, ashe bent over his crumpled paper—

“but it is tyrannous to use it like a giant.”

Or so it was that the butcher understood

An apple , seized from a pushcart nex t thecurb

,suddenly curved over the trolley cars

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Intervention:

and trucks and plumped at Benny’s feet,crushing in one of its fair cheeks upon thepavement. He picked it up

,not reasoning

at all about cause and effect or looking to seewhere it came from, but he almost smiled,for it made another asset. His luncheon wasnow accounted for, and he still had his paperagainst the time for supper. Besides, he wasfeeling disinclined for further business at themoment. A singular giddiness was comingover him, which the fat man

’

s shaking hadincreased . He went slowly back to Washington Square, eating his apple . But the butcher

’

s round face ashe settled for it with thepu shcart manwasabstracted and troubled

,

for he had children ofhis own .

It was now early afternoon,and there were

many other children in the park— some inclean white linen, with clean bare knees andwhite socks ; little girls with big crisp ribbonsin their hair ; little boys— very much Benny’sseniors— withh00ps and balls and othertrivial non- lucrative articles . Benny thoughta little abou t his tin can with a string

,but

was too warm and sleepy to spend much[ 10 ]

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Newsboys are not allowed in the Viardot.Auguste, wild- haired, swift- footed, intervenes

,waving his napkin

,shooing as one

shoos a cat. Nevertheless, the entrance beingshadowy, and Auguste in discussion withMadame la Propriétaire, one may reach theshining tables with stealthy swiftness

,offer

a paper, and return into the gray street withnothing worse than a flick on the ear fromAuguste’s napkin . But by that time one hassmelled soup, seen ice- cream, and possiblysold a paper.Benny Simmons, roaming uncertainly,

even with a little timidity now— for it wasevening and the afternoon had been filledwith discouragements not set down heresaw a boy of evidently good standing in hisown chosen trade, emerging swiftly from alighted door-way. Auguste, with his pursuingnapkin, was not visible from the street. Observing that the boywore a cheerful grin andhastened up the street crying, Here’s yerevening Ju st-Out,

” with nonchalance andvigor, Benny decided to make the experi

ment for himself. But now, with the day’

s

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failure behind him,the contrast betweenhis

own personality and that of the successfulcompetitor he had just met lay heavily uponhim . Some children would have cried at thispoint— perhaps some people who are notchildren

,on reaching a similar point of an

undertaking as important to them as ‘ wasBenny Simmons’s to him,

would have felt atleast a desire to cry. But the first precept laiddown by Benny’s philosophy had been concerning the futility of tears, so he only feltsomething grow heavier and heavier on hischest. There was indeed a slight gesture thatyouwill often see exaggerated upon the stage— a small dirty hand pressed hard againsthischest where the weight was. He was not nowthinking much about food, but the selling ofhis paper had come to have importance oftremendous proportions . The idea had ob

sessed him,as ideas will sometimes obsess

people whenthrough great anxiety and physical distress the brain’s action is renderedslightly uncertain.

Fate ,which had taken charge of him thatmorning

,and ex perimented with him here

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and there,had nowgrown something apolo

getic and inquiring through repeated failures.“Things do take a turn for the better sometimes. One never can tell what will happeninside a lighted door-way any more than inside a dark one . At least it isa good smell,

”

and so it tried himon the Viardot.

The terrace of the Viardotis a good placeat which to dine on hot summer evenings. Itfills what was once the scanty backyard of anold brownstone house

,looks out from three

sides upon the backyard secrets of a longblock of similar houses

,and is in turn looked

down upon by all their windows,so that it

seems to lie midway in a sort of caiion, at thewestern endof which the moon- face of theJeflerson Market clock blooms nightlyagainst the sunset. There are ailantus treesall about, sweet and sickly, sprinkling nutidy green flowers upon the tables.One there escapesthe pungent odor of the

streets drawn up by the day’shot su n. Oneorders a pint ofViardotclaret and a bottle of

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A TemperedWind

seltzer,making of it a beautiful iced ruby

drink which shines as Auguste lights the gas.Looking in from the street you can see,through the dim length of the hall, the tableswhite under the gas, and the people withtheir neat dinners.What it

'

looked like to Benny Simmons itwould be difficult foryou and me to imagine— perhaps like such things as we, who carelessly partake every day of meals quite asattractive as this of the Viardot, shyly hopewe may see shining for us after a weary andthirsty day, and after passing through something like this shadowed hallway which Benny now entered slowly, his face very whiteand sadunder its unspeakable grime . Eflectively, this was no place for him,

any morethan that other place will be for you or me .At a table that commanded a good view ofthe entrance there sata lady alone, the chairopposite her tipped forward in a dejected attitude, its wooden forehead resting on thecloth as if in prayer.Now and then the lady looked toward thedoor. She had rather remarkable eyes— soft

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and black and troubled . She drew laboriouspatterns on the cloth with her fork and gathered up the littered ailantus flowers in neatwindrows with accuracy and an apparent attention to what she did that made it seem animportant occupation ; but the ailantus blossoms might have stood for a multitude ofworries, and the patterns on the cloth for distracted plans thatmust fit distracted circumstances. The hands were only trying theirbest to assist an anxious brain that was u nconscious of them.

As she turned one of her frequent glancesupon the door, she met the eyes of BennySimmons, and in spite, perhaps because, ofher own distress, she understood that herewas one come to present a claim against theworld in general . Some people there are whohold themselves liable for the world ’s debts,when claims of this nature are presented .

She did not smile at Benny Simmons as onesmiles at a child ; rather it was a look ofgrave interest.Benny came forward at once, furtive and

small, so that the tableshid him until he had[ 16 ]

A TemperedWind

almost reached her with his,yesterday’s pa

per,when Auguste bore down with his nap

kin, which caught Benny full on the ear.As he fled, the lady half rose and spoke toAuguste, who did not hear because he waslaughing at Benny. Then she shut her lips ina thin line and sat down, paler than before,to her occupation with the figures upon thecloth . If one is very unfortunate indeed,there are many little luxu ries that one mustlearn to do without— such as paying a nickelfor a dirty yesterday’s paper, when offeredby the littlest and weariest newsboy in allNew York.

If one has dined onmany pleasant evenings at the Viardot, there come to be associationswith the languid and untidy ailantustrees, and with the solemn yellow face of theclock, and with the crude flavor of the Viardot claret, for of such materials are formedthe habitsof association that strike root intoa place and claim it— for lack of a betterplace— as home.And so, supposing one to have met withmisfortune— so that one may no longer dine

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as one wills among all the restaurants ofNew York, bu t must choose the cheaperones, among which the Viardot is the aristocrat— and supposing the misfortune nowto be darkening down with breathlessswiftness, so that the Viardotalso is about to besnatched away and setamong the other nuattainable things, why then the last dinnereaten there among the ailantus trees

,facing

the sunset, may be fraught with tragic senriment and concentrated realization of one’sposition.

When Leighton came at last, tired andabsent-minded, to take possession of thechair that his wife had been keeping for him,

she at once perceived that no hopefu l eventhad brought relief tohisdrawn face , yetshecould not keep from asking : “No newsof any kind ?”

He shook his head , then looked arou nd atthe cheap fu rnishings of the Viardotwithangry wistfu lness.

We’

ve got to cut thisou t, I su ppose .

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Interventionr

Leighton’s eyes hadwandered to the doorway. He set down his crimson glass suddenly.

“Well, I’ll be Here

,boy.

For in spite of Auguste, Benny’s feet had

strayed back to that shining door. He wasnot conscious ofguiding them

,only they were

stubborn about going further,and kept

creeping back— a cou rse evidently justified,as matterswere turning out.Bu t as he came forward to complete the

transaction, he saw, just level with his eye,a platter of meat, with bread near it andvegetables. He forgot the money, the paperslipped from underhiselbow

,he gripped the

table edge with his tiny gray finger- tips,and

stared . Thingswavered and grew black— allbut the food . That seemed to swell andsparkle— to give out rainbow colors

,while

the odor of it went through him in waves.Then that faded also.

When the world came back,he was lying

in a curiou sly soft and pleasant place,and

the unaccu stomed feeling ofwaterwasuponhis face . He swallowed something— another

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spoonful— then with an eager whimpergrabbed for the cup .

“Steady,old man.

What a crowd offaces ! Auguste, who didnotseem at all inclined to wave his napkin,Madame la Propriétaire, and many others atthe back, while a gray- haired gentleman fedhim soup in doses ofone teaspoonfu l at a timeand talked in large words to the other people— in small ones, now and then, to Benny.

Looking up, Benny discovered the Lady’s

face above himand understood that thepleasant soft place wherein he lay was theLady’s lap .

Then somewhere out of the crowd camethat dreadfu l word, the

“Society.

”

At that he struggled faintly to be up and offonce more ; bu tmeeting her hand, cool andsoft and reassuring, he forgot his purposeandmerely shu t his five fingers decisivelyabout one of hers, while with the other handhe strove to hasten the soup to his mou th.

Good business instinct,” said Leighton

sarcastically. He knows when he’s got holdof a good thing.

”

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Indeed , it was oddwhat strength and determination Benny put into that grasp .

She tried once, very gently, to release herwhite finger— for Benny’s hands were reallydreadfu l— but had not the heart to try quite

’

hard enough, particularly when he turnedand looked her in the eyes determinedly.

Almost it was a menace . “You don’t dare

pull it away !”

Then, having had as much soup as thedoctor said was good for him, he grewdrowsy— very drowsy, indeed . They mighthave sent him to the Society, or anywhereelse

,and he would have made no objection .

He released the Lady’s hand and lay altogether limp

,while some of the people went

back to their dinners, and the others stoodaround and gave advice . One man offered toget a policeman .

I think,” said the lady quietly, we

will manage some other way just for thepresent. He doesn’t look as if— anybodywould miss him very much if we tookhim home for a bath and a good night’ssleep .

”

I 2 2 l

A TemperedWind

The physician chuckled . I wish you joyofhim

,madam

,

” he said,going back to his

dinner,and that, with an undertone of relief

in their polite sarcasm, was the attitude ingeneral of the other people.

Leighton considered his wife with alarmand some amusement. There was that in herMadonna attitude, her downward look uponthe weary atom in her lap, which answeredwith the primeval logic of all Madonnas anyargument which he might advance on thescore of common sense, even before hespoke .

“We can’t aflord, he stammered, wehave no right

“He

’

s so little !”

But— what would my creditors say ?I know— but howbig and strong we

are !Yet Leighton, having beaten his brainsout all day against a brazen wall of impossibilities, had come to regard himself as astraw in the wind, altogether without strengthor purpose .

“Are we ? he muttered .

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She looked up at him in a vague, startledway, saying swiftly

“Do you realize thathe would have beenabout as old as this if he had lived ? If hehad lived

,we— we shouldhave taken careofhimsomehow.

”

This evidently, to her, stood for an u n

answerable argument, and she gathered thechild toward her with an air of finality .

Leighton made a brief stand withsometroubled remark about heredity, but shecountered swiftly with a confident one aboutthe power of environment to counteractheredity, and he knew that the thing wassettled .

They sat over their coffee until the otherdiners were gone, and Auguste had loweredall the lights but the one over their table .The ailantus trees gave forth the quiet droneof insects ; the sombre, impersonal mutter ofthe city was like the sound of surf: Benny

,a

wisp ofwreckage of undetermined value castup by that careless tide . Yet there isdebate upon that point ; some contending,with a show of reason, that the carelessness

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is su perficial, merely, and a small matter ;that care andpurpose are the substance ofthe foundation of things.

Leighton brought his chair around to sucha position that he could obtain an u ninter

ru ptedview of this new factor in his alreadydifficult problem .

He is rather small,he conceded

,gin

gerly touching the inert hand . When it tespondedto his tou ch, closing quickly u ponhis finger, he found himself as powerless inits clasp as his wife had been, and let hishand remain, growing more and moreamazed at the contrast between it and theone which held it. His was such a big

,mus

cu lar, clean hand— capable of all sorts ofeffort— ofwielding a sledge- hammer

,ifneed

were, for all its softness. What right had aman with hands like that to be discouraged,so long as such small and weak ones as thisof Benny’s were in need of help ?From thishe began once more to grope atthat brazen wall of impossibility upon whose

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smooth surface he had been bruising hisfists these weeks and months. His eyes fallingupon Benny’s paper found in it an emblemofplu ck. One might suppose that anybody,by overhauling his assets

,could find some

thing equivalent to a yesterday’s muddypaper as a starting- point. Perhaps, 1nstead ofscaling the wall, or breaking throu ghit,one might burrow under, or go round

about he fou nd himself shaping ascheme .

“Well, he said slowly, I dare say something will turn up.

”

He lifted Benny out ofhiswife’

s lap andstood up . His face was less harassed . He

smiled reassuringly at her over his grimyburden.

“Everything will come out all right, he

said quietly,as onewho knows.

The child roused , trembled, and clung tohis coat like a frightened kitten.

“All right, old man, you’

ve stru ck oil,

Leighton informed him kindly.

Benny looked at him and Eu nice searchingly, appearing to turn everything over

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T H E R U B B E R

S T A M P

T H E R U B B E R

S T A M P

I SEE, said the nurse, Martha has theNancy Dancy books . Did you know I

helped to make them ? You wouldn’t su spectme of having a hand in anything literary or artistic

,now, would you ?”

Miss Waite’sbusiness concerned only thechildren of other women

,but her face was

that ofthe mother of many. My son was inher cushiony arms at the moment going tosleep over his five- ounce bottle . She pinchedhis inert hand , whereupon he spread hisfingers, increased the slit between his eyelids by a hair’s- breadth

,and resumed work

with a tiny sigh .

“Just fancyl” said the nurse . Me hav

ing anything to do with a book.

She said book with the reverent capltalization bestowed on literature by those whohave never tried it.

“They certainly are having a great su c[ 31 ]

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cess, I said . It’s so hard to get satisfactory children’s books nowadays. Everythingisalways eating up something else . The artists seem to love to do dragons and snakes.I suppose because they have nice lines andlend themselves to cheap color processes.”

“Dear me,” said the nurse,

“ I don’t knowanything about that. A picture is a pictureto me, thou gh you

’d think I might havelearned a little being with Mrs. Sterret awhole year.”

“Were you really ? said I . Do tell mewhat she is like . One hears so many queerthings about famous people . Is she reallysuch a sloven ? And is it true that she turnsher children over to trained nu rses andhardly sees them from one year’s end toanotherMiss Waite made a ferociou s little sound

in her throat : “Who says that ?”“Oh, I said vagu ely,

“newspapers— v

everybody.

My sonwas asleep invincibly. She spankedhim scientifically and tickled his neck

,but

he had sunk beyond reach so she kissed the[ 32 ]

The Ru bber Stamp

top of his head resoundingly, avoiding thefontanelle

,and cuddled him to her starched

white bosom.

There’s no doctor or head nurse looking

,she muttered guiltily.

“Oh, how I do

wish you belonged to me,and she brazenly

rocked him with her cheek against the warmfuzz ofhishead.

“As to turning her babies over to nurses,said she scornfully, “there was never butone nurse, to my knowledge, and I was theone. As to being a sloven, anybodywhocould do what she did and think aboutlooksWhen I first saw her I did think she was

a crank. She was so thin and sick- looking,and carelessly dressed . And her eyes had awild look that made me suspicious. She wasslovenly ifyou like, then . The last time I sawher she might have stepped out of a showwindow on Fifth Avenue . Her little boy wastwo months oldwhen I came to her. ‘

I’mso

afraid of making mistakes in preparing thebottle,

’ said she . ‘ I am— a— very busywoman, and my husband is notwell.

’

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We nurses are so used to finding trouble— wickedness too— where you ’d least expect it that we take a skeleton in the closetas a matter of course . We know perfectlywell that something unpleasant— even horrible— besides the case that brings us there,is always walking around the rooms of everyhouse or flat where a family lives. Someghost or goblin is sure to grin at u s througha crack before we’ve been in a house twentyfour hours .”

“There isn’t one here, I said indignantly.

Miss Waite said nothing.

I thought a moment and was silent. MissWaite continued

“Sometimes it’s rat size — sometimes onlymouse . But I ’ve seen— well— wolves andtigers . I shouldn’t have said what I did ifyou rs had been bigger than a mou se . Wegetso we pay no more attention to

’

emthanto the family cat ; do ou r business and go assoon as possible .

“To tell the honest tru th, I thought at

first she was a ‘ nervous case . ’ That’s apolite word for almost or qu ite insane, you

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Interventions

of something, because of the Thing I wasspeaking of that was in the house, and I

knew that it must be a big one— tiger- size,or worse .

“Notwickedness. When it’s wickednessyou know it because you begin to feelwicked and cynical yourself. This was bigand cold and heavy, like sewer- gas, or like— Did you ever see a picture of a snaketwined about a branch and looking downinto a bird ’s nest ?

“ ‘ It’s fear,’ I said .

And as I set my feedings away, noticingagain how beautifully spick- and- span shehad kept everything, I found I was horriblysorry. And that made me cross, for a nursecan’t afford to have sympathies . This, I suppose, confused me, so that when I went tohave a look at my new baby and take himhis bottle I accidentally opened the wrongdoor. I had never seen a studio before. Thelight was rather dim so that I didn’t see then,whatwasso plain afterward , that everythingwas just shadow— hardly more than begun.

It looked as if the room were full ofchildren,[ 36 ]

The Ru bber Stampall laughing— and fairies— well, you knowthose fairies in the Nancy Dancy books.But of course the drawings were all ever somuch bigger than they show in the books

,

and mostly in color. They were dear ! Howcould Fear be in the same house withthatcrowd of laughing babies ? Still I heard hersobbing somewhere,and then— but it seemedas if it was all those laughing babies thatmade me do it— I began to cry myself. I

stepped out softly and tried the next door,and there was my baby right enough, blesshis heart

,with his finger half-way down his

throat and his eyes wide open, looking forhis bottle . I took away his finger and tuckedin the nipple instead, and he swallowed awaylike a little man, staring hard at my cap .

“It was evening when I came,so my first

meal there was breakfast. As I went down Isaw a maid taking a tray to the studio door— just coffee. But the coffee they had at thathouse ! It wasn’t a beverage ; it was a drug. I

had to fill my cup two- thirds full of milkand then it was strong. But she took a wholebreakfast- cup full— black !

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As the door opened she saw me andasked howthe baby had slept. You ’d havethought from her face that he was desperately ill.

‘Why,

’ said I,‘he’s thewellest, fattest,

dearest little thing that ever was ! You ’

re thepatient

,

’ I said .

‘Does your doctor knowwhat kind of breakfast you have ? ’ And I

pointed to the coffee.“ ‘That isn’t breakfast,

’ said she. ‘ I hadmy breakfast two hours ago, when Annewoke up .

’ Anne was her little girl . ‘This isjust to help me about working.

’ She wavedher hand toward the pictures, and nowI

saw plainlyhowthey were really just ghostsof pictures— all cloudy masses ofpaint. Yetthe night before they had seemed all butalive .

“ ‘

I have to get past this stage, you see,’

she said to me, just as if I knew about suchthings

,

‘ and it takes whip and spur to do it.Once past the hill and the rough road, we

’llget back to a more normal way of living.

’

“She was drinking that terrible coffeewhile she talked, and by the time it was half

[ 38 ]

The Ru bber Stampgone the color had come into her face andher eyeswere bright. I could hardly believeshe was the woman I had heard crying thenight before .

“ ‘

I may as well tell you ,

’ said she,‘what

I am trying to do. You know my husbandis an invalid . Our physician says change ofclimate might make him well, but we can

’tafford that at present. And aside from thatour affairs are in a bad way— very bad .

We’ve had losses ’ - she turned white as shementioned that. I saw it was no small matterso that I thought it might be well if I

took my talent ou t of its napkin. We arevery ambitious for our children — she spokewith an odd sort of defiance as though expectingcriticism and that sort ofambitionis as expensive as one can make it. So I

thought I could serve them better this waythan by being with them all the time . But Ihad very little training. So I am going toschool to myself. Some of the most successful artists have been self- taught,

’ said she .‘ It’s very hard to give my children over toothers to care for. Still, when I remember

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the mothers that leave theirs in a creche,while they go out to scrub — she gulpeddown the rest of her coffee and stood upvery straight and bright- eyed .

‘You see,’

said she,

‘ I’ve got to do goodwork. There ispoor work that pays well, I understand , butI don’t know how to do it. And it takes solong to learn ; and— we are in such a hurryto go South. But you will help me Shestopped being dignified and put her handson my shoulders and looked up into myface— she is a little thing.

“ ‘Youwill stand by, won’t you ? ’ saidshe . And in spite of her courageous air I

saw in her eyes the Fear that had beenweeping around the house the night before,the fear of the bird on her nest when shesees the snake .

“So I patted her and said of course I ’d

‘

stand by,’ only she mustn’t worry and

mustn’t take her coffee so strong. She heldon to me for a long time, but was so still Ididn’t know she had been crying until I

found the starch ou t of my bib where herface had been.

[ 40 ]

The Ru bber StampI don’t believe I ’ll mind you r having

him,

’ she said at last, giving me a little pushou t of the room. And I heard a funnyscratchy noise like something in a terriblehurry. (I learned afterward she was sharpening her charcoal on sand- paper.! Thenwalking back and forth ; a steady tramp forhours

,for she never sat down at her work.

There wasn’t any model. She said shewouldn’t let her little girl pose for her anyway, and that even if she did it would spoileverything because the child would becomeself- conscious and stiff.

‘ I have taught my eye to remember,’

she said , and she was always doing littlestudies of their heads while she was withthem . It was the drawing of an eyelid , shetold me, or the curve of a check or thesquaring of the mouth corners when theylaughed that she sketched then .

‘ I do thatwhen another woman would be sewing. Ofcourse I couldn’t depend on that if I were apainter, but it

’s enough forthe simple sort ofdrawings I ’m making. And then I use mycamera some, but really you can

’t get much[ 41 ]

I nterventions

ou tof a photograph ; 1ts one way of sketching and sometimes you get an idea, but generally they

’re all wrong. I didn’t know thatwhen I started out. I thought my photographs were lovely and that all I should haveto do would be to copy them line for line .But when I began to work from them theyseemed to crumble into dust.’

“That’s the way she put it. I didn’t u nderstand then, and I don’t now. She hadsome of the loveliest photographs of herbabies that I ’ve ever seen . But they didn’tsuit her.

“Her camera was a wonderful little thingand I believe very expensive . She could takesnaps in- doors if it was moderately light, andshe was always gunning after little Anne’ssmiles, which were rarer than they mighthave been, for the child was fretting over herlast molars and running a temperature andcrying at night. It was better after I got herto come to me— but it took a long time .Queer child . Not everybody liked her. ‘

It’

s

for my ru bber stamp,’ Mrs. Sterretexplained

to me one day after shooting off a dozen ex[ 42 ]

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to be honest I had to say so, though I couldsee she didn’t.

“ ‘Of course you do’ said she,

‘

Everybody thinks so except artists . That’s theRubber Stamp . Now, here’s another portfolio. It’s hardly fair to call it ru bber- stampwork ; at least it

’s a much better one than theother, and I

’ve learned ever so much fromher. Children, you seerand they are children .

She knows how to keep things simple. Sheuses a clean strong line, and you

’d nevermistakeherwork for anybody’s else . That’swhere the stamp comes. But her childrenare always solemn and quiet. Mine are tobe always in sunshine and always laughingand wriggling. That’smy rubber stampthat— and— keeping them in flat light grays— notmuch line .’

“Well, it seemed to me she was gettingit ; only— ir was always one new drawingafter another. At first glance you ’d think,‘How perfectly lovely ! ’ — then there ’d seemto be nothing there . Just nothing at all .

“ ‘

I’mnot ready yet to finish

,

’ she saidonce, reading my look, I suppose .

‘ It’s the[ 44 ]

The Ru bber Stamphardest part I ’m doing now— compositionand tone

,making maps of the masses of

light and shade as we used to do maps ofthe States at school . Finishing won’t be hardonce I ’m ready .

’

“But I couldn’t help being uneasy ; perhaps because I saw she was uneasy herself.What if the finishing might notbe so easy,after all ? But then, what did I know ? I tookthe children out and kept them away all dayas much as I could

,and took them both at

night. She had been taking Anne at night,

molars and all . I don’t know when she hadslept. And the baby only two months old!Think of it ! No wonder she couldn’t nursehim.

“Mr. Sterret? I had to change my Opinion ofhim before Iwasdone . At first I puthim down for a hypochondriac . I supposedhe was dying . But some people show up bestthen— and some don’t ; depending partly onwhat the case is, but not altogether. I methim several times in the halls and he bowedand spoke pleasantly, but kept a handkerchief smelling oi carbolic tohisface . He had

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a room at the top of the house and took hisair on the roof and isolated himself with allsorts of necessary and unnecessary precautions. I wanted to do something for him,

too,

but he seemed to be afraid that I ’d somehowcarry tuberculosis from him to the children if I did ; so when I saw it worried himI kept away. He was almost frantic on thesubject and martyrized himself almost asmuch as that poor leper they made su ch afuss about.

“But I finally persuaded him it was perfectly safe to bring the baby up to the rooffor its airing when he was there, and it didhim a world of good . And I told him of allthe T’b ’s I had known who got perfectlywell and howautopsies almost alwaysshowscars on the lungs, so that he brightened upto be almost human after a few days. Hehad a little insurance, it seemed , so wasn

’tso worried about his dying as Mrs . Sterretwas. She preferred him alive .

“One day I met Mr. Sterret’s physiciancoming down . He was a personal friend,too, and knew how their affairs stood . He

[ 46 ]

The Ru bber Stampcalled me into an empty room and shut thedoor.

“ ‘Does she still keep up that artistic insanity ? ’ he said, speaking in the angryway.

that one will use when anxious about afriend .

“ ‘ She works constantly in her studio,’

I

said . He struck his fist into his open palmand went to the window

,glaring ou t, as

though some pet case were going againsthim .

‘Howdoes she eat and sleep ? ’ heasked, without turning around . I told him.

“ ‘Don’t you think that you , as a woman,might bring Mrs. Storrer to her senses andshow her that she is throwing awayher husband ’s life and her children’s bread andbutter by this madness ? That a womanshou ld think ofa career under su chcircumstances ! ’ he said .

I said,‘ it’s not that. Oh, how can

you think so ? She knows the money is goingand she hopes to earn enough by her drawings to support them all and to go Southbefore it is too late for her husband .

’

“ ‘There was enough,

’ said the physician,[ 47 ]

I nterventions

‘when she began .Why, she must have spentfive hundred on her camera alone in the pastyear ; and now she’s got you . There’s nomoney in art or writing except at the top . I

know a lot of those people and they all sayso . And she has had hardly any trainingas training counts nowadays. What does herwork look like anyway ? ’

I said ,‘ it’s lovely ! She only needs

time to hu is“He laughed angrily.

‘Other things willbe finished first,

’ said he .

‘Her husband ’slife and every cent they have . I think

,

’ saidhe,

‘ I’ ll have to talk with Mrs . Sterret.’“ ‘Oh

,don’t,

’

I said .

‘Don’t discourageher. I do think she is going to come out allright.’

But he looked at me as doctors look ata nurse who has said too much

,and nex t

minute he was knocking at her studio door.“ I was so angry with him though I couldsee he thought everything of them both !The baby was fretting and I walked withhim to keep him quiet. It was an hour before the doctor came out. Hewaslooking as

[ 48 ]

The Ru bber Stampmiserable as if he’d lost a patient. He startedto pass me without speaking, then reconsidered.

“ ‘ She needs a woman to be good to her,I guess,

’ said he .

‘ But you can’t see your

friends go over Niagara without a word ; atleast I can’t.’

“ ‘You don’t need to push them furtherinto the current, though,

’

I snapped . Hewasn’t offended in the least.

said he . ‘That would be a terrible

He gave me some valerian for her andsaid to try to gether coffee away. Then hetook a look at the babies and brightened upa bit. I saw he liked the way I was caringfor them.

“As soon as the baby was quiet I ran upto Mrs. Sterret, but she answered that shewas working and would have her dinner ona tray.

“ ‘I dare say I shall work late,

’ she said .

‘ I really must finish something to- night.Then I can send it off to-morrow and weshall see.’ She smiled and looked as bright

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as a button,but her hand was a lump of ice

and her cheeks had two red spots.“ ‘

He means well. He’s our best friend .

And it may be he is right. I ’m going to tryto prove him wrong to- night. Nobody wouldbe better pleased than he if I proved himwrong.

’ That was the way she took it.“I couldn’t sleep that night. The baby

was restless . I didn’t undress . I took offmycap and dozed a little on the couch, butI felt as if I were alone on night duty inthe hospital

,only worse, because there you

can get help, and there you have only sickpeople to think about. And in sickness thereare things you can do ; it’s tangible— but this— well, it was the Beast that I had felt thatfirst night. I drew the curtains tight for theThing was so real that I half expected to seea snake face glaring through the black glass.And about once an hour I went and listenedou tside Mrs. Sterret’s studio door. I couldhear her stepping back and forth and hercharcoal scratching. Now and then shebummed a little tune. But Iwas terriblyanxious for I knew what the strain had been,

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field ofTroy .

’ She stood among her u nfin

ishedcanvases, inher trailing wrapper, withher hair allwild both hands against herhead .

‘And I don t believe any of the greatgenerals fought and thought and sufferedmore than I— an ignorant and incompetentwoman— trying to overcome my ignoranceand incompetence so that I can save mybabies. I should not have been ignoant and incompetent. Nowoman has anybusiness to bring children into the worldunless she is able to protect them againstsuch a chance as this.

“ ‘You go to bed,

’ said I .To bed? ’ said she . ‘Why

,Troy is bum

ing— tall Troy town— and you tell me to goto bed ! We must take the sick and the children and go . ZEneas escaped with Anchises

-we will escape,somehow. Troy is

burning,’ she said again .

“ I sat down and cried . Then I remembered I had left the baby’s bottle heatingand ran back to get it. It was too hotso Ihad to make another. While Iwas doingthat she came and stood behind me . I didn’t

[ 52 ]

The Ru bber Stampdare turn around with my eyes all red likethat.

‘Auntie,

’ said she,‘I’m— not— feeling

well,’

— and I turned just in time to catch heras she fell . She was little anyway, and sothin that I carried her to her bed like achild . But I wasn’t going to send for a doctor— not just yet. She opened her eyes aftera minute and I got herwarm and comfortable . She was terribly sub- normal ; weak anddull and all played out.

“ ‘ I ’ve failed, Auntie,’ said she . ‘ I can’t

do it,after all . It was foolish to try, as Doc

tor Kean said , but I loved them so, and Iwas sure love would teach me. I ought tohave tried keeping boarders at the start.NowI’ve used up all the strength and moneythat I might have used to succeed at that.Now Will can’t go South, and so he willdie— perhaps I’ ll die, too . Mothers do— Ithought I couldn’t. I was very vainglori

ou s. I thought I loved them too much to

die . But now— it’s got inside me— as fortsare taken. I ’ll try but

“And then I seemed to see the whole[ 53 ]

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thing.

‘You haven’

t failed,’ I shouted .

‘You’re all in, but you’ve reallywon. It’s

all in your head and fingers now, just as mytraining is. All you need is to sleep and eatand rest for twenty- four hours

,and you’ll

see— you’ll see ! You’re not even sick,’ I

said .

“But I thought I was lying.

said she,‘ after paying ou r

debts we sha’n’t have one penny in theworld after the first of the month. I’vethrown it all away— all— but I thought Iwas going to— save us all

,

’ said she.

‘ Butwe’re going over the falls— Niagara— thebabies

“ ‘You sleep,’

I said .

‘ Falls— no suchthing. 1

”ou r sort don’t go over Niagara .

’

I gave her an hypodermic and left her,

for the baby was howling bluemurder andlittle Anne was fretting. She was asleepwhen I looked in nex t. She slept for twelvehours. Then I heard her get up and go intothe studio.

“ I knew better than to go near her then.

I— well I prayed a little, and vowed I’d

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The Ru bber Stamp

drug those babies silly if they dared raise arowbefore she came ou t.

“ I ’ve seen relatives waiting while an opcrationwas going on, and they made mevery impatient. It seemed so silly, when theycouldn’t do anything and all modern sciencewas at work for them, to stand around inthe reception- room and tryto imagine whatwas going ou — perhaps half a block away.Though as to that I don’t know but it makesyou still crosserwhen there aren’t any relatives to be anxious, or when those that doex ist don’t care or are thinking aboutmoney— (there

’s a funny look to the eyethat always gives ’em away when they’rethinking that

,always! .

“But my business has been on the insideof the closed door, you see, where I didn

’thave to wonder and where the patient didn’tbelong to me. NowI felt that Mrs. Sterretdidbelong to me . People do when they’vecried on you— and I was shut ou t andcouldn’t help a bit

,at least on her side of

the door. There she was, with tools as mysteriou sto me as a surgeon’s knives would be

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to her, concerned in something as important as a major operation, with nothing buta little stick of charcoal and some paper between her and the Beast. Think ofworkingat babies’ smiles on paper in such a mood asthat ! Trying to scare away the snake with apicture of a child ’s laugh !

“ I suppose I passed her door fifty timesthat night

,if once, and I haven’t scorned the

relatives since .“At about four o ’clock I heard her stir

ring and smelt coffee . Then a great scratching of charcoal until sunrise . Just as thesun came up I heard the fixatif going on

,

and that made me hope, for it meant thatsomething was finished . After that came therattle of paper as though she were pinningmore sheets to her board, and this time shesang under her breath as she worked . Still,I ’d known her to do that when things weregoing against her most.

“By that time I had to give baby hisbreakfast bottle and I scurried to keep himfrom talking too loud about it. Then littleAnne began her day. I had the second girl

[ 56 ]

The Ru bber Stamptake her out as soon as she had had her‘

gu bbum,

’ whichwas the word she had invented for breakfast, and then I devotedmyself to guarding the studio door and keeping baby quiet. When he took his morningnap I fell asleep myself on a couch thatstood in the hall . It was about noon when I

awoke,feeling as one does when it is time

for a panent’

smedicine . She was standingbeside me dressed for the street.

“ ‘ I ’ve just had my luncheon,

’ she annou ncedcalmly,

‘ and I’m going to take mypictures into town . I dare say I shall beback by four,

’ and ou t she went.That, ifyou please, after such a night

such a series of nights as she— and I — hadspent. She would have had me fooled— I

should have thought her as calm as shelooked but for one thing. She didn’t look atthe children or speak of them,

though thebabywoke up just then with a delicious coo.

That showed she couldn’t trust herself. Ilooked ou t of the window to see that shewas really gone, and sawher with the bigportfolio standing on the corner waiting for

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the car. She looked as matter- of- fact andprosperous and well- dressed as if she weregoing ou t for a matinée. She cou ld dresswhen she chose .

“Then I sneaked into the studio andthefirst thing I saw was this — Miss WaiteOpened the Nancy Dancy book to the figu reof a little girl squealing with laughter.

“ It was a study she hadmade for this, I

mean . The finished one had gone to townwith her. It was on the easel, put there forme to see — to tell me what she couldn’ttru st herself to talk about. It was life- sizejust the face. It was all that the unfinishedthings had promised . Even I could see thatit had been done with as little effort as youor I would write a page of a letter. A fewflat tones— sunlight behind the head ou t

lining the dear fluffy hair ; a few strong linesthat were soft and delicate too ; everythingabout it just right— and under it what doyou think she had written ?

‘The RubberStamp .

’ I have it nowin my room at theclub where I can see it whenever I wake up .

It does put the heart in one so.

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her pocket ? I saw her coming but I did notmeether for fear I should cry, whatever thenews was, and if it should be bad I

’d wantall the nerve I had

,so I went up to the

nursery with the children and got the babyto goo- ing and Anne to romping, and letMrs. Sterret come to find me . I didn’t turnaround at first when I knew she stood in thedoor, but Anne rushed and caught heraround the knees. ‘Oh

,Mother, how pretty

you are !’ said she .

“Then I turned . I had expected her tocollapse, victory or defeat— after that strain.

Collapse ! She looked six inches taller andten years younger. Younger ? No— youngpeople don’t look like .that. It was the expression you see in those big strong menwho do things.

“ ‘Auntie dear,’ said she,

‘ can you get thebabies and Daddy ready to go South tomorrow ? I shall have to stay here for a fortnight longer to fill an order.’

“Then the iron look in her face meltedand she threwup her arms laughing.

‘

NowI ’ ll tell Will,

’ said she, and rushed upstairs60 l

The Ru bber Stamplike a child .

‘Will ! Will ! ’ I heardher callingall the way— then the door shut on them andIwas too busy with the babies to think ofanything else .”

[m]

B R O K E N G L A S S

B R O K E N G L A S S

I CAN’T stay but a minute, said Mrs.Waring, spreading her long hands above thewood blaze. Iwas taking my evening constitu tional over the moors. Didyou see thesunset ? And the firelight dancing in youropen windowswas so dear and sweet andhorny I had to come . Babies in bed ?”

“Oh yes. Such perfectly good six- o’clockbabies ! I can tuck them up myself and stillhave time to dress safe from sticky fingers.Delia is such a blessing. So big and soft andwithout any nerves, and really and trulyfond ofthem. When she leaves me for a dayI am perfectly wild and lost.”

“What is the matter with us women,said Mrs. Waring frowningly,

“ that wecan’t take care of ou r own children and runour own houses

, to say nothing of spinningand weaving as our grandmothers did ? Mygrandmother was a Western pioneer and

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brought up six without help , and— buriedthree. Think of it ! To lose a child Astrong shudder went through her delicatebody.

“How can a woman live after that ?We can gasp through the bearing— you andI know that— but to lose She coveredher face with her ringed hands.

“Bu t, my dear,

” said the sleek womanby the fire, your babies are such littleSamsons ! That nightmare ought not to

bother you now.

“No. It oughtn’t. That it does so onlyshows the more our modern u nfitness.

”

“ I suppose ou r grandmothers must havebeen more ofthe Delia type .”

“And yet we think the Delia type inferior.It’s solid and quiet and stupid— not alwayshonest

,but it succeeds with children. You

and I are reckoned among the cultured . Weread— in three languages— and write magazine verse . Your nocturne is to be given inconcert next week— yet I think that Deliaand her type rather despise us because weare wrecks after spending an afternoon trying to keep a creeping baby from choking

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love anddeath, but nobody ever loved myrhymes asshe loves this. Let’swrite somechildren’

s verses,you and me

Goldilockswasnau ghty, she began to su lkandpou t,

She threwaside her playthingsThat’s the way, you see, not

When from the sessionsofsweetsilentthou ght.

She seated herself at the bigflat- toppeddesk as she spoke and began to paste andmend .

“I

’

ve written one, said Mrs . Blake, “orTommy has. We were sitting up with hisfirst double tooth. We had taken a go- cartride in the early moonlight and I wastaking cows as an example of people whochew properly . So we got up a song— (pastone o’clock it was and a dark and stormymorning!

The moon goessailing throu gh the sky,The cowsare chewing— chewing

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Brohen Glass

He liked that but when he’d had it fiftytim“ he changed it

The cowsgo sailing throu gh the skyThe moon is chewing— chewing

And it isbetter that way ; I can recommend it as a lullaby.

“Thanks,but I ’ve some of my own pretty

nearly asgood . A Norwegian maid left mea legacy

Go awaydu fische mannCatch a pretty fishfish— sh— sh,Bring it home to baby boyQu icker than awish— wish— shsh.

That’s not bad ; I’ll remember it when

the moon’

s chewing palls.“As I was saying,

” said Mrs. Waring,

you and I know the value of ou r children even if our type is inferior to the Deliatype ; and ifwe were bereft of ou r Deliasanddidn’t have to dress for dinner and hadno time to read we should show up quite aswell as the Delias.

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We use the Delias for them because wewant them to have everything of the best.Delias are best when they’re little. We enterlater on. We couldn’t nurse ou rbabies. Allthat part of us was metamorphosed intobrain— thanks to a mistaken education.

Very well ; we must nourish them with ou rbrains. We can. And we go and get the bestservice we can

,maids and nurses ; we bring

them home to ou r nests like cats bringingmice— for the babies

“But I ’m afraid I ’ve got to let Aileen go.

She told Martha 3 story about Indianscarrying off children and nearly scared thechild to death . And when I went to findthem yesterday afternoon over by theempty Taylor cottage, they werewhere a window had been broken and therewas broken glass everywhere . It was likedancing on knives . My spine shivers with itstill . And there sat Aileen— so lost in adream that I had to put my hand on hershoulder to rouse her. ‘Oh,

’ said she, whenI showed her the glass,

‘ I thought it wasice ! ’ She criedwhen I told her what a ter

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Broken Glass

ribly dangerous thing she had done. Hertears come easily enough. A pretty littlething, but so stupid . I must do better forMartha.”

“ I thought,said Mrs. Blake hesitatingly,

that she didn’t seem very warmly dressedthe other day.

”

I don’t know why she shouldn’t be. I

gave her a very good coat. Come to thinkof it

,she hasn’t worn it. I wonder why

“My Delia told me she had a sister. Perhaps

“Sponging on her— hmmm. Poor child !I like her— but, Martha dancing on brokenglass. There, that

’s done. Now,Martha can read it a hundred times more‘

Goldilocks was naughty.

’

“Now I must go— and dress. Symbol ofdegeneracy, as women ; but ofall that raisesu sabove the Delias, if we are above them.

”

The road was icy and ill kept. Somehalf—dozen cottages with boarded windowsshowed silent and black against the red

band of sunset and the gray, waving line ofmoors. The pound of winter surf was like

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distant hoof- beats over the frozen land .

The only cottages that were open had children in them. Air ; air is what we give themnow. Air and careful food for the rearing ofthe best of the next generation. So for thatpurpose the half—dozen cottages on thatisland kept their warmth and life allwinter,just for the sake of properly reddening thecheeks of a dozen little children for whomcity streets and parks are not supposed tofurnish the proper brand of air.Lovely— lovely

,thought Mrs. Waring

as she walked crisply toward her own fairwindow.

“The moors and the winter stormsshall make up to them for having a middleaged mother. They shall have all the youthandvigor that I had not— that I had not.”

Suddenly she faced about. It was not afootfall or a sigh or a spoken word thoughit gave the impression of all three . Something behind her had betrayed its presence .No. There was nothing.

“The wind in the dead grass,she

thought, butwasnotsatisfied . A care- taker[ 72 ]

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had been murdered on the other side of theisland the winter before . Being the motherof 3 Martha makes one a coward . If therewere no Martha one would go striding anywhere, disregarding fantastic dangers, butwhen there is a Martha, who waits at homefor a mother to read the story of Goldilocksone hundred times more, why, a mothermust not let the least shadow of dangercome near her. Because there are so manyways besides reading Goldilocks in which amother may be useful .Therefore she thought sharply about thedead care- taker and vowed that on her nextconstitutional she would carry a pistol inher pocket— for Martha’s sake. The blackhedges with their white spots of snow gaveno sign ; the road behind and in frontshowed empty but for the gleam of frozenpuddles. The wind rattled lightly in thefrozen grass.

“ I hope ye’ll excuse me, mum Thevoice was deprecatory and

,thank Heaven !

a woman’

s; though where she had comefrom out of all that emptiness

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I didn’t want to scare ye,mum.

I can’t stop,” said Mrs.Waring. Ifyou

want to talk to me come to the house. Imust get home to— to

“Yes,mum; I know, mum, to you r little

girl. But I can keep pace with you , by yourleave

,mum

,for I waswishin’ to speak to

you about AileenMy nurse-maid ?The same . I was hearin’ she was not

givin’ ye satisfaction, mum, and would liketo speak a word for her— widou toffence .

”

“ I have not complained of Aileen. It istrue she is sometimes thoughtless. May I

ask

The woman’s figu re was so shrouded andhuddled thatMrs. Waring, looking all shecould

,might not distinguish the features.

She fancied a resemblance to Mrs.Magillicuddywho came every week to help withthe washing. No doubt

'

it wasMrs.Magillicuddy. That would account for her knowledge ofAileen .

Mrs . Waring felt a twinge of annoyanceat the thought of Aileen’s complaining to

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the world asa fine lady- girl when she comesou t from her convent school . She is not yetu sed to the rough ways of servants.

“But she will be soon . Ah, wirra,wirra,she will be soon.

“ I would like her to stay wid ye . I

little thought, ten yearsago, that she wouldbe catin’ the bitter bread of service, for bitter it must be, however soft the life ; bitterand dangerous for a young girl that is allalone and knows nothin’ at allof the world ’swickedness . Do ye blame her for notseein

’

the broken glass? Can ye not guessthat the eyes of her were blind with tearsfor a harsh word ye had given her aboutmix in’ up the big baby’s stockings wid thelittle one’s ? Do ye mind that each of yourchildren has two dozen little rolled up ballsof stockings to be looked after and that theyare very near of a size— very near ? MyAileen - she never had but two pairs at atime and she washes ou t the wan pair atnight so she can change to the other. Anddo ye mind that hersare thin cotton— twelvecints the pair they are— and her feet are

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cold to break yer heart as she sits in thecold windwatchin’ your little girl at play,so warm in her English woollen stockingsand leggings. And have ye ever been intoAileen’s room ? Do ye know that the fine

gilt radiator in it is never warm and thatshe has but one thin blanket and a comforter so ragged your dog would scorn it ?And when she had a bit of a cough ye wereafraid it might be consumption

, ye said ,and if so ye couldn’t have her with thechildren

“You seem to know my hou se andmyservants remarkably,Mrs.Magillic uddy. Iwill see toAileen’s room at once . I have beenvery busy

,but— really

“Ah, save yer anger, mum,for one that

desarves it. He’

s not far away. I am notangry with you, mum,

though well I mightbe . I know with what love ye love yer own.

But the world is so large andin such needof the kind andwise that, when one istrulykind and wise like you

,mum

,it isaccounted

a sin to let your kindnessand wisdom go nofurther than the soft small heads that are

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your own. There are so many childrenwithout any mothers at all as yoursmight be had I been what you thought butnowBrokenglass ! Isit notworse than broken

glass for a young thing like that, aswhitesouled as that bit of snow on the hedgehave ye ever heard the talk of house servants ? Andthe only place she can go to getaway from it when ye do not want her foryou r children is her own little room that isso cold .

“But she does not understand asyet, thewhiteness in her is so white , and the ser

vants’ hall iswarm andpleasant and full ofthe laughter that ye sometimes hear andfrown about. She knowsno more than youdo of the black heart beneath the white coatof the rascal that is so soft stepping andpleasant andkeeps your silver so clean andbright an’ says ‘Very good, sir,

’

to everything the boss says to him

“You mean— impossible !Does it nothappen every day ? Domen

andwomen leave off bein’ men andwomen[ 78 ]

Broken Glass

because they do your housework for you ?Hearts as well as platters can break in thekitchen

,andwho careswhat goes on among

the help so long as your house is clean andqu iet

“ Broken glass . Her voice rose withthe rising wind

,thinly.

“Wirra,wirra

- an’ a colleen as innocent of the danger of

it as your baby that danced upon it u nharmed— praise the saintsl— unharmed .

I do not understand ,” said Mrs . Waring,

shivering without knowing why.

She leaned forward to pluck at the shawlwhich the other held about her head . At themoment a shaft oflight

,probably the search

light from some vessel close inshore— orwasit something else — fell upon the woman’

s

face . It was gone so quickly that Mrs .Waring could not afterward swear to what shehad seen. No . NotMrs.Magillicuddy’

sface,bu t similar. Lined and worn but singularlynoble .

Who are you ? cried out Mrs .Waring.

The flash oflight having passed it seemedsodark that nowMrs.Waring could not even

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distinguish the filmof shadow that showedwhere the woman stood .

“Do ye askwho I am— mother that lovesher children ? What would ye do, then, ifye were dead , and your children

’s tears fellu pon ye in purgatory ? What would ye doif the feet of your own colleenwere standingamong broken glass that is broken glassindeed

“Who are you ?” whimperedMrs. War

ing. But the little moon had risen now and

fhowedthe moor empty except for the silentights of the cottages where little childrenwere .As she stumbled at her own doorstep her

bu tler'openedthe door with obsequious concern, and obvious amazement when she criedou t—

“

Aileen— where is she ? ”“ Inher room,

I think,m’m ; the children

being asleep . Shall I call her, m’m

She hurried to the attic room and knocked .

The door was locked . Something stirredsoftly and it opened . Aileen’s frightened eyessought her mistress’sface . Mrs.Waring read

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dread of something having been stolen, ofsome terrible oversight in the nursery, ofinstant dismissal .The girl coughed and shivered . She waswearing her coat but her little cap and apronwere ready for instant duty. Mrs. Waringremembered with a shock of contrition thatMartha had cried because Aileen’s handswere cold as she dressed her.

“Aileen sobbed Mrs. Waring.

Oh, you poor little thing— Come down,child, where it is warm !

”

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A D I S P E N S A T I O N

FROM her inconspicuous corner of thelibrary divan Mrs. Bristow used to listenafter dinner to such masculine wisdom asemanated from the easy chairs by the fireplace . One night the talk

,wandering grimly

among medico- legal anecdotes, lingered on

what sometimes happens to the property ofwidows, orphans, or fools when it is investedfor them at fifteen per cent. or more .Mrs . Bristow spoke through the haze oftobacco smoke

“ I knew a man, she said,in ou r

townThe doctor turned about with polite attention, but Bristow stirred the fire indifferently.

“You mean old Thompkins Afterbeing married ten years, it is astonishing,and rather sad, howwell two people knoweach other’s repertoires . Mrs. Bristow con

tinu edin the doctor’s direction :[ 85]

Inter'ventionr

It belongs with the stories you’ve beentelling,though I can

’tuse big technicalwords.“ Iwas in the same grade at school withBessy and Harold Pringle. They lived withtheir grandmother. I liked to go home withthem afternoons, because she let us playcircus in the sitting- room, with a stuffed owl,a china dog with a basket of flowers in hismouth

,and a curly marble lion that looked

like an ice- cream mold and belonged on theparlor mantel- piece between two waxworkbouquets under glass cases .

“For the tent, we put four chairs together,

leaving a space in the middle to sit in . Therungs of the chairs were the cage bars.Then Mrs. Pringle would arrange her Indiashawl over everything, and there we were.Only we weren’t allowed to touch the lion.

She always had to put him into his cage andtake him out again . We couldn’t touch theshawl, either. The china dog didn

’t matter,

because he was broken,anyway

,and was

glued . He came undone about once a weekand had to be glued over again . The owlwas rather messy, too, being moth- eaten,

ADispensation

and the wire of his neck broken from ourturning his head around so much.

“Mrs . Pringle was little and slim . Shewore black silk gowns and thin white aprons

,

and lace caps with artificial violets in them.

When it rained, her prim white hair grewkinky around her forehead.

“ She was the stereotyped grandmother ofjuvenile stories. You remember the picturesofthem in those old Chatterbox es we usedto have when we were children . She evencarried the traditional seed- cakes and raisinsand peppermint- drops in her pocket.

“She never had the withered , tired lookofmost oldpeople. Perhaps it was her teligion, for she had been through the ordinary amount oftrouble— death and sickness,you know— nobody being left her ou t of alarge family but these two grandchildren.

But,somehow

,the world ’s meanness and sel

fishness and brutality had escaped her notice . It was as if the ‘wicked were a kind ofpeople that belonged to Bible times, withthe Hivites and Hittites and Jebusites, wearing sandals and carrying swords ; in no way

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associated with shiny hats, canes, and frockcoats. They were notdescribed modernly inthe Psalms that she repeated .

“She and Bessy and Harold lived in a

story- and- a- half white house, oblong, andsunk down from the road, with a front yardfull of ‘

pineys,’ ‘ laylocks,

’ hollyhocks,and

bleeding- hearts. There were edgings of boxeach side the brick path.

“Mrs. Pringle did nearly all the gardenwork herself. She would put on oldgloves

,

a gingham apron, and a Quakerish lavendersilk sunbonnet that made you think of amorning- glory, and potter about with troweland watering-

pot, crooning hymns, tunelessly. The one I best remember was

When I can readmytitle clearTomansions in the skies,

I’

ll bid farewell to every fear,Andwipemyweeping eyes.

’

She could get that tu ne pretty well,though she always went too high in the highnotes and too lowin the lowones

,and was

rather doubtful about the rest. Bu t it was a88

ADispensation

contented, pleasant sound, like a pigeon’

s

cooing.

“They lived in a neat, comfortable way,had one servant, and Mrs. Pringle gave tocharity ou t of proportion to their style of

What property they had— I don’t knowhowmuch itwas or how invested— was incharge of Deacon Thompkins, a stout oldperson with a smug wreath ofgray hair thatmade a ‘ crown of righteousness ’ half-wayaround his bald spot. He had what they calla ‘ fine presence,

’ big seals on his watchchain

,a gold- headed cane, anda silk hat.

“He had been in some sort a protégé of

Mrs . Pringle’s husband— office boy, clerk,then partner. At that time I supposed himex traordinary, but have come to believesince that the type is as common as waxdolls

,or china of ‘

Open- stock ’ pattern .

“ I ’ve seen portraits ofTammany politieiau s that might be his brothers, and havemet him in Wall Street, sharpened and u rbanized. They all have a factitious air ofbenevolence

,flabby pink cheeks

,shallow

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eyes,and the respect oftheir fellow men

of a sort.“ In Mrs. Pringle’s youth the ‘

oak - andvine ’ similewas thought beautiful and true.Her heroines had been Amelias and Angelinas

,with wasp waistsand a habit of swoon

ing. Her attitude toward men was Biblicallyservile . She preferred them big and fat, withhearty voices ; and discriminated in favor ofgood clothes— receiving those whom she approved at their own valuation, which washigh.

“This reverence formen extended even toHarold

,who, being a ‘man- child ,’ bore the

responsibility of keeping up the familyname and honorable traditions. He was tohave most of the money, and the familyBible, and a college education ; Bessy,being a girl

,might receive the linen and

silver,when she married ; but her share

of the money was to be under Harold ’scontrol .

“You understood when I began, didn’t

you , that the deacon lost their money ? Thatpart of the story is as hackneyed as— a

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I ntervention:

winter, and had a new silk gown, made inthe latest style.Harold told me a long

,glittering tale of

a mine and shares and income,swelling

around like a little millionaire,and explain

ing what magnificent things he would buy,

and howkind he would be to us all . Iremember Bessy looking over some coloredfashion- plates twenty years ou t of date,selecting designs for the dresses shewanted ; choosing the figures with prettiestfaces.

“The deacon was always at the housewith papers to be signed . Mrs . Pringleshowed u s a box of red paper seals he hadbrought her

,lowering her voice mysteri

ou sly as she forbade u s ever to touch them.

She was half afraid ofthem herself, as something occult and legal . She was so flutteredand happy and important— perhaps it wasworth it to be as happy as that for a littlewhile. I don’t know.

“Children are queer. Even then there

was something about the tap of that goldheaded cane that didn’t sound right to me ;

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ADispensation

and Harold would swell and choke when thedeacon’s fatfingers patted hishead .

“Once when I was enumerating all theirbeautiful new things at my own tea- table

,

my father frowned more and more as Italked .

he said—‘ Infernal scoundrel ! ’

Mother hushed him up at the swearword, but looked anxious.

“ ‘

Can’t anybody do anything ? ’

He knows how to keep within the law,

’

said father, and his face set like a trap .

He was a quiet man,lean and tall

,with

bright black eyes and a thin,stern mouth.

There was nothing sleek or hearty abouthim.

“ It was one of those sweet, cold days inMay, with a rawwind whipping apple- blossompetals past the window ; but the suncame in on the red rosesof the new carpet

,

anda fewsticks snapped in the fireplace . Inthe middle of the mahogany table was abowl of arbutus, reflected as if in a pool ofwater. I can’t begin to tell you how peacefu lly lovely the room was. Grandma went

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around wiping off invisible dust with acloth

,singing

Shou ld earth againstmysou l engage,Andfiery dartsbe hu rled,Then I can smile at Satan’

srage,

Andface a frowningworld.’

We young ones were playing circus u nder her shawl, as usual . We had the curlymarble lion . None of ou r wonderful newthings seemed so lovably fierce as he did ;there was attraction in being forbidden totouch him

,and in the ceremony of grand

ma’s lifting him from the mantel- piece to hiscage .

“ It was Saturday morning. I had permission to stay all day. Therewasnothing likegrandma’s blackberry jam, and the flowerpattern of the new china was ever so muchprettier than ours at home . It was nearlydinner- timewhenwe heard the deacon’s caneon the walk, and our hearts went down atthe thought that he might stay to dinner.When the bell j ingled, Harold said :

‘I ain ’tgoing ou tofhere to say “How dedo. Keep

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Intervention:

the syllables had to be thought ou t separately and put together with care

“ ‘Do I understand that even this house is

I deeply regretIs this house lost ? ’

Yes,ma’am.

’

And your house, too ?’

He stammered and mumbled, not answering that question, but referring in ageneral way to heavy losses.

“But she kept looking right at him withan odd intentness, her eyes strange andbright ; not as if listening to what he said,but as if seeing something she had not noticed before . Her face was perfectly white,except for a flushed spot in the centre oftheforehead .

“She nodded slowly ; meaning, I think,

that she saw through shams to the rat- soulof him at last. He squirmed and reddenedand stuttered for awhile, then fell intosilence under that strange stare . At last shedrew a deep breath and spoke as if to

herself:[ 96 ]

ADirpenration

I was warned ; but you had been myhusband ’s friend

,and you have such a habit

of talking about honesty and benevolenceand friendship

,as though they were things

you valued .

’

“He spluttered and swelled, but she paidno attention.

“ ‘ It’s curious how I could have been mistaken ; it’s all so plain now.

’ She looked himover with an air ofsurprise— nothatred, noreven resentment ; the gulf between them wastoo wide for that. He had stopped being polite . His little eyes were bloodshot and fierce

,

and his neck seemed to swell ou tabove hiscollar.

“ ‘There is nothing at all left ? ’ she asked,

andhe snapped Nothing whatever ! ’“ ‘We are— beggars,

’ said poor grandma.You know howcommonly stories speak

of‘wringing the hands — that was the only

time I ever saw it done,and I shall never

forget. She held them close to her chestsuch gentle, transparent old hands— thefingers dragging at each other as thoughthey held some snaky thing that hurt, andmust be destroyed .

Interventions

He shrugged hisbig shoulders, took hishat, and rose .

“ ‘I am old,

’ she said,‘to—

go ou tto service. I don’t think of anything else

,unless,

perhaps— plain sewing. Bu tmy eyesight isnotwhat it was . Isn’t it possible for youto refund something for my little grandchildrenIt was an unlucky speech, touching the

gentleman’s honor with too matter-of- fact a

word .

Refund he roared—‘Refu nd, madam !

Bu this threatening manner failed to impress her. A change was coming over her,like a quiet gray shadow— like the numbnessafter a wound . The dreadful motion ofher hands stopped, but they stayed claspedas if she were praying. She spoke in thatcurious intoning way which she always usedwhen repeating Scripture . I believe she knewmost of the Bible by heart

have beenyou ng andnowamold; yet

have I notseenthe righteou sforsaken, norhisseedbegging bread.

”

“ ‘

I have notbeen wise,’

she went on, butnotto him,

‘but I have tried to do right. I[ 98 ]

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I nterventions

He stood stock- still, his mouth half open,and never made a motion to raise her. Notknowing any one else was in the room, helooked about himin a scared , vacant way,stepped across her, and was making forthedoor, with his head on his shoulder and hisflabby mouth working as he looked back,when Harold scuttled ou tfrom ou r tent andbegan to pommel his legs, k ick ing and biting, and screaming, I

’ll kill you !’

“That brought the deacon to, a little,especially when Bessy and I came forth also

,

our voices uplifted hysterically. He shookHarold off:

‘

I’mgoing for the doctor

, you

little fool. She’s just fainted . Pour water onher face ! ’

“So Harold and Bessy brought water, cry

ing and patting her hands. I gotou t of thewindow, being scared at the blood , and ranfor home . I met my father on his way hometo dinner, and managed to make him understand after a fashion. He said ‘Whatl’ in aroar that made my ears throb . I believe heunderstood it to be murder

,at first.

“ I don’t knowwho did get the doctor,but

too

ADispensation

it wasn’t the deacon . Mrs. Pringle waspartly paralysed, did not remember whathad happened , and her words for thingswere confused . The doctor said, though,that she might get better ; would never bequite the same, but better, and comfortableenough. The neighbors took everything incharge . Bessy and Harold came over to myhouse . Father went arou nd with a grim

,

fighting face . Mother told me,in greatest

confidence, that my father was a good lawyer

,and that it was just possible Mrs. Prin

gle’s house might not have to go.

The scandal spread , for you may be surewe children made a great tale ; glorying in it,histrionically, as children will . We even remembered enough of poor grandma’s ‘ curseso that they could look it up in their concordances. It was somewhere in Isaiah .

“Most of the business men raged againstthe deacon, even talking about ru nning himou toftown, though theydidn

’t seem to knowjust how to go about it. Then they had confidence in what father might do, and waited

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I nterventions

for him to begin. But the women and theminister were inclined to side with thedeacon . It was all a ‘distressmgmisu nderstanding ’ and ‘ the hand of God,

’ said theminister

,and the deacon was still his ‘ dear

brother.

’

“You see, it’s this way— some of the

dearest and whitest oldmen in the world aredeacons, but wolves like nothing so much assheep ’s clothing, and peoplewho are stu pidand innocent and good themselves can’t tellthe sham from the real. The minister waslike that. He couldn’t understand or see.

The deacon had always given largely to thechurch, and father,who headed the otherfaction

,was known to have Huxley and Dar

win in his library, and had referred in courtto Ingersoll— not anything about religion

,

you know, but it was Ingersoll . That wasenough . Those little towns aren’t so very farfrom Cotton Mather’s time .

“Well— she had cursed him. One thinksofcurses as venomous things that don’t carewhom they hurt ‘ from generation to generation .

’

You know how stories of them run.

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him nod his head in a k ind of satirical assent, as though such a solution fitted wellenough with hisown ideas.

“It was Sunday, a week after Mrs.Pringle’s shock. She was ou tof danger, thedoctor said . Harold and Bessy and I hadbeen in to see her, and her eyes smiled,though she could move nothing but herright hand . She looked quite happy, and noticed the flowers— adder- tongues and trilliums— that we had brought. Apparently shehad forgotten all about thatmiserable morning and what had struck her down so. We

pinned a little bunch ofviolets to the sheet,where she could smell them, kissed her, andtiptoed ou t in our squeaky Sunday shoes,to go to church.

“The sermon was on brotherly love - for

giving until seventy times seven, and all that,and with something about the tongue beinga ‘ little member ’ and ‘how great a matter alittle fire kindleth ’

— being intended, I suppose, as a rebuke to those who had beentalking about the deacon. The minister wasthe sort of man that gets up petitions forthe

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ADispensation

pardon of murderers. I believe he ahnosthated my father. At any rate he prayed forhimthat morning. I don’t mean

,of course

,

that he referred to him directly, but withBiblical quotations. It was always understood in the congregation that father wasmeant by ‘

the fool hath said in his heart,

’

and that ou rpewwas ‘

the seat ofthe scornful .’

Father always went to church ; sittingsquare and straight in his pew

,never bowing

his head during prayer. That Sunday wasthe only time I ever caught any expressionin his face . It was gone so quickly I couldn’tbe sure, but it seemed a sort of boy

’s grin,

not ill- natured or resentful . He had beenstudying into Mrs. Pringle’s affairs thatweek

,and was beginning to think he saw a

way out, and where to have the deacon .

Bessy went to sleep in his lap, and Harold,obscured between him and the high end ofthe pew

,was allowed to draw pictures on

an old envelope . I could see, and envy, fromwhere I had to sit ‘ like a lady ’ by my

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The deacon was not at church, but hisfamily were : his wife, an apologetic, thinlittle thing, in heavy, beaded silks ; hisdaughter- in- law, with her crutches (it wassaid her husband abused her! ; and his son,heavy- jowled

,greasy— Of a build similar to

his father’s. Poor Mrs. Thompkins lookedacross at the Pringle children once, and thenput her handkerchief to her eyes. Thedaughter- in- law was a fierce, repressedlooking woman with remote Indian blood— but her mother- in- law seemed to be leaning on her while she cried .

As we were all coming ou tafter church,some one behind us asked the elder Mrs.Thompkins where the deacon was

,and she

said that he had been rather poorly lately.

The woman who had asked was voluble andloud in sympathy . There was a quality inher voice that indicatedher remarks werefor father’s ears asmuch as for Mrs. Thompkins

’

s.

“The organ accompanied ou rretreat, withthose big soft chords that jar under one

’sfeet and seem to mean all sorts of solemn

,

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the doctor. They took the deacon home, objeering

,but always in the same words

,

‘Please help a poor man ! ’ Beggar he was,

so far as he knew, and the curse had fallen .

Well,they had a nurse for him and

kept him at home except for drives now andthen

,but sometimes he would get away

and be found in the most crowded part ofthe town

,with his whine Please help a

poor man"“He was harmless and gentle

,with a

dazed and pitiful expression that neverchanged, but he was so persistent in gettingaway that the family grew careless at last,particularly after they had met so manylosses that they could not afford to keep thenurse . Then you could see him almost everyday— grown thin and bent ; shabby, too ; thesilk hat battered and fuzzy . Strangersneverimagined he was not a real beggar. Whenhiswife would come after him there wouldsometimes be pennies in his hat

,and she

would cry.

“But she died about two years afterward . The son lost what little property

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ADispensation

was left,and drifted away somewhere . The

big house was boarded up and labelled ForSale .’

“Everybody said that the deacon ought to

be sent to an institu tion ; some said the poorhouse ; but no one did anything.

“There was an Old tool- house on theplace, with a stove in it and a carpenter

’sbench, and he lived there when he was notat his post. No one bought the great barehouse . Such history of it as was authenticwas melancholy enough, and in time theyadded a ghost story . SO although a goodmany people looked at it, the boards re

mained at the windows and the sign ‘

For

Sale on the lawn,and the deacon in his tool

house was undisturbed .

“People were kind to him,nowthat his

beggary was an achieved fact. His hat wouldbe quite heavy with pennies at the end ofagood day . They saw that there was wood forhis stove in winter, and brought him foodand arranged his carpenter’s bench intosome semblance of a bed

,with mattress

,

pillows,and blankets.

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About five years after that Sunday a dayor two passed without his being seen .

“They went and broke Open the door. Hewas dead— lying as straight and dignified onthe bench as a crusader on a monument.

“My father said that his body was soshru nken and light that he could have carried it himself without difficulty. The face

,

he said , had a curiously contented look, asof one whose accounts withthe world aresquared . Perhaps they were.

“A little hoard, amounting to a hundreddollars in pennies, dimes, and quarters,wasfound under the floor

,and used for funeral

expenses .“Grandma lived for some time after that.

Father had saved a good deal from thewreck, though I fancy he stretched a pointand came out Of the transaction lighter inpocket himself and owner of some bad secu rities.

“ She regainedher speech pretty well, andcould walk with a cane about the house andinto the garden . But she never spoke of thedeacon, and no one dared mention him in

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T H E

E ! P E R I M E N T E R

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I nterventions

jectionable things was because he couldn’ t,

being too bu sy thinking them . But Annabelmisunderstood and supposed him to be theone among them all who appreciated her forher mental and spiritual traits

,and so she

decided— quite in cold blood— to like himmore than the others . Will was her strongpoint. She was always talking about it. SOshe loved him because she willed it. Well,“He that ruleth his spirit is greater than hethat taketh a city.

”There may be some kindof love that can be turned Offor on. I ’m notcompetent to judge . But once her mind wasmade up her slow blood must have quickened toward him, for if ever a boy was madeto be loved

,it was Luke . I should know. He

had no motherwhen he was a little boy, andso adopted me because I was his nex t- doorneighbor, and laughed when I found himrobbing my orchard . I was old and alone

,

and he came into my life and taught mewonderful things— love and hope— thingsthat children know.

He was a few years younger than Annabel Fraser

,consciou s ofhis youth

,and al

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most tragically anxious to be a good puppyand do as he was told— an attitude alwayspleasing to the Annabel Frasers.So they became engaged , and this, so far

as I cou ld make ou t,wasthe manner Of thatremarkable transaction. He kissedher. Thenthey had a tremendous debate about whethershe ought to forgive him for it. The forgivenesswas accomplished at length, but it tooka lot ofmagazine story dialogue to bring itabout. The psychological kind . (She haswritten a few stories, you know, amongherOther— duties .!The kiss had happened under the moon,in a garden with the smell of roses and theflutter ofmoths, and in the great house behind themawaltzwith violinsin it andJapanese lanterns . And so he kissed her

, be

ing four- and- twenty and aman, and havingjust received his hospital appointment

,and

therefore beginning to think abou t a wife .And she used u p the rest of that gloriousevening in lecturing him, as I have said , forhis joyous and innocent little sin; tellinghim all about how noble it was just to be

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friends, andhowmuch there was to be donein the world, and howshe had no time forthat sort of love, but must work. And be

,

poor boy ! having put the great questionto her like a man, along with his kiss, mustwait throughan interminable evening ofrosesand moonlight and waltz music

,while she ar

gu edthis way and that, and served up sociology— stale as a yesterday’s pancake— fromher college course. But she said yes

,at the

end .

These solemn preliminaries over, encou r

aged by her glorification ofa life ofwork,he

shyly told her something about his own ambitions.Bu t Luke never had the gift of tongues.He probably made his few remarks mumblingly, so that she only caught a word hereandthere . Not enough to understand . (Notthat she cou ldhave understood, anyway.!For I know that when he used to talk it overwith me, it would be a jumble of technicallanguage andboy

’

s slang, made more incoherent by enthusiasm . Nevertheless throughit all one thing was clear and intelligible as

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A man might consider he had lived , eh,MaterAs that was the manner of his conversation with me, I supposed him to have talkedin much the same way with her. And it isquite improbable that she understood anything ofwhat he tried to tell her. No doubtshe waited rather impatiently forhim to fin

ish,for she was heart and soul in a scheme

of world reformation— meaning settlementwork and potted plants at that time, thoughshe has varied it in later years with othermethods . Of course little things like the discoveryofa disease germ, orskin-grafting

, or

making a club- foot into a real foot that youcan walk with, must seem small matters toonewho aims at nothing less than lifting thewhole round world nearer the stars by oneheave of her capable shoulders. She was patient, however, with Luke

’s little ambitions,

smiling kindly, as one does when a good childstammers forth some enthusiastic explanation of his little play with his toys ; and hesaw her dark eyes smiling at him kindlyou tof the shadows, and caught his breath at

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her beauty, and called her an angel and imploredher to do with him as she would .

And so they were engaged, and he spentall he had upon a ring

,and went back to the

hospital to fit himself for his very small sharein Annabel’s big task of reforming the world .

He wrote me letters,all of Annabel- Anna

bel— Annabel— and sent me pictures of herthat I was to be sure to return . And oh ! thetimes I had to be told how good she was

,how

wonderful ! And how altogether contemptibleand unfit was Luke Bailey. Then hisletters grew less frequ ent. I heard but littleofhim for a year, though I understood thathe had a reputation for overworking himself.As toAnnabel, she got her name in the papersas a society girl who had forsworn the pleasant life she was born to for charity’s sake ;and because ofher lovely face they all printedher picture, so she was a celebrated person.

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II

Luke e te excitedly that Annabel wasat one of the summer hotels that I could seefrom my window, and would I please call onher ? She was the most wonderful girl in theworld, he explained, with as much enthu siasm as thoughit was a new idea . He wascoming in a day or so

,himself— had been

very busy but never forgot me. I would havegone to great lengths to please that boy. Hadhe wished to make surgical experiments u pon my right hand , even to amputation, Ishould have given it freely— yet I put offcalling on Annabel, saying to myself thatshe was young and I was old, and she couldmake the call herself. But she did notcare tothus offer the first move, and the days wenton until the one when Luke came .On that June night I lay awake

,thinking

much about Luke andhis lady- love . Thestars were thick and bright

,the hotels glowed

silently among the black billows ofthe mountains, and the tree- frogs were loud in their

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necessarily a coward to withdraw from it all,

as I did , andread and write andthink for alifetime among old, bloodless books; likethe monksin the Middle Ages . (Yet, it wouldbe a pity if, having lived ou t one

’

s life likethat

,one should conclude at the endofforty

years that it had been wasted . Forty years isa good deal when considered in the lump

,

though when gone it is sand that slippedthrough the fingers .!Luke Bailey had chosen the better way ofliving— that of violent work. But then hewas a man and belonged to a newgeneration.

In my young days, there was still the remnant of a notion that the world was beingtaken care of by a kind ofabsentee landlord

— forgetful, but still one could depend uponthe proper thing being done in time . Nowadayspeople seem to think they have to takea hand in the work. A girl, too, is a very differont creature in some ways. Better, of

course . I thought with envy of his Annabel’s

education and her reputation asa golf playerandher settlement work. But ofthe girl herself I thought with distaste— how she was

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like a great pink- and-white dahlia with thickpetals

- arranged perfectly, but never touchedby bee or humming- bird , or butterfly, or

human nose . Andthere shewas now, overamong the lights somewhere , andhe withher. He had come and I hadn’t made thatcall . He would be offended . He might evennot come over to see his old friend . I triednotto be asjealous as if I were only one ortwo and twenty instead of far past the halfcentury mark “ If I could only believeshe is the right one, I was thinking— andthen a pebble tapped against the window.

I thrust out my head with its little thin,

gray braids bobbing oneitherside, and there,looking u p, a pale bluragainst the dark lawn,was the face ofLuke Bailey.

“Mater !” he called softly. (The wordhad been sentimentally agreed upon betweenus before he went to college, yearsbefore .!

“ I couldn’t go without seeing you , Masaid Luke .I was beginning to think you could . Iwastrying not to be jealous ofAnnabel .He laughed a little .

“You needn’t be jeal

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ous of Annabel. His voice mingled in aghostly way with the rustle of a sudden gustof wind .

“You needn’t be jealous of Annabel. She— doesn ’t want me, after all, Materand there’s only you.

”

I threw on a dressing- gown and coveredmy gray wisps of braids with a shawl andstumbled out to him through the dark house .The slow hall clock struck twelve

,beginning

as I opened my chamber door and endingjust as Luke’s arms, cold and wet with dew,went aroundme . And his lips against my oldcheek were as cold asthough the warmth oflife could never return .

I sat on the top step , and he sat at my feetand put his head in my lap— very quiet.

“You aren’t to blame her,” he said at

length, rather sharply, as though I had spoken some of my angry thoughts. Remember that, Mater, always. It

’s only that shedoesn ’t understand .

”

“What is it that she doesn’t understandMe— and everything that I believe in

most. The necessity of finding out things.

The minute she sawme she began about126

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and went away and and that’sabout all.”

“G ive her time. She may see the other

No, he answered apathetically. I dou ’tthink she will. I don’t believe she ever doessee the other side of anything. People areso, sometimes. She wouldn

’t hear my caseat all. If she had cared she would have listened towhat I tried so hard to say. It’ssuch a queer world, Mater. I— I

’mrathertired of it. But it’s nice that there’s alwaysyou .

“She took me by surprise, so. If I’d hadany idea what was coming I might have pu tup an argument. Why, Mater, if you— ii you had a baby, and it had diphtheria,wouldn’t you bless the horse whose bloodwas made into antitoxin ? Especially as itdidn’t hurt the horse one one- hundredth asmuch as docking his tail would ? Annabel’shorses,

” he laughed ahnost tearfully, “havedocked tails . When I spoke of it she said ,‘Oh, that

’s different.’ She— she just wouldn’thear my case at all, Mater.

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I even tried to quote the Bible a little.It is expedient that one man should die

for the people — but she said it didn’t meanwhat I said it did , and that anyhow such acomparison was sacrilegious. I didn’t meanit so ; only, it was a phrase that happened tobe ru nning in my head .

‘

Itis expedientthatone man shou lddie for the people.

’ It is sosensible . Of course it’s expedient. Sometimesa man can accomplish a lotby dying, and ifhe can he ought to. And why shouldn’t ananimal die as well as a man ?

“Oh, Mater ! If you’d ever been in ahos

pital— if you ’d ever seen the out- patientscome in— and what one can do is almostnothing. A little medicine, advice that won

’tbe followed, and then back to tuberculosistenements or to those places near the sewerswhere the shadings on the map get so thickthat they’re black, showing the death- rate.

But if you get a kiddy on his backwhere you can take care of him for awhile,why

, you can straighten him out so that hehas a chance of fighting his own little bigbattles with the world . You take away the

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handicap, to a certain extent. So it seemedworth doing— orthope dic surgery did . I didwant so to be a big surgeon— one of the wayu p ones.

”

“Didn’t orthope dic surgery seem worthwhile to her ?”

“ I wouldn’t say that,though I never was

able to interest her in it. That was becauseI ’m never any good at telling things. I nevercan say anything the way I want to. If Icould only have put itto her the right waybut you see she is one of these peoplewhohave such beastly good health always. D ’yonknow I ’ve sometimes thought that healththat istoo good is a sort of unsoundness.Thebody that is ignorant of pain has a flabbyspot, like an unused muscle . Apollo Belvidere would cut up rough over a little toothache . The calmest faces in the world you ’llfind among cripples. The quietest eyes I eversaw belonged to a cancer patient. 4

. Ofcourse, one has to hate pain . Itwould be absurd not to do that. And yet— pain is onlypain. There are worse things. So many verymuch worse things.

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taken with doesn’t hurt a bit more than a lotof these experiments they

're so hot about.We have to eat animals to live . Why isn’tthat as bad as using them to find ou tthings ?

“Well— there— I’ve made you unhappy.

I say, do you remember howyoucaught me up in your apple- tree I never willforget how you looked up as I looked down.

I was scared,and then I saw your mouth

corners wiggle, and then you laughed, andI came down , and you had me into the dining- room and gave me some smelly

,sticky

fruit cake . That was about a hundredyears ago— just about ; in a hundred years,a thousand , where

’ll we all be ? Shucks !What’s the use of howling because you’rehurt ? Still, it isa major Operation, you know,

to be turned down like that— and— and therewasn’t any ane sthetic .” He drew in hisbreath sharply.

“ She is the most beautifulwoman in the world .

“ I go South to- night. I just came up to saygood- by to you

— and her.“Havana . Some army doctors are working on yellow- fever down there . We are go

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ing down there to— to make sure. It may bea rather long job

,and I didn’t know when I

might see you again.

“Yellow- fever— why, my dear ! I can’ t

have you do that. It’s dangerous.He did not answer at once.“No more than anything else, Mater.

We’re only going to— to take a look at themosquitoes, you know. They think they’vegot the beast that carries the germ. Cu lex

fasciatu smost call him, though some thinkStegomyia is a prettier name .I should think you could get all themos

qu itoesyou want right around here .”

“Ho ! These Shucks ! You people don’tknow anything about mosquitoes up here.All you ’

ve got is a poor little Culex somethingor other that doesthe best he can and doesn’tmean any harm . Why, you never sawanAnopheles, and as for Stegomyia, he is amosquito, I can tell you . There’s all the difference that there is between rabbit huntingand going for big game in India .

”

But I was uneasy.

“You know you must

take care ofyourself. Think of all you can

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accomplish in a long lifetime, so don’t— take

liberties with it— now, before it’s fairly be11.

“Oh, yes, he said indifferently. Then hebrightened up and lifted his head .

“You ’

ve no idea what a fascinating thingthis is. It’s one ofthe mysteries, you know— yellow- fever is,orhas been. Finley isprettysure

,but hasn’t proved it. It has to be

proved . They want to verify the kind ofmosquito that does the job, and howlong afterhe bites a patient before he can give it to another— and— oh, a number of things. Justthink, Mater ! It kills fifty per cent., evenwhen they have care . When they haven’twhen it comes down on a city or a militarycamp , with a rush like fire

,then it’s nearly

ninety per cent. And it isn’t an easy death,

you know it isn’t nice and clean and dignified. Mysterious. People were exposed overand over again, and it never touched

’em.

And others that hadn’t been near a casewere knocked over, while others in the samehouse were all right. So what can you makeof it ? It simply can’t be fomites. No, Finley

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Ye— es, that’s one way of putting it.

He laughed slightly.

There was something not quite frank inhismanner, but I knew better than to forcehis confidence .

“Well— if it’s nothing worse than entomological big game— I don’t like it, though.

Yellow- fever— you are so much to me,” I

muttered .

“Am I ? He pushed aside the shawl frommy head , and drew forth a wisp of hair,clipping it off with his knife.For a mascot,

” he apologized .

Then he rose, and turning his back, lookedlong at the distant glimmer ofthe hotel

,with

the heaving dark mountains back of it, andthe thick brightness of stars above it.Queer she couldn’t understand,

”hemuttered.

“ It seems so simple. Well, I’m

off.Will you write very often, please ? I maynotanswer regularly, but I think such a lotof your letters. And when there’s a quarantine letters can come in easier than they cango out.Andtell me— no— don’

ttellme abouther. When a thing’s done it’s done . That’s

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good surgery— make a clean job of ir— sawoffthe bone and tie up the arteries— and forget about it— if you can . Good- by.

”

He kissed me and very gently loosened myhands from his arm. Iwas trying to say somany things

,chiefly imploring him, as a real

mother would have done, to be careful.At the gate he turned again, for the sake ofusing the word I loved—

“Good - by, Mater.

”

Any one who cares— but not many domay read of the different circumstances ofthat great experiment. Ofhow, in the firstplace

,they went into a little dark, lonely

house,

“ in an open uncultivated field,” and

the little house was prepared for them withsheets and pillow- cases and all sorts of thingsthat had been fingered by yellow- fever.Theywore clothing of yellow- fever patients ; someof it had been taken from the dead . And sofor twenty days they made free with death,slept with it

,ate with it— I can’t make ou t

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and solemn etiquette, or whether they werejolly (the reports are so prim, giving nothingbut the essential facts! , but I suspect theyplayed poker a bit and sang andstrummedtheir banjos . I rather think theywere jolly.Men of that sort are not apt to be solemnwhen danger is about. But it was unspeakable— that furnishing of the house . Therewas a loving attention to detail that wouldhave cheered Dante, or the Inquisition .

Still,there was one advantage, and that was

the absence of mosquitoes. That was thewhole object of this part of the experiment,you see— to keep out the mosquitoes. Andnobody in that horrible little place— “

So faras possible resembling a ship ’s hold — wassick. That meant thatfomiteshad nothing todo with it, and that quarantine is ofno usewhatever.So they went to a much pleasanter house,

with fresh air and sunshine and clean linenclean as surgeons understand cleanness .And here, also, there were screens, and halfof the house party lived on one side of thescreens and the other half on the Other side .

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with most unfortunate termination, saysthe report. But I shall alwaysthinkhewouldhave come back

,ifAnnabelhadwanted him

to . The old maid whom he called “Mater”

wasn’t enough . So he died .

AndI ’d give something to know whetherAnnabel still thinks itwasdone out of curiosity gone mad , and that his fate was thepunishment of a just and angry God. Or,doesn’t she think at all ? Whatever herthoughts are

,however

,they move in but two

dimensions . ThankGod, I can think in three,even though it is at times a dreary business.

But perhaps, later on— wherever it is thatLuke is now— one can think in four, and inthat way get at the meaning of things thatseem to have no meaning now. Onecan imagine whatever one chooses aboutthose things. One can imagine that the truthwill be something simpler and better thanwhat we have imagined .

I had such strange dreamsafter Luke diednot u npleasant dreams . I thoughtI was young again— you ng ! I ! I thou ght I

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wasat the beginning ofmy long loneliness.

(Selfishness, as I see it now. What businesshad I to live alone in that big house ? I hada notion of self- culture , God help methought Iwasgoing towrite in that big lonelylibrary with all those choice oldbooksofmyfather’

s— so sat there forty years and didnothing. Forty years!! But in one of thedreamsthat forty years’ mistake had notbegun and Iwas the young girl that still expecteda lover. Itwasdusk— just too dark toread

,though Iwasreading to my eyes’ hurt.

(The“Decline andFall

,

” I think, for Iwasimproving my mind vigorously.! The scentof the narcissuswas very strong. And thegate- latch clicked in the old, oldwayand itwas Luke . Luke !who wasn’t evenborn u ntil twenty yearsafter that. Andthen I woke

,andyouthwasso strong inme

that I must light a candle and look in theglass before I could believe that I was old.

I wonder if Annabel Fraser everdreamsof him ?They know all about yellow- fever, now.

Hewas only one of thosewho died to find

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ou t; andotherswho still live have u ndergone the same danger for the same purpose,for the world is full of cou rage . Andin theend

,I suspect, not even the Annabelsmat

ter, though theydo make it hard at times forthe world to get forward the way it wants to.

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T H E

G R A Y C O L L I E

THE steam had retired, clanking, from theradiator, withdrawing to the cellar like thedragging chain ofMarley

’s ghost. The blueflame of a Bunsen burner was the onlylight and heat left. Nowand then the windflu ng handfuls of spiteful sleet at the window.

“ I don’t know anything about ghosts,

said Henrietta,plaintively.

“ I ’m as bad inpsychology as mathematics. I might tellabout the gray collie, but he was real. Don

’tlet that chocolate boil over, Isabel.

”

Isabel poured ou t three steaming cups,thick and sweet, for in the young twentiesand late teens the appetite isstill bizarre.

“ I’ll tell it as it happened,

” sighed Henrietta.

“ I don’t believe I could make anything u p to save my neck.

”

She was small and sad- eyed, with a timidmanner, and sat on a wolf- skin, leaning one

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elbow on its head,which had green eyesof

sinister slant, and bristling cars.“You knowwho Artax erxes was ?Artax erx es,

” they recited ,“was your

oldwolf- houndwho was really benevolent,but everybody was afraid ofhim, andwhenhe wagged his tail it waved like a cat’s, sinu ou sly, instead ofswinging in a clubby, careless way

,as a dog’s should .

”

“He was white with gray spots, mu sedHenrietta ; “ I suppose his family in Siberialooked like that to match the snow when theywent ou t hu nting, and he was shaggy andsoft.

“We chained him the night the circuscame to town. He heard a lion roar as thetrain went by at three o’clock, and, at first,I thou ght we had another lion in the barn.

Gracious ! If he hadn’t been chained hewou ld have been over the wall and chasedthat lion to the station.

“ I went down to soothe him and see ifhis chain had given in any of its links . Inever saw him so ou t of temper. Finallyhe consented to lie down

,though he grum

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Papa was very polite . He said be re

grettedthat he could allow no shooting on

the place except what he did himself. ‘

You

are certainly entitled to shoot any dog ordogs which you may discover molesting yoursheep

,and I shall ex ercise the same preroga

tive in protecting myo

dog.

’

“He said it with that deprecating smileof his— I believe he smiled deprecatinglywhen he got cut off from his men at Antletam

,and foughthisway out of a lot of rebels

who tried to make him prisoner. He hatedGrosman,whowasthe meanestman in townand starved his‘

horses.

“The man went off growling, andsaid

he’d see the Mayor. We chained Artie u pthat night. In the morning we foundhiscat,dead

,with a half- eaten piece of poisoned

meat beside it. Artie thou ght everything ofthat cat. He had carried it around in hismou th ever since it was a little kitten . Healways had to have his cat, the way a childhasto have a doll . Any other cat he

’d havesighted half a mile away and chased . Bu t

that one was his own and anything it did

The Gray Collie

was all right. It’s all in being acquainted .

Papa sat u p all the nex t night with a shotgun . We heard that the people from theFrench quarter of the village insisted thatArtie gotover the wall at night and roamedaround and got into mischief. They saidthey heard him howling u p on MountPhelim, and talked a great deal abou twhat they were going to do to him andus . Those Canucks would have it that hewas a man-wolf

,and cou ld change about

from one thing to another. You can’t arguewith them, when they get a notion likethat.

“One morning Pete Lancto,who mowsthe lawn

,said he had seen the devil

,and

that he was like a shaggy dog.

“ ‘Probably itwas a dog! ’ I said . But hetold a lot of lies abou t smelling brimstoneandflames coming ou t of its eyes .

“ I said ‘ I gu ess you were tenet’

(that’s

their word for ‘ tight“But he hadn’t touched a drop, andhadonly been to get a newsalt codfishat thestore .

‘Well, anyway, if it smelt of brimstone,it wasn’t Artie .’

“But that idiot said : ‘The devil,he can

smell brimstone when he wants to— je pense

qu e ou i.’

So I let him alone. You can ’t argue witha manwho hasn’t any premises to argue from .

“ It was mywork to go to the village forthe mail. I went after supper, about sunset,or a little later.

“The road curves along the side ofMountPhelim, which is notmuch of a mountain,but rather too big for a hill . When you looksouth it is as if the trees stood on each others’

heads, and there are wide, open spaces, likea park

,so that you can see between the

trunks,only by the road the underbrush is

thick like a hedge . But on the north side ofthe road you don

’t want to tumble off, forthe Powasket runs below, hidden under thetops of trees, so that you only know it

’s therefrom the sound . When I was little, I usedto be afraid of that road, because a Canucknurse- girl had scared me with stories ofbearsand catamounts and Indians.

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and listening to the owls and frogs andthings

,he has come to meetme and grum

bled about ‘going to extremes .’ But I hadhim

,you see, and only laughed. Hadn’t he

trained me to do it ?So about that time he got me Artax erxes

for a chaperone, and he was a good deal ofa nuisance, for the village folk disliked himfrom the first. When they whistled to theirown dogs to get them out of his way, howcould he tell they weren’t calling to him ?Andwhenhe’d turn to see what they wanted ,they’d think he was coming after them andru n, which was nonsense .

“We were keeping Artie chained thatweek ofthe sheep- killing fu ss . How he hatedit ! When I stepped upon the horse- block tomount Pix ie— I rode most of that week, andhe knew I never took him when I took Pixie

,

because he had a nasty way of snapping ather nose, not meaning anything, bu t itgot on her nerves dreadfully— and when Imounted Pixie and shook my crop at him

,

he wou ld stand up at the end of his chain,

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The Gray Collie

hanging ou t, becau se hewas choking himselfso hard ; and I

’

ve often thought he lookedmore u nattractive that way withhisone headthan any picture ofCerberus with three.

“ It was particu larly hard on him nowthat his cat was dead . We had gothimanew kitten

,but it wasn’t broken in yet,

and couldn’t understand that he didn’tmean anything when he carried it around inhismou th .

“ Itwas that evening that I saw the graycollie the first time. There were long streaksof late su nlight reaching up into the mountain and he was somix ed up in the light andshadow that itwasonly by chance I saw himat all

,he was so like the tree tru nks and

bowlders; but he happened to be in a placethat I knew all about, because it was wherepapa andI had often sat, and I knew no graypatch ofanything belonged just there . It waslike finding an animal in one of those oldpuzzle- pictures, where they

’re all mix ed upin the branches.

“ I reined up and whistled , and called himevery name I could think of, but he did not

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stir,so that I almost thought my eyes were

wrong after all ; but there was no mistakingthose pointed ears cocked toward me . Ithought he might be the sheep- killer

,though

he was such an aristocratic creature, forwhatcan you expect of a dog that

’

3 lost and hungry and unhappy ? I

’d probably steal something myself if I felt that way. I knew thatnobody in ou r part of the country ownedsuch a dog as that

,and I wondered if his

master were dead u p there on the mountain .

There are so many queer accidents— but itwas the close season. The more I wondered ,the queerer it seemed .

“All of a sudden,Pix ie snorted and

plunged so that I was almost thrown,for I

wasn’t expecting it, and was leaning overwith a loose rein and my arm ou ttoward thecollie . I had trusted that mare like my ownsister, and had believed her a sensible soul,but she never stopped until she reached thebarn, sweating and trembling like anything.

“I was so out of patience that I left herat home with Artie the next time I went forthemail. I planned as I went through the

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back, he was standing in a faint patch of

moonlight,in themiddle of the road , look

ing after me with his head down a little,something the way people look at you undertheir eyebrows when they’re trying to understand .

“ Iwhistled and called, but it was no use .He stood there as long as I did

,and I fin

allywent ou without him. But I couldn’tget him offmy mind . It seemed such a wild ,lonesome life for a dog that must have beenbrought up in a pleasant home, with regularmeals and a fireplace to lie in front of, andprobably a girl like me to take himwalking.

And it seemed as if it must be somethingqueer and tragic to send him off that way byhimself. I thought more and morehowsomeyoung fellowmight be lying dead up there onthe mountain . I made up awhole story aboutit that evening. And that night I dreamedI had the collie and found a collar hidden inhis ruff, andwastrying to read his name onit— but you knowhowhard it is to read anything in a dream ; you look at a letter and itchanges to something else

,or dances off to

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one side . Thenhe seemed to be tellingme along story

,the way animals do in dreams,

but when I woke up it turned into nonsense .

I knew he would meet me the nex t evening, and so I took some ofArtie

’s dog- biscuitwith me, andwhile the collie padded alongthe other side of the bushes, tried to reachsome through to him, but he wouldn

’t touchit, though once he sniffed a little very daintily,andthen blew out his breath,asdogs do whenthey’ve found ou t all they want to knowabout a smell . He kept right beside me . Aswe neared the Opening he grew bolder

,

frisked across the road in front and came upfrom the other side .AsI pretended to pay noattention

,he came close behind and touched

my elbow, hardly enough to say so, but I felthis breathwarm through my sleeve .

“When I came out into the open moonlight he stood as he had before at the edgeof the woods, and watched me ou tof sight.I couldn’t believe that hewas the sheepkiller, he seemed so gentle and timid , but Ididn’t dare speak of himto any one— ir

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for I knew that in other people’s minds,if

they found out that hewas there,it would

lie between him and Artie,and asArtie was

out of the question,theywould take it out

in killing the collie anyhow. I felt somethingtheway Southern girls do in novels, whenthey’re hiding a handsome Union soldier.

“The next evening I started as usual, butjust as I got to the woods

,Artie came tear

ing after me,dragging a yard of chain and

pretending he thought Iwanted him ! I couldhave slapped him

,but took it ou t in being

sarcastic, with words he couldn’t understand

,and hitched his chain to my belt, so

that if he started to be impolite to the otherfellow

,I could have something to say about

It

We reached the post- oflice safely enough,but I was glad hewas tight to my belt, forsome rough men looked at u s in that ugly,suspicious way and said ‘

sheep- killer ’ onceor twice, and

‘ loup- garou .

’

So I really feltsaferwhenwe reached thewoods, in spite ofdreading the meeting between Artie and thecollie.

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they were at it— Balin and Balan— and thattheywere so well matched itwas likely tobe the deathof both, unless I could st0p it.I followed the sound and climbed after,though I was allweak and trembling. You

can see on my hands now howthe thornshad scratched , and my clothes were heavyand sticky with mud . It seemed ages beforeI got there . I think I was crying.

“ I knew I couldn’t do anything, but Ipicked up the heaviest stick I could find ,though all the sticks you can pick up in thewoods are as rotten and light as powder.

They didn’t seem to know I was there. Theywere in a little open space, and the moonlightlit up their eyes nowand then . I could seethat the collie was a more tremendous fellowthan I had thought— and then- all of a sudden— I knew !

“And because I knewI didn’t even try topull Artie awaywhen he got the other fellowby the throat, and held him down,

whilehe got weaker and weaker. I looked at himthere in the moonlight, and cried , andwondered how I’d been so stupid .

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While I sat therewringing my handsandwaiting for Artie to let go, some mencame up and turned a bull’s- eye lantern onme, and seemed so astonished they couldn’tdo anything but swear, though each wouldtry to shut the other up, now and then, saying there ‘was a lady present.’

One of them seemed to think it wasfunny, and explainedwhat they had saidto each other, theway people always do foranimals or babies. ‘ Siberian wolf and Siberian wolf- hound ! Must ’

a seemed kin’

0’

natural for them fellers to meet up .

“Begpardon, says the wolf,

“ain’t I seen you before - and says the pup,

“I don’t know,

but you’re certainly the chap my mammytold me to lick if ever I come acrost you ,and , by thunder, I

’ ll do it !”Which he did .

Will you be so kind , Miss, when your littleterrier there has quite finished

,to call him

off ? It’d be rayther indelicate for a strangerto interfere .’

“The other man seemed sorry.

‘Nothingleft but his pelt,which is some chewed , butcould be mended up into a real elegant rug,

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which the young lady might be pleased toaccept.’

Henrietta thoughtfully scratched the earsofthe rug, and ran her fingers over the rowsof beautiful teeth.

“This is the collie .”“But sometimes I wonder just what hehad in mind when I felt his breath on myelbow. Most people would say that hewasthink ing howconvenient I would be someevening when no sheep was handy, but I

’mnot sure . At the time I supposed he was sadand lonesome

,and glad of my company.

A wolf, after all, is a good deal of a person .

He was so frightfully solitary, you see— no

body to answer his gathering cry— half a

world away from his own people.

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R A S S E L A S I N T H E

VE G E TA B L E K I N G D OM

THE make- believe of grown people lacksboth realism and romance

,being merely a

kind of stupid falsity that neither pleasesnor deceives. The house where Rasselaslived was of this sort ofmake- believe, a largeand splendid toy, Brobdingnagian for anyhouse, while Rasselaswas little, even foreight years old.

The floorswere slippery, the rugs dim andsoft, and absent-minded statues stood aboutin attitudes, nobody seeming to mind theirbeingwhite and unfinished . When Rasselasoffered to paint them with his water- colors,hewasrefusedwith empty laughter.Had there been reality or romance anywhere , it surely would have lurked in Rasselas

’

s play room, one would think ; but amaid and a governesswere there nearly allthe time ; the maid to keep things neat, thegoverness to impart useful information in

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general,which included showing himhowtoplay with his toys— and every one knowsthat this is no way to manage a play- room .

But the governess’s ideas about geographywere creditable . Egypt was good on accountof the Sphinx and the Pyramids ; so littlebeing known about the inside of them ; somany interesting things having been dug ou tof the sand . South America was good

,too,

because of the forests with animals in them .

Then, if you cared to go to the North Pole,therewere polar bears, the aurora borealis,and snow huts.At that time, Rasselas still supposed himself to be one Harold Marlowe, not havingdiscovered his right name . That knowledgecame out of a book filchedfrom the greatglass cases of the “mustn’t touch” library ; astiff

,learned book, though withsome rather

interesting wood- cuts— he would never havetried to read a bookwithout pictures— withmisty trees on itsshining leather covers, itsleaves stuck together with gilding

,proving

Rasselas to be the first in that housewho hadread it. “

Rasselas Johnson” was the name

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thrusting his toes between them, and lookedupon the world as he had never done before

,

though he had been often out in it,riding

and walking with people who eagerly toldhim to look at this thing and that. To reallysee a thing one must discover it himself.First he considered the blue, uneven

mountains, then the roofs ofthe town a mileaway

,then the half- hidden red chimney of

the little house next door ; and so was approaching by degrees that which was moreimmediately beneath him, when he was challlenged

,as people must expect to be chal

lenged at the boundaries of other people’skingdoms

,and his name demanded .

“Rasselas Johnson,

” he replied at once.The sentry wore a white sunbonnet

,and

must throw her head very far back, to trainthe funnel on him properly . Rasselas consideredthe face at the bottom of the funnel,and the result of his examination was thatwithout further parley he slipped sidewisebetween the spikes and jumped down besideher.She stuck out a tremulous underlip .

Rasselas in the Vegetable Kingdom

You jumped on mymoonflowers, saidshe.

“ It is the most rapid growing of allclimbing vines,

” she recited in a voice weakwith repressed tears . “Although a perennialspecies in the tropics (sniff! , it is as readilygrown from seed as any annual . The vinesare literally covered with thousands of immense, pure white, fragrant flowers.Many ofthem measure— seven— inches— acrossThe voice failed , the accusatory sunbonnetfunnel tu rned away and was hidden in thecrook ofa small elbow. The sleeve was tight

,

and the elbow tip had worked its waythrough.

“There isn’t any such thing, said Rasselas, looking about. Was it a game ? Hehardly knew what to think.

“There was going to be !”

She gesticulated backward at the print ofRasselas’s hands, knees, and feet in thebrown earth . Some broken, heart- shapedleaves were crushed into the soil.

“ I had soaked the seeds till they were allcracked and pobby . I soaked them for daysand days, and I planted them in boxes in the

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house,and I transplanted them into little

flower- pots,and then I set them ou t here,

and then you jumped on them.

”

“ I ’m sorry,” said Rasselas sadly, forhe

remembered now having heard that one

planted seeds in order to have flowers . “ Ionly wanted to get ou tofthe HappyValley.

It isn’t ; it’s Mr. Marlowe’s place . I sup

pose the gardener was chasing you off, butyou needn’t have come down on my moonflowers .”

He had begun with romance, why not continu e it ? Why not reconstruct all thingsgloriously

“The gardener didn’t chase me . He’s myuncle . I can go anywhere I like and do anything I please . I should like to play with younow .

”

“ I was playing at working in my garden,but that’s no u se now.

”

“ I knowa story,” quoth Rasselas, andhelaunched into the tale of the prince in theHappy Valley .

“And so they went back, he finished,into Abyssinia, because they thought they

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but he was in a hurry to get ou tof the HappyValley.

”

The gentleman made no reply other thanto sitdown with them cross- legged, and, being a tall, thin person in a linen duster, onethought of those long- legged sand—coloredgrasshoppers with knees drawn up in mediration . He ex amined the little broken plantsattentively, found one whose stem was notsevered

,and silently replaced it

,adjusting

the earth about its roots.“Half a loaf, said he, rsbetter than nobread ; besides, you have had an adventure,which is better still . Adventures are u ncommon in the Vegetable Kingdom.

”

“ Is this the Vegetable Kingdom ?” askedRasselas .The little girlgiggled,bu tnotsoherfather.“Part of it

,

” he mused,his face rippling

‘into benevolent wrinkles.

“Why not ? I havejust been putting down an insurrection of‘ pusley ’ in the strawberry bed . Ou r bordersare never safe against wild carrots, and Inoticed the spiesof the enemy were alreadyin the potato field

Rasselas in the Vegetable Kingdom

These people, Rasselas perceived , u nderstoodhowto play. He blushed with pleasure .“Are you the king ?”

“Yes. You don’t mind my notwearing a

crown ? I don’t very often . They haven’t invented a crown yet that is worth a cent tokeep off the sun ; and till they do, a strawhat does very well.”

“You can play it’s a crown .

Yes, I cando that. Did I understand youto say you were Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia You ought to be wearing crowns yourself,

’

I should think, but I suppose you werein such a hu rry to get out of the HappyValley you couldn

’t stop for one .”

He looked shrewdly at the boy,who

amended with dignity—“Rasselas John

son.

”

“Johnson ! Of course, Johnson . You alsodescribed yourself, if I mistake not, as ayoungman ofunusual freedom, whose temporary absence would be unlikely to causealarm.

”

Rasselas looked anx ious, but nodded .

The gentleman looked him over thought

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fully. Well, said be, it may be that yourmodesty causes you to underrate your importance, or it may be— ah— in some sort

,

glamour— poetical license . At all events,it

would seem too bad to have scaled so higha wall to no purpose and— I have seen theHappy Valley.

” He shrugged his shouldersand rose u p— so tall that he could look overthe wall when he stood on his tiptoes. “ Ithink I shouldn’t care to stay in the HappyValley myself,

” he muttered , when he had sosurveyed it ; “ let’s go to the Palace. Whatwith intriguing pusley ’ and this melancholyaccident to the infant ladies- in-waiting of

the Princess Inez, I think we have hadenough of mattersof state for one day. TheVegetable Kingdom , Prince, has its cares aswell asother kingdoms, but the crown, beingof straw, is notso heavy asother crowns, andthe head that wears it does not lie uneasy.

Although a person of the least importance,asyou describe yourself, I dare say you willhave to be back to tea— or dinner— but inthe meantime there are milk and cookiesatthe Palace . Your mother wants you , Inez.

”

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he gets through with the fringe . I don’tknow what we shou lddo if he kept right onand ate the rug. His name is Sardanapalu s.”

So they took the guinea- pig with themwhen they went back to the garden, changing it from one thing to another as they happened to need, now an elephant and nowa lion— a matter of great indifference toSardanapalus, who, wherever you put himdown, would begin to eat at once, withoutargument or criticism of his environment.There were few environments that Sardanapalu s could not eat, but he liked greenbest, andpicked out the clover in it first.

“Papa is a poet,” said Inez. “What’s

yours?”

Rasselas sard “ I’m a norphan, and Icome from a ninstitu tion.

”

He said it rather abstractedly,for people

on the Other side of the wall were plainlycalling Harold ! Harold !” and amongtheir voicesMr. Marlowe’swas prominent.Soon afterward , the Marlowe carriage couldbe seen through the trees, driving rapidlydown the yellow road .

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I shouldn’t wonder, said Rasselas, verycalmly,

“ if somebody had been kidnappingthat boy. They’re always afraid of it. That’sthe trouble with being a rich child . But nobody’s ever afraid about me.

”

Andthey went on playing until the westgrew luminous and the shadows were longandpurple . A bell rang in the direction ofthe Vegetable Kingdom Palace .

“That’smy supper,” said Inez. Good

by. I will forgive you about the moonflowers.”

Rasselas inserted his head in the funnel,

and kissed her warm, moist mouth. Thenhe stood for some time by himself, lookingafter her, but at length climbed over the wallby placing soap box eson top of each other ;those box es which had been houses a fewminutes before, and previously to that hadcontained young moonflower plants andother garden stuff.He climbed down the grape- vine

, u nob

served on the other side, andtook hiswaysombrely to the great pillared veranda of

the make- believe hou se, where he was

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greeted with hysterical questions and kisses,and was greatly bored .

He admitted with perfect calmness thathe had been kidnapped , just as they feared ,by two very large men with black beards,and taken to a cave ; but there his captorshad fallen asleep , andhe had slain them asthey lay, and escaped . Andto this tale hestuck with such placid satisfaction in itsplausibility that in the end one or two weakminded women almost believed him

,but

nobody ever knew the truth.

However, it was decided forthwith thatRasselas needed a change, and he was sentto school, and played no more at that timewith the sunbonnet princess of theVegetableKingdom.

The full moon stoodjust over the southeast wall of the Marlowe place

,foolish and

open-mouthed .

From the big house came the tuning of

violins. Rasselas— but he had forgotten thatname and nowthou ght of himself as HaroldMarlowe— paced in the shadow of the wall,

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and straightway remembered the VegetableKingdom that he had once discovered onthe other side, and how there were a princess, a king, and a queen who stayed in thekitchen, but fed a little visiting prince withmilk and cookies . And the name of thatvisiting prince— Rasselas

'

Johnson!The grape- vine, having grown as he had

grown, could still help him.~He climbed up

asbefore, cautiously stepped over the spikes,and leaped , but awkwardly, so that he camedown on all fours . A scared voice said : Formercy’s sake !” — then when he had dustedhis knees and apologized to an indistinctperson in a white gown, who had shru nkinto the great flowering vine until shemight have been one of the blossoms Ireally believe you’re Rasselas Johnson !said she.

“ I couldn’t come back before . They sentme to school. You are theVegetable Princessaren’t you ?

“ I ’m Inez Allen, of course ; bu t I don’t

think it’s at all nice of you to jump overthings like that.”

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I wanted to get out of the Happy Val

She laughed and came out of the vine, buther retreat into it had been so hurried thatshe was quite enmeshed , and must workcarefully to disentangle the slenderbranchesfrom her hair and ruffles, without fu rtherbruising the flowers.

“Your moonflowers, said Rasselas,have come over to my side of the wall .”“Well

,you’re at liberty to prune them off

ifyou don’t like them .

”

I didn’t say I didn’t like them If I hadn’tseen them I shouldn’t be here .”

There was an awkward silence while theylooked at each other with ex perimentalsmiles.

“You’ve grown a good deal, she finallysaid .

Rasselas bowed . There has been time .Relatively, however, we seem to be about thesame aswe were then.

”

Inez considered the remark carefully. Atlast she replied : “This is perfectly ridicu

lous. I don’t really know you at all.”

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“ I’m Rasselas Johnson.

You told us you were the gardener’s

nephewHe felt that his evening dress was bringing suspicion upon him.

“Oh, I am!” hesaid fervently.

“I’m just helping the butler.”“Ou ghtn’t you to be getting back,

then“No. I didn’t have to. You see— that is

I won’t be needed until ever so much later.“Oh !Well, I don

’t mind. I came out hereto listen to the music . What have you beendoing all these years ?

“Why, they edu cated me .And now expect you to take a servant’s

place !”“Oh

,no ! I just wanted to be obliging.

And you have been planting moonflowersever since ?”

“That— and working myway throughcollege . I ’m just ou tthis summer. I supposeyou don’t know anything about gardening ?I can’t decide whether to go into violets ormushrooms. There’s enou gh land, and Iwon’t teach— I won’t !”

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It worries papa to have me ou twhen thedew is falling. Won’t you come in and seehim ?”

Only one small lightmarked where lay theVegetable Kingdom palace, so low and littleamong its trees that it was invisible from thethird- story windows of the other palaceacross the way. Its walls were shaggy withvinesand buttressed with shrubs. The moon

,

going before, hovered over its little chimney,dark against the gray- green sky. The waltzfollowed with plaintive inquiry and subtlelamentation

,but Rasselas was no longer

sad .

A white kitten tiptoed to meet them, mewing delicately. Against the glowing windowshade sat the shadow of a somnolent parrot

,

headless on its perch, and in the ex actmiddleofthe threshold the hunched backs of threeguinea- pigs formed a triple arch— motherand children in silent meditation . A ratherrank odor of tobacco emanated from a deepshadow under the leafy wistaria.

“It

’

sRasselas Johnson, papa,” said Inez

to the shadow.

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again into the moonflowers and said hewanted to get ou tof the Happy Valley.

”

After which explanation Inez picked upthe white kitten and sat on the steps

,with

her back toward her father and Rasselas,

listening to the music,her thoughtsno doubton the violet and mushroom business.The poet spoke somewhat dryly : “Goodevening

,Mr. Johnson . I trust all is well in

AbyssiniaAnd Rasselas stammered a little ashe saidthat it was. He sat on the railing, facing theguinea- pigs, who stared , motionless, u n

winking, the light from behind them glimmering across their six bulging eyes.He had not been conscious of deceit before . He had supposed it was all in the wayofromance. He did not like being unable tolook a guinea- pig in the face, and turned theconversation as hastily as might be fromAbyssinia . It gravitated naturally enough toagriculture as a pursuit for women, particu larlythe growing ofviolets and mushrooms.When themusic stopped Inez turned around .

And we could eat the mushrooms ou r

I nterventions

selves,she said , if we cou ldn

’t sell themall . They’

re said to be very nourishing ! ”

Was it Rasselas’s imagination, or did thelight as it struck across her face show a dimdepression under the cheek- bone

,as if

, per

haps— he burned with sudden anger— shehad not always enough to eat ! There hadbeen wistfu lness in that remark They’resaid to be very nou rishing ! ”

Then he remembered howin that othertime there had been a Qu een in the kitchenwho served ou tbowls ofbread and milk. Hedared not ask, bu t there seemed no hint ofher anywhere now

,and by and by as they

talked , Inez said casually enough, thoughher voice was a shade softer on the phrase

,

Mother used to say so he knewhowtheQu een mu st nowbe elsewhere, and that Inezmust be reigning alone in the kitchen

,as

well as in the garden ; for the King, it developed, had grown oldand lame, so that indaytime he spent long hou rs ofmeditationin the sun

,and onwarm evenings, like this,

sat silent upon the veranda . In winters,no

doubt,a lamp , an open fire, his many

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King Cophetua and a Beggar Maid,blush

ing hotly in the darkness.Knowing his family’s prejudices

,how

ever, the hired man alternative seemed likelier— and the guinea- pigs’ round

,tru thful

eyes never left his face.So all that evening the owners of Rasselas

on the other side ofthe wall went about theirbusiness with smiling faces, but hearts angryat this one more defection from the path ofpropriety on the part of the heir to thethrone.

“Mooning somewhere, I suppose, hisfather growled to his mother, during a hurried conference .And she, poor soul ! put her handkerchiefcarefu lly to her eyes behind her fan, whispering brokenly : “To treat me so when I ’vetried so hard .

“You don’t suppose anything’s hap

pened said his sister,coming u p breath

lessly. Parker saw him walking out in thegrounds .

“ I don’t care if there has,said Mr. Mar

lowe, and they separated, troubled and

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ashamed,to attend to their gu ests once

more.Inez decided to try, tentatively, both

violets and mushrooms. This was the adviceofRasselas. He said , also, that he wou ld findout everything he cou ld from his uncle

,the

gardener,and bring over books.

One need notalways jump over the wall .There are gates, if one cares to go so farrou nd about. So it came to pass that Rasselasbecame acqu ainted with the conventionalway of entering the Vegetable Kingdom,

though he secretly preferred the other, andused it when the shelter of darkness protectedhim from chance gardeners.Also it came to pass that he dreameddreams and fou nd an elaborately simple codeof ethics in the saying about the valu e of amanwho makes two blades ofgrass to growwhere but one grew before . Ifone substitutedviolets and mushrooms for blades of grass,the statement gained in value beyond allargu ment. The Vegetable Kingdom cameto mean for him those same twenty acres or

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so that it had meant years before . One playedthe game of life with silent plants, and foundall the pleasurable excitement of living andfew

,if any

,of its irritations .

Rasselas,under the direction of Inez,

gathered the summer apples for jelly, thenthe winter ones to be bu ried in sand in thecellar, then the bu tternuts, hickory- nuts,and black walnuts. It was Rasselas who fashionedcold frames for wintering over the lettu ce, and took down a tigerish but tenderlived rosebush from its trellis

,covering it

with straw and leaves.(“What have you done to your hands ?

said his mother at luncheon, and received alengthy account ofa golf- ball that had flownwide into brambles.!He tucked u p the bu lbs, too, in like man

ner,and setall things in orderfor their sleep,

and as he wrought the Princess Inez grewmore and more gracious, bu tsomewhat shy.

The King, however, walking feebly withcrutch and cane, made little remark u ponthe work of his newally, and , indeed , sometimes gazed athim with a vagu e and ques

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a bit leathery from obstinacy, bu t smellingof Ju ne none the less, was u nder consideration by Inez as Rasselas came over to saygood - by.

“ I go to-morrow.

To-morrowI ’ll come early in the spring, you know.

She looked steadily at the hard blue mountains to the north, and unmistakable winterwas in her eyes.

“We shall be glad— to have you back.

What will you do all winter ?Attend to the mushrooms and violets

,

and do papa’s typewriting.

”

“I’

ve never been here in winter.It’s not very interesting.

”

If I got a chance to run up now andthen, would you

“Be glad to see you ? Yes.

Still the steady look at the mou ntains overwhich winter wou ld presently come ru shing ; still that look of patience, to break aman’

sheart.“ Inez

,if I came to you with nothing

Not winter,but spring, and checks like

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the one eglantine . Rasselas stammered on

— his checks were pale— something aboutYour subject— always He was thinkingof consequences

,of all he meant by “

coming with nothing.

”

I don’t want a hired man,said Inez

,

hysterically,“but

,if you care

A slow step was approaching— an oldstraw hat just visible above a regiment offrost- touched dahlias.They were not brave enough to go de

liberately to meet the King, but they fou ndcou rage at least to wait his coming, hand inhand . When he saw them thus, he halted ,with his quiet old hands folded upon hiscane

,and seemed not at all su rprised .

“Well,Rasselas

,

” he said at length,I

don’t know how this will be received inAbyssinia.

”

His fingers moved restlessly,and he

looked beyond the lovers to where the roofsof the Marlowe house towered into the sky.

I have lived apart from the world so long,

I have come to set valu es differently fromthe accepted manner. My ideas are not prac

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tical. If I ought to have spoken andpre

vented this And yet, I had your happinessat heart.”

He sat down upon a nearby bench andleaned his chin upon the veined hands thatwere crossed upon his cane , while the autumu leaves played in the wind up and downthe path

,and his white hair flu ttered on his

shoulders.“When Rasselas set ou tto find happiness

— didhe shirk anything ?Inez looked bewildered ; Rasselas hung

his head .

The gentle voice pursued

Whyshou ldwe in the compassofa paleKeep law, andform, anddu e proportionShowing, as in a model, ou r firmestate

,

When ou r sea-wallédgarden, thewhole land,Is fu ll ofweedsBut !” said Rasselas, su ppose that the

prince of a royal hou se— since we haveplayed at figures so long— su ppose he findshimself incapable even ofself- government ;suppose him, since his earliest memory,

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father knew all along, and you must havegu essed by now. I ’m Harold Marlowe.”

“The man I thou ght of.marrying,

” saidInez slowly,

“had a different name, and hewas poor. He was different, I think, in anumber of ways.” And she turned towardthe house .It did not occu r to Rasselas to try fu rtherself- ju stification. She did not glance back atall, but went slowly on with drooping head .

The kitten, who had been cuffing the flyingleaves up and down the path, frisked at herskirt and got in the way ofher feet with careless good- humor.Rasselas looked after her until the door

closed,then drooped his head in dejected

silence . On raising his trou bled eyes,he was

amazed and somewhat offended to findtheoldman regarding him with a smile that wasboth amused and kindly. When one has justacted out what one su pposes to be his life’shigh tragedy, nothing cu ts deeper than aspectator’s smile .

“ I seem to have made an ass ofmyself,

he said .

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Why,said the poet, not so bad— no

not more than most young men . I wouldn’tworry about that aspect of it.”

“ It was child ’s play at first— and— thissummer— I didn’t see my way to undeceiveher— she liked me as the gardener’s nephew— as a man rather below her, you see, in station. I know well enough how below her Iam in every way, bu t I was afraid that asHarold Marlowe she might notlet me helpand—

you can’t understand what it’s been for

me— this digging around in the plants, andher showing me howto do things .

“Two in a garden— yes— the oldplot.I haven’t been posing asthe Lord ofBur

leigh or— orCophetu a . Oh, damn it ! If youdon’t understand , it

’s no use my trying toexplain . Every word I say makes me ou t

more of a cad .

”

“ I understand . Didn’t I join in your littleplay

,when you jumped ou t of the Happy

Valley into the poor child ’smoonflowerbed ,destroying her little dreams and plans ? I letyou stay and play, didn

’t I ? And I let yourdistracted parents look foryou — itdid them

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no harm He chu ckled , then by degreesgrew serious and a little sad .

“ I think you rgreatest reason for the deception is the oneyou refrain from mentioning through delicacy— the disapproval ofAbyssinia .

”

“Anything I do,

” groaned Rasselas,unpopular over there .”

“You think you are misjudged ?I don’t know. I have a better opinion of

myself than they have of me— or I had untila few minu tes ago.

”He looked wistfu lly at

Inez’s window,where the shade had been

drawn down .

“ I don’t know anything about finance . Toplease them I tried to learn a little while ago,and blu ndered into a loss so heavy thatwell

,my father came so near disowning me

then that I su ppose it wou ldn’t be safe tocross him again . My notion was to do as Iliked for once— to marry Inez and work onyou r farm here . It seemed as if we cou ld behappy and as if I cou ld make it pay, even ifmy father did cut me off entirely. I can reason about vegetables and small su ms, evenif I can’t about millions and corporations

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the way you want to do ; but, then, youaren’t a poet— are you ?

”

“No, indeed !” said Rasselas eagerly.

And perhaps to be happy is a duty,

though the moralists don ’t teach so,and

,as

you say, this little farm is big enough to behappy in— if that were all . Big enough foryou and Inez, as it was for me— andanother.

“But you heard what she said just now.

It’s all over. There’s no use in argument.”“No, not in argument, but it may notbe

all over. Go back to Abyssinia for awhileand think it over. Make sure, too, whetheryou have a duty there that you are shirking.

I think Inez had some notion about that.”

If only you won’t send me away forever.

No, not forever.”

The snow was sodden and unwholesomein the hollows between bare ridges andhummocks

,anda tremendous wind boomed in

the naked trees. It was dark and rainy,

neither spring nor winter, desolate beyondall other seasons .

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Rasselas in the Vegetable Kingdom

The poet lay back in a Morris chair,his

feet on a tabouret, pillowstucked under himat every possible angle, a gay Afghan over hislong

,thin legs . Breathing had become a seri

ous matter with him which he was in hasteto be done with as soon as might be . Heseemed listening as if for some other soundthan the wind

,and watched Inez anxiously

andfu rtively as she prepared his gruel overthe coals in the fireplace .

“ Inez.”

Yes,dearest.

Mustn’t— make— too much— Of thingsthat don’t really matter. Sometimes— it’sbetter not to hold too rigidly to principlesthey may be— only— prejudices.

“Oh,papa

,dear— su rely right is right.

Not always.” He smiled whimsically. Ican’t argue

,though— now— you’ ll just have

to accept— my conclu sions .“Don’t ask me to forgive him, papa .

Forgive— no. Stevenson says he doesn’tknow what— forgiveness is. There isn’t anysuch thing.

”

“You’ve made me burn your gruel, dear.

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I ’ ll make some more, and you mustn’t talk

to me about him this tune .”“ I must talk— while I can . Wasn’t that a

step on the porch ?“ It was the wind . Nobody would come in

such weather.”“ Inez he raised himself up with dif

ficu ltyand looked ather imploringly takewhat life offers— when it offers. Don’t lethappiness pass by for the sake of a whim .

Happiness isa dutywhen it comes. It doesn ’toften come— not real happiness. I ’m suresome one knocked .

”

“Thewind has knocked all day,but I ’ll

make sure .” The knockwas unmistakablethis time . At first it had been timid

,but was

imperious at last, and when she openedthedoor the wind and rain entered noisily

,but

with them a young man, wet and stormy asyoung Spring itself

,who threw his arms

about her andkissed her.And it was rather astonishing, if onethought of the manner in which she haddismissed him

,howquietly her hands

clasped together behind his neck,and

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“ I’m more hungry for this than anythingelse Rasselas kissed her again— eyes

,

hair,and mouth

,while her father smiled ap

proval .And the storm blu stered savagely at doorsand windows ; but people who are contentedwith gruel

,bacon

,and eggs

,and each other

,

are not troubled by such matters.Once the poet

, tu rninghisdim eyes uponthe trickling panes

,observed cheerfully

“This is a real spring rain .

”

No one replying,he intelligently regarded

the two cookswho were manipulating thefrying- pan over the coals

,and making sad

work of that frugal dinner by reason oftheir happy absent-mindedness .

“Without doubt, happinessisa du ty, hesaid softly.

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M A R T H A

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filtering in with the night,and spreading u n

til it well- nigh put out the cheerful bakingfire and the courage ofher own heart.It was early October and the faint sour

reek of a distant cider mill entered throughawindow which gave uponmping miles ofapple country. The night was warm for theseason, and so still that you could hearjust barely hear— a faint murmur

,very far

off; not the drone of a city, but like that inpitch and in never ceasing. From anotherwindow opening to the south, Martha couldsee the light of a city upon the sky, andthis,for size and steadfastness

,balanced

,in a

way, that murmur out of the north . TheLight and the Soundwere to Martha manifestations of the eternal and solid universe,the one as enduring as the other and as thestars— not that she often thought muchabout them . But to- night

,between the two

there seemed to be mention made of lastSunday’s tex t, and a further amplification ofthat fiery sermon which

,dwelling long upon

the wickedness of the strike and longer stillupon the wickedness ofGovernor VanNess

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Marthain calling out the troops to suppress it, hadended nowhere except in a passion againstall men.

For the trouble which had so excited thefutile little clergyman lay under that calmlight in the south .

Woe to themu ltitude ofmanypeople, hehad fumed

,and the big Falls, she fancied,

were preaching the same sentiment acrossthe night to that troubled city at the south,but calmly and methodically, not at all inthe manner of the angry minister.

“Woe to the mu ltitude ofmany people,whispered the Falls, as they plunged eternally down over the edge of the darkness,“whichmake a noise like the noise ofthe seas;andto the ru shing of nations, thatmake a

ru shing like the ru shing ofmightywaterslSometimes as she darned the stockings

her lips mechanically repeated the words ;sometimes her hands fell idle 1nher lap whileher troubled glance sought the window. a,

Somewhere under the lamps that cast thatlight upon the sky lived and toiled and tempestu ou sly thought John Bailey. Trouble

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had begun for the Baileyswhen their farmwas swept away by debt. Then John, thoughhe was ready for college

,had to take the first

thing he could grasp,which had been a place

in the shoe factory . This disappointment, ofitself

,had been a good deal of trouble for a

boy, butmore had come when his sister wentto NewYork to take a three- dollar-a-weekplace in a department store. Nobody everknew what had happened

,but within the

year John had suddenly to go to town— perhaps it was a despairing letter

,perhaps some

roundabout rumor. She was dead , he said ,when he came back ; and that was all. Butfrom this time had dated his strange ideas.How itwasthat he blamed the Governmentand the rich people generally for all histroubles was never clear to Martha, althoughhe read aloud to her from excited- soundingbooks in support of this position . It seemed ,moreover

,therewas a set of men in the

factory who had some kind of clubwherethese matters were stormily debated . Therewere foreigners among them, Marthalearned with apprehension . Foreigners, to

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always be listening for that rapid , u nevenstep .

To- night, at last, it came .She turned very pale and let her work fall

to the floor. It was far down the road,with

a kind of dragging hurry about it,but so

robbed by ex citement and fatigue of its individu alitythat she could hardly be sure it wasJohn’s step until the thorns and witheredleaves of the rosebush at the window werethrust aside, andhisface looked in, streakedwith blood and dust that did not hide itspallor.Martha ! he whispered, Martha !And she quietly unfastened the door andled him

,staggering and leaning heavily on

her shoulder, to the kitchen. He fell fulllength on the wooden settee— a slight

,ill

built young figure.Martha’s eyes as her largecool hands busied themselveswith the bloodand dust

,were as the eyesofawoman who

looks at her first- born . She bou nd up the cu twhence the red stain had come, then brou ghther rocker nearer and waited for him tospeak.

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MarthaVan Ness is shot, said he .The Governor !”

Governor Van Ness— and he’d havebeen President this fall ”

“You sawit done . A sharp memoryof his wild

,threatening monologues brought

her to her feet. “Are they after you ?”

He sat up on one elbow looking at her withvague trouble

,but nothing worse .

“Not yet, I think. I dare say they may bewhen they findhowthick I was with IvanHe pondered for a moment, then lay downagain with a gestu re of indifference, Whatdo I care !Martha, I

’

ve had a queer time since yourfather packed me off a year ago. I ’ve been areporter. A reporter sees the queerest thingsthere are in the world . You get reconstructedsomeways— but first you get all smashed topiecesand don’ t knowwhere you’re at. Thenyou get reconstructed . I ’d hardly thought ofyou till to- night— then it seemed I cou ldn’tremember anything else . So I came to findyou . Tell your father I haven’t anyideas any more ofany kind whatever. That.

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ought to suit him . If you have any, perhapsyou ’ ll share with me, but I

’m done.”

Martha understood little more ofthis incoherent speech than that he wanted herback after all . She leaned over and kissedhis forehead

,happy in spite ofthe great man

who lay tragically dead somewhere beneaththat light in the south, though she gave himthe tribute of a sigh, and said

“Papa will feel it terribly. I guess hethought the world turned around VanNess.

He was going to be driven to the polls to votefor him.

”

“Yes. There’s lots of people will feel thatway. I ’d been going to vote for him myself,and if he could swingme around thiswitha savage flash ofhis old pride he could ’

a

done most anything.

“ I ’m going to tell you about it— and aboutme . Sometimes things take shape better fromhearing yourself talk.

“ I thought a year‘

ago that ifyou set aboutit right you could fix up all the wrong thingsin the world . I think so still, but I thoughtthen I knewhowto set about it. Now I ’m not

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them . I don’t know where I am now,but

I was with them then.

“At least it seemed important enough tomake it worth while trying the experimentof k illing a few kings and millionaires justto see what the effectwou ldbe . Didn’t seemas if it could be worse— and when I thoughtof Sally’s three dollars a week

,and the

morgu e, I didn’t feel very tender of other

people’s feelings . There was nevera rich girlprettier and smarter than Sally, never one of’em that was more fit to survive . Survival ofthe fittest be damned ! Talk that to a manwho’s spent most of his life hoeing corn andpotatoes . Leave your farm to fight it out withtheweeds and then see what’s fit to survive .You’d have some rag weed, I shouldn

’twonder— and poison ivy and bent grassand that’s about theway it iswith people .I’ve seen a garden rose that had got lostsomehow, trying to live with big stinkingcat- briers twisted around it. That was aboutlike our Sally when she got to the city, Iguess.

“ I met Ivan just after I got back from

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Afartha

New York when Iwashotand cold all over,

and wild to do something. He was a littlequiet chap andlame . He had got hurtwhenall his family but him and his father werekilled by a party ofCossacks— just for fun, Iguess. The sort of funwe read about Indianshaving with settlers. His father had beenaway somewhere

,and when he got back and

counted up the corpses— there was one hecouldn’t find . He

’dhave been a lot happier ifhe could . Itwas the oldest girl Ivanwasn’t dead, but he was crippled .

“Well, old Kosek gathered up Ivan andmanaged to get out of Russia . They broughtup in the Chicago stock- yards. By the timeIvan could read and write American

,his

father was dead .

“Then Ivan did some begging and somestealing and finally gota job running a littlehand sewing-machine in a sweat- shop . Buthe had a good brain, and the whole of it wastaken up with the one idea : “Who’s toblame, and how can I get at

’emHis father had never talked about any

thing else, I guess, except the things that had

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happened to him in Russia. Chicago he hadseen for himself, and he read every last brimstone anarchist pamphlet he could get holdof. He would translate ’em to us at the cluband go one better ou tofhis own head .

“We used to put him up on the table,crutches and all

,for the fun ofhearing him

lay it ou — he was such a fierce little beggar.

It was vaudeville for most of ’em . But Iwasn’t feeling funny. It struck me he wasmostly talking sense . And one night wewalked home together and he told me abouthis family

,and the sister that couldn’t be

found,and I told him about mine that Ihad

found . After that we were chums.“He was as kind a little chap as everbreathed ; he’d spend his last cent on a bonefor a lame dog.

It’s a bad thing to have just one idea, andnotbe able to see beyond oraround it. Who’sto blame, and howcan I getat ’emWell

,he had his notions aboutwho was to

blame . I began to notice after awhile that hehad business somewhere else besides at ourclub . I saw him once or twice with queerer

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downMarket Street I saw a lame chap aheadof me that looked familiar, and slappedhim on the back. It was Ivan . He wheeledaround , fierce, then said :

‘

Oh, it’s you,

’ andput back his little knife, like a cat drawing inits claws, and we went and had a drink.

‘Well,’ I said,

‘you ’re looking pretty jolly.

Are you in luck ? ’“ ‘The best in the world ! ’ said he, looking like a stained- glass angel, and I thoughtit was a girl andwished him joy. Hesmiled in his quiet way. I thought itwas a girl !

“ It was up to me to interview Van Nessthat evening. I got him at the stage entrancebefore hewent on to the platform to makehis little speech.

‘

Gotanything to say aboutthe strike, Governor ?

’ I said .

‘Nothing butwhat I ’ll say to everybody to- night,

’

saidhe,and then : ‘What do you think ?

’

“That was Van Ness. He always interviewed his interviewers. Turnedthem u pside

,down and shook out the crumbs.

“Well,I had thought I had ideas, but it

hit me somehow, as he looked at me, that

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Marthasquare way, that herewas a man who haddone more thinking than I had .H e was noneof your greasy, mealy-mouthed politicians.He was a man. He could have said : ‘

Do

this,

’ and even I would have gone and doneitwithout a word

,and I ’m not over obedient.

“ ‘

I don’t know, sir,’ I said

,and then

, re

membering things I ’d heard : ‘The men arepretty ugly, sir. I hope you

’ ll be careful.’“ ‘There are differentways,’ said he, giving me a cigar,

‘ of being careful . Didn’t itever strike you that there are a whole lot ofthings more valuable than life ? As to thestrike, my boy,

’ said he,

‘ I ’ll answer younotyour paper. It isn’t altogether a matterofright and wrong,

’ said he, notmany thingsare. Nobody knows anything for sure . Amanmust do his duty as he best sees it. Some people might tell you to leave the rest to God.

Perhaps that’s as good away to put it as anyother.

’ He put his hand on my shoulder.

‘You young men,’ said be,

‘you young men— I wonder what you

’ll make of it. ’

Then one of his heelers came after himto go in front, and I ou t around to get the

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speech. And half were clapping and yelling,but of the rest some were glum and somehooted . I guess I got the speech allright. It’ ll be in the paper. Lord ! itseems queer ! He seemed so alive . I wasthinking there wouldn’t be such a mess if allthe presidents and czars and kings were thatkind

,and I made up my mind to vote for

him,principles or no principles.

“After the speech the band struck up,and

the people formed in line to shake handswithhim. The place was gay enough with flagsand gilt eagles and flowers. I gotin linewiththe rest, partly because I might see or hearsomething funny that I couldwrite up, andpartly because I kind of liked the idea ofshaking hands with the old boy. As I tookmy place I sawIvan ahead ofme

,but there

was a German beer keg between us,so I

couldn’t nudge him . I thought ’twas singulara chap with Ivan’s notions should be takingall that time and trouble to give the gladhand to a bloody oppressor

,but decided he

might have been quieting down a bit likeme .

I planned I ’d guy him about it when I got

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was a kid , and a solemn- looking doctor,after

a minute more, took the flag that haddraped the speaker’s stand and spread itover him.

“And all this time the soldierswere busykeeping the people off from Ivan.

“ I went with the crowd . Looking back Isaw a big fat generalwith his red face allscrewed up like a kid that’s crying ; but sofar as concernedwhat was covered up by theflag I felt I was done

,and now ’twas Ivan’s

tu rn . Of that I saw all I wanted to and more— and more . Not that I ’d have missed it. Iclimbed up on a lamp- post and looked overthe shoulders of the soldiers as they draggedhim by. Something made him look myway.

He saw me and managed to move his handfor hello and good- by. He hadn’t lost hisstained-glass angel look. Hewassuch a littlechap . .

“But when they saw it was me he waswaving at, the officer halted his men andstarted to get me too. Ivan was popularwithsome in the crowd. though ; mighty popular— damn ’

eml— and somebody grabbed me2 241

Marthafrom behind andhustled me down a sidestreet

“ I didn’t send in any story about it, sothere goes my job . The world has allgone queer. What did the news matter,or my job, or anything else ? Then I re

membered you . I thought maybe you ’dbe still sitting up and working in the sameoldway— I came to find ou t— and here youwere.

“Yes. I’ve been here ever since,said

Martha, wiping the tears from her cheekswith her apron . It has been an awfully longtime, she added .

“ I suppose you wouldn’t want to marryme— after all ? he asked .

“Why, of course,” answered Martha . He

sighed a deep breathlike onewho lies downto sleep after a fatiguing day.

“And that’s queer, too,” he said . But I

guess I ’m done theorizing. I ’ll take things asthey come.”

“Well,” said Martha, I don

’t blame youso much for thinking the way you did . I gotto thinking myself, last winter, when things

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went bad here . I worried about you a lot.I didn’t know what you might get into. Ithought maybe I was to blame for not goingwith you

, the way youwanted me to, sheblushed hotly,

“but then,I thought, what

would become of the children here, andfather ? I ’d been getting rather slack aboutthe work, and the more I let things go theworse I felt, so I braced up and did the bestI could . It made a difference .

“ I saw them happier, and I thought,well,that’s something. I know I ’m accomplishingsomething here . Perhaps so long as one issureofthat one ought to staywhere onehasbeenput. Perhaps that’s what theGovernor meantbywhat he said to you about duty— ifyou ’resure you’re doing right you don’t worry .

”

“Ah,but Ivan thought he was doing his

“Yes. Queer, isn’t it ? I don’t believe we

can unravel it verywell into right andwrong.

Dowe— do we have to try? Isn’t it betterfor

you,just as it was forme, to find something

that’ ll keep us very busy, and be of some u seto other people ?

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wild droughts departing from him,and

,not

withstanding the confusion under that quietglow in the south and the insistent warningmutter of the Falls,wasaware of that otherallegory of green pastu res and still waters.And if the rushing nations must, as theLakes do, plu nge over a Niagara duringsome portion of their infinite journey, stillthat is only an incident and not the end ofthings

,for the rushing waters become the

navigable St. Lawrence, and after that thereis the ocean

,where great ships go safely

enough about their grave affairs.

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E . H O L B R O O K ’ S

P A T I E N C E

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going into colors, but conservatively, as wetry to do everything, tak ing pride in ou rdignity and taste . Probably among the thirtyfive- cent magazineswe rank as well as thenex t. The Solemn Ass who writes ou r advertisementsputs us first, ofcourse, but I amonly assistant art editor, and not obliged tocommit myself on that point.

The door of which the gray glass panel isseverely lettered “Private” Opened cautiou slyand the GreatMogul, peering timidlyaround its edge

,beckoned me— who hope to

be Great Mogul myself some day, if I amgood .

Entering,I found him

,his tumultuous

gray hair rather wilder than usual,training

hisspectacles upon a thick pile of undersizedcolor studies

,which he pushed toward me

with an inarticulate inquiring monosyllable .First I took stock ofhishandsome oldpro

file,to make out

,if I could

,his own opinion.

“Unusual, at least,” I ventured .

But the word fell short, some way. Heimpatiently made to push them aside for the

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sPatience

lady-who- sends- things- back to take care of,

but,hesitating over a study of gentians

among ripe grasses,a distant veil of wild

asters indicated between their tips,he forgot

his purpose and moment’s crossness.“One of those self- taught chaps

,

” he saidmildly. Usually he is such an irascible oldMogul when it comes to artistic mattersthatI hardly knew how to takehis leniency toward these labored drawings. Without rancorhe indicated the painfu l stippling.

“ It seems a pity. There are fifty- two of

these . He calls them ‘The Meadow’s Calendar.’ A manuscript in twelve sections goeswith them. He offers it as a serial.Pathetic

,nervy

,and notu nu su al, sard I .

He shook the ashes from his brier on theBokhara ru gwe gave him last Christmas,refilled it

,andwent through the iron- hard

little studies again with an unhappy ex

pression .

“Of course we have to be hard - heartedhere

,orwe should perish in a week, but— we

needn’t overdo it.He creaked backward in his revolving

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chair,folded his feet on the desk among

drawings and proofs,andwith his fingers

combed his mighty hair in a fewmore directions.

“You know, this sort of thing is done with

blood and in solitu de . It’s like the Orientalcarving that a lifetime goes to. I— I shallput it in the personal- letter class, anyhow.

There’s no harm in advising him tostudy— telling him

,perhaps

,a fewelemen

tary things. If,when I wish I hadn’t

,

you pipe up ,‘ I told you so,

’ you may look foranother job .

I grinned evilly . As I closed the Privatedoor

,I heard the chirr of the bell summoning

the stenographer to take down that encou raging letter to the perfectly hopeless— as Ibelieved “

E. Holbrook.

”

You see, it’s this way : Some morning

when you are feeling optimistic on generalprinciples

,you find something promising on

you r desk, and write encouragingly to theperpetrator of it, telling him he ought tostudy— meaning just that and no more .

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hold to have an exhibition and an auction,

using for that purpose the Milton- JannsenGalleries— all in sage green, very recherché.The first room was given over to Horton’sfrontispieces and covers in color. He was ou rbright and particular star, and had treatedus well until we put him on a salary. Then,of course, there was trouble— but that isneither here nor there . It had got so bad atthispoint, however, that he wasnotonspeaking terms with the Mogul or me— as ifwewere responsible forthe presswork !Hewasthe first personI saw, dressed like

a tramp,admiring hisown work. Iwent to

the other side of the room, pretending not tosee him. Itwasgood work, andI wasn ’t going to be bluffed out of having a last look atit before the dealers got it. And here theMogul found me

,having sought, he said ,

all over the place . He looked worried ; hischeckswere red abovehisgraywhiskers .

“ I want you to meet Miss Holbrook,” he

said .

I had forgotten,by that time

,all about E.

Holbrook,

”or only kept him in the back of

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sPatience

my mind as an agreeable possibility of embarrassmentfor my chief, and none ofmy funeral . Certainly there was nothing to suggesthim in the thin

,small, gray- haired person in

mourning who smiled kindly at me as sheput out a black- gloved hand .

“Some relatron,

” I thought,“of whose monopoly he

is not stingy. For he had at once fled,

with confused mutterings about an engagement.Having in mind the liking of the laity forbright color and big canvases I took her toHorton’s display

,but after looking them

carefully over she had the good taste to ex

press greater interest ina decoration done bythe Great Mogul’s assistant

,-whose Opinion

ofher opinion rose considerably thereu pon,andI looked at her for the first time with attention . Her profile , shadowed by hat andveil so that the fine wrinkled network at hereye corners was blotted out

,betrayed the

pleasant information that twenty years agoher face had been one to make you sit up .

After studying . it a while longer I decidedthat it might have that quality still .Wrinkles

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and gray hair do have it,nowand then, if

you knowhowto look.

I am good at drawing people ou t. Now,turning upon her the battery of all my subtleprocesses

,I gathered that when a girl she had

once studied for a time in New York, hadbeen called back to support her family, teaching art in a wretched little seminary in hernative town, had stayed there ever since, bu tsomehow had kept the breath of life in whatmust have once been overwhelming ambition. Now, after serving longer than Jacobfor his Rachel, having found herself a freelance, she was trying to take up matterswhere she had left offa quarter ofa centurysince. Referring to her buried youth, shesaid

“Young people are not patient. Theythink that life isbothshorter and longer thanit really is.When you get older and the shortness of it ceases to give you stage fright

,you

see how there is time for everythingyou reallywant, after all .

”

With thisshe turned her smile full uponme, and at first I thou ght,

“How young !”

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look on Hardbecker’sface had meant. Thiswas E. Holbrook” ofthe ponderous Meadow’s Calendar”! This was the youthfulgenius he had been encouraging ! To-morrowI could say,

“ I told you so,

” and my owndisgrace would be wiped ou tby his greater one.

He advised you to come to New York ?”

I said in that deferential, interested way ofmine which is so effective in drawing peopleout.He advised it— provided I had inde

pendent means .” She left me to infer that hermeans hadbeen independent ; then, eagerly,How long can a tendency lie dormant with

ou tbeing atrophied I ’ve neverfeltas thoughit atrophied . Perhaps they over- estimateyouth. There was a grain of wheat oncefound in the wrappings of a mummy . It hadwaited thousands of years, but it grew assoon as it was planted .

”

As she spoke the illusion ofyouth brightened— the youth that was not youth . Searching for a figu re, I was pleased with a comparison to late- blooming plants

,asters and

golden- rod, or those pompon Chrysanthe[ 240 ]

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mums that blossom in the snow— growthsthat spend a long inconspicuous green life ofpreparation out ofwhich they burst you ngand glowing when everything else is shr'

eled. Yet I did not believe in her ultimatesuccess. I went no further than a desire tobelieve in it. But even at the best, there issomething arid in that sort of life— for awoman at least. She was such a delicate,feminine little creature to spend her days inthe cold north light of Art. Embroideringsofa pillows and presiding at a dinner tableseemed more in her line .

The Great Mogul came in one day withdark- blue glass in one ofhis spectacle eyes.Hewas in an outrageous temper during theforenoon . After luncheon he was more resigned but still somewhat sour. I’dknown forsome time that his eyesightwas not whatit ought to be.When an artist’seyes begin togo, he

’s done forever. Deaf musicians aren’tso badly off. Beethoven was deaf and wasn’tspoiled

,bu t look at some ofDu Mau rier’s

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artists for the most part make great hashwhen they try to be literary. And so, when Isawthe blue glass, I knew that it was all upwith the poor oldMogul.That afternoon another package from E.

Holbrook was handed in. The same thingshe had sent us before

,

“The Meadow’sCalendar,

” only done larger and looser.Not a single idea of the original had beengiven up !

“Good nerve : I said . The Mogul smiled

and put them aside for the lady-who- sendsthings- back to take care of.

“Not yet,

” said the Great Mogu l . “ I ’llwrite He put his hand to his eyes, andflung out impatiently,

“No

, you do it. Tellher— tell her that she is improving.

”

Butwhen I had obediently written, hechanged his mind “

No, better ask her tocall at the office .

She came,wearing the same gown I hadseen her in before . And she was paler andthinner. I felt cross. “Well,

” I thought,“ if

peoplewill come to New York to make theirfortunes

,without any fortune to begin on,

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flowers. Of course, I’

ve been sketching fromthem all my life

, bu t I’ve learned so many

little things this winter, just from seeingother people’s work— itwill be pleasant todoit over again, and apply all I

’

ve learned .

”

And then I showed her to the elevator.“Three times, andout,

” I said to theMogul as I came back.

“Will she make it,do you think ?”

He growled some malediction upon meand the magazine and the world in generalI couldn’t make out whether he includedMiss Holbrook or not— and banged thePrivate” door so itwas a wonder the glassdidn’t shatter.

About the last of May back came thatMeadow’sCalendar,

”asshe had promised .

Iwas doing most of the Mogul’s work bythis. He hardly gotarou nd oftener than oncea week, but when the Calendar came I left itforhim, though I knew there was no hope forit, thinking it might amuse him. He lookedthe drawings over

,blinking his red- lidded

eyes. Both eyes were behind blue glass now.

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E . HOlbrook’

sPatience

Ask her, saidhe, to come to the office,and he did notput the drawings among thoseto be returned . Feeling my astonishment“I’mnotgoing to keep them,

” he snapped ,but I ’m going over them with her— itwouldbe only decent.”

She came,pale and threadbare ; there was

a little strangeness in her smile now, anethereal quality, like the smile ofa nun thathas prayed too long and seen the GrailPercival’s sister

,wasn’t it ? I happen to re

member that quotation because it’s onewhere Tennyson rather overdid ir

Andso she prayed andfasted , till the su nShone, andthewind blew, throu ghher, andI thou ghtShe mighthave risen andfloatedwhen I sawherI cast abouthowI could manage to get herto lunch with mewithou t letting her guessthat I thought she might vanish if she didn’t,buthe got ahead ofme . When they passedthrough my cage they were so occupied witheach other that she forgot to nod to me . Shewas looking at him in a motherly

,concerned

way, evidently thinking more about his poor[ 245]

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old blue spectacles than about her littlepacket of drawings that he was gallantlycarrying under one am.

“Oh,but please,

” she was saying,“don’t

imagine I ’m the least bit discouraged . It’sso good ofyou notto mind my trying. I wasafraid you wouldn

’t like my sending thesame thing back so many times. Of course,after waiting twenty years, as I

’ve told youa few months don’t matter. One has tomy,

don’t you know ? One doesn’t know why

but it seems to be necessary and with thatthey were ou t of hearing. I hoped he hadbeen able to see her well enough to understand the necessity ofordering an unusuallysubstantial luncheon. I didn’t know whetherI was relieved or sorry that it was not I whowas to have the honor ofspreading that banquet. “The sun shone, and the wind blew,

through her.” Those things make one feelso gross ! Only, why— whywill people cometo New York to make their fortunes !

IfMiss Holbrook comes in when I ’m nothere, said the Mogul, a little fluttered

,yet

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years ago they’d have thought it fine. Ham

ilton might have done it, and they’d have

talked about his “ subtle charm,

” his “ exqu isite appreciation ofthe plant world,

” etc.,etc., but it wasn

’t quite what a beginner’swork must be nowadays to

“compel acceptance.

”

That summer while the Mogul was awayon his vacation, and I held down my ownchair and his, too, I thought now andthen ofthat Meadow’sCalendar,

”wondering whatwould be the outcome in the fall, andwhether, supposing it was then tu rned down,she would really take it back and domore toit— and yet again, and again.

Poor oldMogul ! It’s no use,he wrote.

I can just see my way about and no more . Ihope they’ ll give you my place, my boy

”

here he said some nice things—“and if they

do,keep an eye ou tfor E. Holbrook in the

fall . I ’ve been up near her farm, and one ofthe last things I could see with any distinctness at all was one of her newdrawings.They’

re not bad , now— not at all. She’s[ 248 ]

E. Holbrook’

sPatience

managed to do it— Lord knows how. Ididn’t really think she could, though I hopedso. It’s patience, and after all that

’s nineparts ofgenius. Take her work, and makethem pay for it promptly—

you understand .

”

Bu tthemagazine wouldn’t touch it for allmy pleading. The book department, however, brought it ou tas a Christmas gift book,and it sold well, so thatwas all right. But, ofcourse

,there was nothing to be paid her for

a weary long time . Whether this fact precipitatedthe Mogul— who had been a widower unencumbered for fifteen years— Idon’t know,

but I received their “announcement” cards before Thanksgiving. So I atemy own dinner at the club with a good appetite

,picturing the pretty young- old face of

Mrs. Mogul beginning to grow plump at herown table .A few weeks later I saw her in the flesh atthat table

,andthe realitywas much like my

fancy. Without doubt she was plumper andyounger

,and so good to look at that One

felt more than ordinarily savage about theMogul

’s blindness. Yet he did not seem to

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mind . Already his face had begun to take onthat oddpeacefulness chatacteristic of thedeaf and blind .

“ I know I miss a lot, he said to me, yet1t3 something to be able to hear.”

She was in the next room at the momenton some small errand ofhousewifery, and hisface was tu rned toward the Open door withthe expression ofone who gives attention to apleasant thing. I noticed only that her stepwas light and quick, that the little sounds shemade about her work were soft and accurate ;no slip or rattle as is the way with clumsypeople.

“You ought to hear her read, said the

Mogul.I did hear her, that evening. It was Tom

Sawyer,” that part where he gives his medi

cine to the cat. The Mogul’s laugh explodedwhole- heartedly, at brief intervals, and hewiped his eyes behind their blue spectacles.At the office, I had never known him .to gobeyond a sour smile.Before I went I had a chance for a few

words with Mrs. Mogul .[ 259 ]

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Interventions

with some ginger in him, that will walk onhim and wash his face .”

“W-walk on him ?”

When you’

ve done these things you cancall me in again . I shan ’t come before .”

The first arrival at the Bailey stables wasa nebulous yellow mass, with appendagesof head andfeet. The ears were still rawalong the outer edges where they had beenclipped to points, andthiswas rather premature, for one could not yet tell whether hewould be mastiff or G reat Dane when hegrew up . The carswere clipped on the GreatDane hypothesis.Johnny Premo, the coachman, said : Yas,he one big dog . Gon be bigger. Doctor hecome up to see if he’s big ’nough .Mis’ Baileysay she couldn’ get no bigger. Doctor say,has he tried knockin’ down Gerald ? Mis’

Bailey say she so ’fraid an’ cry. Gerald, heput his arms ’round puppy’

sneck an’ say hisname gon be Joriander, outer some bookhebeen readin’

. Puppy put his arms roun’

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Gerald ’s neck an’ wash ’ is face an’ roll ’

imall roun’ an ’ ’

enMis’ Bailey cry some more.Gerald laugh . Doctor say, all right. Geraldhe sleep with ’

imthat night. Me, I gotwash’

im,all tam, all tam.

”

After Jorianderwas established came oneday a slim, graceful thing with sweeping tail,the arch of whose pretty neck did not reachthe shoulders of the black carriage horses.Her eyes were of maternal softness . Shetrod with an airy swing, but choseher stepsfastidiously, seeming to make certain thatno smaller thing than herself was underfoot.Johnny Premo said : She one Arab pony.

Mr. Bailey, he say she cos’

someting. Doctorcome up to see ’

owshe do. We put the newsaddle on ’em— all silver and yellow leather

,

an’ hist up Gerald an ’ hol’ ’

imon,an’ ’

e

tumble offsoon’

swe leggo, an’ she stop an’

tu rn roun’ an’ look sorry, an’ we put ’

imupagain an’ ’

e fall off again, but’

e laugh alltam

,an don ’ get scared , an

’ bimeby they goroun’ the stable yard without Gerald fallin’

off, an’ Mis’ Bailey cry, and Mr. Bailey

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say, she worth every penny, an’ the Doctor

say, Hurrah, we’re comin’

on! I fin’

Geraldou t here nex ’ mornin’ six o’clock cu rryin

’

her with his own lil brush an’ comb . Says’er name’s Dolly.

The town’s two important streets cross atitscentre, and of these, the greatest is Elm,

which extends from the post- oflice and railroad station in the west to some indefiniteeastern point among farms, calmand smoothunder its old trees and between its su bstantial houses.The people sit about on verandas andlawns and embroider or play croquet, andparticularly they watch all that passes inElmStreet.

“What on earth ! said Mrs. Simpson .

She was in a red rocking- chair under anarbor- vita: scalloping a bib for her firstgrandchild . Her daughter, Mrs. Ferry, whowas swinging in a hammock and reading amagazine, looked up and said

“That ? Oh l— Gerry Bailey. Don’t youknow the Doctor said they’d lose him if theydidn’t let him go barefoot and do all sorts

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Get down,you nasty dog ! and lifted

Gerald to the saddle again .

It is said that on that first journey he wasput back thus six times by troubled neighbors

,and his riding has been compared to

that of the White Knight in “Alice,

” but itwas no great distance from Dolly’s back tothe ground, and they always managed toreach grass before the tumble came.So when Gerald returned to his own gate,where his trembling mother waited, hischeckswere like wild rose petals, his eyesgleamed, and his closely cropped hair, thehat being gone

,was like red gold in the sun .

Each day there were fewer tumbles, andDolly’s walk was more rapid, until, aboutthe first ofJuly, she broke into a careful gallop. The people left their embroidery andcroquet andstood along the sidewalk readyto pick up the White Knight

,but it was not

necessary. G erry smiled as he passed them .

The smile was not so gentle as it had been .

Someone called it a grin. After that it wasobserved that the pink stayed inhischeeks.

Then the neighbors stopped being sympa260

The Convalescence ofGerald

thetic . They even spoke ofJoriander resentfully as “ that great dog,

” talked of muzzlesand called their own dogs into the housewhen he appeared . Hewasgrowing, but thatwas nothing he could help .

Will you tell me what that is ? gaspedMrs . Simpson . She was putting scallopsaround the edge of her first grandchild ’

s

dress.“Well

,she has made a circus of him !

saidMrs. Ferry.

The saddle was gone from Dolly’s back.

Instead there was a blanket with a widestrap . Dolly was treading as if she said

,

“Now, hold your breath !” Gerry was standing up on her back. Thiswas near the endofJuly. The rose color ofhis cheeks had vanishedunder tan, and the tan was usually obscu red by dirt. His feet were more likebronze than wax. His red- gold hair wasbleached to silver and so were his eyebrowsand eyelashes. As he passed the people ofElmStreet he yelled Hi !” and did not tumble off.

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Mrs . Ferry said she had heard he wasplaying with French children— had beenobserved with Dolly and Jorianderup at thesand- pit with a large and ragged following

,

making some kind offort which the wind ofthe night always destroyed, so that it waslike Penelope’s web and had to be built aneweach morning

,for there is not enough clay in

that region to make such edifices hold together properly .

You never see them withhim, explainedMrs. Ferry.

“You know how those

young ones are, they vanish if you cometoo near, but I

’ve made them out with myopera- glasses . He ’

s a regular little king ofbeggars. When I was there to tea, he said tohis mother,

‘Me,I don’ lak health food no

more .’ And she said,‘

Gerry, with whomhave you been playing ? ’ And he said , ‘TheDoctor said I might.’ And she didn’t dareanswer a word . I have my opinion of theDoctor.”

What in the world ails that horse !said Mrs . Simpson. Dolly had grown old and

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strangest pair in the country, both beingbroken- backed, but in differentways, forone sagged until his back was like the letterU, but the Other was telescoped so that hislegs were too near together, and his spinewas humped, poor sou ll— till he looked verylike a camel.Even these two nowturned to stare atDolly, while aristocratic beasts drawing correct carriages pretended to shy, and the people all laughed . But sad Dolly kept on

, Gerryriding like a little cavalryman, tremendouslypleased with himself, the ragged imp behind switching Dolly’s heels— that couldhave kicked so easily— and shouting

,

G’lang !Thus the Doctor met them, and as usualstopped to take a reassuring pinch ofGer

ald’

s biceps, which now had grown fromnothing to the size ofa cherry, to look at hisclean

,pink tongue, and tickle him in the ribs

to bring out the dimples . The ragged impslid promptly from the pile of stones andfaded into the color of the road, which wasthe same ashis rags, in swift retreat.

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Are you sure Dolly likes that ? thenasked the Doctor

,who kept a professionaleye on that little person also, having perc eivedat the first glance that shewasa gentlewoman in thin disgu ise and as human asanybody.

Why,she understandswe’re just play

ing.

” But Gerry’s tone was troubled .

“ Ithought shewas just sleepy He clambered down

,lifted the mare’s head

,and

looked searchingly into her clouded eyes.Then with trembling mouth corners he u ntiedthe ropes and left the load standing asit was.

“ Itwas for the fort, but maybe we canmanage some other way, he sighed .

Dolly’

shead came up . She tossedher forelock out of her eyes, and said

“Hou yhnbu m l” softly through her silken nose . Joriander thrust awarm congratu latory kiss inher face and described rapid circles of joyabout the group . Very far down the yellowroad

,something that might have been a

hummock of sand with a straw hat on it,

waited watchfully.

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Who is that little boyyou play with somuch, Gerry

“Why that’s Napoleon Shampine. He

knows everything. I was surprised when youtold me I was to play with the French children, but I

’m glad, because they’re ever so

much nicer than as children. Why you

wouldn’t believe the things I ’ve learned fromNapoleon !”

“Such as what, Gerry ?We- ll

, I— I

’drather you wouldn’t men

tion it to Mamma, but it’s principally about

- well — devils, you know.

C‘

Oh!”

There are so many kinds and they dosuch strange things. Iwas really a littlealarmed— until he told me howto ‘makethe horns .’

Gerry illustrated with grimy thumb andlittle finger.

“ If you only remember to do that you’reperfectly safe .

“ I see.”

And he has promised to teach me otherthings

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tu rned his Pekin ducks in there,which areas good as geese when it comes to savingRome .One night he woke to a shrill peal ofelfinlaughter

,afterwhich the hurried thump

ing of the ducks’ feet and their alarmed“hwank was plain, and he tumbled intohis trousers, butwhether or not there wasa disarming quality in that laugh

,the shot

gun with pepper in it was left behind,and

he carried nothing with him but a bull ’s- eyelantern . As he enteredwith clumsy stealthunder the drooping branches of a winterpear

,the ducks flashed by

,glimmering

,

ghostly, heavy- footed , and a distinct, sibilant whisper came out ofthe darkness ahead“You done it ! Wat I tole you ! Ruu l

”

Simultaneously the Doctor was thrown to

earth andhotjawswere at his throat.“

Joriander!” said a familiar voice

,some

thing like the society tones ofMrs. Bailey,

“ I ’m su rprised .

”The cover of the lantern

flew back and shot a redbeam into his favorite Fameuse tree ,where a laughing andastonished face seemed su spended . Lower

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down were the soft bu t troubled eyes of

Dolly,shining like a deer’s while she held

her grou ndwith unwilling heroism.

Jorianderwithdrew, embarrassed , avoiding the path of light from the lantern .

Gerry Bailey !” said the Doctor,slowly

regaining his feet,

“ I ’m surprised !”“Yes

,sir. I didn’t intend you shou ld know

ju st yet.”

“Where ’

s that— thatYou mean Napoleon ? He went away.

Er— is it— that is— is it exactly safe foryou to stand on Dolly’

sback thatwayto getthe apples?”

“It

’

s very convenient, but she didjumpa little ju st nowwhen you came .

“ Shall I never,

” mused the Doctor inwardly, be cu red of hyperbole ! But whowou ld have supposed the little impwou ldhave taken it literally ! I only mentionedthe ex tremest thing I could think of— oh

,

well“ I don’t know

,he said

,that the night

air is just the thing for you , G erry . We

that is— su ppose we go into the dining[ 2 69 ]

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room ? There ’s some floating island leftfrom tea which is very digestible

,and some

oatmeal cookies . By the way,” he said

,cast

ing a lantern ray at a small tree near theorchard entrance : “Did you get any of theAnson’

s Water- core“No, sir ; just the Fameuse. I didn

’t knowany of the rest were ripe, except the Duchessand Astrakhan

,and we have those at home

The Anson’s Water- core is new,

”

the Doctor. “Where’s your bag ?”“Oh— why

,Napoleon has it.

The dev— I mean, you don

’t say ! Well,we’ll get some of these and go along to thehouse . They’re as good as the Fameuse

,I

fancy— but different. You hold one up to thesun and you can see the light throu gh it. I ’dbeen intending to send some over to yourmother. I guesswe can find a bag or something at the house .”

The Anson’s Water- core were green anddiflicu ltto find . Dolly smelt out one first andcru nched itwhile the other two were hunting.When they had a dozen or so they startedagain for the house, Joriander following

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Itdoesmake you rather hu ngry to be ou tat night, doesn

’t it! ” observed the marauder, politely.

“You haven’t tried it before

,then ? said

the Doctorwith relief.“No, sir. You said , you knowY-

yes, I know.

”Wasthere a grin on thesmall bronzed face

,and a leer in the light

blue eyes behind the bleached lashes ? TheDoctor rubbed his gray hair the wrongway. The pale Gerry for whom he hadprescribed hor'se

, dog, and playing withFrench children

,would have been incap

able of u nderstanding,much less carrying

through, so stu pendou s a joke as this. Hehad thought the mysterious French boywas the prime mover in the affair. Nowhe doubted .

“ I say, Gerry— it’s all rightwhen it’smyorchard , you know, bu t Iwou ldn’t do it toanybody else ’

s if Iwere you .

”

The blue eyes openedwide . Oh,dear

,

no !”

The tanned cheeks reddened . You toldme to

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The Convalescence ofGerald

Yes— itwas rather figu rative— but that’sall right. Only I don’t like your being ou t inthe night air.”

When the last yellow drop of floatingisland was gone the Doctor dressed somewhat more formally

,and with his lantern in

one hand anda bag of Anson’

sWater- corein the other sawGerry home,watchingwithprofessional pride his ascent tohisroom byway of a porch pillar and a grape- vine

,

Dolly having first been pu t to bed andtucked up

,with an Anson’s Water- core to

go to sleep on.

Joriander stretched his great bulk on theveranda under his master’swindow. TheDoctor patted his head and scratched hispointed ears with great friendlinessbefore hestole away .

“And that’sall right, said he .

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S O N O F T H E

W O O D S

THERE are still log cabins here and therein the mou ntains

,bu t they are as shy as

birds’ nests in Central Park, andas simplybu ilt. The cottages and hotels that have intrudedthere are notshyandare highly complex

, yetfor the most part they have at leasthad the cou rtesy to pu t on the green andbrown livery ofthe forest. The Grand Hotel,however, is staring white andofGreek design . Looking u p from the Lake, it appearsmostly an affairofpillars. It would look wellon some Southern shore, with palms and

sandy beachesabou t it. Up here in the woodsit is ou trageous— andyet, that depends. Itisratherfine

, too, in a way, at twilight, whilethe late color isstill in the sky, andthewindows show their many orange oblongs between the great pillars, andthe orchestratentatively begins in the ballroom,

dinnerbeing over.

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Then if you bring your canoe to a quietnook in ‘

the lake— not too near— the big,garish hotel becomes as wild and elfin as anyother manifestation of the woods, a moonlightglamourthatwill vanishwith othermistsat sunrise .The cedars in itsnear neighborhood havebeen thinned, the ground sodded , and rusticseats and summer- houses are scattered about.But it is better notto venture too far into itsgroves without your wits, or these cedarswill unexpectedly close up their ranks . If yougo among them at dusk and come to yourselfwhen too far away to hearthe hotel band,and you are unversed in the ways of thewoods, and notdressed for the part, there islikely to be annoyance for yourself and yourfriends before you get back.

So, at least, it happened to Mrs. Brandonone evening. Entering the grove with heavytrouble sagging her usu ally careless soul

,she

was overtaken by a sudden storm of tears,and having once made a beginning

, lu x u ri

ou slygave herself up towoe, pressing blindlyinto the forest, careless of the thorns that

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ou slyforth into the night, and fell silent for amoment

,like a child who after a space of

futile whimpering is really about to cry.

Then she began to scream, whereat one mayimagine all the furry and feathery ears uponMount Phelim pricked in astonishment, andthe leaves stirred by small, quiet persons instealthy retreat.Even Phelim himself held his breath fora

moment,like a sleeper half-waked by some

unimportant matter,then exhaled a long

,

sweet, contented sigh through his cedars andpines, and slept again under the faint lightofthe half-moon, while Mrs . Brandon, having screamed herself ou t, obeyed the instinctof all embarrassed animals since first lionsroaring after their prey did seek their meatfrom God, and clung, motionless, silent, andalert

, to a shaggy cedar trunk.

It is amazinghowcold a midsummer nightcan be upon a mountain . She drew the silkentrain ofher dinner- gown abouther shou ldersand trembled within it for the space of anhou r. At the dark moment when the moonlight altogether withdrew from the tree tops,

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Son of the Woods

she roused to a primitive and sensible action.

Drawing together some pine needlesand dryleaves she lit them with a match from hercigarette case (small vices are of advantageoccasionally! and spread her little shakinghands

,weighted with cold rubies and di

amonds, to the blaze . The nearest trunkswere warmly splashed with firelight, bu t theOpaquely black gulfs beyond these wereworse than before . “ I forget

,she thought

wearily,

“whether fires attract animals, orscare them.away

,but

,perhaps, being eaten

up is no worse than freezing to death,” and

so, with what philosophy she might, shewaited for the morning.

On that side of Phelim opposite the G randHotel is one of those shy log cabins ; not atemporary hu nter’s bu t, but a real habitationwherein the great matters ofbirth and deathhave been transacted , as well as commonplace minu tiae of living.

The location must have been a trapper’schoice in the first place, and the steep acresof corn and potatoes an after- thou ght ofchanging time and cu stom . Mount Phelim is

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hardly a person to take kindly to the comand- potato habit. There are many tentativepines and maples among the weeds thatspring up in the furrows.Perhaps Phelim likes the habit ofhumanity itself no better than that ofcorn andpotatoes, for one winter he andPowaskettogether filled that little valley so full of snowand zero weather that these— and othercauses— wiped ou t all but one of a familynamed Frechette . They spared Alois

,who

thereafter throve in his loneliness like ahardy seedling from whose roots a numberof weaker brethren have been torn

,for such

is the survival of the fittest.Alois woke to the before- sunrise clamor ofa nestful ofbluebirds abovehiswindow

,who

were scheduled for flight at that hour. Heyawned

,rose on his elbow

,and regarded

with a sleepy smile the dewy oblong of greentwilight that marked his open door. Nowthat all his crowding family had forevergone ou t throu gh that door, he saw no

object in closing it except against stormsand winter.

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thou gh a giant, sitting on the bank agesago to cool his feet in the stream had forgotten what he was about and been changedto a tree .Cold ! Cold as only a mountain brook canbe on a midsummer morning. Alois went inwitha shout, splashed and grunted until acloud of clean brown mud was stirred upfrom the bottom

,came ou tand danced upon

the moss in the sun until he was dry, andthen went singing up the hill to his breakfast

,

in all the world nothing more gloriously aliveand hungry than himself.Had it not been for his appetite ! Taking

the frying- pan uponhisknees,he ate it quite

clean and polished,set it down with a sigh ,

and examined his stone jar of corn meal .Whenhisfinger

,plu mbing the yellow depths

touched bottom before the second joint wascovered he became very grave . He took hishoe in silence from itsnail ju st outside thedoor

,put a book in the pocket ofhis overalls

,

and marched to his potato field,arriving at

that place of business promptly at five, according to custom .

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Son ofthe Woods

The morning was drowsy and lovely,de

veloping, as the sun rose , into one of thosedays that never fu lly wake u p, bu t staydreamily abed until twilight. The air of thevalley washotand still . In the incessant mutter ofthe brook nothing was said abou t highambitions and the glorious things that laybeyond a summer’s toil withbooks andvegetables.At eight o’clock Aloishookedhishoe overthe limb of an apple- tree

,and tookhisbook

to the border of the woods. He fou nd thedreams ofthe day, however, asthick there asin the field

,and pu tting ambition aside for

the moment, he filledhiscorn- cob pipe withtobacco raised in his own garden andlay onhisback among the pine needles

,his knees

crossed and his armsunder his head , with noloftier thought inhisbrain than to idly followthe pattern of the pine branches against thesky.

Some one (he dreamed! called andweptin the forest, bu thewastoo sleepy to answer.Besides, in his dream,

he knew that thecalling and weeping were only a dream, and

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nothing to worry about— or, if it wanted him,

let it come where he was .The leaves parted and a wild, tear- stainedface looked athimfixedly for a long moment.He sat up

,but the dream, instead of bemg

distu rbed by the action, stepped out into thesunlight.He had read ofsuch things— Calypso and

her isle,for example, and Circe, and La

Belle Dame Sans Merci— but they were classics. Classics are marble and Greek and donot develop one’s imagination into belief.His grandmother’s stories had been neithermarble nor G reek, and these he had believed.

Her hair hung in two dishevelled yellowplaits. Her arms and throat were bare . Hergown

,except where misty rags of lace still

clu ng to it,was of silk, the color of green

flame .She conveyed no definite idea of age or

you th . At first he thought her very young,then he was not so sure . She might be oldwith the infinite andu nwithering oldage ofmountains and forests— o ldas Time or the

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est. Now, after a night of amazement, shehad come ou t into a morning place, withamorning young man in it. If she herself, byage and experience, belongedproperly to alater and more arid time of day, that was nogoodreason for foregoing a misplaced hourof youthfulness which Fate had thrown inher way.

“ I should sodearly love something to eat.He made a grave gesture of hospitality in

the direction of his house, and they walkedtogether across the sunny pasture . The tatteredhem of her long green skirt rustledover the short grass

,with the sound ofwind

among leaves. Her head drooped and shebreathed unevenly

,like a child that has

cried overmuch . Almost he expected her todissolve in the strong light. It was noon ; didthat altogether account for her casting noshadowHis kitchen as they entered seemedstrangely shrunken since he ate his breakfast there, and disordered and mean . Thedishevelled lady hesitated in the door-way,

- a silhouette outlined with gold by the288

Son of the Woods

sun, - and held backher ragged skirts, thenentered slowly, witha wary eye upon themsty and greasy cook- stove, and sat downdoubtfully upon the only unbroken chair.

“ I can fry you some bacon,

” said Aloistimidly.

“ I think, she suggested, perhaps a glassofmilk and some bread— itwould take solong to cook anything. I don’ t knowwhenI’

ve been so hungry !”

Her voice broke in a little wail. He scurried ou t to his store ofmilk by the spring,and broke a pitcher in his embarrassedhaste

,forgetting unaccountably where his

various utensils were kept.“ I haven’t any bread ,

” he apologized , setting the milk before her, but here is somecold hasty- pudding.

”

She made no criticism, but ate eagerly,and when she had quite finished, laid herhead upon her arms and wept.

“ Iwasso hungry,”she explained . But thisgrief for past trouble gave way after a littleto contemplation of her gown .

“ Is there some woman about here289

I nterventions

No. I’ve got a needle and thread , though,and a thirnble my mother had .

”

He brought her these implements in a tinbox that had once held tobacco. Then froma corner on the clock shelf, where they hadlain undistu rbed since his mother loosed herthin black hair for the last time, he took ahandful ofcrookedand rusty hair- pins.His glance lingered upon them in a wayshe did not at first understand , as if he hadbestowed a gift of great value . She had beenabout to put them aside with dainty disfavorand perfunctory thanks, but something inthe rusty evidence of long disuse conveyedthe story of their value

,and she accepted

them graciously.

Then Alois went ou t and sat upon hiswood- pile . The silence ofmid- day had fallenupon the birds, and there was no wind torouse the leaves ; the soliloquy of the brookwas the only living sound . In the gap between the near green shoulder of Mou ntPhelim and the blue-filmedone of Powasket billowed other mountains in gradualretreat until the farthest was hardly distin

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had answered civilly. Peoplewho came fromso great a place as New York had a right tosome hauteur ofbearing, just asRomans had ,if ever their stately togas deigned to trailamong the peasants’ vineyards and fields .Besides, he should be among them presently. His way to their citywas charted ,stage by stage, as any definite journey shouldbe . Barring accidents, he thought he knewvery well where his goal lay. But with thisambition, the sweet glitter and gayety, although he felt their power, he had little todo

,nor was it of the roll ofCaesar’s chariot,

but of some remoter and finer thing, thatthe horn of the tally-ho had spoken .

When, after an hour’s reconstruction

,the

Green Lady issued from his kitchen,she

seemed less as if she might have come ou tofone of his grandmother’s stories or the historyof that remarkable man

,Ulysses, and bore in

stead,inher altered gown andcoiled hair, the

unmistakable hall-mark of NewYork, butthis made her no less mysterious to Alois .He came down from his wood- pile andstood before her with respectful curiosity,

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Son ofthe Woods

noting with surprise that she had broughtsome ofhis tex t- books with her. Herfingerwas between the pages of his “ Iliad ” asthough to mark a place.You aren’t a poseu r, are you— arecluse

said she . “You don’t look,” her eyes swept

his six feet of lean health as if you wereunder the doctor’s orders.

“No, I belong here . I’m preparing for

college .”

But— you live here quite alone ?Yes .Her eyes still questioned .

“There used to be eight, said Alois, witha melancholy gaze at the silent little house .“All butme died winter before last.”Her inquisitive eyes were shocked andsorry. She turned them away respectfullyfrom his tragedy.

After a little silence she said : I am quitealone, too .

“ I think I ’ll stay here till dinner- time, ifyou don’t mind . I should be less conspicuou s if I went in while they’re in the diningroom. And I ’d rather enjoy looking

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over your Greek with you, ifyou like. Iwasclever once, they said .

”

They sought the shade of the apple- tree .She did not, however, at once open the books.

“And you live here and study, she tecapitu lated , inviting further information .

This he now gave with an eager rush, as isthe way of the solitary and silent when thenovelty of sympathy suddenly offers .

“Lots of people died that winter. I stayedout of school to take care ofmother and thebaby

,but the baby only lived a few days.

Then mother died . She wanted to, I guess.She’d been tired of things for a good while .But that started father offon a big spree, sowhen the little chaps all gotdiphtheria therewas only me to look out for ’em -and - I

didn’t know much - so by the time he gotback I was the only one left. I don’t knowwhy it didn’ t get me . Perhaps I’m strongerthan most. When he got here and foundeverybody gone but me he turned rightaround and went back and drank himselfdead in two days . I didn’t blame him . I wasa little crazy too

,I guess. I couldn’t stay in[ 294 ]

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He came to another full stop .

“And when you finish college ? she pursued .

“That’s four years ahead,he evaded

with a shy smile,through which she de

tectedthe glimmer of some definite purposehunted to its last cover. While she ponderedhow best to unmask it, a packet of newspaper clippings slipped ou t of the book inher lap . They were thumbed and ragged .

His eye caught them as they fell,and be

seized them as if to hide them, but on secondthought placed them in her hands.

“ I sometimes cut out the pieces in thepapers that tell about things that ought tobe different. I thought maybe by and bywhen I got an education I could get a jobamong those fellowsdown there that are trying to set things right.”

But before she had opportunity to seewhat they were he had caught them backand sternly sorted out a number, which befolded together and put in the pocket of hisoveralls .

“ Some are too bad even to think of, he296 l

Son ofthe Woods

explained , with a kind of melancholy wonder in his voice .Among those that he returned she foundmany turbulent paragraphs on bothsidesof the labor question : the rest were anecdotes of unsanitary tenement houses

,neg

lectedchildren , sweat shops, and all manner of squalid wrongs and stupid cruelties.

“You see,” he justified himself,

“ there’sa lot to do if you give your mind to it. It’sa puzzle to know justhowto get at it, but Ithought maybe after I ’d got an educationI could tell better what to do nex t. Nowhere opening another book he showedpasted inside the cover a half- tone newspaper portrait— “ there’s a man. He’s beendoing things down your way. My idea wouldbe to go to him,

and ask him to put me atsomething he’d like done.His sophisticated listener gasped at the

naiveté of the plan, and yet There hadbeen a primitive directness in the attackwhich this man had made upon primitiveand stagnant evils. He had gone forth assimply as a medieval knight against a drag

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on, and his victory had been as simple andas epic . Alois’s plan seemed made of thesame stuff. “Der reiner Thor,

” she mused,

regarding him with newinterest.“ I know your hero,

”she said .

His face took on the dewy wonder of anovice who sees a vision .

“You know— him“I ’ve met him, now and then, at dinners.What did he say ?”

She laughed . The young expect their demigod ’s words to be alwayswinged .

Why— I don’t remember. About whatother people say, I suppose, at dinner.We

they” — she explained delicately—“ aren’t

supposed to talk shOp at dinner, you know,

We have a way of pretending that everything in life is very jolly and gay, and thatnone of us is in earnest. Perhaps we reallythink just that. We have to pretend to

,at

least. I dare say it’s as good a way as anyother.

“He pretends, too ?” Alois wondered .

Oh, yes. At least, he was pretendingwhen I saw him

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Interventions

a buttercup , as important under the warmsun ashimself and his ambitions.With something of guilty surprise the ladyobserved the reproach and fear in his face

,

and not at the moment seeing any otherway out

, sought to justify her statementsfurther.

“Why, look at it!” she said harshly

,

stretching out a delicate hand toward thequiet hills that were like the patient backs ofa sleeping herd of behemoths Look at themere bulk of the world . Could you move itby pushing with your fists this ground wherewe sit ? No more can you or your supermanalter men and their troubles . Their selfishness and indifference are invincible . What’sthe use of letting a drowning man drag youdown ?” she concluded with a kind of satirical pride in having spoken well.

“You mean there’s no use in anything ?I didn’t quite say that

,did I ?” She

wondered if she had .

“ It comes to that, doesn’t it ?

Why— not quite. One may still have avery good time . There’s music, andpleasant

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people,and good thingsto eat and see and

smell.”“No more than that ?Many people think that is enough . Very

many people think so.

”

“ I ’d rather,” he said simply

,you told

me the truth , whatever it is. Very likely Ihave wrong ideas. I know it’ssaid you can’tbelieve the newspapers.

”

“ It’s all the truth I know, shemaintaineduneasily.

“It— it isn’t very nice

,is it ? But

it’

s the best I have .”“Then the first thing to do is to makemoney !”

He lay down with his handsclasped underhis head

,his face hidden by his straw hat

,

and was silent for a long time . At lengthhesat up and fix ed her With a bright stare .You mean if I worked and mademoney,

I could live the way you people over thereat the hotel live ; eat and dance and see thingsand travel— seeyou as— as people ofyourownsort see you ?”

“Why, as to thatSee you he repeated with a curious

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smile. At first I didn’t understand whatthere could be to interest one in living thatway— there seemed to be no centre , nothingone cou ld grip . But when I look at you I

understand better. Who are you ?Her pu lsesanswered hisheadlong speech

with a ju bilant thrill ofyou th . Her eyeshalfclosed with the primitive pleasure of holdingso fine a thing as this young heart in the palmof her hand , and she smiled — a smile symbolic ofthe lure of the world ’

sbrightness andof herself. The drowsy midsu mmer enchantment thickened about them . Alois camenearer, awkwardly, on hisknees.

Do you know,

” he said ,“what I thought

when you came out of thewoods My head ’sso full

,you know, of these old Greek and

Latin yarns I ’m cramming up on. I keptthinking of Circe, and Calypso, and all thatqueer lot, bu t— you wouldn’t turn peopleinto pigs, would you He smiled timidlyathisfigure of speech, then went on :

“Whatyou’ve been saying soundsa little like it.bu t there are other stories about saints appearing when people were puzzled and

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Interventions

oldas time, and conquered it by another instinctwhich— ifwe believed in certain things

—we might claim to be older than time .When nex t her face was visible to him it wassoftened and maternal.What is you r name ? she asked, and

when he had told her :“Alois— I am older than you think. I amso old that— ifmy boy had lived he mighthave been entering college thisfall with you .

Perhaps if he had lived I should have beendifferent. I might have believed in things asyou do. I have been telling you — not verycleverly— the sort of argument the world putsup against these ideas of yours. But just because I have been in the world longer thanyou have is no sign that I know it better. I

am too near it, perhaps— and out of focus.Perhaps you get a correcter view of it fromhere .”

The feverish light of his face was replacedby dismayed

,ingenuous amazement when

she disclaimed her youthfulness, but thisgave place, slowly, to reverential awe .She looked away with a bitter smile . It

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was hard to see that first look fade. It mightbe the last time she would ever see it in aman’

s face . She had renounced much,she

felt— and yet how slight a thing it was, too !But one values a thing no less because it isevanescent.

“You as oldas my mother !”

But after a fewmoments of troubledconsideration he Was able to accept theidea. She turned her face quite frankly tothe pitiless sunlight, and let him read whathe liked in the fine traceries about hereyes and mouth. And he read it with thecruel tactlessness of his age and sex. Then,as a little boy might have done, he tookone of her hands and pressed it to hischeek.

Do you know,I’m glad about that— I

thought you were young, like me, and itscared me

“Perhaps we would better study now,she said evenly.

“ If you are going to beready for college in the fall you haven’tmuch time to give up to entertaining chancevisitors .”

Intervention:

He obediently opened his Iliad somewhere in the fourth book.

“ I ’ ll look up the words, he said companionably,

“and you translate.”

And so, with a brief interval for anothermeal of Indian pudding andmilk, the daypassed . They kept strictly to the books. Heroldfacility came back flying— she wonderedfrom time to time at her memory, but did notstop to wonder long for fear ofbreaking thecharm.

Once, as her restless fingers wandered inthe grass while she read they plucked a leafwhich she had ahnost torn apart, when shebeheld in it the mystic quatrefoil ofa fourleaf clover ! Alois seemed cheered by theomen, and she pinned it to her dress.As the shadows began to wheel their tipseastward, and the west took on gold , theyswung to the conclusion of the fourth bookof the “ Iliad .

” Then Alois yawned andclapped his dictionary covers with drowsytriumph .

“ If I only had you to help me every day,he said covetously.

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Then to B iomed, son ofTydeu s, camePallas,with strength anddaring forhissou l,That so he might su rpassthe otherGreeksAndwin Fame’

s crown forever. OnhishelmAndonhisshield she placed u nwearied fire,Thathe mightflame amongthose loweringhosts,Like Siriu s rising from hisocean bath .Andsohisshining head andshou ldersplu ngedInto the thickesttransport ofthe fight.

There, she said , chewing her pencil,“ I ’m not so ashamed of that.”

The evening was now so far advanced thata faint but increasing point of light indicatedthe evening star

,seeing which she knew she

must hasten if she would be back at the hotelbefore the crowds were coming out of thedining- room. The star fitted well in herpoem. She looked at it pensively for awhile ,and then back with a sigh at the young facein the grass.One ofher many rings was an emerald, atreasure left fromher distant girlhood , whenshe was as young as this boy . This she re ‘

moved, forcing it gently over the tip of hislittle finger.

Son oftbe Woods

Then she shut the four- leaf clover and herpencilled translation between the leaves ofthe “ Iliad ” at the fifth book and tu rnedslowly away.

Her face quivered and broke in suddentears.She hurried back and knelt over him. Herlips touched his hair.Then, rising, she ran swiftly across the

field,her green dresssoftening into gray with

the rest of the shadowed landscape .

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T U R N E D O U T T O

G R A S S

JOHN BLAISDELL looked out over thesoft- bosomed mountains

,glimmering river,

and crude green of a near strip of woodlandwhichmade up the f ‘view”fromWalter Harkness’s new house, and said ,

“ I envyyou .

”

If the passion ofenvy always left a man’

s

face so placidly kind,it would hardly need

placing on the list of deadly sins. Perhaps heshould have said “ congratulate,

” yet thatwould not have been all the truth . No, itwas envy, rarefied and harmless.The city lay behind him like a foul dream .

The murky office where he had workedhalf- heartedly these many empty years— hethought of it with the distaste ofone who hascracked a bad nut between his teeth . Andthe heat ! He had fled to the hillsthat morning with the consciou sness ofheat apoplexyperched upon his shoulder like black care,not leaving him untilhe tumbled into the ih

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choate but welcoming bosom ofthe Harknessfamily, saying feebly, I— thought youwouldn’t mind . Harkness, having relievedhim of collar and coat, stretched him in ahammock on the unfinished veranda, whereMrs. Harkness, with maternal purring,brought him a mint julep and a palm- leaffan. The children were down by the brook,she said , and would go crazy as soon as theycaught sight of him .

Harkness had bought the wonderful oldfarm in March . Orchards

,meadows

,and

wood- lot of a hundred years’ cultivation,old

Dutch farm- house to make an architect’seyes shine over the remodelling of it

,so

much could be done without injuring its fine,

strong lines. It was long, low, rooted to thesoil

,with a giant of a chimney whose fire

places— in the kitchen the crane and hookshad been bricked in just as they hungwere already restored to their old uses . Theroof wou ld bear a discreet pair of dormers,and a wide veranda would in no way hurt thesolid and primitive dignity of style . Then

,

with the . cellar cemented and the water

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Blaisdell studied his downcast face au xiou sly. The title’s all right.”That was hisfirst thought, the responsibility of searchingit having lain upon his own shoulders.

“Legally, yes. Practically, there seem to

be two opinions, and if oldVanAnder pesters me much more, he

’ ll have me doubtingwhether I ’ve any moral right to the place atall .”

VanAnder What kick has he got? Youpaid him in full.

“He wants to eat his cake and have it too.

He offered to buy it back the day the menbegan to rip things open ; but, hang it ! I

’dsigned the contract for the repair-workeven if I ’d been willing otherwise to give itup . You have to draw the line at altruismsomewhere, and he didn’t even have the fullsum that I ’d paid him. His daughters— a

sort ofGoneril and Regan pair— had alreadygot away with about a third of it. He liveswith Goneril, down the hill a bit. You cansee the chimney and the window ofhis littleattic room.

” He pointed with the stem of hispipe. “There, between the cedars. It wasn’t

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visible when we first came, but he had a bigcedar cut down so that he could watch usbetter. He has a spy- glass. It’s trained on usnow

,unless he’s sneaking around the farm

,

mourning over weeds in the corn and potatoes.

”

In the far- away black eye of the windowBlaisdell fancied he detected some kind of

movement,a lighter blur the size of a face

,

and then,like the light in the pupil of an eye

,

a gleam as of sun striking on glass.Comes here andsnarls at the workmen

for spoiling the house,” mou rned Harkness.

“A dozen times a day I ’ll hear him tune up,

alwaysbeginning the same way—‘ It’s none

ofmy business.’ For instance ‘ It’s none ofmy bu siness, but you never can keep warmat them fireplaces in winter. We had ’embricked up a- pu rpose . I done it myself

,me

an’ the hired man,thirty year ago

,come

Thanksgiving. You’ll be mighty glad tocome back to stoves

,I can tell ye .’ Or : ‘ It’s

none of my business — this was when thefurnace came but I wouldn’t have one o’

them infernal machines in my cellar for a[ 317 ]

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thousand dollars. Forget to put water in ’emsome day

,and then where’ll ye be ? Powder

mill blew up, over yonder, ten year agokilled two men . You could see the smoketwenty mile .

’ And if it’s all I can do to keepcivil

,you can imagine the effect on the work

men . One ofthem came down from the roofthe other day and stuck his chin in the oldman’s face . ‘ If it’s none of your business,dry up an

’

go home ! Your mother oughtn’t

to let you out.’ Van Ander got white andturned tail . But the carpenter repented , being Irish, and next day, when Van Andercame slinking up , they sat on a pile of lumber, smoking sociably through the noonhour. What the old fellow said I don’t know

,

but as the Irishman climbed up to the roofagain

,I heard him say,

‘Looney ! ’ Maybehe’s right. I don’t know.VanAnder thinks Iam. He spreads accounts of my insanitythrou gh the neighborhood, helps himself tomy fru it, prowlsaround the hou se at nightI’

ve often looked out andseen him in moonlight or early sunrise sitting all huddled upon a pile of lumber.

”

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the dirt and make things grow. And we couldget up golf- links and a tennis- court for thekiddies, and winters I

’d put in writing lawbooksHe had wandered from the Van Ander

problem,his enthu siasm having broken away

coltishly into imaginary green pastures . Hesat up astride of the hammock and lookedabout at the landscape, now taking on thevague yellow and purple bloom of later afternoon. What’s the u se ofstaying shut u p inan oflice when you can have all this ? ‘

Go

ou t and possess the land .

’ I thought I’dbuild a lodge of about four rooms with abigfireplace . I suppose I could get a nativefemale to come in and clean up .

”

Harkness brightened, then grew doubtful.It sounds good , and your head- piece isenough better than Van Ander’s, so youmight stand it all right, but— giving up one

’soccupation— formyself, I

’d be afraid to stoppainting.

”

“But you artist fellows— that’s different.That’s the way your brain ismade in thebeginning. You can’t stop . But a profes

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sion,like law

,is accident and environ

ment.“Maybe. It would be great luck, having

you for a neighbor. But Van Ander was sochipper at the idea of quitting work. Said hewas being turned out to grass. Always believedin tu rning old horses out to grass whenthey’d worked hard all their lives. His children were married , and he was lonesome allby himself. He’d board around with them.

They could take care of the old man, heguessed , seeing as how he

’d made ’em each apresent of a house and lot when they got married . Well, he has stayed with Goneril eversince . Her attic window gives him a view of

Goneril and Regan— are they so terrifically Shakespearian as all that ?”

“ Shakespeare knew most things— amongothers the singular efi‘ect which somebodyelse’s money has on the primitive mind . TheVan Ander Goneril andRegan aren’t goodlooking

,as one imagines the MissesLear to

have been. Regan— who might not be so badif he’d give her a chance— is fat and snubby

,

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andhas eight or ten children. Her real nameis Lyddy Ann. Goneril’s name is Claribel,and she’s built like a hat- rack. She hasn’t anychildren, only a cat, who comes up here nowand then after a chicken. She called on Lucywhen we first came

,and stayed all the after

noon. Lucynearly went crazy trying to entertain her. She kissed Lucy when she wentaway. Lucy said it was like being caressed bya file or a dried herring, except that it wasslimy as well asdried up .

She wears a very blue silk shirt-waist,

and a picture- hat with pink roses,and white

cotton gloves, and sings in the choir. Hereabouts she’s considered quite stylish . Andshe’s a good housekeeper

,with all kinds of

mats to wipe your feet on ; and she wouldn’t

let poor old VanAnder take Moses, his dog,to her house, because dogs clutter

’round .

You’ll remember Lear’s daughters wouldn’tlet him have followers, either. I

’

ve been reading Lear lately ; thought I might get pointsfrom it. That’s what they finally split outhe followers. ‘

Goneril thinks her cat isenough pets for the family, and doesn

’t see[ 32 2 ]

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was bought, Blaisdell rejoiced in the cleartan which now masked them all . Even thepink and white ofthe two- year- oldhad takenon a golden tinge . He was a quiet person

,but

with a tendency to put his fist in the sugarbowl.The air was hot and dry; plants, evenweeds

,were dying of the drouth, but the

pressure at Blaisdell’s neck was gone,and

that terror of ambulances, hospitals, and the“Death List for the Day” had departed .

“We’ve lost our blackcaps, said Mrs.Harkness . Her face was burned more richlythan the children’s, particularly the capablelooking nose. “The heat has withered themon the bushes— little dried- u p mummies.But the yellow raspberries do very well, andsome red ones are left, and next weekthere ’ll be blackberries— monsters ! There’ssimply no end to the fru it. Have you seen thequince- orchard ? We’ll have to sell some . Itwould be a sin to let it waste, and if I put itall up

,there’d be enough for a regiment. I ’m

going to start a cannery— home-made jams,

you know,and that sort ofthing. I

’

ve read of[ 324 ]

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women who made money that way,and paid

ofi mortgages and thingsShe stopped andblushed ,not havingmeant

to mention mortgages before Blaisdell sinceit was he who held themortgage on the house

,

and she suspected (but Blaisdell knew! thatthe likelihood of its early payment was small.After dinnerHarknesssuggested There’ssomemint up the road . We might have another julep before going to bed.

”80 they

started ou twith their pipes and Moses. Bythat time the stars were coming ou t abovethe pale remnant ofsunset. The small insectnoisessou nded thirsty and faint. So long hadthe drouth and heat continued that therewas no dew. The dusty white ribbon of roadwavered up a hill so that by degrees onecame to a view of the valley, where the window lights twinkled

,much like the meadow

offire-fliesnearer at hand .

Having reached a spot where the fragrance of mint hung like an invisible cloud ,they sat on a fence with their feet danglingin the leaves, waiting formoonlight to showthem the plants ; but Moses went overto the

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other side ofthe road, where the slim cedarsstood like men in the darkness, and lay downwith an odd whimper, his tail stirring up acloud ofdust as it brushed back and forth .

“You say Van Ander hasn’t botheredLucy yet ?”

“No ; I ’ve managed to ward him ofl’ oneway or another. I don’t want her pity roused .

She thinks he’s a nuisance, but has missedthe tragedy of it so far— and— she mustn’t beworried— now.

A comprehending flicker of memoryshowed Blaisdell a small pink knit shoe, theneedles still sticking in it, which had peepedat him out of a demure pink- ribboned workbasket. The Harkness two- year- old had ou tgrown the foolishness ofpink knit shoes agesago. Decidedly, then, Lucy must be guardedfrom worries .For

,once Blaisdell had a wife himself

,and

they two had lived in a suburban house withan acre of ground , where he had done greatthings with a garden . For a season she hadbeen busy in that way

,knitting little shoes .

But they had never been worn . Instead she[ 326 ]

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Interventions

Oh— it’s you, is it ?The figure hesitated , its head benttowardthem, but it was too dark to see the eyes ;then shambled away without further remarkthan a kind of weary grunt, Moses trottingsilently after, forgetful that there had been achange ofmasters.

“ I don’t,

” said Harkness, seem to findany further pleasure here .”

“He couldn’t be going to the house tobother Lucy ?”

“He’s never been inside yet. Still— let’sget the mint and go back. I can smell ithereabout.”

By the light of a match they made ou ttogather a few handfuls of the rough, fragrantleaves

,and then tu rned back, the toads scut

tling out of their way with a dry rustle andflop into the grass. On one side of them wasthe resigned

,incessant lament of awhippoor

will,on the other the tremulous screech of an

owl,and there was a furtive melancholy in

the parched , sullen air of the midsummernight

,which centred to their distressed im

agination in the shambling figure ahead of

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them,whose way took him past lighted win

dows that used to be his own, past the perfume ofan orchard where he might nowenter only as a thief

, though the trees were ofhis own planting .

They saw him on a rise of ground againstthe sky

,plodding and sorrowful

,heard his

footstepsfor a moment ; then the wind tookthe leaves and with their insistent rustle obscu redother sounds.

But when they reached the box hedge,

there he stood with elbows on the gate,in

tent upon the shadowy bulk ofmasons’ paraphernalia set out upon the disordered lawn .

He pointed a finger that shook with anger.

“ It’s none ofmy business, but them fellows o’ your’n got their bags of cement rightonto my wife’s lily- o

’- the- valley bed . I don’t

care about the flowersmyself, but I supposedall proper womenfolks did ;” and withthisinnuendo against Mrs. Harkness, whosepleasant profile at that moment passed thewindow

,intent on some little fragment of

household business,Mr.VanAnder took his

dark way down the hill to his daughter’s

Intervention:

house and the hot, unsavory attic, whencethe lights of his old house would be visibleuntil he slept

,and its roof the first thing he

would see in the fresh gray and pink of themorning.

“We mightmove that cement,said Blais

dell, eying doubtfully the pile of twelve bags,each of them of the bulk and more than theweight of a man.

Harkness groaned . No. It might as wellbe that as anything else . The drouth hadkilled the plants, anyway, and there’s solittle space just here to put things. They

’llprobably come up another year. The cementwon’t be there more than a week, anyway.

Last week we had to take down a vine sothat the men could break in for the dormer.We didn’t hurt it any more than we could

possibly help . It will be as good as ever in ayear or two ; but he came up and watched .

‘ It’s none of my business, but I planted thatcreeper myself

,thirty year ago, when I was

first married .

’ I couldn’t get it into his headthat I wasn’t hurting it.”

“Why don’t you send her to the shore or[ 330 ]

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You went ?Yes. You get to wondering where the old

boy will bring up . You are unwholesomelyattracted to the scene of his sufferings theway people are attracted to the house wherethere has been a murder ; not that there isanything about it different from other housesofthat class— a little grimmer andless homelike, maybe,— not much . The portrait wasabout what she deserved .

All u p an’ down dewhole crea- tion,

snarled the phonograph.

When it had delivered all the verses oftheSuwanee River,

” it took up in successionHome, Sweet Home,

” “Old Black Joe,

”

and “My Old Kentucky Home and having sung them all, began at the beginningand went through them again.

Blaisdell, kept awake by the clamor, lit acigar

,and sat on the window- ledge in the

moonlight, considering with some wonderthat country people were, after all, born totrou ble as the sparks fly upward, just like

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city people. It seemed oddthat it should beso

, looking at the delicate glimmer of themoonlight on the stirring leaves. Did beautymake no difference

,then ? And if he fled the

city,as he had planned

,would Black Care

follow on ? Would he wish,like Van Ander

,

to buy back his humdrum content ?

O-oh, Nelliewas a La- adyLa- a- astnight she died,

jeeredthe machine.It croaked far into the night, for Goneril

was entertaining company ; and it wasnot until after eleven that it ended witha grand bray of “Nearer, My God, toThee .”

But silence came at last, and he fell asleep .

Once, toward morning, Moses lifted hisvoice andclanked his chain. Buthisalarmedthreats changed quickly to appealingwhimpers

,a regu lar thudding indicating that his

tail, in violent agitation, was whacking hiskennel . “Van Ander

,

” thought Blaisdell,

sleepily, and drowsed ofl‘ while wondering[ 333 ]

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whether he had curiosity enough to get upand peep at this midnight colloquy betweenthe old man and his dog.

The little dogsandall,Tray, Blanch andSweetheart, see, they bark atme.he quoted in his dream, and thought hewas watching Lear on the stage

,andthat

Goneril wore a blue silk shirt-waist,and ob

jectedto dogs.Harkness’s insistent hand onhis shoul

der woke him. At first he was indignant tosee the sunrise color still in the sky, thensuddenly became alert and cool

,and very

wide- awake . Harkness was stammering andshivering.

“You ’

ve got to help me . I— I cut himdown

, bu the was already cold, so I’ve locked

the door“What !It’s a way f- farmers have. I ’ve read of

such things,and I ought to have known .

Th- they are always hanging themselves inbarns.

”

Blaisdell dressed with speed .

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at his kennel door, howling— long,strange

,

wild cries.

The nex t morning as Blaisdell sat in thetrain with the Harkness two- year- old, heavyandpliantwith sleep , in his arms, and therest of the two seats overflowingwith jubilant Harknesses, he gravely considered , ashe had done before, that Walter had toomuch artistic temperament to take care ofsuch a handful ofhumanity as this withoutbeing su pervised himself. Never in the world,no matter how famous he became , wouldhe lay by enou gh to see them all properlythrough school and college and to steadythem for theirfirst boutwith theworld . Thehermitage , therefore, mu st be pu t 03 forawhile . What were childless old folk for,anyway ? The post of u ncle was an important one, and of mu ch responsibility.

Moreover, since beholding that grim oldbit ofclay in the barn, he had somehow losthis eagerness to throw up his occu pation .

How cou ldhe know that he wou ld take to auseless pasture life any better than old Van

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Ander had done,who hadbeen so jolly a

fewmonths before abou t being turned out tograss ? “ Better wear ou t than rust out

,

”

the proverb sounded menac ing. Content andidleness might notgo together, after all .That du sty oflice, ugly and tiresome— one

might miss it badly. Who wou ld feed themouse that lived at the back of his lowestdesk- drawer and had nibbled importantpapers until he had substitu ted worthlessones ? The hoarse noise of Wall Street, theflock of pigeons making military evolutionsabout the tall buildings, the sinuou s flightof ticker- tapes— was it for things like thesethat one might become very homesick, ju stas another had done for orchards and fieldsno longer his ?As the train began to be invaded by themore lifeless air of the town

,he squared his

shou lders and sat u p straight. He was goingback to harness and plou gh . Blessed bedru dgery, that keepsa man

’smind clean andsane !

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B Y T H E S A W Y E R

M E T H O D

HENRYWALKER woke on a lovely Julymorning with an undefined sense of calamityupon him . It was late, for the clear ripple ofsunlight on the wall had journeyed as far as acertain engraving which showed a lion in active pursuit of a gazelle, both of them small,eager, andlonely figures set forth in a wasteof desert— the problem of supply and demand redu ced to lowest principles. “You ’remy meat,

” says the lion,and the proposition

standswithout argument.The window of Mr. Walker’s bedroom

gave upon the roof of the summer kitchen,and so u su ally possessed the disadvantage ofadmitting a multitude of domestic sou nds

,

from the light staccato of beaten eggs to thedu ll roar of grinding cofl‘ee, not to mentionthe strident conversation of two maids and aman ; but on this morning, still bemusedwith sleep, gazing with perplex ity at the leap

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inglion and wonderingwhat had gone wrongand where, he suddenly remembered that thetrouble lay in the lack of those unpleasantsoundswhich he had so often cursed in hishaste .He sat up in bed with a sigh, his long, sim

ply clad figure bent with discouragement,his

disordered thick hair grasped firmly in bothhands. Then a sound did come u p

— thesound of grinding, but feeble and slow,

as

if the crank were turned with a weary andunaccustomed arm, yet patient and longcontinued .

“Damn !” said Walker,and

made such haste for his bath and subsequent trousers as put the hurrying lion toshame.

“ I told you , he said, entering the kitchenwith a brush still grasped in either hand ,“ that I’d get breakfast myself.”

Now,will you please,

” said Mrs.Walker,go straight back to bed andnot come bothering ? I can get breakfast once in a way

,I

should hope . Go along, or I shall be cross.I can feel it coming on now.

”

But there is nothing in all this world so[ 342 ]

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kitchen. There are only two inches ofwaterin the tank.

”

The pump- house, romantically drapedwith trumpet- vine, stood at a little distancefrom the main building. Therein

,clad in red

and black paint, with brass trimmings, dweltthe stumbling- block of a long series ofMikesand Johns.Walker with exasperation had estimated that the care of it took up

,first and

last,a third of a man’s time . Upon Mike’s

sudden and inebriated departu re the daybefore

,he had toiled at the thing himself

,

and nowhe found the door open and thefloor strewn with cinders and oil as Mike

,at

his worst,would never have dared to leave

it. While he stood ashamed before thesetraces of his incompetency

,a harsh voice

addressed him from a dark corner.There !” it said .

A lop- sided crow hoppeddown from thewood- pile, where it had been occupied withsomething strangely limp and downy.Walkertook a quick step forward .

“You black rascal

,

” he thunderedyou

’ve been at the chickens ![ 344 ]

By the SawyerMethodThere ! admitted Billy Crow with

hoarse complacency,dancing strange steps ;

but as he danced,Walker felt his wrath

quietly transmuted into not only respect,but envy. Had not Billy— as a Crow— donebetter with his difficulties than the Walkersas human beings were doing with theirs?Turning over to Billy the remains of thechicken

,Walker unskilfully built the fire u n

der the pump,and that machine having at

length started off upon a more or less eventrot

,he came ou t, perspiring, to rest. Ashe

bent his long frame to a sitting postu re, Billymounted his shoulder like one ofWotan’sravens

,and spoke at length andwith seem

ing coherence, using plentiful“There’s”

and mu ch wing gesticulation . Walker heardhim through, but shook his head sadly atthe end .

Billy impatiently tore the pipe from Walker’s lips and flu ng it on the path, then swaggeredoffto bury what was left ofhis chicken,tu cking it up with leaves and placing a neatheadstone with artistic flourishes.The daywasbeginning to droop, though

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itwasnotyetnine o’clock.Mrs.Walker cameslowly up from the garden, her yellow headcapped by a big rhubarb leaf, for she couldnever remember her hat until the su n te

minded her ofthe necessity for it. There wereraspberry stains about her mouth, her shirtwaist was open in an untidy V at the neck,andshe waved another rhubarb leaf for afan. She sat upon the kitchen steps andgrimly eyed her husband across a barrier ofwithering sunshine.

“ I wish all your hats were like that, hecalled languishingly, but she was in no moodfor a flirtation .

“ It’s going to be hot, she coldly an

swered, and went in to close the blinds .Now

,it was at this unlikelymoment, ap

patently without any connection whatever,that the great Walker idea bu rst fu ll-fledgedfrom that gentleman’s brain . Perhaps it wasthe stretch of whitewashed lattice-work thatscreened the clothes- yard from the rest ofthe grounds and caught the light blindingly

,

combined with Billy Crow’s dragging a fewof his simple playthings from their hiding

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warding offBilly’sfrantic eflortsto tear ou tthe pages. The fire went ou tand the pumpchug- chugged into silence ; still he read on,absorbed , sober, weighing carefully ashewent

Tomsu rveyedhis lasttou chwiththe eyeofan artist, thenhe gave his bru shanothergentle sweep andsu rveyedthe resu lt, as be

fore . Ben rangedu p alongside him.

“H ello, oldchap, you gottowork,heyI’

Whatdo you callwork I "Why, ain

’

tthatworkTomresumedhiswhitewashing andan

sweredcarelessly“ Well, maybe it is, andmaybe it ain t

all I knowis itsu its TomS

Without waiting to clean the pump,

Walkerwent back to the house, reading as

he went, Billy Crow flopping at his heels.

“Maybe it is and maybe it ain’t,

” hewhispered , as he patiently surrou nded his

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By the SawyerMethod

perspiring neckwith a stiff collar. At leastit’s worth a trial.”

The asphaltwas stickywith the perspiration of a big sullen city in J u ly, but if therewascomfort anywhere at the du ll, warm endof the day

,it was surely in the dining- rooms

of the Mermaid , whereWalker entered aftera day in a library . Electric fans droned inevery corner or wheeled their dizzy paddlesabove the tables

,and a delusion of coolness

had been sought by changing the color ofthecandle- shadesfrom redto green . Fresh fromthe distraction ofhis disintegrated ménage

,

Walker regarded the prim tables and theprim maidswith awistfu l bu talso a calcu lating eye, ordered cold consommé , and Iangu idlyunfolded his evening paper. But asheread the headlines, it was with an occasionalsly flicker of attention to his surroundings

,

as you may have seen a fox afiect to sleepwith his brush curled over his face . Lookingmore closely, you see the glitter of an ambu shed yellow eye through the edge of thefur.

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Mr.Walkerwas the possessor ofa kind ofdelicate and au stere fame . Hisown ideawasthathewasmore or less of a frau d

,a belief

inwhich,for his soul’s good, hiswife en

cou ragedhim.

Usually he fled , blushing, from admiration, avoiding such places as the MermaidClub, where lay the greatest danger of thesidelongwhisper, the covert stare, the tooeager return ofhis nod. But now thathe wasabou t to brazenly trade upon his disqu ietingfame

,the discomfort of it for a moment

ceased to prick le . He spooned ou tthe amberjelly of his consomme and read head- lines

,

qu ite at ease . At his right a tablefu l ofwomen discussed , more distinctly than timeand place actually required , their individualrelations with various pu blishers “ I toldMr. one wou ld say with an air ofangry decision, yetwith a sly glance to seewhat audience she had beside the one addressed, and the audience knew the largename

,to be sure, but also knew it for the only

part of the sentence that really mattered .

Walker the Great, however,worked too hard[ 350 ]

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Interventions

written things which the essayist’s fastidiou staste rejected violently as his wife wouldhave thrown outdoors a scented cake ofsoap.

Yet,as in a world of words he held that

the right one could always be found andmade to fit if one were patient, so in a worldofmen surely the right one for a certain purpose was bound to turn up in time.From the other side of the room

,a mirror

mercilessly gave him back himself— gaunt,tumultuous- haired, and spectacled. He

squirmed this way and that, finally movinghis fern centrepiece in such a way that heneed see nothing of himself but the unrulyhair when he looked up

,for he loved beauty

and never looked in the glass if he couldhelp it.Hardly had he arranged the fern to his liking when two other reflections entered themirror and sat down at the reflection of thetable behind him . One was that of a paleyoung man whom he knew to have donerather good verses and out- door articles. Healso placed him— but rather vaguely— as

[ 352 ]

By the SawyerMethodconnected with some newspaper. The girl’sfacewas familiar, too, but hewas longer inremembering where he had seen that. Itfinally slid into place, against the sage- greencurtain of a picture- gallery . She had lookedfor so long at a picture there that she seemedas fixed as the ladies of paint, and at last hehad gone over and stood behind her to discover what picture it was that could winfrom her that long and dreamy half- smile,and so had found himself looking up a roadthat led to a tiny gray cottage ; beyond it,a vague and serious evening sky, a rim ofmountains

,and a feather of new moon . The

cottage itself you would hardly have detectedbut for its lamp— making the window a yellow square . Now, in this picture there wasa peculiar kind ofmagic

,forwhoever looked

at it believed that itwashis own house thathe saw, and that the guardian of the lampwas the one dearest to him, even though thatone were dead . Since then he had gone upthat allegorical road and acquired his wifeand his home . Nowhe saw the shine of awedding- ring upon the girl’s finger, and

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hoped that she also had attained the windowlight of her desire .Cleeve— by an effort he had disentangledthe young man’s name— had a kind

,honest

sort of face, though it seemed thin and ill,and the two smiled at each other companionably enou gh. Bu twas it ashappy and con

fident a smile as one wishes to see in thefaces of the newly married ? Was there notsomething forced— dispirited ?Perhaps newspaper work was not paying

well ; perhapsone or both ofthem had beenwriting a novel , and hoping enormous thingswhich did not happen . In his interest he sofar forgot his caution that presently he sawhis own spectacles and fox - colored hair poking up over the reflection of the fern- dish

,

and straightway dodged down, but the fu rtivenessof the act recalled him tohispurposein coming to town . Almost he thought heheard a hoarse voice at some faint

,spiritual

distance, urging :“There !” and the su gges

tive flutter of a cropped wing at his ear.“If we could only get a thunder- storm,

sighed a sweet but plaintive voice behind[ 354 ]

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them around to the magazines. I haven ’thalf tried yet.

”

“Damn newspaper work !” he gritted ou t;“to think of being dropped like this— now!Walker crouched lower and peered around

one side of the fern- dish . The young man’shead was dropped in his hands

,while she,

leaning toward him, appeared , by the motion ofher lips, to be whispering— bythe expression of her face the words were lovewords. The boy cleared his throat grufllyand satup , shamefacedly.

“Oh,‘ it’ ll come out all right, Walker

heard .

“ I wouldn’t mind if it was just me, butI ’m damned if I ’ ll have my wife supportme— and in this damned heat— you look like aghost.”

“ It’s lovely here just for the moment, anyhow

,

” comforted the girl. “Let’s talk aboutsomething that doesn’t need damning. Isn’tit something the words fell so lowthatthe unprincipled eavesdropper could not besure, but he thought he heard—

“ that we’vegot each other ?

”

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But the man was not to be begu iled fromhis perplex ities.

“Things don’t turn up if one goes away.I ’ve got to hang around here, but if youwould only take that sonnet money, and runu p to the old farm and the folks for the restof the seasonTherewas a long silence, probably filledin by a look, but Walker

’s eyes were nowglued tohispaper

,although the type danced

and blu rred .

Ifyou think, came at last, very low, Ican be well— or— or happy anywhere ex

ceptIn the lion’s pursuit of the gazelle there isperfect franknessastohisu ltimate pu rpose

,

but a man ’

smethods ofarriving at any pointare as complex as the desire itself, and bothmethod and purpose are clouded withob

scu ritiesuntil he forgetshalf the time whathe isreally after. Now, with qu icker breathand a beating heart

,Walker sou ght with

himselfhowto make his spring and seizehisprey . The first pointwas to get into easy,aflable conversation . That accomplished,

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he did not see how it was possible for thegreat Sawyer method to fail. Yet he trembled . However nonchalantly he managed

,

would they not suspect him ofhaving heardexactly what he had heard- and was a curto have heard,forhe could easily have rattledhis newspaper or moved his chair so as tohave drowned the quiet, troubled voices ?Bu t his two victims did not hurry with

their dinner, though the time seemed shortto Tom Sawyer’s disciple

,who sawoppor

tu nity slip softly through his fingers whileheread and reread u nintelligible head- lines

,his

pulses dancing,like those of a scared actor

who does notknow his part.It was with a dry throat and a pricklingscalp that he finally cast upon the floorhis dearest cigar- holder, causing it to rollquite u nder the table of the u nsuspectinggazelles .In the confusion following the plunge,how

ever,he somewhat recovered himself. The

fact that the amber mouth- piece was broken gave a touch of plausibility to the action which almost consoled him for the ca

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beloved will accomplish in the way ofdisintegrating self- respect.So he plumed and strutted, and paradedhis best anecdotes for these two poor starvelings. With great and prosperous ones he remained mum and blushing from soup to

liqueur ; but nowbefore the Cleeves heshowed offas he ought to have done in highplaces

,and gently, inex orably, he swept the

conversation to the topic of farming. Hemade them see the sun rise and setfrom hisbroad verandas ; he directed their noses tothe fragrance of the rose that twined abou tthe kitchen window

,and dwelt appetizingly

u pon what sort of grape crop might be expectedfrom the Concord and Delaware vinesthat festooned his pergola . He touched uponhis library

,and the quiet coolness of it for

writing and thinking in while the bees dronedin the clover field that came clear up to itswindows. Then he took them down to wherehe had persuaded a brook to make a swimming pool at the edge ofhiswoods. He drewascruel a contrast ashe could to the J u ly ofthe city whose breathwas all about them,

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andbrought to bear all his considerable skillwith words.

“And yet, he plaintively concluded, Ialways suspect that my man is getting thebest of it. He sees the sun rise while I snore.He is the unappreciative confidant of all thehopes and fears of my young incubatorchickens, it is to him that my cow lows at thebars when she wants to be milked, andand he has the fun of— of He lookeddeeply into his coffee, and muttered indistinctly,

“running the pump .

”

After this wild tribute to his pump, he fellsilent and abashed, but presently, makingsly observation with the tail of his eye, andseeing nothing but the rapt wistfulness thathe had been striving to bring to his hearers’

faces,he took heart and went on.

“ In the country,” said Walker, it is

singular what a dignity and desirability attaches to working with the hands. If I hadtime to do it myself

,I should never hire a

man to work forme, but there it is ! Divisionof labor means separation of intellectual laborand menial labor.The ideal arrangement

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ofcourse, would be that myman should orjoy an hour ortwo in my librarywhile I spehimat the lawn-mower. I don ’ t

,however,

suggest it to him, and am timidabout thelawn-mower lest I lower myself inhisesteem.

Discipline must be maintained , even thoughamanwho can’t appreciate it getsall the realfun out of my farm . I speak in the p resenttense . He went yesterday, and for a briefperiod I am my own master. The time of

Utopian co-operation is not yet,”sighedMr.

Walker wistfully. Therewas a long silence .

He looked fixedly at his cigar and hardlydared to breathe .

“Why shouldn ’t it be possible ? saidCleeve earnestly

,andWalker jumped at

the sound ofhis voice . Not generally, ofcou rse

,bu tsu rely there are groupsofpeople

here and there who cou ld live andworktogether by some agreement su ch as you

suggest.”

Walker daintily flicked some cigar- ashesfrom hisknee .

“Very probably, he assented ,

pearedto have lost interest in

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warmly with them both, and went to thereading- room.

But he held Fliegende Bla'

tterwith a shaking hand . When, after an interval, an u n

certain step hovered upon the threshold, hefelt the blood rushing to his cheeks like agirl who hears the step ofa lover. He smiled ,turned a leaf, and waited .

“I was verymuch interested, Mr.Walker,in our conversation about the country andco-operation . I should like to continue it, ifI might

,without taking too much of your

time .But Walker was true tohismaster.I have to make my train

,but should be

delighted to hear your ideas u ntil then.

Cleeve seemed to cast about hurriedly forsome fine impersonal attitude withwhich todisgu ise his eagerness, but found nothing tohis hand .

“ I don’t know that I have any ideas ofvalue, he began timidly, then blurted out,“but I ’d like to join some su ch scheme as

you were speaking of— and if we could have[ 364 ]

By the SawyerMethod

your man’s quarters until you get somebodymore capable

,why — he lau ghed awkwardly

“I think I could mow the lawn and hoethe potatoes.”

Walker simulated first surprise, thendoubt

,then

,gradually and conservatively,

conviction .

“ It might work,he conceded, espe

ciallyasyou could have the library evenings.

I do all my work in the morning.

”

“ I ’d appreciate a chance like that morethan I can tell you .Where we are now,

somehow— I can’t seem to getat itWalker’s eyes gleamed . Yes, it was hard towrite in a hall bedroom . But he was deliberate and played his game .

“ I rather expect there’ ll be a number ofapplications ifI ever really get that community of mine started . You see— the post ofcook isvacant also. In fact, we are qu ite alone— and

,

” a spasm ofhonesty took him,

“ thatpump I spoke ofis rather a nuisance . I don’twant to deceive you .

”

“My wife”— Cleeve swallowed hardmy wife is a first- rate cook. She says she

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getshomesick for a good kitchen. We are ina furnished room now. I think in a schemelike yours I shouldn’t mind her trying herhand . As for your pump he smiled anxiou sly, I ought to have been a mechanicanyhow

,but I got one or two things ac

ceptedwhen Iwasgreen from college andthought I was a genius, so I went intonewspaper work.

”

I wonder,” Walker said

,whether you

and your wife can come ou t withme tonight ? ”

“ I ’ ll go tell her,chuckled the boy, dart

ing off to whatever dark corner of suspenseit was in which he had bestowed the girl toawait the outcome of his daring adventure.Walker

,alone and triumphant

,rose tohis

lank height and stretched his arms restfully“There !” said he .

Mr. andMrs.Walker, hand in hand , wentthou ghtfu lly u p the moonlit hill, theirshadows, lank and portentou s, preceding them

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edgment that there was much still to besaid . Argument was in the air

,not to say

dismay.

If she only wouldn’t work so hard, wentonMrs.Walker. “If she’d only let me help alittle !”

“Wantsto live up to her contract, I suppose,

” said Walker unhappily. Itwasnominatedin the bond— housework was.”

“That’s no reason why she should killherself over a hot stove baking bread suchweather as this. And I never asked her topu t up fifty- seven varieties of preserves, norto wash and iron the napkins twice a week,because we haven’t enough to change threetimes a day. And she oiled the floors yesterday. He ought to have done that, if anybody. But she sneaked in and had it donebefore he finished mowing the lawn .

”

By the way, said Walker, in a slow,

thoughtful,suspicious tone,

“who pumpedthismorning ?”

“Why— didn’t he ?If he did it’s the first time he forgot to let

the water from the jacket of the engine . The[ 368 ]

By the SawyerMethodpump was left too hot, and the fire wasn’tdrawn. Just about the way a woman mightdo it, I should think. The pump hou se itselfwas beautifully swept and garnished

,and

there’s a fresh curtain in the window. Be

sidesThe pause was long and full of expression.

Well asked his wife sharply.

Well,I found him asleep in the library,

at six, the light burning, and‘

Chapter ! ’

written at the tap of a page otherwise blank.

I put out the lamp and went to see about thepump, and I thought I heard some sort ofghostly flight

,rustling away behind the rasp

berries. There was a pink sunbonnet on thesame nail with the lantern . It was gone halfan hour afterward . Itwasn’t yours

,I take it ?

“Indeed no.

”Her tone was meek and selfaccusing. Mrs. Walker’s incompetency as ahouse- keeper was a thorn in that lady’s fleshwhich almost— but not quite — stirred her toaction . Some day, she was always predicting,she would suddenly become capable andbrisk

,take the helm of Walkerdomand

gu ide that crazy craft like a real ship ofstate ;[ 369 ]

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meantime,she greeted her days withgood

natured yawns, and spent them in slothfulcontent among her husband ’

s books. Sheplanted and weeded a scrap of garden, it istrue

,and so made a small show of rather u n

necessary industry, but the conduct of thehouse was amatter ofhumble perplexity. Infact the woman was domestically a failure,and this lack of hers had already not onlyplunged the Walkers into a series of picturesqu e domestic misadventures, bu tmarkedthem out to be the victims of many more.

“So she pumped, did she ?

” said Mrs.Walker impatiently.

“ I wondered why shelooked so hot and ill at breakfast. I supposeshe thinks that novel of his isbound to maketheir fortu ne . Whatdo you think ? Hashe really got it in him ?”

Walker,a literary person himself, snorted

with contempt for his craft. “Any man whohasn’t got a

‘ best- seller ’ bottled up in himsomewhere these days is a paranoiac . Butdon’t go to underrating poor Cleeve . Ishouldn’t be a bit surprised if he turnedou tsomething not so bad . Anyhow,

be

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but at least if the grass burned it wouldneed no mowing

,whichwassomething ; so

they muttered to each other that they’d bedamned first, and let it go at that.Schneider, ex cept as he wept andgrovelled

at the futile thunder, was more comfortablethan the bipeds . Mornings he drowsedamong the roots of the wistaria where hehad made an excavation, scraping awayeach layer of earth as it became warmedthrough until the hole grew so deep thathad he died at that time they could haveused it for his grave . Afternoons be withdrew to the cellar and lay withhis noseagainst the waste- pipe of the refrigerator.But the two Walkers worrying together,

agreed that they could have bornewith philOSOphy the weather and their asinine watersupply

,had their kitchen been less faithfully

served .

“Why does she insist on mayonnaise ?mourned Mrs . Walker

,

“when we couldmake French dressing at the table just aswell ? I like it better

,anyway. And why does

she insist on grinding and fussing up and[ 372 ]

By the SawyerMethodfrying the cold meat into croquettes insteadof giving it to us in slices ?”

“ ’Twould be better for tummy, agreedWalker

,

“but those croquettes are most clegantstuff.

”

“And the idea ofmaking cake when thebaker’s wagon passes the door every day !And you can buy all sorts of things in littlebox es and tins.”

So they both pleaded with their kitchenmaid

,butwithou t avail. She told them she

was having a good time, that she never feltbetter in her life and shooed them out of thehot spicy kitchen with a light- hearted en

thu siasmthat made them half believeher,only that she grew white and big- eyed fromday to day, and sat without appetite beforeher own concoctions. “ I eat while I ’m cooking

,you know,

” she would explain withcheerful mendacity.

“ I get the lion’s sharebefore you see it.If she had not been so pretty and deli

cately you ng ! Mrs . Walker felt herself slovenly, awkward , and faded by comparison,realizing more than everhowshe had failed

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in all those things that should concern a

woman most. Yet once she had at least possessed youth, and enthusiasm of a sort, andhad dreamed dreams of a home that was tobe a home, and over which she would ru leserenely

,but— but Here she lived in the

house,and with the man of her desire, yet

everything had degenerated until at besttheir happiness could hardly be called morethan an arid complacency. She thought ofthese things long and often, the mental burden of them gathering weight as all burdensdo in difficult weather, until her face saggedwith age and discontent, and her voice grewsharp and peevish. But at twilight, when itwas cooler

,and the men sat on the veranda

with their pipes, she would sneak up to herhusband on that side ofhim least open to observation and slip her hand in his. At this hewould rise— Schneider also, as if moved bythe same spring— and the three would taketheir walk in the manner already indicated .

There had been a night ofgasping, lightclad ghosts fluttering withfans from windowto window, and upon this discomfort

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ceive it, sent up a column of pungent smoke.Meanwhile Love Among the Ruins.”

The young husband held his wife franticallyto his breast, chafed her hands, marked withold and recent burns, and pattered all sortsofnonsense.

“Getaway, said the stern lady withflow

ing yellow hair bring me water and somebrandy.

”

That afternoon the storm came . HenryWalker

,with his pipe and writing pad

, thecoward Schneider weeping between his feet

,

sat upon that side of the veranda which theslanting sheets of rain leftdry, and serenelypolished his little phrases until it grew so

dark that he could make ou this outrageouschirography only by the blue flashes oflightning. Then he put his work aside, tefilled his pipe, and leaned back smiling withgentle enjoyment of the uproar. Schneider

,

who was even better trained than Mrs .Walker to respect the sacredness of the penin action

,at the instant of its being laid aside

,

flung himself at his master’s bosom,worked

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By the SawyerMethodan hysterical snout into his shirt until thecold nose actually touched flesh

,and te

minded himwith tearfu l su pplication thatthe end of the world being now come

,mankind must see dog- kind safely through it forthe sake of a friendship too old and honorable to perish with the plailet.What with the noises of the storm andSchneider, Walker did not know that hiswife stood beside him until she touched hisshoulder. Then he turned at once and askedHow is she but before finishing the question thrust the great dog aside and sprang up .

“There’s nothing to worry about,” she

cried brokenly,her cheekswetas thou gh the

rain had driven against them “Ohsome women are lucky.

And then she laughed a little through hertears, and told a tale which she had oftentold before

,of how

,during a black year of

her unhappy childhood she had lived withagreat- aunt who did not believe in dolls, andof how

,during that nightmare time, the

sight of other children with proper toyshadcaused such tearsas those ofwhich shewas

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just now guilty. and it wasn’t that Iwas sorry they had mcc things she defended herself. Andno more am I jealousof other women’s babies— only— onlyAnd then they sat silent for a long time

,

hand in hand,while the storm passed and

left the sunset bare .“You see,

”Mrs. Walker began, as therobins broke into rejoicing, turning their redbreasts toward the late sun to dry,

“

you see,as long as we stay here

, that girl will bebound to overwork. I can’t make her realizethe importance of being carefu l— youngcreatures like that are so foolish abouteverything. But I think ifit were just the twoof them together she’d be more reasonable,particu larly as he ispretty badly frightened ,and I think will make her mind . In fact,

”

said this very practical and scheming person

,

“I’

ve thought itall over and I don’t seewhat else we cando ex cept go away. There’senou gh canned things to last them all summer, besides eggs and garden stufl‘, so theywon’t go hungry. Let them have their littlehoneymoon here . They haven’t had an apol

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dying. The subliminal third self thus consu lted, shook his head in the manner assumedby physicians, since the memory of

man ru nnethnotto the contrary, to indicatean adverse opinion.

“But hewon’t be the first that’s hadtostandit, quoththis phantom oracle ; then,merciq y

“Of course , toward the last

there’

smorphine— when it getstoo bad.

Itwas already pretty bad at times. Dr.Winthrop lookedwistfully atthe small aluminum case of the hypodermic syringe on thedesk before him. But the Counselor, interceptingthe look, spoke with great sternnessBe sure the timehascertainly come beforeyou let him have that.

”

And Dr.Winthrop said : I promise to bevery sure.”

One gives promises either to one’s selforto another. Those given to one’sself are subjcet to inextinguishable sophistries, and notto be relied upon in matters of moment. Inmaking this promise, Dr.Winthrop fixed hiseyes rather wildly on a picture in an ovalblack-walnut frame above his cabinet of in

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struments. It was a faded,smiling photo

graph— asomewhat young and inexperiencedface to play the part of Eikon in that grimand out- at- elbow little office

,above so gray

andworn aworshipper. Yet there may havebeen more strength in its invincible youthand ignorance than could have been affordedthe little gentleman by some maturer idol .It is certain, at least, that he looked at itoften and steadily during the nex t year orso

,

when its unwavering smile upheld him minu te by minute du ring interminable evenings.

“Perhaps it isn’t enough just to die,

”

seemed to be her argument. “Perhaps,by

su ffering, one gains— something or otherou t of proportion towhat one endures . I ’dlove to tell you about it, but they won

’t letme .”

A more tangible argument lay in the vi!lage people ’sneed . He knew,withou t pride,what comfort and safe counselwere to behad of him. Some ofthe houses that he dailypassed were like tall ships piloted by himto their anchorage through dangers that hadsunk many su ch .

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Then there were the boys and girls he hadushered into life, guided through teethingand measles, and whose confidence he heldso utterly that the town was not, like somanyofits size, an

“awful place to bring up children.

” It is easy for young mariners to get apoint or two offthe course, and bring up insorrowful “No Man’

s Land .

” Andparentsare apt to be fools. The mercy of the drugis insidious. It clouds one ’s ju dgment. Hiseyes being proven clearer than most, he mustkeep them so.So the Doctor gave some thought to Jim

Bludsoe, and his manner of staying at thewheel among flames. There ismuch in thefeeling that one is in good company whenbeginning some lonesome, brave u ndertaking. He went through his morning paper forstories of heroism— engineers

,ship- captains

,

firemen— and when among news ofpolitics,

mu rders, and society, he found a paragraphof the sort he was after, thingswere easierthrough the day ; his shoulders would faintlyimitate the old military carriage, and au xious patients

,who had begu n to see that[ 386 ]

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To play solitaire, doze painlessly, and workfitfu llyat a translation of the second part ofFaust” - a taskwhich he had long ago assigned to a happier old age than had fallen tohis lot— these were now his occupations ; thebig chair, the reading table with its circle oflight, and the fireplace, the scene of his activities.

Still, his mindwasnot altogether at caseabou t the morphine, to the distress of Dr.Leonard,who decided that long and heroicabstinencehadinduced a Quixotic habit ofthought.

“Well, it isn’t as if my bearing the pain

could help anybody,” Dr. Winthropwould

say, justifying himself before he reluctantlyaccepted relief.

“You’d have given it to a patient long

Of course . But it’s too damnably easyfor doctors .”

Yet when the first factitious glow of reliefdwelt briefly in his poor nerves, the doubtswou ld vanish for awhile .

“When I think what I escape, it al

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most seems as if it made up for the evilit does.

”

And this to Dr. Leonard seemed bettersense .

By Christmas the village had ratified Dr.Winthrop’s choice ofa successor. Those whohad unwillingly, since his sickness, gone overto the venerable home opathist,Dr.Williams,or to young Cleighton, joyfully brought backtheir pains and aches to the small brickhou se where two signs nowhung. They hadfound safety and wisdom under that roofformany years . This newyoung man couldhardly go farwrong, they reasoned , so longas the town’s High Priest still lived there togive him counsel .Moreover, the young Elishawas good to look upon, and had large measure of what the ladies enthusiastically called“magnetism .

” But thisword has so longbeen deprived of its meaning through overuse and mouthing that it must be defined atlength if it is to be understood . By thesethings you may know those who have it: if

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an airless room becomes purified by theirentering it ; if, when you are afraid to die,something about them subtly convicts you of

cowardice ; if, when you are in great distressofmind as well as body

,doubtingwhich dark

road- turning to take, everything cheerfullyu ntangles while that cool

,matter- of- fact

touch is on your wrist.Just as Dr. Leonard held the old- timepractice ofDr. Winthrop nicely in his palm

,

diphtheria broke ou t in the schools likeforest fire . It started, of course, in FrenchHollow. Any epidemic always began there,the people being weak and inferior— degencrate, perhaps— certainly having rather ahard time ofit, first and last

,for the children

must go to the factories as soon as they learnthe multiplication table, and they marry, asoften as not, boy and girl, before sixteen.

In the Hollow was a primary school withseventy- five pupils, crowded three in a seat.It began with the littlest one of all who attended school forjust a week, and spent mostof her recesses in the you ng teacher’s lap .

Suddenly she came no more Whenwordwas

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But, however that may be, it is certainthat for the most part it was Dr. Leonardwho went to and fro in that poisonous andsorrowful Acadia. On the Hill there werenurses with caps

,and aprons

,and certifi

cates,but notin French Hollow. Only Father

Labelle, grim and ascetic,with but little English to his tongue, andwith fiery hatred ofallthings Anglo- Saxon

,would frequently come

in as Dr. Leonard went out,and often took

his turn at helping the body as well as thesoul . At first this fierce little priest was superciliou sly civil to the physician, then hewashaughty and would not speak

,but toward

the end he softened and warmed as only suchnatures can ; and if souls are ever prayedinto Heaven

,that of Dr. Leonardwill not

escape salvation .

The limits of Dr. Winthrop ’

sworld nowadmitted bu t little more than his ZweiterTheil— his game of patience and his semiwaking sleep . No hint of any especial causefor anx iety in theworld he was rapidly leaving ever reached him from Dr. Leonard .

Everything going all right ? ” he would[ 392 ]

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ask nowand then with his kind , witheredsmile

,and half forget the question before the

cheerful answer came :First- rate, thank you .

But Mrs. Shampine, the housekeeper,knew

,and kept a hot meal ready forserving

at any hour of the day or night. She hadmany relatives in the Hollow. The first distant tinkle of the sleigh- bellswas a signal forheavy- footed haste in the kitchen .

One bitter day,at the fou r o’clock twilight

,

Dr. Leonard came in more wearily thanusual

,and

,having made but sad work ofhis

smile of greeting to the invalid,stood before

the fire in sombre abstraction, holding hisstifl’ hands to the blaze,whileMrs. Shampine ’s hurry resounded through the house .Dr. Winthrop, looking drowsily up from hiscards, forgot for a minute the manoeuvrewhich hewasabou t to perform with the u pheld ace . This and that began to fit togetherin his tired brain, until a thing that hadtroubled him for awhile that afternoon, andthen faded into inconsequ ence with othertroubles

,returned with clamor.

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Is there much sickness about, Oscar ?he asked in his faded voice.

Some influenza just now.

He placed his ace anddrew another card,butwasnotsatisfied .

“There was a funeral, he said,this

afternoon .

”

Dr. Leonard gave him a quick, sidelongglance

,tightened his mouth, andstared at

the fire. Several cards fell softly into place.

“Who is dead ?”

Dr. Leonard’s foot touched a log, whichrolled noisily forward on the hearth and demanded all his attention to keep it fromburning the rug. When thiswas adjusted ,there was much todo in brushing up the cinders. But Dr.Winthrop did notforget.

“Who was it, Oscar ?”

The answer came slowly“A little girl— from the Hill.What little girl ?”

The old man’s voice hinted indignation .

All the small undeveloped personalities ofthe townwere as definite to him as to theirown parents— some of them more so. He

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It’ s nothing that we can’t handle.Dr. Winthrop tremulously cast oflthe

afghan that was wound about his kneeslike a cocoon, and grasped the arms of hischair.Help me u p.

He had risen before a hand could reachhim

,butafter wavering an instant sank back

into Leonard’s arms.“Miracles,

” he gasped, are ou tofdate.But we’ve really got it in hand,

” soothedLeonard, sick at heart. “

Cleighton doespretty well, you know.

”

Cleighton!I never knew before howmuch I could

get through in a day. It really is well covered,Doctor. Trust me.

“Oscar,

” said the old man very earnestly,you must learn nowhowto be a machine .You must learn not to take it to heart whenthey die. And Oscar— surely I don’t needto caution you to be careful about— nottono, there

’s no danger of that. But so manyyoung men have wrecked themselves— overdrawn their accounts hopelessly. Godhelp

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u s doctors, with temptation always at ourelbow !”

At this hint, Leonard looked away with astrange, veiled expression, which if the Doctor had seen itmight have made him suspectthat his warning was notso u nnecessary ashe had hoped ; buthis eyelidshad droopedwith pain and weariness .

“ I shall u se the best judgment I have,saidLeonard ratherharshly after a moment’ssilence .

Mrs. Shampine’

s sleek black head ap

peared. Soopay ready, M’

sieu , and Dr.

Leonard hurried ou t.

He was gone hardly five minutes, yet whenhe returned hardly seemed in such haste asthe swift disposal ofhismeal indicated

,for

he fell into meditation before the fire, his fu rcap on his head , and hisgreat- coat overhisarm, remaining in that position so long thatDr. Winthrop looked u p in perplex ity. Thedrawn, miserable lookhadfaded before theinfluence ofa good warmmeal . His eyes werenowclear and honestly cheerful, his cheekshealthfu lly flushed, instead of pinched and

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purple with cold . It was wonderful, Dr.Winthrop thou ght— the recuperative powerof youth— and

,as he had done many times

before,he admired, with half shu t, drowsy

eyes,the fine lines of the jaw andforehead,

the self- reliant carriage of the shoulders,and the lean, capable fingers, lit up by thered glow ofthe fire . He was leaving his people in good care, he thought contentedly,and while he dwelt upon this idea the dreamsenfolded him with that tender mist whichwas not sleep , but just a strangeness fallingover familiar things— a quiet invasion fromthe world behind the barrier— ghosts thatcame and smiled and softly vanished . LettyMoore sat down on the rug with her doll,her feet straight out, and began to rebraidits fuzzy

,yellow hair. The oldest ghost ofall,

his grandfather, in preposterous stock andshirt collar, ranged u p beside Dr. Leonardbefore the fire , standing with his back to it,hisfeet wide apart, and his coat- tails spreadto get the heat. Between these, the oldest andyoungest, the air thickened with manyothers . How could they all find space— those

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geou s; yet,wasit natural to be— well— almostjolly

,when little Letty Moore was hardly

cold ? But probably he had found a letter aswell as a dinner. Letters from the right girlcould do almost anything for a man . Oncethey had been able to render even the grimaftermath of battle less dreadfu l . Not thatDr. Leonard had ever admitted that therewas a girl, but there always is one when aman is under thirty.

Leonard roused fromhis pleasantthoughts,and came over to arrange more convenientlythe contrivances about the big chair. Thenhe went out whistling.

“ I ’ll be in by midnight, he called back.

Good- byl” The snow crunched and

squ eaked underhisfeet ashe ran down thewalk to the waiting sleigh .

Mrs. Shampine brou ght in a bowl ofbroth .

“Did the doctor eat a good su pper ? ”

Nossir.

”Her face was perplex ed . Me

,

I cooked ’em a good shicken, nice andhot.He jus’ tas’e ’em andpush ’em away. Butpretty soon ’

e feel good,

’

e say. G u ess ’

ehadsoopay somewhereselse,” she hazarded with

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some resentment. She was a nawfu l goodshicken, her. But

’

e don’t eat nothing hardlyat all these days .”

“Were there letters to- day ?Nossir; jus’ a paper.”

An idea came to Dr.Winthrop slowly andheavily. It was so like the pain in its comingthat hemistook it at firstfor that.

“You may go, thank you,

” he said to

Mrs. Shampine. Then he put back, without tasting, the spoonful of broth whichhe had been about to take, and sat very stillfor a long time . He saw again the shadowyfigure with its warning hand upon the broadshoulder.

“ I have been very blind . He looked u p atthe picture “Was it really you, my dear ? IfI could be sure of that it would make everything so simple and easy. Well, I shall knowsoon, and at any rate that doesn

’t affect theconc lusion .

”

He took his hypodermic syringe ou tof itscase and dropped it among the coals.

“Godhelp us all,” he whispered .

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At midnight Dr. Leonard came back,heavy- eyedand with dragging feet, to findthe fire dead, while on the hearth Dr. Winthrop lay in amoaning heap, grasping ahandful ofashes and the broken hypodermic .Having quickly administered the delayedprescription with an instrument from hisown vest pocket, the young man held hispatient in his arms u ntil the breath cameeasily and the groaning ceased. The firstwordsdismayed him.

“Oscar, I

’m— notgoing to u se that-w anymore.”

“What ?I can do what others have done.Dr. Leonardlooked sharply at the closed

eyes andbit his lip . At last, speaking withprofessional cheerfulness, “

Can’

t allow it,Doctor. You’re my patient.Bu tthe thingwastoo settled inDr.Win

thrOp’

sown mind to allow of argument.“Itwon’tbe long, you know.

"

They were silent for awhile. The faintcrackle of the lamp, whose oilwas nearlyspent ; the soft touch of snowflakes on the

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nine were told off, including Letty Moore,Leonard stopped . The tenth name made difficu lty in his throat.The tenth died an hou r ago. Then, after

delay“Rosalie St. Pierre . I worked hard . I was

fool enough to pray.

”

Perhaps such a pretty face is safer ou tofFrench Hollow.

“ I ’d have taken her out. I ’d have marriedher.The skeleton arm tightened about theyoung man’s shoulders caressingly. Leonardbroke down .

“These Hill people sneer at everythingdown there,

” he stammered .

“Shewas thewhitest— she was Oh ! I know what shewas— and I couldn’t save her. She cared,though. Labelle came between us with hiscrucifix and wafer, but before he shutme outshe had looked at me

“Once I cared for some one who— wentaway. Yet notaltogether away, I think.

”

“You think that ? You’ve been through itand you think that ?

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Yes .I wish I could .

They talked on for a while in that strain,

telling each otherwhat the two dead womenhad been like, groping at the obscurity whichnow hid them. At last

,when Dr. Winthrop

felt that the flicker ofartificial strength wasdeparting, he returned to the beginning ofthe conversation, knowing that this mightbe his last chance to argue that gravematter.Oscar, remember thatyou are not to give

me morphia again .

”

But why— why ?For two reasons. The first is that I ’ve

taken a notion I ’d like to hold up my head,over there

,among those who bore the worst

and died sober. That reason is su fficient initself. The other is also sufficient in itself.The going without it will be my share— andall that I ’m capable of accomplishing— in

this trouble .”“But if I have to think of your enduring

all that while I ’m away,it will use me up

completely. It won’t help .

”

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Yes,it will. You will think, if he can do

it, IIt’s not a habit. I swear, it

’s only duringthis crisis. I should hOpe I could stop withou t that.”

“Very likely. Dr. Winthrop knew howunlikely it was. “But I shall do it in anycase .”

But— do ou want to make me worsethan a murd rer ? You’ve no right to forceme to accept such a sacrifice . Put yourself inmy place .”

That’s what I ’ve been doing.

I promise— Can’t you believe mywordLeonard flung away to walk up and downthe room, nervously twitching chairs ou tofhis way

,adjusting and readjusting trifles

muttering stormilyLook here .When I say I promise

,I mean

So do I, said Dr. Winthrop, calmly. Ipromised while you were ou t. I tried to

break it, too he looked at the spoiled

hypodermic “bu t it held .

But if I were as lost asyou think me,you

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It soothed and explained, but was not redu cible to words . His ownphysical and mental distress slunk away ashamed . The gentletouch of snow on the window was asthoughdead fingers, growing impatient, were making signals there. The lamp went ou t, and hebuilt the firehotand bright, so that the roomwas full ofwavering light and shadow.

Dr. Winthrop groaned heavily now andthen . Once he said wistfully

“Oscar, don’t you think that mayb

might be to- nightAnd after some deliberation the youngdoctor was able to say with a good conscience

“ I think it is quite possible .

With this possibility in mind he drew closeto the great chair— and so, in the strong andcheerful fire- light, they spent the night.

“ It’s not so bad ,” Dr. Winthrop would

sometimes say, his forehead clammy with thesweat of the struggle .

“Nothing that I can’tendure .As the giant hours

,called small

,dragged

on, Dr. Leonard became aware that his498

AtEphesu s

youthhad departed from him forever. Butsomething better had replaced it— somethingso mu ch better that there could be no reasonable regret for whatever of brightness hadmade way.

When solemn and important events arehappening, one often perceives a persistentmurmur in one’s brain of Bible tex ts or fragments of great poems— large, simple phrases

—Leitmotive out of the vague orchestra of

things.“Yea, though I walk through the Valleyof the Shadow ofDeath thus one triumphant voice— “

I shall fear no evil” — andpassed like military music.Another voice was more inclined to argument— perhaps it was even a little querulous.

“ If after the manner ofmen I have foughtwith beasts at Ephesus, what advantagethit me if the dead rise not?”

“That’s bargaining,” mused the doctor.

One can’t do that. Irrespective,though

,of

the dead and their rising, perhaps there’s

advantage in just having fou ght at Ephesuswith beasts, and knowing one has done his

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best at it. He looked long at the dying facemoving restlessly on the pillow, but insteadof dissolving in the weak agony ofpity andremorse which had but nowoverwhelmedhim, he was conscious of an influx of courage and of an undefined hope . Here was nosqualor and despair. Instead it was invigorating and fine, like the clean air ofmountains and oceans.

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